6576 Results for “production”
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Making VR that Matters: Johns Hopkins’ New Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Program
In last summer’s print issue of Filmmaker I wrote about the ways that university film and computer science departments are adapting to teach virtual and augmented reality in their classrooms. In schools all over the world, students are finding ways to use VR and AR to create narrative films, documentaries, animation and games as aids in therapy, medicine, architecture and innumerable other fields. Now the newest school to launch a program is Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where a graduate level Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Program is beginning in January. Headed by filmmaker Gabo Arora under the direction of Roberto Busó-García, the Director […]
by Randy Astle on Nov 22, 2017 -
In Partnership with Westridge Foundation, SFFILM Announces New Grant Program for Narrative Filmmakers
There’s long been an imbalance between grants available to fiction filmmakers as opposed to documentarians, and today SFFILM, the Bay Area-based nonprofit, has announced in partnership with the Westridge Foundation new biannual grants and other resources for narrative filmmakers based across the U.S. Four to five grants of $20,000 – $25,000 will be given each spring and fall, and applications are now open for the first cycle, which runs through February, 2018. From the press release: The SFFILM / Westridge program is designed specifically to support the screenwriting and development phases of narrative feature projects whose stories focus on the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 16, 2017 -
Exclusive Clip: Chanelle Aponte Pearson and Rae Leone Allen’s 195 Lewis
195 Lewis, a web series directed by Chanelle Aponte Pearson and created by Rae Leone Allen, premieres tomorrow night at 8:00 PM at the show’s website. Last year, when the series was in production, we interviewed Pearson, and she discussed her own motivation for joining the project: At the time of joining the project as director, I used to watch The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and The Couple, so I largely understood the format to work best for comedies with episodes ranging from two to five minutes. Despite knowing this, I still entered the writing process not focusing on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 15, 2017 -
The Story Women Have Been Trying to Tell for Years Now
Recently, I had to correct a friend of mine who referred to Thelma & Louise as an independent film. “Actually,” I said, “Thelma & Louise was 100% Hollywood, incredible as that may seem today.” It is not surprising that the Callie Khouri-penned story of two women escaping the law after killing a man for his attempted rape has developed an outlier reputation considering Hollywood’s response to it. Despite its critical and box office success, there were no copycat films made, no new genre emerged, no film movement was sparked. Since then, Hollywood has come nowhere close to producing another such […]
by Jennine Lanouette on Nov 15, 2017 -
DOC NYC 2017: Peter Braatz on Blue Velvet Revisited
The past year has proven to be a uniquely rewarding time for David Lynch obsessives, with the Showtime revival of Twin Peaks being the obvious highlight, but also marked by recent Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD special editions of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the new documentary, David Lynch: the Art Life, focused on Lynch’s painting roots. However, one of the most fascinating Lynch-related features in recent memory has yet to receive the widespread U.S. exposure it richly deserves, and it reflects back to a more traditionally structured Lynch favorite (indeed, still the film that some cite as his key work) that those […]
by Travis Crawford on Nov 14, 2017 -
“We Digitized Every Frame”: Andrew Sherburne on Saving Brinton and Film Preservation
“I like to save things,” Mike Zahs says in the opening seconds of Saving Brinton, “especially if they’re too far gone.” He’s referring, in the moment, to the stray animals that have hobbled onto his property over the years: a lost cat that birthed 11 kittens, a rotund dog named Tuesday. He’s also alluding to his great passion project, which originated at an estate sale in 1981. Zahs found a cache of mysterious boxes from the estate of Frank Brinton, a showman who traveled the country with his wife from 1895 to 1909 to project films and other pre-cinema entertainments […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Nov 14, 2017 -
DOC NYC: Barbara Kopple on Her True Crime Tale, A Murder in Mansfield
“A friend of mine has this absolutely fantastic story that we should all do together.” Barbara Kopple heard these words, she tells me, on a phone call last year with producer John Morrissey (American History X). She’s likely heard such preambles before. Kopple has directed documentaries for more than 40 years, from her landmark labor-strike feature Harlan County U.S.A. to her profiles of Woody Allen (Wild Man Blues), the Dixie Chicks (Shut Up & Sing) and the late, eternally great Sharon Jones (Miss Sharon Jones!). Morrissey wanted to pitch Kopple a film on Collier Landry, an L.A.-based filmmaker whose mother […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Nov 12, 2017 -
Premiering Docs within the New World Order: Thom Powers on DOC NYC 2017
The increasingly robust DOC NYC opens today through November 16, with over 100 documentary features unspooling in three locations in downtown New York and Chelsea. Among the 23 world and 23 U.S. premieres are new films from Barbara Kopple, Sam Pollard and Julia Bacha, whose Naila and the Uprising, about the woman of First Intifada, won the festival’s first pitch competition in 2016. Films unspool across 16 sections, including the new New World Order, focused on pictures with global news importance, and Metropolis, the competitive section featuring films from and about New York City. The DOC NYC Pro section is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2017 -
“A Horror Film in Slow Motion”: Greg Barker on His DOC NYC Opener The Final Year
Opening this edition’s DOC NYC on November 9th is Greg Barker’s The Final Year, a truly up-close-and-personal, behind-the-scenes look at the Obama administration and its foreign policy team during its last 12 months. To say that Barker gained unprecedented access to the president’s men (and one woman) during that period is an understatement. The veteran documentarian (Homegrown: The Counter-Terror Dilemma, Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden, etc.) managed to shadow three heavyweight insiders — Secretary of State John Kerry, Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, and “Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 8, 2017 -
Y’allywood Babylon: The 20th SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Docs to Watch Roundtable
This year’s 20th anniversary edition of the SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Savannah Film Festival, which lays claim to being the largest university-run film fest in the world, continued its two-decades-long tradition of mixing Hollywood wattage with downhome southern hospitality. Once again the fest honored an eclectic mix of celebrity guests of all ages (elder statesmen and women included Richard Gere, Sir Patrick Stewart, Aaron Sorkin, Salma Hayek Pinault, Holly Hunter, and Kyra Sedgwick, while the “youngsters” featured the likes of John Boyega, Zoey Deutch, Robert Pattinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Willow Shields). The festival also played host to […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 6, 2017
