production | Filmmaker Magazine

Paolo Sorrentino, Il Divo

TONI SERVILLO IN WRITER-DIRECTOR PAOLO SORRENTINO’S IL DIVO. COURTESY MUSIC BOX FILMS. If Paolo Sorrentino represents the future of Italian cinema, then the country’s filmic output certainly should be exciting in years to come. The highly accomplished writer-director was born in Naples in 1970, and first became involved in filmmaking in the mid-90s when he was an assistant director on a couple of films, The Gas Inspector and Drogheria (both 1995). Finding himself poorly suited to production work, Sorrentino transitioned into screenwriting, jointly penning Polveri di Napoli with the film’s director Antonio Capuano in 1998. The same year, he wrote […]

by Nick Dawson on Apr 24, 2009

TRIBECA QUICK TAKE: GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH

Walk in a few minutes late and you’ll miss the set-up and most of the actual plot of Damien Chazelle’s lovely debut feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. Guy’s a young, handsome, somewhat taciturn jazz musician who seems to move from one short-lived romantic encounter to another while saving his real passion for his trumpet. Madeline is a pretty, shy, somewhat directionless young woman who meets Guy, is affected by him and his music, and then is abruptly cut loose as Guy’s eye wanders. And yes, that’s all in the first few minutes and told mostly without dialogue. […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2009

WHAT ARE THE TRENDS OF 2009?

In the current issue of Filmmaker we feature an excerpt for Scott Kirsner’s new book, Fans, Friends and Followers. Now, HDFilmTools.com has produced a conversation with Scott in which he discusses some of the macro trends affecting production, distribution and audience consumption in our business right now. Part One is here, and you can follow the links for Part Two and Part Three.

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2009

John Crowley, Is Anybody There?

MICHAEL CAINE AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR JOHN CROWLEY’S IS ANYBODY THERE? COURTESY STORY ISLAND ENTERTAINMENT. Along with Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, John Crowley is part of a recent wave of Irish theater influx into film. Born in 1969, Crowley is a philosophy graduate from the University of Cork in Ireland who first became involved in theater as a student, seeing it as a way to get into directing film. He began directing plays in Dublin in the early 90s and was successful enough that already in 1996 he was working in London’s West End. After a few years, […]

by Nick Dawson on Apr 17, 2009

IFP ANNOUNCES DOC LINE UP FOR FILMMAKER LAB

The IFP has just released the ten projects selected for their Independent Filmmaker Lab, hosted by Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. For five days this week the filmmaking teams will participate in workshops in which they receive advice on technical, creative, and post-production issues. There are two tiers of mentorship support: via the program’s Lab Leaders who lead each of the five-day-long intensive sessions, and workshop leaders who provide technical, creative and strategic support to help bring films to completion. The 2009 Documentary Lab leaders are producer Lori Cheatle (51 Birch Street) and producer Lesli Klainberg (Paul Monette: The Brink […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 16, 2009

SIMON CHANNING WILLIAMS, 1945 – 2009

Simon Channing Williams, one of the towering figures in British cinema, died Sunday of cancer. Williams was best known as Mike Leigh’s producer and his partner in Thin Man Films, their production company. Commented Leigh in The Guardian, “”He was a natural-born producer, a great leader, always an enabler, a protector; never a dictator or an interferer. Infinitely generous, his life was all about doing things for people, and bringing out the best in everybody. He was the ultimate fixer, and a phenomenal organiser. He relished the impossible challenge, and loved the cut-and-thrust of negotiations, at which he was a […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009

SO YOU THINK AGENTING IS EASY?

Via Everything Unfinished, the blog over at Identity Theory, comes an interesting post on the law of supply and demand, marketability, and the Darwinian nature of the marketplace. The discussion is prompted by a post on Curtis Brown literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog, and it’s about the world of book publishing, but it’s not hard to extrapolate the data and apply it to the world of film and screenplay representation. On Monday Bransford is beginning a contest that is inspired by all the grumbling he’s heard from writers who complain that agents don’t respond to queries. Bransford will be posting […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2009

WOUTER BARENDRECHT, 1965 – 2009

I was stunned to receive a call from a friend this afternoon telling me that Wouter Barendrecht, co-chairman of the top arthouse international sales and production company Fortissimo Films, died suddenly this weekend in Bangkok. Wouter has been a bedrock of international art film distribution as long as I have been in the film business. His exquisite taste, championing of auteurs new and established, business savvy, uncanny networking ability and indefatigable good cheer at the festivals he seemed to effortlessly navigate were all things anyone who worked in world cinema strived to emulate. This is a devastating loss, for both […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 5, 2009

WHY THE RECESSION COULD BE GOOD FOR FILMMAKERS

There are many reasons why the current recession is bad for films and filmmakers. Venture capital is drying up; lacking stock portfolio gains, individual investors don’t have the “mad money” that once fueled indie film production; and the entertainment conglomerates are cutting back by axing the specialty divisions that were the buyers for our films. However, there are reasons why which the recession may turn out to be a good thing for filmmakers, and some of these are the same reasons I just listed above. At the Steady Diet of Film blog, Erin Donovan posts, “Why the financial collapse is […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2009

BASHIR WINS FOUR AWARDS AT 2nd CINEMA EYE HONORS

Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir took home four awards including Outstanding Achievement in Direction at last night’s Cinema Eye Honors, which highlight the year’s achievements in non-fiction. Handed out by the event’s creators — filmmaker AJ Schnack and Thom Powers, documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival — at the Times Center in the New York Times building, James Marsh‘s Oscar winning doc Man on Wire was awarded the evening’s big award, Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction, along with two other prizes. Yung Chang‘s Up the Yangtze won the Debut Feature award as well as Audience Choice. The full list […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 30, 2009

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6579 Results for “production”