Interviews
Interviews
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Director Maro Chermayeff on the Independent Lens Doc A Path Appears
Two years ago a team surrounding journalists Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof and producer Maro Chermayeff released a four-hour documentary and multimedia project called Half the Sky, a companion to WuDunn’s and Kristof’s book of the same name. It dealt with basic human rights issues for women, focusing on topics like women’s healthcare, domestic violence and rape, and girls’ education in countries like Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Somaliland, and Cambodia, and I wrote a piece for Filmmaker about its transmedia components and outreach efforts. Late last year WuDunn and Kristof released their follow-up book, A Path Appears, shifting their focus from women in extreme […]
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Cinematographer Adam Hobbs on Shooting Sundance Competition Doc, Finders Keepers
Premiering this past week at the Sundance Film Festival was Finders Keepers, the tale of an eccentric Southern feud pitting two social outsiders against each other for the possession of a severed foot. Here, cinematographer Adam Hobbs discusses the challenges of mixed camera formats, long days and natural lighting, and choosing to shoot with prime lenses. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Hobbs: In 2010 I was working in commercial production, A close friend told me about […]
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transmediale 2015: Vicki Bennett and Citation City
Since 1988 transmediale has been one of Europe’s premiere events for showcasing transmedia and technology for art and narrative and nonfiction storytelling. Director Kristoffer Gansing (who spoke with Filmmaker last year) and his team continue to assemble cutting-edge films, installations, performances, workshops, and other events, turning the House of World Cultures in Berlin into a hub for all things new media. It runs this week from January 28 through February 1, and I spoke with a number of artists who are presenting video-based pieces at the festival. British artist Vicki Bennett has been working under the name People Like Us since […]
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Online Hoax: Sophie Deraspe Discusses Her Sundance Doc The Amina Profile
Girl meets girl online. They fall in love from afar — Sandra in Montreal, Amina in Syria. The Arab uprising occurs and soon Amina, star blogger and creator of “A Gay Girl in Damascus” gets swept up in the chaos, then kidnapped, and then disappears. Her frantic paramour goes on a global quest to find her — only to discover that the game-changing World Wide Web is also a web of intrigue and deceit. Fortunately, Sophie Deraspe’s doc The Amina Profile is more than the sum of this now infamous hoax. By smartly training her lens on the unwitting victim […]
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Cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer on Shooting Bobcat Goldthwait’s Sundance Competition Doc, Call Me Lucky
Call Me Lucky is Bobcat Goldthwait’s documentary portrait of fellow comedian Barry Crimmins, who is not as famous as he should be for his barbed political satire — and whose outsider activism led him to dark places, as this documentary reveals. To visually capture Crimmins on and off stage, Goldthwait turned to his frequent cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer, who previously screened at Sundance with Lee Toland Krieger’s dramatic feature, The Vicious Kind. Below Stonesifer answers questions about that collaboration and doing big theatrical lighting on a shoestring budget. Call Me Lucky premieres January 27, 2015 in the Sundance Documentary Competition section […]
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Cinematographer Rob Givens on Shooting Sundance Premiere I’ll See You in My Dreams
Rob Givens reteams with The New Year director Brett Haley with I’ll See You in My Dreams, a drama starring Blythe Danner as a retired widower suddenly adjusting to the loss of her dog. The film screens in the Premieres section beginning Tuesday, January 27, and below Givens discusses his ongoing collaboration with Haley, why he chose to shoot on the Sony F55, and getting out of the way of the actors. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this […]
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Cinematographer Matthias Grunsky on Shooting Andrew Bujalski’s Sundance Competition Film, Results
Austrian-born cinematographer Matthias Grunsky has been a steady collaborator of director Andrew Bujalski from his 2001 debut, Funny Ha Ha to the more recent Computer Chess, for which Grunsky was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards. From grainy black-and-white to what appears to be a slicker look for their latest, Results, Grunsky has adapted his technique to Bujalski’s desire for small crews and low-key environments. Below, Grunsky discusses that process as well as the detailed testing process he undertakes on his pictures. Results premieres Tuesday, January 27 in the Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: […]
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Five Questions for Directors Bryan Carberry & Clay Tweel of Finders Keepers
An eccentric Southern tale that feels like a Harry Crews-scripted edition of Storage Wars, Finders Keepers tells the story of two men battling — in courts of law and public opinion — over the ownership of a severed foot. The foot belonged once to John Wood, amputated following a small plane crash that also killed Wood’s father. When Wood failed to make payments to his storage unit, it became the property of local North Carolina huckster Shannon Whisnant, who parlays his contested ownership of the foot into a roadside tourist attraction. Directed by Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel, collaborating for […]
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Cinematographer Thomas Scott Stanton on Shooting Matt Sobel’s Sundance NEXT Picture, Take Me to the River
Director of photography Thomas Scott Stanton comes to Matt Sobel’s Sundance NEXT button-pusher Take Me to the River from a diverse background. Born in Maine, he spent much of his childhood in Guam and the South Pacific. In Washington D.C. he founded the Green Barrel skate shops, and he still directs skate videos in addition to acting and working as a photographer. When it comes to Sobel’s film, which tells the unsettling story of a gay teenager confronting family secrets at an annual reunion, Stanton connected with the first-time director over Skype and, using the RED Epic M, brought a […]
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Cinematographer Tom Garner on Shooting Sundance Feature The Strongest Man
Making their feature film debuts at Sundance are director Kenny Riches and cinematographer Tom Garner for the offbeat and ingratiating Miami-set buddy movie (of sorts), The Strongest Man. Artist and metalworker Robert Lorrie plays Beef, a Cuban construction worker set out on a small-scale spiritual odyssey across the streets and into the apartments of Miami. He’s accompanied by his pal Conan, played by YouTube star Freddie Wong, and their adventures have a shambling charm reminiscent a bit of Rick Linklater’s Slacker. The considerable appeal of the on-screen performers is echoed by Garner’s cinematography, which sees contemporary Miami in a way […]
