When I studied at the London Film School just over a decade ago, students originated all of our projects on 35 and 16mm film and cut them on Steenbecks and Avid Media Composer. What a difference a dozen years make: Now schools have moved beyond the digital video revolution and computer animation to whole new media and formats. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are forming increasingly large components of university curricula, giving a shot of innovation to narrative filmmaking in the academy and bringing university computer science programs into the realm of traditional film schools. You might expect VR courses […]

Big Data — the term is everywhere right now. Sometimes used as a shorthand for the companies that are in the business of collecting, aggregating and sifting through large data sets (often comprised of personal info), it more properly refers to the data sets themselves — collections of information so gigantic they require advanced technologies to interpret. There’s much creepy potential in Big Data, but it is here to stay. The question, then, is whether the technologies of Big Data can be marshaled for progressive and creative goals. At Arts Fwd, Erinn Roos-Brown argues that arts organizations can learn from […]

Select stories from our Fall issue are now available. You can now read online our interviews with Melancholia‘s Lars von Trier (before announcing he would no longer give interviews), Sean Durkin and Elizabeth Olsen chat about Martha Marcy May Marlene, we get biblical about The Catechism Cataclysm with thoughts from the Reverend Megan Hollaway and we look at what film schools need to achieve to be relevant in the future. Plus, the Culture Hacker and Industry Beat columns. The issue hits stands next week, but you can read it now on your desktop by subscribing to our digital issue. Learn […]

Holly Willis explains what film schools need to explore to stay relevant in the future.

Producer, distributor, and longtime professor (24 years!) at Columbia Film School, Ira Deutchman has been appointed the division’s new chair. He takes over from the film school’s previous chair, Jamal Joseph. Well known in the independent community, Deutchman was a founder of indie distributor Cinecom, a former head of Fine Line Features, and is currently Managing Partner of Emerging Pictures. Film’s he’s worked on as either a distributor or marketer include The Player, An Angel at My Table, Hoop Dreams, Naked, and sex lies and videotape. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Deutchman commented, “I’ve been teaching at Columbia […]