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Issue #74 [Spring 2008]

Jed Riffe’s Advice for Aspiring Documentarians
by Jed Riffe
Jed Riffe is a producer, journalist, independent moviemaker and the man behind production cooperative Jed Riffe Films LLC. His latest effort, Ripe for Change, won the MovieMaker Ecocinema Award at the 2007 Wine Country Film Festival. The documentary, which emphasizes Riffe's belief that changing the world begins with changing food politics, is part of the PBS series "California and the American Dream." After 25 years in the field, Riffe knows a thing or two about getting his point across on film. Here, he shares a bit of advice for documentarians aspiring to do the same.

Independent Spirit
By Mark Sells
Six independent moviemakers talk of the state of independent moviemaking today and explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.

Tom McCarthy Welcomes The Visitor
By David Fear
It’s worth recounting the central premise of Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor to emphasize that what sounds potentially cloying or cringe-worthy on the page, and would probably sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to studio executives in a pitch meeting, can become something graceful, intimate and incredibly moving in the right hands.

The 10 Greatest Rockumentaries of All-Time
By Travis Crawford
As Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light hits theaters nationwide, MM decided to highlight the 10 best, or at least most culturally significant, rockumentaries of all time, with the one condition that they are all currently available on DVD for your home viewing and listening pleasure.

She’s The Boss
By Kevin Canfield
Two of last year’s more critically acclaimed films—Sarah Polley’s Away from Her and Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris—were directed by women who first gained renown for their on-screen performances. Now, a new pair of films—Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me and Jada Pinkett Smith's The Human Contract—also happen to be made by actress-turned-directors.

Dennis Farina Reveals What Happens in Vegas...
By Mallory Potosky
He’s been a part of some of the most critically acclaimed movies (Saving Private Ryan) and popular television shows (“Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) of the past 30 years. But for Dennis Farina, the notion of making a living as an actor was not the first one that occurred to this son of blue-collar Chicago; his first career was as a beat cop in the City of Broad Shoulders. It was only after meeting director Michael Mann through a mutual friend that the actor best known for his wiseguy roles (Midnight Run, Get Shorty) and the occasional unorthodox ladies’ man (Sidewalks of New York, “Empire Falls”) landed his first role in the 1981 thriller, Thief. While Mann helped launch his career, Farina has gone on to work with a number of other strong auteur directors, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games).

Christina Ricci Goes Hollywood with Speed Racer
By Kevin Canfield
A seasoned moviemaker at the age of 28, Christina Ricci has never been one to play by the rules. Ricci is surprising Hollywood again by starring in Speed Racer, her first big summer blockbuster, nearly two decades into her career.

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Issue #73 [Winter 2008]

Ellen Page's Not So Still Life
By Joe Leydon
Don’t misunderstand: It’s not like Ellen Page is hiding out or lying low. But even as the Oscar-hype machinery is revving up to push her toward a well-deserved nomination for her star-making performance in Jason Reitman’s Juno—well, she’d simply prefer to be on the other side of the continent, far away from Hollywood, on this particular October afternoon.

Rawson Marshall Thurber Unravels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
by Rawson Marshall Thurber
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.

Marjane Satrapi’s Comic Relief
By Nancy Rosenbaum
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.

Top 10 Movie Cities 2008
By Jennifer M. Wood
From Austin to Albuquerque and plenty of places in between, MovieMaker's eighth annual countdown of the 10 best places to live, work and make movies in the U.S.

David Gordon Green Makes Snow Angels
by David Gordon Green
When i began working with Kate Beckinsale on Snow Angels, we were trying to find elements rooted in reality that could give her character of Annie anchors of emotion—humor, frustration, aggression and sympathy. I knew that once cameras were rolling, we wanted a high degree of improvisation, particularly when it came to confrontational scenes with her estranged husband, Glenn (played by Sam Rockwell). So we needed to design as much background for her as time would allow.

Gus Van Sant Gets Paranoid
By David Sterritt
Gus Van Sant is the perfect picture of an American independent moviemaker. He grew up on both coasts—in Portland, Oregon and Darien, Connecticut—before earning a degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then settled in Portland, where he still lives and works. He made his first big impression in 1985 with Mala Noche, the slyly subversive story of a gay man with a crush on a Mexican immigrant who’s wrong for him in just about every way.

Michael Haneke Plays Funny Games With Naomi Watts
By David Fear
A family is traveling to their country vacation home. As they drive, the parents take turns playing “guess the classical composer” (Schubert? Brahms?) with the CD player. Their son laughs approvingly in the back seat. The scene couldn’t be more bucolic or benign, until Mom slips in a new musical selection—and over the soundtrack, we hear a loud, jarring skitter-metal tune from avant-garde musician John Zorn. The happy trio looks peaceful and content; viewers, meanwhile, try to recalibrate their central nervous systems.

That opening of Michael Haneke’s 1997 meta-thriller Funny Games was the first indication that the German director’s pitch-black examination of screen violence wasn’t planning on playing by the rules. It’s such an effective sneak preview of the horrors that lie on the horizon in this house invasion tale that it’s not surprising Haneke repeats the sequence in Funny Games U.S., a remake of his breakthrough movie. If it wasn’t for the fact that the original’s Austrian leads have been replaced by Tim Roth and Naomi Watts, you’d swear the projectionist had thrown on the first version by mistake: The scene is replicated with such scrupulous fidelity that it’s almost a carbon copy. As is the next scene. And the next. And the next…

Paul Giamatti Takes 10
By Mallory Potosky
Sooner or later, when cruising late-night television, you’re going to catch a glimpse of a no-name character actor who looks an awful lot like the famous thespian, Paul Giamatti. That’s because before he became famous, Giamatti made his living playing parts like “Heckler #2” and “Kissing Man.” Characters with no names. But along came a romp through California’s wine country in Sideways and the Sundance hit American Splendor and suddenly the one-time bit player was a leading man and Oscar nominee.

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Issue #72 [Fall 2007]

Horror Fests in Your Neighborhood
By Jennifer M. Wood
Horror-themed film fests are happening around the country--find one near you!

Features: Horror Film Festivals Rise from the Grave
By Nancy Rosenbaum
Screamfest horror film festival director Rachel Belofksy says she didn’t grow up loving scary movies. “As a little girl, I was terrified of everything,” she recalls. “All the vampire films freaked me out. Even as a teen, it wasn’t my thing.” Belofksy’s fear has since been supplanted by fandom. Now if you show her a good “decap” scene, she can explain its artistic merit, point by point.

Features: Zach Helm’s World of Wonder
By Cristy Lytal
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.

Features: The Naked Truth About Film Nudity
By David Geffner
From Caligula to Lust, Caution, moviemakers have always struggled with shooting nudity and sex. What does it take to make it happen successfully?

Features: Jennifer and Suzanne Todd’s Sister Act
By Jessica Hundley
Founded by sisters Jennifer and Suzanne Todd, Team Todd has been responsible for pushing a number of incredible projects through the stranglehold of production.

Features: Todd Haynes Takes on Bob Dylan
By Jason Matloff
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.

Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
by Julie Taymor
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.

Tamara Jenkins Gets Savage
By David Fear
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A moviemaker workshops a script through the Sundance Institute, the finished feature gets accepted into the prestigious festival and the critical hosannas start pouring in. Then he or she gets courted by a number of studios, several projects stall and years pass… Soon, the moviemaker is regrettably relegated to the “Where are they now?” files, along with a number of other indie film alumni who sprint out of the gate and then find it hard to get a follow-up made.

Julian Schnabel Paints The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
By Phillip Williams
In his latest picture, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, artist-moviemaker Julian Schnabel returns to familiar terrain while managing to explore a new landscape. Like his previous outings, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, the film is a biopic—the story of an artist living on the margins of life, searching for his voice. The true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of Elle France, The Diving Bell brings us deep into the inner life of its main character, a man who, flush with all the trappings of worldly success, is suddenly felled by a debilitating stroke.

Javier Bardem Breaks Big
By Kevin Canfield
Though he's best known to American audiences for his Oscar-nominated role in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, Javier Bardem is redefining audience expectations with starring roles in two of this fall's most anticipated movies, Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera and the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men.

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Issue #70 [Summer 2007]

Food Film Festivals
By Nancy Rosenbaum
A new wave of film festivals are taking the tried and true "dinner and a movie" combo to a whole new level.

Cook Up Your Own Food Film Festival
By Nancy Rosenbaum
Have you got a hankering to cook up a food and film festival close to home? Here’s some handy information about the dollars and cents you’ll need to make it all happen.

Mixed Reviews: Guilty Pleasures
By Travis Crawford
From 1970s Euro sleaze to Italian Neorealist classics, it's time to admit some guilty pleasures. DVD and book reviews.

Virginia’s Indie Film Revolution
By Jennifer M. Wood
Whether you’re aiming to make the next Revolutionary War epic or just need a film-friendly rural locale for your low-budget indie, Virginia will welcome you with open arms. Here, a few members of VA’s independent movie community weigh in on why the commonwealth is a great place to shoot.

Master of the Movie Prop
By Brian Malik
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.

Classic Movie Title Sequences
By Peter Weed
Take a closer look at some of the most memorable title sequences of the past few years.

Using Movie Title Sequences Effectively
By Peter Weed
Released in the mid-1950s from the relatively static role of simply assigning credit, title sequences have evolved into an art form in their own right.

Neil Jordan's Golden Rules of Moviemaking
By Neil Jordan
"Never tell the truth on a junket" and other lessons from the director of The Brave One and Interview with the Vampire, Neil Jordan.

All the Right Moves: Stabilizing Your Camera
By Matthew Power
Not every director likes to move the camera. Some simply can’t afford it. Go back and look at Kevin Smith’s Clerks, for example. Almost every shot in that movie was a locked-down tripod shot—no movement at all. At the other extreme is Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov’s mind-blowing Russian Ark, an entire feature film shot in one continous, moving shot, featuring 2,000 actors in 33 different rooms.

Features: Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris
By Daniel Nemet-Nejat
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.

Random Thoughts From the Set of Jeff Garlin's I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
By Jeff Garlin
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.

Features: Silent Movies Are Still Creating an Echo
By Bob Mastrangelo
From Griffith and Eisenstein to Chaplin and Keaton, MM revisits the 15 greatest directors of the silent era.

Features: The Robert Rodriguez Effect
By Mallory Potosky
When it comes to getting an education in film, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all option. But apparently the same can’t be said for a film school’s “model moviemaker.”

Ethan Hawke Grows Up in The Hottest State
By Ethan Hawke
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.

Features: John Carpenter’s Business of Insanity
By Jason Matloff
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.

Features: Halloween, Too
By Mallory Potosky
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.

Features: David Levien & Brian Koppelman: Ocean’s Two
By Kevin Canfield
Brian Koppelman and David Levien are among the movie business’ most sought-after screenwriters. If all falls into place, they’ll soon be turning their attention to scripts for Robert De Niro (he’ll reportedly star in the Koppelman/Levien-penned mafia tale The Winter of Frankie Machine) and Brian De Palma (the would-be director of a prequel titled The Untouchables: Capone Rising).

Notebook: Moviemaking: The Eternal Balancing Act
By Timothy Rhys

Jodie Foster: The Brave One
By Kevin Canfield
An Oscar nominee at 14 and still at the top of her game after more than four decades, Jodie Foster knows how to get what she wants--like director Neil Jordan and a killer script for her latest thriller, The Brave One.

The Signal: A Collaboration in Three Parts
by Dan Bush, David Bruckner and Jacob Gentry
A hit at Sundance, The Signal offers a new chapter in the world of cinematic collaboration as three directors each take a turn in the director's chair.

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Issue #71 [-- 2007]

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Issue #69 [Future of Moviemaking 2007]

Features: Judgment Day for Movie Theaters
by Mark Sells
The traditional movie theater is battling for its very existence in a volatile environment comprised of advances in technology and rapidly changing consumer tastes.

Features: Tomorrow’s Technologies
By Nick Dager
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.

Features: Big Little Indies
By Jerry Weinstein
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.

Features: The Future of Moviemaking
By Henry Jaglom
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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Issue #68 [Spring 2007]

Features: My Golden Rules
By Kevin Smith
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.

Arrested Development
By David Fear
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?

Features: The Duke
By Joe Leydon
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.

Features: The Universal Language of Film Has a Mexican Accent
By Bob Fisher
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.

Features: Celebrating An Icon
By Joe Leydon
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.

Features: Sarah Polley's Uncompromising Vision
By Daniel Nemet-Nejat
After becoming a child star in her native Canada, Sarah Polley captured the attention of the world with her quietly powerful performance as a paralyzed girl in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. Now she's making her feature film debut as a writer-director and, true to form, her choice of subject matter is against the grain.

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Issue #67 [Winter 2007]

Features: Tom DiCillo, DI Guy
By Tom DiCillo
The auteur behind such cult classics as Johnny Suede and Living in Oblivion discovers the power of a digital intermediate on his Sundance-bound Delirious, starring Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt.

Features: Dern on Lynch
By Daniel Nemet-Nejat
In the wake of her third collaboration with David Lynch, Laura Dern offers her interpretation of Inland Empire and riffs on their creative relationship.

Features: David Lynch’s Empire
By Daniel Nemet-Nejat
The only predictable thing about David Lynch is that he is always looking to surprise us. But Lynch's boldest move yet could be his decision to selfdistribute his latest film, Inland Empire.

Features: Vancouver Film School Scholarship Competition
By MovieMaker Staff
For 20 years, the Vancouver Film School has been at the forefront of film education. Now MovieMaker is honoring that tradition by co-sponsoring the first ever Vancouver Film School Scholarship Competition.

In Gear: The Power of Plug-Ins
By Matthew Power
From realistic gunfire to a snowstorm of your own making, some of the most useful post-production tools come in the form of "plug-ins," which add features to compositing software in a fraction of the time.

Features: From YouTube to Borat: The Jackass Generation
By Dave Roos
It sounds like a far cry from the "Golden Age" of the '40s or the "New Hollywood" of the '70s, but an astoundingly popular new aesthetic is proving that today's up-and-coming moviemakers are proud to be a part of "The Jackass Generation."

Features: Top 10 Cities to Make Movies 2007
By Lily Percy
Several factors go into choosing where you will ultimately shoot your film. MovieMaker breaks down the best places for indie moviemakers to do it!

Cate Blanchett’s Golden Age
By Timothy Rhys
Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, never your typical Hollywood ingénue, never looked back from her Academy Award-winning turn as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Now, on the heels of her stunning performance in Babel, and with powerful roles in four highly anticipated new films (Notes on a Scandal, The Good German, I'm Not There and The Golden Age), this Aussie's star has never shone brighter.

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Issue #65 [Guide to Making Movies 2007]

Writing A Screenplay With A Full Deck
By Joe Mefford
All it takes is a stack of index cards and a ballpoint pen to start your screenplay.

Directing Tips
By Mark Travis
The real challenge of being a director is that you have to do so much-yet you get to do so little. You are a storyteller and you have elected to tell this story through the medium of film-which means you must collaborate.

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Issue #66 [Fall 2006]

Features: Alejandro González Iñárritu
By Jessica Hundley
Emerging from the vital wave of recent Mexican cinema, Alejandro González Iñárritu has proven himself to be a moviemaker of unprecedented intensity. To experience his movies is to be torn open and shaken to the core, ripped apart and put back together again. His latest film, Babel, is no exception.

Essential Film Noir
By Peter Weed
As noir-inspired films like The Black Dahlia and Hollywoodland play at a theater near you, MM counts down the must-see gems of the genre.

Internet Distribution: The Big Squeeze
By Matthew Power
Before you can become the next YouTube success story, you've got to know how to compress your film.

Features: Holiday Movie Preview 2006
By James L. Menzies
As the weather cools down the cinema is heating up with the latest slate of holiday movies. MM takes a look at the best of the bunch.