All posts by James Kaelan
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Let the PA Direct (Almost): Why Collaborating with Your Crew is Your Greatest Strength
As a confident movie-maker, don’t hesitate to ask your film crew for help. They aren't your employees; they're your collaborators.
Bound for the Frontline: MovieMaker Senior Editor James Kaelan Steps Down to Join the Independent Film War
“In the town of Osijiek, Croatia, Eduardo Flores, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and a follower of the Catholic...
MovieMaker Editor’s Pick: Back to the Future in Computer Chess
MovieMaker’s Editor’s Weekend Pick is Computer Chess, though we can’t resist sending a shout out to The Spectacular Now. Two is better...
Revenue Record: Yekra Crushes with Online Doc
Like everyone else trying to forecast the economic landscape of independent film, over here at the MovieMaker offices, we think a lot about innovations...
Coachella: Triumphs, failures, and lessons from the inaugural AMFM Fest
The inaugural AMFM Fest, which shares a valley with the Coachella Art and Music Festival, may have been too ambitious. But the...
Bringing Film to Coachella: AMFM Fest aims to bring film, art, and more music to the Coachella Valley
AMFM Fest, the new acronymic festival in the Coachella Valley, might just be aiming to overthrow that other four-letter film and music...
This Film Isn’t Real: Maja Milos’ Tiger Award-winning debut, Clip
On a Saturday afternoon at AFI Fest last November, I walked into a 4:15 PM screening of a Serbian film called Clip...
Nairobi Half Life: Back by popular demand!
By popular demand, Nairobi Half Life—Kenya’s first official submission for the Academy Awards ® and the 2012 AFI Fest Audience Award winner—will...
Accepting Applications: Dogfish, the world’s first film production accelerator
Back in 2005, Paul Graham and Trevor Blackwell, two tech pioneers who’d made fortunes in Silicon Valley, founded a company called Y...
The Wild Bunch: Eight new Midnight Marauder posters for Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece Western
I don’t claim to be a Sam Peckinpah expert or a film critic by any means. I am a poster designer at...
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Summer 2018
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25th Anniversary
Guide 2018
Year in MovieMaker
Inside the Issue: Acting
Sydney on the Map: To Land Breakout Roles, Sydney Sweeney Draws Her Own Maps of the Characters She Inhabits
A reverent initiate of a patriarchal regime; a disturbed young psychiatric hospital ward; a sexually questioning teen with a flair for the dramatic; a mysterious denizen...1Inside the Issue: Directing
Think Like A Photographer: Generation Wealth’s Lauren Greenfield Shares How Still Techniques Make Better Movies
The biggest change I experienced when I went from making pictures to making films was the sense of an arc—of creating a story over time, and...Inside the Issue: How To
How They Did It: Casting Unknowns Was Key to Finding the Laughs and Lived-In Feel of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade
Before I directed my first film, Eighth Grade, I had heard that 90 percent of directing is casting. I’m sure there are other directors who weigh...2