production | Filmmaker Magazine

STOPGAP FUNDING FOR NY FILM TAX INCENTIVE PROPOSED

An additional $350 million for the New York State Film Production Tax Credit program has been found to continue supporting the state’s popular film and TV tax incentives. The funds were announced as part of the budget that was proposed today; however, given that last year the state issued $460 million in film and TV tax incentives and that this new $350 million is capped, it’s clearly a stopgap motion for the program. The lack of long-term visibility means that TV shows in particular will be wary of setting up shop in New York for fear that the program will […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2009

STEVEN BACH, R.I.P.

William Grimes in the New York Times reports that Steven Bach, former U.A. studio executive and author of Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate has died of cancer at the age of 70. As an exec he was associated with such films as Annie Hall, Cutter and Bone, and True Confessions, but he is perhaps best remembered for Final Cut. Says critic David Thomson in the Times obit: “It is the best book ever written about the making of a movie. It gives you an understanding of the battles, the egos, and how a film […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2009

THE WORLD’S MOST BAFFLING MOVIE TRAILER

Thanks to Jamie Stuart for the heads up about the trailer for After Last Season, which is in the early stages of going viral by virtue of its genuine oddness. Michael Tully at his Indiewire blog writes, “It’s like Todd Haynes lost his mind after Safe and was hired to direct a series of cable access sci-fi infomercials,” while David Lowery writes, “I’ve watched the trailer about ten times now, and have yet to tire of it. It is so beyond logic in its construction that it essentially reinvents itself anew upon each viewing.” In addition to being featured on […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2009

THE SKOLL WORLD FORUM ON SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, DAY TWO

Here’s the second of our guest blogs from Sundance Lab-supported filmmaker Gayle Ferraro, who is blogging from the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Day 2 The days keep getting better and I am feeling like I have known my fellow filmmakers and the Sundance folks for a long time. It is funny how that happens before you know it. We filmmakers all have code names, an affectionate shorthand, for the people we have all spoken with — the rat guy, the French guy with the cell phones, the water guys…. For the first part of the day I was […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2009

THE INVASION OF BAGHDAD, FIVE YEARS LATER…

We are still putting up our SXSW features, and the latest to go up on our SXSW page is Alicia Van Couvering’s interview with Kristian Fraga and Mike Scotti of the Iraq war doc Severe Clear. Fraga is the director and editor, and Scotti is both subject and cameraman as the film follows him and his fellow soldiers of the 1st Batallion, 4th Marines as the 2003 invasion of Baghdad begins. Writes Van Couvering: We first meet Mike and his unit in a desert camp, where they drink too much, curse too much, make gay jokes and fart jokes, shoot […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009

“SEVERE CLEAR'”S KRISTIAN FRAGA AND MIKE SCOTTI By Alicia Van Couvering

Severe Clear premiered at SXSW this week, five years to the day after the US invasion of Baghdad. Back then, Kristian Fraga was just one of millions, watching events unfold on cable news. First Lieutenant Mike Scotti was crossing the Iraqi border in an artillery tank, and he had a video camera. Severe Clear is a chronicle of the Baghdad invasion culled from over 60 hours of this footage, edited from a pure first-person perspective to ensure that the viewer goes through an experience as close to Mike’s as possible. We first meet Mike and his unit in a desert […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009

BLOGGING FROM THE 2009 SKOLL WORLD FORUM

Today at the Said Business School at Oxford University, England, the 2009 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship kicked off, and with this year’s edition comes a partnership between the Skoll Foundation and the Sundance Institute that sends four doc filmmakers to the forum. As the Skoll Foundation describes the conference, “Each year nearly 800 delegates from more than 60 countries convene for this premier gathering of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Prominent figures from the social, academic, finance, corporate and policy sectors engage for three days and nights in a series of debates, discussions and work sessions focused on […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009

NEW YORK FILM COMMUNITY MOBILIZES IN SUPPORT OF TAX CREDITS

As the clock winds down, members of the New York City film production community are lobbying hard for the continuation of the Empire State Film Production Tax Credit, which has supported a boom in film and television production in New York. Once financing is in place, film production companies can start on a dime, quickly crewing up and supporting local vendors, restaurants, hotels and other businesses. They often attract investment capital from outside the state and even outside the country, and they are swift tools of job creation. Furthermore, when it comes to television production, these jobs stay within the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 23, 2009

THOUGHTS ON FREE, DIGITAL FILM MARKETS, AND THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS

Kudos to Noah Harlan for braving the tape-recorded audio wilds of the breakfast conversation I took part in at SXSW this past week. At the festival CinemaTech’s Scott Kirsner gathered myself, Ted Hope, Lance Weiler, Brian Chirls, Liz Rosenthal, Brett Gaylor and Caitlin Boyle for a morning roundtable in which he asked us what had been on our mind while attending the festival. Each of us spoke for a few minutes and then there was a group discussion. As Harlan notes, the audio quality is poor, and I think an edited version, which I hope one of us can put […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2009

DAVID LOWERY POSTS HIS ST. NICK SCREENPLAY

One of the best received narrative films at SXSW this past week was David Lowery’s St. Nick, his subtle tale of two children making their way through their world mysteriously on their own. Alicia Van Couvering interviewed Lowery for Filmmaker here, and David Hudson rounds up reaction from the blogosphere here, but over at his own blog, Drifting, the writer/director posts the screenplay as a PDF download. Writes Lowery: A few weeks ago, I read over the film’s final shooting script for the first time since production, and was surprised to find it even more exiguous than I remembered. It […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2009

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