Sundance
-
“As Irreverent as the Subject Herself”: Editor Paul Carlin on Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist
Premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist chronicles the life of 76-year-old fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood. The film is the first documentary feature from UK-based filmmaker Lorna Tucker. Tucker hired doc and fiction editor Paul Carlin to cut the film. Below, Carlin discusses how the project took shape, his fondness for Walter Murch and capturing Westwood’s essence “from punk to haute couture.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Carlin: I think it was […]
-
“Stories Make Order and Help Us Understand the Awful Noise”: Director Robert Greene | Bisbee ’17
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? The relationship between chaos and order is at the heart of all documentaries, especially films like ours that play with genre, performance and narrative. This means that we kind of need to do two kinds of films at once. It’s hard to make a good documentary and hard to make a good fiction film – but […]
-
“Like Most Things, We Got There After a Lot of Trial and Error”: Editor Patrick Colman on Hearts Beat Loud
In 2017, Patrick Colman edited the music video for “Holding On” by the indie rock maestros The War on Drugs. Brett Haley, the writer/director behind the 2017 Sundance hit The Hero, directed the clip. The director and editor reunite on Hearts Beat Loud, a family drama starring Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons and Ted Danson. Colman previously edited Sundance titles Other People (2016) and Hits (2014). Below, he shares his thoughts on cutting the music-driven Hearts Beat Loud. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this […]
-
“This Beautiful and Wild Community that Exists in Film”: Director Jordana Spiro | Night Comes On
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? The beautiful thing about chaos in film for me is the reminder of how much of a team sport it is. Right now, I am thinking of a particular moment in our shoot. There is a main sequence in the film that takes place in one house. As a kind of a road trip film, we […]
-
“The Film Began As an Experimental Skate Video”: Director and DP Bing Liu on Minding the Gap
A camera assistant who has worked on The Girlfriend Experience, Sense8 and Chi-Raq, 24-year-old Bing Liu makes his debut as a feature documentary filmmaker with Minding the Gap. The film was made with the help of production partners Kartemquin Films, ITVS and POV, and it includes an executive producer credit from Steve James. Minding the Gap‘s three leads bond in part over skateboarding, and as such the film includes extensive footage of its leads on their boards. As he discusses below, Bing used a number of different methods to “shoot skateboarding in a way that I hadn’t seen before.” Minding the Gap […]
-
“There’s an Old Saying that Restrictions are Needed to be Truly Creative. That’s Always Sounded like Stockholm Syndrome”: Director Panos Cosmatos | Mandy
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Thematically speaking, fittingly chaos and control are themes of my first film, Beyond The Black Rainbow, and Mandy. Creatively speaking; there’s an old saying that restrictions are needed to be truly creative. That’s always sounded like a form of Stockholm syndrome to me. I believe that given complete freedom, time and resources many artists would take their respective mediums in undreamed of directions and to incredible new heights. Pragmatically speaking; the […]
-
“The Problems of Online Censorship and Social Media”: Editor Philipp Gromov on The Cleaners
German editor Philipp Gromov has cut 11 documentary features, series and shorts since 2010. He began his career on The Other Chelsea: A Story from Donetsk, which tells the story of a small mining town in Ukraine. His latest feature, The Cleaners, premieres in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film offers a rare glimpse into the lives of digital “cleaners”: anonymous people contracted by Silicon Valley companies to scrub the internet of content deemed “inappropriate.” Gromov spoke with Filmmaker about cutting the film and why The Cleaners has inspired him to cut his own use of social media. Filmmaker: How […]
-
“Everything Was Challenging Where Money Was Involved”: DP Roberto Schaefer on What They Had
Versatile cinematographer Roberto Schaefer has worked on films of all sizes: from Quantum of Solace to The Paperboy, Geostorm to Waiting for Guffman. His newest project is a low-budget indie from first-time writer/director Elizabeth Chomko. The film assembles a formidable cast – Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster – to tell a family drama set in the Chicago suburbs. The film premieres with five screenings at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Schaefer speaks below about the time and money crunch inherent in making a small, character-driven drama today. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your […]
-
“I Was Careful to Always Have Darkness in the Frame”: DP David Devlin on Monster
Anthony Mandler makes his directorial debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival after having spent a career directing music videos for the likes of Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Drake and many other artists. The film, Monster, is an adaptation of the hard-hitting young adult novel of the same name from Walter Dean Myers. Mandler tapped his longtime collaborator David Devlin to shoot his first feature. In addition to his music video work with Mandler, Devlin has worked as a 2nd unit cinematographer with Janusz Kaminski on 12 Steven Spielberg films. The Montana-based DP spoke with Filmmaker about using vintage anamorphic […]
-
“Hamlet from Ophelia’s POV”: Editor Luke Dunkley on Sundance Drama Ophelia
Luke Dunkley began his career 20-some years ago as an editor on the short-lived BBC show This Life. He has since gone on to work for dozens of TV series and miniseries, including Netflix’s The Crown, Channel 4’s National Treasure and Canal Plus’s The Last Panther. Dunkley served as the editor on Ophelia, the fourth feature from Australian director Claire McCarthy. Ophelia is a retelling of Hamlet as told from the perspective of the young noblewoman of Denmark. Below, Dunkley discusses how he and McCarthy sought to “not compromise the young female perspective” in their spin on Shakespeare. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
