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Hit & Misses: The 2022 Releases of Six Recent Sundance Features
In just three (admittedly, very momentous) years, the marketplace for independent films has completely changed. During previous turning points over the decades, executives would use words like “waves” or “cycles” to describe instances of upheaval, but what’s happening now is more like a comprehensive reset. In a recent online article titled “The Sky is Falling, Take Shelter,” producer Rebecca Green wrote, “This year is unlike anything I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been working in this business.” If Sundance and its films are a barometer for the independent film industry, consider this comparison: The pre-pandemic class of Sundance 2019 […]
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Beyond the Third Act: Everest Pipkin’s Cinema-Inspired Tabletop RPG World Ending Game
“Endings are very hard,” said Everest Pipkin. “It’s one of the most difficult things about making anything, and only gets harder when you are collaboratively telling a story with lots of people.” Speaking via video chat from their home in southern New Mexico, Pipkin, an artist and game designer, recently released World Ending Game, a tabletop “falling-action game” designed for players to bring existing campaigns to a close. Say you’re part of a weekly group playing Dungeons & Dragons and everyone is ready to move on. Your party can wrap things up and bring your existing characters — the druid, […]
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Daydreaming, Neuroscience and Screenwriting: The Imaginative Teaching of Mary Sweeney
“I have always had a hard time explaining my creative process to people,” says Mary Sweeney, a professor of screenwriting in the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. Sweeney boasts a long list of filmmaking credits but may be best known for her collaborations as a producer, writer and editor with filmmaker David Lynch. In particular, Sweeney edited Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, two deliriously dreamy films that highlight a form of poetic cinema and a creative process that Sweeney hopes to share with students. […]
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Engineers, Artists, Both? Joanne McNeil on Bell Lab’s Pioneering Ken Knowlton
“Animated movies are usually made by a slow and complex process involving the coordinated efforts of many artists, draftsmen, photographers and other specialists,” begins a curious instructional film Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc. released in 1964. After asserting that with an “electronic computer,” an animator could bypass “tedious” labor, the opening scroll concludes, “this very film was produced entirely by the process which is about to be described.” What follows is a concise and visually fascinating demonstration of BEFLIX (“Bell Flix”), one of the earliest computer animation techniques. Images in the demo—created with a “mosaic” grid of squares, each programmed to […]
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Communication Breakdown: Has the Pandemic Produced a Culture of No-Reply?
U know what I hate? Financiers who ghost u after expressing lots of interest, asking for this that & the other thing, mtg w/yr team. I understand financiers who are too busy to reply in 1st place. But what's up w/ones who suddenly go cold after being so hot? DO NOT GHOST ME.❌👻 — Mynette Louie (@mynette) March 3, 2022 On March 2, 2022, Mynette Louie, producer of award-winning films like The Tale and I Carry You with Me, tweeted out the above complaint, railing against what anecdotally appears to be a lamentable industrywide trend of financier ghosting. Filmmakers and […]
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Still Looking: Gail Segal and Sheril Antonio’s Dramatic Effects with a Movie Camera
In their new book, Dramatic Effects with a Movie Camera, Gail Segal, a poet, filmmaker and associate arts professor, and Sheril Antonio, an associate arts professor in the department of art and public policy, both at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, describe a form of shot-by-shot film analysis that can teach filmmakers the nuances of cinematic storytelling. Recently published by Bloomsbury Publishing, the richly illustrated book is based on an NYU graduate filmmaking course taught more than two decades ago by Segal. “This class was an investigation of film technique,” Segal explains, “with the goal of applying […]
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Strategic Reassessments: Arthouse Distributors and the Theatrical-vs.-Streaming Debate
Less than a year ago, it seemed like the sky was falling for independent films being released in theaters. Netflix’s stock was hitting record highs, the core demographic of older metropolitan moviegoers were staying home, and the entertainment complex was pivoting to the new normal of their subscription streaming overlords. Their dominance may ultimately prevail, but a more delicate and intricately linked dance between theatrical and streaming appears to be the future of releasing films. As an insider notes, “I think it’s swinging back towards theatrical, even though the end-goal is still about making the streaming stand out.” To name […]
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Read Only Memory: Joanne McNeil on Chris Marker’s Immemory Project
“I’ll find you,” Chris Marker told Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang. The first time they met—New Year’s Day, 1999, at the Café de Flore in Paris—they had no idea what he looked like until he beckoned to them. There weren’t photos of him anywhere; he’d send illustrations of his cat, Guillaume-en-Égypte, if anyone asked for a picture. Krukowski and Yang wished to collaborate on an English language edition of the director’s CD-ROM project, Immemory. He could be difficult to reach but liked musicians and made time for the duo—formerly of Galaxie 500—who have performed as Damon & Naomi since 1991. […]
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Simple Machines: The Inspiring Teaching of Experimental Animator Jodie Mack
“Find the note, and then deviate,” urges experimental animator Jodie Mack. The colorfully clad artist is a third of the way through her antic presentation to the November 2021 Film Friends gathering hosted by the Echo Park Film Center. Now in its second year, the monthly online series this go-around is focused on “simple machines” for filmmaking. Mack has been cheerfully showing some of her own creations, like a bicycle-driven zoetrope, but speedily moves on to her love for singing. “My voice is a simple machine!” she rhapsodizes before breaking into a wide-mouthed croon, one or two notes above the […]
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Science Fiction in a Time of Crisis
In 1968, Judith Merril and Kate Wilhelm planned to run an advertisement in a science fiction magazine with a list of authors announcing their opposition to the Vietnam War. But when they reached out to fellow members of the Science Fiction Writers of America to add their names, Merril and Wilhelm were shocked. There were significant numbers of vehement pro-war authors in the community, and they also wished to share their views with the science fiction-reading public. When the advertisement ran in Galaxy Science Fiction, it covered two full pages. On the right, the names of authors including Ursula K. […]
