The legendary Roger Corman is America’s proto-independent filmmaker, having produced literally hundreds of films and directed dozens more, most of them genre films made under a “fast, cheap and profitable” model that still offers guidance for new filmmakers everywhere. And while Corman is best known for films made during an earlier independent era, one in which regional distribution circuits and drive-ins offered screens for movies made far away from Hollywood, Corman is still innovating — and monetizing. Corman’s Drive In is his VOD YouTube channel, where, for $3.99 a month, you can dip into his vast library and sample films […]

A LEGO Brickumentary, a documentary that looks at the culture and appeal of the LEGO building block, opens July 31. Like many historical documentaries, this project involved working with a wide range of archival footage, but it also made use of footage shot with a wide range of modern cameras — in one case, all shooting the same event. Co-producer and post-production supervisor Chad Herschberger of Milkhaus talked to us about the work they did on this documentary and the ins and out of post-production work, including animating faces on LEGO bricks, moving media between Avid Media Composer and DaVinci […]

Filmmaker 25 New Faces Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck’s latest feature, God Bless the Child, premieres at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center on Friday, August 7th and runs through the 13th. Robert, Rodrigo, Producer Laura Heberton and many special guests will be there in person. Tickets are available here. The film will be digitally released on many platforms on August 18th and is already available for pre-order on iTunes. Below, Machoian and Ojeda-Beck open up about what terrifies them when they make a film and offer a clip from a new series of shorts about their film, 40 Years […]

Michael Shaw has had an illustrious career as a production designer, moving from some of the most notable independent films of the 1990s (Heavy, Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me) to a string of this decade’s top television shows (The Big C, Orange is the New Black). On Saturday, July 25, he’ll be leading a production design masterclass focused on Orange is the New Black at the IFP’s Made in New York Media Center. Shaw kindly took time out from designing the Wall Street environs of Showtime’s upcoming Billions to speak about his career as a production designer, […]

Filmmaker‘s Taylor Hess recently attended and reported on the U.S. in Progress series at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. While there, she spoke to a number of female directors and producers. Below, her conversation with Applesauce producer Melodie Sisk. Filmmaker: What was your timeline on Applesauce? Sisk: Applesauce moved so fast! We essentially had no real pre-production and had to jump right in. This made our schedule erratic, we’d shoot a few days at a time, jumping around between holidays, and then, just like that, we premiered at Tribeca exactly five months to the date of our first day of shooting. It […]

Hawai’i-born director Christopher Makoto Yogi is at the Sundance Directors Lab with his feature, I Was a Simple Man. “Like marionettes on a toy stage, the ghosts of Seiichi’s past haunt the countryside in this tale of a Hawai’i family facing the imminent death of their eldest,” is how its described by the Sundance Institute. Below, Yoti describes his scene work with advisors at the Lab. Today ends week number three at the Directors Lab. These past three weeks have been a motion blur, too fast to process, but now in this brief Sunday respite I’m sitting outside looking up […]

Olivia Newman is at the Sundance Directors Lab with her feature First Match, the tale of “a teenage girl from Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood [who] decides that joining the all-boys high school wrestling team is the only way back to her estranged father.” She is also eight months pregnant. Below, she writes about that experience. “What are you afraid of?” A month before the Sundance Directors Lab began, this question was posed to us via email by artistic director, Gyula Gazdag. I hadn’t yet met Gyula, and had no idea that he would eventually impart some of the deepest insights to […]

Gregory Bernstein’s book Understanding the Business of Entertainment, the Legal and Business Essentials All Filmmakers Should Know, published this week, discusses such important topics for filmmakers as copyright law, First Amendment law, the FCC, the growth of media conglomerates, studio development and distribution, entertainment contracts, as well as a section for independent filmmakers. The following excerpt comes from the chapter about copyright law. Among many other things, the chapter discusses how story ideas cannot  be copyrighted. The excerpt below, however, discusses one way filmmakers and other creative people can nevertheless protect ideas from being stolen, and whether facts, characters and titles may be copyrighted.  Protecting Ideas via Contract Law Say […]

Nobody ever comes out of a movie and says “great locations!” Unless the film is set someplace unusual like the Amazon or the UN or on an elaborately constructed set that makes locations a talking point, they’re largely taken for granted. But locations are nevertheless deeply felt by audiences whether they announce themselves or not, informing mood, camerawork, production design and performance. They’re also a cheap way to make an inexpensive film stand out, or at the very least make it look more expensive than it is. Among the oft-repeated cardinal rules of low-/no-budge filmmaking, there are two that apply […]

AJA has slashed the price of their 4K CION camera in half to $4995. It’s part of their “Summer of Savings” promotion, which they say will run through the end of the summer. Other price reductions announced: Ki Pro Quad (their 4K recorder) is now $2995, Ki Pro Mini is $1495, Ki Pro is $2495, and Ki Pro ND is $2295. AJA customers who purchased the CION production camera before May 26, 2015 will receive two AJA Pak 512 SSDs for free, directly from AJA (valued at $2495). AJA is well known for their video hardware, and the Ki Pro file-based recorder, […]