Interviews
Interviews
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“I Felt a Huge Responsibility to Get it Right”: DP Kate McCullough on It’s Not Yet Dark
Kate McCullough won top honors for her cinematography in the world documentary lineup at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival for the film His & Hers. She returned to the festival this year with It’s Not Yet Dark, the debut film from director Frankie Fenton. It’s Not Yet Dark tells the story of Simon Fitzmaurice, an Irish film director who in 2008 was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (ALS). The film chronicles his efforts to make a feature film despite total physical incapacitation, using only his eyes to direct. Below, McCullough speaks with Filmmaker about the unique challenges of photographing this emotional story. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“Not Just Talking Heads”: Editor Davis Coombe on Chasing Coral
The creators of Chasing Coral had a key goal: to make an environmental documentary with a personal, non-political approach. As editor Davis Coombe tells Filmmaker below, he and director Jeff Orlowski “had no interest in making a political film.” Their film, instead, focuses on the personal narratives of a group of people seeking to capture the phenomenon of “coral bleaching” on film. Ahead of the film’s six screenings at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Coombe discusses the task of simplifying a scientific story without dumbing it down. He also lays out how he and Orlowski sought to strip the film of expository passages to create […]
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“Forget Sepia, It’s Garbage”: Maggie Greenwald on Sophie and the Rising Sun
I first became aware of director Maggie Greenwald’s work in 1993, when her extraordinary Western The Ballad of Little Jo was released. That film, the story of a woman choosing to live as a man rather than yield to patriarchal society’s demands and expectations, established a number of ongoing concerns in Greenwald’s work: a richly observed sense of anthropological detail; a dynamic sense of light, color and composition designed to portray the past with immediacy rather than distance; and a concern with the intersection between the personal and the political that makes her films both timely and timeless. All of […]
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“Accessing Their Intimacy with Respect”: Editor Sofia Subercaseaux on Dina
Four years ago, Sofia Subercaseaux was using YouTube tutorials to teach herself how to edit a feature film. She has since gone on to edit Nasty Baby, Christine and now Dina, the new documentary from Mala Mala directors Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini. Dina documents the lives of Dina and Scott, a couple very much in love but with profound complications when it comes to physical intimacy. Before the film’s debut at Sundance 2017, Subercaseaux spoke with Filmmaker about how she broke into editing, working with two directors and the task of shaping hours of documentary footage into a final narrative. Filmmaker: How and […]
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Editor Azin Samari on Sundance Surfing Documentary Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
Editor Azin Samari has cut everything from reality TV shows like The Bachelorette and The Hills to award-winning documentaries such as The September Issue. For her latest feature, Samari edited Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton, a documentary on the celebrity surfer from director Rory Kennedy (Last Days in Vietnam). We spoke with Samari before the film’s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Below, Samari speaks about her previous work with Kennedy, her love of Thelma Schoonmaker and cracking the veneer of a media-savvy figure like Hamilton. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]
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“A Love Letter to Moms Everywhere”: DP Sean McElwee on Fun Mom Dinner
An innocuous night out among four women turns silly, dark and ultimately touching in Fun Mom Dinner. With a cast that includes Molly Shannon, Toni Collette and Adam Scott, the film marks the feature debut of director Alethea Jones. Jones hired Sean McElwee – who shot last year’s Morris From America, another Sundance premiere – to DP the film. McElwee spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the film’s premiere about the earnest-yet-edgy approach he and Jones took to this story. Fun Mom Dinner makes it world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your […]
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“I Became Like Furniture”: Director/DP Jonathan Olshefski on Quest
Jonathan Olshefski spent a decade filming the Rainey family. He’d visit the family’s home often without a camera, simply to spend time with Quest, his wife and their children. As he notes in his interview with Filmmaker, this longterm commitment allowed him to “fade into the background and record natural scenes where the camera was not intrusive.” His documentary feature debut, Quest offers an intimate, vérité-like portrait of a black family in Philadelphia. Below, Olshefski speaks about the genesis of the project, his documentary influences and serving as his own DP. Quest made its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you […]
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“Filmmaking Is a Series of Crushing Compromises”: DP Daniel Katz on Sidney Hall
Shawn Christensen’s second feature following his Oscar-winning short Curfew, Sidney Hall chronicles the tumultuous life of a writer at the ages of 18, 24 and 30. The film boasts an impressive cast (Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Michelle Monaghan, Nathan Lane) to supports its titular lead, played by Logan Lerman. Below, cinematographer Daniel Katz speaks to Filmmaker about the cameras, lenses and lighting approaches he used to distinguish each era of Sidney’s life. Sidney Hall held its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors […]
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“Chronic Illness Doesn’t Lead to Tidy Endings”: Editor Kim Roberts on Unrest
Jennifer Brea had a challenge: to make a film from bed. Brea was a PhD student at Harvard when a sudden illness left her bedridden. She sought to create a documentary portrait of her experience and found support from labs at Sundance, IFP and elsewhere. She premiered Unrest, her debut film, in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Kim Roberts, an editor and writer on the film, spoke with Filmmaker about what drew her to the project and finding the right tone for a story this personal. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What […]
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Working Through Fear: An Interview with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum
Driving down Beverly, you head opposite Hollywood, away from Studio City, toward the nondescript, single-level, brown-bricked building that’s the literal Blumhouse — the offices of horror movie maestro Jason Blum. Since founding the company, Blum has produced dozens of films that have made varying degrees of impact on the zeitgeist: the found-footage scares of the Paranormal Activity films, the reinvented haunted house of the Insidious pictures, the social violence of The Purge series. And then, of course, there’s megahit Get Out, Jordan Peele’s ferociously intelligent satire on racism that, despite its share of lobotomies and knifings and violently applied white […]
