Filmmaking

THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY PART TWO

Below we linked to a Hollywood Reporter article about the momentum in the industry towards collapsing the traditional theatrical/home video/pay television windows that have governed when new motion pictures are released to the public. Today on his blog, Mark Cuban, whose 2929 Productions and HDNet films are at the forefront of this experimental distribution, has a cogent explanation of his strategy. Make sure to read the postings from readers below his blog as well. Hollywood may not like it, but it’s clear that he is on to something. From the piece: “Why not price a DVD or the PPV at […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2005 Filmmaking
THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY

Anne Thompson’s column this week in the Hollywood Reporter is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of specialty film distribution. She interviews folks like IFC’s Jonathan Sehring and Picturehouse’s Dennis O’Connor about what she says is the inevitable collapse of the theatrical/home video/pay cable distribution window system. IFC’s Sehring, whose IFC Center opens this week in New York, is particularly forthright: “While he has no plans to ‘expand beyond one facility,’ says Sehring, he sees other changes ahead. ‘We’re going to alter our business plans over the next six to eight months. We feel strongly about video-on-demand as […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2005 Filmmaking
JUNE 13 — ANOTHER DAY ON EARTH

The release of a new vocal album of songs by Brian Eno — his first such solo “non-ambient” recording since 1977’s Before and After Science (I’m not including albums that mixed songs with instrumental pieces like 1997’s Nerve Net) — would be significant enough to post about on this film blog even if Eno wasn’t an artist whose work has been massively influential to filmmakers. But from the glam rock art songs of his that appeared on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack to instrumental pieces that have played significant roles in films like 28 Days Later and Heat to his video […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2005 Filmmaking
JULY IN JUNE

Realizing that it’s been over two weeks since we’ve posted anything here about Miranda July, whose new blog for her film Me and You and Everyone We Know contains pictures of her receiving the Camera d’Or at Cannes from the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Abbas Kiorastami and Milla Jovovich, I took notice of an email from Cloverfield Press. July’s new book, The Boy from Lam Kien, is now available from Cloverfield, the small press started by film producer and Sundance Lab programmer Matthew Greenfield and writer Laurence Dumortier. The book is described as “a strange and lovely story about an agoraphobe’s […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2005 Filmmaking
VAUGHN LEAVES X-MEN 3

Though I was never a big fan of the comic books, for me, the X-Men films were some of the best of recent big-budget superhero movies. Director Bryan Singer kept the focus on the characters and their relationships while also engaging in the de rigeur FX spectacle. X-Men 3 has been underway and after a prolonged search Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn was hired to helm the film. However, Moriarty over at Ain’t It Cool News has the scoop that Vaughn is no longer on the picture due to his having to deal with personal issues. The film is still […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005 Filmmaking
PIRATE SATELLITE

Via Movie City News comes this link to McSweeney’s and a piece by J. Chris Rock and John Leary titled Reviews of DVDs that May or May Not be Pirated but Were Definitely Bought on the Street in Shanghai for About a Dollar. Here’s an excerpt: “The Clearing Obtained: Wulumuqi Street, just past the #830 bus stopPrice: 7 RMB One of the worst releases this year, in terms of DVDs bought out of a cardboard box on the street. The colors are so blown out, we can’t see the pockmarks on either Willem Dafoe’s or Robert Redford’s face. The sound […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005 Filmmaking
CATHEDRAL IN THE SKY

While in Europe recently I heard about a documentary Martin Scorsese was making about Airbus, the European consortium of British, French, Spanish and German aircraft manufacturers formed in 1970 to rival the dominant American companies like Boeing. Of course, Scorsese recently memorialized an American aerospace pioneer with The Aviator. Today via Variety comes more details about the new project: “Scorsese will team with Spanish docu producer-director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares (Un instante en la vida ajena, Strangers to Themselves), who will take a co-director credit. Per Spanish monthly movie magazine Fotogramas, the doc will establish a parallel between the creation of […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005 Filmmaking
COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS…

There are websites that have counted down the days to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. And then there are fansites that are collectively anticipating Chris Nolan’s new Batman Begins. At Filmmaker, we are counting down the days to Rubber Johnny. The six-minute Chris Cunningham video will be released by Warp Films on June 6 in the form of a DVD and accompanying 40-page book. In the meantime, however, there’s this review and interview over at Pixelsurgeon. Synopsizing the film, the site writes: “The titular Johnny is a mutant kid stuck in a wheelchair who is shut in the dark […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2005 Filmmaking
ADAM’S DA BOMB

Adam Bhala Lough is one of our 25 New Faces alumni, and his feature Bomb the System opened in New York this weekend. Here are quotes from an interview with him in the Gothamist. On the difficult of making sympathic graffiti artist characters: “…anyone who’s walked up to their apartment in NY and saw a fresh tag on their door, literally dripping because it just went up, and got pissed off, they’re going to bring that hatred to the movie. A lot of people even asked me, ‘why did you even bother making a movie about graffiti writers? They’re horrible […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2005 Filmmaking
THE STARS ALIGN

Via Variety comes more details about the long-awaited June 17 opening of IFC Film Center in Manhattan at the site of the old Waverly Theaters. The IFC has assembled a high-powered advisory board to lend its clout to the venture. Writes Willa Paskin in the trade, “Helmers Steven Soderbergh, Alfonso Cuaron, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Errol Morris, John Sayles, Rebecca Miller and Gary Winick will be among those serving on the center’s advisory board. Nonhelmers Noah Cowan, Cynthia Swartz and Dan Talbot also are members. “According to IFC prexy Jonathan Sehring, board members will mainly be involved with programming, ‘be […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2005 Filmmaking

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