6576 Results for “production”
-
Deformed Creatures for Everyone: The 20th Fantasia International Film Festival
Independent of the intent of hardworking programmers and staff, a film festival can occur at an unexpectedly opportune time. That I attended the 20th edition of the Montreal-based Fantasia International Film Festival as many New York colleagues spent their evenings watching the genre-defying, quasi-patriotic spectacle known as the Republican National Convention only made my politically-removed self more grateful. Creating and celebrating horror within the confines of narrative and nonfiction cinema proved to be a more peaceful environment than gawking at the horrific notions of those in power. At the festival’s midway point, the Frontières International Co-Production Market — a four-day event where […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 1, 2016 -
Every Film Is a Consciousness Working Through an Idea: Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan on For the Plasma
As an anxious, post-youth New York City cinephile with a dismaying penchant for missing out, I found For the Plasma, Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan’s debut feature, an intimidatingly hep first watch. The tone, somewhere between goofy and morbid, between airless and chaotic. The horror-red title font. The surprisingly fun synth score. The high-waisted jean shorts. The blondeness. After I saw it at its sold-out premiere screening at BAMcinemaFest, way back in the spring of 2014, I scrambled to get ahead of the young, well-spoken directors’ influences, hoping to solve their self-proclaimed “digital-pastoral” puzzle the way I thought I knew […]
by John Magary on Jul 29, 2016 -
Redford Center Grants Program Backs Features with Environmental Bent
Last month, The Redford Center announced the launch of Redford Center Grants, a grant program aimed at supporting the production of films that seek to raise global awareness of environmental issues. Funded by The New York Community Trust, The Redford Center Grants program will support filmmakers with feature-length projects that are in early stages of development and that are focused on driving awareness, education and action on environmental topics. Though there is no specification that the films must be non-fiction, on the list of Films We Love, The Redford Center highlights documentaries such as Super Size Me, Gasland, Virunga, The Cove, and […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jul 28, 2016 -
Susan Seidelman on Smithereens, Fashion Influences and the Early Days of Public Access TV
In the opening shot of Smithereens, a pair of checkered black-and-white sunglasses dangle in the frame. Self-starter Wren (Susan Berman) swoops in, grabs them from the owner and keeps pushing through the subway station as if nothing’s happened. Wren wants to be in a band, but she doesn’t have any discernible abilities besides her fabulously on-point New Wave fashion sense. When not working a crappy copy store job, she’s going to shows and plastering up Xeroxes of a black and white still of herself all over the city, trying to drum up some kind of attention for herself. She only has eyes […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jul 28, 2016 -
Screenwriter Eric Heisserer on Lights Out, The Rules of Horror and Collaborating with James Wan
Eric Heisserer bristles at the label of horror movie screenwriter. It’s understandable. While his produced credits include a Final Destination sequel and the remakes of The Thing and A Nightmare on Elm Street, Heisserer points out that he has authored 56 feature film scripts and only eight of them have been in the horror genre. That connotation may change later this year when Heisserer’s screenplay for the sci-fi film Arrival hits screens from Prisoners and Sicario director Denis Villeneuve. But for now Heisserer and I are talking about Lights Out, a new horror offering based on director David F. Sandberg’s […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jul 27, 2016 -
IFP Announces No Borders, Spotlight on Docs Feature Films for IFP Film Week
IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today the 120 feature film projects that will take place in its annual IFP Film Week, taking place September 17 – 22 for the first time in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Announced for the first time are the screenplays comprising the No Borders program, for projects seeking financing, and the doc works-in-progress seeking completion funds in Spotlight on Docs. They join the previously announced features in post-production from the IFP’s Narrative and Documentary Labs. Particularly noteworthy this year are the roster’s gender diversity states: 40% of the narrative directors and 60 % of the documentary directors are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 27, 2016 -
Lost in the Funhouse
House of Eternal Return is an overwhelming — 20,000 square feet! — immersive experience dreamed up by Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe art collective turned production company. Upon its March opening, the interactive art piece — realized through a multimillion dollar investment by Santa Fe resident George R.R. Martin, who also happens to own the local Jean Cocteau Cinema arthouse — garnered national attention from such mainstream outlets as The New York Times and NPR (which called it “Pee-wee’s Playhouse on steroids”), and drew the likes of Martin and Neil Gaiman. Yet at this moment, when artists are scrambling to […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jul 25, 2016 -
Macon Blair
As a killing machine on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Macon Blair made a ferocious impression as the lead actor in Jeremy Saulnier’s 2013 breakthrough picture Blue Ruin. His follow-up with Saulnier was similarly blood-soaked, with Blair playing a neo-Nazi bouncer in this spring’s Green Room. But on the phone from Austin, Texas, where he is in post on his untitled feature directorial debut, Blair is disarmingly modest and politely low-key. “I feel like I got away with something,” he says of his good luck in getting his first feature financed and cast with the stars — among them, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jul 25, 2016 -
The Fine Print: How To Understand and Negotiate a Film Distribution Contract
There are many new distribution options for the independent producer. The old media includes theatrical, broadcast/cable, home video; new media’s alphabet soup includes TVOD, SVOD, AVOD, EST, PPV, streaming and nontraditional theatrical. As new distribution channels develop, new distribution companies emerge. But not all distributors are effective in all mediums and markets. Just as you would not expect Netflix or Vimeo to release your work theatrically (Netflix’s recent self-originated productions to the contrary), you would not expect Gathr and Tugg to broadcast or cablecast your work. As a consequence of all these new distribution channels and the splitting up of […]
by Dan Satorius on Jul 25, 2016 -
Still the One: An Independent Film Guide to On-Set Still Photography
In an excerpt from his recently released and highly recommended book, The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking, filmmaker Dan Mirvish explains how to work with — or deputize — a film set photographer. The Cheerful Subversives Guide to Independent Filmmaking is now available from Amazon and other retailers. Back in the pre-digital days, still photographers used SLR cameras buried in giant, black, soundproof boxes, so that the shutter-mirror click didn’t interfere with sound takes. Usually they were shooting black-and-white stills and sometimes color slide film. The main reason you needed a separate still photographer was that many distributors and […]
by Dan Mirvish on Jul 25, 2016
