KAREN MINTZ AND SIMON EGLETON ON THEIR FRANK BENDER DOC

Karen Mintz has just finished shooting her documentary, The Recomposer of The Decomposed, about the forensic artist Frank Bender, who died recently. She is about to move into the post-production phase. I had the opportunity to meet with her and her producer Simon Egleton and talk about her film, the pros and cons of no-budget filmmaking, and the friend that she made, and also lost, during the process.

Filmmaker: Can you start by telling me a little about how you became a filmmaker and what your background is?

Mintz: I started working in production 15 years ago. I just kind of fell into it as a lot of people do. I worked for the Dept of Agriculture in New Jersey doing PR work and one day they had a big budget surplus. They were like “how can we spend this money? We’ve got to spend $70,000 before the end of the year.” I came up with this idea to do this cooking show with farm fresh vegetables. I didn’t know anything about production; I just kind of flubbed my way into it. So I ended up doing a series of little documentaries about farmers and agriculture and they did really well. Then with a partner I started a little production company in the city, we did a lot of commercial stuff – all the documentaries that we did at that point would air as small local pieces. I’m working on two feature-length documentaries now and they are my first foray into feature length work.

Filmmaker: How did you meet Frank?

Mintz: I met Frank at a party a few years ago. I came away from the party and I was like “I think that might be one of the most interesting people I have ever met.” The whole night he and a bunch of other people were hanging out just partying and talking, telling great stories: I didn’t know what he did, who he was, or anything about him. At the end of the night he hands me his card, and it was Frank Bender. You couldn’t meet … Read the rest

“GHOST FROM THE MACHINE” DIRECTOR MATT OSTERMAN

When Matt Osterman attended the IFP Narrative Lab a few years ago, his $25,000, science fiction/supernatural thriller, about a grief-stricken man who builds a machine to communicate with the dead, was titled Phasma ex Machina. But when the film was finished and released this summer on DVD and, later, iTunes and Netflix by Screen Media, it went under the less obscure title of Ghost from the Machine. Now, however, another name change is in the works. This August Universal Pictures acquired the remake rights, attaching Gary Shore and Nathan Parker to write and direct. The new film will be called Our House, and I interviewed Osterman about his inspiration for the film, his involvement in the new picture and what advice he would give to other filmmakers contemplating remake deals.

Filmmaker: How did you get started on Phasma, and how did you go about acquiring distribution?

Osterman: The film was shot in Minneapolis-St. Paul at the end of 2008, and it was all local cast and crew. We shot for about $25,000 and were in post for about three or four months. I had a rough cut, so I took a break and did a trailer. It blew up online and our crew, including producer Jennifer Kramer and co-producer Jon Maichel Thomas, weren’t really ready for it. It was on more than 20 websites in Spain, Poland, Japan and France, and we had a ton of industry folks contacting us, but we only had rough cut at that point. So we attended the IFP labs in New York City, which was amazing, and we learned a ton. The movie itself didn’t change, but we learned a lot from the industry side. We screened at Fantasia in Montreal, a genre festival, and we had a sales agent and producers rep. and they began shopping for distribution. We decided to go with Screen Media, and we had an international distributor come on board.

Filmmaker: When was your original version of Ghost From the Machine released, and how did Universal gain interest in it?

Osterman: The film came out … Read the rest

DATA WILL BE THE DEATH OF US

By Michael Murie

The death of film, the evolution of technology, and the days of shrinking budgets have put into question the existence of the 2nd AC. Who needs someone to load and manage film when there is no film?

Ironically, the position may be more critical than ever. Whether you’re a sole cameraman, or working on a large production, managing the data coming from the camera remains critical, and is becoming more difficult. Increasing resolution and higher data rates mean that more disk space and more time is being taken up wrangling the data.

And if your capture media needs to be recycled during the shoot, you expose yourself to the risk of accidental data loss.

Having a Plan
The most vital part of the process is having a plan. Ideally, when data is copied from the card or solid-state recorder, a second copy should be made on a separate drive before the original source is erased. It’s also important that this process doesn’t happen while you’re under the gun. If you don’t have someone who has the time to manage copying data during the shoot, you should have enough storage to shoot for the entire day. That way copying the data can happen at the end of the day, when some of the pressure is off. Mistakes – and data loss – happen when you’re rushing to copy a card so that you can erase it and continue shooting.

Small flash cards, SD and Compact Flash, are easy to lose and confuse. Many people label them based on the camera (camera A, B, etc.), and store them in separate card holders that denote whether the card is blank or has been used. Even so, if your camera has the option for outputting to an external recorder, making two copies during recording (one to the card, one to an external recorder) decreases the chance that a mistake will lose everything.

At the high-end, companies are recognizing the problem and offering solutions for on-set backup and data distribution. Codex Digital offers the Digital Lab, a device that digests the content and will … Read the rest

TARIQ ANWAR ON THE ART OF POSTPRODUCTION

By Randy Astle

Thursday night EditShare sponsored a seminar with Oscar-nominated film editor Tariq Anwar at the Florence Gould Hall on East 59^th Street in Manhattan. Despite rain the evening was well attended by writers, directors, and especially editors, and Anwar’s presentation — basically a low-key Q&A session moderated by Manhattan Edit Workshop’s Josh Apter — was fun and informative. Here are a few thoughts he shared.

Anwar got into filmmaking somewhat accidentally, starting by driving a truck then getting work as an assistant director. After doing a great deal of yelling at crews, he decided “the cutting room was the most civilized place working on a film” and began moving up the postproduction ranks at the BBC. He praised the education he got there and advised one young attendee that editors should consider skipping film school in favor of more practical work. Even film school grads, he said, unfortunately have to start at the bottom of the ladder anyway, so why not save the money and get straight to work?

There were a lot of questions about his specific process and how he makes individual cuts, but he declined to articulate too much about his process. Editing is largely intuitive, he said, and it’s tiresome to have to explain the reason behind every cut to a director. In fact, Anwar said — only semi-jokingly — he’s happiest with directors who don’t micromanage but instead trust him to make the edit himself, especially early in the process. Theater directors can be better in this regard than highly technical commercial directors; they tend to be confident in their technical crew and allow the DP, editor, and others to do their job unfettered.

On the other hand, there comes a point when a director needs to make a decision. Anwar showed a scene from American Beauty, for which he and director Sam Mendes created nearly 50 permutations — and any one of them, he said, would have worked fine. Likewise with his most recent film, The King’s Speech. That film had a 70:1 shooting ratio — a number which caused an … Read the rest

JEREMIAH ZAGAR ON “STARVED FOR ATTENTION”

It’s been awhile since I sat down to chat with director Jeremiah Zagar, one half of Brooklyn-based Herzliya Films, which he runs with his producer Jeremy Yaches, so I was pretty excited to hear about their latest venture, Starved For Attention. A short film series created at the behest of Doctors Without Borders and VII Photo designed to highlight childhood malnutrition around the world Starved For Attention also seems to be the rarest of public service announcements, doubling as works of cinematic art. I spoke briefly with Zagar as he was preparing for the release of the eighth doc in the series, dealing with the food crisis in Somalia and Northern Kenya.

Filmmaker: So how did you get involved with Doctors Without Borders and VII Photo? Can you talk a bit about this Starved For Attention series?

Jeremiah Zagar: Last spring my friend Tim Hetherington let us know that MSF and VII Photo were collaborating on a campaign about malnutrition, and that they needed a production house to take all of the photos and footage and turn them into multimedia short films. My producer, Jeremy Yaches, and I were immediately excited about the prospect of working with such incredible photographers and for such a positive organization so we took the weekend to put a proposal together with our friend, the insanely talented Cassidy Gearheart. Our aim was to create pieces that were fast-paced and moving, that could combine commercial editing techniques with powerful messaging in order to create a different kind of PSA. As it turned out our goal was very much in line with those of MSF & VII so they brought us on and we got to work right away. I’m really proud of what we created, and the campaign has been hugely successful. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about the crisis of global childhood malnutrition and to highlight new ways to combat the problem. To date over 120,000 people have signed the petition, and they’re getting more signatures every day.

Filmmaker: Since I’ve already interviewed you both along with the Academy-Award winning … Read the rest

WEEK FOUR AT THE EDIT CENTER

By Alix Lambert

Monday brings more scene analysis! We watch three scenes: one from Fearless, one from Punch Drunk Love, and one from Mulholland Drive; all of them are specifically chosen not just for picture, but also for sound. The scene from Punch Drunk Love is one I remember especially well. Adam Sandler’s character discovers a lone harmonium in the street. It sits in near silence. Sandler stares at it. The silence extends and then is abruptly broken as a truck zooms by – but we see the truck approach way before we hear it … which is jarring in an effective way, and an illustration of how much sound editing can change the way we absorb what we are watching.

On Tuesday we finish our work on The Happy Sad and disconnect our drives so that the whole film can be strung together for viewing on Wednesday. It is intriguing to see the scenes we have been editing suddenly in the context of the entire story. Even though we have all read the script, it is easy to forget that there is continuation on either side of the individual segments we have come to know so well.

Over the weekend we have read a new script: Family Tree, written and directed by Brian Savelson. We start working on it Wednesday morning. It is the story of a father and a son and their respective girlfriends who unexpectedly find themselves at the same country house for the weekend. It stars John Slattery, Zach Gilford, Jena Malone and Gabrielle Union. I have one scene that includes all four cast members and another between Union and Malone. On Thursday Savelson comes in to introduce his film and answer any questions we might have. He is funny, but I already knew that from listening to him talk to his cast and crew before and after takes.

Outside of class we have all watched two episodes of Boardwalk Empire (HBO), in preparation for Kate Sanford and Tim Streeto, the editors on the show, to come speak with us, which they do on Friday. … Read the rest

WEEK THREE AT THE EDIT CENTER

By Alix Lambert

On Monday, each of us sits down to address the notes that we received from Rodney Evans, the director of The Happy Sad, on Friday. We are all tapping away with our headphones on, filling a common room, but simultaneously lost in our personal space bubbles. We do this for the better part of the day. Tuesday we have scene analysis. This is, of course, my favorite because… we are watching movies. Watching movies has been my hands-down favorite pastime since, well, forever. We watch Monique’s award-winning performance in Precious. If you have seen Precious (sorry, I’m not going to refer to it as Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) then you know which scene we watched. If you haven’t seen Precious, trust me, Monique earned her Oscar. Then we watch the scene(s) in Silence of The Lambs where Clarice shows up at the home of the serial killer, and we (the audience) mistakenly think that the house is surrounded by the SWAT team, only to find that the SWAT team is at a house miles away. We talk about the films and learn that that decision to intercut the two Silence of The Lamb scenes was a decision that was made in the edit room.

I start editing a second scene from The Happy Sad. My friend Maria Dizzia is in this one, which is super fun for me, and also, I am not flailing quite as much as I was the week before, and am able to assemble my own scene with fewer questions for the teachers. Periodically we break for tech lectures on subjects ranging from markers, to three-point editing to sound short cuts.

On Wednesday Sabine Hoffman, the editor for The Happy Sad, visits to look at our scenes. It is interesting to hear her different perspective. A third scene is put on my hard drive for me to work on. On Friday Evans visits the class again to see what kind of progress we have made. He watches the changes I made to the scene that I … Read the rest

WEEK TWO AT THE EDIT CENTER

By Alix Lambert

It is the first day of my second week at The Edit Center and we are no longer paired off with partners. Left alone with my computer, I cannot remember how to do anything. Alan Oxman (whose editing credits include Control Room, Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse) has joined us, as our teacher. We are to start working on a feature film currently going into post-production. The film is called Happy Sad, written by Ken Urban and directed by Rodney Evans. I am delighted to learn that my friend Maria Dizzia is acting in it. We have all read the script over the weekend, and are each given a hard-drive with footage that will comprise one scene of the film. We are to start editing our scene together. Every one begins working like busy bees, while I stare in despair at my keyboard.

Oxman is a man of enormous patience. He sits with me on and off for the rest of the week. If he can teach me how to edit, he can teach a space alien how to edit (space aliens: if you are in fact all great editors, then please insert some non-editing entity into that sentence). Oxman shows me how to create interruptions and looks, which is often how an editor finds a rhythm and natural flow to a conversation between actors. I am easily frustrated, resistant, and all around difficult to teach. My hands don’t seem to listen to my brain, and my brain – let’s just say it – isn’t working at full capacity either. Slightly dyslexic with numbers, and completely without any sense of direction, I move things left when I want them to go right, I “ripple” when I want to “roll” (both names of edits). I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get it. I even manage to press a combination of buttons that turns on the voice program for the blind, which is apparently, a first for a student. Oxman spends hours with me and never loses his temper. He shows me how … Read the rest

FAR FROM AFGHANISTAN: U.S. FILMMAKERS AGITATE ON 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WAR

“Though I don’t have any children,” says John Gianvito, “I imagined a child someday saying to me, ‘You regard yourself as a political filmmaker, did you do anything during the longest war in U.S. history?’”

Gianvito, the Boston-based director of the acclaimed feature The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, recalls this thought coming to him earlier this year as the 10th anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan approached. On Thursday, October 6, in honor of that day of infamy, Gianvito and a team of filmmakers will unveil an ambitious omnibus project to raise awareness about the enduring conflict.

Still a work in progress, Far From Afghanistan: The October Edition (pictured) will premiere on-line for one-week only to coincide with the anniversary, both to help accelerate political resistance to the war as well as help boost funds for the project’s Kickstarter campaign. As of September 26, the project was far short of its $25,000 goal, raising only about $5,300.

Gianvito conceived of the project earlier this year, galvanized by several factors: a 2010 Pew Research Study which stated only 4% of U.S. media made any reference to the war, despite the fact that it was the war’s deadliest year and a talk he attended in March with female Afghan activist and legislator Malalai Joya and Noam Chomsky. “Listening to Joya’s impassioned and cogent assessment of the situation was the last step in making manifest that I had to do something,” he says.

At the time, Gianvito had been deeply ensconced in his four years-in-the-making Vapor Trail, a large-scale documentary about the legacy of the U.S presence in the Philippines. However, he says, “my conscience was prodding me more and more.” He realized he would have a tough time making an October deadline, and came up with the idea of an omnibus project as “a way to create something more than a short film and to build a stronger base of solidarity around the issue,” he explains.

Inspired by the 1967 French documentary Far From Vietnam, which includes nonfiction entries from Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Alain Resnais, and … Read the rest

WEEK ONE AT THE EDIT CENTER

By Alix Lambert

Over the next six weeks director and Filmmaker contributor Alix Lambert is taking The Edit Center’s course in feature film editing. This is the first of her weekly blogs on her experience. — Editor

As a director, I have sat in the editing room for the better part of two decades. My long-time friend and brilliant editor, Hannah Neufeld has talked my off the ledge, dissuaded me from many bad ideas, and brought her own keen eye and internal rhythm to projects that we have worked on together over the years. Other editors (notably David Ritsher) have done the same for me. So, when my friend and recent co-director David McMahon (Bayou Blue) suggested that we take an intensive editing class at The Edit Center, I immediately agreed. I continue to want to collaborate with editors on my feature-length projects, but I have a number of short form projects on the horizon that don’t have the budget for an editor, and I would like to be able to edit these short pieces myself. I am also just interested in all aspects of filmmaking. I think the more I have an understanding of the editing process, the better I will be at directing. The course runs six weeks. Week one goes from 10AM – 5PM everyday. The five weeks after that are five to seven-hour days.

Week One

Our class, we are informed, is unusually small with eight people — and this is a good thing. We are given books; a plastic laminated keyboard that shows all the short cuts for Final Cut Pro (FCP 7, not the new FCP X), and a script. We are introduced to our teachers: Chris and Betsy (Alan Oxman, who founded The Edit Center, will start teaching us at the beginning of week two). We go around and introduce ourselves to each other. We listen to our first tech lecture: How to set in and out points, import media, open bins, etc. Then we are paired off. I am paired with David. This relieves me as we have worked together for a year … Read the rest