6562 Results for “production”
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Ryan Koo on Amateur, Feature Fundraising, and the Kickstarter Long Game
In the Fall of 2011, filmmaker Ryan Koo — featured along with then-partner Zachary Lieberman on our 2008 “25 New Faces” — announced his debut feature, Man-child. Embarking on an ambitious Kickstarter campaign, Koo leveraged not only the community he had been building via his excellent website, No Film School, but also his project’s selection for the IFP and Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Visions program. The campaign was a success, raising $125,100, and, as he’s moved his story of youth basketball forward, Koo has been, essentially, open-sourcing his progress, giving advice on not only social-media fundraising but screenplay […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2013 -
Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta on Midnight’s Children
“You must tell him about the greeting cards,” Deepa Mehta said to Salman Rushdie the other day. The director and the writer were sitting next to one another in a book-lined room in a midtown Manhattan hotel, and as they prepared to field a few of my questions about their new film, she urged Rushdie to share an anecdote about the movie’s source material, his famed novel Midnight’s Children. Rushdie complied. “It’s sold millions of copies,” he said, sounding less like a boastful author than a man stating a simple fact. “And in India it’s sold zillions extra because there […]
by Kevin Canfield on Apr 17, 2013 -
Five Questions with Herman’s House Director Angad Singh Bhalla
Angad Singh Bhalla uses film to bring us voices we rarely hear. After spending months with Indian villagers who had been resisting an alumina project backed by the Canadian company Alcan, he produced his first independent project U.A.I.L. Go Back. It was used widely as an organizing tool and helped pressure Alcan to end its involvement in the project. Passionate about using media as a tool for social change, Bhalla has since produced videos for groups including the Service Employees International Union, Human Rights Watch, and The Center for Constitutional Rights. His award-winning short on the lives of Indian street […]
by David Licata on Apr 16, 2013 -
Why Filmmaking is Like Software Design
Before becoming a filmmaker I spent 15 years designing software. Started out as a Mac OS programmer and then moved to Microsoft Windows. My endeavors included all things visual—from icon design and screen layout, to the more abstract design patterns found in system architecture and coding. What I discovered along the way was that the most elegant solutions—the products that worked best, most reliably, and resonated strongly with their user base—were always the most simple and minimalist in design. And there was always room for improvement via testing, focus groups, and refactoring (a techie word for the iterative process of […]
by A.D. Calvo on Apr 15, 2013 -
The Freeman Brothers on Cell Count, The Weather Outside and Indie Genre Filmmaking
Brothers Todd and Jason Freeman are a filmmaker duo who have been working together for more than 15 years. They collaborate closely during the creative process yet each writes and directs their own films. I caught them fresh off of completing two microbudget movies back-to-back. Jason’s feature, The Weather Outside, is a kind of noir drama which takes place over the Christmas holidays. Todd’s film, Cell Count, is a body horror flick about the side-effects of an experimental drug treatment. Filmmaker: How do you work as both brothers and a filmmaking team? Jason: Well, it starts early on. One of […]
by Michael Medaglia on Apr 12, 2013 -
The New Digital Storytelling Series: Brett Gaylor
In the sixth part of Filmmaker‘s interview project with prominent figures from the world of transmedia, conducted through the MIT Open Documentary Lab, Brett Gaylor, Senior Director of Mozilla’s Webmaker initiative (including Mozilla PopcornMaker and Popcorn.js) answers our questions. Gaylor has previously been a member of the EyeSteelFilm documentary production company, the founder of Open Source Cinema and the web producer of Homeless Nation. For an introduction to this entire series, and links to all the installments so far, check out “Should Filmmakers Learn to Code,” by MIT Open Documentary Lab’s Sarah Wolozin. MIT Open Documentary Lab: How did you become a digital […]
by MIT Open Documentary Lab on Apr 11, 2013 -
Graham Meriwether on American Meat
Even in the heart of the Midwest, where driving past rural pastures dotted with cows is not uncommon, I rarely thought of where my food came from. How often as a child or young adult, chomping on a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy’s or slurping up Cincinnati-style chili at my mother’s dining room table, was I confronted intellectually with the fragility and inhumanity of our modern food production system, especially when it comes to the most popular proteins in the American diet, beef and chicken? I doubt a meal went by that wouldn’t cause my older self anxiety. It’s almost shameful […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 11, 2013 -
Making Sense of To the Wonder
Terrence Malick lends himself well to hyperbole. Few other filmmakers make the act of writing about movies feel like such a fool’s errand; no other is as hard to write about in a measured way. In one of the few interviews he’s given, the director says at one point, “When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in clichés. That doesn’t make them laughable; it’s something tender about them — as though in struggling to reach what’s most personal about them they could only come up with what’s most public.” This may be the most […]
by Michael Nordine on Apr 10, 2013 -
Meet the Latest SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 3)
Last year on the Filmmaker website, we ran a series of pieces in which we profiled a group of finalists for the San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant, run through the organization’s Filmmaker360 program. Now there’s a new set of finalists, and we are once again putting the spotlight on all those shortlisted for the grant. You can read Part 1 of this current series here and Part 2 of the series here. JONAS CARPIGNANO (WRITER/DIRECTOR), A CHJÀNA Synopsis: After leaving his native Burkina Faso, Ayiva makes the perilous journey across the Sahara and Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe. Once in Italy, he […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 9, 2013 -
Blackmagic Puts Some Life – and 4K – into NAB
When it comes to cameras, this year’s NAB was looking to be a consolidation year, rather than one of great innovation. Sony had only recently begun shipping their F5 and F55 4K cameras, and had no real camera announcements, though they did announce the prices for their 65” and 55” 4K displays. Canon announced that they were developing a 35mm cine lens and a few other things, but no new cameras. But then along came Blackmagic to disturb the status quo by announcing two new cameras: the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K. The latter is […]
by Michael Murie on Apr 9, 2013
