6560 Results for “production”
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The Opportunity of a Lifetime
Is there such a thing as an opportunity of a lifetime? During the first two days of IFP’s Independent Film Week, it became clear that the answer is yes and no. Yes, a conversation, a short film, a meeting, a festival acceptance, can be the opportunity that changes everything, but a career isn’t just a year or one film – it’s a lifetime of dedication to craft. In his impressively extemporaneous speech, J.C. Chandor (above) recalled not the glories of having his first feature, Margin Call, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, but the 15 years he spent trying to […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Sep 18, 2012 -
Shooting with John: The Occupation of Indie Film
If independent film is going to prosper well into the 21st century, many would agree that there must be some sort of interdependence between filmmakers, a collective effort that will help everyone to communicate and share resources. Thankfully, there is already a driven group of Americans who are doing exactly that, providing a template that indie film can examine and emulate. It’s the Occupy movement. No matter how you feel about their politics, Occupy has utilized new technology and social media better than many organizations and affinity groups in the United States. And if you look closely at how they […]
by Marty Lang on Sep 17, 2012 -
Delirium
I haven’t taken many classes on pitching. Wait. I’ve never taken any classes on pitching. Pitching is meant to be a precise, pressurized maneuver that either takes your project to the next stage or closes another door in its face. It is the subject of much study, stress and numerous overpriced workshops. Naturally, one always feels some amount of pressure before a pitch–similar to what I experienced as a dancer prior to going on stage each evening. Regardless of how many past meetings were nailed or how many accolades were received, one rarely goes into these “performances of passion” without […]
by Jodi Redmond on Sep 17, 2012 -
Love and Documentaries
A year ago, I met, fell for and married another filmmaker in three months. We spent the year getting lost in our own world of odd hours, late nights, and bursts of travel–it turns out we are part of a loose tribe of shooters and lovers of the documentary film world. Nowhere has this tribe been more pronounced than at the IFP Labs, where six of the films produced this year involve similar pairs. Some people may cringe at the idea of spending 24/7 with their partner for weeks on end. But to members of our tribe, whose passions often […]
by Valentina Canavesio on Sep 17, 2012 -
From the Filing Cabinet Drawer to the Silver Screen
“You’re young, you haven’t done anything, and no one wants to work with you,” our first agent said to us after we graduated film school. He was absolutely right. We were trying to write what we thought were mainstream Hollywood comedies but to our shock, it was hard to get the second screenplay we’d ever written to the biggest comedy stars on the planet. That’s when we decided to write something smaller for two local New York comedians who we thought were hilarious and, more importantly, we thought we could get. Six months later, we had a screenplay about two […]
by Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer on Sep 17, 2012 -
Hellion Grows Into a Feature
It was the spring of 2011 and I’d just wrapped an eight-year run as the Film Program Director at the Austin Film Festival. I was looking to produce more when a long time friend, writer/director Kat Candler, came to me with a short script called Hellion. Flash forward to January of 2012 and we’re bringing our six-minute short film Hellion to the Sundance Film Festival. It was truly one of the greatest experiences we’ve had surrounded by an audience that embraced the film. It was a strange experience for me being on what I called “the other side of the badge,” as a […]
by Kelly Williams on Sep 17, 2012 -
Five Questions with Knuckleball! Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg
Knuckleball, the new documentary from Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, is about a small group of athletes who’ve gone against the grain. Just a handful of pitchers in the century-plus history of Major League Baseball have relied on the famously unpredictable knuckleball, a pitch that doesn’t spin yet darts every which way. Stern and Sundberg followed two of these guys—Tim Wakefield, of the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Mets’ R.A. Dickey (above)—for the duration of 2011 season. Significantly lighter than the Manhattan-based filmmakers’ previous documentaries—The Devil Came on Horseback was about the genocide in Sudan; The Trials of […]
by Kevin Canfield on Sep 17, 2012 -
The Power of the Humble Bar Napkin
I had a lunch meeting with two of my partners on an international co-production. We are planning a South Africa / Canada treaty co-production on a $15m film and planned to meet up at Strategic Partners. Today, we worked on our laptops, smartphones and iPads as we ate sushi on the beautiful Halifax waterfront. After an hour, we hit an obstacle in our work and were uncertain how to proceed. Then later, my Canadian partner started talking to a UK producer who is a good friend I made at TAP, and she had different thoughts. A German producer weighed in […]
by Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat on Sep 17, 2012 -
The Best and Worst of the Toronto International Film Festival
Maybe I’m just a delusional film buff, but after a quarter-century of attending the Toronto International Film Festival – now affectionately called TIFF, a less compensatory moniker for Canadians with a complex than the laughably arrogant Toronto Festival of Festivals label of yore – I believe that the event and its component parts echo the unique demographic of this large North American city. The festival’s multiple ethnic and racial sections coexist snugly. More than any other big international film festival, TIFF – proudly uncommercial – is built upon a carefully balanced assortment of heterogeneous cinemas: national and generic, mainstream and esoteric, the spanking new and […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 17, 2012 -
The Week in Cameras: iPhone, Full-Frame and IBC News
Another week, another iPhone announcement. I remember when I used to hang on every word as a new iPhone was released. What were the features? When would it be available? When could I order it? I’ve even lined up – twice – just to get it on the first day. In retrospect, does it really make sense to stand in line for several hours waiting for a… phone? But now it’s the sixth “new” iPhone (Original, 3G, 3Gs, 4, 4s, 5) and I find I’m not so enraptured. I don’t need to know immediately whether the camera is any better (see footnote […]
by Michael Murie on Sep 17, 2012
