Production
Filmmaking - Production
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“Making a Film is Like Climbing a Mountain”: Director Nick Ryan on the Staggering Logistics of Making K2 Documentary The Summit
Plenty of documentaries share stories worth telling, and play just fine resting on the strengths of those stories, incorporating requisite elements like talking-head interviews, news headlines, and archival footage. Filmmaker Nick Ryan’s The Summit, which meticulously explores the 2008 K2 disaster that claimed 11 lives, has all of these elements. But what it also has is a stunning abundance of visceral reenactments, which placed Ryan and his crew on an actual mountainside, where the intimate (and tragic) moments that the climbers’ own cameras missed were recreated. A veteran director of short films like The German and A Lonely Sky, for which he also served […]
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Jean-Pierre Jeunet on his 3D Movie, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
When he was eight, Jean-Pierre Jeunet would marvel at 3D pictures on his View-Master. It was a popular toy where someone could see a sequence of stereoscopic images printed on a cardboard disc inserted into a handheld viewer. “It my first step into cinema,” the director of Amelie fondly recalled, “because I would adjust the frame in the viewer to change the order, and I’d imagine a new kind of film.” Little did Jeunet know that his beloved View-Master would lead to him to direct an entire film in 3D 52 years later. Jeunet was speaking about the pleasures — […]
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Kyle Patrick Alvarez on How C.O.G. Wrapped in Mid-November — and Still Got into Sundance
It’s every independent filmmaker’s dream to have their film have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, but realistically the chances are very slim. The festival gets over 12,000 submissions annually, and only around 200 of those are chosen. However, when the deadline to apply for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival came around this time last year, writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez faced a much steeper challenge than most. His sophomore feature, C.O.G., based on an autobiographical essay by David Sedaris about a formative summer spent in Oregon after graduating college, hadn’t even started production. Delayed from its original August […]
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Seven Tips on How to Utilize Your Audience from Peter Broderick
The IFP Independent Filmmaker Conference’s “Blitz Wisdom” panels are quick, TED-like talks from filmmakers and folks in the industry discussing their projects and/or offering tips and pointers. During Monday’s “Blitz Wisdom” session with Peter Broderick, President of Paradigm Consulting (helping filmmakers develop distribution and social media strategies), we learned some great tips on how maintaining a relationship with your audience after they’ve left the theater can help you develop a sustainable model of revenue. Here are Broderick’s seven key ways your audience can be utilized to help your independent project: 1. Direct Funding – Once you’ve identified your audience and have their […]
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Notes from the Front Lines with Milo Daemgen, Producer of The Shotgun Waltz
One of the great things about Independent Film Week is getting to meet so many other filmmakers who are sharing in the same experience working in independent film. On any given day of the conference you could be sitting next to a producer, director or distributor who might end up helping you on your next project (or maybe you’ll end up helping them!) You also end up hearing about a lot of great projects and films, which is exactly what happened one session this week when I found myself sitting next to Milo Daemgen, independent producer of various short & […]
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Jon Kilik’s Keynote at the Filmmaker Conference
The following is the keynote speech delivered by Jon Kilik at the IFP’s Filmmaker Conference in New York City earlier this week. Good afternoon. Welcome. I’d like to thank Joana, Amy, Rose, and everyone at the IFP for having me here. And to all of you, for sharing your day and your time with me. The value of that time, with so many things that you could choose to do on this Sunday afternoon, is part of this discussion. Thank you for choosing to be here. I live near the Film Forum and last Saturday I went to see Jean […]
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Documenting the Life of George Plimpton: Interview with Luke Poling and Tom Bean Part II
In the second part of the interview with filmmakers Luke Poling and Tom Bean about the documentary, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, they discuss structuring the movie, getting to the final edit, and distribution. Read Part I here: Documenting the Life of George Plimpton: Interview with Luke Poling and Tom Bean Part II Filmmaker: You said you did 50 or 60 interviews. How did you choose those people? Bean: A lot of them were people who had either written about George or knew George. Whenever you interview someone they go, “Have you talked to such and such a person?” […]
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Documenting the Life of George Plimpton: Interview with Luke Poling and Tom Bean Part I
George Plimpton led an eclectic life as a journalist, writer, editor, sportsman and actor, though he was perhaps most widely known for his exploits as a participatory journalist. When filmmakers Luke Poling and Tom Bean set out to make their first documentary, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, they were faced with enough material to make several documentaries. A project like this might have daunted some first-time filmmakers, said Poling, “We’d kicked around the idea of doing one, when Plimpton came up we said, ‘Let’s go for this.’” Poling and Bean both studied film in college, but first met at […]
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Sony Announces PXW-Z100, Ushers Era of 4K Camcorder
Sony announced today at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin a new line of 4K camcorders, available this fall. The pro version will be called PXW-Z100, while the “consumer” version will be called FDR-AX1. Bucking the large-sensor trend I described recently in Filmmaker, the PXW-Z100 (from this point, I’ll detail the pro version only) contains a single 1/2.3-in. Exmor R CMOS sensor, a smidgen less than full half-inch. At first glance above, the PXW-Z100 would seem to do for 4K what Sony’s epochal HVR-Z1 did for HD almost a decade ago: introduce affordable capture of the latest high-res format […]
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Day 10 of 16: Chad Hartigan and This is Martin Bonner
In This is Martin Bonner, Chad Hartigan’s second fiction feature, Martin (the wonderful Australian-born, Seattle-based actor Paul Eenhoorn), is heading into life’s third act and attempting to make something of it. Post-divorce, he moves West to Reno, Nevada, where he takes a job as an outreach counselor, offering spiritual guidance to recently paroled ex-cons. Enter Travis (Richmond Arquette), who, rejoining civilian life after doing time for a hit and run, finds himself adrift, unable to fully assimilate and to connect with his now-grown daughter. In Martin he finds an awkward but needed companionship. This is Martin Bonner‘s narrative is a […]
