When director Jonathan Glazer first pitched Johnnie Burn his dramatic vision for The Zone of Interest, the sound designer took a deep breath. Over the past two decades, the pair had developed a strong rapport, collaborating on a variety of commercials, music videos and long-gestating movies (most recently, 2013’s Under the Skin), experiences Burn remembers taking a physical and mental toll on him. But this rigorous new project—a Holocaust drama in which hellish audio is layered over otherwise idyllic imagery—promised to be the most challenging, counterintuitive and audacious job of his career. “To be honest,” Burn says, “I was really […]
From uploading to the cloud to editing in the cloud to collaborating across the cloud, there was no shortage of new tools and workflow ideas at NAB to help shoot and edit quicker regardless of where your team is located across the globe. Let’s dive into a few of the most interesting updates, from remotely collaborating to remotely working. Camera to Cloud First up, let’s talk about camera-to-cloud workflows. The biggest update from Frame.io was the extension of the C2C workflow to still photos. Now, unlike video where you can use an external device from Atomos or Teradek to add […]
The two big product updates from Adobe at NAB were text-based editing in Premiere and still photo support in Camera to Cloud (you can read our coverage on Frame.io updates here). But in chatting with Michael Cioni, Adobe’s Senior Director of Global Innovation, things took a fascinating turn when discussing Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI model, and the future of AI in media production. Our conversation explored the integration of AI tools in Adobe’s products, as well as the broader implications of AI-driven technologies on the creative process. Michael shared his insights on how the shift towards generative AI solutions could significantly […]
BMI announced today that veteran music supervisor Tracy McKnight, whose work includes scores of independent films, has been appointed the performance rights organization’s new Vice President, Creative, Film, TV & Visual Media. From the press release: In this role, McKnight will lead the day-to-day functions of the Film, TV & Visual Media department. She will help identify and sign new affiliates to BMI, while continuing to cultivate and nurture relationships with the company’s industry-leading roster of film, TV and visual media composers. McKnight will also help develop programs and events that support career development and provide opportunities to highlight the […]
In making my Watergate historical fiction film 18½, I always knew that coming up with a consistent musical soundtrack was going to be essential for balancing the tone of a film that swings from comedy to thriller to drama at breakneck speed. One genre of music, and indeed one song, “Brasília Bella,” is the key to unlocking not only how our team navigated the tones and themes of the film, but also reflects the scale and scope of making an indie film at the high point of a global pandemic. Around 2018, I started working on the script for 18½ […]
Since the passing in January of Irwin Young, chief mensch at New York’s fabled DuArt Film Lab, there has been an outpouring of tributes and reminiscences, including a packed memorial at Lincoln Center in May. But no tribute has been more on point than “The Process: A Tribute to Robert and Irwin Young,” the Metrograph’s recent 24-film series dedicated to Irwin, the lab’s owner, and older brother, director Robert M. “Bob” Young, for the epic contributions they jointly made to the American indie film scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. For the big screen is precisely where the Young […]
How and why What started it all was the 2016 election. I was at the Napa Valley Film Festival showing my documentary The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille, and I remember sitting in my hotel room watching the results come in and being devastated. While in Napa it dawned on me that I had worked on many other people’s films and it was almost two decades since I had made a film of my own. I’d spent much of this time trying to get one particular project made and was not successful. It felt like I was running out […]
Irwin Young, a foundational figure in the New York independent film world, died January 20, in Manhattan, at the age of 94. Chairman of DuArt Film Laboratories, his contributions across the field, which range from technical and business innovations to philanthropy to, simply, extending support to new and emerging filmmakers, are embedded within so many films that now define the American independent film movement. As distributor and director Ira Deutchman wrote at Indiewire, “If there were a Guinness Book of World Records entry for most ‘thank you’ credits at the end of films, I can’t imagine that anyone else could […]
“If I could log in right now I would,” Dawn Porter raved in one of the many enthusiastic testimonials sprinkled throughout Full Frame’s engaging “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors,” an online launch/celebration of the BIPOC Documentary Editors Database. Expertly edited (surprise surprise), the swift-moving event (approximately an hour long) took place on June 3rd but is still well worth checking out. Whether you’re a veteran producer looking to hire beyond the usual (white) suspects or a student just beginning to build your reel, this database instruction manual/guide to best BIPOC hiring practices/panel discussion/showcase of the diversity of BIPOC work […]
Drawing from the world of gaming, writer/director Pete Ohs is embarking on a post-production experiment for his pandemic-shot film, Jethica: live-streaming his edit. “I know that YouTube is overflowing with editing and software tutorials but I’ve never heard of anyone actually editing a movie live,” he writes in an email, and I can’t think of anyone who has done this either. Beginning this week, Ohs is using Twitch to transmit his editing screen as well as webcam footage of himself behind the console, allowing viewers to track his process cut-by-cut. “I imagine the audience for this stream is going to […]