New York City’s “Made in New York” marketing credit, which offers NY-shot movies and television productions free, co-branded citwide advertising, is expanding. Now offered to these productions are additional bus shelters, subway advertising and TV spots. Participating projects are eligible to receive the following packages (and, as noted, must pay a very small percentage of their production budget to a New York charity): A production with a below-the-line budget between $5-$10 million: 40 Bus Shelters (4 week run) 500 Subway boards (4 week run) 13,000 taxi cabs (2 week run) City covers cost of producing the creative elements production donates […]
It’s hard to write about Julia Dyer’s The Playroom without writing about the passage of time. It’s been sixteen-years since Dyer’s previous (and first) film, the Sundance hit Late Bloomers, and Dyer has finally crafted a proper follow-up. But beyond that, the film itself is quite concerned with the changes in attitude and perspective that time renders. Set in 1970s suburbia, The Playroom tells the story of a dysfunctional, alcohol-fueled dinner party, while also showing the same night through the eyes of a group of kids upstairs in the house’s attic. Premiering this week in Tribeca’s Spotlight section, the film […]
This June, the Brooklyn Academy of Music presents the fourth annual BAMcinemaFest, featuring a lineup of some of the best emerging voices American cinema has to offer. And CinemaFest is just one of dozens that the Brooklyn institution presents each year, as BAM consistently shines a spotlight on the best in theater, dance, music, film, and more. Now, as the venue celebrates its staggering 150th anniversary, filmmaker Michael Sladek (Con Artist, Devils Are Dreaming) explores what it is about the Brooklyn instituation that has lent it such longevity in his new documentary BAM150. Filmmaker: Why BAM? What is it about […]
Watching the trailer for Jay Gammill’s new comedy Free Samples, one can almost hear the ghost of Clerks‘ Dante Hicks echoing in the distance – complaining, “I’m not even supposed to be here today.” The latest in a long line of dead-end job dramedies, Free Samples follows slacker twenty-something Jillian (Jess Wexler) as she fills in for her friend handing out free samples all day from inside an ice cream truck. Premiering this week in Tribeca’s Spotlight section, Gammill’s film aligns an impressive ensemble of indie notables, including Wexler, Jesse Eisenberg, and Jason Ritter. Filmmaker: Can you talk a bit […]
At last year’s Tribeca Film Festival I discovered two of my favorite films of the year, Alma Har’el’s Bombay Beach and Panos Cosmatos’s Beyond the Black Rainbow. I’m hoping for at least as good a track record this year, and in surveying the schedule I see more than enough potential candidates. Assuming I can successfully surmount my usual Tribeca challenge — getting into a film-festival headspace while working at home in New York — here are 25 films I’m interested in checking out. As befitting the mission of this magazine, there’s a heavy American independent focus, and I’ve also avoided […]
For many independent film directors, making commercials is just business. It’s a way to keep working, put a healthy sum of money in the bank — and, as likely very few people will know that they even directed the ad, it’s not something they need to worry about after the shoot wraps. Wes Anderson, however, is one of those rare directors whose commercials feel like a direct extension of his feature work. Anderson has been helming ads for a decade or so. His IKEA spots “Kitchen” and “Living Room” from 2003 — some of his earliest commercials — have a […]
1 The Chimerist If you’re a new iPad owner, you should know that there are reading options other than iBooks, the Kindle app and Instapaper. Indeed, while games and social apps get most of the iOS press, there are artists who are rethinking the book form for the tablet device. These innovators are chronicled at The Chimerist (thechimerist.com), a Tumblr blog by “two iPad lovers at the intersection of art, stories and technology.” Follow writer, editor and literary blogger Maud Newton and Salon co-founder Laura Miller and learn about new graphic novels (Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze), storytelling game apps […]
How does one best measure the success ofa film festival? Are record-breaking ticket sales enough, or do other factors, such as quality of the films screened, quantity of A-list celebrities walking the red carpet and overall “buzz” generated, come into play? If revenue is the sole gauge, then there’s no question that the Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (colloquially known as the Berlinale) is one of the world’s most prosperous annual film events. By 7 a.m. each morning of the 10-day festival, hundreds of sleepy Berliners can be found queuing up at the makeshift ticket office in the Potsdamer Platz shopping mall, […]
Among the many things SXSW is known for — barbecue, the Alamo Drafthouse and long lines, for example — one is breakout apps. Twitter and Foursquare both got enormous boosts from launches or promotions during previous editions of SXSW Interactive. Last year, the buzzword at the tech fest was contextual search and, indeed, you’re seeing that functionality being built into products this year from Apple, Google and others. In 2012, the buzzed-about app heading into the fest was Highlight, a sort of social version of Foursquare. Installed on your phone, it alerts you to other Highlight users nearby. “You can […]
The majestic chords of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet blasted through the doors of the New Frontiers exhibition space at Sundance this year, beckoning viewers into a dark room with a wall-size screen and, in a bin, those staples of the modern multiplex, 3D glasses. Donning the glasses, you were confronted with a looped, three-minute mash-up of history as seen through the lens of Hollywood cinema. Composited across the 3D canvas, like some kind of American Museum of Natural History diorama on acid, were the great characters who, by our repeated viewing, resonate as deeply in our consciousness as real historical […]