Originally published in the Fall 2011 issue. Take Shelter is nominated for Best Feature and Best Ensemble. As I write this introduction the financial press is buzzing about the BBC appearance of a trader, Allesio Rostani, who flatly stated, “I’m dreaming of a global recession.” He says he hopes — and expects — the world economy to crash. If it does, he’ll make a lot of money because he’s short the Euro and various European government bonds. There’s speculation that he’s a member of the political prankster group the Yes Men, not because of the substance of his commentary (there […]
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to take a master class with Ted Hope and Christine Vachon. Now out of respect to them I will not reveal all that was discussed, but what I can tell you is that my perspective of things has been altered quite a bit. I first started this blog with the intention of showcasing microbudget work as the passionate filmmaking it is…and fuck the rules. (The whole series of manifestos is evidence of that.) We were making cinema fast and cheap, and we needed to completely re-write the rules; a message that can be […]
The dust is still settling from the recent announcements from Canon and RED, and many of us are trying to figure out what it all means: is the Canon too expensive? The Scarlet too complicated? Will they have a big impact, or are these cameras outside the reach of most indie filmmakers? Ultimately, we won’t know their impact until these cameras start shipping in quantity, but I asked some DP/Editors to share their initial reactions to the cameras. Max Esposito is a DSLR shooter who is looking to upgrade from the Canon 5D Mark II, but says he doesn’t think […]
Filmmaker David Lowery (Pioneer, St. Nick) has an interesting piece on his blog today comparing the storytelling engines in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty. Martha, he argues, deliberately builds tension by withholding key information, while Sleeping Beauty lays everything on the table up front in an attempt to diffuse tension and focus deeper on story, theme, and character. In the article, Lowery also defends Martha against Richard Brody’s recent New Yorker blog post (a response in itself to Anthony Lane’s review of the film) in which Brody argued that the film’s flashback-heavy narrative […]
Felix Salmon at Reuters has a succinct explanation of why Netflix stock is crashing. (Note to non-investors: a stock and a company are two different things. A stock looks at not only current value but future growth potential. Thus, a good company with a healthy but slowly growing business can be worth less than a similarly sized company that might be losing money but is expected to grow into larger earnings.) In a post titled “Why Netflix Stock is So Volatile,” he explains that Netflix’s meteoric rise to a $300 share price drove short sellers from the stock. Then, when […]
This week I give you a bonus post and contest. In keeping with what seems to be our “Do Your Homework” theme, we have Grant Edmonds from MixMyFilm.com with some quick sound tips from a sound mixer’s perspective. Sound is always the microbudget killer, often transforming a wonderfully acted and shot film into something no one wants to see or hear. We’ve talked about its importance and ways to get good sound in the field, but we have yet to discuss the value of a great sound mix and how to prepare for it. In keeping with the Microbudget spirit, […]
Stunningly shot and formally audacious, Bombay Beach, the first feature of Israeli-born music-video director and cinematographer Alma Har’el, is a rare bird, the type of film that seems to be building its own cinematic language from the ground up. Sure, it embraces some stylistic and thematic similarities with a whole host of filmmaking luminaries, but it is dancing to its very own tune, both literally and figuratively. Har’el, as we discuss below, quickly entered the lives of various people living around the California hamlet of Bombay Beach, a derelict precinct that was once a haven for zealous developers in the ’60s, […]
Succumbing to the most numbing of documentary aesthetics, Laurent Bouzereau’s Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir had its “secret” world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival Tuesday night. Aftering being hyped as a groundbreaking work of filmic autobiography, what unspooled in this most expensive of European cities consisted mainly of footage shot by longtime Polanski friend and former producer Andrew Braunsberg, who convinced Polanski to spend 20 hours talking with him in Polanski’s Gstaad estate during his house arrest following his apprehension at Zurich’s ambitious young festival a few years ago. The film’s cumulative effect is rather enervating given its fascinating subject, […]
When historical documentaries spotlight the dynamic past, they also reveal, if one is prone to see, an uncomfortable present. This can fuel nostalgia and a yearning to return to that great by-gone era just witnessed on the screen. While making you feel good about the past, docs can make you feel lousy about today. After watching the premier Brooklyn Boheme, and listening to the Q&A afterwards, a lot of us felt lousy about today. For some 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, Fort Green and to a lesser extent neighboring Clinton Hill were home to an extraordinary community of […]