Columns
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The Microbudget Conversation: Dirty Word
It seems that this column is really starting to draw out a conversation from us micro-budget folks, and beyond; I couldn’t be happier. There seems to be a lot of dialogue happening in the comments, and I’m getting constant feedback from filmmakers from all over the world who are trying to make a new DIY model work. Every once and a while I get requests from some folks who want to contribute to the column itself. Many times these requests come from publicists, or folks just looking to sell themselves, but every once and a while a real dialogue is […]
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Meek’s Cutoff — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Meek’s Cutoff is being distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories. It opens theatrically at the Film Forum in NYC on Wednesday, April 8, 2011. Click on the links to learn more. ) As much as I approve of Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff in every single way, I’ve been finding it incredibly difficult to write a review of it. Not that I don’t have anything worthwhile to say. It’s just that everything I’ve come up with so far sounds like film school pretension. Though term papers could — and hopefully will — be written about how Reichardt revises and revitalizes the traditional Western […]
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The Microbudget Conversation : Jamie Heinrich Says, Just Do It
This column usually focuses on one subject per post that tackles one specific aspect of micro-budget filmmaking. I never wanted it to be a place where we talk about the latest gear or tips on how to get a film done; There are other awesome sites for that. However, after talking with filmmaker Jamie Heinrich, about no-budget filmmaking, he sent me the list of important things to remember below. Jamie recently completed his film I Like You, and after seeing the trailer I can’t wait to check it out. Jamie’s advice is funny, to the point, and no nonsense. I […]
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Le Quattro Volte — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Distributed by Lorber Films, Le Quattro Volte opens theatrically at the Film Forum on Wednesday, March 30, 2011. Click on one of the previous links to learn more.) They’re called motion pictures, but in the case of Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte, that term isn’t quite accurate. Motion painting is more like it. Spiritual yet not overtly religious, playful yet dramatic, patient yet never ponderous, Frammartino’s extraordinary celebration of the cycle of life is as close to church as cinema can get. The beauty of this masterfully wrought docu-poem is that for all its superficial “art film” trappings, Le Quattro […]
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Fanny, Annie & Danny — A Hammer to Nail Review
(After winning multiple awards during its festival run — including the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2010 Starz Denver Film Festival — Fanny, Annie & Danny screens for one night only, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 (for *free*, no less!) at the reRun Theater in New York City. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) If there’s one universal truth about families, it’s that as cozy and loving and supportive as they can be, they can also be cruel and irritating and patronizing and infuriating and maddening and fisticuffs-inducing and… that will suffice for now. That truth is ratcheted up […]
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The Microbudget Conversation: Brandon Bethmann
Short films can often be gateways to feature films, experiments in storytelling, or stand alone works of art. After film school I still made one short film every year, but for me they were ways to try out ideas before committing to something feature sized. For some folks they are end goals that are beautifully done and well thought out. Sometimes however, we get short films that are too long, or ideas that exist between short format and feature length. Plus, with the introduction of Youtube and Vimeo we also seem to have an over abundance of “short films” that […]
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Redland — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Redland is distributed by Zyzak Film Company. After playing at several festivals in 2009, it opened theatrically at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in Los Angeles on Friday, March 11, 2011. See here for a list of future showings.) Though the influence of its cinematic forebears is readily apparent, nary a film comes to mind whose approach is as singularly visual as Asiel Norton’s Redland. Words prove woefully insufficient in conveying its imagistic intensity, but a few descriptions nonetheless come to mind: an aged photograph come to life, key aspects of which are out of focus or otherwise difficult to discern; a […]
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The Microbudget Conversation: Micro Mundo
In the summer of 2009 I had the pleasure of attending the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville. Not only did I get to meet one of my favorite authors and find an actor I will use for life, but I also had the pleasure of meeting Alexander Berberich (pictured below). It is my hope that I can work with Alexander until we are very old, bitter men, and I recently asked him for his viewpoint on international micro-budget filmmaking. Alexander is a jet setter by definition, and whenever I speak to him he seems to be in a new […]
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The Microbudget Conversation: Sounds Good
These past two weeks I’ve been in Rochester, NY working on the Orphaned soundtrack with all the usual suspects and collaborators. (Let me know if there are issues with the feed. This is an ongoing daily live feed where I will eventually be distributing free content…it is part of my MFA thesis.) I had been trying to write a response to the latest “explosion” of indie film acquisitions, the new world models of indie film financing, and the influx of nobody filmmakers. BUT I found that others with something to say, have already said it best, so I scrapped it. […]
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Into the Splice: The King’s Speech
I had put off seeing The King’s Speech, and for good reason it turns out, though not the reason I expected. The movie is proudly what it is, and it is hard not to fall under the spell of the story. In some ways, it’s a very old-fashioned film, in the same way that True Grit is old-fashioned. The complete absence of irony. Both films simmer at the same ahistorical temperature. On the big screen, movies still have a certain scale of force absent from smaller screens. The reason to go to the movies is to be dominated, and yet […]
