Low Budget
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Dead Dad: Keeping Ultra-Low-Budget Productions Alive
Dead Dad, out now on VOD through FilmBuff, is quite a debut, a mature and entertaining first feature from writer/director Ken J. Adachi. Financed mainly via Kickstarter and from the director’s own pocket, it was shot in 15 days on a Canon 5D Mark II and with a crew of eight or nine people, all volunteers. The film tells the story of three estranged siblings who meet at their father’s funeral and are forced to spend time together while working out what to do with his remains. Filmmaker spoke with Adachi and his co-writer Kyle Arrington (who also plays Russell […]
by Tayla Tzirulnik on Feb 26, 2014 -
Making HENRi: A Low-Budget Sci-fi Short Film Odyssey
A little over three years ago, I decided I wanted to make a sci-fi short film about a robot trying to become human. My idea was to combine live action with miniatures and rod-puppetry – despite having no previous experience with special effects. Initial reactions from family, friends, and collaborators were of the “Are you insane?” variety – perhaps rightfully so. It was at that point I knew I had to make the film. What followed was an odd combination of luck, coincidence, and disaster – three ingredients that are rarely talked about, yet I’m convinced are completely inseparable from […]
by Eli Sasich on Feb 25, 2013 -
TIFF: “I AM A GOOD PERSON/I AM A BAD PERSON”
Ingrid Veninger’s latest film has to be the fastest movie ever made for TIFF. The Toronto filmmaker was on her way to unspool her 2010 feature, Modra, at film fests across Europe when she seized the opportunity to shoot an entirely new film. That meant 19 days of scripting, casting and rehearsals in Toronto in March this year, 13 days shooting in north England, Paris and Berlin, then wrapping with five weeks of post in T.O. to make the TIFF deadline. That also meant Veninger presenting Modra in one cinema and then becoming “Ruby White,” who was premiering a fictitious […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 18, 2011 -
Sebastian Silva, The Maid
CATALINA SAAVEDRA IN DIRECTOR SEBASTIAN SILVA’S THE MAID. COURTESY ELEPHANT EYE FILMS. Sebastián Silva could seemingly make a career out of a variety of creative pursuits, however at the moment it is on filmmaking that he is focusing all his attention. Silva was born in Santiago, the capital of Chile, in 1979, and grew up attending a Catholic school in the city. Though from a young age it was clear that he had a talent for art, after finishing high school he went to study film at the Escuela de Cine in Santiago. After a year, however, he quit to […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 16, 2009 -
Jon Knautz, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
ROBERT ENGLUND AND TREVOR MATTHEWS IN DIRECTOR JON KNAUTZ’S JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER. COURTESY ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT. At a time when horror films are getting ever more brutal, Jon Knautz brings a comfortingly old- fashioned feel to genre filmmaking. The Ottawa-born writer-director, who grew up on a diet of slasher films and 50s creature features, went to Vancouver Film School to pursue his dream of making movies. Knautz’s graduation project, Apt. 310 (2002), a stylish, tightly scripted noir, was the first in a series of shorts that harked back to classic modes of filmmaking. After making the blood-spattered comedy horror […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 15, 2008 -
Martin Hynes, The Go-Getter
LOU TAYLOR PUCCI IN DIRECTOR MARTIN HYNES’S THE GO-GETTER. COURTESY PEACE ARCH RELEASING. Though best known for playing a legendary director on screen, Martin Hynes seems destined to become an auteur in reality as well. A native of Eugene, Oregon, Hynes studied history at Columbia before embarking on a career as an actor and sketch comedian. He then enrolled in the graduate film program at USC where he not only made the highly-regarded short Al As In Al (1995) but played the eponymous lead in Joe Nussbaum’s cult favorite George Lucas in Love (1999). He made his feature debut with […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 5, 2008 -
Georgina Riedel, How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
AMERICA FERRERA, LUCY GALLARDO AND ELIZABETH PEÑA IN DIRECTOR GEORGINA RIEDEL’S HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER. COURTESY MAYA RELEASING. Like her friends Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo and Goran Dukic, Georgina Riedel is a distinctive new voice in American independent filmmaking. A first generation Mexican American who grew up in Arizona, Riedel studied film at the University of Arizona where she made a series of shorts. She gained her MFA at the American Film Institute, where she became friends with fellow directing students Jacobs, Naranjo and Dukic. Riedel’s graduation film, One Night It Happened (2002), a black-and-white romance about […]
by Nick Dawson on May 16, 2008 -
Jeff Nichols, Shotgun Stories
The North Carolina School of the Arts film program has, during its relatively short existence, produced a wealth of cinematic talent. Prominent alums includes writer-directors David Gordon Green, Craig Zobel, Michael Tully, Aaron Katz, Jody Hill and Nate Meyer, actors Danny McBride and Paul Schneider (who is also a writer-director), DPs Tim Orr and Adam Stone — and to that list one must now add another notable talent, Jeff Nichols. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Nichols graduated from the school in 2001 and has to date written and directed six short films in addition to working on Gary Hawkins’ […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 26, 2008 -
Paul Andrew Williams, London To Brighton
LORRAINE STANLEY AND GEORGIA GROOME IN DIRECTOR PAUL ANDREW WILLIAMS’ LONDON TO BRIGHTON. COURTESY OUTSIDER PICTURES. A rare handful of people are born to make movies, and new British writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is undoubtedly one of those few. Born in 1973 in the Southern coastal town of Portsmouth, Williams initially studied as an actor at LAMDA and spent the latter part of the 1990s playing smaller roles in UK TV shows like Casualty, Eastenders and Soldier, Soldier. In 2000, however, he set up So Loose Films and began making a string of short films. The second of these, Sugar […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 8, 2008
