Filmmaker has a longstanding policy of not covering projects in which its staff members are involved — which is why you have never read in the pages of the magazine about Tom Noonan’s What Happened Was or The Wife, Harmony Korine’s Gummo or Julien Donkey-Boy, Jesse Peretz’s First Love, Last Rights or The Chateau, Peter Sollet’s Raising Victor Vargas and John Leguizamo’s Undefeated, among numerous other films — each of which was produced by Filmmaker editor Scott Macaulay and his partner at Forensic Films, Robin O’Hara. However, we’ve been chomping at the bit to spill the beans about Scott and […]
There’s a great lead article in Variety this week by Dana Harris and Claude Brodesser — sorry, subscription only — titled “Films Buried Alive.” And although the headline might lead you to think that the piece is about the many long-delayed films on the Miramax release shelf, it’s actually a perceptive article about the politics involved in greenlighting a studio film. It confirms in print something producers have long known: despite the importance placed by studio execs on the development process, the scripts that actually get greenlit by the studios are often the least developed ones. And if there’s one […]
Back in 1999, the first film I ever worked on was Raul Ruiz’s The Golden Boat (James Schamus’s first production), and, using some grant money that I raised at my job at The Kitchen, I got my friend John Zorn to do the score. (I ran into Zorn on the street a while ago and he told me he’d score another film of mine if I asked — “But you know the drill,” he said. “I’ll do it, fast, cheap, but I get complete creative control!” Anyway, John did amazing work for not much money, and one of the score’s […]
When I was a teenager growing up in Washington, D.C., I was held briefly in the thrall of an amazing radio station, WGTB. I say “briefly” because the station, a fixture in the D.C. alternative/punk/progressive/radical politics communities, was shut down by its patron, the Jesuit-owned Georgetown University, over an abortion rights program only a couple of months after I had discovered it. But during that time, the programming (the closest comparison for New Yorker’s is WFMU) had a big impact on me, and bands and musicians I discovered on its airwaves shaped my tastes forever. One of the things WGTB […]
Filmmaker‘s blog, which we are having fun doing, hasn’t either ascended or descended, according to your point of view, into the realm of the purely personal yet. I have to say, while most of my favorite blogs are either link-oriented (like the great Greencine Daily) or else a mixture of links and commentary (like my favorite political blog, the Whisky Bar), I do admire those who lay their lives out on the web, updating the world on their business and/or personal adventures. There aren’t a huge number of working filmmakers who are doing this, but there are a few. Writer/director […]
Most producers I know have their favorite teamster captains and are skilled at figuring out whose personality will mesh best with the particular needs of production. But the “teamster casting” process takes a new twist according to day’s Variety, which notes that 500 New York and L.A. casting directors are formally seeking to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The casting directors and associates cite lack of health care coverage, late pay and performing uncompensated work as key issues that have driven the organizing effort,” Variety writes. The Variety article goes on to suggest that casting directors may […]
On Hollywood films and also those by conscientious independents, the American Humane Association is brought in by the production to “monitor animal activity” when animals are featured on the set. But as producers know, the AHA isn’t just there to protect the lives of the animals — the organization also serves to protect the sensibilities of the performers. Case in point: John C. Reilly reportedly walked off the set of Lars von Triers’ new Mandalay in protest after the production slaughtered an “old and sick” donkey on the set. Animal slaughter is nothing new in contemporary filmmaking. Gaspar Noe’s Carne, […]
Years ago, before I worked in film, I was a curator and programmer at The Kitchen, New York’s center for contemporary performance and video. In my first year there, the organization produced a one-off TV special entitled “Two Moon July,” and in it David Byrne performed a work of solo performance art that involved the Talking Head running in giant circles through The Kitchen’s Soho loft space, chanting out the names of future movies culled from the AFM issue of Variety. It might sound a bit slim, but it was a nice piece — there is something oddly poignant and […]
There was interesting news in Variety today — Rick Linklater has been greenlit by Warner Independent Pictures and New York’s Thousand Words to film his adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s great A Scanner Darkly, which will star Keanu Reeves in his first post-Matrix trilogy project. An earlier script was penned by Charlie Kaufman, and the good folks at Muse Productions had the option once — and still list a Chris Cunningham-directed version on their website. Now, however, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s Section 8 are producing the current project with Thousand Words. Most interesting is the note that the movie […]
With his purchase of the Landmark Theatres and Magnolia Pictures and his creation of production company 2929 and the high definition cable network HDNet, which boasts an NYC-based production arm run by Open City Films’ Jason Kliot, Dallas Maverick-owner Mark Cuban has quickly announced himself as one of indie film’s key players. For those who want to know more about Cuban, check out his weblog, which boasts regular postings about the Mavericks, Godsend, the Robert DeNiro/Rebecca Romijn-Stamos movie Cuban produced with Todd Wagner, and Mamma.com, the search engine he just picked up stock in. Regular reading might help you figure […]