We recently spoke to director Timothy Woodward Jr. about the production of the movie Checkmate. Much of the discussion centered on the Blackmagic Production 4K camera, because this was one of the first feature movies shot with that camera. But in the course of the discussion, Woodward made a couple of observations about shooting that seemed worth highlighting separately. The first covered the continued importance of practical effects, and the second was about organizing your shooting schedule and why it’s worth getting it right on the day. Filmmaker: You did a lot of practical effects in the movie? Woodward: We […]

On August 13 the disruptive Australian company Blackmagic Design took over the Grand Ballroom at the historic New Yorker Hotel at 8th & 34th to showcase their growing stable of switchers, signal converters, encoders, routers, and test equipment along with their latest unorthodox production products: cameras, monitors, disk recorders, and grading/NLE software. Plus a new scanner for film transfer. Call it a make-up day for Northeast media makers who missed out on Blackmagic’s crowded NAB booth this year. Since few companies boast the range of products Blackmagic now produces, no less their erosive pricing, it made good marketing sense to also […]

The following is a sponsored editorial post from The Music Bed. For filmmakers, The Music Bed offers the valuable opportunity to license from a highly curated selection of music for use in films, commercials, etc. Their mission is to help visual artists tell their stories better than ever and this month, they want to help you bring your dream project to life through their new campaign: #ProjectFilmSupply. Here’s how it works: starting August 4, filmmakers will have one month to submit a short film idea along with an accompanying mood board. Participants are encouraged to use social media throughout the […]

It’s hard showing your movie to other people for the first time. You put your heart and soul into it to the point that you either run out of ideas, money, energy, or all three, and you finally have to show it to people. You play it, seeing all the things you’re still not quite happy with, and then you have to listen to them point out all problems you already know are there. You have to have a thick skin, or an ability to just keep on going, to keep doing this. I attended a feedback screening of a […]

Adam Epstein is a freelance editor. For the last five years, he’s worked with the Saturday Night Live film unit, editing parody pieces of all kinds. He’s just begun a nationwide workshop tour with “The Cutting Edge Post-Production Tour,” a day-long seminar covering techniques, theories and editing insights. We recently spoke to Epstein about editing, working on SNL and the workshop tour. Filmmaker: How did you become an editor? Epstein: In my experience, it’s never a direct path. I started out in school, working on a student-run sketch comedy show, and we were able to get our hands on some of the […]

Writer, director and editor Devin Lawrence says that when he set out to make Sympathy, Said the Shark he’d already gone through two projects which had stalled out due to lack of financing, so he decided he had to come up with something where “money can no longer be the ultimate road block.” The resulting project was shot in 14 days and primarily in one location, but it was by no means a simple project to make as much of it was shot using a POV rig built around the Blackmagic Pocket Camera. Lawrence, who works in LA primarily as […]

June proved to be a rich month for non-linear editor users. Adobe released their latest Creative Cloud update, Apple updated Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor, the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 11 was released, and the Mac beta of Lightworks finally appeared.   Adobe Creative Cloud On June 17 Adobe released the second major update to Creative Cloud. For Premiere Pro this release adds a new masking feature for effects. You can now easily add an effect mask either using an Oval or a four-point polygon tool. A built-in tracking tool makes it possible to track a shape […]

In addition to the ten projects and filmmakers named 2014 Narrative Lab Fellows this morning, IFP, the parent organization of Filmmaker, also announced that they will offer one-week, theatrical first runs for IFP alumni, members and others at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP. Since the popularization of self-distribution, many filmmakers have squandered good resources on four-walling for the sake of that New York Times review. IFP’s decision to open up their screening room for submissions (come July) offers filmmakers a built-in curatorial buzz. As noted in the release, IFP will begin the initiative in the fall with the theatrical runs of […]

It’s no surprise that Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel was a technically complicated production, and a video posted this week by VFX house Look Effects, Inc. breaks down exactly how complex putting the movie together was. In a nearly-five-minute reel that can’t be embedded (you should definitely take a look here), a variety of post-production work is highlighted, from color correction of the typically fastidiously coordinated hotel to the mechanics of the dizzying climactic downhill mountain chase. There are surprises big and small, including the amount of physical “snow” used on-set (thereby avoiding the usual hazy look of CGI […]

At the end of 2012, Matt Syzmanowski penned a guest post for us on the development of his feature, The Purple Onion. Now, as he’s finishing the final cut of the film, he sends us this follow-up detailing one unusual step along the way: screening the film to a large audience at Cinequest as a work-in-progress. Below are his five pieces of advice for any filmmaker on improving a cut using audience feedback. — SM The Cinequest Film Festival invited us to screen our debut feature film, The Purple Onion, long before it was even completed. We knew we didn’t […]