Philadelphia-based filmmaker Heidi Saman made our 25 New Faces list in 2014 on the basis of two works, one ongoing and one just finished. The ongoing one is her long-running film Tumblr “Four Eyes,” which consists of elegant frome/quote combinations. The just-finished project is her debut feature, Namour, which is being released March 1 by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY before being available widely through Netflix on March 15. Saman had made a previous short, The Maid, and works as a producer for NPR. From my “25 New Faces” profile: The Tumblr community was among those who supported Saman’s successful Kickstarter earlier […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 25, 2017After a decade’s hiatus from feature-length faux documentaries, Christopher Guest returns to his enthusiastically delusional dreamers and kitschy subcultures with the Netflix original Mascots. Set in the world of competitive mascottery, Mascots finds the globe’s preeminent purveyors of plushy entertainment descending upon Anaheim in hopes of winning the World Mascot Association’s highest honor – the Golden Fluffy. The usual suspects from Guest’s repertory company fill out the cast – Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Parker Posey. But behind the camera is a new face in cinematographer Kris Kachikis. Kachikis talked to Filmmaker about choosing the Sony F55 over […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 15, 2016Stephen Garrett’s “The Art of First Impressions” is one of Filmmaker‘s most widely read articles, an insightful and incisive guide to making a great movie trailer. We’re happy to have Garrett, who is not only a critic but also the founder of the trailer and marketing house Jump Cut, back writing for Filmmaker, beginning with a regular series on the creative direction of today’s most noteworthy trailers. This first installment begins with Garrett examining teasers for two films about political figures acquired by their distributors out of the Fall festivals: Barry and Jackie. — SM Despite a punishing election season […]
by Stephen Garrett on Nov 2, 2016In Werner Herzog’s latest film, Into the Inferno, the renowned auteur delves into some of the world’s most active volcanoes. The documentary, which will open in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, and launch globally on Netflix on October 28, just got its first trailer (above). “It is a fire that wants to burst forth and it could not care less about what we are doing up here,” notes Herzog about volcanoes in the trailer. Maybe so, but viewers will be curious to see what Herzog and volcanologist and co-director Clive Oppenheimer discover on their journey to visit the world’s […]
by Paula Bernstein on Oct 17, 2016Back in June, Netflix’s VP of Product Innovation Carlos A. Gomez-Uribe and Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt co-published a paper entitled, “The Netflix Recommender System: Algorithms, Business Value, and Innovation.” It’s a fascinating read, and if you care at all about the future of film as an artform, a fairly troubling one. With their 19-page paper, Gomez-Uribe and Hunt provide a rare peek under the hood of Netflix’s inner-workings and technological developments, and go on to discuss the company’s business priorities and philosophy. The basic takeaway? Netflix has built an insanely complex and powerful recommendation system. This sucker has algorithms […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Sep 12, 2016Orphan Black screenwriter Tony Elliott makes his feature debut with the time-twisting dystopian thriller ARQ, premiering today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Employing the now venerable time-loop trope, ARQ features a couple trying to figure out why their world is repeating, and what that has to do with the giant multi-national they were both involved with. Below, Elliott talks about his various cinematic inspirations, what he learned from writing Orphan Black, and how he made a futuristic science fiction film on a very low budget. Filmmaker: Your short film, Entangled, dealt, in part, with quantum physics. Tell me about […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2016The following article appears in our Spring, 2016 print edition and is appearing from behind our paywall today for the first time. Will 2016 be remembered as the year that Amazon and Netflix gobbled up the indie film market? Probably. While the two online behemoths could always change their strategies in the next several months, the ramifications of their first quarter dominance stretched far and wide, sending shockwaves through the business. But there were other changes afoot, as well. Here are five industry trends that continue to linger long after Park City. 1. The Enduring Impact of Amazon and Netflix Okay, Amazon […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jun 16, 2016The 17th annual Hot Docs Forum kicked off Tuesday in Toronto with all the pomp and ceremony of a high school model UN tournament. Axel Arno, SVT commissioning editor and one of three forum moderators, laid out the rules: each team will have seven minutes to pitch, followed by another seven minutes of question-and-answer discussion; the bell will ring once at the six-minute mark and twice at the seven-minute mark. Over two days, 20 producing teams pitched projects while 20-odd commissioning editors, broadcasters and video-on-demand reps sat at the table giving their feedback while other financiers and gatekeepers, most notably […]
by Whitney Mallett on May 5, 2016DP Alex Lehmann leaps to the director’s chair with Asperger’s Are Us, a documentary about an unusual comedy troupe. With one of its members soon leaving Boston to study abroad, the improv group consisting of four young men on the spectrum prepares for what may be its final performance. Executive produced by the Duplass brothers, the documentary was quickly purchased by Netflix for worldwide distribution. Ahead of Asperger’s Are Us‘s premiere at SXSW, Lehmann discussed acting as his own DP, scrounging for enough cameras to film the climax and following the story. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 15, 2016The more money involved in any industry, the more timid and conservative the financiers become about what they are willing to back. When deciding what to greenlight, they cling to outdated ideas of what audiences will want to watch, often lagging behind what the rest of us have always known: both men and women alike will watch, love and cheer a badass female protagonist. Props, then, to Netflix for recognizing that a series based on the Marvel character of Jessica Jones and created by Melissa Rosenberg could be fed to a hungry audience waiting like chicks with tiny beaks open […]
by Alix Lambert on Jan 13, 2016