6576 Results for “production”
-
Benson Lee on Returning to His Independent Roots with the Sundance Comedy, Seoul Searching
Korean-American filmmaker Benson Lee won the Jury Prize at Sundance with his Competition Drama, Miss Monday, in 1998. A decade later he returned with Planet B-Boy, a critically-acclaimed, commercially-successful doc about breakdancing crews competing in an international competition. Lee’s success with Planet B-Boy led to both a studio deal and a career setback. Battle of the Year, a Sony production based on B-Boy, was as critically derided as the doc was praised, and it was a commercial failure to boot. This year, Lee returned to the site of his Miss Monday success — the Sundance Film Festival — with an […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Quyen Tran on Shooting Frankie Shaw’s Sundance-Winning SMILF
Frankie Shaw’s short film SMILF won the Short Film Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s a funny and revealing comedy about a young mom struggling to connect to her old sexual self while being homebound caring for her young son. L.A.-based cinematographer Quyen Tran shot the film, and below she discusses shooting coverage with only one actor, working with one light and filming while nearly nine months pregnant. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Cinematographers Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk on Shooting the Sundance-Winning Doc, Meru
Over a period of years, three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — make repeated efforts to scale a 21,000 foot peak in Northern India, Mount Meru. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Meru is the chronicle of that quest, a story of not just mountain-climbing athleticism but also friendship and camaraderie. The winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Meru, strikingly, was lensed by two of the film’s three climbers, with one of them suffering severe injuries on the climb — an accident that is part of the film’s story. Below, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Director/Cinematographer Matthew Heineman on Shooting Sundance Award-Winning Doc Cartel Land
A tense, cinematically-styled verite documentary about the Mexican drug wars, Matthew Heineman’s Cartel Land was one of the big winners at Sundance this year, nabbing both the Directing and Cinematography Awards. Strikingly, both positions were filled by the same person: Matthew Heineman, who also produced and edited. (For Cartel Land, Heineman shares the d.p. credit with Matt Porwoll.) Below, the multi-hyphenate talks about why, for him, shooting isn’t entirely about the image; why being his own d.p. calmed him down during the tenser moments of production; and the benefits of capturing a flat image through Canon Log. Filmmaker: How and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Cinematographer Ben Lichty on Shooting the Greenpeace Doc, How to Change the World
A “hippie heist movie-turned-high sea adventure” is how Sundance describes Jerry Rothwell’s Sundance award-winning documentary How to Change the World, about the early days of the Greenpeace movement. Below, cinematographer Ben Lichty describes mixing interview with archival footage, creating “visual variety” and shooting with the RED Epic. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Lichty: When I first heard about How to Change the World and the story the film would explore, I really wanted to be a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Cinematographer Catherine Lutes on Shooting the Pop-Up Porno Series
An unlikely combination of elements — the children’s pop-up book and X-rated adult relationship stories — collide in one of the more unusual series of shorts at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: Pop-Up Porno. Toronto-based director Stephen Dunn was inspired by friends’ tales of online dating, and he worked with various graphic designers to come up with actual book illustrations. The resulting three films premiered in Park City, where the books were also exhibited. Bringing the turning pages to life is cinematographer Catherine Lutes, who below talks about the Canon C300, realizing the film on a tiny budget and accenting […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2015 -
Watch: Rio de Janeiro in 10K Timelapse
Shot by Joe Capra, this five-minute test video shows off the super-hi-res capabilities of the PhaseOne IQ180 camera (more information on that here). This timelapse footage of Rio de Janeiro from a variety of vantage points is meant to serve several purposes. As Capra writes: Each shot sequence starts off with the full resolution footage scaled down to fit within a 1920×1080 resolution (14% scale). The next shot in each shot sequence is the full resolution shot scaled to 50%, so basically zooming in quite a bit. From there we go into the full resolution shot scaled to 100%, which […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 12, 2015 -
“It’s Too Important to be Tucked Away for Another 30 Years”: Don Argott on Kickstarting Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time
Don Argott’s interests are eclectic, to say the least. Just in the past five years the Philly-based documentarian has followed the downward spiraling of rock stars, explored a nuclear-reactor community and, most recently, launched a Kickstarter campaign for his latest project Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. The in-production doc is co-directed by Curb Your Enthusiasm co-creator Bob Weide and is about his decades-long attempt to make his own film about the iconic author, who in the process became a close friend. Argott spoke with Filmmaker about meeting Weide at an overseas film festival, going the indie financing route, and how […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 11, 2015 -
Kit: 10 Favorite Tech Innovations of 2014 (And Perhaps 2015)
I fall into that category of independent filmmaker who, as the need exists, writes, produces, directs, shoots, records sound, edits, even grades their own footage. (What we used to call color correction.) Then again, often times I’m “just” the DP. 2014 was my busiest year ever, and at some point I found myself taking on each of these basic roles. As a result, the scope of my “kit” is necessarily broad, encompassing both production and post. (Kit is a Britishism for one’s working collection of gear, a name I intend to lend to a series of brief tech reviews in […]
by David Leitner on Feb 9, 2015 -
Bryant Crenshaw, Gummo Co-Star and Nashville Icon, R.I.P.
Bryant Crenshaw, the local Nashville icon who co-starred in Harmony Korine’s Gummo, died Thursday night after being struck by a car. He was crossing Murfreesboro Road in Nashville around 7:00 PM when he was struck by a pick-up truck, local news reported. He was 42. The dwarf actor was best known for his appearance in two of Gummo‘s most indelible scenes — the last two shot for the film on its storied, 19-hour final day of production. In the first, Crenshaw, clad in an “Israel” t-short, arm wrestles and beats skater Mark Gonzalez. In the second, he hugs it out […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2015
