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Directing
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Marjane Satrapi’s Comic Relief
Persepolis gives awards season an animated jolt
Paris-based cartoonist Marjane Satrapi says she never set out to make movies. Satrapi is the author and illustrator of the beloved graphic novels Persepolis I and II, which, together comprise a funny, moving memoir chronicling Satrapi’s life growing up in Tehran and Vienna during the rise of the Islamic revolution. The books offer a glimpse into “Marji’s” experiences as a curious, outspoken girl who suddenly finds herself living in a fundamentalist society where she has to wear a veil and punk rock music is verboten.
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Rawson Marshall Thurber Unravels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Sophomore writer-director goes from Dodgeball to Sundance
Four years after proving his comedic chops—and box office potential—with the comedy Dodgeball, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber is going in a completely different direction. With Michael Chabon's blessing, he's adapted the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, into a feature film starring Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard and Nick Nolte.
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Johan Renck Juggles Downloading Nancy
Madonna, Beyoncé, New Order. Nike, Mercedes, Dom Perignon. As a music video and commerical director, Swedish auteur Johan Renck has worked with the biggest names in the world. So it's not surprising that he's gathered up an all-star cast of players for Downloading Nancy, his feature directorial debut. Aided by the talents of Maria Bello, Jason Patric, Rufus Sewell and Amy Brenneman, Renck is bringing the story of a lonely wife whose life changes when she meets a new man on the Internet to the big screen. His first stop? The Sundance Film Festival, where the film will make its premiere on January 21st.
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David E. Talbert Makes First Sunday
Playwright. Author. Producer. David E. Talbert has spent the last two decades making a name for himself as one of the world’s most prolific forces in a variety of creative disciplines. From the NBC special he was hand-picked to write and produce for Jamie Foxx to his best-selling literary collaboration with Snoop Dogg, Talbert is one of the highest-grossing and most recognizable brands in urban inspirational comedies and musicals. His 12 plays have been performed all over the world and earned him an amazing 24 NAACP Award nominations (with five wins). Now, Talbert’s taking his talents to the silver screen for his feature directorial debut, First Sunday. The church-set caper comedy, starring Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan and Katt Williams, may seem a bit of a departure for Talbert, but this preacher’s son feels right at home in the director’s chair.
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Jay Russell: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"Do a lot of daydreaming" and other lessons from Hollywood's go-to guy when it comes to family fantasy films.
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Jay Russell Brings The Water Horse to Life
Since 2000’s My Dog Skip, director Jay Russell has been the go-to man for bringing the heartwarming tales of children’s novels to life on the big screen. His latest effort, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, which opens on Christmas Day, used the resources of Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop to bring the mythical hatchling to life and portray the bond between boy and pet.
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Adam Rifkin Is Watching You!
In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 30 million surveillance cameras capturing more than four billion hours of footage every week--of you! That's right, ladies and gentleman, embarrassing "captured on video" moments aren't just for the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. And moviemaker Adam Rifkin found that out the hard way—when he received a speeding ticket in the mail, accompanied by a photo of him driving through a traffic light. After further research, Rifkin discovered that he is not alone; the average American is captured on video more than 200 times a day. So rather than just pay his fine and be done with it, Rifkin decided to make a movie, too.
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Chris Weitz, Golden Boy
As a novel, The Golden Compass represents the first third of a juvenile fiction trilogy entitled His Dark Materials, which has captured scores of enthusiastic fans and sold 14 million copies internationally to date. In adapting The Golden Compass for the screen, writer-director Chris Weitz took on a subject that he calls "one of the 20th century’s greatest works of the imagination," a book that awoke his cinematic senses to the possibility of a legendary screenplay.
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Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
Director Julie Taymor shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
From Oscar to Tony, Julie Taymor has found success in Hollywood and on Broadway as a writer, director, producer and costume designer. In 2003, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Frida, which she also directed. Her latest film, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, is on DVD now. Here she shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
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Amy Adams Enchants Kevin Lima
He may be a Hollywood veteran, but director Kevin Lima is still a kid at heart—a kid who has known that he wanted to make movies for Disney since the tender age of five and has been doing so successfully for 20 years. As he sits atop the box office, with more than $50 million in receipts over the Thanksgiving holiday for Enchanted, Lima talks shop with MM.
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Ed Burns and iTunes: A Match Made in Heaven
Indie stalwart makes history (again) with the first feature film premiere on iTunes
Twelve years and seven directorial efforts after storming the indie film scene at Sundance, Ed Burns is making history once again, as he premieres Purple Violets exclusively on iTunes.
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Todd Haynes Takes on Bob Dylan
A moviemaker's long journey to bring the life of legendary musician Bob Dylan to the big screen results in the experimental I'm Not There
After the enormous success of recent biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, it should have been easy for writer-director Todd Haynes to make his Bob Dylan-inspired film, I'm Not There. It wasn't.
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Zach Helm’s World of Wonder
Stranger Than Fiction screenwriter makes his directorial debut
Zach Helm’s life may not be stranger than fiction, but it is sweeter than a fairytale. Plucked out of the playwriting scene in Chicago in 1997 to participate in a writers’ program at Fox 2000, he dreamt up Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium as a writing sample.
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Ed Burns: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"Don't try and compete with the studio films" and other lessons from a true indie moviemaker.
"When sending your screenplay out to a movie star, don’t expect to hear back from them for at least three months" and other lessons from a truly independent moviemaker.
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Kasi Lemmons Finds the Voice to Speak Out in Talk to Me
For writer-director Kasi Lemmons, making movies has never been a question of black or white, but rather varying shades of gray. "The gray area is so much more interesting and so much more realistic and valid to our experiences,” says the 46-year-old multi-hyphenate. “People are not all good or all bad. They’re complicated. Complicated characters are what interest me."
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Other People’s Money
How to make a living while building a name in Hollywood
You've learned how to block a scene, move a dolly, mix a soundtrack, cut a negative, color-correct a work print, watch Hitchcock and critique Spielberg - but you don't know how to make money. Here's how.
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Balancing the Roles of Writer and Director
Determining the roles of "writer" and "director" begins and ends with one simple question: What is the story I'm telling?
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Moviemaking: The Eternal Balancing Act
NOTEBOOK
Halloween, Too
Rob Zombie revisits John Carpenter’s horror classic
Given his predilection for stepping behind the lens it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Rob Zombie announced his foray into feature moviemaking with 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses. But Zombie remaking John Carpenter’s hallowed horror classic, Halloween? That announcement did shock some people… including Zombie himself.
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John Carpenter’s Business of Insanity
With five remakes of his work in two years, John Carpenter is happily riding the Halloween gravy train
In Hollywood these days, it sometimes seems easier to find an actor who’ll admit to having had plastic surgery than it is to find an original idea for a movie. Case in point: Legendary horror director John Carpenter.
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Ethan Hawke Grows Up in The Hottest State
Writer-director-actor Ethan Hawke finds meaning in an autobiographical work—15 years later
When I was 21 and under the influence of books like James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans and Larry McMurtry’s All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, I started writing a wildly autobiographical piece of fiction about my experiences upon arriving in New York. I wanted to write about trying to “make it” as an actor and centered the story on a soul-crushing, identity-defining encounter with first love.
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Silent Movies Are Still Creating an Echo
With silent films more available than ever, now is the time to remember the era's most influential directors
From Griffith and Eisenstein to Chaplin and Keaton, MM revisits the 15 greatest directors of the silent era.
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Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris
Richard Linklater's muse offers her own quirky take on cross-cultural romance with her directorial debut, 2 Days in Paris
After sharpening her multi-tasking skills with Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy is writing, directing, producing, editing, scoring and starring in her own take on cross-cultural romance with 2 Days in Paris.
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Random Thoughts From the Set of Jeff Garlin's I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
Star of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" turns his attention to the big screen
From soundless filming to nausea on the set, Jeff Garlin relives the experience of writing, directing and starring in his directorial debut, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With.
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Neil Jordan's Golden Rules of Moviemaking
"Never tell the truth on a junket" and other lessons from the director of The Brave One and Interview with the Vampire, Neil Jordan.
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Master of the Movie Prop
Kevin Hughes makes a career out of putting things in their place
Just about anything an actor touches in a film that isn’t nailed down is a prop. Props serve to enhance a character’s backstory, improve the look of a location or, in the case of fake projectile vomit, simply gross out the audience. The talented artists who furnish the canvas of cinema with their treasures are called property masters. MM spoke with Kevin Hughes, an industry veteran who began his career as an assistant on Apocalypse Now, and more recently has worked on such films as Boogie Nights, Borat and Bobby.
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The Future of Moviemaking
An Editorial for MovieMaker
What does the future hold for the moviemakers of tomorrow? One of film's most fiercely independent players takes a moment to play prognosticator.
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Big Little Indies
Today's new wave of "indie studios" are changing the rules of the game
In the 1990s, the six major studios owned specialty divisions and shed them. But today's "indie studios" exist in the context of an industry that finds itself negotiating art against a backdrop of both a technological flux and an austere bottom line.
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Tomorrow’s Technologies
Just how is last year's co-financed arthouse affair an "independent" film if it makes The Ten Commandments look like a kitchen-sink drama? Not long ago there was no such thing as an "indie studio." Things have changed.
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Celebrating An Icon
Celebrating An Icon On the Occasion of His Centennial Year
A man can die, but his movies will always remain in the present tense. That is why, in the case of John Wayne-whose centennial we celebrate on May 26, nearly 28 years after his demise-you can point to the precise moment when the man became an icon.
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The Universal Language of Film Has a Mexican Accent
Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki is proving that images speak louder than words with his work in such acclaimed films as The New World and Children of Men
Whether he's raising $7,000 to shoot an indie film in Mexico with a group of friends or helping alfonso Cuarón spend a $70 million budget on Children of Men, for cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, it's all about the images.
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The Duke
Remembering the big screen's straighest shooter
His gritty, gruff demeanor and that this-is-a-man-coming-through swagger defined not only the Western for decades (and in many ways still does), but American manhood in general. Wayne's roles in Westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, True Grit, Red River and Rio Bravo, along with war movies like The Longest Day, The High and the Mighty and Sands of Iwo Jima, created an image of Man unlike any seen before. Man was action, Man was the leader, Man simply was.
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Arrested Development
Call the police! Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have '80s action films in the crosshairs and they're about to squeeze the trigger with Hot Fuzz
British writer-director Edgar Wright and actor-writer Simon Pegg's affectionate satire of zombie movies, 2004's Shaun of the Dead, revolved around a simple question: what would happen if an average bloke was suddenly thrust into your typical the-dead-have-risen- and-they-crave-our- delicious-flesh scenario? with their latest film, Hot Fuzz, they reverse the equation: what would happen if an extraordinary man-in this case, London's most dedicated supercop-suddenly found himself stuck in a town where nothing ever happened?
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My Golden Rules
Edit while you're still shooting. On every flick since Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I've been editing while still in the midst of production. I'm not talking about some hired editor piecing together an assembly while I'm on set, either. I mean that whenever I'm not shooting, I'm in the editing room with my footage. While the crew is taking 15 minutes to an hour to set up the next shot, I'm behind the Avid, putting the flick together.
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Henry Jaglom: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Tell the truth.
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James Schamus Honored with Trailblazer Award at Woodstock
James Schamus, the man behind Focus Features (think The Constant Gardener, Atonement), was chosen to receive the 2008 Trailblazer Award from the Woodstock Film Festival. Prior to working at Focus he was co-president of independent production company Good Machine for 11 years and won numerous awards for his own work, including the award for Best Screenplay at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival for The Ice Storm.
Posted 09.5.08 | No comments yet...
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