Filmmaking

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 05:03pm

For some reason, my computer and my camera can’t see each other, which is a recent development. I keep getting weird error messages and I have no idea why, and I have to be at work in two hours so I don’t have time to troubleshoot. You know, I’m actually sorry that I switched over to Linux. Really I am. Sure I don’t have to worry about spyware or viruses, bu[...]

Tags: Non-Work, camera, mishaps, computer

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 07:39am

“Some of them are obvious or secret or genius or lame. But they came out of the mouths of the experts at last weekend’s “Produced By” Conference during panels devoted to the financing, production, and distribution of independent films and documentaries. Here are the 35 tips compiled by a DHD stringer…” Read this article from DeadLine[...]

Tags: Independent Films, indie filmmaking

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:28pm

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:42pm

A fellow blogger and friend of mine recently finished NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, where tons of people commit themselves to write 50,000 words between the first and the last day of November. My friend Jaclyn Paul (check out her blog if you like creative people, she's very much so) crossed the finish line on day 30 at 50,020 words. I was deeply impressed, so I ask[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 06:02pm

I am constantly on the lookout for exceptional filmmaking products for the Independent Filmmaker, and that’s why I’m letting you know about the “Movie Maker Action Pack” created by a friend of mine, Jason Brubaker. I know Jason personally. He is a genuine film maker who is also making it his mission to share his film production knowledge with other filmmaker[...]

Tags: Film Making Resources

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:38pm

My friend Theo Panayides once proposed that "Mulholland Drive" acts as a series of "semi-narratives one can revisit more or less at random, like putting on a CD." That was eight years ago. These days, the CD is dead but the idea of movies as discrete bits lives on, on YouTube, where you can find popular scenes before studio lawyers take them down, or, better yet, compiled into [...]

Tags: Zeitgeist, Gran Torino, Charles Bronson, MovieClips, com, Mulholland Dr, Waynes&#039, s World

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 02:00pm

chris and trish link to an adobe article on how to reconfigure your After Effects config files so you won't get gamma shifts on ProRes422 and ProRes4444 files.GOOD ONE!If you do any AE work, this will save you a LOT of pain and suffering.ProVideo Coalition.com: Creating Motion Graphics by Chris & Trish Meyer | Founders

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:59pm

chris and trish link to an adobe article on how to reconfigure your After Effects config files so you won't get gamma shifts on ProRes422 and ProRes4444 files.GOOD ONE!If you do any AE work, this will save you a LOT of pain and suffering.ProVideo Coalition.com: Creating Motion Graphics by Chris & Trish Meyer | Founders

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:43pm

It's been an exciting week for news of projects in development. P.T. Anderson returns! David Gordon Green shot another movie! Uh, "The Birds" remake is going to be a hard R! And then there was word that Charles Shyer is all set to shoot "BFF," a "female buddy comedy" about "childhood best friends who reunite years later in Manhattan and discover that one has[...]

Tags: Coming attractions, Charles Shyer, Alfie, Nancy Meyers, The Holiday, It&#039, s Complicated

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:10pm

"Sherlock Holmes" is poised to be the underperformer of December's limited blockbuster crop, because a) most Americans don't care about the adventures of a dead white Victorian, even if he knows kung-fu b) Watson and Holmes are a little gay, and America doesn't care for that kind of thing in its action heroes (or, apparently, its state legislation). Or something. Every box[...]

Tags: Coming attractions, Michael Bay, Sherlock Holmes, Blu-Ray, The Simpsons Movie, Guy Ritchie

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:26am

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) continues its tradition of great storytelling through cinematic masterpieces, presented Jan. 13-24, 2010.  The festival showcases an international selection of films that explore life, culture and history with a Jewish twist.  As the largest film festival in Atlanta, movie-goers have the opportunity to view the fea[...]

Tags: Festivals, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF)

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 09:55am

The 22nd European Film Awards: CRITICS' AWARD 2009, Prix FIPRESCI goes to Andrzej Wajda for TATARAK (Sweet Rush) As FIPRESCI's General Secretary Klaus Eder explained: "For us critics it is without doubt a big pleasure to honour Wajda, who wrote European film history already with his first films (GENERATION, KANAL, ASHES AND DIAMONDS) and who has influenced generations of filmmake[...]

Tags: awards, EFA

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:39am

“Television executives sometimes provide us entertainment. Occasionally they may even give us art. But the reality of what motivates them is neither of the above considerations. It is, and always shall be, profit. And that is the essence of why we are now bombarded with reality TV. For a half century, network execs had the perfect business model to bring in the loot. In retrospect, it wa[...]

Tags: In The News, reality TV

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 05:03am

More surprises every day Yesterday I took the 1900 km flight from Paris to Tallinn (Estonia) via Helsinki. First surprise: 2 hours delay in my flight from Paris and strike ...in Helsinki. Usually we French are better at this national sport (striking), one more hour delay... Second surprise: no one to pick me at the airport on arrival, well of course the flight was 4 hours late or so i[...]

Tags: Ambiance

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:11am

Every year I seem to fixate on one particular holiday food that’s usually really bad for me. This year, it’s cornbread dressing. With turkey gravy. Stuffing-riffic. My local overpriced ‘alternative marketplace’ grocery sells it pre-made (and soaked in gravy) by the pound, and I’ve been gorging on it since Thanksgiving. Which is fine, but since I&am[...]

Tags: Uncategorized

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 05:54pm

"REBEL: This is the renewed rebellion. This is the recharged fight against the establishment of the expected. This is the rebirth of the battle for brave new ideas. This is Sundance, reminded. And this is your call to join us." That's the first thing you see when you visit Sundance's website, where the 2010 festival lineup was unveiled a few hours ago. Well, like, color me skep[...]

Tags: Festivals, Jos&eacute, The Red Chapel, Padilha, Jeffrey Blitz, Four Lions, Holy Rollers

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 05:41pm

From November 30 to December 9, the "Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid" will create a space of discovery and reflection betweennew cinema and contemporary art in Paris:  • at the Centre Pompidou,  • the Jeu de Paume national museum, • the Châtelet Theatre. • the Reflet Medicis movie theater. With the presence of 12[...]

Tags: News, Helen Dobrensky, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 04:27pm

Tags: Helen Dobrensky, Fest, circuit, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid 2009

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 04:27pm

Tags: Helen Dobrensky, Fest, circuit, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid 2009

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 02:16pm

TCM in its infinite patience has dredged up a lot of dreck from the vaults, reminding us that for all the old classics, some stuff should just stay buried. But like all great excavations, one must sift through much dust to find the gems, and one of the big gems worth discovering for the jaded, faded junky audience of today is Warren William! Today would have been his 115th birthday, and if there w[...]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 01:02pm

It's strange that people doesn't seem that interested in the fact that James Franco is in the middle of a two-month guest star arc on the soap "General Hospital," now 45 years long and still going strong. Whatever Franco's reasons, it's hard to blame him for the move -- if I were a uniquely talented comic actor who kept getting cast as glowering and moody (blame &quot[...]

Tags: Elizabeth Taylor, Sundry, Carol Burnett, General Hospital, Roseanne, Snoop Dogg

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 12:04pm

“I’m preparing to teach a documentary class for students for my alma mater here in Los Angeles, and have been faced with a tough question: What is more important in learning how to make a documentary – focussing on what you want to do, and making it internally coherent and workable/fundable or looking at what experienced artists working in the realm of documentary hav[...]

Tags: Documentary Filmmaking

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 11:38am

Over at DavidLynch.com, the "Interview Project" rolls on, having just unveiled interview 62 of their planned 121. (Six of the episodes are also making their theatrical debut in front of features at the IFC Center.) But DLF.tv, the "Online TV Channel" for the David Lynch Foundation, the filmmaker's organization promoting Transcendental Meditation, has got a premiere of its [...]

Tags: Watchy, David Lynch, John Hawkes, Path Lights, Transcendental Meditation

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 10:24am

For the next three months, many film sites will be sucked into the awards-season horse-races, spewing thousands of words that'll date and curdle quicker than last year's "Daily Show." There are, in fact, whole careers built around the prognostication of the irrelevant. Over at the New York Times, David Carr's passed the baton of four years' worth of "The Carpetba[...]

Tags: awards, Oscars 2010, David Carr, Melena Ryzik, New York Times, The Carpetbagger

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 08:08am

“Wow” answers need “wow” questions. If you’re hungry for new answers or different ideas from your team or employees, try changing the questions. Here are a few questions to energize just about any conversation you might be a part of. You can use these questions anywhere, anytime: • Audio or video podcasts • Flip camera interviews • Documentary crew i[...]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 07:19am

Read this article from Siman. “A documentary is any video or film that informs viewers about a topic or issue. Many documentary films provide us with educational information. Others just describe certain people. Many people think making a documentary is easy. However, making a documentary is not as easy as it seems. Follow this tutorial for some tips on creating your own, good documentar[...]

Tags: Documentary Filmmaking, documentary

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 03:18pm

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 01:25pm

It's winter, the indie companies are flailing, the bloggers are despairing, the economy still sucks and the only true blockbuster on an understocked December slate is "Avatar." You think indies are endangered? Pity the poor composers of film scores. Where once they cranked out orchestral majesty for most major releases, they've now become an optional component, victim to changi[...]

Tags: Avatar, James Cameron, Titanic, In quotes, James Horner, Willow

Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 03:45pm

More about the difference between writing for games and writing for linear media such as film and TV. When I say 'games' I am focusing on larger online environments as opposed to 'on the rails' adventure type games which tend to be also linear in nature.Film and TV says Build to a conclusion. Throw in obstacles to be overcome by the hero so that the ending feels rewarding. The [...]

Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 05:03pm

Festival on Wheels 2009 - rolls over to Ankara, Atvin and Macedonia ON WITH THE TRADITION THE FESTIVAL ON WHEELS TAKES TO THE ROAD Submitted by Helen on Fri, 11/27/2009 - 23:04.   ON WITH THE TRADITION THE FESTIVAL ON WHEELS TAKES TO THE ROAD 4–10 December 2009, Ankara 11–17 December 2009, Artvin 18–20 December 2009, Skopje (Macedonia) FESTIVAL TRAILE[...]

Tags: Fest, circuit, Atkin and Macedonia, Festival on Wheels 2009 rolls over to Ankara