Ben Weissner
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Sheltering in Place: The Independent Film Community Faces the Coronavirus Shutdown
It was February, 2020. At New York’s Steiner studios, the largest studio lot outside of LA, people were busily prepping Lin Manuel Miranda’s highly anticipated directorial debut, Tik, Tik…Boom! The movie was set to begin shooting in two weeks, and Jessie Pellegrino, a seasoned assistant prop master, paused her work to sit through a mandatory Netflix HR meeting. Near the end of the session, one of her colleagues raised his hand. “What’s Netflix’s plan for us if coronavirus forces our shoot to shut down?” The HR rep responded the best she could at the time. They were working on it; […]
by Kishori Rajan on Mar 24, 2020 -
Beast Beast, Lingua Franca Take Prizes at U.S. in Progress Paris
Beast Beast, the first feature from Danny Madden, took the top prize at U.S. in Progress Paris on Friday. In a statement, the jury (of which I was a member), wrote of the multi-strand story, “The film is a successful attempt to capture the present teenage generation. The director approaches his protagonists with empathy and understanding. The film has a strong political (gun control in particular) and social aspect while remaining an entertaining and creative piece of work.” Beast Beast is produced by Vanishing Angle (Matt Miller, Tara Ansley, and Benjamin Wiessner), and Alec Baldwin is an executive producer. A […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 23, 2019 -
Disclosed: Producers and Therapists on Dealing with the Stress of a Demanding Profession
There’s a simple definition of producing that mostly has to do with developing and financing a production, overseeing the shoot, protecting a vision. But scratch a little deeper, and producers will open up with more personal responses. Producing is about love, for example — loving the movie, above all, and continuing to love it over the years and decades of its existence. Producing is about support — being everyone’s advocate, from the director to the actor to the crew. Producing is about protecting a vision, yes, but also assuaging the fears of partners who worry that that vision is too […]
by Taylor Hess on Dec 17, 2018 -
Music Video: David Gilmour Meets Ornana with “The Girl in the Yellow Dress”
Ben Weissner and the gang at Ornana — Filmmaker 25 New Faces in 2012 — have just passed along this video for “The Girl in the Yellow Dress,” a single from Pink Floyd guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour’s new solo album. Explains Weissner about the video’s hand animation: His creative team had seen Confusion Through Sand (which has been re-edited to play at his live concerts) and were drawn to the dimensionality and movement in that style, so they asked if we’d bring a similar technique to their song. The music video is made of about 9.000 frames of animation that were […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2015
