Short Film
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Watch: David Lowery’s Pioneer
Technically speaking, not much happens in Pioneer, David Lowery’s 2011 short about a man who tells his son a bedtime story. The action is confined to one room as it cuts between the two actors, but the yarn spun by Will Oldham’s character, and the subtle inflections in the pair’s performance along with a textured sound design, make the film as charged as any meticulously choreographed exchange. Listen closely, and you can even discern some early seeds of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints in the mix.
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 22, 2015 -
Iain Marcks on Navigating Ambition, Directing Actors and His Short Film, Switched
Imagine you’re neighbors with a film-world colleague. With that unmistakable, breathless post-postproduction glow, he asks you to take a look at his new short film – and while it’s certainly slick, with grist for conversation to spare, there are a few things you can’t help but think could have been done differently. The film is a head-on tackle of an intrinsically repugnant (some would say “problematic”) genre, the rape-revenge picture. It turns tables on audience expectation by pitting a witless pickup artist (Joe Mischo) against a woman he meets at a bar (Kara Elverson) who, duly, kidnaps and ties him […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Apr 4, 2015 -
Watch: Chris Landreth’s Subconscious Password
Conde Nast’s short form original content and acquisitions site, The Scene, has just released the fantastic short Subconscious Password, from Academy Award winning animator Chris Landreth. Landreth stars in the Sundance 2014 premiering film as a man who has trouble recalling an acquaintance’s name at a cocktail party, and retreats into an inner mind game show in an attempt to drum up the correct direct address. Though you can’t quite enjoy the 3-D film as it was meant to be seen online, it’s still a rather inventive head trip.
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 2, 2015 -
Watch: Whiplash, The Short
Initially unable to raise the $3 million budget for Whiplash, Damien Chazelle made a proof of concept, 18-minute short film that premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Now available online, the short looks to be more or less an exact excerpt of the feature script, distilling Fletcher’s emotional manipulation, rage, and abuse into three consecutive scenes. The precise editing, gliding camerawork, and J.K. Simmons’ high octane performance are all on display, though the short — presumably for budgetary reasons — lacks the isolated, brooding mood and dark yellow color pallet of the feature version. Also notable is that Johnny Simmons was […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 2, 2015 -
Davey Foundation Offers Grants for Short Films; Deadline March 15
From filmmaker and Davey Foundation board member Dustin Guy Defa comes word of the upcoming deadline for the Davey Foundation, which will give three grants to filmmakers 35 years and younger for the production of short films. Ben Kegan’s The First Men won the Davey’s single grant last year. This year, two grants have been added, and the awards mix cash with in-kind services and mentorship. Full details below: The Davey Foundation was created to honor the life of David Ross Fetzer and his commitment to the film and theater arts. For 2015, the foundation is handing out three short […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 2, 2015 -
Shaka King on Releasing His Sundance Short Mulignans Online
Newlyweeds filmmaker Shaka King made the slightly unorthodox decision to release his short film Mulignans online almost immediately following its Sundance premiere last month. Turns out, King never thought of Mulignans as a festival hopper, but a piece of work meant to be seen by “as wide an audience as possible as soon as possible.” Currently at 61,000 views and counting on Vimeo, I asked King to elaborate on his decision: We initially made Mulignans for the web, but a couple friends suggested I enter it into Sundance…and I’m glad I did. But the ultimate goal was always to get it out there […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 25, 2015 -
Shooting Romance in NYC with the iPhone 6
Here’s a nifty behind-the-scenes featurette on the iPhone 6 shooting of Tristan Pope‘s short film, Romance in NYC. The film is shot entirely from the first-person perspective, like Lady in the Lake and Enter the Void, and the mobility of the iPhone enabled the director/camera operator to play the role of the first-person protagonist. As you’ll see in the video, Pope lets his own hands and arms enter and exit frame, aided by variety of gear — including a Gorillapod — as well as well-choreographed production assistants.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2015 -
“We Sold Our Film!” The Director of The 414s: The Original Teenage Hackers Blogs from Sundance
My filmmaking partner, Chris James Thompson and I are more than halfway through our time here at Sundance and it’s been pretty incredible. So far we’ve had two screenings of our short doc The 414s: The Original Teenage Hackers, and the audience response has been extremely positive. Some of the other highlights include spotting Kristen Wiig hanging out on Main Street, getting a bunch of legit full-sized posters printed courtesy of the pros at the HP center and taking the trek out to the Sundance Mountain Resort for the Directors brunch, where Robert Redford was in attendance. But nothing can […]
by Michael Vollman on Jan 28, 2015 -
Short Film: Bernardo Britto’s Yearbook
Last week, Scott posted Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person, one of the first short films to be featured on The New Yorker‘s new shorts catalogue. Another 25 New Face, Bernardo Britto, has now joined the site with his Sundance Jury Prize-winning Yearbook. The animated film imagines a man who has been tasked with cataloguing the world’s history before an alien-sent missile destroys earth. It’s poignant, funny and quietly heartbreaking in equal measure.
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 22, 2014 -
Short Film: Person to Person, Directed by Dustin Guy Defa
The New Yorker streams short films — who knew? This discovery is particularly welcome because just posted on the magazine’s YouTube channel — and embedded above — is Dustin Guy Defa’s terrific Person to Person, one of the works that landed the filmmaker on our 25 New Faces list this year. Here’s Brandon Harris on the film here at Filmmaker: Speaking of throwback cinema that doesn’t simply appropriate but forges its own thing out of the familiar, Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person is a film one could watch a dozen times. Assuming he doesn’t change the Vimeo password and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2014
