[New Frontier Performances and Installations] The Cloud Mirror is a technological exploration of how our online standards of privacy and tact contrast so dramatically with those standard in the real world. When building The Cloud Mirror, I had to consider whether I felt comfortable taking people’s information from Facebook and Twitter and splashing it on their faces in a real public space for all to see. I found I felt uncomfortable with invading people’s privacy in this way, even though they themselves had made the information public. In fact I discovered people who post their “relationship status”” publicly on Facebook […]
When I started out script supervising almost 20 years ago, the tools of the trade were a stopwatch, a pen or pencil, paper, a Polaroid camera and that all important bible, the script. Each script supervisor had his or her own idiosyncratic system for “maintaining continuity” of a film or a TV show, but walk on any set and the basic tools were all the same. Maybe you typed up your notes at the end of the night on, yes, a typewriter; maybe you didn’t. Well the tools have now gone digital, thanks in large part to script supervisor Anthony […]
The first non-Canadian film to open the Toronto film festival in quite some time, Jon Amiel’s Creation seems to both embrace and shun the duties and limitations of the historical biopic. Paul Bettany stars as middle age naturalist Charles Darwin, well past his explorations on the HMS Beagle, who having settled into English country life with his children and wife Emma (Bettany’s real life spouse Jennifer Connelly), decides to finally tackle writing a book on his nascent theory of Evolution. Haunted by visions of his recently deceased daughter and the notion that he may permanently alter man’s conception of the […]
As we pack our bags for the Sundance Film Festival, all of our correspondents this year have weighed in on the premieres that we’re most excited to see. Check back daily throughout the festival for features, reviews and commentary. 3 Backyards, Eric Mendelsohn. (pictured) I’ve heard from crew who worked on this that it’s great, and I’m a Judy Berlin fan. It’s a domestic drama with Edie Falco and Elias Koteas, and I really hope this is a film that can get suburban-disconnectedness — the bread of butter of Sundance movies — right. — Alicia Van Couvering The Company Man, […]
Head over to our page dedicated to all things Park City. For the next week and a half there you’ll find features on films screening at the fest, on-site coverage of the news and trends this year, answers from filmmakers attending this year to our question: “What was the hardest decision you had to make to complete your film.” And much more.
From the online store of Mike Mohan’s One Too Many Mornings, playing in the Next section of Sundance. Are you an acquisitions executive at Focus, Miramax, Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, IFC, or Magnolia? Or are you just an independently wealthy entrepreneur that wants to get into theatrical distribution? The first person to click this button will get the rights to theatrically distribute our film across the USA. **Purchaser also agrees to pay for all legal fees and deliverables that the filmmakers may incur. You need an Amex, Visa, Master card, Discover, or a PayPal account that can handle the […]
While going back through old emails I came across one from filmmaker Jim Helton, who made this cool video detailing artist Chris Rubio’s process making four paintings for New York’s Ace hotel. As Helton edited Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, one of Sundance’s most hotly anticipated films, it seems like a good idea to post this for all of you to check out. Ace Hotel x Chris Rubino from Jim Helton on Vimeo.
Before we all head off to the Sundance Film Festival, I think it’s useful to remember that there can be a dark and lonely undercurrent to the Park City experience, one perfectly captured by Jamie Stuart in the video he made for us at the 2007 festival. Here, with a guest appearance by Sienna Miller, is “White Plastic Flower.”
When filmmakers heard that the Sundance Film Festival’s longstanding Director, Geoffrey Gilmore, was leaving, they wondered if his departure would signify a major change in direction at an institution that more than any other has defined the world of American independent film. When, a couple of weeks later, John Cooper, Sundance’s Director of Programming, was elevated to the Director position, they breathed a sigh of relief. As Holly Willis wrote in Filmmaker in 2006 about the 20-year veteran of the festival, “Funny, self-deprecating and entirely approachable, Cooper is known to thousands of American filmmakers as the guy who calls with […]
One of the biggest premieres at Sundance this year doesn’t involve a star-studded premiere party or the unspooling of a glossy 35mm print: it’s an entirely new section of programming: , pronounced “Next” by those not brave enough to type or say the symbol. Director of programming Trevor Groth has been involved with the festival for 25 years, and points out that the symbol actually means “Less Than Equals Greater Than,” which alludes to the fact that all Next films were made for very small budgets — at least under $500,000 but in most cases much, much less than that. […]