PAJOT AND SWIRSKY’S “INDIE GAME”

By Scott Macaulay

The following article about Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky’s documentary Indie Game was published during the Sundance Film Festival. The film opens today in Los Angeles, New York (at the IFC Center), San Francisco and Phoenix. For a complete list of venues and upcoming screenings, check out the website.

Independent film, depending on how you define it, has had many births. But for the purposes of this blog post, let’s consider the one in the 1980s, just before the launch of this magazine. She’s Gotta Have It, Parting Glances, Poison, True Love — these were narrative features made by lone filmmakers with a mixture of private money and, sometimes, foreign TV deals, and they were released into the marketplace after being acquired by independent distributors who catered to arthouse audiences. More films followed — Clerks, El Mariachi, The Blair Witch Project — and the idea that one could possibly be not just a filmmaker but an “independent filmmaker” was born.

Of course, things change, and I wonder if a new generation for whom media creation is simply part of life even cares about that self-definition. Is making a movie that special anymore? Maybe the ones who really care about the meaning of “independent” are in other fields, like video games. Case in point: the creators profiled in Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky’s Sundance documentary Indie Game, who evince all the blood, sweat and tears we like to claim as the hallmarks of the independent filmmaker. More importantly, they are creating games during a historical moment that feels both somewhat new and not unlike the rush that the filmmakers behind films like, say, The Blair Witch Project, must have felt when their homemade creations suddenly burst forth on 2,000 screens.

Pajot and Swirsky interviewed 25 game designers before narrowing their film’s focus to three. Braid creator Jonathan Blow (pictured above, at right, with Pajot and Swirsky at the Sundance Q&A) is the eminence grise, the obsessive elder statesman who revolutionized the indie game world with a work that was not only fun … Read the rest

PANOS COSMATOS, “BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW”

By Scott Macaulay

It’s a strange paradox of today’s cinema that so many films feature lavish and eye-popping special effects yet are such ordinary viewing experiences. Sure, today’s VFX and surround sound are capable of overwhelming you, of beating you into submission, but, with a handful of exceptions, they seldom take you further. One film that does is Panos Cosmatos’ Beyond the Black Rainbow, an astonishingly ambitious debut feature that is as much an elegant art object as it is a science-fiction head trip of the highest order.

Set in 1983 — and feeling as if it was actually made in 1983 too — Beyond the Black Rainbow is a hazily remembered waking dream of a picture about a tormented scientist (described in Cosmatos’ script as “an aging surfer calcified into a reptilian wax vampire”), who is subjecting a beautiful young captive to a series of unsettling mind control experiments. The film has secrets, plot twists and a daring escape, but it is more focused on tone, feelings and sensations than linear plotting. Pulsing with an omnipresent score by Sinoia Caves, Beyond the Black Rainbow evokes the eerie early cinema of David Cronenberg, and not just with its repressed scientist protagonist, dispassionate tone and cool production design; the film also riffs on similar ideas about repression and social control, drawing from such shared inspirations as William Burroughs.

Beyond the Black Rainbow premiered in 2010 at the Whistler Film Festival before it was discovered by the Tribeca Film Festival programmers and screened at last year’s event. Filmmaker then placed Cosmatos on our 2011 25 New Faces list, and the following interview was done in preparation for that piece. Beyond the Black Rainbow opens Friday from Magnet Releasing.

Filmmaker: Why is the film set in 1983?

Panos Cosmatos: Well, all the films that inspired it came from that era – from the mid-to-late ‘70s through to 1983.

Filmmaker: Do you know this band How to Dress Well?

Cosmatos: I don’t.

Filmmaker: It’s one guy, from Brooklyn and who has studied philosophy in Berlin. It’s basically soul music, except there is a lot of … Read the rest

JAMES SCHAMUS ON FOCUS FEATURES AT 10

By Scott Macaulay

Focus Features is celebrating its tenth-year anniversary, and the distributor has just placed on its site a suite of videos in which Focus CEO James Schamus discusses the company’s history through its films. After an intro detailing the transition from Good Machine to Focus, Schamus gives us the back story on Focus titles like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist and The Constant Gardner, among others. For the individual videos in the series, visit the 10-year anniversary page here and watch the overview video below.

… Read the rest

WHAT YOU’LL SEE WHEN YOU DIE

By Scott Macaulay

Forget long hallways and white light — in the upcoming Post-Singularity age, death is just another user experience. Welcome to Life is a short film by Tom Scott inspired by the work of Jim Monroe and Rudy Rucker.

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PHOTOS AND NOTES FROM THE MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL

The Maryland Film Festival, which wrapped its 2012 edition on Sunday, is one of the East Coast’s most intimate and engaging film events. With 40 features, over 70 shorts and an amazingly healthy contingent of loyal filmmakers annually making the trip to Baltimore, Maryland functions as both a discovery festival and friendly pit stop for directors on the independent circuit. John Waters hosts a movie — this year Barbara Loden’s seminal and still influential Wanda — and takes the audience out partying afterwards; the Opening Night consists of shorts, not some star-bloated, sub-standard mini-major feature; and, for the second year in a row, replacing a day of panels is “Filmmakers Take Charge,” a private event gathering filmmakers, industry and press for a discussion of the state of our business. Among the attendees I got a chance to talk with in Baltimore last week were the Zellner brothers, Sophia Takal and Lawrence Levine, Shane Carruth, David Lowery, Matt Porterfield, Kate Lyn Sheil, Visit Films’ Ryan Kampe, the New Yorker‘s Richard Brody, Indiewire‘s Ann Thompson, and the Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday. Pictured above are four more: from left to right, Maryland Film Festival director Jed Dietz; director (Sun Don’t Shine) Amy Seimetz; director of photography Nandan Rao (The International Sign for Choking); and director Joe Swanberg (V/H/S).

Joe Swanberg, Heidi Ewing and Craig Zobel were the organizers of this year’s “Filmmakers Take Charge,” the day-long summit meeting at which issues of vital interest to attending filmmakers were tossed around and debated in a candid, spin-free setting. Filmmakers were encouraged to share budgets and revenue statements, to discuss both their ambitions and frustrations, and to address directly their issues with the attending press and members of the industry. With food and coffee on the side, the event took place in a tent opposite the Charles Street Theater, and the chairs were set up in a circle, avoiding the speaker/audience divide that turns so many industry events into utter snooze-fests. The conversations were off the record, so I can’t write specifically about what was said. … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “THINK OF ME” DIRECTOR BRYAN WIZEMANN

By Scott Macaulay

Bryan Wizemann’s recommended Think of Me, which boasts an amazing performance by Lauren Ambrose, is tomorrow night’s opening feature for the Rooftop Films 2012 season. The following interview was originally published on the eve of its Toronto Film Festival premiere.

One of the more sobering and even painful short films of recent years is Bryan Wizemann’s Film Makes Us Happy. In the 12-minute documentary, Wizemann argues with his wife about his obsession with filmmaking, with her challenging him to give up on his dreams in order to focus on his family — including his new baby. Wizemann’s synopsis simply states, “Film Makes Us Happy documents the last fight my wife and I will ever have about making films.”

I have no idea the aftermath of that film on Wizemann’s family life, but I am happy to report that the writer/director is successfully making films. Think of Me is his debut, the story of a single mom in Las Vegas fighting to stay above water while raising a child in our no-growth economy. It stars Lauren Ambrose, and, as Wizemann relays below, is inspired by elements of his own childhood. We talked about class, poverty, drugs, and the light in Las Vegas.

Filmmaker: What was important to you about the way Las Vegas was depicted in your film? I’m thinking of everything from the way the film represents a particular community that lives there as well as its landscapes, buildings, etc?

Wizemann: I grew up in Las Vegas, so many of the locations in the script were inspired by locations I wanted to film. It’s intentionally not an aesthetic that involves the strip, because that’s not really the experience of those who live there. Some of the great things you do get are slot machines in the 7 Eleven’s, strip clubs, large patches of desert, gun stores, casino diners, and the Freemont street motels. It was always a fight to keep this set in Las Vegas, given that Nevada has no tax incentives for film. Even though this project was years in development and I had to make … Read the rest

WHY IS YOUR SCRIPT BORING?

By Scott Macaulay

My blog post last week on 15 Things to Do After You Finish Your Script dances around the issue of quality, but my approach was fundamentally affirmational. Over at Script Shadow, Carson Reeves is blunter with his 10 Possible Reasons Your Script is Boring. All ten points are pretty dead-on, meaning that I’ve encountered each one more times than I want to remember. Reeves does a good job of identifying the reasons why a script read could produce just a “meh” reaction, but the short diagnosis is, it all comes down to quality. A script shouldn’t be just good these days — it should be great. You’ve written one or two or ten scripts; the person reading it has read hundreds or thousands. What makes yours stand out?

Below are two items from Reeves’ list of script problems. Go to the link to read the rest.

Not understanding the phrase “stuff needs to happen” – Stuff needs to HAPPEN in your screenplay. The problem is that young writers don’t know what the word “happen” means. They think it means your character going to bars and talking with their friends or going to work for yet another boring workday. Yeah, technically something is “happening” in those scenes, but nothing INTERESTING is happening. In order to make something of interest happen, have the scene push your story forward. So instead of plopping two characters down in a location to discuss their lives, have them trying to figure out something that has an impact on the story. Maybe one of them is thinking of moving to a new city. Maybe one of them is thinking of asking their dream girl out. Now there’s an actual purpose to the conversation so we’ll be invested in how it ends. “Happening” basically means writing a scene where you’re pushing the story forward. If you’re not doing that, your scene’s probably boring.

You’re not putting enough effort into your choices – Recently I read this script I felt could easily be a movie. It was very marketable and the kind of thing a studio would want to

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SHORT FILM: “CLICHE,” A DEATH-OF-CELLULOID NOIR

By Scott Macaulay

The death of celluloid is a terrifying concept for many filmmakers. That nightmare, of a cinematic dystopia where film stock is contraband, inspired this witty short by Vincent Lacrocq and Thierry De Clermont. It stars the filmmakers along with Mika Zimmerman, and director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire also makes an appearance. Check it out below.

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TRAILER WATCH: MARTIN DONOVAN’S “COLLABORATOR”

By Scott Macaulay

“A writer fading into irrelevancy…” Yikes! That is the scary premise of Martin Donovan’s directorial debut, starring Donovan, Olivia Williams and David Morse. The movie is about a failing playwright and his “explosive run-in with a right-wing ex-con.” It hits theaters in early July, but for now, check out the trailer.

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SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES PROJECTS FOR JUNE DIRECTORS AND SCREENWRITERS LABS

By Scott Macaulay

The Sundance Institute announced today the roster for its June Directors and Screenwriters Lab. The complete press release follows.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 13 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 28 through June 28. Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, and the artistic direction of Gyula Gazdag, the projects selected for this year’s program include emerging filmmakers and projects from the United States, Italy, Romania, Australia, Algeria, France, Chile and the UK.

Directors Lab Fellows work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors, professional actors and production crews to shoot and edit key scenes from their screenplays. Through this intense, hands-on process, the Fellows workshop their scripts, collaborate with actors and find a visual storytelling language for their films in an environment where experimentation and risk-taking is encouraged. Fellows also join in the week-long Screenwriters Lab with five additional projects to participate in individualized story sessions under the guidance of established screenwriters.

Projects supported through the Directors or Screenwriters Labs receive continued tailored support from the Feature Film Program, which can include ongoing creative and strategic advice, significant production and postproduction resources, a Screenplay Reading Series, a Work in Progress Screening Initiative and direct financial support through project-specific grants and artist fellowships.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “For independent artists in particular, it can be challenging to receive specialized support and encouragement. As our offerings for artists continue to grow our hope is that filmmakers have added incentive to remain true to their visions throughout the creative process.”

Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Feature Film Program, said, “Our Directors and Screenwriters Labs are a creative hotbed for innovation and collaboration, and we appreciate the opportunity to work with emerging artists on the leading edge of independent filmmaking. We look forward to helping their unique visions unfold in the inspired setting of the Utah mountains, as we have done for more than three decades.”

Gyula Gazdag returns as the Artistic

… Read the rest