Columns
-
“I Go There While I Go There, and Then I Try to Divorce My Spirit From It”: Black Bird Star Paul Walter Hauser (Back To One, Episode 228)
Paul Walter Hauser is that rare character actor who has made a name for himself as a stellar talent in both comedy and drama equally. He established himself in films like BlacKkKlansman and I, Tanya, but playing Richard Jewell in Clint Eastwood’s film put him on the map. Now he’s wowing audiences and critics alike with his incredible performance as serial killer Larry Hall in the Apple+ limited series Black Bird. On this episode, he lifts the hood and lets us peek in on his acting process. He explains why his first step is all about self amusement, how mundane details help to […]
-
All Along the Parking Lot Watchtower: DP Alex Disenhof on The Rings of Power
Conventional wisdom says not to start with anything particularly difficult on the first few set ups of a new project. Start simple and let the crew acclimate to each other as they begin the process of finding the rhythm that will carry them through the long days and nights ahead. However, schedules don’t always allow you to ease into things. Sometimes, as cinematographer Alex Disenhof discovered on Amazon Studios’s The Rings of Power, you spend day one on a 14,000-foot mountaintop accessible only by helicopter. “Our first two days of shooting were on Mount Kidd, which is on [New Zealand’s] […]
-
“I Have to Tell Them the Truth, I Don’t Have a Choice”: Sarah Jones on Sell/Buy/Date (Back To One, Episode 227)
Renowned as “a one-woman global village,” Sarah Jones is a Tony Award-winning solo performer, writer, comedian and activist. Her directorial debut, Sell/Buy/Date, is a hybrid documentary/meta film which features Jones and four of her characters (all played by her) on a journey across the country to listen to real people telling personal stories about their experiences that land them on both sides of various aspects of the complex topic of sex work in America. On this episode, she talks about overcoming the many obstacles and controversies to bring this important film to life, how trusting in collaborators like cinematographer Joshua […]
-
Back To One Episode 226, Special Episode: Writing As Acting (A Scriptnotes Segment)
On a special episode of Back To One, I’m sharing a segment from a recent episode of the popular screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes called “Writing As Acting.” In it, screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin “analyze what lessons writers can learn from acting techniques (such as staying present) and working with actors (like staying open).” When I first heard this segment, I desperately wanted to share it with Back To One listeners because I thought it was very enlightening, and maybe even healing, to hear creatives on the other side of the camera talk thoughtfully, and with sensitivity, about the process […]
-
Building LUTs From 35mm Tests: DP Jasper Wolf on Bodies Bodies Bodies
In A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, a clique of privileged twentysomethings retreats to an upstate New York manor to ride out a hurricane in style. They’re soon being bumped off one by one in a Gen Z variation of Agatha Christie. It’s basically 10 Little Influencers, a slasher-esque satire shot with glow stick-fueled style by Dutch cinematographer Jasper Wolf. With the movie now out on physical media and VOD, Wolf spoke to Filmmaker about using film tests to create digital LUTs, stressing out the prop master with an array of actor-wielded flashlights and using characters’ emotions rather than practical sources to […]
-
“One Light Has to Win”: DP Michael Simmonds on Halloween Ends
Pronouncements of finality by slasher franchises have always been amusingly premature. Final Chapters. Final Fridays. Final Nightmares: You can’t keep a good (or at least a profitable) slasher down for long. While Halloween Ends—the 13th film in the franchise—probably won’t be the last we ever see of Michael Myers, it certainly does feel like the conclusion of director David Gordon Green’s chapter of the story. Set four years after Halloween Kills, the new entry finds Myers long missing from Haddonfield and Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode attempting to move on with her life. She’s relocated from her remote survivalist compound […]
-
“This Is as Grassroots as It Gets”: Pretty Problems Star Britt Rentschler, Back To One Episode 225
Britt Rentschler is the star of Pretty Problems, a smart and hilarious new indie adult comedy which she also produced and helped write with screenwriter and co-star Michael Tennant. In this episode, she talks about their lengthy commitment to making the story work, building their characters with depth, and the risky but triumphant decision to cast their talented friends in supporting roles rather than famous actors who might have secured more money. She describes how her apprehension toward playing the lead role of Lindsay actually benefited her performance, the ways director Kestrin Pantera brought the best out of everyone, plus […]
-
“Don’t Shoot Too Many Takes”: Walter Hill on Dead for a Dollar
The closing title card of the new Western Dead for a Dollar includes the dedication “In Memory of Budd Boetticher.” Had director Walter Hill worked during Boetticher’s era, he too may have churned out exceptional, modestly budgeted Westerns at a clip of roughly one a year, like Boetticher did for Columbia Pictures in the 1950s. Instead, Hill has settled for being one of a handful of contemporary repeat practitioners of the Western, a disparate group ranging from Clint Eastwood to the Coen Brothers, Kevin Costner to Quentin Tarantino. Hill’s first Western, The Long Riders—a retelling of the Jesse James story that […]
-
Triangle of Sadness Star Dolly de Leon on Finally Letting “Whatever I Have in My Body or in My Heart” Out
Dolly de Leon is a Filipina veteran actor of film and TV who is now, due to her outstanding performance in Triangle of Sadness, being spoken about with words like “newcomer” and “breakthrough.” That might have something to do with the “I’m the captain now” nature of the role she plays in the Palme d’Or winning film. It’s like the character and the actor are both saying “I have arrived.” In this episode, she describes the dark place she was in right before auditioning for the part, how director Ruben Ostlund’s collaborative approach sparked her dynamic creativity, why watching the […]
-
“It’s Like Clouds Passing in the Sky”: Isabelle Huppert on her Elusive Acting Process (Back to One, Episode 223)
If Isabelle Huppert is not your favorite actor, she’s the favorite actor of someone you know. Guaranteed. There’s something about her that is unlike any other actor that has ever been on film. But it’s really hard to talk about what that “something” is. In each performance, in every film she’s made, she has such a command of the character, the text, the frame, that we place her in equal authorship with the directors she’s worked with, who happen to be some of most interesting and important in the last half-century—Jean Luc-Godard, Michael Haneke, Claude Chabrol, Michael Cimino, Claire Denis, […]
