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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Break down the ego and create from truth. You need to tear yourself down and create from a clean place where nothing is certain and vision can grow. When you let your ego interfere your only hindering your art and limiting yourself in your abilities.
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Everything Comes Together
For Marc Forster, it's still all about telling stories
Five years ago, a little film called Monster’s Ball snuck into theaters and changed the landscape of contemporary independent film, propelling its director, Marc Forster, straight onto the Hollywood A-List. As he prepares for Stranger than Fiction and The Kite Runner and the DVD release of his latest film, Stay, Forster speaks with MM about his indie breakthrough.
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New Age Education
It's all about the cutting-edge at Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts
s Center for Digital Imaging Arts
To hear David Tames tell it, a great education is all about being on the cutting edge. And as Program Director of Digital Filmmaking at Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts, he’s certainly willing to back that up. Tames spoke with us about the school’s philosophy, why it’s better to learn from pros, and the history of moviemaking as a technologically-intensive art form.
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Things We’ve Learned as Moviemakers
Hire a good still photographer to not only take pictures of your actors, but of you-the director (with the camera), the producer, the camera crew, the sets, etc. It's amazing what's requested for publicity and what you wind up needing.
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Moviemaking Required
Hands-on moviemaking is a requirement at Columbia College Hollywood
A school for moviemakers with serious ambitions, Columbia College Hollywood offers the equipment, the courses and the instructors to prepare young artists who believe they're ready for a rigorous and rewarding learning environment.
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Adapting For Digital
Harper and Jaggars chart new technology in 30 Miles
While there are still advocates on both sides of the film vs. digital debate who refuse to see much common ground, few moviemakers are promoting the benefits of both mediums as effectively as director Ryan Harper and producer Josh Jaggars. Their latest film, 30 Miles, is the first HD feature to make use of the P+S Technik 35mm adapter. The moviemakers recently spoke with us about their decision to go digital, how they chose the Sony HDW-F900 camera and how two motion picture mediums can complement one another.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Film editing is a grueling process. There's no glamour in spending months at a time shut up in a dark room with a director who's spent years struggling to bring their story to the light of day. An aspiring editor has to be realistic about what the process entails: Does the minutiae of editing work actually inspire you? Are you content to rake through countless hours of footage and piece it together into a coherent story? For me, this meticulous, rigorous form of problem-solving is the reward in itself. I get tremendous satisfaction being in the editing room, looking at the same footage over and over-and seeing something different every time.
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Slamdance, Circa 2004
Founders Staying True to Mission, Seeking New Ground
Since its founding in 1995, the Slamdance Film Festival has established itself as one of the premier alternative film festivals in the world. Peter Baxter, a Slamdance co-founder, continues to support the festival’s rapidly expanding presence in the moviemaking community, while making sure that it stays true to its “by filmmakers for filmmakers” motto. Here, Baxter talks with MovieMaker about the keys to Slamdance’s success, how it has adapted to today’s festival climate, and how the festival will continue to push the boundaries of what it means to support the independent moviemaker
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In Search of the Story
Indie editor Meg Reticker discovers something new with each viewing
Fresh off the Sundance screening of Joey Lauren Adams’ Come Early Morning, Meg Reticker’s latest editorial effort and ninth Park City premiere, she sat down with MM to talk about her editorial philosophy, what attracts her to the indie side of the business and why it pays to enjoy the process.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Never hire your brother to be your teamster. Because no matter how much he loves you, you'll still be taking a taxi home every night. I'm joking, of course. One of the greatest joys of getting a little success is being able to work with my brothers.
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Crash-Course in Collaboration
Writer-producer Bobby Moresco's 11-year partnership with Paul Haggis turns into an Oscar nomination
Writer-producer Bobby Moresco is no stranger to multiple points of view. For more than a decade, he has collaborated with Paul Haggis on a handful of projects, including this year’s Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay, Crash. Moresco spoke with MM about his early days in the business, he and Haggis’ collaborative process and whether or not he’s got that Oscar speech ready.
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Taking on John Irving
Writer-director Tod Williams makes The Door in the Floor
Adapting the first quarter of John Irving’s A Widow for One Year into this summer’s A Door in the Floor—starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger—is certainly a project that has paid off for second-time director Williams (The Adventures of Sebastian Cole). Not only has he received accolades far and wide for his tale of a dysfunctional couple living in the wake of a family tragedy—he’s also now adapting and directing Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, starring Benico del Toro, for Focus Features. Williams recently spoke with us about his straightforward, old-fashioned approach, and how John Irving has gone from mentor to friend.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
If you've got good, unique stories to tell, and you stick to your guns and keep telling them with whatever resources you've got and just don't go away, eventually people will start listening.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
You need to have a very specific vision of what you are aiming for. But you have to simultaneously retain an openness to allow serendipity to creep in.
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Original Voice, Weirdly Poetic
Writer-director Rian Johnson redefines film noir with Brick
As the winner of last year’s Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision, writer-director Rian Johnson’s feature film debut, Brick, can easily be added to that lofty list of truly unique voices in cinema. MM spoke with Johnson about the language of film, the Sundance experience and being happy that his film is not for everyone.
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Extraordinary People
Writer-director Bronwen Hughes gets real with Stander
After trying her hand at kid’s films (Harriet the Spy) and romantic comedies (Forces of Nature), Steven Spielberg protégé Bronwen Hughes now has a number of true stories on her development slate, the first of which will be this August’s Stander, starring Thomas Jane. Like Hughes herself, the character at the center of her latest picture is not easily definable: Andre Stander was a celebrated cop who also happened to be one of the country’s most notorious bank robbers. In an interview with MM, Hughes spoke about that memorable meeting with Spielberg and why for her, interesting real people beat interesting fictional characters any day.
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Film School in the Digital Age
The Center for Digital Imaging Arts' David Tamés
Some film schools have to struggle to keep up with the current pace of technology-but not CDIA. The Center for Digital Imaging at Boston University gives its students that extra boost in a fickle film education marketplace by utilizing cutting-edge technology… while never losing touch with traditional film craft.
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Things We’ve Learned as Moviemakers
Sometimes things are so crazy and outlandish that they're bound to work-like sending 150 cameras into Iraq.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Always embrace the contradictions.
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Straight to the Source
Eric Manes, Martin Kunert and Archie Drury break new ground with Voices of Iraq
We've heard it countless times over the past several months-in the media, from voters and from the presidential candidates themselves: One of the most important issues affecting the 2004 election will be the situation in Iraq. But what, exactly, is the current situation? As Americans grow more suspicious of an increasing media bias, moviemakers Eric Manes, Martin Kunert and Archie Drury went to the heart of the controversy-Iraq itself-to get the answers.
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The Smartest Guy in the Room
Documentarian Alex Gibney takes on Enron
Some film schools have to struggle to keep up with the current pace of technology—but not CDIA. The Center for Digital Imaging at Boston University gives its students that extra boost in a fickle film education marketplace by utilizing cutting-edge technology… while never losing touch with traditional film craft.
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Making “Distributable” Work-At School
Making movies-and lots of them-is the key to education at Columbia College Chicago
Located in the heart of downtown Chicago, the film and video department of Columbia College Chicago boasts one of the most interactive film programs in the country. The school has a simple, yet extremely effective, method of teaching: In order to understand the moviemaking process, students must make movies-and lots of them!
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I remember times when I worked until midnight on a music video, then slept for two hours, grabbed a cab across town and started another one at three in the morning. I'd catch a plane later that morning to shoot a commercial.
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One Night with O’Toole, Hollywood’s Straight Man
DP Steven Bernstein does it one picture at a time
After moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, cinematographer Steven Bernstein quickly amassed a body of work that includes an extraordinarily eclectic range of some 25 narrative film credits, including Jade, Murder at 1600, Scary Movie 2, Monster, Blade: Trinity and the upcoming One Night With the King and Little Man.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Even if you think it's crap, you'll be glad you finished it. Do a lot of random favors for people so that when you make your movie you can guilt them into working on it for free.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I worked at becoming the best writer I could be-the best writer in terms of character, dialogue and dramatic intent-and I keep working at it. I never stop, and by doing that it makes me valuable in the long term, not in the short term. I've written lots of spec scripts that don't sell, but it makes me valuable over the long term because ultimately what Hollywood craves is the Nobel Prize winner who they can make write romantic comedies.
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One Sucker at a Time
Jenna Fischer shows her philanthropic side in LolliLove
Jenna Fischer, the actress best known to audiences as Pam, the sweet receptionist on NBC’s “The Office,” is proving she’s more than just a pretty face. Fischer spoke with MM about her hilarious new mockumentary, what it takes to make it as a director and the difficult task of keeping her husband—writer-director James Gunn—under control.
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Inside, Upside, Downside Hollywood
Screenwriter Daniel Pyne on what it takes to succeed
How does a writer with a penchant for indie cinema and obscure foreign literature become Hollywood’s go-to guy for big-budget suspense, action and intrigue? Practice? Connections? “Luck,” says veteran screenwriter Daniel Pyne.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
You have a choice of being "in the business" or of making movies. If you'd rather do business, don't hesitate. You'll get richer, but you won't have as much fun!
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Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
When a script is ready, I commit to it. That's one of the problems with me. I usually develop my own material, and it takes a while, so therefore I am not directing as much as other people. And it's frustrating. You want to be working as much as possible, but I can only do the things I get passionate about.
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Batman and Kramer
The writer-director behind The Cooler arrives on the scene
Wayne Kramer is making his moviemaking
dreams a reality. After two indie features-Blazeland (which he calls "an
epic of misfortune unto itself") and Crossing Over-Wayne Kramer
is making a name (and career) for himself with The Cooler, a gritty
tale of the Las Vegas underworld starring William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin,
Maria Bello and Ron Livingston. On the eve of the film's release, Kramer
spoke with MM about his goals as a moviemaker, being a
collaborator and what it's like to go up against Alec Baldwin.
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The Power of “Warts and All” Moviemaking
Taylor Hackford takes on Ray Charles and Jamie Foxx
Early Oscar buzz may be the Holy Grail for most directors, but Taylor Hackford isn’t your average Hollywood helmer. Working in and out of the system for more than 25 years now, he’s more concerned with knowing that audiences will finally get to see Ray, a film 15 years in the making.
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The Lingering Auteur
Legendary writer-director-photographer Wim Wenders redefines the western with Don't Come Knocking
Over the course of 40 years, master moviemaker Wim Wenders has directed 45 projects (writing and producing many of them). At the age of 60, he shows no sign of slowing down. As he prepares for the release of Don’t Come Knocking, MM spoke with Wenders about collaborating with Sam Shepard, both on-screen and off.
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It’s Their Thing
The Ghetto Film School brings moviemaking education to inner city youth
With its rapid-fire, nine-week program, the unique Bronx-based Ghetto Film School has provided an education in the art of moviemaking to underprivileged high school students since 2000. MM spoke with the school's president, Joe Hall, about the organization's history, philosophy and plans for the future.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Say something that isn't just a platitude; something that really is meaningful.
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Video Views Pick: Wanted
The editors of VIDEO VIEWS magazine pick Wanted, based on the Mark Millar graphic novel, as the best new DVD this week. Featuring eight bonus featurettes and a cast that includes James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, home video watchers can't go wrong.
Posted 12.3.08 | Video Views Pick | 1 comment
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