Chinatown as a A Greek Tragedy

Roman Polanski’s 1974 classic Chinatown is many things. It is a murder mystery. A family melodrama. It’s a film noir, a neo noir, a sunshine noir. But also: Chinatown is a Greek tragedy. In Greek tragedies, the protagonists are accomplices in their own downfall. They can’t escape their tragic fate, no matter what they try. Read MoreRead More

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NYFF Critics’ Notebook: De Palma

Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma is a fans-only interview session with the director. Straightforward, even staid in its construction, it consists almost entirely of two shots of a seated De Palma — one in medium close-up, the other presumably punched-in in post — and appositely illustrative clips and stills. The film currently only has two credits: the opening all-caps title “DE PALMA” scrolling left to right in lurid red, and a closing copyright credit (hard-working editors will, presumably, be thanked at a later date). Interlocutors Baumbach and Paltrow are never heard; according to this useful interview, they never even considered […]

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Honest Trailers – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Relive the super-sized superhero sequel super set up to never be able to meet the super fans’ super huge expectations: Avengers: Age of Ultron!Read More

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“We Basically Had Pianos Falling the Whole Time”: The Creative Team of MA at the Venice International Film Festival

Barefoot on a sandy shore of the Mediterranean coast, I’m only mildly bothered by the luxury cruise ships obstructing the horizon. It’s an otherwise picturesque pre-dusk afternoon in Venice, and I’m focused mostly on keeping up with Celia Rowlson-Hall, who sets an intimidating pace as we walk along the beach. She’s a speed walker and talker, totally unfazed by the sharp rocks that I continue to stumble over. It’s silly when I say I’m uncomfortable being barefoot to a person who has “no problem being naked on camera. If there’s any feeling of being exposed,” she says, “it’s only in […]

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The History and Details Surrounding of the Nolan Batman Trilogy

Uninterested in doing a big budget movie based solely on spectacle, Christopher Nolan sought to ground the story of Batman in reality. But using practical effects can sometimes lead to unforeseen problems. This episode of DYKM explores the development and production of Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and how his vision of a realistic Batman shaped Read MoreRead More

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Creating the “OH F**K” Moment

Director/Editor Joey Scoma walks us through a few classic scenes in cinema that demonstrate editing as an effective storytelling tool, and focuses in on a specific technique that he likes to call “The “Oh F**K” Moment.”Read More

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Professional Development, Pleasures and Promiscuity at IFP Film Week: A Filmmaker Post-Mortem

IFP Film Week 2015 has come to an end, and while its Filmmaker Conference, with its front-facing elements — all the panels, events and screenings — may have dominated ours and others’ home pages, the real action, arguably, was behind-the-scenes, at the Project Forum. That’s where the filmmakers hustling projects of tomorrow all convened, looking for the support that will enable them to bring their vision to screens in the years ahead. To call it a wrap on Film Week, we asked a number of directors, writers and producers attending the Project Forum to sum up their experience and, if […]

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5 Secret Tips For Getting Hollywood-Level Chroma Keys

Director/Cinematographer Matthew Rosen explains 5 of his tricks and secrets on shooting and compositing chroma keys.Read More

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Free Animated Icons, After Effects Presets and More for Your Video Project from PremiumBeat (Sponsored Post)

PremiumBeat, a royalty free music library, offers a variety of affordably licensable cues that can be used in your video project. In addition, the company is offering a number of other useful tools for free that can be of use for your video editing projects. Here are five of the most recent packages from their site: 20 free hand-made animated icons that can be dropped into your package. The icons are all pre-rendered footage, meaning they’ll work in any video editing or motion graphic software. The icons were all created in After Effects and you’ll see the project file included […]

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Cinematographer Roger Deakins on shooting “Sicario”

Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins joins Variety’s David Cohen to reveal his approach to shooting the drug war thriller “Sicario” — and why his approach sometimes gets him in trouble.Read More

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Explaining Waterproofing As Fast As Possible

Humans have sought ways to waterproof things since ancient times. How do we keep electronics safe from water and moisture here in the modern age?Read More

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Trailer for Hitchcock – Truffaut DOCUMENTARY Film

In 1962 Hitchcock and Truffaut locked themselves away in Hollywood for a week to excavate the secrets behind the mise-en-scène in cinema. Based on the original recordings of this meeting—used to produce the mythical book Hitchcock/Truffaut—this film illustrates the greatest cinema lesson of all time and plummets us into the world of the creator of Read MoreRead More

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Why Comedy Matters

We’re used to thinking that the purpose of comedy is just to help us relax and ‘have a good laugh’. But in fact, the mission of comedy is far grander and more world-changing. We should wake up to the full potential of comedy in our societies.Read More

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NYFF ’15: Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook Talk Field of Vision

Ahead of the official launch of Field of Vision at 1 pm today, co-creators Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook gave an NYFF free talk last night on the brand new documentary unit of The Intercept. The trio spoke at length about their aims within the realm of episodic and short form nonfiction, and how the filmmaker-driven platform will function at the nexus of journalism and documentary. Below are a few highlights. Poitras was inspired to create Field of Vision after working with both The New York Times and Julian Assange.  While working on the feature films that constitute her post-9/11 trilogy, Poitras […]

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TIFF 2015 Critic’s Notebook #5: An Old Dog’s Diary, Cemetery of Splendour and Chevalier

Ghostly echoes fill An Old Dog’s Diary (2015), a highlight of the Wavelengths experimental short programs at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. This impressionistic, documentary portrait takes as its subject F. N. Souza (1924-2002), a man anointed by The Guardian “India’s most important and most famous modern artist.” Made by Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia, each an accomplished artist in her own right (Heredia is also the founder of Experimenta, a leading Indian experimental film society), the evocative 11-minute film takes a sidelong approach to cinematic portraiture. Textural glimpses of Goa, Souza’s birthplace, are casually depicted on black-and-white Super 8 and 16mm film: the shimmer of the...

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“30 Years Ago I’d Put Together a Scene with Scratches and Splices Jumping”: Editor David Rosenbloom on Black Mass

David Rosenbloom calls them “movie moments,” those ephemeral slivers of magic discovered amongst the voluminous footage he sifts through in his role as an editor. They can be as small as a glance or as large as a cackle from Whitey Bulger. The latter can be found in Black Mass, Rosenbloom’s second collaboration with director Scott Cooper following 2013’s Out of the Furnace. The film traces the true story of Irish gangster Bulger’s thirty-year reign in Boston, abetted by his role as an FBI informant. Rosenbloom talked to Filmmaker about his start as an editor, his software of choice for […]

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These 11 actors play more than 100 Simpsons characters

Listen to the different characters that main actors and a few regular guest stars cover in “The Simpsons”Read More

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Academy Editor Crispin Struthers on where Creativity Comes From

Editor Crispin Struthers (“Silver Linings Playbook,” “American Hustle,” “Earth to Echo”) takes viewers inside his creative process in an exploration of where ideas come from.Read More

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Biggest Mistake Screenwriters Make When Selling A Screenplay by Pilar Alessandra

What’s the worst thing you can do when trying to sell a screenplayRead More

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Editing as Punctuation in Film

Max Tohline looks editing as punctuation a very well crafted essay. As you watch this though, keep in mind the opening line: “There is no 1:1 correspondence between any formal technique and film and any possible meaning. Practically anything can be made to mean practically anything.”Read More

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“I Went to Art School, Not Film School”: Jennifer Reeder at IFP Film Week

[Editor’s note: this is Jennifer Reeder’s second guest post from IFP Independent Film Week. Her first can be found here.] Coming to you live from the end of Independent Film Week. My script As With Knives and Skin was part of the Emerging Storytellers section of the Project Forum. I not only survived, I thrived! I pitched my a$$ off and had a really successful week – if success is measured in great connections, meaningful conversations, advice received, notes taken and a general mutual love of Indie filmmaking. I went into this week with a script that recently won a Creative […]

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Nietzsche on: The Superman

Nietzsche’s concept of the Superman is one of the most exciting and yet weird aspects of his thought. What did he really mean by this unusual word?Read More

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Trailer Watch: Monica Peña’s Hearts of Palm

Miami-based filmmaker Monica Peña’s debut feature, Ectotherms, was a provocative discovery out of the Miami Film Festival that scored a great review in Variety from Guy Lodge and which announced Peña as someone to watch. Just dropped, then, is the teaser trailer to her second feature, Hearts of Palm. Suitably mysterious and with arresting imagery, it is described simply as “a love story told through science, literature, and music, invoking Miami’s mystical undercurrents.” For more on Peña, read her interview with Sarah Salovaara about the distribution of Ectotherms. And, if you’re in Miami, join me, Peña, Jillian Mayer and Carla […]

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Watch: Leah Shore’s Mindbending Charles Manson Animation, Old Man

Leah Shore made our “25 New Faces” list in 2013 on the basis of her totally trippy animated short, Old Man, which traverses the entirety of 20th century history, from Hitler to Kennedy, the bomb to Michael Jackson, in a rapid-fire, image-morphing five minutes that’s voiced by imprisoned cult leader Charles Manson. The recordings came from a series of tapes Shore obtained by Marlin Marynick, a psychiatric nurse. Explains Sarah Salovaara in her Filmmaker profile on Shore: Marynick forked over approximately 10 hours of audio recordings, which resulted in Shore “sitting in a dark room for two months and going […]

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