[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 12:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I had to make among a lot of crazy decisions was only days before we were meant to start shooting; a piece of financing fell through at the last minute and we only had enough money for the first three weeks of our 23-day shoot. It was also the end of January 2009, the heart of the financial crisis was breaking — a scary time to raise funds for a small indie film! I decided to go ahead since everything was planned, the team and […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City] Fix ME… The hardest decisions during the making of this film were all connected to the recording of my personal therapy sessions. From the beginning I wanted those sessions to be honest and real. I wanted the doctor to do his job and to treat me during the sessions as if the camera does not exist. But on the other hand, as filmmaker I also wanted to be sure that I have enough interesting material coming out of the filming material of those sessions. I had […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:00 pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I had to make while shooting my film Bilal’s Stand was to do reshoots in a different format. The film was originally shot on 16mm film. I love the process of film from loading the camera to seeing dailies for the first time. I love the stubborn, sometimes unforgiving nature of the medium and the care required to get the beauty you want. I often joke and say that film and I have a “Ross and Rachel” type relationship. You know you have strong […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] Making a movie is never easy. In fact much of the entire process is just continuous problem solving. With the right amount of preparation however, many unforeseen issues or setbacks can be avoided. In our case, Skateland was written and completely shot out in eight months. We went from a blank page in April to a wrap party at some colorful bar in Shreveport, La., by December with about a hundred new friends and co-workers. My point is we stacked the odds against us. The shot list was […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I made on my film was with the casting. My style of working and telling the story often means working with non-professional actors. The main character of the film is a mother who goes across Iraq with her grandson, searching for her son who has been missing for 12 years. My aim was to search for people who had this experience; I searched for six months in villages and cities in Iraq. Eventually I came to a small village of about 300 homes, and each […]
Here’s the second of the New Breed videos discussing the current and future states of distribution. From the makers: Filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah of Sabi Pictures arrive at Park City with an intent to define the questions most relevant to independent distribution options. Insights from Brian Newman, Dan Mirvish, Jon Reiss and Ira Deutchman open a path toward discovering some real solutions. NEW BREED PARK CITY – Discovering the Questions from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.
Producer Ron Simons has been blogging from Sundance about his trip there with his first film, Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us. Scroll back through the blog for his earlier posts. Night Catches Us has premiered! The last two days have been a symphony of interviews and press meetings. The day of the premiere our PR firm (Fatdot — a great PR firm by the way!) shuffled Tanya (our director) and me off to TV interviews, photo shoots and a taping for the Sundance Channel, among others. We’d wanted to include my producing partner Sean Costello in these activities but all […]
Here is the first of the New Breed video reports realized this year in collaboration with Filmmaker and The Workbook Project. This one’s an open discussion between Lance Weiler, Peter Baxter, Saskia Wilson-Brown, Brian Newman and Paul Rachman just prior to Slamdance and the Open Video Alliance’s Filmmaker Summit in Park City, which starts in just a little more than an hour. If you’re not in town you can stream the summit here. NEW BREED PARK CITY – AN OPEN DISCUSSION from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.
Thought by most to be an obvious choice, Lionsgate has acquired the much buzzed about Sundance Midnight film Buried, according to Variety. Directed by Rodrigo Cortes and written by Chris Sparling, the film stars Ryan Reynolds as a U.S. contract driver in Iraq who after a sudden attack on his convoy awakens to find himself buried alive inside a coffin with nothing more than a lighter, a cell phone, and little memory of how he ended up there. The trade reports the deal was between $3 to $4 million. Other titles in buyer’s sights include Josh Radnor‘s happythankyoumoreplease, Debra Granik‘s […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 24, 11:59 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The most difficult choice I was faced with in making Frozen was the decision between shooting the film entirely practically or shooting it while incorporating such luxuries as a sound stage or green screen for certain scenes. Given the extremely challenging nature of the story and that it all takes place 50 feet in the air and in treacherous weather conditions, the pressure was on me to try and plan the shoot in as safely and as financially secure a way as possible. However I felt that my […]