All posts by Jeff Meyers
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Shifting Sands: Director Brad Anderson on Making Beirut, and Managing a Career of Genre and Budget-Hopping
Despite a 22-year track record, director Brad Anderson has had what some might consider a stealth career. Outside of indie film circles—where he’s carved out...
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Sweet Country, Sour History, Great Moviemaking: Director Warwick Thornton on Sweet Country
“Australia was built on free labour. 180 years of free labour,” says director Warwick Thornton. He is talking, of course, about the white settlers, who...
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“I Want This Weirdness In My Life”: Aubrey Plaza, Craig Robinson, and More On An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
“I remember my agent told me Blue Velvet was panned by critics when it first came out and people hated it, they were disturbed by...
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The Intimate Epic: Directors Alex and Andrew Smith on the Quiet Intensity of Father-Son Drama Walking Out
Montana-raised twin brothers Alex and Andrew Smith have emerged as the Big Sky Country’s most ambitious indie filmmakers by writing and directing a trio of...
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Making a Living by Mixing Media: How to Make the Leap From Directing Features to Directing Television
Imagine a world where you earn a steady, livable paycheck doing what you love—directing—and little else. That picture, sadly, doesn’t exactly fit independent feature filmmaking....
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In Total Control of His Out of Control: With Colossal, Nacho Vigalondo Breaks Into Major League Moviemaking
Nacho Vigalondo is constantly under self-review—both as an artist and, if movies are a window into a director’s psyche, as a man. Spend a little...
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At Home Behind the Camera: Actor-Turned-Director Macon Blair Talks Making I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore
Macon Blair is no stranger to Sundance. The actor is the childhood friend of, and a long-time collaborator with, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, and their breakout...
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MovieMaker Minute: Walking Out’s Alex and Andrew Smith on How Directors Should Keep Calm On Set
Our MovieMaker Minute series of videos are brief little nuggets of inspiration and advice from some of our favorite filmmakers. Alex and Andrew Smith, twin...
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Defining Complete Unknown: Joshua Marston on Writing Shape-Shifting Characters, Directing a Contained Set
Joshua Marston’s latest film, Complete Unknown, is an exploration of what it means to be a filmmaker, a film actor or even a film writer....
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The Lay of the VR Landscape: How Does a Moviemaker Approach Virtual Reality – Without Holding it Back?
In case you didn’t notice, virtual reality (VR) content has graduated from sideshow curiosity to the center ring. Sundance 2016’s New Frontiers section boasted more...
Summer 2019
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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...