Craig Zobel
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Thinking of Tarkovsky While Making New Zealand Look Russian: DP Tim Orr on Z For Zachariah
The settings for Craig Zobel’s 2012 behavioral experiment Compliance and the director’s new post-apocalyptic tale Z for Zachariah couldn’t be more different. The former takes place almost entirely in the claustrophobic confines of a fast food restaurant’s employees-only areas. The latter unfolds amidst lush, bucolic tranquility. Yet at the heart of both films is a study of group dynamics. Set in an idyllic valley mysteriously immune to an extinction-level catastrophe, Z for Zachariah begins as a two-hander featuring Margot Robbie as a Christian farm girl who believes she’s the last person on earth until the arrival of an atheist scientist […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Sep 4, 2015 -
“I Look Forward to Finding More Fears to Address”: Z For Zachariah | Director Craig Zobel
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Trying to name what fear I’ve confronted in making Z For Zachariah is difficult. I am starting to think the entire work of making films is just chock-full of fears to be faced. In my previous film, Compliance, I was honestly afraid of the subject matter; it was a fraught, dark, true story that needed a thought-out approach. But in making that film, I found that those fears created […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 29, 2015 -
Sundance 2015, Dispatch 2: Tangerine, Z For Zachariah and Pervert Park
Sin-Dee (Kiki Kitana Rodriguez) sits on one side of a donut shop booth, her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) on the other. The camera’s on the table, restricted to shot-countershot looking up, with large windows setting both in sharp urban relief against different halves of a large L.A. intersection. With rapid cutting back and forth reminiscent of the dashboard cams in Kiarostami’s 10, Tangerine‘s opening is both intimate and epic, and it’s exciting to see all this space so clearly laid out behind the two. There’s a micro story being established and simultaneously the introduction of a landscape to be explored: an instant […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 25, 2015 -
Rambling On… About Reshoots and Editing on Set
In the final clip from this roundtable discussion between host Russell Constanzo and directors Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag), Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer) and Craig Zobel (Compliance), the quartet talks about the advantages of budgeting for reshoots and how they managed to edit during production. From April 1, the full hour-long roundtable conversation from which this clip is taken will be live on 4/1 at RamblingOn.tv.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 29, 2013 -
Rambling On… About the Definition of Success
In this week’s episode of Rambling On…, host Russell Costanzo talks to directors Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag), Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer) and Craig Zobel (Compliance) about the parameters they put on success, and the pitfalls of being too focused on the perceived success of their movies. Check back next week for another episode of the show, exclusively here on the Filmmaker website.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 21, 2013 -
Rambling On… and Lessons Learned From Your First Feature
On the latest episode of Rambling On…, host Russell Costanzo talks to directors Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer), Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag) and Craig Zobel (Compliance) about the directing wisdom they’ve gained since making their debut movie. Check out a new episode of this great series every week on the Filmmaker site.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 14, 2013 -
Rambling On… Independent Directors Discuss Soderbergh and the Auteur Theory
Rambling On, the independent film interview show produced by filmmakers Russell Costanzo and Melissa B. Miller (The Tested), returns with this latest installment featuring directors talking about, well, directing. Costanzo hosts, and the directors featured are Craig Zobel (Compliance), Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag) and Antonio Campos (Simon Killer). Check it out above, and then in next week for another installment.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 8, 2013 -
Craig Zobel’s Iggy Pop Videos
Indie directors have to take on all kinds of soulless commercial work in order to pay the bills. But I suspect that Compliance writer/director Craig Zobel didn’t have too terrible a time making these videos for the upcoming release of Iggy and the Stooges’ new record, Ready to Die…
by Nick Dawson on Feb 26, 2013 -
Please Hold
In the fall of 2007, I interviewed Craig Zobel about his first film as a director, Great World of Sound, a wryly funny drama about scamming “talent scouts.” Zobel, who for some years worked as a UPM and co-producer for David Gordon Green, was on a high after getting great reviews at Sundance earlier that year, selling Sound to Magnolia at SXSW, and then being chosen as one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces in the summer. As we casually chatted before the interview officially began, Zobel talked about a script he had written that was to be his next movie, […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 19, 2012 -
Photos and Notes from the Maryland Film Festival
The Maryland Film Festival, which wrapped its 2012 edition on Sunday, is one of the East Coast’s most intimate and engaging film events. With 40 features, over 70 shorts and an amazingly healthy contingent of loyal filmmakers annually making the trip to Baltimore, Maryland functions as both a discovery festival and friendly pit stop for directors on the independent circuit. John Waters hosts a movie — this year Barbara Loden’s seminal and still influential Wanda — and takes the audience out partying afterwards; the Opening Night consists of shorts, not some star-bloated, sub-standard mini-major feature; and, for the second year […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 11, 2012
