Fall 2015
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Scoped Out
When filmmaker Laura Poitras joined journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill to form the online news site The Intercept, it didn’t seem a certainty that she’d bring film to the site’s reporting on domestic spying, national security and foreign policy issues. After all, even before her Academy Award for documentary CITIZENFOUR, Poitras had shared a Pulitzer Prize and George Polk award for print reporting on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden appearing in The Guardian and The Washington Post. And, after the awards, Poitras continued covering these stories in print and online — not just for The Intercept, a site owned by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2015 -
Silver Anniversary: The IFP Gotham Awards at 25
The IFP Gotham Awards celebrate their 25th anniversary this November with a ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street. Along with awards going to the top independent films of the year, the Gothams will present Tribute Awards to Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Todd Haynes and Steve Golin. Here, Peter Bowen culls the archives of IFP, Filmmaker’s publisher and parent organization, to find 25 memorable moments from the Gotham’s history of celebrating New York and independent filmmaking. 1991 The Cost of Film In 1991, IFP executive director Catherine Tait stood before a seated crowd of some 400 people at Roseland to explain what […]
by Peter Bowen on Oct 28, 2015 -
The Union Between DPs and Operators
“And that’s when he started yelling into the phone. No, no, no!” My agent laughed a little bit as he retold the story. The union rep was on the other end of the line, and he wasn’t very happy. “Apparently I was the third person to call him about it,” he said. It was three days before principal photography was slated to begin on my current project, and IA600 had made it painfully clear that there was no way they were letting me touch the camera. For many of us indie DPs, there has never been a delineation between shooting […]
by Sean Porter on Oct 28, 2015 -
Super 8: Class Action
Fox 100th By the time you read this, Fox will be well underway with its “Fox 100th” initiative. To commemorate its 100 years, 20th Century Fox is making 100 of its films available for digital rental (and, in many cases, purchase) in HD. Taking a deep approach to its catalogue rather than focusing on the most obvious titles, the Fox 100 body of titles is overwhelmingly slanted to films made before 1950. Some of these have never been available on home video before, like Raoul Walsh’s vibrantly racist, rowdy and essential 1933 pre-Code drama The Bowery; classic film buffs will […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 28, 2015 -
Teaching Virtual Reality
Last year’s New Frontier section of the Sundance Film Festival included 11 virtual reality projects, helping sanction a technology that, like 3-D, has come and gone several times in the past but suddenly seems to be everywhere. Filmmakers, game designers, media artists and storytellers of all kinds are exploring a new language of story experience, while culturally, pundits are pondering the benefits, and problems, of VR, as evidenced in Maria Konnikova’s “Virtual Reality Gets Real” piece in the October 2015 issue of The Atlantic. Last April, The New York Times Magazine took things a step further with a cover for […]
by Holly Willis on Oct 28, 2015 -
Blood, Simple
Creative freedom can be a real motherfucker. As anyone who has tried to make something — a story, a poem, a painting, a movie — can attest, the mantra “go ahead, make whatever you want” can lead to paralysis when it comes to actually creating something of distinction. Having unlimited creative options is like having none. There’s a long and rich history in cinema of self-conscious efforts to impose strictures on the filmmaking process, whether it be the Dogme 95 movement, the single-take technique (Victoria, directed by Sebastian Schipper, is a recent example), or the structural limitations imposed by the […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Oct 28, 2015 -
Carol Sound Designer Leslie Shatz
It’s the middle of the week and I’m walking with sound designer Leslie Shatz from 34th Street toward Times Square. Manhattan’s mayhem is a fusion of random crowds and even more random noises. Leslie abruptly asks me to keep quiet for a few moments while he takes out his phone and starts recording the sounds of the street. I realize that he is in search of new ideas. “You can shut your eyes, but you cannot shut your ears,” he says. “Sound is always a tool you can use in interesting and different ways.” Sound designer Leslie Shatz, winner of a rare […]
by Sasha Korbut on Oct 28, 2015 -
Hell on Earth: László Nemes on Son of Saul
László Nemes’s debut feature Son of Saul was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes this year. Taking place over a 36-hour-period at Auschwitz in 1944, the film tells the story of Saul, a member of the “Sonderkommandos,” the Jews forced to handle the dead bodies in the crematorium. When Saul sees the body of a boy he believes to be his son, he goes on an impossible mission to try to save the body from the flames and find a rabbi who can recite the Kaddish to give the boy a proper burial. Saul risks everything and stops at nothing, […]
by Shevaun Mizrahi on Oct 28, 2015 -
Is TV Killing Indie Film?
Is TV usurping independent film? That was one of the main takeaways in a recent Filmmaker Magazine article written by producer Mike S. Ryan (“TV is Not the New Film”). With veteran producers, writers and directors heading to HBO, Netflix and Amazon in droves; with audiences affixed to the latest show recaps; and with film festival programmers dedicating more slots to episodic storytelling, it sure seems so. But if you talk to working indie-film professionals, the question appears to be slightly off the mark. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether long-form storytelling is supplanting indie film, but how it’s enabling […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Oct 28, 2015 -
How to Deliver Your Film to a Festival
Note (May 2018): the updated version of this article can be found here. Format. Codec. Audio. DCP. You’ve worked on your movie now for some time and have been eagerly waiting for acceptance emails from festivals. One lands in your inbox, and you excitedly read through the letter until, when you get to the festival’s technical requirements, you develop a sense of dread. The tersely worded communication from the technical director (glad we could finally meet) would put you to sleep if it didn’t terrify you. But don’t panic. Instead, phone your editor, and read this guide. Caveat emptor, though: […]
by Sergio Andrés Lobo-Navia on Oct 28, 2015
