Sundance Lab
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Johnny Ma at the Sundance Directors Lab
It’s Sunday morning, a rare day off during the Sundance Directors Lab to sleep in. Yet once again as the sunlight fills my room at the crack of dawn, I’m wide awake and my mind is ready to go. Back home, whether it is LA, NY, or Shanghai, I am rarely up before 10 am unless it’s a shoot day or I have to meet someone in the real world. However, up here on the mountain, I found a version of myself that didn’t need to check my emails and Facebook or keep up with the latest Buzzfeed post to […]
by Johnny Ma on Jun 18, 2014 -
Sundance Institute Launches TV-Based Lab Program
It was only a matter of time. With quality, funds and star power funneling into television, the Sundance Institute is the latest name to hop on board the medium, in announcing their first ever Episodics Story Lab to be held in the Fall of 2014. Designed for TV and online serial writers, the six day lab will pair the chosen few with accomplished mentors who will aid in script development as they also impart wisdom on the production and distribution landscape. Cary Fukunaga, Louis CK and Lena Dunham are among Sundance’s Screenwriters Lab alumni who enjoyed breakouts through their television […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 19, 2014 -
Director Sydney Freeland Discusses Drunktown’s Finest
I’ve been hearing the praises of Drunktown’s Finest director Sydney Freeland being sung for some time now. The 2004 Fulbright scholar and Sundance alum – whose long list of awards includes a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellowship and a Sundance Institute Directing Fellowship in 2010, and a 2009 Sundance Institute Native American Lab Fellowship – has also long been a fixture on the cozy New Mexico filmmaking scene. (Since I programmed the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival 2012 it’s not surprising the Gallup native and I even share mutual friends.) That said, as a jaded critic it’s second nature for me […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 23, 2014 -
Samah Tokmachi Finds Creativity at the Sundance New Frontier Story Lab
Launched in 2011, the Sundance New Frontier Story Lab is an intensive program for artists working “at the convergence of film, art, media, live performance, music and technology.” This Fall, it completed its third Lab, bringing together artists with an impressive variety of mentors from all of these fields. Among the folks traveling to the Sundance Resort was filmmaker Samah Tokmachi (Living in a Global Society) in the role of Creative Observer. Sundance invited him to make a short video, posted above, “in hopes that his reflections would enrich the wider discourse about media innovation and the future of storytelling.” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2013 -
Fruitvale Station D.P. Rachel Morrison
“She was an incredible collaborator,” says Ryan Coogler of his Fruitvale Station d.p., Rachel Morrison, in Ava DuVernay’s cover story on the writer/director this issue. “She’s very tough,” he continues. “On your first glance of her, you know she has edge. You know she’s somebody who will bust her butt to get the shot. But as you get to really know her and some of the things she’s been through in her life, she’s just this big ball of emotion on the inside. Once she’s set on fire by a story there’s just no stopping her.” Selected after a recommendation […]
by Alix Lambert on Jul 29, 2013 -
Russell Harbaugh at the Sundance Directors Lab
Writer/director Russell Harbaugh is currently at the Sundance Directors Lab this month with his feature version of Rolling on the Floor Laughing, his short which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2012. (You can watch the short below.) The following is what Harbaugh wrote about his experiences at the Lab. Another round of advisors arrived to the mountain yesterday, Sunday, our “off” day, and now it’s Monday — Monday night — and our third week of production has begun and I’m feeling that feeling of, like, oh no, they are going to know. They are going to know. Someone in […]
by Russell Harbaugh on Jun 20, 2013 -
Pamela Romanowsky at the Sundance Directors Lab
Writer/director Pamela Romanowsky is currently at the Sundance Directors Lab this month with her adaptation of Stephen Elliott’s memoir The Adderall Diaries. The following is what she wrote about her experiences at the Lab. It’s just after lunch, and we’re driving up the mountain road to the house we’ve been rehearsing in. My actors Luke Kirby and Megan Boone are in the back seat. Luke cracks a joke and we all laugh. I turn around to announce that I’m stealing that line for the next scene, and through the frame of the back window, a man in a denim jacket […]
by Pamela Romanowsky on Jun 19, 2013 -
ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS AT THE SUNDANCE DOCUMENTARY LABS
The Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Labs took place earlier this month, and director Roger Ross Williams — attending with his film, God Loves Uganda, described as “a journey into the heart of East Africa, where Ugandan pastors and their American counterparts spread God’s word and evangelical values to millions desperate for a better life” — wrote the following blog post about his experiences there. Alfred Hitchcock said, “In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.” Yes — and it doesn’t help when God is also the subject. Setting out to make a doc on […]
by Roger Ross Williams on Jul 24, 2012 -
MARIELLE HELLER AT THE SUNDANCE DIRECTORS LAB, PART 2: “LESSONS EVERYWHERE”
Marielle Heller, a New York-based screenwriter, actor and playwright, is attending the June Sundance Directors Lab with her project, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. “In the haze of 1970’s San Francisco, a teenage artist with a brutally honest perspective tries to navigate her way through an affair with her mother’s boyfriend,” is its description, and the film is being adapted from the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. Here is Heller’s second post from the Sundance Resort in Utah. Read the first here. The way the Sundance Lab is set up, you don’t always know how or when you’re going […]
by Marielle Heller on Jun 27, 2012 -
CARSON MELL AT THE SUNDANCE DIRECTORS LAB, PART TWO
The Sundance June Directors Lab is underway, and blogging here at Filmmaker from the Sundance Resort in Utah will be two of the Lab’s filmmakers. Here is Carson Mell, attending with his dark comedy, Ajax, about “a band of alcoholic astronauts and a young woman adrift in outer space [who] become at odds with one another after discovering the purpose of their mysterious mission.” Read part one of his series here. The Sundance Directors Lab is over now, and I’m starting the Screenwriters Lab again in a couple of days. Out of the last 17 days, we’ve only had two […]
by Carson Mell on Jun 27, 2012
