production | Filmmaker Magazine

BREAKING NEWS: AXIUM PAYROLL SHUTS DOWN

In a sudden and stunning piece of news that’s just breaking within the film production comunity, Axium, one of the industry’s largest payroll services and a leader in the administration of state tax incentives for independent producers, is closing and will be filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In a Chapter 7 corporate bankruptcy, a company ceases its operations and its assets are liquidated to its creditors and investors by a court-appointed trustee. We will try to have more details, including news of what will happen to current productions that have their payroll with Axium, soon. UPDATE, 7:00PM: News on Axium’s closing […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2008

POULTRY POWER

The below was posted on Filmmaker‘s Facebook page by John Fiege, director of the documentary Mississippi Chicken, which was one of our five “Best Film Not Playing Near You” Gotham Award nominees this year. As it’s a general call for support, I’m taking the liberty of posting it here. It’s the holiday season, and in the spirit of Christmas a major poultry company fired one of MPOWER’s board members in what appears to be a retaliatory action for his active involvement in fighting several cases of race discrimination at the plant. MPOWER is the workers’ center that was in the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2008

Juan Antonio Bayona, The Orphanage

THE GHOSTLY TOMÁS (ÓSCAR CASAS) IN DIRECTOR JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA’S THE ORPHANAGE. COURTESY PICTUREHOUSE. Though he looks and dresses like he’s still a teenager, behind Juan Antonio Bayona’s youthful appearance hides a mature and sophisticated cinematic sensibility. The 32-year-old Barcelona native has a passion for movies that first led him to become a precocious journalist, and then to study directing at film school. Since graduating, he has built a formidable reputation making a series of acclaimed commercials, pop promos for Spanish artists such as Hevia, Ella Baila Sola, Camela and OBK, and two short films, Mis Vacaciones (My Holidays) (1999) […]

by Nick Dawson on Dec 28, 2007

Rising Voices

In Denzel Washington’s second directing effort, the Oprah Winfrey produced The Great Debaters, he takes what he learned from his debut, Antwone Fisher, and uses it to make the inspirational true story of one small all-black school’s rise to the top of the college debating ranks in the Jim Crow South. Washington also stars in the film as the rebellious Melvin B. Tolson. Known for his American Modernist poetry and a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance, in the ‘30s Tolson was a professor at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. There he coached the debate team and in 1935 his team […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Dec 21, 2007

FILM IN FOCUS LAUNCHES

I want to take a moment and tell you guys about a new website that Peter Bowen, Nick Dawson and I from Filmmaker are involved with. First, the history. In the late Spring of this year Peter and I had several conversations with Focus Features president James Schamus about film websites — what’s good out there, what’s not, and, most specifically, what’s missing from the film blogosphere. James talked to us about his vision of a site that would be dense with original content appealing to both cineastes as well as a more general audience enthusiastic about specialty film. Intrinsic […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2007

ST. CLAIRE BOURNE, RIP

Sadly, this just in from Adrienne Jones, Treasurer and Membership Director of the Black Documentary Collective: We regret to inform everyone that St Clair Bourne, our founder, has passed away. Details of his passing will follow. Also, information about his memorial service will be sent as soon as we have it. Members have expressed interest in making donations to the family. We would like to contribute money through our BDC/St Clair Bourne fund. If you wish to make a donation, please forward payment to: BDCP.O. Box 610Hamilton Grange StationNew York, NY 10031. In the memo line please write BDC/St Clair […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2007

ANOTHER WAY OF THINKING

Last winter in a Filmmaker article recapping 2006’s most notable trends in independent film, I used as my lede a discussion of metrics — how, in every business, there’s some kind of unit of evaluation, but how in independent film that yardstick is often hopelessly confused. First-time filmmakers exorcising personal demons or doc makers espousing outside-the-mainstream viewpoints are later shocked and disheartened when their films don’t get picked up by a mini-major and gross Michael Moore numbers. Why don’t, I wrote, filmmakers consider things like the importance of transmitting the film’s message and their own enjoyment and personal growth as […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 9, 2007

Frank Cappello, He Was A Quiet Man

CHRISTIAN SLATER IN DIRECTOR FRANK CAPPELLO’S HE WAS A QUIET MAN. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Whether he’s writing, directing, creating special effects, playing music, or simply recounting anecdotes, Frank Cappello seems to have a compulsive need to entertain. He honed his storytelling skills as a kid reading out his imagined motocross adventures to classmates, and then spent years writing spec scripts while working in special effects. Though the first script he sold, Suburban Commando (1991), became a derided Hulk Hogan vehicle, it was a launchpad for Cappello to direct two genre pictures. American Yakuza (1993) and No Way Back (1995) both […]

by Nick Dawson on Nov 30, 2007

SUNDANCE ’08 PREMIERES, SPECTRUM, NEW FRONTIER AND MIDNIGHT FILMS ANNOUNCED

Sundance announced the films in their Premieres, Spectrum, New Frontier and Midnight sections today. Included in the list is the closing night film, Neil Young‘s documentary CSNY Deja Vu, on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Freedom of Speech Tour” and The Salt Lake City Gala will feature the world premiere of The Great Buck Howard, directed by Sean McGinly and stars Colin Hanks, John Malkovich and Emily Blunt. Other notable names in the pack are Michel Gondry, Brad Anderson, Barry Levinson, Stacy Peralta, Morgan Spurlock, the Duplass brothers and (wait for it…) Michael Keaton in his directorial debut. Full list […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 29, 2007

OFFENSIVE PLASTIC-NESS

A few years ago producer Ted Hope was at the forefront of the indie campaign against the major studios’ “screener policy” — the edict that specialty film companies could not use mailed promotional screeners in their Academy campaigns. Hope, along with producer Jeff Levy-Hinte and a group of allied production companies, won a court battle and the studio policy was reversed. Now, Hope has emailed about another issue concerning screeners — specifically, their impact on the environment. While other parts of the industry are going green, the mailed output of two companies in particular are not. From Ted Hope: After […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2007

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.

6579 Results for “production”