Filmmaking

BROKEBACK MASH-UP

The strangest thing about the Brokeback Mountain phenomenon is the extent to which a movie that has so thoroughly entered the popular cultural discourse plays as an extremely private film. Gay or straight, one feels as if one is the only person in the theater while watching Lee’s intimate epic. Contrast that highly personal feeling with the late-night talk show jokes and SNL parodies and one finds a rare case of a soft-voiced, emotionally penetrating film that doubles as a cultural juggernaut careening through the contemporary zeitgeist. The latest affectionate parody is this trailer mash-up by students at Emerson College […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2006 Filmmaking
ROTTERDAM AWARDS

After the various industry complaints about Sundance “at the breaking point” of overcrowding and rampant commercialization this year, a trip to Rotterdam is like visiting an alternate film festival world. Relentlessly polite and civilized, the International Film Festival Rotterdam with its accompanying financing conference, the Cinemart (which I had a project in this year), provides a low-key tonic to the frenzy of Sundance and the upcoming bustle of Berlin. This year, a lot of Rotterdam industry folks had a Sundance hangover as Sundance’s international program and a desire to closely monitor U.S. premieres lead to a larger than usual delegation […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2006 Filmmaking
NAM JUNE PAIK, 1932 – 2006

Yahoo News is reporting that pioneering video artist Nam June Paik has died at 73. The Koren born artist was known for his multi-monitor sculptural video pieces, his various video happenings, and collaborations with artists like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. When I worked at The Kitchen Center right out of college, Paik was a grand master of the video art realm, someone whose belief in the untapped power of this new art form fueled both is pieces as well as the innovative manners in which they were presented.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 31, 2006 Filmmaking
THE HARD TRUTH

For those attempting to parse the business climate at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, today’s piece by David Halbfinger in the New York Times is pretty on the money. Also, I should note that I was a trifle embarassed to have been called by Ann Thompson one of the passionate bloggers who would be reporting from Sundance and then not to have written anything. Well, I was there more in producer mode this year rather than daily reporting mode, but I did catch a bunch of films I’ll be writing about during the year. And, I am heading to Rotterdam […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006 Filmmaking
SELF DISTRIBUTOR NO MORE

In Filmmaker this issue writer-director Andrew Bujalski interviews Caveh Zahedi, whose I am a Sex Addict won the new Filmmaker-sponsored “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” award at the Gotham’s this year. As a sidebar to the piece, Zahedi penned a “Self Distribution Manifesto” explaining the moral imperative behind his decision to distribute his film himself. Zahedi started the piece by admitting that he had always dreamed of getting big distribution deals for his film and that none were forthcoming for Sex Addict. But midway through he turned what could have been a sour-grapes rant into a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006 Filmmaking
FILMMAKING FROM THE HOODS

In the print magazine this issue Rupert Chiarella writes a short piece about Turn Here.com, a new website that streams short films created specifically about neighborhoods all over the United States. I figured some interesting filmmakers might be tempted to contribute to the site, but the site’s layout makes it hard to identify the directors behind the various clips. So, I was glad to get an email today from Chris Kenneally, a veteran NYC post supervisor (he post-suped Patrict Stettner’s Sundance pic The Night Listener) and also a director/producer (with co-director Danielle Franco he directed the doc Crazy Legs Conti: […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006 Filmmaking
I ALWAYS WONDERED ABOUT THAT…

The generally excellent Boing Boing website posts this link to a news release from the Association for Psychological Science that answers a common question about actors and acting: how actors learn all their lines. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her husband, cognitive researcher, actor, and director Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have studied the subject and hope that their results can be used to counter cognitive decline in the elderly. From the piece: “According to the researchers, the secret of actors’ memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006 Filmmaking
“LION IN THE HOUSE” DIRECTOR BATTLES CANCER

Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez post upsetting news in Indiewire today that filmmaker Julia Reichert who, with her partner Steve Bognar (together pictured), directed Lion in the House, a Sundance Competition doc about children dealing with cancer, was herself diagnosed with lymphoma. She received the news just after arriving in Utah for the film’s premiere. After her third screening she flew back home to Ohio where she is now hospitalized and receiving treatment. Julia’s work has been covered in Filmmaker and she has a long association with IFP. We send her our best wishes for her recovery, and friends and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2006 Filmmaking
1000 BLOODY RED PIECES OF SARAH REDUX

After I posted Ted Hope’s movie pitch, 1000 Red Pieces of Sarah, below, Hope received this email alerting him to a fictional competing project from someone who prefers to be referred to as “an anonymous source”: “Hate to blow your bubble, but (off the record) Michel Gondry is directing the almost exact same movie as a co-production between Palm, Res Magazine, and Tokion Magazine, who has a first look deal with Nathan Hornblower, who controls the underlying rights to the autopsy reports of Eric Red’s victims. Additionally, Governor Schwarzenegger and Ed Pressman are still squabbling over Conan royalties, and the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2006 Filmmaking
1000 BLOODY RED PIECES OF SARAH: A FILMMAKER BLOG MASH-UP

Producer Ted Hope, who travels to Sundance this week with two films — Friends with Money and The Hawk is Dying — emailed to say that he’s been reading this blog and noticing certain subcurrents linking the various posts, observing that people, things and ideas are shape-shifting between fiction and fact within our cultural landscape. He’s come up with a fictional movie pitch encapsulating his thoughts which he forwarded to me, and I’m reprinting it below: “Okay it goes like this: A screenwriter who alleges to be Eric Red’s unevil twin is hired to adapt a story of a drunk […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2006 Filmmaking

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