Advertisement
Acting | Associations | Auteur | Cinematography | Digital | Directing | Editing | Education | Exhibition | Festivals | Indie Movie Guide | Internet | Locations | Screenwriting
Page 3 of 15 pages « First < 1 2 3 4 5 > Last »
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
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 edit room with my footage. For this reason, we keep our editing bay as close to the set as possible. 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.
(1 comment)
Not-so-Silent Smith Speaks Truth
With An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder, writer-director Kevin Smith grins and bares it all
Kevin Smith has built a career on creating characters to whom almost any viewer can relate. His repertoire includes angst-filled retail clerks, heartfelt comic book romantics, fast-talking angels and widowed fathers, and he ties them all together with a no-holds-barred honesty with which Smith approaches his everyday life.
(No comments yet)
Evil Indies
The Evil City Film Fest's Jim Muscarella celebrates cinema's underdogs
In a city overrun with film festivals and screening events, it takes a lot to get noticed. Or maybe it just takes a punk rock attitude. Inspired by the indie artist roots of its East Village location, the Evil City Film Festival has made quite a name for itself in just two years-and gained the support of top film and media companies and indie moviemakers in the process.
(No comments yet)
Randolph Kret & Shaun Hill: Things We’ve Learned as Moviemakers
Make friends in the industry instead of trying to kill the competition.
(No comments yet)
Doing Distribution Right
Indican Pictures' husband and wife team, Randolph Kret and Shaun Hill, make it work in life and business
With an eye toward promoting independent voices and visions, Indican Pictures distributes an eclectic mix of genre films, animations and documentaries among which are Troy Duffy's The Boondock Saints, a cult favorite for its vigilante flare, Monteith McCollum's Independent Spirit-awarded Hybrid and Rosario Roverto Jr.'s social comment comedy, A Wake in Providence.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Be yourself. If you come as somebody else, one day you'll forget who that is, and you'll look a fool.
(No comments yet)
Reel Life Lessons
Screenwriter Jeremy Brock brings The Last King of Scotland and Driving Lessons to the big screen
Jeremy Brock has a knack for depicting the intimate lives of the very famous. Whether it's a grieving Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown or the infamous dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, Brock manages to create complex, larger-than-life characters who are still somehow relatable. But Brock has more than just one trick up his sleeve, as the diversity of his projects attests. In addition to The Last King of Scotland, which is already attracting a healthy amount of Oscar buzz, Brock's first outing as a director, Driving Lessons, hit theaters this month.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
Don't worry if you don't know what your story is about.
(No comments yet)
Learning By Doing
At Jerry Sherlock's New York Film Academy, instructors prefer a hands-on approach
For most moviemakers, a career as a successful Hollywood
producer would be enough to satisfy the creative urge. But for Jerry
Sherlock, executive producer on John McTiernan's The Hunt for
Red October and a number of other Hollywood hits, the desire
to teach the craft of moviemaking was always a lingering desire.
He acted on that desire 10 years ago when he founded the New York
Film Academy.
(3 comments)
Rejection Turns Revolutionary
Nodance Film Festival Founder Jim Boyd discusses being Park City's "Number Three" festival
Park City regulars know that if they're in the mood to view some truly original work, Jim Boyd is the man to bring it to them. Part entrepreneur and part revolutionary, Boyd brings his Nodance Film Festival to the mountain for its fifth year this January, and lets us in on the three things every Park City visitor should remember.
(No comments yet)
Shooting for an Alternate Reality
Benoît Delhomme discusses his work on Ming-liang Tsai's What Time is it Over There?
We have all heard it said countless times: cinema is a collaborative
art. Anyone who can deliver the goods at a high level of craft
and work well as part of a team is likely to find a healthy
amount of success is the industry. Such a person could be,
like French Director of Photography Benoît Delhomme, a very
busy artist, moving from one interesting project to another,
and collaborating with some of cinema´s most exciting, innovative
moviemakers.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
One piece of advice I give to people of both sexes in this business is don't let anyone abuse you-life is too short.
(No comments yet)
Walking the Tightrope
Longtime David Lynch producer/editor Mary Sweeney talks about their latest collaboration, Mulholland Drive
Beginning her career as an apprentice sound editor on Reds, Mary Sweeney began her now more than 15-year editing and producing collaboration with David Lynch on 1986's Blue Velvet. With their latest film, Mulholland Drive, in theaters across the country, Sweeney talks about her relationship with one of the world's most original directors and the struggles of being a woman in a man's industry.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
Never, ever, give anyone-friend, foe,and especially a professional-a script whose three digit page count has the middle numeral of "three." "One" is preferable. "Two" only if necessary. "Four" or higher means you should not quit your day job.
(No comments yet)
The Cat’s Meow: A Classy Story of Classic Hollywood
Patience pays for New York-bred, LA-based screenwriter Steven Peros
For writer Steven Peros, overnight success has been a long
time coming. Though he thought he was "on his way" when his
first original screenplay was optioned shortly after his graduation
from NYU, the movie wasn't made. Unlike many neophytes, though,
Peros believed in his talent enough to persevere, and he survived
for a dozen years working as a reader for William Morris and
landing "sporadic, small-change writing gigs." Finally, his
script for The Cat's Meow was brought to the project's
ideal director, Peter Bogdanovich, and the rest was history.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
You know, you're with the subject for a long time. It's important that you get it to where you want it to be.
(No comments yet)
The Circus Comes to Town
Todd Field talks about shooting In the Bedroom on the coast of Maine
If up until now Todd Field has been known primarily as an
actor, all that is about to change with In the Bedroom,
his feature directorial debut. The movie garnered a special
jury prize for acting for the film's stars, Sissy Spacek and
Tom Wilkinson, and is already generating some Oscar talk.
Here, Field talks about how being an actor informed some of
his directing choices and why being an performer is a whole
lot easier than being a director.
(No comments yet)
Film Education’s Maine Attraction
A Conversation with Int'l Film & TV Workshops Founder David Lyman
Anyone can tell you that America's moviemaking hotspots are
Los Angeles and New York City. But what about Rockport, Maine?
With the help of David Lyman, founder of the International
Film & Television Workshops, Rockport has become an important
outpost in the world of cinema education. In this interview,
Lyman discusses the benefits of his sleepy seaside town, and
how Mary Ellen Mark and Conrad Hall helped to make the program
what it is today.
(No comments yet)
From Dance Fever to Digital Video
A Conversation with NY DV Show's Rick Friedman
The digital revolution is hardly a secret, but why has New
York City been kept in the dark? The Big Apple doesn't have
to wait any longer, as NY DV Show 2002 hits the city this
month (Feb.) Mindshare Ventures president Rick Friedman talks
to us about the upcoming conference.
(No comments yet)
Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
Whenever I DP a film, I try to bring something different to the table that separates it from my previous work.
(No comments yet)
Focusing the Eye Through Composition
An Interview with DP Neal Fredericks
In 1999, Blair Witch mania hit and made instant superstars
out of all those involved. For cinematographer Neal Fredericks,
it was the opportunity of a lifetime. With 10 years of experience
in film, television, commercial and music video experience
behind him, the success of that film was all he needed to
become one of independent film's most in-demand DPs. Here,
Fredericks talks about his preferred filming format, his new
projects, and how his globetrotting childhood helped to hone
a cinematic sensibility.
(No comments yet)
Julia Stiles Never Lets Them See Her Sweat
The actress steps behind the camera to write and direct Raving
When you're a director embarking on your very first project, it might seem intimidating to have your work backed by one of the world's top fashion magazines. But this is just how Julia Stiles found herself both writing and directing the short film Raving, which premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival in April and aired on The Sundance Channel in May.
(2 comments)
Things We’ve Learned As Moviemakers
Don't ask people to do something they can't do. Casting is crucial. Don't give a very physical actor a lot of intellectual reasons to do something; learn to know your actors and direct each differently according to who they are as individuals
(No comments yet)
Of Cinema and Cargo Pants
Palm Beach Film School's Jim York provides words of wisdom for the moviemaker of tomorrow
Palm Beach, Florida may first bring to mind images of sandy beaches, palm trees, alligators and the Everglades, but more and more novice moviemakers are finding it is the perfect city to start learning their craft. The Palm Beach Film School (PBFS) has been largely responsible for this indie boom, bringing together the various members of Palm Beach's moviemaking community to provide its students with a top-notch education in the cinema arts.
(1 comment)
What I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
I think a major sin in screenwriting is not listening to your critics. However dumb they may seem to you, however brutal their criticism, remember that you are in a room with five people, and if you don't get it right there, you're going to end up out in the world with thousands of people and it doesn't get any better. So listen because they are trying to make it better, however wrong-headed their decisions may be. I think that young writers find criticism is hard because it's very personal, but it's crucial. It's called collaboration; it comes in the form of notes and sometime they're hard. Experience teaches you to take it less personally.
(No comments yet)
From Mrs. Brown to Charlotte Gray
The Working World of British Screenwriter Jeremy Brock
English screenwriter Jeremy Brock had it coming. After cutting his teeth as a writer in British television for over a dozen years, he vaulted into feature writing when Miramax saw gold in his original script, Mrs. Brown. With Charlotte Gray -- his second feature -- in release, Jeremy Brock has returned to the big screen with another complex and fiery heroine. In an interview with MM, Brock discusses his beginnings in the industry, his ways of working and what it takes to create the kinds of characters that stay in your memory long after a movie's over.
(No comments yet)
Henry Jaglom’s Moment of Truth
Film's freest director dissects the Hollywood machine in Hollywood Dreams
When it comes to the film world's original independent voices, names like Orson Welles and John Cassavetes are the first to be bandied about. But for more than 35 years, Henry Jaglom has been making movies the only way he knows how-his way! Beginning with A Safe Place in 1971 and leading up to the recent Hollywood Dreams, the former actor has managed to complete 15 feature films throughout his career-not just a writer and director, but as an actor, editor and distributor, too.
(No comments yet)
Apocalypse Now and Then
A Conversation With Editor/Sound Designer Walter Murch
Editor/Sound Designer Walter Murch has worked with some of the film industry's most talented directors and stood alongside each one as an equal collaborator. With eight Oscar nominations to his credit and three wins, he has proven himself a true master of his craft. Here, he talks with MM about about the digital revolution, the challenges of a dual career and how his Apocalypse experience defined his life as an editor.
(No comments yet)
Ice in Her Stomach
A Conversation with Dogme 95 Director Lone Scherfig about "breaking the rules of film language" on Italian for Beginners
In 1995 Danish moviemakers Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von
Trier took a break from the technical conventions of modern
cinema and created the now famous Dogme 95 manifesto. This
month, Italian For Beginners, the fourth Danish Dogme
film, will be released with director Lone Scherfig at the
helm. In a conversation with MM, Scherfig talks about making
a Dogme comedy, Danish insecurities and staying true to that
prickly "Vow of Chastity."
(No comments yet)
Training the Next Generation
Exploring the "professional difference" at San Francisco's Academy of Art College
With hundreds of schools now competing for enrollment, choosing the right film education program can be an exhausting process. Students looking for a professional approach to moviemaking-and the chance to network with seasoned professionals-might want to add San Francisco's Academy of Art College to their short list.
(No comments yet)
Kevin Costner Goes Psycho
Hollywood's golden boy gets dark in Mr. Brooks
Earl Brooks is a fabulously successful businessman, a devoted father and husband, a much-respected pillar of his community and, on those occasions when he simply cannot suppress his baser instincts, a coolly meticulous serial killer. Kevin Costner is an Oscar-winning director and a chronically underrated actor who delights in exploiting his own star power to illuminate every facet of his starring role in Mr. Brooks, a movie that is equal parts ice-cold thriller and pitch-black comedy.
(No comments yet)
Slamdunk Conquers the World
John Peterson discusses his organization's winning formula for running a film festival-and empire
The founders of Slamdunk are on the cutting edge of a trend that has seen an increasing number of festivals take their shows on the road, with very successful results.
(No comments yet)
What I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
When you get a brilliant idea that sounds familiar, think of a new idea.
(No comments yet)
Comic Relief
Mike Binder and Adam Sandler team up for a unique take on the events of 9/11 with Reign Over Me
Six months after the five-year anniversary of the events of September 11th-and months after United 93 and World Trade Center-comedian-turned-auteur Mike Binder is releasing his own take on the events of that fateful day-or, more appropriately, the after effects-with Reign Over Me, starring Adam Sandler.
(No comments yet)
Innovation and Creative Intuition on the Set
An Interview With Legendary Cinematographer John Toll
Though he has been a frequent collaborator with several of
the world's most celebrated directors, John Toll, DP of such
disparate work as Legends of the Fall, Braveheart
and The Thin Red Line has always succeeded in bringing
his own vision to the forefront.
(No comments yet)
Advertisement
Latest from the blog:
Kodak at Cannes
Since 1987 Kodak has been the official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, sponsoring the Camera d’Or prize that is awarded yearly to the best feature film by a first-time director. The tradition continues in 2008 when, for the fifth consecutive year, the festival will also hand out the Kodak Discovery Prize for Best Short Film.
“Cannes draws a huge number of filmmakers from all over the world every year, which gives Kodak a great opportunity to host our customers and show them how committed we are to the industry and to motion picture innovation,” says Kim Snyder, Kodak’s president and general manager of the Entertainment Imaging Division.
Posted 05.8.08 | News/Commentary | No comments yet...
Other recent posts:
Who’s Your Favorite Indy Sidekick?
IBM Researchers and USC Moviemakers Unite
Guillermo del Toro to direct The Hobbit
Posts people are talking about:
SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS
