Filmmaker

Summer 2013: Click here to read interviews with Fruitvale Station's Ryan Coogler, Ain't Them Bodies Saints' David Lowery, The Canyons' Paul Schrader and more...

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Spook Country: Spencer McCall on The Institute

TheInstitute

Just what the hell was the Jejune Institute? After watching Spencer McCall’s fascinating and intentionally puzzling documentary The Institute, I’m still not quite sure. An interactive, multimedia, experiential game, based in a nondescript building in San Francisco’s central business district that thrives of]n the memory of a woman who disappeared into the Bay Area night a quarter century ago and never returned? Perhaps, I guess. A scripted experience surely, an alternate-reality game involving participants in events both spooky and merely bizarre, including scavenger hunts to fairly ominous locales, mock public protests and sundry hijinks that would feel right at home in a Thomas Pynchon novel surely. But to what end? Self-actualization, empathy, fairness? Beats me. What I can say is…  Read more

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Adapt or Die: 13 Steps to Adapting a Film from Something Else

On the set of Between Us On the set of Between Us

“We’re not special. We’re not brilliant. We never were.” So says David Harbour’s character in my film Between Us. And he’s right. Most of us probably started as writer-directors by necessity, but at a certain point in a filmmaker’s career (and of course, if you have an actual “career,” you will eventually cease to be a filmmaker, and become instead a “filmSmaker”), you will realize you’re probably not as brilliant or talented as you once thought you were. If you were indeed a genius screenwriter, you’re probably better off writing scripts for Hollywood and actually getting paid to write anyway. But if you want to keep directing, you’ll realize that you have neither the time, inclination nor skill to keep…  Read more

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How Much Would You Pay for a Banksy?

Banksy rat

How much would you pay for a Banksy? A shot of a Banksy, that is, not the actual work itself. As RobertoofParkSlope’s Instagram documents, the British artist’s New York tour seems to be providing income opportunities for enterprising folks over here.

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Review: Audio Scanning Tool Boris Soundbite

Boris Soundbite Boris Soundbite

Boris Soundbite is a handy tool that scans the audio in your media files and lets you search for words or phrases. Useful for documentary filmmakers, supercut editors, and anyone needing to search an archive of media. Best of all – it actually works. This is an idea that’s been around for a while. I was skeptical at first as I’ve tried other solutions like this before with less than favorable results (like Premiere’s transcribe feature), but where Soundbite succeeds is it only returns hits for a search, not a verbatim transcription. It matches the audio based on words or phrases you search for using Nexidia’s dialogue search technology, and returns results based on a probability threshold you designate. I…  Read more

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NYFF Critics Notebook: Stray Dogs, Bastards, Redemption

tsai

The New York Film Festival’s most exciting offerings are often those deemed “undistributable” and unlikely to make a return visit soon, with Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs this year’s standard-bearer. By 2009’s Face, Tsai seemed in an increasingly droll mood, embracing slow-burn physical comedy for its own sake; Stray Dogs — his first feature since — strips out nearly all levity under digital’s harsh glare. An early daylight shot of an isolated rural area is representatively demanding/rewarding, initially nearly swallowed by a dense cluster of skinny trees, whose semi-open circle hedges in a cave-like darkness lit by floating motes slowly identifiable as insects. The camera moves right, down and left to follow a brother and sister slowly making their way around…  Read more

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The Censors: Short-Haired Women and Long-Haired Men (and a Note on Hegemony)

CensorLegMPMag'16.3

This third installment of Time Frames draws on The Media History Digital Library, a reservoir of information about early cinema that includes the sorts of magazines, journals, and trade publications that, in the pre-digital era, had only been available to those able to travel to research libraries. At over 800,000 scanned pages and growing, the collection is daunting. In Time Frames I’ll cull through and select a series of images and text from the collection to highlight key transformative moments in the film culture and industry, as well as other oddities and obscure artifacts. Note: click on images to enlarge. Prior to the publication of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1930 (often called “the Hays Code” after Will H. Hays, its chief enforcer until 1934…  Read more

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Banksy’s Rebel Rocket Attack Video is Genius

Banksy

From a new YouTube account, BanksyNY, graffiti’s greatest talent has posted a new video, entitled “Rebel rocket attack.” We’re deep into production on our Fall issue of Filmmaker, so I’ll post this with a minimum of comment and say only this: Watch.

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Filmmaking

hackingartsfeatured

Hacking Arts – Using Technology To Connect With Your Audience

Hacking Arts, a two-day event to “explore the intersection of arts and entertainment, technology and entrepreneurship” was held this last weekend at MIT’s Media Lab. The first day consisted of panels and product demos, while the rest of the event was devoted to participants working…  Read more

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Oct 1, 2013

Columns

CROWMOUTHFilmFun

Meta-Vamping

This second installment of Time Frames draws on The Media History Digital Library, a reservoir of information about early cinema that includes the sorts of magazines, journals, and trade publications that, in the pre-digital era, had only been available to those able to travel to…  Read more

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on Sep 19, 2013

Videos

Festivals & Events

25NF_2013

“25 New Faces” Screening Next Wednesday at NYC’s IFC Center

Last year, Filmmaker organized a nationwide tour of “25 New Faces” screenings that included a very enjoyable, sold-out screening at IFC Center in Manhattan. This year, there is another tour (now sponsored by Sony Creative Software and ARRI) and we are very happy to be having another event at…  Read more

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on Sep 27, 2013

VOD Picks

Interviews

del Toro on the set of Pacific Rim

“A Filmmaker Lives in a Suitcase”: Guillermo del “Toronto” Speaks During TIFF

At the end of a one-hour chat held on the first full day of TIFF, an audience member suggested that the Mexican director of Pan’s Labyrinth be renamed Guillermo del Toronto. The sentiment behind this fanciful idea lay in the fact that del Toro keeps…  Read more

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on Sep 15, 2013

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