By now many have experienced the clever, goofy, unfiltered joy of The Muppets, a film whose success reflects the plight of its characters – out of the spotlight for far too long and working their way back into the the public consciousness. While the film’s potent mix of charm and nostalgia is undeniable (if you didn’t tear up during the performance of Rainbow Connection, you’re inhuman), it might leave some of us hungry for more, and I don’t mean the soft stuff. While the film is true to one facet of Henson’s work, he was a mad, prolific genius who got involved with […]
Most creative arts suffer from trends. Someone does something new or unusual, and suddenly dozens of others are imitating it; just look at Hollywood. Since the arrival of the Canon 5D Mark II, shallow depth-of-field has become almost a fetish. There’s certainly valid reasons to want to have shallow depth-of-field, as filmmaker Stu Maschwitz wrote on his blog: “With a 5D Mark II, its sensor double the size of a motion picture film frame, we can achieve cinematic focus at F4. We can get fetishistically shallow depth of field at F2.8. At F1.2, we can create abstract art in a […]
I’ll be blogging this week from the 2011 IFP Filmmaker Labs, which are in their third and final session at 92Y Tribeca. This year’s 21 participating documentary and narrative projects, are nearing completion of the grueling post-production process and are now turning their attention towards the marketplace. Things kicked off this morning with a sobering discussion about sales and rights, led by Jon Reiss, co-author of Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul (presented by PreScreen and Area 23, also written by The Film Collaborative and Sherri Candler). Alongside the other lab leaders, Reiss stressed that filmmakers should always use […]
The Jack the Ripper weather that blanketed part of the 24th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam this year seemed poetically apropos. Rushing from P&I screenings, to public showings, to private viewing booths I often felt like I was lost in a heavy fog of docs. In addition I took great advantage of the many behind-the-scenes and inside-scoop events — most free to the public — that gives this biggest doc fest in Europe its accessible community vibe. I watched a Talk Show with tabloid-deep Nick Broomfield discussing his Sarah Palin: You Betcha! over a live Internet feed. I attended in […]
Announced today are the titles screening in the out-of-competition Premiers and Documentary Premieres sections of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The complete list of films are below. See films in competition. See films in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT and New Frontier sections. Highlights include closing night film The Words, starring Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde and Zoe Saldana; Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s online arts community hitRECord will be showcased and audiences are invited to interact and contribute to the works; films from Julie Delpy, Nicholas Jarecki, Stephen Frears, Josh Radnor, Spike Lee, James Marsh, Joe Berlinger, […]
Last week Jonathan Yi posted a video on the web: “Canon EOS C300 = Awesome”. The video, shot with a prototype of the new Canon C300, pokes fun at camera tests, while also demonstrating many of the capabilities of this camera. Though it was originally produced for Canon’s launch event, the video was not posted at that time because, as Jonathan said “Canon, not thrilled with my sense of humor, does not credit or condone this video.” Canon may have underestimated the charm of the video, or the interest in anything related to the C300; to date, the video has […]
Originally published in the Fall 2010 issue. The time frame needed to produce an independent feature these days can seem longer than the lifespan of its underlying technology. Cheap HDSLRs challenge high-end camcorders that cost 50 times more. Even RED One, whose revolutionary bona fides were golden two years ago, suddenly feels status quo. And lurking around the corner — due at year’s end — is a vanguard of new, inexpensive large-sensor camcorders from all the usual suspects. It’s been said that the geek shall inherit the earth, but this is getting ridiculous. How’s a producer to make sense of […]
As most of us receive our early morning Sundance rejection email (which literally makes us the 99 percenters…again.) we should all take a moment and reflect: what drove us to this? What brought us to this moment where a single email is either enormously heartbreaking, or just another bump on the dirt road of DIY/micro filmmaking? I’ve asked fellow columnist, and bi-coastal filmmaker, Gregory Bayne to shed a bit of light on his practice of treating each project as the first uphill battle of many, and how that journey is essential for the career independent filmmaker. We have an almost […]
The films selected for U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival were announced today. The compete list of titles are below. Films in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT and New Frontier sections are here. See films in the Premieres sections here. Taking place Jan. 19-29 in Park City, Utah (as well as Salt Lake City, Odgen and Sundance, UT), this year’s fest includes representatives from 31 countries, 44 first time filmmakers and 88 films will make their world premiere at the fest. Over 4,000 features were submitted for the 2012 edition […]
When Filmmaker chose Australian novelist Julia Leigh for our 25 New Faces list of 2008, the author of such books as The Hunter and Disquiet was teaching at Barnard while establishing herself as a screenwriter of provocative, nuanced dramas for directors like Walter Salles and production companies like Plan B. She said when I interviewed her that screenplay writing was originally a form of “diversion therapy” while working on Disquiet, but that she grew to appreciate the form. “I actually find scripts hard to read — ugly,” she said in 2008. “I got my head around the very basic conventions […]