| Filmmaker Magazine

FILMMAKER’S GUIDE TO HALLOWEEN HORROR

For those of you planning a Halloween viewing party, the staff of Filmmaker has compiled thoughts on seven films guaranteed to generate chills. Inside. If you watch a lot of horror films, at a certain point you being to feel that you’ve seen it all. I did… at least until I saw Inside. This French shocker is part of a new wave of Gallic horror that includes films like Haute Tension, Frontieres, Calvaire and Them. For me, it’s the most extreme and transgressive of the bunch, mostly due to its relentless, remorseless elaboration of its queasy premise: a pregnant woman, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 29, 2008

PLANNING FOR THE BEST CASE FESTIVAL SCENARIO

If you’re one of, probably, about 3,000 feature filmmakers who have submitted your features to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, then you are beginning to think about that best-case scenario: getting in. After the acceptance rush fades, you will realize that the whole process of finishing your film, scheduling the festival, and devising a publicity and marketing plan is a lot of work. To help you out producer Ted Hope, who has a lot of first-hand experience, has been posting this week on this Truly Free Film blog a series of pieces on the different stages of the process. He […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 29, 2008

WHAT EIGHT YEARS BRINGS

The filmmaker Charles Stone caused a sensation in the indie film world in 1998 with his short film, True, which launched him in both the film and ad worlds. The hilarious short, along with his music videos, led him to make his first feature, Paid in Full. And when the short was seen by ad agency DDB Needham, they had the idea to hire Stone to take the characters and concept and apply it to a Budweiser ad. These spots, called Whassup?!, won all the big advertising awards in 2000 and Stone went on to make movies like Drumline and […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 29, 2008

BILLY THE KID ARRIVES ON VIDEO

Jennifer Venditti’s doc Billy the Kid arrives on home video today. Check out Nick Dawson’s interview with Venditti here.

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2008

MARK GILL ON THE FUTURE OF THE THEATRICAL BIZ

In what is something like an appendix to his famous “The Sky is Falling” L.A. Film Festival keynote speech, Film Department head Mark Gill is the guest on this week’s issue of the “The Business” film podcast. Gill’s segment is called “Mini-Majors, Endangered Species?”, and in it he discusses the independent film theatrical business in the wake of this year’s specialty label shrinkage. Like everyone, Gill wags his finger at overproduction but then he extends the argument to its logical end result — fewer movies in theaters. And that he likes. Quoting Gill: “The first and the best news is […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2008

Zizek and Henri-Levy on Kusturica

In a piece entitled “Clash of the Titans” at the Haaretz.com blog, Shlomzion Kenan writes about the recent debate between two “superstar philosophers,” Bertrand Henri-Levy and Slavoj Zizek, at the New York Public Library in late September. At one point, the conversation veered into a discussion of the Serbian director Emir Kusturica, whose vision of his homeland Zizek subjects to a a typically idiosyncratic critique of “the carnival.” From the piece: Joyously, Zizek spreads arms out and declares to Levy: “I hope we share another point, which is – to be brutal – hatred of [director] Emir Kusturica. ‘Underground’ is […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2008

THE ELEPHANT IN THE SCREENING ROOM

At The Hollywood Reporter, Gregg Goldstein reports on the stellar per-screen gross of Seth Grossman’s The Elephant King this weekend at the Angelika Film Center. The 2006 Tribeca selection, now being distributed by producer Unison Films and Strand Releasing did $16,000 despite modest P&A. The secret was apparently a blend of grass-roots marketing targeting non-film constituencies as well as a Gen Art-like blend of a screening and premiere party for a higher ticket price. From the piece: Unison head Emanuel Michael worked with Priority Films to contact Asian, Thai, drug and alcohol groups, and film schools at local universities. The […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 27, 2008

ONLY CONNECT

Over at Cinema Echo Chamber, Evan Louis interviews filmmaker Celia Maysles, whose debut, Wild Blue Yonder, deals with her father, documentary filmmaker David Maysles, and her relationship to him. From the interview: The whole idea behind Blue Yonder [for David] was trying to figure out who his greatest influences were in his life, and who he was, through making a film. He was closest with his father and his cousin Alan, who was a real risk taker, a fighter pilot. But his father never missed a day of work for thirty years. He worked in a dayjob, postal service, in […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 27, 2008

FALL ISSUE NOW ONLINE + NEW WAY TO READ MAG

Over on the main page, select stories from the Fall 08 issue is now on the site. They include great interviews, including Charlie Kaufman on his debut feature Synecdoche, New York; Bruce LaBruce talks about his latest zombie thriller Otto; or Up with Dead People; and just in time for its release this weekend, Zack and Miri Make a Prono‘s Kevin Smith discusses his latest raunchy comedy. There’s also a piece on the Red camera workflow; director Jon Reiss writes how he pulled off the two-month theatrical window with Bomb It; Scott Kirsner talks about his new book and the […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 27, 2008

THOUGHTS ON MAX RICHTER AND FILM

I wrote the below for Filmmaker’s weekly newsletter back in late August when the digital iTunes version of Max Richter’s new album was released. (Each week in the newsletter I try to write something that’s different from what appears on the blog — if you don’t get the newsletter, you can subscribe by submitting your email address at left). Now the CD is out and in the stores, so I thought I’d repost what I wrote here — a kind of musing on the record and some of the new-media related thoughts it inspired. I’ve been listening lately to Max […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2008

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.

17731 Results for “”