Summer 2019
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The American Way: Writer/Director Rick Alverson on The Mountain
Divisive. Vexing. Hilarious. Disturbing. Stimulating. Exhilarating. However one feels about the films of Rick Alverson, one thing’s for certain: the adjectives used to express that opinion will be strong. From The Builder (2010) to Entertainment (2015), Alverson has relentlessly challenged his audiences to confront—and dare to release—their preconceived notions of narrative cinema. At a time when the independent festival circuit has begun to feel more like a breeding ground for the major studios and television networks than a showcase for brash, defiantly original stand-alone works of art, Alverson is providing a desperately needed jolt—a reminder of what truly independent cinema […]
by Michael Tully on Jun 19, 2019 -
Show Us the Money
For anyone who follows the TV business, the end of HBO’s Game of Thrones this year has raised all kinds of big, potentially era-defining questions. Will Thrones be the last series that tens of millions of people around the world watch together each week? Can HBO find another zeitgeist-y hit that fans flock to social media to discuss? Will the network have to make major changes if it doesn’t? And, perhaps most important: Will anyone again ever make another show that looks so staggeringly expensive? We don’t talk about television enough in terms of money: not just which shows and […]
by Noel Murray on Jun 19, 2019 -
The Clear Identification of Priorities: Ricky D’Ambrose on Being His Own Graphic Designer
It was apparent early on that I would design most of the paper props for Notes on an Appearance: The film’s predecessor, a short called Spiral Jetty, relied, in a similar way, on a cache of fictitious newspaper and magazine clippings. Both films were made quickly, with meager ledger books (Spiral Jetty, if memory serves, cost less than $500; Notes on an Appearance was shot, edited, color-corrected and sound-mixed for less than $30,000); and both films were made without much infrastructure, relying on small, resourceful crews. Under these conditions, I became the films’ art director and production designer, learning and […]
by Ricky D'Ambrose on Jun 19, 2019 -
Optimal Value
What’s the main reason to go to film school? You could say to broaden the mind, to learn about cinema history, to meet future collaborators. Those are all true, but at base, the chief reason is to learn a skill. Ideally, you exit your program (whether it’s undergrad or graduate) ready to enter the industry. Perhaps you won’t be doing what you expected when you first applied, but you also don’t want to emerge with no idea what’s next. That said, film school can be tough. There are countless ways to do it, and it can be hard to focus and […]
by Matt Prigge on Jun 19, 2019 -
Crisis of Representation: Why Independent Filmmakers Still Need Agents and Managers
“If you want to work in Hollywood, you must have representation,” says one industry veteran. That’s been a longstanding rule in the entertainment business for the past several decades. Despite the battle between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Hollywood’s big talent agencies over packaging fees, and the thousands of writers who subsequently fired their agents, and even amidst the plethora of new outlets and disruptive distribution technologies, independent filmmakers are still largely subject to the traditional forms of gatekeeping. (And directors haven’t had to fire their agents—at least, not yet.) So, that leaves emerging filmmakers still dependent on […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jun 19, 2019 -
The Most Valuable Lessons: Filmmakers Remember Their Iconic Instructors
Teaching is a complex act, but most of us standing in front of students in film classrooms have never been taught to teach. Instead, we recall the teachers who impressed us, then try to repeat some part of that practice and hope for the best, often never quite realizing the impact we are in turn having on our own students. Here, three current faculty members recall iconic instructors from their college experience, and the lasting effect of key ideas and behaviors. Cauleen Smith on Lynn Hershman Leeson and Trinh T. Minh-ha Interdisciplinary artist Cauleen Smith earned a BA in creative […]
by Holly Willis on Jun 19, 2019 -
Act Naturally
On the first day of any given screen-acting class at Northwestern University, it’s not uncommon for me to be facing down a bifurcated group of eight theater students and eight film students. As I sit on the receiving end of nerve-wracked glares, listening to introductory tales of middle school plays and high school short films, of little to some to no experience, I seek to comfort and calm with one simple statement: Everything you need to know about film acting you can learn in 30 seconds. It’s only now that I realize I’ve been lying to them. It is one […]
by Stephen Cone on Jun 19, 2019 -
Screen Overload: Cinematographers M. David Mullen, Christian Sprenger and Ashley Connor on Shooting Television
During “The Long Night” episode of Game of Thrones’ final season, the Twitterverse erupted when the sprawling Battle of Winterfell was deemed “too dark” by some viewers. People who had previously given little thought to the job of television cinematographer were suddenly offering very vocal opinions on the profession. The uproar highlighted the challenges DPs face in this new Golden Age of Television. They must create stories that retain their visual appeal across a myriad of devices, resolutions, color spaces, and screen settings. A show must work on a 60-inch OLED television and on an iPhone, on a finely tuned […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jun 19, 2019 -
The Art of Listening: Discovering the Rhythms of a Picture Edit
I’ve had a lifelong love of music. I’m immersed in it most of the time, whether at home or on the street listening to headphones—I’m listening to Apple Music on shuffle play as I write this. I always hear the melody and instrumentation first, and can hear a song dozens of times before I even begin to notice the lyrics. I suppose this is why, as a film editor, I see film dailies first as image and second as dialogue being spoken. Image always trumps text for me. I’ll notice small movements in an actor’s face well before I hear […]
by Michael Taylor on Jun 19, 2019 -
Glitches in the Matrix: Adventures in the CGI Wilderness
“Working with computer graphics, labor becomes so present in your mind because you’re hunched over a computer for such a long time trying to deliver something that looks right,” the artist Alan Warburton told me. What’s “right” tends to be a seamless and effortless look, which means there is a paradox to the trade—all that work, at best, appears as if it never happened at all. Warburton’s art practice, which mines his commercial work at post-production studios, departs from these objectives. His labor is noticeable, rather than invisible—imperfect and unfinished in projects like his animation series Homo Economicus (2018). That […]
by Joanne McNeil on Jun 19, 2019
