Interviews
Interviews
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The “Film Look” and How The Holdovers Achieved It
A working digital colorist or cinematographer in 2024 is likely all too familiar with one particular question: “Can we get the ‘film look’?” A decade into the age of digital sensors as the increasingly dominant and default shooting format, filmmakers at all budget levels are increasingly looking back at celluloid for inspiration. Phenomena once seen as drawbacks to be minimized—grain, chromatic aberration, anamorphic distortion, lens flares, halation—have not only become desired, but, if hordes of YouTube camera gurus are to be believed, “cinematic.” That is, these elements associated with this particular image formation workflow are essential to what constitutes “cinema,” […]
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Endoscopes and Racing Drones: How a NatGeo Team Filmed A Real Bug’s Life
How do you film something that’s only about 2.5 millimeters long? What about thousands of those little somethings—pavement ants, in this case—all working together to dismantle a hot dog, perched amidst on a New York City sidewalk? That’s a question Bill Markham and his team had to figure out when putting together National Geographic’s A Real Bug’s Life, available now on Disney+. Ostensibly a sort of “real life” tribute to A Bug’s Life, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, A Real Bug’s Life follows different bugs in their natural habitats, all in service of teaching viewers how they live […]
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“This is the Story of Environmental Racism”: Editor Rosella Tursi on God Save Texas: The Price of Oil
Inspired by God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s examination of the contradictions and history of Texas, God Save Texas is an anthology series in which three Texan directors offer their own perspective on the state. The second of these, God Save Texas: The Price of Oil, is Corman’s World director Alex Stapleton’s examination of the history of the country’s energy sector and its relationship to her own family history, who arrived as enslaved people in the 1830s. Below, God Save Texas: The Price of Oil editor Rosella Tursi discusses editing the […]
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“I Could See Myself So Clearly in Her Fear”: Writer/Director Ben Petrie on His Rotterdam-Premiering, Dog-Loving Relationship Comedy, The Heirloom
“A squirmy treatise on sexual insecurity and relationship oneupmanship” is how I described Ben Petrie’s fifth short film Her Friend Adam when profiling the Canadian writer-director-actor for Filmmaker‘s 2016 25 New Faces list. That film starred Petrie and real-life partner Grace Glowicki as a couple whose relationship is unexpectedly destabilized when he spies a suggestive text message on her phone. He admitted at the time that the short was inspired by a “private lash of jealousy” he experienced in a similar moment with Glowicki, and our profile concluded with him working on a screenplay for this forthcoming first feature. You […]
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“I’m Constantly Creating Things and Questioning If the World Even Needs More Movies”: Pete Ohs on His Slamdance-Premiering Love and Work
Pete Ohs, a 2013 Filmmaker 25 New Face, describes his Slamdance-premiering comedy/drama Love and Work as “a film about an imaginary past as a way to figure out where we went wrong in the present.” A minimalist, slightly absurdist romantic comedy, the picture represents both a continuation of the pared-down production model Ohs described to Filmmaker upon the release of his previous Jethica as well as a dramatic departure. Instead of the Jethica‘s lo-fi naturalism, Ohs here goes for a clipped rhythms and a more deadpan affect as his two potential workmate lovers who meet in a shoe factory navigate […]
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“The Point Is to Struggle With What You’ve Been Given”: Editor John Magary on Between the Temples
Between the Temples, co-written by C. Mason Wells and director Nathan Silver, follows a spiritually conflicted cantor (Jason Schwartzman) who finds his faith somewhat revitalized when his grade school music teacher (Carol Kane) enrolls as his latest adult bat mitzvah student. Editor John Magary discusses how he approached cutting Between the Temples, particularly when it came to navigating the film’s heavy use of improv. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired […]
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“…The Last Summer Before You Leave Home”: Megan Park on Teenage Life, Working with Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap, and Her Sundance Dramedy, My Old Ass
After her feature directorial debut The Fallout (2021), a film about a high-school shooting, Megan Park was feeling the weight of its emotional aftermath. “When you make a movie, you live in that world for years,” she tells Filmmaker at Sundance Film Festival. “I wanted an escape, and I wanted to be nostalgic.” So she went back home to Canada and started thinking about what became the genesis of My Old Ass, a bittersweet coming-of-age comedy, and, gradually, a reflective tearjerker that left Sundance audiences sobbing. “It was this idea of the last time your whole family sleeps under one […]
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“How You Bring a Story to Life Is Just a Question of Your Imagination”: Editor Otto Burnham on Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Archival footage and previously unseen home movies lend a new perspective of Christopher Reeve’s rise to stardom in Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. Editor Otto Burnham shares his approach to cutting Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s doc, which makes it Sundance 2024 debut in the festival’s Premieres section. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Burnham: I was rollerblading badly in East London on a bright, chilly January […]
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“Tell the Story That’s on the Page Thoughtfully and Compassionately”: DP Nathan M. Miller on Penelope
Mel Eslyn, the head of Duplass Brothers Productions and the director of TIFF 2022 premiere Biosphere, makes her first directorial foray into episodic television with Penelope. Penelope tells the story of an alienated 16-year-old girl who venture into the wilderness to escape from society. Nathan M. Miller, who served as cinematographer on Eslyn’s Biosphere and has worked on several other Duplass Brothers productions, took on the job again for Penelope. Below, he emphasizes the series’ naturalist aesthetic and no-frills approach to lighting. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
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“Debra is Incredibly Skilled at Recognizing What Will Remain Salient”: DPs Sean Hanley, Kefentse Johnson and Eric Phillips-Horst on Conbody VS Everybody
Conbody VS Everybody sees Debra Granik (Stray Dog) returning to documentary after 2018’s Leave No Trace and also breaking into the world of episodic series. The film follows Coss Marte as he creates a gym inspired by his own prison work outs in hopes of breaking the cycle of recidivism. Two episodes of Conbody VS Everybody will premiere at Sundance 2024. Below, series cinematographers Sean Hanley, Kefentse Johnson and Eric Phillips-Horst share how they all got involved in the film, how their personal styles blended with Granik’s and the challenges of shooting a series over many years. See all responses to […]
