Moonlight Co-Editor Nat Sanders Talks Quitting Your Day Job, Disagreeing With Directors and That Awkward Oscars Moment
Though his nomination for a Best Editing Oscar for Moonlight wasn’t as monumental as his co-editor Joi McMillon’s—she was the first African-American to receive a nod for the...
Festival Wrap: Big-Wave Surfing and an Ocean of International Selections Glisten at Newport Beach Film Festival
Newport Beach Film Festival’s 18th annual run has come to a close, marking another year that the SoCal luxury spot has fostered the growth of Orange County’s regional...
First We Take Sedona: A Festival Run is All About Leverage, Says the Director of Stevie D
My wife and I had just settled into a quiet evening at a friend’s house when I saw a call coming in from Sedona on...
Starring Ol’ Blue: Casting a 43-Year Old Ford Pickup Truck in Reparation
This is a story about how I nearly fired one of the lead actors in our film the day before principal photography began. Oh, and…...
50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, 2015
Was it worth it? Indie film, by definition, resides on the margins. It’s a medium of miracles, of squeezing so much from so little, of...
Best Of: 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, 2014
Feast your eyes on MovieMaker‘s complete list of the 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2014. Despite original plan to publish the list...
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 Jesse Acevedo went to Cuba...
Newport Beach Film Festival: Bringing the Best in Film to Orange County
I first got involved with the Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) back in 2009 with my film Spooner. Even then the festival was large, but...
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Inside the Issue: Best Of
(More) Essential Moviemaking Podcasts: Five Laudable Audibles for Your Educational Pleasure
Directing is a fairly strange craft to try to learn, in part because you rarely get a chance to watch other directors at work. Determined moviemakers exhaust all the...
1Inside the Issue: Festivals
50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2017
Are film festivals getting better? That is, are they providing you—independent moviemakers—more of the things you want and need? I think they are. After all, it makes sense: With...
11Inside the Issue: Producing
How to Always Deliver: Denise Di Novi on Gilding a Package, Dealing With the Artistic Temperament and Sniffing Out Hits
Denise Di Novi has forged a moviemaking career by avoiding the kind of carelessness that often bankrupted her peers. Instead, she developed and refined a keen sense for emotional...