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“We Do Believe the Audience is More Intelligent Than the Industry Thinks: Producer Sylvain Corbeil on the Cannes-Premiering Peak Everything
Peak Everything
Since founding Metafilms over two decades ago, Montreal-based producer Sylvain Corbeil has become a prolific and respected pillar of Quebec’s independent film scene, collaborating with filmmakers whose bold and idiosyncratic visions have served to bolster the place of modern Canadian… Read more
“We Literally Burned Our Actual Set”: Writer-Director Ryan Coogler and Producers Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian on Sinners
Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler on the set of Sinners (Photo by Eli Adé)
Even before its smashing opening weekend theatrical success, Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s first original directorial outing since his 2013 indie hit Fruitvale Station, was knocking loud on the box office doors. Early reviews praised the film’s unique genre-bending vision, weaving vampire… Read more
Necessary Filmmaking: An Excerpt from Jake Mahaffy’s Micro-Budget Methods of Cinematic Storytelling
A still from Jake Mahaffy's currently untitled next feature
A Filmmaker 25 New Face from 2005, Jake Mahaffy has been making microbudget films for two decades and has now distilled his creative and production philosophies in a new book, Micro-Budget Methods of Cinematic Storytelling: A Practical Guide to Making Narrative… Read more
Failure as Creative Inspiration: How I Shot — and Recorded — My Christmas-Set Musical Long December in 12 Days
Shooting "Long December" (Photo: Joshaun Anderson)
In 2015 I directed my first feature. It would be six years before I was able to direct my second. But once I had completed the first draft of that script, we had the film in the can within six… Read more
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“How Would Frederick Wiseman Order This Procession of Images?”: Making Robert Kolodny’s The Featherweight
Robert Kolodny’s Venice-premiering The Featherweight is the dramatic story of real-life boxer Willie Pep as he exits retirement to attempt a comeback in the ring — all as he’s shadowed by a documentary crew. The film’s action occurs two decades after Pep’s 1940s heyday, with Kolodny and his team, who include producer and screenwriter Steve Loff and editor Robert Greene, convincingly replicating the look and rhythms of 1960s verite documentary to meditate on both the past as well as the boxing film’s durability in the present. Wrote The New Yorker’s Richard Brody in his review, “It’s an instant classic of […]
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David Lynch on (Just) Making the Day
“Did you make the day?” That’s the first question financiers and production execs will ask after a first day — or, really, any day — of shooting. “Making the day” means completing all the scenes on the call sheet so that the production isn’t falling behind, something that can led to dropped scenes, budget overruns and more. But beyond the “making the day” question lies a deeper one: how is a production making the day? Rushed scenes, abandoned coverage and quickly made decisions can result in an on-time shooting schedule but diminished artistic results. That’s why this behind-the-scenes video of […]
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AI Is Already Changing Filmmaking: How Filmmakers Are Using These New Tools in Production and Post
When Sora, OpenAI’s video generator model, hit the internet in February, realistic-looking demo videos flooded social media, usually accompanied by some form of “RIP Hollywood” commentary. While Sora still isn’t publicly available, between Runway, Pika and a slew of other video and image generators there have been many questions about what the future of filmmaking will look like—and whether humans will even be the ones making movies in the future. Right now, generative AI is still far away from creating consistent characters and the exact, carefully crafted images that industry professionals require. Maybe a movie will be entirely generated with […]
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Cine Gear Expo 2024: 17 Cameras, LED (and Traditional) Lights, Lenses and Remote Camera Controls We Loved
Every start of summer, the Cine Gear Expo comes to Los Angeles. Initially held on the Paramount lot, the Expo had a short stint at the LA Convention Center for two pandemic years before landing this yearat the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. The movie lot aspect assists greatly with vibes: While its chief competitor, NAB Show—held a few months earlier in the Las Vegas Convention Center—feels like a traditional trade show, at Cine Gear you can peruse the latest lenses as the iconic Animaniacs water tower looms in the distance, just visible behind a camera crane which swings around […]
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Las Cruces Days: Making Sundance Grand Prize-Winner In the Summers Using New Mexico Tax Credits
Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers is a film of moments spread across years—moments quiet and seemingly insignificant, as well as larger events whose significance is downplayed at the time only to be properly understood years later. It’s the story of two teenage girls who, each summer, are sent by their mom to spend a few weeks with their charismatic yet irresponsible father, whose ability to love and be a parent is continually undermined by his addictions to drugs and alcohol. Winner of the Grand Jury U.S. Dramatic Competition prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, In the Summers finds a […]
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Clothes Tell the Story: Costume Designer Stacey Battat on Priscilla
From the wan pastel prairie dresses of The Virgin Suicides to the candy-colored 18th century finery of Marie Antoinette to the aughts logomania of The Bling Ring, the style in Sofia Coppola’s movies is always brilliantly cohesive, capturing a distinct, ultrafeminine vibe like no other. Coppola’s latest, the impressionist biopic Priscilla, follows Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny) from timid ’50s teenager to wife of Elvis (Jacob Elordi) to, finally, a liberated woman, using gorgeous midcentury fashions to capture an often painful journey into the heady world of celebrity. Spanning from 1959 to 1972—one of modern fashion’s richest transitional eras—Priscilla’s wardrobe alternately […]
