6576 Results for “production”
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Is Section 181, Film Federal Tax Incentive, “Dead” in a New Trump Administration?
Section 181, the Federal tax incentive spurring the production of film and television in the United States is about to suffer, reports David Robb at Deadline, “a quiet death” — at least for the time being. Filmmaker has covered Section 181 extensively, with Daniel J. Coplan’s article from last summer explaining in detail how the incentive benefits independent film producers and investors. In brief, it allows investors to deduct 100% of their investment against their Federal taxes in the year of the investment. That’s opposed to depreciating that investment over multiple years. For a high net work individual, that could […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 30, 2016 -
Jim Hemphill’s Best Blu-rays of 2016
To finish off 2016, I’d like to round up some of the year’s best Blu-ray releases that I didn’t get a chance to cover in my weekly column. It was an exceptional year for physical media thanks to labels like Criterion, Twilight Time, Arrow, Kino Lorber, and Olive, all of which continue to license neglected titles from studio vaults and give them the first-class treatments they deserve. While the list below barely scratches the surface of the efforts of these companies and others, it contains what I consider to be the most essential discs of the year — movies that […]
by Jim Hemphill on Dec 30, 2016 -
Omnipresent Poet: How Pablo Larraín Captured the Essence of Neruda Without Simplifying His Humanity
Reconciling the flawed humanity of a person with their extraordinary deeds means accepting that both vice and virtue can coexist. Ditching the narrative shackles of biographical films that aims to encompass the entirety of a person’s life, even if that means just piecing together a sequence of significant events, Chilean auteur Pablo Larraín inventively designed an iridescent impression of his homeland’s most notable artist, Pablo Neruda, which captures his essence without simplifying his humanity. No stranger to revisiting Chile’s most scabrous historical passages through a fictional lens that neither condemns nor absolves, in Neruda Larraín presents the man as a masterful poet, lazy communist, seductive […]
by Carlos Aguilar on Dec 28, 2016 -
Animation in 2016: The Year in Review
When you think of indie film, animation may not be the first medium that comes to mind, and with so much else going on this year — both cinematically and in the world in general — it would be easy to miss that 2016 was a fantastic year for animation. The art form continues to present exciting opportunities for enterprising filmmakers, and this year it’s also given a plethora of great titles to those of us who simply want to watch quality animated cinema. So as the “Best of 2016” lists keep rolling in this December, here’s my take on […]
by Randy Astle on Dec 27, 2016 -
The Best VR of 2016: Arnaud Colinart and Amaury La Burthe on Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness
This year’s DOK Neuland, DOK Leipzig’s interactive component (housed in what resembled an intergalactic pop-up tent in the beautiful, wide open Markt) allowed me a second chance to experience what will surely go down as the best work of virtual reality seen widely in 2016. Fortuitously, I’d been able to catch Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness — the accolade garnering (Storyscapes Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Alternate Realities VR Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest) VR companion piece to Peter Middleton and James Spinney’s much heralded documentary — at the charming Savannah Film Festival’s VR Showcase just the week before. […]
by Lauren Wissot on Dec 26, 2016 -
2016’s Ten Best Shows Prove “Peak TV” is a Euphemism for Artistic Freedom
The Ten Best TV Shows of 2016 10. Channel Zero: Candle Cove (Syfy) 9. Search Party (TBS) 8. Bojack Horseman (Netfiix) 7. O.J.: Made in America (ESPN) 6. Rectify (Sundance Channel) 5. The Americans (FX) 4. The Girlfriend Experience (Starz) 3. Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) 2. Atlanta (FX) 1. Horace and Pete (Independent) I’ve opted to buck established Top Ten List trends and include my picks for the best TV of 2016 right there at the top. I do this for two reasons: one, to spare you the exercise of having to scroll quickly through a collection of capsule-blurbs that […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Dec 21, 2016 -
“If You Put Up a Video Village You’re Going to Get 10% Less Material Every Day”: DP Giles Nuttgens on Hell or High Water
In Hell or High Water two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) embark on a spree of heists intended to fleece predatory Texas banks, with an about-to-retire Texas Ranger (Jeff Bridges) hot on their heels. The film is an elegy to a dying way of life – not only for family ranchers Pine and Foster, but also for lawman Bridges. Making the movie was an elegy of sorts as well for cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, a vocal celluloid proponent who ultimately opted to shoot with an Alexa Studio on the project. In the words of another great western requiem The Wild […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 19, 2016 -
Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema Launch Women’s TV Pilot Contest
The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and Brooklyn College’s Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema have launched a contest that will award two New York City screenwriters the development and production of their scripts as pilots to be aired on NYC Media. One of the two winners will see their pilot be developed into four further episodes. The scripts — which must be “by, for and about women” — will be selected by a panel of industry leaders, says the press release, and will be produced by graduates of the Feirstein School “under the mentorship of Jonathan Wacks and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2016 -
Writer/Director Matthew Ross and Producers Jay Van Hoy and John Baker on Making the Vegas-set Neo-Noir, Frank and Lola
Longtime Filmmaker readers will instantly recognize writer/director Matt Ross as our former Managing Editor, whose intelligent and probing interviews with directors like Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney — to say nothing of his sit-down with critic Armond White — were staples in this publication in the early to mid-aughts. In 2006, Ross, who had made two short films and written a pair of scripts left the magazine to go make his debut feature, the darkly compelling Frank & Lola. A Vegas-set psychosexual love story, Frank & Lola stars Michael Shannon as an ambitious, tightly-wound star chef working in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2016 -
Moby Dick, Mad Max: Fury Road “Black and Chrome” Edition, and Moscow on the Hudson: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
A great American film finally gets a proper home video treatment on Twilight Time’s new Blu-ray of Moby Dick, John Huston’s 1956 adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1851 classic novel. It’s a film of many virtues, starting with the literary – Huston collaborated with Ray Bradbury on the screenplay, and their adaptation is a surprisingly successful distillation of Melville’s voice and themes. Huston’s memories of the production were not fond; he described it as the most difficult picture he ever made and said in his autobiography, “I lost so many battles during it that I even began to suspect that my […]
by Jim Hemphill on Dec 10, 2016
