6576 Results for “production”
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Rooftop Filmmakers Fund Grant Winners for 2015 Announced
Rooftop Films, which is heading into its 20th season, has awarded 13 cash and service grants to alumni filmmakers. The GarboNYC Feature Film Grants were awarded to directors Kitty Green and Sebastian Silva. Green will receive a monetary grant of $15,000 to help finish her new film, Casting JonBenet, and Silva will receive a $10,000 grant to support his film, Demon Me. Casting JonBenet, a documentary about the infamous murder of child model JonBenet Ramsey, marks Green’s second feature after her 2013 documentary debut Ukraine Is Not a Brothel. Among the films Silva has directed are Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus and Nasty […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 10, 2015 -
Where the Cinematographer is in First Position: The 2015 Camerimage Festival
IMDb buries the cinematographer credit. It’s way below a film’s director, writers, producers, and stars, somewhere underneath the entire cast. And this diminished placement doesn’t just occur on the Internet Movie Database. Besides casting directors, cinematographers might be the most under-sung crew members in the movie business relative to how large a role they play in a film’s success or failure. But at Camerimage, a festival in Poland devoted to the art of cinematography, it’s the DP’s name that’s in the biggest, boldest font, and at a film’s end, it’s the cinematographer credit that gets the loudest applause. Programming a […]
by Whitney Mallett on Dec 9, 2015 -
Early Adopters or Canaries In a Coal Mine? Niall McKay at the Screen Forward Labs
At the opening party for the Irish Broadway musical, Once, as my wife Marissa and I sucked down free drinks and hors d’oeuvres in a swanky Manhattan penthouse, we got the idea for creating a series about people in New York who go to events and screenings for the free food and drink. We called it On The Lig, an Irish/English expression for being “on the mooch.” Fast forward three years, one Kickstarter campaign and eight shooting days later and we have a wonderful new pilot. Starring Jonny Hopkins (The Leftovers, Public Morals and Kick-Ass) and John Keating (Boardwalk Empire, The […]
by Niall McKay on Dec 7, 2015 -
Making Issue Films Doesn’t Have to Feel Dirty: Nick Berardini on Making Killing Them Safely
The term “issue” in the context of filmmaking can cause a lot of consternation for aspiring filmmakers. It can feel dirty just saying it out loud. When I first began making my debut feature, Killing Them Safely, I was at times apologetic for the subject matter. Early on, one of my producers would get in the habit of telling others it was “a film about TASERs,” and I would cringe. “It’s not a film about TASERs,” I often corrected him, “It’s a film about TASER International. There’s a big difference.” At times I felt like I was being a bit […]
by Nick Berardini on Dec 4, 2015 -
“I Don’t Want to Make Audiovisual Historical Aids”: Kent Jones on Hitchcock/Truffaut
The formal title of Hitchcock/Truffaut (alternately Hitchcock and The Cinema According to Alfred Hitchcock) is a vexed question mooted by its famous title design: Hitchcock’s name on one side, François Truffaut’s on the other. First published in 1966 and revised before Truffaut’s death, it’s one of the most commonly name-checked starter texts for anyone looking to learn more about film. In a series of extensive, probing and relatively unguarded conversations, Truffaut guides Hitchcock through his work film-by-film. Illustrated by numerous stills (including one- and two-page layouts showing every shot choice from particularly famous/intense sequences, breaking them down in a lucid, teachable way), the book allows a director in total command […]
by Vadim Rizov on Dec 4, 2015 -
“A Chance to Develop Technique”: Oliver Stone on Talk Radio
From 1986 to 1995, writer-director Oliver Stone directed ten films in ten years which, taken together, comprise the most complex, provocative, and illuminating cinematic inquiry into American values since John Ford. The magnitude of his achievement seems virtually impossible in today’s Hollywood and was probably nearly as unlikely then. After a pair of powerful independent films exploring American foreign policy in Latin America (Salvador) and Vietnam (Platoon), Stone used the commercial success of the latter to harness studio resources at the service of a series of massively ambitious works, including an epic answer to and repudiation of the postwar mythology […]
by Jim Hemphill on Dec 3, 2015 -
The 5 Minor Epiphanies of the 2015 IDFA Forum
The IDFA Forum is one of the oldest pitch roundtables in the world specifically for documentaries. It’s a yearly event that gathers some of the biggest broadcasters in Europe, Canada, and the US, as well as other financiers, foundations, and distributors to hear about some of the most compelling new documentaries that are being produced independently. The format that is used at the Central Pitch is a seven-minute pitch followed by a seven-minute response from many of the broadcasting Commissioning Editors. The vibe is very collegial and only occasionally contentious, as filmmakers justify their choices and explain their projects in […]
by Eli Brown on Dec 3, 2015 -
Sundance Announces U.S. Competition, World Competition and NEXT Slates
Following on the previously announced Midnight slate, Sundance has announced the 65 titles comprising its competition and NEXT slates. More films to be announced soon, but the 65 to sort through here are more than enough to investigate in the meantime. Some quickly noted highlights: Actress documentarian Robert Greene graduates to Sundance with his fourth feature Kate Plays Christine, and two films from recent 25 New Faces, Anna Rose Holmer and Bernardo Britto. U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION As You Are / U.S.A. (Director: Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, Screenwriters: Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, Madison Harrison) — As You Are is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 2, 2015 -
Slamdance Announces 2016 Narrative and Documentary Competition Films
Slamdance today announced the 20 films that comprise its 2016 Narrative and Documentary Competition selections. A total of 16 premieres — 12 World, three North American and one U.S. — will be presented January 22 – 28 at the festival’s usual digs atop mainstream at the Treasure Mountain Inn, Park City, Utah. Said co-founder and Slamdance President Peter Baxter in a statement, “The standard of DIY filmmaking around the world is the highest we’ve seen, and the diversity of storytelling is the most we’ve experienced. With a record breaking number of submissions to select from, the narrative and documentary feature […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 30, 2015 -
Kickstarting Paper Chase with the Top Five Black Characters in Mainstream Teen Movies
We love teen movies. We’ve seen everything from Say Anything to Whatever It Takes, Pretty In Pink to Drive Me Crazy. Name a teen movie that was in theaters and chances are we’ve seen it twice. But while we love these films we were always taken aback by the lack of diversity. Though Kid and Play and films like House Party and Class Act shook things up by adding some brown faces to the teen movie mix, it is still bleak out there. This void inspired us to make our own teen movie Paper Chase. Paper Chase is a comedy […]
by Lauren Domino and Angela Tucker on Nov 27, 2015
