6580 Results for “production”
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David Lowery
In the middle of writing the follow up to his 2009 feature, St. Nick, David Lowery was stuck. “I reached a point in the script where it became very difficult,” Lowery remembers. “I was trying to make it an action movie, but I wasn’t sure why I wanted to make the story. So I did what I always do when I’m fed up, which is go for a run.” While jogging, Lowery plucked the seed of a scene from his script — a father talking to his daughter one night — and spun it out into something a little different: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
Kitao Sakurai
A typical route for an archetypal, coastal-based independent filmmaker might look something like this. First, one goes to film school, hopefully at either one of the well-known private universities in New York or Los Angeles (Columbia, NYU, USC) with large alumni networks, or at one of the big state schools with laudable programs (Texas at Austin, UCLA). Ideally one makes a killer short that catches the attention and gains the respect of the gatekeepers. These individuals, whether they are agents, sales reps, festival programmers or writers for Filmmaker, may help a new filmmaker get the recognition and reputation within the […]
by Billy Brennan on Jul 17, 2011 -
Andrew S Allen & Jason Sondhi
By the time Andrew S Allen and Jason Sondhi posted their latest short, The Thomas Beale Cipher, on the Internet, they had it all figured out. “There’s a myth about online video that you can just put it up and the masses will discover it, that it’s a meritocracy,” Allen says. “But that doesn’t always happen. There are great films online that only have 200 views.” Allen wrote and directed the animated film, Sondhi produced, and they both knew to do things like post it on multiple platforms at once and to immediately mobilize a community of video bloggers to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: MATT PORTERFIELD’S “I USED TO BE DARKER”
What do you do when your first Kickstarter campaign, which included a heartfelt personal direct-address video, has been cited as one of the best, and most successful, indie film ventures on the crowdfunding site? Well, you mix it up a bit for the next one. Putty Hill director Matt Porterfield is raising money for the production of his new feature, I Used to be Darker, which is shooting in three weeks. It’s a drama about marriage and divorce, and it’s set within the Baltimore music industry. Here’s the synopsis: When Taryn, a Northern Irish runaway, finds herself pregnant in Ocean […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 15, 2011 -
SCHAMUS, ZIZEK (AND ADORNO) IN RAMALLAH
James Schamus — screenwriter, professor and Focus Features CEO — travelled to Ramallah last month with philosopher Slavoj Zizek to give a series of talks to young filmmakers and students, including those from the Jenin Freedom Theater. At Guernica, Schamus writes about the event, including his use of Adorno as a teaching tool and a visit to a rehearsal of the Freedom Theater’s upcoming open-air production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Here’s Schamus’s opening for the piece, titled “How I Spent My Summer Vacation, or Adorno in Ramallah.” A Friday afternoon in the village of Bil’in is quite an experience, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 15, 2011 -
Polish Brothers Release Successful No-Budget Movie On iTunes
From Steve Pond at The Wrap comes a piece on the Polish Brothers’ latest, a French-shot no-budget romance called For Lover’s Only, which was made with a production budget of, the article says, “zero,” and has already made $200,000 on iTunes. It stars Mark Polish and Stana Katic (Detective Kate Beckett on ABC’s Castle), and it was shot on a Canon 5D, with the filmmakers posing as tourists, not worrying about location fees, and, writes Pond, “They even got the film classified as an experimental film by the Screen Actors Guild, which meant they didn’t have to pay Katic, who […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 13, 2011 -
American Idol: Tabloid Director Errol Morris
As globalism renders the world ever smaller, national boundaries seem increasingly porous, if not outright irrelevant to the study of cinema. Yet Errol Morris still strikes me as a distinctly American filmmaker. From pet cemeteries in California (Gates of Heaven) to death row in Texas (The Thin Blue Line), from the Vietnam War (The Fog of War) to the Iraq War (Standard Operating Procedure), and in ads for the presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama, Morris tends to bring his insatiable curiosity and searing intellect to stories and characters that, for all their strangeness and improbability, are inseparable […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Jul 13, 2011 -
SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES THIS YEAR’S CREATIVE PRODUCING INITIATIVES
The Sundance Institute announced today the participants for its annual Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit, which will take place in Sundance, Utah starting July 18. From the 18-22, ten projects will participate in the Labs (five narrative, four documentaries) and receive ongoing support throughout the year. Following the Labs, from the 22-24, leaders in the independent film community will partake in the Summit that will include case study sessions, panels, roundtable discussions, one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions. Summit panelists include Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment), Victoria Cook (Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz), Liesl Copland (William Morris Endeavor), Eric d’Arbeloff […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jul 12, 2011 -
TRAILER WATCH: SWANBERG AND WINGARD’S “AUTOEROTIC”
In recent months, Joe Swanberg has been making movies. A lot of movies. I don’t know how many, but I think his unreleased films could outnumber other filmmakers’ back catalogs. And, I think he’s thinking of interesting new ways to get them out. Hopefully there will be more news on that front soon, but in the meantime, here, via Indiewire, is the trailer (NSFW, by the way) for Autoerotic, his latest film premiering via IFC Midnight. The ensemble cast features the talented Kate Lyn Sheil (Green), and the film is co-directed by Adam Wingard. According to IFC Midnight: Autoerotic follows […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 12, 2011 -
CHOOSING ANOTHER ROAD TOWARDS DIRECTING
Last September I blogged a bit for this site about my experiences as part of the 2010 Emerging Narrative class within the Independent Filmmaker Project’s (IFP) Project Forum at Independent Film Week (here, if you’re so inclined.) As a direct result of IFP’s support and my experience at Ind. Film Week, I sold my screenplay to a Hollywood studio a few months ago, which (Filmmaker Magazine editor) Scott Macaulay kindly covered here. Being part of Emerging Narrative quickly changed my life, but not without my careful consideration of what those changes might mean, and going forward with an open but […]
by Marc Maurino on Jul 12, 2011
