Spring 2022
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Words with Friends: On Writing Accountability Partnerships
When I was in college, my best friend and closest collaborator, Brandon Colvin, told me that most writer-directors make their first feature between the ages of 24 and 36, and that if he didn’t make one before then, he would off himself. Harsh as it is to say, when we were 22 that felt like a world away, and I didn’t fret for him. Brandon has since made three microbudgeted features, all willed into existence with student loans, credit card debt, crowdfunds and a few incredible friends and family angels. Two years ago, I turned 34. While I didn’t take […]
by Tony Oswald on Apr 14, 2022 -
How to Deliver Your Film to a Festival (2022 Edition)
In 2018, I wrote a version of this article1 that treated the exhibition dominance of Digital Cinema Packages (DCP) as a historic certainty. Technology had advanced enough where the cost and/or ability to create a DCP were no longer considered a burden for independent filmmakers. As always with historic certainty, history happened: The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the widespread adoption of virtual film festivals. Separately, the call for justice and equality led to the widespread adoption of accessibility features for films. These concurrent developments, combined with the decline of the theatrical market and technological obsolescence, have created an environment that can […]
by Sergio Andrés Lobo-Navia on Apr 14, 2022 -
Kiss Me Before You Wake Up: An Excerpt From Michael Almereyda’s Book, Tesla: All My Dreams Are True
Tesla: All My Dreams Are True, forthcoming from OR Books, is a jigsawed account of my attempts at conjuring a movie about Nikola Tesla over the past 40 years, tracking questions and clues about the elusive inventor’s life and legacy. The following excerpt is one of the least self-effacing of the 25 chapters, in which the author shamelessly confides early experiences as a screenwriter and director while Tesla’s name is hardly mentioned. This is in keeping with one of the book’s epigraphs, an injunction from Derek Jarman: “As the film falls apart, gather up your mistakes and treasure them.” See shadow puppet plays and imagine […]
by Michael Almereyda on Apr 14, 2022 -
2020-22: Cinema Year Zero or, My COVID “Movie Journal” (So Far)
Inspired by L.M. Kit Carson’s “Intros” from the Noonday paperback screenplay of David Holzman’s Diary (1967), a film by Jim McBride. 0. I don’t mind the sun sometimes the images it shows —Butthole Surfers, “Pepper” 1. Anthology Film Archives cancels the final screening of Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo, 1995) in Jon Dieringer and Screen Slate’s “1995: The Year The Internet Broke” series. Opening title card: Second Decade of the 21st Century. Corporations Rule. The World Is Threatened by a New Plague: NAS Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, Fatal, Epidemic, Its Cause and Cure Unknown… 2. Ken Jacobs premieres a new work, Movie […]
by John Klacsmann on Apr 14, 2022 -
Portal to Portal: Jane Schoenbrun on We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
The central promotional image for We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is of a young girl, covered in glow-in-the-dark paint, holding up a googly eye to her face as she barrels toward a laptop camera. This is Casey: She is a kid, and she is on the internet and she is in her bedroom, alone. The film takes its name from its own invented World’s Fair Challenge, an internet myth that causes something dark to alter within its participants. Sources vary on what exactly happens: Some people appear to be sucked into their computers, some turn to plastic, some […]
by Sam Bodrojan on Apr 14, 2022 -
Truly Micro: Pete Ohs and Tzvi Friedman on Their Ultra-Low-Budget Features, Jethica and Man
While most producers these days are worried about the latest CPI number—that’s the Cinematic Price Index—one group of filmmakers is, somewhat paradoxically, not: those working on the lower end of the microbudget, or “no-budget,” continuum, producing finished features for the very low five figures. For them, production is retrofitted from whatever money can be raised, and if the price of gas goes up, well, the shoot just has to make do with less in another area. Among such filmmakers, there’s perhaps no one whose model is as stripped-down as Pete Ohs, who recently premiered his latest work, the well-received Jethica, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2022 -
Editor’s Letter
A year ago in this space, I noted that by the time most people received their issue a COVID-19 vaccine would be available, and that film production was beginning to surge back after the shutdowns, “but when it comes to our film business and culture, there will be no single lightswitch moment.” Now, in this spring ’22 edition of Filmmaker, I’m seeing evidence confirming that prediction, as many of the articles here grapple not with COVID-19, per se, but the types of changes that have occurred alongside the pandemic that are either directly or tangentially caused by it. In his […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2022 -
Stage Craft
After spending much of the past two years working on Marvel streaming series at Atlanta’s sprawling Trilith Studios, location manager Ryan Schaetzle has grown accustomed to the creature comforts of the soundstage. “The cast and crew know where it is, they know where they’re parking. The caterer doesn’t move, there’s no paparazzi. All that good stuff,” Schaetzle says. “You’re working within the cozy confines of a controlled environment, and control is a huge thing.” But after staring at greenscreens too long, Schaetzle “starts to get the itch. Whatever you’re doing, you always seem to want the other thing. When you’re […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 14, 2022 -
Tequila Sunrise: On the Location Shooting of Dos Estaciones
“When I first started thinking about the film, I thought about two things: the place and María’s character,” says director Juan Pablo González of his Sundance-premiering sophomore feature, Dos Estaciones. María (Teresa Sánchez) is an economically besieged tequila ranch owner in Estaciones, which expands the definition of a “one-set movie” to a square-meter extreme: Roughly 70 percent of the film was shot on González’s family’s tequila ranch, in a rural area two hours from Guadalajara, capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco. González is from the area, where he filmed previous shorts and his first feature, Caballerango. His grandfather built […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 14, 2022 -
Simple Machines: The Inspiring Teaching of Experimental Animator Jodie Mack
“Find the note, and then deviate,” urges experimental animator Jodie Mack. The colorfully clad artist is a third of the way through her antic presentation to the November 2021 Film Friends gathering hosted by the Echo Park Film Center. Now in its second year, the monthly online series this go-around is focused on “simple machines” for filmmaking. Mack has been cheerfully showing some of her own creations, like a bicycle-driven zoetrope, but speedily moves on to her love for singing. “My voice is a simple machine!” she rhapsodizes before breaking into a wide-mouthed croon, one or two notes above the […]
by Holly Willis on Apr 14, 2022
