Category: making movies

The similarities between Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, and Farenheit 9/11 and The Passion are worth noting. Let’s see: zealots with messiah complexes? Yep. Threat of damnation if film’s message isn’t heeded? Check. Sensationalistic cineporn tactics to reach beyond true believers? Yep. Special guest star: Satan? Uh-huh. Out to make so much money their directors’ll have an easier time passing a camel through the eye of a needle? Check and checkmate.
At The Hot Button, David Poland gets all New York Review of Books on Moore’s ass, pointing out, with cool and logic, the inconsistencies and contradictions in the creation myth that’s being preached about Farenheit 9/11 and its marketing. It’s a great read, and he’s right–Moore’s inaccurate depiction of the Disney Sanhedrin is distorted and inflammatory.
Likewise, Gibson claimed of biblical accuracy for his film, when in fact, it drew heavily from the ecstatic visions of one 19th century German nuncase. That scholars and serious theologians–and experienced religion reporters pointed those discrepancies out had approximately zero impact on the film’s reception.
The Passion looms over F911 in another way: Weinstein and Moore are demanding a King of the Jews’ ransom for the right to distribute a film that could hit the box office like The Second Coming.
[via Greencine]

Sometimes the part of me that wants to right wins out over the part of me that wants to be loved. It’s at times like this when I want people to confirm to me that my movie/script/editing/whatever is not just cheese, but government cheese.
The rest of the time, though, I want what everyone else wants: to be fawned over by people who don’t mean what they say. At Hollywoodlog, Shane has compiled an interpretive guide for just such occasions, when you’re face-to-face, stripped of the protective layer of politesse offered by a new assistant, poor cell coverage, or that email-gobbling spam filter. [via Defamer]

Sometimes the part of me that wants to right wins out over the part of me that wants to be loved. It’s at times like this when I want people to confirm to me that my movie/script/editing/whatever is not just cheese, but government cheese.
The rest of the time, though, I want what everyone else wants: to be fawned over by people who don’t mean what they say. At Hollywoodlog, Shane has compiled an interpretive guide for just such occasions, when you’re face-to-face, stripped of the protective layer of politesse offered by a new assistant, poor cell coverage, or that email-gobbling spam filter. [via Defamer]

“There are people who use their blogs to write, like, ‘Today I went to the cleaners,'” [aspiring blogger book agent Kate] Lee said.
Besides, I see “Today I went to the cleaners” more as a movie than a book.

“There are people who use their blogs to write, like, ‘Today I went to the cleaners,'” [aspiring blogger book agent Kate] Lee said.
Besides, I see “Today I went to the cleaners” more as a movie than a book.

The terminal bureaucracy squanders treasure (and, in the case of the state), life in pointless, oft times criminal endeavours, whose true purpose is nothing more than make-work for those employed to demonstrate, in their inactive mass – the power of the institution.
The young, warped by an educational system selling them perpetual adolescence, mistake the battleground for the struggle: they believe that make-work in that one-time area of strife and creation, Hollywood, somehow conveys to them the status of actually working in the Movie Business. It is as if a picnicker at the Gettysburg Memorial Park considered himself a soldier.

David Mamet eviscerates development, “the Dadaist vision of movie-making,” in the Guardian

The terminal bureaucracy squanders treasure (and, in the case of the state), life in pointless, oft times criminal endeavours, whose true purpose is nothing more than make-work for those employed to demonstrate, in their inactive mass – the power of the institution.
The young, warped by an educational system selling them perpetual adolescence, mistake the battleground for the struggle: they believe that make-work in that one-time area of strife and creation, Hollywood, somehow conveys to them the status of actually working in the Movie Business. It is as if a picnicker at the Gettysburg Memorial Park considered himself a soldier.

David Mamet eviscerates development, “the Dadaist vision of movie-making,” in the Guardian

Disney launched a production weblog for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this week. Let’s see if they’ve learned anything since 2002, when Miramax published a completely artificial “weekly production diary” site for Full Frontal . The gap between between weeks 3 and 4 was like three months.

Disney launched a production weblog for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this week. Let’s see if they’ve learned anything since 2002, when Miramax published a completely artificial “weekly production diary” site for Full Frontal . The gap between between weeks 3 and 4 was like three months.

Recently, in linking to this site, an otherwise highly accurate Internet publication called me a “film buff.” And while I’ve been known to enjoy a film or two in my time, I have to confess, I’m not buff. Anyone at the gym could tell you that, if I ever made it to the gym anymore.
But the question haunted me: if I’m not a film buff, what am I? When introduced, I say I’m a filmmaker, but sometimes I wonder if that’s just a euphemism for dilettante, the way “freelance” is for “unemployed” or “entrepreneur” is for “unemployable.”
So I thought I’d run a few personal branding options by my best friend’s publicist, Bumble, and see if I could get some free advice. No, as it turned out.
Next idea: just run a few options up the flagpole and see what happens. Work with me here, people.
Producer: No. Besides being simply a means to an end (Like anyone else, what I really want to do is direct.), this is a term used more to get one laid than to get one’s movie made. Also, no one knows what it means.
Aspiring filmmaker: No. Besides being technically inaccurate (I’ve made and am making a series of short films.), “aspiring filmmaker” covers so many people–from Tom Ford to the entire populations of Los Angeles and San Fernando Counties–it’s useless as a title.
Short film maker: No. More accurate, to be sure, but too often confused with short filmmaker, which Spike Lee is, and I am not. syn. poor and hopelessly unambitious. While nearly every filmmaker has made short films, very very few short film makers make features.
Documentary filmmaker: No. True, my films so far have been in documentary festivals, but I consider them more documentary-style. syn. hopelessly and eternally poor and dirty, and unpalatably activist. Also, it’s the title used for both Ken Burns and Michael Moore.
Documentary-style filmmaker: Yes, if I want to sound like a pretentious over-analytical ass. So, no.
Filmmaker/blogger: bwahahahaha! Would be the response I’d get from 10% of the people who knew what it meant. Back of head turning toward me would be from the other 90%. So, no.
“Filmmaker” or < air quote>Filmmaker< /air quote>: I’m holding this in reserve, in case I commit some horrible crime and get a trashy, condescending New York Magazine article written about me.
I have to admit, I was stumped. There was simply no term for someone who’s tried his hand at a couple of documentaries, decides he wants to make more, so he uses his publishing activities to ingratiate himself to entertainment industry players for his own personal gain?
Then just this morning, I was pointed to an article by Mediabistro‘s Newsfeed that answered my question perfectly.
From here on out, you will refer to me as The Editor of Vanity Fair.

The Times has an enjoyable story, “
Creepy Space, With Rats, Just $10,000 a Day” about the recurring popularity among film and TV producers of the few photogenic alleys in Manhattan. But the story doesn’t hold up and even misses the point, but not because the $10k location fee turns out to be blustery indie producer hearsay or because it lacks data of production that the Mayor’s Film & TV Office could provide with a phone call.

“The dilemma in film and TV in New York City is that writers don’t come from New York, but where they come from, there are alleys,” said Brooke Kennedy, an executive producer and a director for the Third Watch television drama. “And we don’t have that many to choose from.”
Chuck Katz, the author of…Manhattan on Film, said the alleys were popular because there is nothing like authenticity.

So alleys are authentic, but the city really doesn’t have that many. At least compared to wherever the writers “come from.”
Unless they’re all palookas from the South Side, the writers come from leafy suburbs; and that loading zone behind the shopping center is not an alley. No, the alleys where writers come from are in the movies and TV shows they saw growing up. From the earliest film noirs to Kojak, Hill Street, and TJ Hooker, alleys are an archetypal literary and cinematic device: the source–sometimes real, of course, but more importantly, imagined–of looming trouble and danger, just out of view, mere steps away, right around the corner.

“Fiachra Gibbons meets Nuri Bilge Ceylan in his apartment in Istanbul to talk about Mehmet Emin Toprak.” [via David Hudson, quoted by Greg Allen]

Bill Werde reports in the Times on the sad, dumb story of End of The Century, a highly praised documentary about The Ramones made by Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields.
The article makes it sound like the two novice filmmakers are out more than $235,000 for production and post- to make their film, even though $150K of that is to Chinagraph, a post- house where Gramaglia’s brother works, which is listed as a production company for the film. That’s how indie docs work, my friend, you get your family to do a lot of work for free. So $65K out of pocket for a feature documentary? Nice work.
No, their real problem is entirely of their own making, and it’s captured perfectly in this anecdote from the film’s screening last year at Slamdance:

Penelope Spheeris, the director of the punk rock documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization” as well as “Wayne’s World,” introduced “End of the Century” at the Slamdance festival. Afterward, she found Mr. Fields. “She was like, `Wow, do you have all the music rights?’ I was like: `Yeah! Sure! Totally!’ I had no idea what she was talking about.”

Yes, they made a movie about a band without getting rights or releases for the interviews, performances, footage, or music.
Similar thing happened to a friend of mine, whose parking lot documentary about Deadheads screened at Sundance, but the band harshed their buzz. Ultimately, they had to release it without the Dead’s music, causing it to stink like the inside of a fry god’s rusty Honda.
A rule of thumb for all you dumbass, cheapass filmmakers out there: Get and use Michael Donaldson’s Clearance & Copyright: Everything the Independent Filmmaker Needs to Know. Bonus: In Filmmaker, Donaldson talks admiringly about Morgan Spurlock’s deft lawsuit-dodging while making Supersize Me.

This Guardian exclusive wins the award for best comic timing of the week. It’s a diary of a young man who hooked up with Kevin Spacey online. Money changed hands. Drinks were plied. Gifts and trips were showered. Video was shot. But this time, apparently, no cell phones were stolen.
According to the Guardian, Spacey has set up a whole website just to meet young men who are ready to “do what it takes” to break into the film business.