dont-miss

  • Winter 2019

How They Did It: Asghar Farhadi Lived in the Country of His Spanish-Speaking Stars to Write and Direct Everybody Knows

Before I went to Spain to make my new film Everybody Knows—a thriller which follows the tumultuous events that ensue when Laura (Penélope Cruz) returns to…

5 years ago
  • Winter 2019

Color Commentary: A Seasoned Colorist Breaks Down the Process, and How It Will Enhance Your Movie

Your colorist is the most elusive-yet integral member of your post-production team. Whether you’re aware of it or not, color’s unique essence directly influences our emotional and psychological states.…

5 years ago
  • Inside MM - How To

Breaking and Entering, Part One: How To Shoot Down Self-Doubt and Pay the Rent While Making It In the Film Industry

Becoming a moviemaker seemed like an impossibly ambitious goal when I was growing up. I was living in Brazil, watching bootleg copies…

5 years ago
  • Moviemaking

The Story of Ingrid: What It’s Like to Make a Documentary on a $15K Budget

I met Morrisa Maltz during SXSW in 2016 when she came to a panel on micro-budget filmmaking that I put…

5 years ago
  • Inside MM - How To

Inside the Creative Process: Karyn Kusama Walks Through Five Phases of Production, From Screenwriting to Distribution

Guest Moviemaker Karyn Kusama has been through a lot in her career. Kusama broke out in 2000 with her debut…

5 years ago
  • Movie News

Simply Good: Alice Rohrwacher on Casting Off YouTube and Having a Wolf on Set for Happy as Lazzaro 

Divided into two distinctively wondrous halves—one pastoral/one urban—modern parable Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro felice) is a new stroke of genius…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

Working the Crowd: How Indie Crowdfunding Campaigns Have Evolved, and Some Savvy Ways to Keep Up

Why this film? Why you? Why now? Each arm of your crowdfunding campaign—from video, to narrative, to rewards, to backer…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

Making a Scene: A No-Drama, No-Frills Primer to the Criminally Overlooked Process of Location Scouting

Everyone is acutely aware of the creative impact that cinematographers, editors, production designers, and even the glamour squad can bring to…

5 years ago
  • Inside MM - Acting

Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker: Matt Dillon

The longevity of Matt Dillon's laudable career is a byproduct of his self-reinvention. Oscillating between charismatic leading and comedic supporting…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

A Teller’s Market: How To Tell Your Own Story and Lay Bare Your Personal Brand

Tasked with unpacking the most overlooked, underestimated part of film marketing and distribution, I considered examples of what previous MovieMaker…

5 years ago
  • Inside MM - Distribution

A Sale Unto Oneself: About To Have Your First Market Experience? Here’s Why Self-Distribution Is the Way To Go

Every indie moviemaker has the fantasy of premiering a movie at Sundance, then selling it for millions after an all-night…

5 years ago
  • Interviews

Still Learning: Ben Is Back Writer-Director Peter Hedges on Depicting Addiction

Ben Is Back is the wonderful new feature film from writer-director Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Dan in Real…

5 years ago
  • Interviews

21st Century Icon: Vox Lux Director Brady Corbet Used Dogme 95 and Super Bowl Cameras to Craft His Pop Epic

Vox Lux is a very big and puzzling movie that is now out, from director Brady Corbet. You may remember…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

Looks That Kill: Eleven Horror DPs Reveal the Tricks and Tech Behind the Year’s Scariest Shooting Schemes

Scary movies this year have ranged from high-profile reboots to independent breakouts to ambitious microbudgeters, and they all have one…

5 years ago
  • Acting

Stone Cold: Emma Stone on Her Charming, Devious Turn in The Favourite

The first thing you notice about Emma Stone are her eyes, green and enormous. But she squinted almost as soon…

5 years ago
  • Directing

Where The Movie Came to Life: How Editor Bob Murawski Brought The Other Side of the Wind Back from the Dead

This Fall, following a tour of the prestigious festival circuit, Orson Welles' long lost Hollywood satire The Other Side of…

5 years ago
  • Screenwriting

Hearing What’s In Your Head: Kenneth Lonergan On His Process of Writing As a Director

Kenneth Lonergan is a playwright, screenwriter, and director best-known for his searing Oscar-winning original screenplay for Manchester by the Sea.…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

Indie Law: Make Your Feature’s Development Less Dicey With Loyal Legal Counsel and Financing Foresight

Development is the time when your indie’s budget needs to be put to the test. It’s also the time when…

5 years ago
  • Interviews

Fall From Race: Jason Reitman Talks Gary Hart’s Political Demise in The Front Runner, Releasing Two Films in One Year

On April 13, 1987 a young, charismatic, Democratic Senator from Colorado hauled a small caravan of press, aides, and family…

5 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

The Business of Order: A Veteran Editor Breaks Down How To Shape, Switch, and Structure Your Film’s Chronology

Structure is the first thing to look at and approach as an editor. Cutting a film chronologically before breaking it…

6 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

Going to Extremes: To Create Horror That Shatters the Senses, Be Sensitive to Emotional Extremity

Everyone who knows me well knows that since I was very young—five, six years old—I kept saying, “I want to…

6 years ago
  • Inside MM - Directing

MovieMaker Melee: 1985 and Tyrel Writer-Directors Yen Tan and Sebastián Silva Debate Their Processes’ Pros and Cons

To ring in the first installment of our new MovieMaker Melee debate series, we invited two indie moviemakers with films releasing…

6 years ago
  • Screenwriting

Keep It Simple, Keep It Relentless: Halloween‘s David Gordon Green and Danny McBride On Horror Screenwriting

Horror master John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween has become so indelibly etched into the cultural consciousness, so synonymous with the…

6 years ago
  • MM Guide 2019

No Guts, No Story: Find Your Screenplay’s Soul By Trusting Your Instincts and Your Allies

I’ve wanted to make films for a long time, but my problem was always the ability to write something. I’d…

6 years ago