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Mixed Reviews: Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman
Is there a more controversial actor working today than Christian Bale? From his start as an impressive child actor (Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun) to his emergence as a bonafide movie star after taking on the iconic role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, Bale has certainly had a whirlwind ride in Hollywood. He’s also had plenty of inner demons to shake, as Harrison Cheung and Nicola Pittam’s new biography, Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman (BenBella Books, 312 pages, $15.95), details.
May 23rd, 2012 | Category: Mixed Reviews | By Kyle Rupprecht
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Going "No and Pro"
Can you hear Tiffany and I rejoicing? We found a celebrity host for the June 4th Producer’s Dinner we're holding to court investors for our film Tiny Dancer: Bobbie Thomas, the beautiful style editor for NBC’s "The Today Show." Why Bobbie Thomas, you might ask? Well, Tiny Dancer is about two women struggling to find their inner meaning and, in a sense, their inner beauty as well. Ms. Thomas, who began her career as a rape crisis counselor, has been quoted as saying “Beauty truly comes from the strength within.” Damn... that could be the tagline for our film! We are thrilled to have her as our Guest of Honor.
Tiffany and I have been going here and there trying to widen our circle and spread the exciting news that we are now accepting investments in Tiny Dancer, whereas before we were a non-profit working solely off of donations. The donate vs. investment mentality is fascinating to me. Where does the distinction come from?
May 22nd, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Needed—One Celebrity
So we have our LLC set up for Tiny Dancer (it’s amazing how fast you can create a business in this country), we’ve finalized our invitation for the June 4th event and we’ve sent out e-mails letting our supporters know that we have changed our plan of attack to “invest.” We’ve had a few responses requesting our PPM and business plan and are keeping our fingers crossed that we can get some investors. I spent the weekend casually trying to talk up what good sense it makes to invest in Tiny Dancer at the numerous birthday parties we took our son to. But we still have no celebrity host for our upcoming event.
May 15th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
Directing on a Dime: Summer Reading List
After pulling a 33-hour sprint through post-production on my final project, I am now officially done with my first semester of film school at the University of Texas! As you can tell from the start of the sentence above, it was a bit of a doozy. But now summer is here, and I’ll be busy seeing new movies, doing interviews for MovieMaker, taking some summer school classes and shooting my next short film. And, of course, catching up on some books I’ve been meaning to read. For this week’s article I decided to make a “Summer Reading List” of books I want to recommend to other low-budget moviemakers. These are some of my favorite books of all time, books I’ve read and studied a thousand times over that have really influenced the way I watch movies and work on set.
May 11th, 2012 | Category: Directing on a Dime | By Andy Young
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Mixed Reviews: The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Music on Film Series
Nearly 40 years after its initial release, The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains amazingly popular. Still shown at midnight screenings around the world, it has the distinction of being the longest-running theatrical release in film history, having originally opened in 1975. Not bad for a bizarre, low-budget horror-comedy rock musical that introduced “sweet transvestite” Dr. Frank-N-Furter to the general public. The history and influence of this weirdly influential film is recounted in Dave Thompson’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the latest entry in the Music on Film series.
May 9th, 2012 | Category: Mixed Reviews | By Kyle Rupprecht
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: No Sleep 'til Financed
We haven’t been sleeping much since we decided to have this Producer’s Dinner on June 4th and fully embrace taking investments for Tiny Dancer. I've been kept up at night by questions. This morning alone I am proofreading our Private Placement Memorandum/Subscription Agreement (wait... am I qualified to do this?!) and e-mailing our lawyer about finally setting up a Tiny Dancer LLC. Not to mention the freaking-out-ness Tiff and I are experiencing with creating the event’s invite. How do you list “tiers” of investment on an invite you are e-mailing? Ah... times have changed since the days of $100 donations. We are a little scared, but we also feel like something is pushing the project forward. Don’t question, just go!
May 8th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
I Found It At the Movies: 2008—Tulpan (Sergei Dvortsevoy)
Tulpan, in terms of its bravura filmmaking, could be seen as the rural counterpart to my 2007 entry, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. If I had to guess, the film probably has fewer than 100 cuts. However, it covers a lot of ground. It's one of these rare films that pushes my understanding of what's possible in the medium and forces me to reconsider the directions in which I'd like to go. In fact, if I had an endless amount of time and money to do my next project, I would love to take the Mungiu or Dvortsevoy approach. To me, in terms of sheer technique, this is the most exciting filmmaking I have seen in many, many years.
May 2nd, 2012 | Category: | By Jeffrey Goodman
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Here We Go Again
As many of you may remember, when we held our last big fundraising event in October for our film, Tiny Dancer, many people came, but few donated. Dare we tempt fate again? What else are we going to do? On June 4th, Tiff and I are having what we're calling “The Producer’s Dinner” at the loft of Patrick and Kate Morris, who are donating a dinner for 20 catered by Food Glorious Food and sponsored by Medea Vodka. We are selling tickets in advance starting at $1,000, and our goal is to raise between $25,000 and $75,000, which will close our budget gap and allow us to begin production on Tiny Dancer this fall.
May 1st, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
Directing on a Dime: Six Lessons from Year One
As of yesterday, I’ve been writing for MovieMaker for a full year now. In that year, I’ve interviewed several of my moviemaking heroes, attended festivals both as press and as a moviemaker, won a few awards, crewed on over 30 different short films and tried my hand at directing commercials, episodic television, animation and live theater. Oh, and after two years of banging on the door, I finally got into film school.
In the first article I wrote for MovieMaker, I shared six things I learned while making my 2010 feature film The Legend of Action Man. Here are six things I’ve learned since:
April 27th, 2012 | Category: Directing on a Dime | By Andy Young
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Learning from Agent X
Tiffany and I took a week off and went to Mexico with our son, where the only thing we were crowdfunding was pesos from each other. Mexico is such a beautiful country, with people warmer than the green/blue water, especially in Cancún and the Mayan Riveria, where we love to go. We did, however, learn the ultimate lesson on selling—one that has stuck with us—at the airport.
April 24th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Directing on a Dime: Meet DC Pierson, Man of Many Hats
When I interviewed Mystery Team director Dan Eckman back in August, he dropped the news that he was going to turn one of my favorite books into a movie. The book is called The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To, and it was written by fellow Derrick Comedy member DC Pierson.
I know what you’re thinking: This is a moviemaking column, and a moviemaker DC is not. That’s fair enough. However, he is the textbook definition of a modern multi-hyphenate artist capable of wearing several hats (his credits on Mystery Team include actor, screenwriter and art director), which I believe makes him a very relevant case study for young low-budget moviemakers.
April 19th, 2012 | Category: Directing on a Dime | By Andy Young
I Found It At the Movies: 2007—4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)
It only seems apt that the two directorial achievements that most impressed me over the last decade are my final two picks of this countdown.
I have long been interested in the idea of an aesthetic that captures the real with methods that are precise and formal. It's a difficult balance to strike, and many films aiming for something more formal end up distancing themselves from reality. Meanwhile, films that want to feel real often end up sacrificing a formal system for something more intimate and immediate.
When I saw Mungiu's film, I was shocked at how well he was able to achieve this balance as I describe it above. His film is one of the most technically complex I have ever seen, yet somehow he is able to insert this approach into something that always feels incredibly real and alive.
April 18th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
I Found It At the Movies: 2006—L'enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
I saw La promesse and Rosetta in theaters when they first came out and was lukewarm on both. I then ignored the next ten years' worth of Dardenne releases. But finally, after some prodding and encouragement from friends, I caught up with L'enfant (The Child), The Son and Lorna's Silence. I tell you all this to explain how I've done a complete about-face on these directors and now consider their body of work one of the most interesting things going. I haven't gone back and revisited their earlier work yet, but I assume I would have a much more favorable reaction to it now.
April 11th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: The Biz Plan
I feel like I’ve already made Tiny Dancer. It was harder than writing the script, shooting for three days or potentially having a baby... I finished the business plan! It was a necessary step, seeing as how we’re gearing up to leave our non-profit status and enter the marketplace. Over the years I have made numerous stabs at writing business plans, and the weeks I spent doing so have been some of the most painful of my life. This time around, Tiffany and I wanted to finally get it right.
April 10th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
I Found It At the Movies: 2005—Les amants réguliers (Philippe Garrel)
I love to lose myself in certain movies, particularly those that abandon more traditional time structures and suck you into their temporal vortex. I'm thinking of movies like McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Mother and the Whore and this 2005 entry from Philippe Garrel. I had the good fortune of seeing it in a Parisian theater and remember being transformed for days afterwards.
The first half of the film, the 1968 riot footage, is shot in such an obscure way that it helps plunge the viewer into this other space. By the time we arrive in the more drug-induced part of the film, there's a hazy quality already well-established between film and viewer.
April 4th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: People Are Listening
I have been posting entries on MovieMaker.com for about nine months now, documenting the trials and tribulations of crowdfunding our small—but not that small—feature film, Tiny Dancer. In that time, I have been e-mailed by teachers looking for advice on crowdfunding campaigns for their students, filmmakers looking to get their scripts produced (Wait, don’t you read the blog? We have no money!), lawyers and investment groups following the updates on the JOBS Act (I never thought I’d become an authority on SEC rules and regulations) and fellow crowdfunders looking for a shout-out.
April 3rd, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>Directing on a Dime: Adventures in Moviemaking
The Invasion of the Robot-Monster from Mars... with Chainsaws for Arms!
Looking back through some of my old articles, I realized how little I’ve been talking about actually making my own low-budget films. So I’m starting a new series within my blog called "Adventures in Moviemaking," where I’ll take you step-by-step through the process of making one of my short films. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, the miracles, the monstrosities and everything in between that goes into making a low-budget short film. This week I’m going to talk about The Invasion of the Robot-Monster from Mars... with Chainsaws for Arms!, my first 16mm film. Let's make a movie!
March 30th, 2012 | Category: Directing on a Dime | By Andy Young
I Found It At the Movies: 2004—Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)
A tough year for me to choose. The re-issue of the Samuel Fuller film The Big Red One really blew me away. But I finally gave the year to Clint, as he strikes me as a model of simplicity, modest craftsmanship and intelligence that is so special in today's landscape.
Generally I like more audacious cinema, and I often find myself wowed and inspired by some of the medium's great stylists. But minimalism and simplicity at the height of post-modernism also feels most welcome. I won't deny that this one can be overly sentimental at times. But it also has real heart, three strong performances (Eastwood, Freeman and Swank) and a really nice look.
March 28th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: The JOBS Act, Indie Film, Crowdfunding and Me
Last week, the Senate approved the JOBS (Jump-start Our Business Start-ups) Act, approved by the House weeks earlier, with a 73-26 vote. The Act, which is heavily backed by President Obama and (oddly enough) both Democrats and Republicans, would relax federal regulation for small businesses and start-ups (and movies like Tiny Dancer), letting them raise capital without running into the tangle of SEC regulations I mentioned two weeks ago. The Senate successfully added a crowdfunding amendment (yay!), which means the Act needs to head back to the House for a second vote, but it seems that it will get approved fairly quickly. So what does this all mean for us, the broke-moviemaker types?
March 27th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>I Found It At the Movies: 2003—All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green)
I'm one of those in favor of the auteur theory. I do believe that, in most cases, the best films are made by the best directors and that, in most cases, the directors are the "authors" of their films. However, what I think is perhaps undervalued in this idea are the contributions of some of the great cameramen, composers, editors, art directors and producers. Film is a collaborative medium, and many of the great directors benefit substantially from their relationship with their great collaborators.
Here is a perfect example. There's no doubt in my mind that David Gordon Green is unusually talented. But his cameraman, Tim Orr, is an exceptional talent as well. Just take a look at the work Orr's done with other directors—for example, a film like Raising Victor Vargas—and it's clear that he has a style all his own.
March 21st, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: New York Times, Meet Tiny Dancer
Sometimes everything you’ve been working for falls right into your lap without even the slightest effort, as if the hand of destiny just took the wheel. Tiffany and I constantly brainstorm crazy ideas to get press coverage, donations and general awareness for Tiny Dancer... then last Saturday, without us doing a thing, Tiny Dancer was profiled in The New York Times in an amazing article about non-profits joining the crowdfunding landscape. Artspire, the new crowdfunding platform created by our fiscal sponsor, NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts), is featured in the article, and Tiny Dancer was selected from the over 500 NYFA projects to be included as an example of non-profit crowdfunding. How did this come about? A combination of luck, all the hard work we’ve been doing and the fact that our trailer resonated with someone somewhere. Never in a million years did we think that Tiny Dancer would be in The New York Times!
March 20th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
Directing on a Dime: The (Budgetary) Highs and Lows of the Duplass Brothers
This is an interesting week to be the Duplass brothers. Jeff Who Lives at Home, Jay and Mark’s biggest film to date, is hitting theaters in wide release today, less than a week after they had another new movie, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. With no other projects currently in the works, Do-Deca looks to be the brothers' last Mumblecore film, at least for now. As a long-time fan of their films, taking a look at Jeff and Do-Deca back-to-back makes me wonder: How much has changed for the duo, how much remains the same and what's in store for them in the future? I sat down with them at SXSW to ask just that.
March 16th, 2012 | Category: Directing on a Dime | By Andy Young
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' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>I Found It At the Movies: 2002—Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski)
I first heard about Bujalski after reading a great Amy Taubin piece in Film Comment. When I tracked down Funny Ha Ha shortly thereafter, it really took me by surprise. It was so different from anything else coming out of the indie scene.
Bujalski's film is natural and real, but not at all in the way that someone like Harmony Korine might take on naturalism. There's very little irony here, and the style is unabrasive, observational and remarkably restrained. The camera is often handheld, but it's always moved in a fluid manner, rather than a shaky, aggressive one. Korine and many of his generation wanted to bring the Dogma aesthetic to the states. Bujalski, meanwhile, seems more to be channeling Rohmer and Jean Eustache.
March 14th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Investing in the Future of Tiny Dancer
What do you do when you’ve exhausted all of your “crowds?” When you feel you can’t ask your amazing family and friends for one more nickel for your project and still be able to hold your head up? You think about getting investors, of course. But that’s easier said than done. Not only is it difficult to convince someone to invest in a micro-budget project, but I’m finding it’s even harder to figure out how to legally accept investments!
March 13th, 2012 | Category: Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie! | By Jayce Bartok
I Found It At the Movies: 2001—Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
One thing people don't discuss all that much when it comes to David Lynch is his relationship to film noir. When I look at the majority of his work—Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, "Twin Peaks," Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire—as much as anything else, I see influences and traces of noir. Sure, he blends different genres, and sure his films challenge us to reconsider the look, feel and sound of noir, but so many elements of noir are present. And I say this as a compliment. After all, noir is the genre I know best, and it's probably the one that got me into loving (and making) film in the first place.
March 7th, 2012 | Category: I Found It At The Movies | By Jeffrey Goodman
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