6579 Results for “production”
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“Massive Decisions Can Be Made In the Mix”: Composer Anna Meredith on Her Film Score Career
In 2012, Scottish composer Anna Meredith released her first non-classical-music recording, Black Prince Fury, a four-track EP opening with what immediately became her signature tune: “Nautilus,” a ferociously escalating blast of brass running arpeggios up and down at increasingly overwhelming volume. It’s at once visceral and programmatic, applying classical discipline to an earth-shaking instrumental in a mission statement that also opened Meredith’s first full-length album, 2016’s Varmints. In an interview with The Guardian’s Laura Snapes at the time, Meredith was insightful about the economics of choosing to move from the realm of classical music, where she wrote work paid for […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jul 9, 2024 -
A Cinema of Gestation: On Returning to Filmmaking After a False Start, Multiple Life Changes, and 14 Years of Motherhood
A Bird Came Down is both a short and a feature-to-be by Heather von Rohr, produced by Nick Dawson, Editor of the Talkhouse and Filmmaker‘s former Managing Editor, and Emmett Kerr-Perkinson. In the guest essay below, von Rohr discusses the film’s themes within the context of its long gestation period. Von Rohr, Dawson and Kerr-Perkinson are currently crowdfunding the short’s post-production. To learn more, visit the project’s fundraising page at the New York Foundation for the Arts. — Editor In mid-June, I shot my first film in more than two decades. It’s called A Bird Came Down, and will be […]
by Heather von Rohr on Jul 9, 2024 -
BlackStar Projects Releases Full Schedule of Programs for 2024 Film Festival
BlackStar Projects, the organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists, announced today the full program for its 2024 BlackStar Film Festival. This 13th edition of BlackStar takes place August 1 – 4 at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with additional screenings, parties and events at various venues in Center City Philadelphia. Among the highlights are the Opening Night selection, Dreams in Nightmares, writer/director Shatara Michelle Ford’s feature follow-up to their acclaimed Gotham and Spirit Award-nominated debut, Test Pattern. Dreams in Nightmares tells the story of three Black queer femmes on a Midwestern road trip […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 9, 2024 -
“It’s People Struggling To Be Something Other Than What They Are”: Writer/Director Robert Towne on Making L.A. Movies
Legendary writer/director Robert Towne, whose screenplays include Chinatown and Shampoo and films include Personal Best and Tequila Sunrise, died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 89. On this sad occasion we’re reposting Matt Ross’s print edition interview with Towne from our Spring, 2006 issue. Below, the two discuss Towne’s adaptation of John Fante’s Ask the Dust, the financing difference between studio and independent films, and why Towne keeps returning to cinematic L.A. R.I.P. Robert Towne. — Editor Every city has its quintessential storyteller. And when it comes to Los Angeles, a city whose primary business is itself the […]
by Matt Ross on Jul 2, 2024 -
Of Mascots and Men: Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickston Cole Tews on Hundreds of Beavers
The phrase “word-of-mouth indie theatrical hit” sounds as outdated in 2024 as “coming soon to LaserDisc.” And yet, the slapstick fur-trapping adventure comedy Hundreds of Beavers has graduated from its lengthy festival run to become that rarest of things, a star-free independent film that has already grossed more than double its $150,000 production budget during its self-distributed gradual cinema rollout (still continuing as of this writing, despite its release on VOD). First-time feature writer-director Mike Cheslik previously teamed with lead actor/producer/co-writer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews on the latter’s feature directorial debut, the black-and-white adventure comedy Lake Michigan Monster. In classic independent […]
by Doug Dillaman on Jun 27, 2024 -
Reality Checks: How Film Schools are Adapting to Entertainment Industry Changes
Scan the entertainment business press and everywhere you’ll see the phrase “the great contraction.” The aftermath of COVID shutdowns, labor strikes, the wind-down of zero-interest-rate policies, the end of peak TV, changes in the competitive streaming landscape, the rise of TikTok—all have conspired to make the ever-perilous path toward a career in feature film and television even more uncertain. The economic laws of supply and demand, as they pertain to the labor market, would indicate, then, that film schools must be feeling an enrollment pinch, but talking to various graduate and undergraduate chairs and professors from across the country, that’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2024 -
Once Upon a Time on the Lower East Side
In an excerpt from her new memoir, director Susan Seidelman reflects on the beginnings of her breakthrough 1982 feature Smithereens. bad girls (donna summer) I started to notice a certain type of girl hanging around the downtown club scene. I won’t call her a groupie, but she had elements of that. She was someone looking for excitement. Driven by a need to feel special, eager for recognition despite no discernible talent … and inclined to sleep with anyone in a band. Like me, she came from a place she wanted to escape. Bit by bit, I began to draw a […]
by Susan Seidelman on Jun 27, 2024 -
Offscreen Dialogue: India Donaldson on Good One
In writer-director India Donaldson’s feature debut, Good One, 17-year-old Sam (outstanding newcomer Lily Collias) embarks on a weekend camping trip with her father Chris (James LeGros) and his lifelong pal Matt (Danny McCarthy). For Sam, a meek college-bound lesbian, the interactions with the two adult men with whom she treks through the forest fall back on conventional gender dynamics ranging from idly domestic to outright degrading: She cooks dinner, washes utilitarian dishware and fields insensitive comments about her sexuality without protest, demonstrating the extent of her excellent manners, so defining of her character that they’re referenced in the film’s title. […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 27, 2024 -
The Gotham Pages: Mel Sangyi Zhao is Creating Space for More Complex Women Characters
Cinema often shrinks from women’s middle age, a site it seems to find either innately unglamorous or melancholy. Middle-aged women are frequently relegated to supporting figures, particularly in tales of girlhood, but there exist so few accounts of their lives on screen. For this reason (and so many intersecting others), women are primed to dread middle age, for few truly know what to expect of it. Return to Youth, the daring short from ascendant filmmaker and Gotham EDU alum Mel Sangyi Zhao, places itself squarely in this long untapped cinematic space. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women directors generally seem more inclined to […]
by Kelli Weston on Jun 27, 2024 -
Sequential Notes: Angela Schanelec on Music
Since her debut feature, My Sister’s Good Fortune (1995), Angela Schanelec has steadily established herself as one of the Europe’s most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Across nine features, Schanelec’s style has evolved but retained consistent qualities: stark, clean visuals and crisp editing combined with elusive narrative techniques that crescendo into unexpected moments of emotional catharsis. A subject of hardcore cinephile fandom since her 2019 feature I Was at Home, But…, Schanelec seems to be gaining broader acceptance. Still, the peculiarities of her approach can be off-putting for general audiences. I first encountered Schanelec’s work at the Locarno Film Festival, where I was […]
by Graham Swon on Jun 27, 2024
