Filmmakers Joe Swanberg and Ronnie Bronstein are videoblogging Sundance for Spout. Here’s episode four, in which they wonder where all the filmmakers are. Sundance 4: Melee on Main StreetAdd to My Profile | More Videos
I ran into producer Mike Ryan, whose Choke is screening here at Sundance, and he told me about a new website he’s involved with. Hammer to Nail has just launched, with Ryan and, soon, Mike Tully filing film reviews from Sundance — reviews that are intended to be provocative conversation-starters that eschew the niceties that sometimes inhibit writing from not only the MSM but also the blogosphere. (Last year, Ryan forwarded me at Sundance his politically-outraged comments about Grace is Gone, which I posted on the blog.) He launches the new site with a review of the Sundance doc The […]
The Directors Guild of America has reached a tentative deal with the AMPTP, and now its time to weigh in on it. However, coming as it did on the eve of Sundance, much of the working film industry press is a bit distracted. Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes have a solid article in today’s New York Times, in which they outline how the DGA’s different negotiating philosophy and lengthy pre-negotiation back channel conversations led to a quick deal. Over at the Working Life blog, labor activist and former Senatorial candidate Jonathan Tasini is doing the math, reviewing the deal point […]
Ten percent more money wouldn’t have made that big a difference, but 10 percent more preproduction time would have helped. Our funding showed up so late in the game that nothing could be nailed down until two weeks before we started shooting. Casting and location scouting was last minute. Luckily my producers and crew were intrepid so we just marched on. Rehearsal with actors was minimal. I met most of the people in the smaller roles for the first time on the day they arrived on the set. The only thing that saved us was the script. The time spent […]
After 13 months of shooting in four states, a broken arm, lightning strikes, a once-in-a-generation power failure at our power-plant location (“stay here, you’re slightly more likely to survive if it explodes”), I should want at least 11 percent more money to make the movie, to deal with these contingencies, or else I’d be wise to force myself to write 99 percent less insanity into my script so I could make something simple. But since all that’s past, I’d say if I wished I had 10 percent more of something, it would be peace of mind. I wasted a huge […]
It’s very tempting to go for the obvious answer and say money, since most of the elements that one would kill to have 10 percent more of could be had with a little more money. Money would be the universal gift card with which one could purchase delicious items like more shooting days or film stock or editing time. I’m still in post so even thinking of a card that could buy me more mix time or music licensing is getting me a little worked up. But money seems like an easy answer, so I’ll try to think outside the […]
The question isn’t fair as it relates to my production. I don’t wish I had 10 percent more of anything. I deliberately set out to make a film without expectations. Expectations are what thwarted any creative impulse I’d had in the past. Instead I relied on whatever I found before me. It is no accident that our production company’s name is Found Films. From the get-go we knew we had severe limitations: intellectual, financial, technological and with regards to professional talent; so instead, we embraced those limitations, almost with glee. No interchangeable lenses? No problem. Let’s embrace the aesthetic and […]
I made a documentary where I tried to interview my ex-girlfriends to find out why they dumped me. I wish 10 percent more of them had agreed to talk to me. In fact I wish 50 percent more had talked to me. But they didn’t. So for a couple of months I wandered ’round, scratched my head and tried to think of ways to persuade them. When I couldn’t persuade them I tried to come up with other things to film. As a result I think I ended up doing a lot of naval gazing, or in my case, a […]
I have been thinking about this question for a couple days now and I’m stumped. I’m really happy with Momma’s Man and I think extra cash, time… a bit extra of anything could have just fucked it up. Whatever limitations there were — and I had an enormous amount of freedom on this one — were helpful as far as I can see. Sorry if this wasn’t the answer you were looking for, but for me it’s the truth. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 11:30 am — Library Center Theatre, Park City]
If I could have had 10 percent more of anything it would have been days off! We worked 6 and 7-day weeks on this film ever since production started in May 2006 and haven’t stopped. And believe me, looking for the most wanted man on earth and traveling for months at a time to some of the most dangerous places in the world (all while having a pregnant wife at home), is not the best recipe for a stress-free job. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 21, 8:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City]