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Graphic Design: Joshua Ligairi and Darin Anderson on Plan 241
Plan 241 is an in-production, feature-length documentary about the FBI investigation into Alaska militia leader Schaeffer Cox, who was convicted of stockpiling illegal weapons and conspiracy to murder federal agents. From filmmaker Joshua Ligairi, it tells a human story enriched by the copious documentation and statistics generated by a criminal case. Below, Ligairi discusses his decision to incorporate graphics in his documentary, and designer/animator Darin Anderson elaborates upon the specific approach. Joshua Ligairi, director: The people who make the most interesting characters aren’t always the best choice for delivering information in a clear and concise way. Text, when created with […]
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Graphic Design: Miao Wang’s We the Economy
For We the Economy, the 20-part web series collaboration between Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan, documentary director Miao Wang tackled the topic of globalization and trade with China. Her short intercuts interviews with elegantly designed yet informationally dense graphics. Below, she and her motion graphic artist discuss challenges and solutions. Miao Wang, director: The biggest challenge of this project from day one has been how to address such an immense topic in such a short five-to-seven minute film. I knew I wanted to make a film driven by poignant human elements and stories, while also providing concrete […]
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“It’s Just a General”: How to Take a General Meeting
At some point in your career, things are going to break your way — you’ll be lucky enough to have your crowdfunded labor of love generate some heat at a big festival. Or your short film will go viral. Or maybe you’ll sell a hot spec or make the Black List. Whatever happens, you’ll land managers and agents, and people in L.A. will want to meet you — and not a minute too soon, because you’re four months behind on rent and need to pay for T-shirts for all your backers. It’s time to meet studio execs looking to hire […]
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Still on the Job: Filmmakers on Their Second Jobs
Here’s the funny thing about an article on second jobs in filmmaking: It’s always relevant. The last piece I wrote for Filmmaker on this topic is still referenced: people continue to call me up to talk about it, and nearly as often as they did when it first appeared. But it’s been five years since I wrote it. So, as part of our ongoing look at the financial lives of artists, we thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of the filmmakers we interviewed in 2009 and see how their relationships with their second jobs have evolved […]
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Note This! How to Successfully — and Thankfully — Receive Notes on Your Film or Screenplay
“I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times — once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.” – Bernard Malamud “Relax and take notes, while I take tokes.” – Notorious B.I.G. I was once at a work-in-progress screening of an independent film for which we were asked to give notes. It was a long cut, and we’d all come out in the rain. After the screening, the director sat by himself near us. When someone addressed him directly, he […]
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Memories of Underdevelopment
With a few exceptions, independent movies are rarely developed like studio-produced ones. Certainly for ultra-low and micro-budget independents, the process is much less formal and far less cash-infused. Multiple paid rewrites until a script shines; thinking through all the creative and logistical problems with top-line producers before firing up the camera; packaging the right combination of talent and money that works best for the material at hand — studios and larger production companies have salaried executives responsible for this undeniably crucial work. But in the independent world, when overtaxed producers perform these tasks, it can be unreliable in its timeline […]
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A Collective Will
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead “You are cordially invited to the first installment of Film Fatales — a monthly get together of amazingly talented female filmmakers,” began the email I received from Leah Meyerhoff soon after I moved to New York. “We are reaching out to you because you have written or directed a feature film and we hope to share in each other’s talent, stories and laughter.” This email came after several conversations Meyerhoff had with veteran filmmakers she […]
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Cash Poor, Creativity Rich: The No-Money Manifesto
These days, anybody with a film production blog is calling for a revolution. The call to arms takes many forms. Some strident, some prescriptive. All are calling for big, big change. But to my mind, a revolution can be pretty simple. It can start with just a simple change of perspective — or even a mantra. Here’s mine: There’s No Money. I know, I know, this is not news. Thanks to blogs, Twitter feeds, and other social media, we’re inundated with musings about the independent film apocalypse and the poverty of our filmmaking class. But clearly, the individual’s lack of […]
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Let There Be Natural Light
“Fuck it, I’m going for it.” That, says cinematographer Yves Bélanger, was his response when presented with the challenge of shooting Dallas Buyers Club using only natural light. But aided by the ALEXA digital camera and his freewheeling director Jean-Marc Vallée, Bélanger handily shot the entire film without the heavy equipment usually associated with movies starring the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. No tripods, no lighting kits. His only artificial source of illumination: a small Kino Flo he used at the beginning of each day to shoot his color charts to make sure the color balance was correct. […]
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Downstream Color
Calling video on demand the emerging wave of film distribution no longer seems accurate: with YouTube, iTunes and Netflix all into or fast approaching their second decade, digital streaming and downloads are arguably already the primary means of independent film distribution. But what is still emerging is the vast array of VOD and download services available to independent filmmakers seeking to reach audiences of paying, online movie viewers. The companies composing today’s field, discussed here, roughly fall into three permeable categories: the established players; the large cadre of new start-ups, many of which offer tools for filmmakers beyond simply hosting […]
