Ryan Koo
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Trailer Watch: Ryan Koo’s Amateur
Filmmaker and No Film School founder Ryan Koo — one of our 2008 25 New Faces of Independent Film — has been working on his debut feature for years. His extremely successful Kickstarter (over $140,000!) launched in 2011, and in a series of updates — and one 2013 Filmmaker interview — he’s been transparent about the long road that developing and making a first feature can become. Well, Netflix ultimately came on board to finance the film, and now there’s a first trailer, with the feature itself set to drop on April 6. You can read more about the film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2018 -
Sundance Institute Announces 12 Projects for Screenwriters Lab
This afternoon the Sundance Institute unveiled the 12 projects that will be participating next month in its Screenwriters Lab. Among the filmmakers whose scripts were chosen are documentarian Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream), whose first narrative script We the Animals (based on a book by Justin Torres) was also in IFP’s Emerging Storytellers, while another alum of that program (from 2011) selected here is Ryan Koo, with his project Manchild. Other notable participants this year imclude Jordana Spiro, the former TV actress whose short Skin played at Sundance 2012; uber inventive and wacky pop promo directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 17, 2013 -
ScreenCraft’s Digital Discourse: Build Your Audience Now
“Distributing is easy, marketing is hard.” With that statement, moderator Ryan Koo kicked off the discussion at ScreenCraft’s recent Digital Discourse panel on the future of content creation and releasing. Nestled in the WGAE suite of a Tribeca high rise, the participating panelists included YouTube’s Amy Singer; Erica Anderson, Chief Marketing Director at Seed&Spark; Erick Opeka, SVP of Digital Distribution at Cinedigm; @radical.media’s Adam Neuhaus; and BOND 360 Founder and CEO, Marc Schiller. Chances are, you’ve heard it before: with so much of the independent film world unspooling in a viral sphere at a hair-raising pace, filmmakers must be prepared […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 8, 2013 -
Short Takes: The Role of The Short in Modern Filmmaking
Why make a short film? At Short Takes, a recent panel discussion co-presented by IFP and DCTV, the answers varied with each pass of the microphone. The participating panelists — Terence Nance, Dustin Guy Defa, Lauren Wolkstein, Ryan Koo, and Jeremiah Zagar — reflected upon prior efforts to offer a unique, holistic picture into the business and practice of short filmmaking. Koo, who recently revealed Amateur, a short prequel to his debut feature Manchild, said that he viewed the format as a calling card, a means to entice both the industry and a larger audience. Nance and Wolkstein, on the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jul 25, 2013 -
Ryan Koo on Amateur, Feature Fundraising, and the Kickstarter Long Game
In the Fall of 2011, filmmaker Ryan Koo — featured along with then-partner Zachary Lieberman on our 2008 “25 New Faces” — announced his debut feature, Man-child. Embarking on an ambitious Kickstarter campaign, Koo leveraged not only the community he had been building via his excellent website, No Film School, but also his project’s selection for the IFP and Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Visions program. The campaign was a success, raising $125,100, and, as he’s moved his story of youth basketball forward, Koo has been, essentially, open-sourcing his progress, giving advice on not only social-media fundraising but screenplay […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2013 -
On The RED Scarlet-X, Kickstarter And Camera Obsession
I’ve been meaning to post notice of the other big camera announcement this past week — RED’S unveiling of the SCARLET-X. Over at his No Film School, Koo has been all over this camera, writing that instead of the Scarlet being what we once thought the Scarlet would be (“a 3K for $3K camera), “It is very, very close to being the same camera as the $28,000 EPIC-X — it’s the same size and weight, has the same large sensor, takes the same accessories, and maxes out at the same 5K resolution — except the SCARLET-X starts at under $10K.” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 6, 2011 -
IFW: MY NAME IS KOO
My name is Koo, and I’m a blogoholic. Not really, but I do run a NoFilmSchool”>blog about independent filmmaking, and I’ve also contributed to this Filmmaker web site a number of times. So, what am I doing here (again)? I’ve got a feature script in the Emerging Narrative program this year. I also had a script in the similar-but-different No Borders program this same time last year; the main difference is EN scripts have no financing attached and NB do (theoretically, that is: we didn’t last year, but that’s another story). If you read my thoughts on the No Borders experience) you’ll see […]
by Koo on Sep 22, 2011
