6575 Results for “production”
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Biggest Challenge, Best Lesson: Five Nights in Maine Writer/Director Maris Curran
When I first speak to filmmaker Maris Curran on the phone, I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my parked car about two months after breaking both my arms in a bicycle accident. The accident occurred as I was pulling my bike over to the side of the road in order to phone the editor of this publication to discuss some column ideas I had about the business of filmmaking. I missed that meeting, of course, and since the accident, my mind has been almost singularly focused on the psychological impact of tragic accidents. Since that can get a bit […]
by Tina Poppy on Jan 6, 2015 -
What Revised U.S.-Cuba Relations Could Mean for Film
My knowledge of Cuban cinema is limited to a handful of films — one or two native productions and works by foreigners like Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club and Michael Rubbo’s Waiting for Fidel. So my interest was aroused when President Obama announced his administration’s change in policy regarding Cuba. The political ramifications of the President’s policies are, of course, extremely personal for Cuban-Americans, and discussions about the politics of the announcement and human-rights issues in Cuba are occurring across the nation(s). While not disregarding these discussions, I wanted to take a moment to look at the possibilities normalized relations might create […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 5, 2015 -
Watch Burst, Celine Tran’s Bid to Become an Action Star
It’s fascinating to watch how DIY production possibilities are changing the nature of the resume and showreel. A couple of months ago we posted this video by Lawrence Rebeiro about how he was able to use a small crew to pre-viz a fight scene. Now, via James Marsh at Twitch comes this impressive fight scene produced by French/Vietnamese performer Celine Tran (formerly the adult actress Katsuni and featured in Gaspar Noe’s episode of Destricted) showcasing her knife-fighting and martial arts abilities. It’s just one of several videos created as standalones showcasing assorted fighting styles and intended to launch her as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2015 -
The Year in Filmmaker: Favorite Articles and Top Posts of 2014
After four print issues, hundreds of online articles and a few dozen weekly newsletters, Filmmaker wraps 2014. I’m proud of our content this year and look forward to, alongside our writers and other editors, making it even stronger in the next year. Below you’ll find an issue-by-issue breakdown of the year, with links to highlights from each print edition. Following that are two Top Tens — the first is our list of most-read online pieces published in ’14, and the second our top reads from the archives. There’s a holiday weekend worth of reading here easily; thanks for following Filmmaker […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2014 -
Drive, He Said: A Most Violent Year
The guy’s a tease. Up until the end of Margin Call (2011), the debut feature of A Most Violent Year director J.C. Chandor (All is Lost), our moral compass in the story of a New York investment firm at the onset of the 2008 financial crash is brainy risk analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto). The young MIT graduate is so upright that he not only disentangles the masked electronic numbers signaling impending doom for those who can least afford it but also allies himself with the mid-level powers who prefer to forestall than cash in. In the penultimate sequence, once […]
by Howard Feinstein on Dec 30, 2014 -
2014: The Year of 4K
At the end of 2013 I wrote: 2013 wasn’t so much the year of 4K, as the year of “do we need 4K?” For most of the year I was a skeptic, but now I’m starting to think that 2014 will bethe year of 4K. And here we are at the end of 2014 and I look back and think, “I really hit that one out of the park!” Not that it took a lot of genius to read the tea leaves or see the writing on the wall: 2014 was definitely the year of 4K. Whether it was the F5/F55 […]
by Michael Murie on Dec 29, 2014 -
“A Little Person Against the Government Machine”: Andrey Zvyagintsev on Leviathan
When Andrey Zvyagintsev brought Elena — his corrosively apocalyptic attack on the Russian oligarchy— to Cannes in 2011, he was alternately direct and evasive about its pessimistic national diagnosis. One interviewer was informed Zvyagintsev had considered calling the film Invasion of the Barbarians, but was another was told that focusing on class issues was missing the larger moral point. Much has changed in three years, and in interviews Zvyagintsev has been adamant that his fourth feature isn’t exactly what it appears to be — i.e., another head-on broadside against different segments of Russia’s ruling class. Leviathan can be unreductively considered a direct continuation/extension of Elena‘s line of argument, not least in again […]
by Vadim Rizov on Dec 25, 2014 -
How to Find a Producer for Your Independent Film
“How do I find a producer?” It’s a question asked by many first-time independent writer/directors, and there’s good reason this seemingly simple query is so vexing. Screenwriters selling commercial screenplays and directors seeking employment on Hollywood pictures are guided by standard, usually market-based protocols. But it’s not so easy for budding independent auteurs — those without agents, managers or box-office track records. For them, partnering with a producer is as much about building a personal relationship as scoring a business transaction. At least, that’s what a number of producers interviewed here likened it to. Mary Jane Skalski (Very Good Girls, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 21, 2014 -
10 Tips and Observations on Pitching Documentaries from the IDFA Forum
The 27th annual International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is one of the largest and most prestigious documentary film festivals in the world. Beyond being just a festival, though, for the past 22 years IDFA has hosted a networking and business-oriented pitch session, the IDFA Forum, where selected documentary filmmakers have an opportunity to meet with an array of commissioning editors from around the world (with a high concentration of European broadcasters, naturally). Over the course of nearly three full days, commissioners sit around small round tables or in a large auditorium arena and weigh in on project pitches while […]
by Eli Brown on Dec 17, 2014 -
“I’m at a Precarious Age. I Don’t Know How Much Longer I’ll Get to Have This Life”: Cécile Tollu-Polonowski on Multitasking in the Berlin Film Industry
I am at Tempelhofer Park on a cold Saturday morning in Berlin. An airport reconstructed by the Nazi government in the 1930s, Tempelhof today is an epicenter of kite flying, urban farming, summer barbequing, and most impressively, unrestricted dog romping. My mother is a dog-walking regular at several public parks in Ohio and has witnessed a good many leashed vs. unleashed dog controversies over the years. As I take in the expansive landscape of Tempelhof, I’m subliminally considering the transformation from Third Reich austerity. I’m distracted by the notion that these Berlin canines are experiencing a freedom that American pooches […]
by Taylor Hess on Dec 16, 2014
