WINTER ’12 ISSUE NOW ONLINE

By Dan Schoenbrun

Select stories from our Winter Issue are now available.

You can now read online our interview with Joachim Trier about his Sundance-bound sophomore effort, Oslo, August 31^st, our joint interview with directors Braden King (Here) and Joshua Marston (The Forgiveness of Blood), and Kinetic Trailer co-founder Stephen Garrett’s comprehensive piece on crafting a winning trailer.

Plus, Lance Weiler’s Culture Hacker column.

The issue premieres later this week at Sundance, and hits stands shortly after that, but you can read it now on your desktop by subscribing to our digital issue. Learn more here.… Read the rest

MEDAGLIA’S “KITTY, KITTY” ON VODO

By Scott Macaulay

Filmmaker webmaster Michael Medaglia is also a talented director; I really liked his short, Kitty, Kitty — an eerie piece of psychological horror that reminded me of early Cronenberg. Here’s how he describes it:

Kitty, Kitty is a short film about love, cats and brain parasites. The disturbing short was inspired by Toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a brain parasite that can change human behavior and is believe to affect up to a third of the world population.

This weekend Medaglia released the film for free on VODO.net, a website that turns filesharing and torrents into a legitimate distribution avenue for independents. Viewers can download the film for free and then, if they like it. donate easily to the filmmaker. (For more on VODO, check out Lance Weiler’s article here at Filmmaker.) To check out the film go its page on VODO.

The VODO release is part of a larger and very clever effort called The Million Eyeballs Project. It’s marketing and goal-setting in the form of social experiment. Medaglia and his Producer of Marketing and Distribution (Jon, please note this term’s appearance in Filmmaker Magazine) Saskia Wilson-Brown are trying to get one million eyeballs (ie., 500,000 beings) to watch the film. I say “beings” because, as the site notes, your cat counts too. Check out the page for more on the project. And then watch the trailer and download the film.

… Read the rest

SPRING ISSUE NOW ONLINE

By Jason Guerrasio

Check out select stories from our new Spring issue.

Some of the stories you can read now include Mark Ruffalo talking about his directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious; the team behind The Myth of the American Sleepover discuss their intimate film on teenage life; David Leitner highlights the latest crop of large-sensor HD cameras; Anthony Kaufman reports on the resurgence of studio indies; Lance Weiler explains how filmmakers can build audiences outside of the theater experience; and we look at the Tribeca Film Festival as it celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

To read the complete issue on your desktop now, subscribe to our digital issue. Learn how to here.… Read the rest

FACES FROM SUNDANCE ’11

By Jason Guerrasio

Here we highlight the stills Jamie Stuart took while shooting interviews for the site. Check out his videos from Sundance here.

… Read the rest

VISITING “PANDEMIC” MISSION CONTROL WITH LANCE WEILER

By Scott Macaulay

I stopped by Sundance’s New Frontiers building yesterday and visited Pandemic 1.0 with its creator, Lance Weiler. Here’s a short, casual Flip video with Weiler showing me the two rooms of the installation.

For more info on this piece, read Weiler’s column in this issue of Filmmaker.

And here’s Jamie Stuart’s piece on Weiler shot this week in Park City at our Main Street lounge.

… Read the rest

WINTER 2011 ISSUE NOW ONLINE

By Jason Guerrasio

Now up on the site are select stories from the Winter 2011 issue.

Michelle Williams talks about her upcoming film Meek’s Cutoff, as well as the challenges of trying to shake her Blue Valentine character to prepare. We chat with Apichatpong Weerasethakul about his Palme d’Or winner, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. DP Eric Lin (The Exploding Girl) talks shop with Monogamy cinematographer Doug Emmett. As well as interviews with Limitless director Neil Burger and Mike Ott‘s Gotham Awards’ Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You winner, Littlerock.

Lance Weiler also delves into his project, Pandemic, for his Culture Hacker column, which is at Sundance (see our video interview with Weiler); and we reveal a new column which will show up in the mag from time to time: Soapbox. Here Zachary Wigon writes about the cinema’s role in society.… Read the rest

“PANDEMIC” DIRECTOR LANCE WEILER

Lance Weiler talks about his new interactive project, Pandemic.

… Read the rest

CULTURE HACKER: A STORYTELLING PANDEMIC

Originally printed in our Winter 2011 issue, grab a free issue of Filmmaker at Sundance to be a part of Pandemic 1.o.

When the phone rings I’m feeling a bit nervous. The voice on the other end is slow and calculated. “We can do 30,000 but it will take 10 weeks. In order to get it in time for Sundance we need to order 500,000 and ship from China… We’re going to have to find another way.” Not quite your normal Sundance prep conversation, especially when the items in question are bottles of water. But these are not regular bottles of water. They are “Pandemic Water,” just one entry point within a story-world experience entitled Pandemic 1.0 taking place at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Pandemic 1.0 is a story R&D (research and development) project, the first step in a larger transmedia build that includes film, mobile, online and real-world events. This transmedia extension is set within the same story world as a feature film that I co-wrote and will be directing called HiM — a Lord of the Flies-style tale about a strange sleep virus that only affects adults and leaves the youth fighting for their lives.

Over a period of 120 hours, Pandemic 1.0 unfolds in a mixture of online and offline events. Festival attendees and those just viewing online are able to interact through a “social experiment,” one that harnesses various social and emerging technologies to impact the spread of a pandemic. How people choose to respond and collaborate will directly affect whether the pandemic spreads or slows. It is all part of a larger R&D effort that looks at the role of social behavior and its impact on storytelling.

The intention of employing a story R&D approach to the project is to experiment, review and refine. Not too dissimilar to how software is developed or how a script goes through revisions and receives feedback, the concept of story R&D provides insight into ways to design stories that resonant in a connected world. As storytelling moves into the 21st century, it is now possible to tell … Read the rest

SUMMER ISSUE ONLINE

By Jason Guerrasio

Select stories from our Summer issue are now available, including this year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. (Read the press release here.)

You can now read online our interviews with Amir Bar-Lev on his new doc, The Tillman Story; Gaspar Noe talks about his psychedelic look at the afterlife in Enter the Void; we look at the latest innovations in DSLR cameras; and some of our friends give their favorite apps, program and Web services.

Plus, Lance Weiler’s Culture Hacker column focuses on transmedia while Anthony Kaufman’s Industry Beat looks at the realities of the Do It With Others new media tools.

The issue hits stands next week, but you can read the whole issue now on your desktop by subscribing to our digital issue. Learn more here.

Enjoy.… Read the rest

CULTURE HACKER: IT’S ALL ABOUT STORY

By Lance Weiler

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