Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Digital Motion Picture Cameras in 2017: New Images for the 21st Century
As my seventh annual camera round-up for Filmmaker goes to press and online, NAB 2017 has just wrapped, and one major take-away is clear: the march towards full-on realism — visual sensations so real that images appear palpable — is in its infancy. [Author’s note: this deep dive into camera tech was written for the Spring 2017 issue of Filmmaker. Despite arriving online at a later date, it remains timely and informative. Stay tuned for my Digital Motion Picture Cameras in 2018 in Filmmaker, coming soon!] Call it hyper, call it immersive, call it virtual, the fact is that display […]
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A Message From Your Composer: Lock Your Picture, Please!
It’s a fraught moment for any director — “locking picture,” with all the finality the term signifies. But, as a panel on “Scoring for Television & Film” at the recent Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBOSTON) revealed, for composers it’s a vital stage in their process of scoring a film. The panel was moderated by filmmaker and musician Tim Jackson, and the panelists were composers Mason Daring, John Kusiak and Sheldon Mirowitz. The discussion covered how they got into the business, how they write music, the differences between drama and documentary and much more, but Daring’s fairly lengthy exhortation on locking […]
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Now What? How to Move Forward in the World of Serialized Content
On April 27 at the Made in New York Media Center, IFP hosted a panel on serialized content moderated by Kuye Youngblood, Head of Development and Production at BRIC TV, a public access station in Brooklyn. BRIC’s mission is to present and incubate work by artists and mediamakers who reflect the diversity of its borough, and it presents numerous shows via its cable and digital network. At the event, Youngblood was joined onstage by two web series creators, Rae Leone Allen and Christopher Poindexter, who shared the challenges and opportunities they each encountered while making the first season of their […]
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The Handmaid’s Tale, Donnie Darko and The Mephisto Waltz: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
Last month saw the premiere of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel documenting a future America in which women are oppressed by religious fundamentalists. The series has been garnering a lot of attention and acclaim, but it isn’t the first time filmmakers have tried their hands at Atwood’s dystopian classic; German director Volker Schlöndorff, working from a script by Harold Pinter, brought the book to the screen in 1990. His version of the story was considerably less well received at the time than Hulu’s, but it’s a compelling, distinctive film – one in which […]
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“You Should Never Start a Project Out of Spite…”: Frankie Latina Premieres Trailer for his New China Test Girls
“A fashion photographer gets more than she bargained for when a roll of film in a used camera contains sinister imagery of high-society menace that sends her into a labyrinth of imminent danger,” reads the logline for China Test Girls, the second feature from Filmmaker 25 New Face Frankie Latina. In post-production, and with the final scenes just shot due to Latina’s own finding of an unused, refrigerated roll of Fuji film stock, the film looks to contain the ’60s/’70s exploitation vibe and anarchic underground weirdness that made his previous film, Modus Operandi, a favorite here at the magazine. Latina […]
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How the IFP Screen Forward Lab Saved My Life
It’s 8:45 am on a drizzly Monday morning, day one of the 2017 IFP Screen Forward labs. We arrive early enough to get coffee across the street and stumble onto one of the strangest things I have ever seen: a small temperature-controlled vacuum-sealed doghouse to seal your dog inside while you grab a coffee. Is this a New York thing? I don’t know how I feel about it. 9:00 am. We cross the threshold of the Made in New York Media Center by IFP for the very first time. I clutch the shoulder straps of my dorky new backpack while my […]
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Lessons from The Reluctant Radical: How The First Amendment Protects Filmmakers
Lindsey Grayzel and Deia Schlosberg had never met, but on October 11, 2016, the documentary filmmakers were each arrested while filming #Shut It Down climate activists who turned off all pipelines carrying Canadian tar sands oil into the U.S. as part of a direct action protest. Though Schlosberg was in North Dakota and Grayzel was in Washington, the two filmmakers quickly found themselves in remarkably similar situations. Along with two other filmmakers, they were arrested and charged with the same felonies as the climate activists, charges carrying penalties of up to 40 years in prison. Since then, their charges have been dropped/suspended and […]
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Sundance Announces New Creative Distribution Fellowship with Columbus, Unrest
The Sundance Institute announced today a new initiative aimed at filmmakers going the DIY distribution route. The inaugural projects supported by the Creative Distribution Fellowship are two recommended independent films that premiered this past January at Sundance: Columbus, by Filmmaker 25 New Face :: kogonada, and Unrest, a documentary by director and subject Jennifer Brea. In the press release, Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Columbus and Unrest are perfect examples of the creative spirit of independent filmmaking, and this new Fellowship will provide them with resources, mentorship and tactical support to pioneer independent pathways to audiences. This […]
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“We’re Looking for People Who Think Weirder and Bloodier”: Eli Roth and Crypt TV Execs on Making Horror Shorts
“What we’re doing is building our own Marvel universe and ecosystem of characters”: Eli Roth on Horror & CryptTV at Tribeca Raise your hand if you’re trying to get a horror film made. I thought so. That’s a lot of us — myself included. It’s been a fantastic year for the genre, too, with Get Out breaking a number of records and becoming the third highest-grossing R-rated horror film of all time — and that’s behind The Exorcist and Hannibal. I was too terrified to finish either, and I saw Get Out twice (and alone) so it wins in my […]
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Django, Prepare a Coffin Leads a Western Blu-ray Roundup: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
When Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Western Django became an international hit, it kicked off one of the more surprisingly enduring series in the history of movies, though to call it a “series” is a bit misleading. In keeping with Italian cinema practices of the day, the movie spawned not only official and semi-official sequels but dozens of unsanctioned off-shoots — in some cases Westerns that had been made with no connection to Django whatsoever but which worked the name into their titles in the hope of making a quick buck. Over time the name Django became less a reference to the […]
