The Cinema is the Train: Part One Economy of Narrative + Abundance of Truth = Poetry in Cinema In an earlier essay for Filmmaker, I argued that “…cinema’s ‘vocabulary of forms’ is typically under-utilized… While there are any number of cinematic languages that could exist, most of the time films tend to rely heavily upon what we could call the basics of film grammar – shot/counter-shot, close-ups, wide shots, over-the-shoulders and reverses, as well as certain editing paces and conventions of lighting and score,” and went on to praise Enter The Void for its progressive formalism. In keeping with Jean-Luc […]
“This year’s program captures how eclectic and varied in genre and style Latin American cinema has become,” says the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Marcela Goglio, who, along with colleague Richard Pena, programs the films that play at the Walter Reade Theater during the 12th edition of Latin Beat (August 10-24). “In spite of ongoing financial struggle, good commercial films coexist with low-budget and more experimental ones.” Even though it is the oldest of all, Latin Beat has not received its just due in a community that hosts so many mediocre Latin American and Latino film festivals and exhibitions. (Check […]
A few weeks ago I attended the third Sundance ShortsLab, a day-long event about short filmmaking organized and conducted by the folks from Sundance (primarily, from what I could see, from the festival side of the house.) Sundance has previously put on two other Shortslabs, one in LA and one in Chicago. This was their first event in New York, and those of us in attendance spent the day in an auditorium at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a variety of speakers and panels unfolded, and several short films were shown. The day started with Trevor Groth, Sundance’s director […]
I have come across many folks who have allowed the completion of a perfect script to derail their entire production. I have also sat through (I’m including my own films here) more films that I can remember in which the filmmakers hoped improv will create something magical. In microbudget the latter is a necessity, in large indie films, it’s risky, and in Hollywood, no one but a select few can pull it off. I recently started a conversation with an Austin filmmaker in the very thick of making her second feature film, What’s the Use (pictured below), and this battle […]
John Carpenter has a well-earned reputation as the Master of Horror, even if the legendary director’s still-growing body of work has encompassed everything from TV biopics (Elvis) to sci-fi thrillers (The Thing, Escape from New York) and the occasional action-comedy (Big Trouble in Little China). Early on, he just seemed to have his finger on the pulse of something, well, evil. If you came of age in the late ’70s, before cable and home entertainment systems made R-rated movies easily accessible to viewers of any age, the dread-inducing, nightmarish trailers on network television for films like Halloween and The Fog […]
Spend even the shortest amount of time in the delightful and disturbing Scottish capital and you begin to read native Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a metaphor for the city itself. Edinburgh boasts a warm and welcoming population residing in an atmosphere where an ever-present hint of menace hangs palpably in the air like its famous rainy mist. (This openness is evidenced by the fact that one early afternoon my sister and I were able to pretty much wander in to a Justice Committee hearing of Parliament debating that day’s front page news […]
I first met Jesse Borkowski back at RIT in 2002, and we became fast friends. His interest in experimental filmmaking mirrored my own, and soon we were the dynamic duo of cinematographer and assistant on over ten short films. Our verbal short hand and similar visual language made it easy for us to work together, but it wasn’t until now that we’ve collaborated on a project as co-directors; It was bound to happen. The film I’m referring to is Engram. This “epic” micro budget is an experiment in many things, one of those things being crowdsourcing. My last few attempts […]
So last week we presented one type of manifesto knowing full well it’s almost impossible to define what this all is. The feedback was wonderful and I want to take a moment before I present the next two manifesto perspectives to comment. I think some people are completely right about the fact that sometimes the point of micro-budget is to NOT be part of a group. However, as humans, we group ourselves, and others, together so that we can quickly categorize and compartmentalize the world around us. Which is the very reason I started thinking about a rule book. Groups […]
Our last few posts have really sparked a great conversation and it seems to be one of definition. Not just of micro’s structure, but definition of our stance on art vs. commerce, and our perspective of micro’s purpose. A while back I made a half-joke on this column that someone should write a manifesto for micro-budget filmmakers. The more I thought about what it would contain, the more I realized I was writing one of my own. I immediately contacted one of our column alums Jamie Heinrich. Jamie is in the process of financing and shooting his next feature via […]
After our last post the response was overwhelming in regards to what micro is, if it’s important, and where it’s headed. In the spirit of conversation I worked with Todd Looby (pictured below) on a post almost exactly the opposite of Scott’s. Todd sees micro-budget filmmaking as a skill, a tool, and somewhat of a stepping-stone. Our conversation wouldn’t be a conversation without this point of view. To me, microfilmmaking is not an end that anyone in his or her right mind should be pursuing. Of course, as people interested in filmmaking, we are not necessarily right in the […]