| Filmmaker Magazine

INTO THE BLACK

Over at Movie City News, Larry Gross posts one of his occasional and quite brilliant critical essays, this time on those eight seconds of black at the end of The Sopranos. And although Gross sees in Sopranos creator David Chase echos of Tolstoy and Balzac and not the Joyce or Kafka of The Prisoner creator Patrick McGoohan, it’s occurred to me that the conclusion of Chase’s series has inspired the same level of audience vexation that the famous final episode of The Prisoner caused back in the ’60s. Gross’s article is long and fascinating in its consideration of the aesthetic […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2007

IFP UNVEILS ROUGH CUT LAB SELECTIONS

IFP announced today the ten films selected to participate in its third annual Narrative Rough Cut Lab, a national program connecting mentors and projects by first-time feature filmmakers before they are submitted to festivals. Taking place in New York City June 12 – 15, this year’s Lab includes a number of new initiatives, such as: the formation of an Advisory Board, expansion of the program from three to four days, and moving the program from September to June, thereby ensuring that participants will have time after working with their mentors to submit their strongest work possible prior to the submission […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 11, 2007

Sundance Labs: “Like some kind of platoon, all of us here in the trenches together.”

[Beginning today Filmmaker Magazine will be taking an exclusive look inside the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs. Every Monday Filmmaker Braden King will be posting a weekly story on his experience at the Labs until its conclusion on June 28. His project is titled Here, co-written by himself and Dani Valent, and follows an American mapmaker charting the Armenian countryside who’s traveling with an adventurous landscape photographer revisiting her homeland. King has directed music videos and short films for Sonic Youth, Will Oldham and Yo La Tengo. He co-directed the film Dutch Harbor: Where The Sea Breaks Its Back.] Friday, June 08 […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 11, 2007

Todd Rohal, The Guatemalian Handshake

WILL OLDHAM IN TODD ROHAL’S THE GUATEMALAN HANDSHAKE. COURTESY AMALGAMATED FILMWORKS. Todd Rohal is possibly the Mumblecore director you’ve heard least about, maybe because his films don’t fit with the movement’s improvisational, talky style or focus on twentysomething relationships. A native of Columbus, Ohio, he studied film at Ohio University, where his first short film, Single Spaced (1997), was nominated for a Student Academy Award. He made two subsequent shorts in college, Slug 660 (1998) and Knuckleface Jones (1999), and resisted the lure of Hollywood after graduating, instead choosing to take a more unconventional road. He made his fourth short, […]

by Nick Dawson on Jun 8, 2007

SHOOTING FROM THE LIP

Over on the main page check out Jamie Stuart’s Q&A with legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Here’s an excerpt: Filmmaker: Apocalypse Now. Theatrically, it was amazing to see it in its Scope aspect ratio, in 2001. I know that at this point you’re preferential to 2:1, but some people were upset to see it on DVD cropped from the 35mm 2.35. Storaro: Well, I always connected with one painting that Leonardo did, The Last Supper. The Last Supper is 2:1. At the time of shooting Apocalypse Now, I was not aware. I don’t really remember when I became conscious of the […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 8, 2007

BABY STEPS

At the Filmmaker office we’ve been researching the emerging online indie film market for an upcoming story about how independents are selling their work through digital download services. But perhaps I should just keep a running link to Scott Kirsner’s Cinematech blog as he’s made this field his beat for the last several months. This week he posted “For Indie Filmmakers: How to Sell DVDs Online”, a recounting of a conversation he had with Jamie Chvotkin, founder of FilmBaby.com, a site that assists filmmakers in the marketing and promotion of their DVDs. (More info here.) What’s interesting about the post […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2007

CELEBRATING MELVIN

Out on DVD today is Joe Angio’s documentary, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), on the life and work of Melvin Van Peebles. I saw the film at its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years back and when I watched it again on IFC not too long ago I was reminded by how well done the film is. Angio not only examines how Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song invented the Blaxploitation genre, but spotlights his renaissance life which includes working on Broadway and the New York Stock Exchange. But I think […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 5, 2007

JUDD APATOW, FOREVER YOUNG

Over on the main page Nick Dawson interviews Knocked Up‘s writer/director, Judd Apatow. Here’s Apatow on what he considers to be his defining trait, awkwardness: It’s true, I’m a very awkward person. It’s hard to shake. Some people are wired for drug abuse or alcoholism or smoking; on some level, I’m wired to always feel like a goofball. No matter how well things go, I feel like I’m 15 years old. So when I’m out at a restaurant with my wife, I always feel like I’m on a first date and she might run at any moment. And it’s very […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007

THE INTERNET KILLED THE ADULT MOVIE STAR?

Matt Richtel in The New York Times today looks at how the internet is transforming the adult entertainment industry. As the porn business has always been something of a trendsetter when it comes to adoption of new technologies and viewing patterns — the adult biz was instrumental in popularizing home video in the ’80s, for example — the article is worth reading for independent filmmakers. It discusses how the ‘net is now beginning to inflict record-industry-scale losses on the porn industry while also noting how the porn companies are responding to the threat. From the piece: After years of essentially […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007

IRAQ VETS ON VIDEONATION

Filmmaker Astra Taylor (Zizek!), who was one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” last year, and producer Laura Hanna are producing clips for VideoNation, the new web documentary component of The Nation magazine. Their first has just been posted, a short piece on Iraq Veterans Against the War. The link to the new Nation video page is here and the piece itself is also embedded below. Taylor says to check back in a couple of weeks for her second piece, an animation about industrial food pollution.

by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007

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