Production
Filmmaking - Production
-
Brides and Bankruptcy: Making an Independent Feature in Cyprus
The following is a guest post by writer/director Stelana Kiliris, who previously wrote about the pre-production stages on her film Committed. Picture it: a smooth beige 1958 Mercedes convertible parked in the dust; its plush red interior enveloped by layers and layers of white tulle attached to a bride, sitting next to a man in a dark blue suit. Look closer and you’ll see the sun beating down and ice packs tucked in every crevice while a make-up artist furiously dabs at the couple’s faces. The crew swirls around the car as they prepare for the final shot of the […]
-
“Magical and Terrifying:” Jeremy Xido on Death Metal Angola
The following is a guest post from Jeremy Xido, the director of Death Metal Angola, which screens at DOC NYC on November 16. A few years ago, I was traveling through Angola researching a film about a railway when I stopped at the only cafe in Huambo, the country’s bombed-out second city, that served a decent cup of coffee. A young man with tiny dreadlocks in a blue button-down Oxford shirt waved me over. I sat with him for a while and chatted. We talked about what I was doing there and I asked him about himself. He said he […]
-
Blast of Silence: Independent Filmmaking, Then and Now
1961 — I drove up to the gate of 20th Century Fox studios and hesitantly gave my name to the guard. I had an uneasy moment watching him look at a pad before he greeted me with “Good morning, Mr. Baron” and waved me forward. I steered my car under the elevated train set of Funny Girl and passed several soundstages to a parking area with my name in large white letters written on it. I got out of my car and paused to look at the surrounding studio activity, and the question. “How the hell did I get here?” […]
-
Co-Directing and the Exhaustion of the Indie Filmmaker: The Making of AfterDeath (Part 3)
In parts I & II of our interview with Gez Medinger, the co-director of AfterDeath, we covered finding the story, script development, and the difficulties of finding locations and cast. In this final part of the interview, Medinger talks about co-directing a feature, offers some advice for first time filmmakers, and attempts to explain what it’s really like to make your first movie. The film is currently in post-production, and is expected to be released in early 2014. Filmmaker: You and Robin Schmidt are co-directors on the movie. How does that work? Medinger: Robin and I have both directed […]
-
The State of 4K
Technology tipping points – when something goes from the unusual to the commonplace – can happen with unexpected rapidity. Has 4K reached a tipping point, and if so what aspect of 4K? Acquisition, production, distribution, or all three? If you’re shooting a film today, should you be shooting in 4K? The answer to these questions is complicated by cost, complexity and the long-term shelf-life of your project. Today, a convincing argument can be made for shooting in either 4K (future proof) or HD (cost effective and most people won’t see the difference). One thing seems for certain; we will be […]
-
Script Development, Casting and Locations: The Making of AfterDeath (Part 2)
In this second part of our interview with Gez Medinger, the co-director of AfterDeath, we cover script development, locations and the difficulty of casting a small ensemble feature. AfterDeath is a psychological thriller/horror movie currently in post-production and was co-directed by Medinger and Robin Schmidt. While Medinger and Schmidt have both been working in video and film for the past decade, this is their first feature film. The first part of the interview, which covers the journey to find the story for the movie, can be read here: Finding the Right Story to Tell: The Making of AfterDeath (Part 1) AfterDeath […]
-
Team-Building, Data Science and the Business Plan: Dogfish Accelerator’s New Film Financing Model
Not long after he founded Dogfish Pictures in 2009, producer James Belfer sensed an industry-wide disconnect between content creation and return on investment. Filmmakers, he gleaned, were concerned with short-term assets, agreeing to sell their film to distributors for a fixed sum that was a mere fraction of the eventual profit. In order to capture the full value of their content, filmmakers would need a new set of marketing tools and a fair bit of elbow grease. Belfer felt that any of these strategies would not be found in the traditional film industry at all, but rather, in the tangential […]
-
Shooting with 18 Cameras: The Making of The Short Game
With a background in comedy shorts, you’d be forgiven if you thought Josh Greenbaum’s first feature, a documentary that follows the 7 and 8-year old competitors in the World Championships of Junior Golf, would be a dark look at another group of driven parents. But that’s not what Greenbaum was interested in doing. Instead, he focuses on the children, these pre-teens who can, at turns, appear tremendously adult, or just like any other 7-year old. The Short Game follows eight competitors through last year’s championships, though production actually started a year before at the previous championships. That was where they […]
-
The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera: A Review
The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera is pretty much the perfect post-DSLR camera. I spent a month with it, shooting a short film around the New York Film Festival, running around guerrilla-style, putting it through its paces, and I had a lot of fun. I liked the size and the touch screen functionality. And I liked the DaVinci Resolve 10 workflow. The BMDCC is a camera that introduces itself from a distance. Everywhere I went with it, people either knew what it was and wanted to ask me about it, or they didn’t know what it was and wanted to ask […]
-
Nicholas Rombes, Grace Krilanovich Discuss their Microbudget The Removals
The Indiegogo campaign for Two Dollar Radio’s microbudget film division continues, with screenwriter (and Filmmaker contributor) Nicholas Rombes and author and now director Grace Krilanovich posting videos explaining their approach to the first production, The Removals. Check out the videos below. Read more about Two Dollar Radio at Filmmaker here.
