It is not uncommon to describe filmmakers as “true artists,” however in the case of Peter Greenaway it is literally the case that he brings an artist’s sensibility to work on the big screen. Born in Newport, Wales, in 1942, Greenaway grew up in London and studied to be a painter at the city’s Walthamstow College of Art. In the late 60s, Greenaway began to explore his fascination with cinema, embarking on a series of documentary short films which he continued throughout the 1970s that set out to capture the peculiarities of the world (or the world from a peculiar […]
Gizmodo today reports on Canon’s new 1D Mark IV DSLR camera and links to an incredible nighttime ambient light video shot on it. First, the specs. From the video part of the Canon press release quoted at Gizmodo: The EOS-1D Mark IV, EOS HD Video PowerhouseOver the past year, Canon’s EOS HD Video technology has changed the way users capture 1080p HD video and opened new doors for multimedia journalists and Hollywood cinematographers alike with full manual exposure control, selectable frame rates, and interchangeable lenses on some of the largest and most sensitive image sensors on the market. Canon continues […]
Over on the main page check out select stories from our Fall issue. (mag hits stands next week) There’s interviews with Lars von Trier on his latest film, Antichrist (which opens this weekend), Oren Moverman talks about his much anticipated directorial debut, The Messenger and we profile Larry Fessenden‘s Glass Eye Pix company. Also, Esther B. Robinson tells us how filmmakers can be successful during a recession, Anthony Kaufman learns how filmmakers are turning a profit with VOD and I look at the mammoth book about the greatest movie never made: Stanley Kubrick’s film on Napoleon. And remember, you can […]
I saw Spike Jonze’s exquisite Where the Wild Things Are weeks ago, long before articles over its budget and whether or not it kids would see it hit the press. We tried to get it into the magazine but scheduling didn’t work out. (If you follow my Twitter stream, you know that I’m a fan of it.) Apparently, Kanye West had something to do with it. In any case, I’m thrilled it opened big and that kids apparently are digging it. And, that dialogue about it is rippling beyond the film blogosphere. Jon Taplin is a movie producer who teaches […]
For the past three years, we’ve been pursuing a noble goal: to try to talk about movies and meaning in a way that might interest someone other than ourselves. We do this over at The Film Talk, and want our work to be an ongoing conversation about the movies and how they intersect with our lives. You’re welcome to join the conversation. Sometimes it’s difficult enough for us to interest each other, so that can be a pretty tall order. But thankfully there is sometimes also serendipity in talking about cinema – one of us has insights into the human […]
Here is director Zak Forsman’s second post from the FIND Filmmaker Forum, which took place in Los Angeles last weekend. In the men’s room of the DGA, I overheard a conversation by two gentlemen who had sat through two full days of panels at Film Independent’s Filmmaking Forum. One in particular was mentally exhausted, “I don’t know, should I hire a producer’s rep or a publicist? Should I be blogging? Tweeting?” He joked, dismissing them with a laugh. The man standing with him simply answered, “Yes.” And it reminded me of the post-event murmur I heard at DIY Days LA […]
“Cinema is a driving force in my life. I don’t want it to leave us, nor do I want to have to leave it behind; it’s provided me with hope and inspiration, and an incredibly fulfilling livelihood. It is also a one hundred year old industry, and, in my opinion, damn close to both a perfect art form and a perfect entertainment, but is also one whose applicability to our lives and livelihoods must now be completely reevaluated.” That’s Ted Hope delivering his keynote address at Power to the Pixel. Yesterday in my Filmmaker weekly newsletter I suggested that rather […]
My posting of a strange letter from the future I received from an independent filmmaker has prompted a diverse group of reactions throughout the blogosphere. Ted Hope kindly called it “brilliant” over at his blog while an Anonymous poster here said he was “revolted” by it and hoped it was a Jon Reiss parody. One producer/distribution executive accused us of revealing his business plan. And at Film Utopia, filmmaker Clive Davies-Frayne called it “one of the most depressing articles” he’s ever read and posted a response not to the author (who, after all, is both redacted and from the future) […]
Film Independent‘s Filmmaker Forum is underway this weekend, and we asked writer/director Zak Forsman to attend and report back. Here’s the first of his posts. I’ve just locked picture on my first feature-length motion picture and it seems I couldn’t be entering the world of distribution at a worse time. I strolled into the DGA in Los Angeles for day one of the Film Independent Filmmaker Forum optimistic and eager. I left it determined to batten down the hatches in preparation for stormy seas ahead. Veteran producer Jeremy Thomas (Creation, The Last Emperor, Crash) keynote opened with the concession that […]
TOM HARDY AS THE EPONYMOUS LEAD IN WRITER_DIRECTOR NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S BRONSON. COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES. At a time when Danish cinema boasts a large number of first rate directors, Nicolas Winding Refn stands out among his peers for his raw talent and ambition. The son of filmmaker Anders Refn, Refn was born in Copenhagen in 1970 but spent much of his teenage years living in New York, which had a great impact on his cinematic sensibility. He started film school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but was expelled for throwing a desk at a wall, one of a […]