Jessica Edwards
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On Missing 99% of What You Need: Lucy Walker’s Advice to Documentary Filmmakers
The following is an extract from Jessica Edwards‘ book Tell Me Something, which collects together advice on non-fiction filmmaking from 50 of the world’s most prominent documentarians, in which two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Wakler shares her wisdom. Tell Me Something is also available as an e-book. This piece of advice has been my lifeline, my mantra, my toehold on sanity and encouragement, the bandage for when I am kicking myself so hard I can’t stand up. It was told to me by Barbara Kopple, the legendary two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker. One of my greatest strokes of luck in life was that she came to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 25, 2013 -
Tell Me Something: Creative Advice from Documentarians
We’ve all probably had that feeling: you’re in the middle of a project and its shape has formed in your mind, but it’s still fuzzy around the edges. You think you’re going in the right direction, but you don’t know what the final destination is yet. You need some sort of creative road map of practical steps to get the project back on track, to clarify your ideas and refocus your creative energy. Brian Eno suggests taking a hot shower. But for me, talking with other artists who’ve gotten through these challenges before is the best way to get my own creative gears back in motion. It was […]
by Jessica Edwards on Mar 19, 2013 -
SXSW SNAPS, DAY ONE
The first day at SXSW, the 4th floor. “What’s this line for?” I asked the woman standing next to me. “No idea,” she said. But it wasn’t a line for anything. The crowd was just there. And as I pushed my way through, it slowly started to dissipate. It was like one of those highway slowdowns, where the memory of congestion lingers after whatever caused it. If you’re going to sponsor a festival, at least do something useful, like this rolling Samsung display of panel times, schedule changes and social media activity. When you check into SXSW, you’re given three […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 12, 2011 -
“HAYNESVILLE” AT STF
Last night Thom Powers screened two docs, Jessica Edwards‘ short, Seltzer Works and Gregory Kallenberg‘s feature, Haynesville as the penultimate screening in his Spring Stranger Than Fiction series. The series rarely features shorts, but Powers credited the move to the fact that both films focused on gas crises – one very small, one very large, both man-made. Deftly shot, Seltzer Works is a carefully composed bit of nostalgia for a time when deliverymen schlepped heavy glass bottles full of fizzy water all over Brooklyn. A portrait of a third-generation seltzer man struggling to survive in a world that no longer needs him, […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jun 2, 2010
