Gerard McMurray
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Editor Evan Schrodek on the Fraternity Hazing Drama Burning Sands
A producer on Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, Gerard McMurray makes his debut as a writer/director with Burning Sands. The film tells the story of five college students who embark on a “Hell Week” of hazing and abuse in order to receive admission into a prestigious black fraternity. Evan Schrodek, an editor on The Walking Dead, cut the film after he became friends with McMurray at film school at USC. Below, Schrodek speaks about the film’s nuanced portrait of fraternity hazing, the personal nature of this story and his love of genre filmmaking. Burning Sands premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 29, 2017 -
“We Were Interested in Creating Something Raw”: DP Isiah Donté Lee on Burning Sands
Isiah Donté Lee shot 10 shorts in four years before making the jump to features with Burning Sands. The story of five college students who embark on a “Hell Week” of hazing to gain entry into a prestigious black fraternity, Burning Sands premiered last week at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Netflix in March. The film draws heavily from the college experiences of its writer/director, Gerard McMurray. Below, Lee speaks with Filmmaker about the film’s deliberate mix of handheld and static compositions, shooting the climactic scene in one night and the “beautiful richness” of Cooke […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 27, 2017 -
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 2)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. DANIEL GROVE AND REZA SIXO SAFAI, A BETTER PLACE THAN THIS Synopsis: A happy-go-lucky prison guard, Para Dastur has a charismatic demeanor that hides a very grim truth: he is Singapore Changi Prison’s resident hangman. Not just an anonymous executioner, Dastur takes it upon himself to console the condemned and help them come to terms with fate, shepherding them until he utters the final […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 30, 2012
