With many viewers struggling with subscription-itis — a costly overload of SVOD memberships that inflate credit card bills at the end of each month — it’s no wonder that the so-called FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels are taking off in popularity. For filmmakers, these channels offer a new revenue stream, and for viewers not only no-cost entertainment but the chance to discover many titles that for whatever market-based reasons aren’t streamable on Netflix, Amazon Prime or Criterion. Filmmaker‘s Web Editor, Natalia Keogan, and I took a look through the current offerings of the most well-recognized FAST channel, Tubi, to […]
by Natalia Keogan and Scott Macaulay on Jul 16, 2023Early in writer/director Noah Baumbach’s latest effort While We’re Young, the film presents a montage of its 40-something protagonists (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) transfixed by the glowing screens of their digital devices, juxtaposed against a younger couple they’ve recently befriended (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) basking in the analog glory of board games, vinyl and VHS. To be a contemporary cinematographer is to embrace both worlds of this montage: the analog and the digital, the new and old, the 6K camera and the perfect imperfections of the vintage lens. While We’re Young cinematographer Sam Levy talked to Filmmaker about […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 27, 2015Kudos to Vice for commandeering a handful of Criterion extras and uploading them to their YouTube channel, Conversations Inside the Criterion Collection. Their most recent addition, from the Frances Ha boxset, is a conversation between Sarah Polley and Greta Gerwig on the process of creating both the titular character and her written foundations. Polley approaches the interview as both a filmmaker and (former) actor, posing astute observations on the registry of Gerwig’s interior monologues, as well as the nuts and bolts behind the film’s climactic dance sequence. The other videos in the series — Wexler on Medium Cool, Polanski on Rosemary’s Baby and Scorsese on Rossellini — […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 22, 2014Blocking is everything to Sam Levy, most recently the cinematographer of Noah Baumbach’s black-and-white feature Frances Ha. Levy talks about his approach to lighting – one that foregrounds blocking above all else. First comes the blocking of the actors in a scene, including their movements and pacing. Next comes the camera blocking which, according to Levy, works best if it’s responding to the setup of the actors. And finally, the lighting emerges as a natural consequence of these two things. As Levy says, “you block, you light, you shoot.” All of Levy’s interview with Craft Truck can be found here.
by Nadia Ismail on Dec 19, 2013Tis the season of the Top 10 list. In what I figured was an out-of-the-box alternative, I decided to compile not necessarily my favorite films of the year, but the scenes that have resonated with me most. Then, Nicholas Rombes had to go and prove that the “great minds” adage is alive and well. Perhaps fortuitously, our lists have nothing in common. Though Upstream Color would likely crack my phantom Top 10, there is no one individual moment from the film that begged my memory for recognition. The same can be said for Inside Llewyn Davis, Bastards, Viola, Like Someone […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 19, 2013Frances Ha world premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. It is being distributed by IFC Films and opens theatrically on Friday, May 17, 2013. Visit the film’s official website to learn more. Just when it seems oh so skull-poundingly clear that the world really, really, really does not need yet another portrait of confused Caucasian 20-somethings who are fumbling and bumbling their way through the posh shopping mall that is 21st century New York City, along comes a cinematic delight like Frances Ha to soothe ones agitated nerves like a tingly pill of Vicodin. And though the fact […]
by Michael Tully on May 16, 2013In 2008, Noah Baumbach surprised many people by teaming up with Joe Swanberg, first on a couple of Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts (which Baumbach directed and Swanberg shot), and then on Alexander the Last, Swanberg’s fourth feature, which Baumbach produced. The director of The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding seemed to have little in common with the most prolific of the mumblecore directors, but the association was indicative of a desire on Baumbach’s part to reinvent himself and find new ways of working. For his 2010 comedy drama Greenberg, Baumbach recruited Swanberg’s former muse (and […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 23, 2013It was not until the very close of Michael Haneke’s laurel-laden Amour that I came to a pleasantly odd realization. Without any foresight, I had managed to stumble upon the perfect trans-generational triple feature—perhaps not just at the New York Film Festival, but in the grander scheme as well. At first blush, the Tokyo-set Like Someone in Love, New York-based Frances Ha, and the claustrophobic Parisian quarters of Amour have as much in common as, well, an Eastern social order, a misguided American woman, and a shackled octogenarian couple could. But a closer look reveals a glaringly common thread. […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 11, 2012