Filmmaker. Fall 08.

Let's open this entry pointing to the new issue of Filmmaker by noting that a good chunk of a conversation editor Scott Macaulay led in August regarding the current state and immediate future of independent film is online (the full text is, of course, in the print issue). The participants: Josh Braun, Matt Dentler, Ira Deutchman, Ted Hope, Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy.

"With this year's release of Steven Soderbergh's double feature Che, the long-awaited Red One camera proved itself in the field, but the device presented new challenges to the director and the team at Technicolor in postproduction." Brian Chirls outlines the ways those challenges were met before turning to a second case: "This summer, director Arin Crumley took a different approach, leading a crew of 25 into the Nevada desert with three Red cameras to shoot As the Dust Settles, an 'auto-documentary' covering the experiences of a dozen filmmakers at the Burning Man festival."

Updated through 10/27.

Travis Crawford has seen parts of The Road, John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel and "it actually does look really, legitimately good - as in, great.... The Road is an undeniably harrowing work (in both mediums), yet it's far from gratuitous in that its darkness has a mirror of emotional light: a love story between father and son, as Hillcoat describes it. 'The material doesn't shy away from the worst aspects of humanity, yet what's unusual about it is that it also has a sentimental love story at the heart of it, in a world that's dark and brutal although believable.'"

The title of Jon Reiss's piece: "My Adventure in Theatrical Self-Distribution, Part 1; Or, how I 'invented' the two-month window and spent six months wanting to kill myself every day."

Scott Macaulay talks with Scott Kirsner about his new book, Inventing the Movies: Hollywood's Epic Battle Between Innovation and the Status Quo, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs.

"It speaks to Charlie Kaufman's influence as a screenwriter that his name functions as its own genre. Like Robert Altman, Woody Allen or Quentin Tarantino - other filmmakers whose last names are commonly used as adjectives - the term Kaufmanesque conjures narratives that reconfigure the way we perceive time, consequence and even reality." James Ponsoldt talks with him about Synecdoche, New York.

"If you are talking about a filmmaker who tackles sociopolitical topics and taboos in a sensationalistic style with good ol' gay sex, then you might be speaking of Bruce LaBruce," writes Mike Plante, introducing his interview. "With roots in zines, photography and every film format ever created, LaBruce has established a style that is slick yet defiantly lo-fi. In LaBruce's sixth feature film Otto; or Up with Dead People, Otto is a disaffected gay teenager who gets bit by a zombie. A wanna-be revolutionary casts him in her politically laced zombie film, only to start a documentary about Otto. LaBruce attaches the zombie genre to today's MySpace reality-TV world, obsessed with documenting moments instead of experiencing them; except with enough sex, gore and humor to make you sit up in your seat. Strand Releasing opens the film in November."

Jason Guerrasio spoke with Kevin Smith "before he premiered [Zack and Miri Make a Porno] at the Toronto International Film Festival about courting [Seth] Rogen, his latest tussle with the MPAA and his first foray into horror."

Heather Chaplin: "A little game called Braid caused nearly as much sensation in the gaming world this year as Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV and Will Wright's Spore - and this considering that Braid was made by one man on one man's savings with no original thought of mass distribution. People were so excited about Braid before the game even launched that one games journalist called the year before 'the pre-Braid era.'"

And Filmmaker's got a DVD roundup, too.

Update, 10/27: Jason Guerrasio announces a new digital edition of the magazine and points to a sample.

Posted by dwhudson at October 26, 2008 11:57 AM