All posts by Grant Vance
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Flash Forward: Maya Erskine on Her Unlikely Meet-Cute with Comedy and Finding an Authentic Rhythm in Plus One
“Comedy is very rhythmic,” Maya Erskine says, carefully calibrating her comedic process in Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer’s modernized romantic comedy, Plus One. “I compare...
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Landing the Punch: Riley Stearns on Carefully Crafted Satire and Establishing Tone in The Art of Self-Defense
Although only one requires a cool costume with colorful belt options, karate and satire have a lot more in common than you might think. Both...
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Book Review: Shaping Light for Video in the Age of LEDs
“Lights, camera, action!”—the classic, Old Hollywood call to arms. The adage remains, but—as articulated by career gaffer and lighting designer Alan Steinheimer in Shaping Light...
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Exclusive: An Apple A Day Keeps The System Away In This Clip from Vladimir de Fontenay’s Mobile Homes (Video)
Adapted from his 2013 short of the same name, writer-director Vladimir de Fontenay paints a beautifully uncomfortable picture with his feature slice-of-wandering life Mobile Homes. Starring Imogen...
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Book Review: Ad Nauseam is a Charming Trip Through Curated ’80s Horror Newsprint Ads
Like your favorite fright flick marathon, Michael Gingold’s Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s is a nostalgic trip through ’80s horror. The frightful twist? The perspective...
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Festival Beat: Beyond Fest Founders On Building A Genre Festival From Goblin to Cronenberg
Among their many eccentric counterparts over the years, insect politicians, Haddonfield historians and bitchin’ scary German guys are three of a wide variety of demographics...
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Exclusive: French Moviemaker Anne Émond on Adapting the Different Characters Crafted by Notorious Writer Nelly (Video)
French writer Nelly Arcane’s debut novel, Putain, put her on the map as a respected writer documenting her experiences as a sex worker. The truth, however,...
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Crowdfunder Pick: "The Guiding Light"
Crowdfunding has become an invaluable tool for the indie filmmaker seeking funds for the start or completion of a project. And here at MovieMaker, we applaud...
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Exclusive: Explore Postmodern Genre Moviemaking With Sebastian Gutierrez’s Visceral Elizabeth Harvest (Video)
It’s like they always say: if your marriage isn’t going the way you planned, try to spice things up. Maybe have some kids. Or, in...
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Exclusive: Boogie Woogie to Ari Gold’s Musically-Inclined Nostalgic Drama The Song of Sway Lake
A valuable jazz record incites a romantic adventure in the ripples of a nostalgic lakeside community. In the swings and sways of the stunted familial...
Summer 2019
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Summer 2018
Year in MovieMaker
Inside the Issue: Acting
Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker: Richard Dreyfuss
American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Stand By Me, Mr. Holland’s Opus… even while reading like a what’s what of cinema, those titles are just a handful...
1Inside the Issue: Directing
Cold Piece of Work: Richard Linklater Braves Greenland Hurricanes for Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette opens with the answer to its titular question. In an impressively executed overhead shot, the camera gazes down onto placid Antarctic waters as...
Inside the Issue: How To
How They Did It: The Farewell Writer-Director Lulu Wang Shares Secrets to Turning Your Life Story into a Memoir Movie
The week before production started on The Farewell—my sophomore feature about a young woman (Billi, played by Awkwafina) and her family’s attempts to keep their grandmother’s cancer diagnosis hidden...