production | Filmmaker Magazine

EARTHSHAKER

Chris Gardner in Variety reports today that producer Michael London has launched a new financing and production company, Groundswell Productions. Starting with a capitalization of $55 million, the company plans to raise a total of $100 million and produce five films a year with budgets under $20 million. From the piece: “Groundswell’s business strategy will be a mix of foreign pre-sales for projects with established stars or pure equity investments in filmmaker-driven projects. The company’s slate will mix films from established directors and emerging talent alongside comedies and genre films. London said with Groundswell he will be looking for projects […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2006

REVITALIZED VON TRIER

Adam Dawtry reports in Variety on the latest in artistic gamesmanship from Lars von Trier, who announces a “Statement of Revitality” on the eve of shooting his new film, The Boss of it All. Reacting against various elements of the financing and publicity machine for arthouse cinema, Von Trier has put the last film of his Brechtian America-set Dogville trilogy on hold and is searching, as he did when he created “Dogma 95,” for a new way of working. Here’s his statment: “In conjunction with the departure of Vibeke Windelov, who has been my producer for ten years, and the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 11, 2006

NEW NEW YORK FILMMAKERS ON THE WEB

I received two emails recently from filmmakers who are highlighting their work on newly launched websites. The first was from director and editor Jim Helton, whose Blue Coup D’Etat is, as he describes, a “docu-poetic video blog” where he’s posting “sometimes little silent movies of friends and family, sometimes sound movies, sometimes simple, sometimes complicated.” Helton is a world traveller, and many of these mini-movies capture brief flashes from journies to Bangkok, Koh Samui and other places. Other clips feature (and are birthday gifts to) his filmmaker friends Derek Cianfrance and Shannon Plumb. The second site is BorderLine Films, the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2006

PIRACY, SWARMING AND THE PARADIGM SHIFT OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Producer Ted Hope emailed me about this essential three-part series by Mark Pesce entitled “Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TV.” It’s from May, 2005, but it’s still an utterly relevant essay on how television producers can successfully adapt to a BitTorrent world in which audiences are in control of the process of distribution. Pesce’s predictions are provocative — he believes, for example, that the broadcast networks are soon to morph into high-powered ad agencies as opposed to content distributors — and I’m not sure I agree with all of his advice to producers regarding the content of […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2006

SEXIER THAN PARIS HILTON

Good article in The Guardian about Al Gore’s trip to Sundance with the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. From the piece: “What can a film that has helped make Al Gore sexier than Paris Hilton possibly be about? A partial list of its contents would include the greenhouse gas effect, the proliferation of carbon dioxide, the convection energy of hurricanes, the paradoxical flood-drought syndrome, melting methane in Siberia, the history of the Ice Age and the physics of solar ray absorption. It becomes no clearer why this film is having such an impact when you learn that it largely takes the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2006

1000 BLOODY RED PIECES OF SARAH REDUX

After I posted Ted Hope’s movie pitch, 1000 Red Pieces of Sarah, below, Hope received this email alerting him to a fictional competing project from someone who prefers to be referred to as “an anonymous source”: “Hate to blow your bubble, but (off the record) Michel Gondry is directing the almost exact same movie as a co-production between Palm, Res Magazine, and Tokion Magazine, who has a first look deal with Nathan Hornblower, who controls the underlying rights to the autopsy reports of Eric Red’s victims. Additionally, Governor Schwarzenegger and Ed Pressman are still squabbling over Conan royalties, and the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2006

NO BOO-YAH FOR THE INDIES

Here’s Jim Cramer on the video podcasting revolution: “Bloggers may be stealing readers away from newspapers, but when it comes to audio and video feeds, people will go for high production values. Which would you rather spend time uploading to your iPod: An episode of Lost or a grainy feed of someone prattling about their favorite celeb? So, for a few more years, the media we download will be the same stuff you see or hear on old media. The masses will have to wait for cheap, yet sophisticated production technology in order to win a wider audience. Until then, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 6, 2006

ISRAEL GOES TO PARAMOUNT

As Indiewire and Anne Thompson have reported, veteran exec Amy Israel, who worked acquisitions for Miramax and then production for the L.A. post house The Orphanage, has been named Executive Vice President of Production and Acquisitions at Paramount Classics by its new head, John Lesher. In a statement, Lesher said, “”Amy’s extensive background and stellar reputation makes her an ideal choice to help us create a wholly new, dynamic production and acquisition-driven film business. Her expertise as a producer, and her involvement in some of the most successful independent films of the last decade speak volumes about her leadership and […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2006

CATS AND DOGS WITH LEOS CARAX

In the last Filmmaker I wrote about New Order’s recent video compilation and the various “artist-directed” videos that producer and filmmaker Michael Shamberg commissioned for the band over the years. In the piece, Shamberg announced that a website would be up detailing the project, but, due to health issues — Shamberg took ill in London this summer and was hospitalized for three months — the site was delayed. Now, Shamberg has emailed to say that he’s better and that Kinoteca is online. Over the next few months he will be gradually putting up info on all the New Order video […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2005

IT’S CHEAPER THAN THE ZIEGFELD

Albert Brooks premiered his new movie, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, in Dubai last week. In the film, Brooks’s character is sent by the U.S. Government to Hindu India as well as predominantly-Muslim Pakistan to learn more about Muslims and their taste in humor. From Heba Kandil’s Reuters piece: “Audiences in Dubai gave mixed reviews of the film, which Brooks wrote, directed and starred in. But for the most part, they welcomed it, saying it was refreshing to see a U.S. production that did not vilify Muslims. ‘It was different from the usual movies we see from America. […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 18, 2005

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6579 Results for “production”