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
TOUCH ME IN THE MORNING

For fans of Jan Wozencroft, the artist whose evocative and mysterious landscape photos adorn CD covers by the likes of Christian Fennesz and others on the Touch label, the folks at the U.K. music company are offering free 20 downloadable Wozencroft pics, formatted for use as screensavers on a variety of differently-sized computer screens. It’s the label’s 20th anniversary and a bunch of other special stuff is planned for the year.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2006 Filmmaking
THE SCIENCE OF IT ALL

There are a lot of screenplay contests and development programs out there, but the Sloan/Tribeca Screenplay Program is one of the more interesting. In addition to a sizable development grant, the program provides mentorship to screenwriters and writer/producers grappling with science and technology themes in their work. An advisory panel of writers and scientists offer a year’s worth of feedback and input to, says the press release, “scripts that have a scientific or technological theme and story line or have a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, or mathematician…. Screenwriters currently participating in the program are Shawn Lawrence Otto […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 14, 2006 Filmmaking
IS AMY PASCAL REALLY AMY PASCAL?

I supposed I should take note of the whole JT Leroy thing. I’m referring, of course, to the recent piece by Warren St. John in the New York Times revealing that the shy, diminuitive figure with a floppy hat, black sunglasses, and a smear of red lipstick appearing in public as author JT Petty is actually a woman named Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Geoffrey Knoop, husband of Laura Albert. Albert is the 40-year-old Brooklyn woman who, in a New York magazine piece a few months ago, Steven Beachy asserted was the person behind JT Leroy’s fiction and rapidly […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2006 Filmmaking
CURRENT AFFAIRS

Here’s a link to Current TV’s very smart “Survival Guide” for those who want to make short videos that can get played on the cabler. Lots of filmmakers and celebs, ranging from director Catherine Hardwicke to Sean Penn, tell you in short Quicktime films how to do everything from telling your story to taking good sound to getting the right clearances.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2006 Filmmaking
A VISION OF SHIRLEY TEMPLE

One of the more unusual indie film stories forwarded to us as Filmmaker is that of Minnesota producer and writer Christopher Harmon. Profiled here in the Minnesota-St. Paul Star Tribune, “Harmon can’t see, but he has vision. Can’t hear, but has imagination. Can’t move, but in his mind, he can dance and sing and dream about giving the rest of us films with messages of hope and triumph.” Harmon has a rare neurological condition called spino cerebellar degeneration which prevents communication and requires his use of a respirator to breathe. With writer Doug Klozzner, however, Harmon, who communicates through interpreters, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2006 Filmmaking
TV EYE

I linked to Joe Gratz’s legal blog below when discussing the 2257 regulations, but here’s something else interesting from his site: This discussion of the company TVMyPod.com, which will sell you a video iPod pre-loaded with your favorite DVDs (which you have to buy from them along with the iPod), getting around the video iPod’s digital-rights-management system. It’s basically just a company doing for you what you could learn to do for yourself in about ten minutes on the internet, but the idea that a market has sprung up for this is kind of interesting.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 11, 2006 Filmmaking

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.