The Summer issue of Filmmaker is in mailboxes and on newsstands. Appearing on the cover is Fruitvale Station writer/director Ryan Coogler in what has been called an epic dialogue with fellow director Ava DuVernay. Their talk encompasses Coogler’s practice of working with two editors, how he preps for his shoot day, the concept of black innocence and the reason he included the dog scene. And while much of our print content is print only, we’ve unlocked the paywall for this story. You can read it here. Also in the issue: our annual 25 New Faces selection, our pick of the […]
A new, occasional column here at Filmmaker, “The Shooting Schedule” looks at film production through the prism of a single shoot day. I peruse a film’s call sheet and production report and ask the director questions solely based on what I see there. To launch the column, I couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to than my friend James Ponsoldt, whose third feature, The Spectacular Now, opens today. A contributor to Filmmaker — and a director whose first feature, Off the Black, Robin O’Hara and I produced — Ponsoldt has made with The Spectacular Now an indelible teen romance […]
Via Google Analytics, here are our most popular posts of July, 2013. 1. 25 New Faces of 2013. No surprise here. Our annual survey of new talent regularly nabs our top traffic of the year — so much so that our site has crashed for two years straight. (Thanks, site5!) If you haven’t surveyed the list, you can find all 25 of our directors, actors, cinematographers and new media artists here. 2. Summer Grant Deadlines for Filmmakers. Dante Pilkington’s listing of funding opportunities for both fiction and documentary filmmakers took the number two spot. But if you’re just coming across […]
Are you a good writer, knowledgeable about new developments in film and new media, and a reader of Filmmaker? Filmmaker is currently seeking an NYC-based Contributing Web Editor. This is a part-time position involving daily writing and posting to this site. In addition to possessing strong writing, reporting and editing skills, our ideal candidate will have experience with filmmaking itself, whether that’s in features, shorts or web/new media work. Our Contributing Web Editor will report on developments of interest to our filmmaking audience, including reports on new equipment and technologies, software and events as well as stories focusing on the […]
You can now follow Filmmaker on App.net. What is App.net? Well, here’s Ben Friedland last August on the App.net blog: App.net is a subscription-based, advertising-free social network and API. It’s a platform that developers can rely on and that members can use to interact with each other. App.net connects members’ feeds across clients built by third-party developers. Developers are free to build on our API – we’ll even send you a monthly payment, if your app is well-received – which means that members have a variety of apps to choose from to access the network. Most of the larger press […]
Filmmaker Paul Stone has launched a great online interview series, “My First Shoot,” which features filmmakers talking about their first time on set as directors. What’s particularly interesting about it is the perspective the passing of time affords. These aren’t directors talking about the shoots they wrapped last week. No, in many cases these are experienced directors reflecting back, pulling from their memory banks, and constructing lessons that can only be gained by the perspective continued practice provides. An example is provided by the latest interviewee, Twilight Saga: Eclipse director David Slade. I interviewed Slade for Filmmaker during the Sundance […]
Nathan Silver’s film had its world premiere at the 2012 Edinburgh Film Festival and opens theatrically on July 12, 2013, in at the reRun Theater in Brooklyn. Visit the film’s official website and Facebook page to learn more. NOTE: This review was first published on November 13, 2012. The biggest challenge facing the lead character of Nathan Silver’s hilarious Exit Elena during her first fumbling stint as a live-in nursing assistant isn’t her elderly patient. In fact, if Elena could simply take care of Florence as she’s supposedly been hired to do, she might be the perfect aide to help […]
On this special episode of Shooting With John we shoot shotguns in Los Angeles with John Adams and talk about the experience of family filmmaking. Knuckle Jack is a wonderful microbudget film made by the Adams family in the backwoods and backyards of upstate New York. Jack is a small-town, foul-mouthed drunk with an artistic gift for thievery. Haunted by a youthful tragedy, he passes through his days in a lonely haze, robbing wealthy weekenders’ homes only to score more drugs, booze and bitterness. When Jack is asked to care for his eight-year-old niece Frankie for one thick, hot Catskill […]
What do you do when you get a new camera? Some people run out and shoot test footage, while others just gamble and use the camera on the next shoot they have lined up. When Stefan Müller, an Austrian freelance film director, d.p. and editor acquired a Canon C100, he went out and shot The Scent, a 12-minute short. One of the stars of this short is a black Labrador called Sky. Despite W.C. Fields’ admonition, “Never work with children or animals,” Müller captured a great performance from the dog, yet when asked if anything interesting or unusual happened during […]
Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston-based documentary filmmaker who recently switched from shooting with a DSLR to the Canon C100. His first project shot on the C100 was a short that included a segment on ice climbing. In this second part of our interview with him about switching to the C100, Pender-Cudlip talks about the project and what it was like to use the camera in these conditions. Filmmaker: How did this project come about? Pender-Cudlip: It’s a film for a woman named Lauren Schaad. She approached me about shooting a TV pilot. She was looking to get into reality TV […]