Filmmaker Magazine

BEIJING TAXI: THE METER IS RUNNING

2010-02-09T00:28:00.004-05:00

Filmmaker Miao Wang, a Beijing native now based in Brooklyn, is currently racing to finish her feature doc Beijing Taxi in time for SXSW, where it's scheduled to world premiere. She needs to raise $11,000 to cover post-production expenses and is just under half way there with five days left to go at Kickstarter. From the Kickstarter page: BEIJING TAXI is a feature length documentary that vividly portrays Beijing undergoing a profound transformational arch. Through a humanistic lens, the intimate lives of three taxi drivers connect a morphing city confronted with modern issues and changing values. With diverse imagery combined with a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, we experience a visceral sense of the common citizen's persistent...

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CLIP REEL

2010-02-08T23:02:00.002-05:00

Most movie-moment montages work an A-B-A structure in which "A" is sentimental uplift. This montage by Paul Proulx goes for something different. (Hat tip: Anne Thompson.) the films of the 2000s from Paul Proulx on Vimeo.

DAVID LYNCH ON MAKING A GOOD MOVIE

2010-02-08T22:35:00.001-05:00

HOW COOL IS INDIE FILM?

2010-02-08T13:03:00.007-05:00

Indie film champions are often fond of comparing what we do to indie music. If bands can tour, why can't we? If bands can sell merch, then we should too. If recording artists can form boutique labels, then why can't film distributors? Like, for example, Oscilloscope, the film label of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch. At Flavorwire, Judy Berman takes this assumption to task in a piece called "Why is Indie Film Dying While Indie Music Thrives?" She bases her assessment of indie film's slow-motion death on Edward Jay Epstein's "Can Indie Movies Survive?", which I found to be a pretty reductive piece. The central question — how can indie movies survive in an event-based moviegoing culture? — is a good one, but Epstein's article uses one very specific...

PAOLA MENDOZA ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT

2010-02-07T09:40:00.004-05:00

In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned "The Big Art/Little Debt Plan," which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Below is the one from Paola Mendoza, director of Entre Nos. What strategies did you employ to stay no/low debt during your production? My strategy was pretty simple: I refused to go into debt. While making art is the essence of who I am, I cannot make art at the expense of my future and my family’s future. If I cannot find a creative way to tell stories without spending my money irresponsibly than I...

MASSIVE ATTACK COLLABORATES WITH GEORGINA SPELVIN, HOPE SANDOVAL

2010-02-07T00:31:00.006-05:00

Bristol's Massive Attack return this week with a new album, Heligo Land, and word has it that the band that once invented trip-hop and now is probably best known for providing the theme music for House may be revisiting the former glory of their classic albums Blue Lines and Protection. Preceding the album is this website, Massive Attack Tweatre, which is unveiling seven music videos commissioned for the album. Three are up so far, and the grabber is "Paradise Circus/Life of a Pornstar." It's a beautiful downtempo song sung by Hope Sandoval, and the video, directed by Toby Dye, is truly something. It features Georgina Spelvin, the now 70-something star of Gerard Damiano's '70s porn classic The Devil in Miss Jones, discussing her work on...

JP MORGAN RAISES FINANCING FOR DIGITAL CINEMA EXPANSION

2010-02-06T16:09:00.016-05:00

As Scott posted earlier today, 3-D is not just on the minds of the majors. And with the news that JP Morgan has raised millions to finance the digital conversion of around 12,000 screens, it's a first step for one day indie filmmakers to share their own 3-D projects with studio fare in theaters. According to the Los Angeles Times piece, the investment bank raised close to $700 million. The funding was delayed over a year due to the credit crunch. This comes three years after a consortium was formed by three of the largest exhibitors (AMC, Cinemark and Regal) to pay for digital conversion. Currently, there are only 3,500 digital 3-D screens in the country.

MICHEL GONDRY'S MIA DOI TODD VIDEO

2010-02-06T14:38:00.000-05:00

PORTERFIELD'S PUTTY HILL PREMIERES IN BERLIN

2010-02-06T11:02:00.007-05:00

Baltimore director Matt Porterfield's (Hamilton) latest film Putty Hill premieres this month at the Berlin Film Festival's Forum. On the film's nicely-done website, Porterfield describes coming up with a five-page treatment that would use 15 locations when financing for a larger project, Metal Gods, fell through. About the result, he writes: Putty Hill is not quite like anything I’ve ever seen. On a most basic level, it is an amalgam of traditional forms of documentary and narrative realism. But it is an approach to realism in opposition to the anthropological, lyrical, and romantic currents present in most of the genre. More importantly, though the structure of the film was plotted, the details of individual scenes were largely...

A DIFFERENT KIND OF 3D MONSTER MOVIE

2010-02-06T10:41:00.006-05:00

Okay, it's not Avatar, but if you have a pair of those old red and blue cardboard glasses lying around you can check out Gray Miller's proposal for Sea Monster, which is being billed as a "3D stereoscopic web series exploring new film grammar." He's raising money for the "pulp sci-fi hard science mix" through Kickstarter and is about a third of the way towards his $5,000 goal with 37 days left. From his proposal: We're launching a sci-fi 3-D web series inspired by Moby Dick. It's designed to be shot in our own DIY stereoscopic 3-D, around Coney Island and Brooklyn next summer, and the budget for the pilot is $5,000. It's going to be a lot of work, but a lot of fun. I have a group of talented New York actors that I've worked with on my...

JONATHAN GOODMAN LEVITT ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT

2010-02-06T09:34:00.004-05:00

In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned "The Big Art/Little Debt Plan," which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Here is Jonathan Goodman Levitt's. What strategies did you employ to stay no/low debt during your production? I've had to take on a lot of more roles myself than would be ideal for the film, or for me personally. Life has been pretty much on-hold during the course of making this film, which has been an ongoing struggle. I had a colleague/friend shoot a few interviews so that I could focus on engaging with...

DAN COGAN ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT

2010-02-05T09:07:00.001-05:00

In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned "The Big Art/Little Debt Plan," which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Below is the one from Dan Cogan of Impact Partners. What drives most filmmakers, and especially documentary filmmakers, is their deep passion to tell a story. It's not about money or about a career for many filmmakers — it's about the story. This is very much a good and a bad thing. The passion is the good part — the refusal to think about money or budgets in a practical way is a bad thing. Many...

THE NEW BREED EXPLORES THE SOLUTIONS, PART 2

2010-02-05T09:06:00.006-05:00

In the continuing series of videos by SABI Pictures executive produced by Filmmaker and the Workbook Project, here's part 2 on the subject of exploring solutions: SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah speak with Dan Mirvish, Brian Newman, Ira Deutchman and Ted Hope to further explore the solutions that are emerging for independent filmmakers – featuring a proposal for a new relationship between filmmakers and festivals as outlined by Peter Baxter at the 2010 Filmmaker Summit. NEW BREED PARK CITY – Exploring the Solutions, Part 2 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo. Watch New Breed videos.

THE SUPER BOWL... THROUGH YOUR FAVORITE DIRECTOR'S EYES

2010-02-04T20:47:00.016-05:00

With Super Bowl Sunday a few days away you may be getting ready by watching the old NFL Films of Super Bowls past. But how would they come out if they were directed by famous filmmakers? The Herzog one is my favorite.

2010 SXSW LINEUP ANNOUNCED

2010-02-04T09:53:00.014-05:00

The South by Southwest Film Festival unveiled its lineup for this year's fest, which will take place in Austin, Texas March 12-20. Out of the 119 titles shown this year some of the highlights will be the opening night film, fanboy fav Kick-Ass, as well as Mark and Jay Duplass’s Cyrus, Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart and Bernard Rose’s Mr. Nice (pictured). The full list of films are below. HEADLINERS Cyrus Directors and Screenwriters: Jay and Mark Duplass With John’s social life at a standstill and his ex-wife about to get remarried, a down on his luck divorcee finally meets the woman of his dreams, only to discover she has another man in her life – her son. Written and directed...

THOMAS WOODROW ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT

2010-02-04T09:00:00.003-05:00

In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned "The Big Art/Little Debt Plan," which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Below is the one from Thomas Woodrow, producer, Bass Ackwards. With the current environment/budgets you are seeing, do think there will be more financing gaps than usual? If yes, do you think this might create an uptick in personal debt (both for you and the filmmaker) to fill the gap? If no, how are gaps traditionally-weathered/weathered-in-this-moment? The most straightforward solution is simply to make...

THE NEW BREED EXPLORES THE SOLUTIONS IN PARK CITY

2010-02-04T04:58:00.002-05:00

Here's the latest in the continuing series of videos by SABI Pictures executive produced by Filmmaker and the Workbook Project. The official word: SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah speak with Ted Hope, Jon Reiss, Mynette Louie (Children of Invention) and Linas Phillips (Bass Ackwards) to explore the solutions that are emerging for independent filmmakers – featuring some of the insights and actions that came from the 2010 Filmmaker Summit. NEW BREED PARK CITY – Exploring the Solutions, Part 1 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo. Watch all New Breed videos.

MYNETTE LOUIE ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT

2010-02-03T08:38:00.003-05:00

In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned "The Big Art/Little Debt Plan," which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Below is the one from Mynette Louie, producer, Children of Invention. With the current environment/budgets you are seeing, do think there will be more financing gaps than usual? If yes, do you think this might create an uptick in personal debt (both for you and the filmmaker) to fill the gap? If no, how are gaps traditionally-weathered/weathered-in-this-moment? Gaps are definitely tougher to fill these days...

NEILL BLOMKAMP ON LIFE OUTSIDE OUR UNIVERSE

2010-02-03T06:27:00.005-05:00

Here's District 9 director Neil Blomkamp's TED Talk in which he discusses life on other planets and the fate of our human civilization.

FILM FINANCE RELOADED

2010-02-03T00:01:00.002-05:00

The panel on the first day of the Rotterdam Lab was led by Michael Gubbins, former editor of Screen International, who is now associated with Power to the Pixel, the UK-based cross-media initiative supporting content creators and distributors who are interested in finding alternate means particularly, I think, of content finance and distribution. If you need more context, think Ted Hope and Lance Weiler, both of whom have more than passing associations with the organzation. And if you must, think Thomas Woodrow too, because as of that panel, I'm mighty interested in what they're doing also. In the photo, you'll see (L to R): Michael Gubbins and filmmakers Ho Yuhang, Alexis dos Santos and yes, by total coincidence, Pippilotti Rist. So on...

ROTTERDAM WRAP UP

2010-02-02T18:06:00.024-05:00

Back in New York after a week at the Rotterdam Lab. That week went fast! Here are a few highlights: One of our first sessions was Ido Abram's master class in pitching. Ido is the Managing Director of the Binger Filmlab, a prestigious Amsterdam-based feature film and doc development center open to international filmmakers. Binger seems like a Euro version of the various Sundance Labs, only each Binger lab goes on for months at a time, and are located in a city that is pretty much the polar opposite of Utah. Ido has thought a lot about pitching, and has broken down the principles in a useful way. For this lecture, he tailored his spiel for the audience - producers. The heart of his lecture was about the many layers of a successful...

PAUL DEVLIN ON THE AFTERLIFE OF BLAST!

2010-02-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

'Theatrical Launch," Paul Devlin's account of self-distributing his documentary Blast!, ends with his post-mortem on that release, a self-examination that takes into account not only box office but the press and further bookings the film received. I asked Devlin if he could update us on what's happened since the article, specifically how he approached the educational market. (He had received offers from non-theatrical distributors.) Here is his response. And, if you haven't read the article, you can pick it up on the stands or receive it immediately as a PDF when you subscribe to Filmmaker. We turned down the distribution offers. In the educational/institutional market at least, they are truly ridiculous from our point of view. Instead...

ACADEMY AWARDS NOMINATIONS REVEALED

2010-02-02T09:22:00.001-05:00

Moments ago the nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced. Though most of the obvious choices did come through, there were some nice surprises on the indie side, including multiple nominations for The Messenger, including Best Supporting Actor for Woody Harrelson and The Last Station (Helen Mirren for Best Actress and Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor). Colin Firth received a nomination for his moving lead performance in A Single Man, and another surprise was Maggie Gyllenhaal receiving a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Crazy Heart. And for the first time since the late 30s the Academy is recognizing ten Best Picture nominees. The Oscars will air on March 7 @ 8:00pm on ABC. Read the full list of nominees...

A VENTURE CAPITALIST TALKS MEDIA AND MOBILE START-UPS

2010-02-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Fred Wilson runs the blog A VC. NYC 3.0 is a blog about tech start-ups in New York. The latter interviewed the former in this video, which works its a way towards Wilson's recommendations about pitching new media and the mistakes people make. Fred Wilson talks trends, advice for startups from Vadim Lavrusik on Vimeo.

COLLEAGUES REMEMBER EDITOR KAREN SCHMEER

2010-02-02T05:53:00.002-05:00

I didn't know documentary film editor Karen Schmeer, but I certainly knew her work. Her first credited feature, Errol Morris's Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, is one of my all-time favorite documentaries and a Filmmaker magazine cover story. Brilliantly constructed, it weaves portraits of four oddball individualists and dreamers into a single meditative essay on creativity, self-worth and man's desire for legacy. The film would be an incredible feat for even the most seasoned of editors; that she cut it early in her career is astounding to me. She also edited The Fog of War and Mr. Death (again, both excellent), and she won the Documentary Editing Award last year at Sundance for her work on Greg Barker's Sergio. As many of you know,...