6566 Results for “production”
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A Woman Under the Influence: Hannah Fidell on A Teacher
Hannah Fidell’s slow-burn character study A Teacher relies on a taut and unsettling performance by Lindsay Burdge in the title role to crawl deep under the skin of the viewer. Diana, a youthful and fetching as a high school teacher, is one of the year’s most fascinating indie film characters; a remote and somewhat coy woman who is nonetheless caught up in a forbidden sexual dalliance with a male student, one which grows from a delicate crush into a dangerous and foreboding full-blown obsession with alarming velocity. That we’re at turns sympathetic to, fascinated and repulsed by Diana is a testament to Burdge’s […]
by Brandon Harris on Sep 5, 2013 -
The Invention of Paramount Pictures
The Media History Digital Library is a goldmine of information about early cinema, the sorts of magazines, journals, and trade publications that, in the pre-digital era, had only been available to those able to travel to research libraries. At over 800,000 scanned pages and growing, the collection is daunting, and what I plan to do in Time Frames, a five-part series, is cull through and select a series of images and text from the collection to highlight key transformative moments in the film culture and industry, as well as other oddities and obscure artifacts. It’s perhaps impossible for us not […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Sep 5, 2013 -
Test Footage and Drawbacks of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera
Many pundits predicted a serious shakeup when Blackmagic announced their new Pocket Cinema Camera back at NAB in April. Priced at just $995, the Super 16 handheld, complete with 13 stops of dynamic range, seem poised to encroach upon DSLR’s steadfast popularity. As the camera underwent initial shipments in August, homegrown test footage began popping up here and there. Dan Chung, co-editor of News Shooter, recently took his BMPCC out for a spin in the Sanlitun area of Beijing — at night. The experiment yielded mixed results. Armed with a Voigtlander 17.5 mm f0.95 lens to maximize light on the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 4, 2013 -
September Opportunities for the New York-based Filmmaker
For those who didn’t attend film school, the learning curve when it comes to the technical aspects of filmmaking can be a largely solitary process. Reading up on manuals, trial and error with editing suites, blog browsing and other self-taught measures are often conducted without reaffirmation, encouragement or collaboration. Should you seek the company of others, the following are a few New York organizations whose doors will open for fellowships and workshops in the ensuing weeks. Yes, I am shortchanging 97.35% of the American population, so additional suggestions are more than welcome. Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective Deadline: September 6, 2013 The […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 4, 2013 -
Toronto, Toschmonto: Time for a Festival Plan “B”: 12 Steps to a Saner Festival Game Plan
The author of this guest essay is a filmmaker whose most recent film is Between Us. He is also the co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival. — Editor Okay, you didn’t get into Toronto and you’re crushed. Guess what? You also didn’t get into Telluride, Venice or the New York Film Festivals either. But I’ve got news for you: You probably didn’t stand a chance with any of those festivals anyway. It’s not you, it’s them. Don’t get me wrong: They’re all perfectly good festivals run by nice – frequently Canadian – people. The problem is the so-called big Four […]
by Dan Mirvish on Sep 3, 2013 -
Venice 2013 Critic’s Notebook: Palo Alto, Parkland and Joe —To Live and Die in the USA
In the year of our Lord, 2013, the chances are that if you stand in any one place for long enough, some or other cultural product bearing traces of the involvement of prolific polymath James Franco will drift into your orbit. This general rule of thumb goes treble for festivals, and this year’s Venice has been no exception. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if my festival flatmates’ vituperative reactions were anything to go by) I missed the Franco-directed, necrophilia-laced Cormac McCarthy adaptation Child of God, and I also spotted his name in the written credits, presumably as a talking head, for the […]
by Ashley Clark on Sep 3, 2013 -
15 Guided Picks for the SXSW PanelPicker
In a saturated festival landscape, SXSW has long distinguished itself through a grounding sense of community and accessibility. The ever-expanding conference put this notion to the test with the implementation of the SXSW PanelPicker, which calls upon the public to curate its panel programming. Originally launched for the Interactive Festival in 2007, before successfully spilling over to the Film and Music arms in 2011, the PanelPicker invites interested parties to upload presentation, conversation, and panel proposals for broad consideration. Weighing the public vote at 30%, alongside 30% for the festival staff and 40% for its advisory board, SXSW will invite […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 3, 2013 -
Day 10 of 16: Chad Hartigan and This is Martin Bonner
In This is Martin Bonner, Chad Hartigan’s second fiction feature, Martin (the wonderful Australian-born, Seattle-based actor Paul Eenhoorn), is heading into life’s third act and attempting to make something of it. Post-divorce, he moves West to Reno, Nevada, where he takes a job as an outreach counselor, offering spiritual guidance to recently paroled ex-cons. Enter Travis (Richmond Arquette), who, rejoining civilian life after doing time for a hit and run, finds himself adrift, unable to fully assimilate and to connect with his now-grown daughter. In Martin he finds an awkward but needed companionship. This is Martin Bonner‘s narrative is a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2013 -
All The King’s Men: Penny Lane on Our Nixon
In Our Nixon, director Penny Lane explores the Nixon administration by juxtaposing secret White House discussions from the infamous Nixon tapes with incredibly intimate Super 8 footage taken by avid amateur cineastes H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, John Ehrlichmann and Dwight Chapin. The fact that these men also happened to be the chief of staff, special advisor and assistant to our much maligned 37th President is one thing; that they were also three of Nixon’s closest aides and the key conspirators jailed during the aftermath of the Watergate scandal is another entirely. Despite what Ben Stein might say, Our Nixon has little to no polemical […]
by Brandon Harris on Aug 31, 2013 -
Venice 2013 Critic’s Notebook: Gravity and Sorcerer, a Strange Alchemy
While international film festivals, especially those of the calibre and history of Venice (this year celebrating its 70th edition), are most commonly seen as a golden opportunity to catch new cinema from contemporary filmmakers, many offer meaty and mightily tempting repertory programmes loaded with restorations. This year’s Cannes festival, for example, featured restored prints of Vertigo, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Borom Sarret (the first film by a black African: Ousmane Sembene), among sundry others. Venice, as ever, has its own Classics strand, with 29 restorations (and documentaries on cinema), including works by Chantal Akerman, Nagisa Oshima and Satyajit Ray. However, the […]
by Ashley Clark on Aug 31, 2013
