Production
Filmmaking - Production
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Little (And Not So Little) Gear Finds at NAB
Most of the big news that comes out of NAB you’ll hear about, whether you’re there or not. Where NAB gets interesting is when you wonder around the cavernous Las Vegas Convention center, especially towards the back or perimeters, and stumble on some interesting gems of tools that might a unique solution or make production life just a tiny bit easier. Here’s a round-up of some of the smaller finds from NAB (as well as a few bigger ones), all focused around production (post-production is coming up next). Litra Litra has some amazingly clever battery-powered portable LED lights. The LitraPro […]
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Documentary Producers Alliance Fights “Credit Creep” with Proposed Industry Guidelines for Producer Credits
In the world of documentary film, where projects gestate and then are produced over the course of years, and with funding often raised in stages from a variety of different sources, the determination of producer credits can turn into something like the Wild West. There are usually one or more producers who are actually producing the film, and they are supported by a bevy of archival producers, field producers, etc. But what about all the executive producers, co-producers, presenters, etc. — how did they become involved in a film, and what do their credits mean? The question is more than […]
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SFFILM and Dolby Institute Launch A Fellowship, Which Will Go to Michael Tyburski and Ben Nabors’ Film Palimpsest
Sound, sadly, is not an area of filmmaking most people think of first, if at all. A new program may change that. SFFILM and the Dolby Institute have teamed up to create a fellowship that will help filmmakers all the way from development through post-production. The help will come in many ways, from providing artistic and industry guidance to negotiating introductions to key independent film players. Because Dolby is involved, it will also provide a cash grant that allows them to speak with sound designers as early as the screenwriting phase, on top of post-production support that includes a Dolby […]
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How Halloween Production Designer Richard Wright Shot the Film’s Opening Credits with a Few Hundred Dollars, an Old Bolex and a Fridge Full of Rotting Pumpkins
While the new Halloween ignores the plots of the many sequels that followed John Carpenter’s 1978 original, it doesn’t spurn the movies themselves. The film is crammed with loving homages to the franchise — even the Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch gets a brief shout-out. The latest Halloween installment establishes its fondness for its predecessors in the opening credits, which pay tribute to Carpenter’s progenitor with a slow push-in to a rotting pumpkin that magically restores itself to health as the camera creeps closer. Though the sequel’s production budget was a reported $10 million, only a few […]
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I Just Finished Directing My First Feature Film, Why Do I Feel Like I Have Post-Partum Depression?
Actress, activist and blogger Lynn Chen has just wrapped production on her directorial debut, I Will Make You Mine. Below, she contributes this guest essay on the common but rarely discussed post-partum blues that directors can feel after wrapping any film, but particularly their first. To learn more and donate, visit the project’s Kickstarter page. — Editor The post-wrap blues. The first time I felt them, I was eight. I was in a production of Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, a one-act opera where a bratty kid gets sent to his room, and a bunch of inanimate objects come […]
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What Makes a Good Production Designer?
As a kid, the first and only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an artist. I never got bored or minded being sent to my room as long as I could draw. I wasn’t the “good artist” at school—I couldn’t draw a superhero, or a realistic Snoopy. But I was often told (only by adults, so it didn’t mean much to me) that I had a great imagination. I had a pretty rich fantasy life and drew pages and pages of imaginary interiors, collections of objects and fashion wardrobes. If I had known what a […]
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How a Baby Bucket List Lead Us to Make Our First Feature Film
They say that making your first feature is a lot like having your first child. My wife, Allyssa, and I have not taken the plunge into childrearing yet but instead we created a “baby bucket list.” It included diving the Great Barrier Reef, petting a Koloa bear, seeing the Sagrada Familia in Spain, attending a rodeo in Hawaii, running a marathon and last but not least making a feature film. At the time I proposed this idea it didn’t seem far-fetched as we met in the film industry. I was working as an associate producer on Scott Pendergrast’s first feature, […]
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A Sense of Place: The Job of the Location Manager
The following article appeared in Filmmaker’s Spring, 2018 print issue. Like many departments on a film set, the locations department has duties that are a mixture of artistic and practical, a blend of orchestrating creative epiphanies and managing tedious logistics. Location managers might jaunt off to explore tropical beaches or spend the day sharing their favorite secret enclave of New York with an esteemed director, but they also might toil for weeks figuring out where the crew will park, eat and go to the bathroom. And if you’ve ever worked on a low-budget movie without the cash for a fancy […]
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~31 Films Shot on 35mm Released in 2017
This is my fourth time rounding up the previous year’s US theatrical releases shot, either partly or in full, on 35mm, and it increasingly feels like I’m asking the wrong question. If the number of films originating on 35 has remained more or less consistent the last three years, they fall into an increasingly limited number of categories: auteur films by directors too old or stubborn to change and with the clout to follow through on that; period pieces; and enormous blockbusters. (To these we can now add the return of 70mm-originated and released films with Dunkirk and Murder on the […]
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What is Producing? A Group of Sundance Producers Share Insights on Financing, Selecting Projects and Making a Career out of Making Movies
What is producing? I ask myself this question a lot, and the title on my business card literally reads “Producer.” I’m staff at a rad women-run studio in Brooklyn while also producing my own films as well as a handful of others. I say all this to reiterate just how amorphous the craft of producing can be. Because of its fluidity, it can also be a challenge to learn how to be better at it. Plus, producers rarely get interviewed in the industry articles that offer insights into filmmaking process. When they are featured, producing technique can be difficult to […]
