Issues
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Sony Vegas
I’ve been editing commercials and longform programs with Sony Vegas Pro since 2005. Our latest feature documentary, They Wore the Red Suit, was edited, color corrected and mixed totally in Vegas. Why Vegas? The editor I brought in for this project was experienced with Avid and FCP but had never used Vegas before. I asked him to try it for a few days, and if he wasn’t happy, I’d bring in the system of his choice. After a week, he said he couldn’t have made as much progress with either of his old “favorites.” My initial decision to use Vegas […]
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All Clear
“What surprised me more than anything when we got to Sundance,” says John Sloss about Randy Moore’s Escape from Tomorrow, “was this sort of tacit acceptance that this film will never see the light of day. Everyone kept saying, ‘See it here because Disney won’t allow this to be [commercially] released,’ as if Disney by itself has that power. That kind of compliant response awakened something in me.” Sloss, whose Cinetic Media was selling the film, may have been surprised at the industry’s dismall of its commercial prospects at Sundance, but I was not. A confession: After seeing the first […]
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Adobe Premiere Pro CC
The first project I used Adobe Premiere Pro on was a short film called “Masterpiece” that I created for Filmmaker Magazine at Sundance 2011. Prior to that, I’d been a Final Cut Pro devotee for a decade — and even reviewed the two previous generations of Final Cut Studio for Filmmaker. My history with digital editing goes back to late 2001. I was working on a short film, shot on 16mm, which I’d initially intended to cut on an old school Steenbeck. But when that fell through, I tracked down and installed a bootleg copy of Final Cut 2 on […]
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Avid Media Composer
For many film editors, including yours truly, Avid’s Media Composer is the preferred software for cutting our work. It’s rock solid, powerful and once you really know how to use it, one of the most versatile tools for getting the job done. However, over the past several years the future of the Media Composer platform has been in doubt. Strong competitors moved into the marketplace, and Avid, once king of digital editing, seemed headed to the sidelines. But as fast as it seemed to fall, Media Composer may be making a comeback, due in part to major enhancements to the […]
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Jared Leto
It’s been six years since moviegoers last saw Jared Leto, but it’s not as if he has been slacking. Since playing John Lennon’s murderer, Mark David Chapman, in Chapter 27, Leto has been occupied by his other creative passion: music. While most actors’ bands are merely a pop culture punch line, 30 Seconds to Mars has sold more than 10 million albums and recently completed a record-breaking, two-year global tour. Even the group’s trials have borne fruit: their legal battle with record label EMI was chronicled by Leto in the Gotham Award-winning documentary Artifact. Now, though, Leto the actor is […]
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The Happiest Place on Earth
The memories of our childhood are owned, their copyrights controlled by giant multinational corporations. Whereas the fantasy figures of the 20th century hail from centuries-old sources — the Brothers Grimm, Greek and Norse mythology — their contemporary incarnations, found on T-shirts, lunchboxes, mugs, iPhones and in video games, constitute precious intellectual treasure, their value diligently upheld by World Trade Organization rulings. Or, to phrase things a bit differently: If you’re an independent filmmaker, make sure your lead actor isn’t wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt you haven’t cleared! Despite the forces aligned against pop culture-deploying media artists in our mash-up, remix […]
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Load & Play
Laurence Anyways Breaking Glass – Oct. 8 In this striking third feature from the precocious early twentysomething French-Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan, the title character is a happily engaged French teacher, Laurence (Melvil Poupaud), whose first novel is about to be published at the dawn of the 1990s. Following an epiphanic 35th birthday party, he confesses to his fiancée, Frédérique (Suzanne Clément), that he longs to transform himself into a woman and asks for her unconditional support. What follows is a simultaneously baroque and rip-roaring three-hour exploration of a touching and unforgettable relationship that also serves as a mildly nostalgic trip […]
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History, Continued
Documentaries are supposed to shine a light on the world, but some tackle subjects that are more pressing and timely than others. Over the course of her career, Egyptian-American director Jehane Noujaim has created films that are prescient to the extreme. Her 2001 debut, Startup.com, co-directed with Chris Hegedus, chronicled the genesis of the govWorks website just as the dotcom bubble burst. Noujaim’s 2004 follow-up, Control Room, focused on the way the ongoing Iraq War was being presented by news channels, particularly the Arabic news network Al Jazeera. Both films had their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, using […]
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Burn Self-Distribution Resource List
DIGITAL PRINTS Different By Design (Los Angeles) (310) 689-2470 http://www.dxdproductions.com/ Feature film DCP master: $10/minute + $50 setup fee + $150/drive Duplicates (on USB hard drive): $150 each Feature film Blu-ray master: $250 Duplicates: $25 each Trailer DCP master: $10/minute + $50 setup fee + $25/thumb drive Duplicates (on USB thumb drive): $25 each Trailer Blu-ray master: $250 Duplicates: $25 POSTERS & POSTCARDS U Printing www.uprinting.com They’re in Los Angeles, so you can pick up directly from them and avoid shipping costs. Posters (27×39 100-pound glossy) $1070 for 2,000; postcards $420 for 10,000. WEBSTORE Shopify http://www.shopify.com/ Prices vary […]
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Primal Direction
Meaning. The craving for meaning. Art and its ability to create experiences of meaning. Whether they seem all too prosaic or winsomely sincere, these words nevertheless constitute the unabashed core of an intensive, 17-session filmmaking lab series housed in a large, high-ceilinged studio in Hollywood and led by an impassioned woman named Joan Scheckel. In practical terms, the lab sessions are dedicated to helping filmmakers clarify their vision, hone their craft and develop a functional set of tools for the production process, which is all well and good. But what makes the lab sessions extraordinary is Scheckel herself. Over the […]
