how they did it

  • How They Did It

How They Did It: The Makers of XOXO Shot a Guerilla Proof of Concept at a Giant Music Festival

Like many directors, I shot a proof of concept in order to get our movie XOXO made. But ours needed…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: How Swiss Army Man Pulled Off That Fart-Powered Jet-Ski Daniel Radcliffe Corpse

Winter of 2011, my writing and directing partner, Daniel Kwan (the other half of Daniels, the name we go by…

8 years ago
  • Winter 2016

How They Did It: Men Go to Battle Pulled off “DIY Period Piece” by Hacking a Reenactment

Early in the process of research for Men Go to Battle, my co-writer and producer Kate Lyn Sheil and I…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: First-Person POV Meets Post-Apocalyptic Downtown L.A. in Pandemic

Growing up a fan of first-person shooter video games, I'd always been fascinated by the concept of melding the single-character…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It
  • Spring 2015

How They Did It: Terrorist Marketing Puts Wild in Blue on the Map

“A man once said there is no such thing as a film. The film does not exist; all that exists…

9 years ago
  • Directing
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Flooding Locations and Trained Flies in the Making of Across the Sea

Even though we were born and raised in Turkey, our professional base is New York, so filming our first feature,…

9 years ago
  • Directing
  • How They Did It

Real-World Danger: J.C. Chandor on A Most Violent Year‘s Action Sequences

A Most Violent Year, director J.C. Chandor's third feature after Margin Call (2011) and All is Lost (2013), packs an…

9 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Maximizing the Impact of an Opening Sequence in Benny Loves Killing

Writer-director Ben Woodiwiss breaks down the intricately crafted opening sequence of his feature debut, the psychological thriller Benny Loves Killing.…

9 years ago
  • Cinematography
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Shooting the Underwater Sequences in Norweigian Diving Thriller Pioneer

Jallo Faber, DP of Norwegian deep-sea diving thriller Pioneer, plumbs the depths of underwater cinematography in this comprehensive look behind…

9 years ago
  • Documentary
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Covert Interviews with Scared Teens in Documentary Exposé Kidnapped for Christ

In her documentary Kidnapped for Christ, Kate Logan set out with the innocuous plan to film the lives of American…

10 years ago
  • Directing
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Conjuring The Possession of Michael King

David Jung, writer-director of found-footage horror feature The Possession of Michael King, explains how he created the illusion of demonic…

10 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Mike Cahill Dreams Big on a Budget

Director Mike Cahill knows how to make low-budget movies feel expensive. In this "How They Did It," the purveyor of…

10 years ago
  • Directing
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Jesse Zwick Dives Straight into About Alex

Two years of working on a movie—three weeks to prep it. How Jesse Zwick found himself making his directorial debut,…

10 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Shooting “From the Sky” in Arabic

Seattle native Ian Ebright set out to make "From the Sky," a short film that captured life in the Middle…

10 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Snakes & Mosquitoes in Raw Cut, Mining for Ruby

Writer Daniel Ponickly and director Zoe Quist have had an action-packed year, with not one but two movies opening this…

10 years ago
  • Documentary
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: ER Chaos in Code Black

If you had rare access to one of the most intense medical environments in the world, how would you translate…

10 years ago
  • Cinematography
  • How They Did It
  • Summer 2014

How They Did It: Capturing the Outback for The Rover

Hot off the press, from our Summer 2014 issue: How Natasha Braier, the cinematographer of the dystopian thriller The Rover,…

10 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: The Incredible-but-True Story of Blue Ruin

Prologue I’ve come to embrace the story of Blue Ruin as one of smashing success. My initial attempts to diminish…

10 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Hank and Asha, An Unusual Romance

Hank and Asha is an epistolary film about a filmmaker in New York and an admirer in Prague, who correspond solely…

10 years ago
  • Articles
  • Articles - Documentary
  • Documentary
  • Festivals
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: Documentary, Los Aldeanos

Los Aldeanos is an underground rap duo based in Havana whose lyrics challenge the status quo of Cuba's dictatorship. Filmmaker…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Screenwriting
  • blog-test
  • How They Did It

My Brother the Devil: The five-year struggle to write and direct a Sundance-winning debut

All film is in some way political—whether you like it or not. It's good to be conscious of that as…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Cinematography
  • blog-test
  • How They Did It
  • We Make Movies (Better)

Shooting The Kitchen: Keeping one location visually interesting

In early 2011, my longtime friend and collaborator, director Ishai Setton, told me about a (very) low-budget feature he was…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Directing
  • Articles - Producing
  • Articles - Screenwriting
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: The Hughes Brothers’ Gentle Art of Collaboration

After being in the film business for more than 18 years, the question we’re most often asked by reporters and…

14 years ago