6562 Results for “production”
-
What Does Xbox One Mean for Independent Filmmakers?
Right now the answer is not entirely clear. The Xbox One, which was unveiled in a presentation last week, represents Microsoft’s latest bid for domination of the living room through a single multipurpose device. It’s not a complete reinvention of the Xbox brand, but it integrates and advances several technologies Microsoft has been working on over the years. Microsoft’s accompanying efforts to expand away from hardcore gaming into other areas of entertainment such as streaming video make it a viable contender to the PS4, Apple TV, and other devices/platforms. Here’s the video of the device’s entire reveal. The discussion of […]
by Randy Astle on May 30, 2013 -
Councilwoman Castillo: Margo Guernsey on Making Her Feature-Length Political Documentary
Margo Guernsey has produced promotional mini-docs and videos for a number of non-profits, but for her first feature-length project, “Councilwoman Castillo,” she is focusing on the story of a hotel housekeeper, Carmen Castillo, elected to the City Council in Providence, Rhode Island. The project will cover Castillo’s first three years in office starting with her election in November 2011. Guernsey spoke to us recently about how she became interested in the project and her strategy for shooting and funding this low budget, multi-year project. Filmmaker: What is the story? Guernsey: It’s a story about a hotel housekeeper elected to […]
by Michael Murie on May 29, 2013 -
Letters from Blocked Filmmakers: Zoje Stage
“Isn’t there some form of torture that involves death via a thousand small cuts?” The first sentence — indeed, the entirety of this latest edition of Letters from Blocked Filmmakers — is a heartbreaker. This week’s column makes me alternately want to shake its writer, Zoje Stage, and say, “C’mon, don’t give up,” and applaud the reasoned “I’m moving on” vibe that may lead her to a happier creative place. Intended as her directorial debut, Zoje Stage’s The Machine Who Loved is a screenplay written to be realized on a low-budget, and over the course of six years it has […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2013 -
15 Tips for Producers from the Cannes Film Festival
Learning from your producer colleagues — that’s one of the benefits of attending the Cannes Film Festival and Market. Whether you are premiering a film, hustling a film, or just watching movies, the experience of encountering at multiple parties fellow filmmakers makes Cannes a great place to glean tips on your practice by observing how others are getting it done. In addition to watching movies, this year at Cannes I moderated morning meetings at the Producers Network, of which IFP is a sponsoring partner. I also moderated the “American Producers in Cannes” panel at the American Pavilion and spoke with […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2013 -
Nebraska Star Bruce Dern on Alexander Payne and “the Dernsies”
This interview with Bruce Dern was originally published following the Cannes Film Festival, where Nebraska premiered. If you ever have the good fortune of getting a press pass that grants you access to a roundtable with a Hollywood star, there are few actors out there who could provide a better interview than Bruce Dern, who recently won a Best Actor award at Cannes for his performance in Alexander Payne’s comedic drama, Nebraska. A planned 20-minute roundtable with a few grizzled journalists turned into a half-hour sprawling monologue of memories and observations on movie production, gently flavored with imitations of Hollywood […]
by Chuck Tryon on May 26, 2013 -
Rama Burshtein on Fill the Void
There are few more unlikely and inspiring filmmaking success stories than that of Rama Burshtein. The 46-year-old New York City-born, Israel-based writer/director of Fill the Void had previously made handful of films specifically aimed at Jewish Orthodox audiences, but had defined herself primarily as a mother and a wife. Now she has become the first Israeli Orthodox woman to direct a film intended for those outside the Orthodox community. After going through the Sundance Screenwriting Labs, Burshtein’s debut feature had a remarkable festival run last year, world premiering without much fanfare at the Jerusalem Film Festival but then going on to play at Venice (where […]
by Nick Dawson on May 23, 2013 -
Cannes 2013: Payne’s Nebraska and Puenzo’s Wakolda
Alexander Payne’s Nebraska is an impressive achievement, a fresh and innovative take on that most familiar of genres, the road movie, one that takes conventions about the American heartland and turns them on their head. It’s also a story about a father and son learning to see and understand each other for the first time. The film opens with a shot of Woody Grant (Bruce Dern in what should be a performance that collects numerous awards) shuffling purposefully down a Billings, Montana, highway, his scraggly beard, limping gait and weathered face suggesting a man who has struggled for the little […]
by Chuck Tryon on May 23, 2013 -
Bobbito Garcia on Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball
By some estimates, over half a million people play pick-up basketball in the playgrounds of New York each year. In Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, filmmakers and pick-up basketball enthusiasts Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau set out to create the most comprehensive document of New York City’s summer, outdoor pick-up basketball scene by visiting 180 courts throughout all five of the city’s boroughs. Shot in a breakneck 75 summer days during 2011, their debut documentary has an immediacy and intimacy that speaks to its homemade vibe, even amongst former and current NBA players like Kenny Anderson and Brandon Jennings, […]
by Brandon Harris on May 22, 2013 -
Cannes 2013: Portraits of Purgatory
Portraits of purgatory dot this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with movies that run the gamut in terms of styles and techniques: epic drama, cheeky comedy, documentary, animation, and surrealism. No matter what the setting, the plight is the same, with characters stuck in a cycle of emotional limbo where hope for happiness floats tantalizingly but incessantly out of reach. The most accomplished of the group is The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino’s voluptuously crafted riff on La Dolce Vita and a masterful study of 65-year-old Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a dilettante journalist still coasting on the acclaim of a single early-career […]
by Stephen Garrett on May 22, 2013 -
Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from James Franco
There’s a trend in actor-turned-director helmed films at Cannes this year, an impeccable direction of the people on screen. You can tell there’s a sense of trust and cohesive goal to create something great. One of the clearest examples of this is James Franco’s new feature film, As I Lay Dying, based on the great American classic by William Faulkner, the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. The vivid characters have come to life on the big screen through Franco’s split-screen filmmaking, led by […]
by Ariston Anderson on May 21, 2013
