2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #78 [Fall 2008]

Darren Lynn Bousman, Hollywood's Repo! Man
by Darren Lynn Bousman
When he was 26, Darren Lynn Bousman turned his feature debut, Saw II, into a certified blockbuster. Parts III and IV quickly followed. But now he’s ready for something completely different—a rock opera starring Paris Hilton—with Repo! The Genetic Opera.

License to Cut: Editor Matt Chessé on Quantum of Solace
by Erika Latta
As Quantum of Solace is released in theaters, editor Matt Chessé discusses cutting the latest Bond film—which also happens to be his seventh collaboration with director Marc Forster.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #77 [Complete Guide to Making Movies 2009]

Art Linson Asks: What Just Happened?
by Art Linson
Art Linson’s producing credits include The Untouchables, Heat, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Scrooged, Fight Club and Into the Wild. He has written two books, A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood and What Just Happened?: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line. Most recently, he wrote the screenplay for and produced What Just Happened?, starring Robert De Niro and directed by Barry Levinson. Here, Linson shares his golden rules for surviving Hollywood.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #76 [Summer 2008]

Boy A Star Andrew Garfield Isn't Afraid to Be Picky
By Andrew Gnerre
Andrew Garfield’s brief but impressive filmography thus far is no accident; the young actor is nothing if not selective. “I know I’d be really miserable if I was working on something that I didn’t believe in,” says Garfield, 24, whose first four feature film roles are each enviable in their own way.

Is Horror Dead?
By Christian Toto
Freddy, Jason and Leatherface have packed it up—and horror legends like George Romero are having a tough time at the box office. What does the future hold for the horror genre?

Isabel Coixet’s Cinematic Poem
By Jennifer Straus
A director best known for her strong female leads wouldn't be the first choice to adapt a novel from one of today's most misogynistic novelists. But Elegy, Isabel Coixet's adaptation of Philip Roth's The Dying Animal, just may surprise you.

Ben Stiller's Days of Thunder
By Timothy Rhys
Best-known as one of Hollywood's most bankable funnymen, Ben Stiller has always been more interested in what's going on behind the camera. His upcoming slate of films, including Tropic Thunder, which he produced, directed and stars in, is proof positive.

Rainn Wilson’s Big Break
By Mallory Potosky
It’s hit or miss when cast members from NBC’s “The Office” land themselves a lead role in a big-screen comedy. Steve Carell’s turn as The 40-Year-Old Virgin propelled his already growing popularity while John Krasinski, the show’s romantic everyman, just couldn’t appeal to enough swooning fans to make License to Wed a box office success. But like Carell, Rainn Wilson’s television alter-ago, beet farmer Dwight Schrute, is not exactly the most respected employee at Dunder Mifflin. Maybe that bodes well for the Seattle native, who will next be seen as the star of Peter Cattaneo’s The Rocker.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s Rules Can Be Deadly
by Paul W.S. Anderson
British action master Paul W.S. Anderson reveals his Golden Rules for Moviemaking just as his latest film, Death Race, hits theaters.

Towelhead: Alan Ball's Controversial New Film
by Aaron Hillis
In 1999, a plastic ball floated in the wind—the most beautiful thing ever seen by the strange boy next door—and with that, Alan Ball won an Academy Award for his very first screenplay, American Beauty. Nine years later, he's making his feature directorial debut with Towelhead, which, even before its release, is confronting controversy for its title and few key scenes.

Jon Avnet Aims for a Righteous Kill
By Brian O'Hare
His filmography defies easy categorization because Jon Avnet says he's only interested in one thing: Great acting. He's proving it this summer, as he teams up with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for Righteous Kill.

William Fraker Dances with the Devil
By Bob Fisher
Cinematographer William Fraker and director Roman Polanski created a monster when they made Rosemary's Baby 40 years ago. Today, the six-time Oscar nominee says there are still lessons to be learned from the movie.

Eight Great Fests
By MovieMaker Staff
From scream queens and student films to music videos and John Leguizamo, the highlights from some of this year's most innovative festivals around the country prove that small fests pack some of the biggest punches.

Politics As Usual—At Least in Hollywood
By Peter Weed
As eye the home stretch of the 2008 presidential race and brace for the endless "I approved this message" tags, it may seem cruel and unusual punishment to consider a raft of political films. But these 15 standouts offer a useful primer on politics American-style.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #75 [Future of Moviemaking 2008]

Perfect Strangers
by Bryan Bertino
First-time writer-director Bryan Bertino recounts the scariest part of making his directorial debut with The Strangers: Action!

Dirty Harry: Revisited
By Rustin Thompson
Warner Bros. is celebrating its 85th anniversary with something they are calling the Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector’s Edition box set, which features all five Dirty Harry films, digitally remastered on DVD and Blu-ray, and including featurettes and Dirty Harry memorabilia. All of the films are available seperately, too, which is a good thing because the one you really want is Dirty Harry. With the 1971 movie, Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel invented the modern cop antihero, which spawned Bruce Willis’ wisecracking John McClane, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titanium-skinned Terminator and the lumpen, narcoleptic studs portrayed by the likes of Steven Seagal. But Eastwood and Siegel should get some credit (or blame) for establishing the profitable, frequently risible concept of the franchise film, too.

Festival Beat
By MovieMaker Staff
An exclusive look at nine of the hottest winter and spring film festivals of 2007 and 2008.

Facing the Digital Dilemma
By Bob Fisher
Digital video is fast becoming a popular alternative to traditional filmstock, but is it worth the cost of storage and the possibility of losing the movie forever?

Jonathan Levine's Total Wackness
by Jonathan Levine
The prospect of meeting Ben Kingsley is a daunting one for any director, especially a man of such limited talent and eloquence as myself. So when I heard the news that Sir Ben had enjoyed my script for The Wackness and would like to meet me in Vancouver, my excitement was tempered by an immediate pang of terror.

I recalled the episode of “The Sopranos” in which Sir Ben attempts to blow off Christopher and his mob cohorts as they push their script onto him. Needless to say, I hoped my meeting would go a bit better than that...

It’s a 3D Revolution
By Andy Rose
An exciting resurgence in 3D moviemaking indicates that what was once a fad is now a growing trend. Over the past few years there has been a huge increase in the production of 3D films. More than a half-dozen live-action and a dozen computer animated 3D films are currently in the studio pipelines—with more to come.

One reason for this surge in development is the availability of state-of-the-art digital technology. “It was always possible to show 3D, but never possible to show it in a reliable manner,” says Eric Brevig, an Oscar-nominated visual effects artist and director of this summer’s Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, the first live-action narrative feature to be shot and released in digital stereoscopic 3D. “It’s a convergence of technology,” he says. The problems of former 3D imaging simply no longer exist.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #74 [Spring 2008]

Jed Riffe’s Advice for Aspiring Documentarians
by Jed Riffe
Jed Riffe is a producer, journalist, independent moviemaker and the man behind production cooperative Jed Riffe Films LLC. His latest effort, Ripe for Change, won the MovieMaker Ecocinema Award at the 2007 Wine Country Film Festival. The documentary, which emphasizes Riffe's belief that changing the world begins with changing food politics, is part of the PBS series "California and the American Dream." After 25 years in the field, Riffe knows a thing or two about getting his point across on film. Here, he shares a bit of advice for documentarians aspiring to do the same.

Independent Spirit
By Mark Sells
Six independent moviemakers talk of the state of independent moviemaking today and explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.

Tom McCarthy Welcomes The Visitor
By David Fear
It’s worth recounting the central premise of Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor to emphasize that what sounds potentially cloying or cringe-worthy on the page, and would probably sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to studio executives in a pitch meeting, can become something graceful, intimate and incredibly moving in the right hands.

The 10 Greatest Rockumentaries of All-Time
By Travis Crawford
As Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light hits theaters nationwide, MM decided to highlight the 10 best, or at least most culturally significant, rockumentaries of all time, with the one condition that they are all currently available on DVD for your home viewing and listening pleasure.

She’s The Boss
By Kevin Canfield
Two of last year’s more critically acclaimed films—Sarah Polley’s Away from Her and Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris—were directed by women who first gained renown for their on-screen performances. Now, a new pair of films—Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me and Jada Pinkett Smith's The Human Contract—also happen to be made by actress-turned-directors.

Dennis Farina Reveals What Happens in Vegas...
By Mallory Potosky
He’s been a part of some of the most critically acclaimed movies (Saving Private Ryan) and popular television shows (“Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) of the past 30 years. But for Dennis Farina, the notion of making a living as an actor was not the first one that occurred to this son of blue-collar Chicago; his first career was as a beat cop in the City of Broad Shoulders. It was only after meeting director Michael Mann through a mutual friend that the actor best known for his wiseguy roles (Midnight Run, Get Shorty) and the occasional unorthodox ladies’ man (Sidewalks of New York, “Empire Falls”) landed his first role in the 1981 thriller, Thief. While Mann helped launch his career, Farina has gone on to work with a number of other strong auteur directors, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games).

Christina Ricci Goes Hollywood with Speed Racer
By Kevin Canfield
A seasoned moviemaker at the age of 28, Christina Ricci has never been one to play by the rules. Ricci is surprising Hollywood again by starring in Speed Racer, her first big summer blockbuster, nearly two decades into her career.

Making Movies in Middle East
By Kevin Cassidy
Dubai could very well be the largest construction site on Earth. Everywhere you travel in this so-called “Las Vegas of the Middle East,” towering cranes fill the arid desert skyline from one end of the city to the next, including the manmade, meticulously crafted “islands” that surround the oil-rich emirate. Construction occurs day and night, with workers from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts unknown bussed in from the trailers they occupy in de facto labor camps just outside the city.

Michael Patrick King Talks About Sex
By Jennifer Soong
In 2004, during the final season of HBO’s “Sex and the City,” Carrie Bradshaw dangerously flirted with love in Paris and the seed for a movie version of the show was planted. As the series came to a climactic close—ending a heady era of Manolo Blahniks, cosmopolitans and candid girlfriend camaraderie—creative leader and executive producer Michael Patrick King toyed with the idea of taking the fabulous foursome to the big screen.

Festival Beat
By MovieMaker Staff
MovieMaker takes a look at some of the best film festivals from late 2007 and early 2008: Big Apple, Whistler, Cucalorus, Hamptons International, Ft. Lauderdale International, Filmstock International, International Festival Summit, Beloit International and Florida ART Film Festivals.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #73 [Winter 2008]

Ellen Page's Not So Still Life
By Joe Leydon
Don’t misunderstand: It’s not like Ellen Page is hiding out or lying low. But even as the Oscar-hype machinery is revving up to push her toward a well-deserved nomination for her star-making performance in Jason Reitman’s Juno—well, she’d simply prefer to be on the other side of the continent, far away from Hollywood, on this particular October afternoon.

Rawson Marshall Thurber Unravels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
by Rawson Marshall Thurber
Four years after proving his comedic chops—and box office potential—with the comedy Dodgeball, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber is going in a completely different direction. With Michael Chabon's blessing, he's adapted the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, into a feature film starring Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard and Nick Nolte.

Marjane Satrapi’s Comic Relief
By Nancy Rosenbaum
Paris-based cartoonist Marjane Satrapi says she never set out to make movies. Satrapi is the author and illustrator of the beloved graphic novels Persepolis I and II, which, together comprise a funny, moving memoir chronicling Satrapi’s life growing up in Tehran and Vienna during the rise of the Islamic revolution. The books offer a glimpse into “Marji’s” experiences as a curious, outspoken girl who suddenly finds herself living in a fundamentalist society where she has to wear a veil and punk rock music is verboten.

Top 10 Movie Cities 2008
By Jennifer M. Wood
From Austin to Albuquerque and plenty of places in between, MovieMaker's eighth annual countdown of the 10 best places to live, work and make movies in the U.S.

David Gordon Green Makes Snow Angels
by David Gordon Green
When i began working with Kate Beckinsale on Snow Angels, we were trying to find elements rooted in reality that could give her character of Annie anchors of emotion—humor, frustration, aggression and sympathy. I knew that once cameras were rolling, we wanted a high degree of improvisation, particularly when it came to confrontational scenes with her estranged husband, Glenn (played by Sam Rockwell). So we needed to design as much background for her as time would allow.

Gus Van Sant Gets Paranoid
By David Sterritt
Gus Van Sant is the perfect picture of an American independent moviemaker. He grew up on both coasts—in Portland, Oregon and Darien, Connecticut—before earning a degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then settled in Portland, where he still lives and works. He made his first big impression in 1985 with Mala Noche, the slyly subversive story of a gay man with a crush on a Mexican immigrant who’s wrong for him in just about every way.

Michael Haneke Plays Funny Games With Naomi Watts
By David Fear
A family is traveling to their country vacation home. As they drive, the parents take turns playing “guess the classical composer” (Schubert? Brahms?) with the CD player. Their son laughs approvingly in the back seat. The scene couldn’t be more bucolic or benign, until Mom slips in a new musical selection—and over the soundtrack, we hear a loud, jarring skitter-metal tune from avant-garde musician John Zorn. The happy trio looks peaceful and content; viewers, meanwhile, try to recalibrate their central nervous systems.

That opening of Michael Haneke’s 1997 meta-thriller Funny Games was the first indication that the German director’s pitch-black examination of screen violence wasn’t planning on playing by the rules. It’s such an effective sneak preview of the horrors that lie on the horizon in this house invasion tale that it’s not surprising Haneke repeats the sequence in Funny Games U.S., a remake of his breakthrough movie. If it wasn’t for the fact that the original’s Austrian leads have been replaced by Tim Roth and Naomi Watts, you’d swear the projectionist had thrown on the first version by mistake: The scene is replicated with such scrupulous fidelity that it’s almost a carbon copy. As is the next scene. And the next. And the next…

Paul Giamatti Takes 10
By Mallory Potosky
Sooner or later, when cruising late-night television, you’re going to catch a glimpse of a no-name character actor who looks an awful lot like the famous thespian, Paul Giamatti. That’s because before he became famous, Giamatti made his living playing parts like “Heckler #2” and “Kissing Man.” Characters with no names. But along came a romp through California’s wine country in Sideways and the Sundance hit American Splendor and suddenly the one-time bit player was a leading man and Oscar nominee.

Lights! Camera! Geritol!
by Christian Toto
Today’s stars keep themselves in better shape than ever before, and audiences seem to like that. In fact, box office receipts for recent flicks featuring some of our favorite aging action heroes are so encouraging that studio execs are practically rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) vehicles. Stallone certainly didn’t hurt himself when his more famous screen persona—Rocky Balboa—earned critical acclaim and a respectable $70 million in last year’s titular blockbuster, chasing doubts that the actor-director was simply giving himself a starring role in order to slow a career slide.

Ted Braun Discusses Darfur Now
By Paul Tukey
The impact of his first big-screen documentary may not be fully appreciated for years. Even with Don Cheadle and George Clooney as principle characters in the 2007 film Darfur Now, it’s not easy to get moviegoers flooding to a flick about African genocide. That director Ted Braun even got the movie made, however, provides moviemakers everywhere with a lesson for the ages: Every solution begins with a conversation.

Festival Beat
By MovieMaker Staff
From big to small, longform to short and online to nonline, MM takes a look at some 2007's best and brightest film festivals including Dominican International, Starz Denver, Austin and BendFilm.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #72 [Fall 2007]

Horror Fests in Your Neighborhood
By Jennifer M. Wood
Horror-themed film fests are happening around the country--find one near you!

Features: Horror Film Festivals Rise from the Grave
By Nancy Rosenbaum
Screamfest horror film festival director Rachel Belofksy says she didn’t grow up loving scary movies. “As a little girl, I was terrified of everything,” she recalls. “All the vampire films freaked me out. Even as a teen, it wasn’t my thing.” Belofksy’s fear has since been supplanted by fandom. Now if you show her a good “decap” scene, she can explain its artistic merit, point by point.

Features: Zach Helm’s World of Wonder
By Cristy Lytal
Zach Helm’s life may not be stranger than fiction, but it is sweeter than a fairytale. Plucked out of the playwriting scene in Chicago in 1997 to participate in a writers’ program at Fox 2000, he dreamt up Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium as a writing sample.

Features: The Naked Truth About Film Nudity
By David Geffner
From Caligula to Lust, Caution, moviemakers have always struggled with shooting nudity and sex. What does it take to make it happen successfully?

Features: Jennifer and Suzanne Todd’s Sister Act
By Jessica Hundley
Founded by sisters Jennifer and Suzanne Todd, Team Todd has been responsible for pushing a number of incredible projects through the stranglehold of production.

Features: Todd Haynes Takes on Bob Dylan
By Jason Matloff
After the enormous success of recent biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, it should have been easy for writer-director Todd Haynes to make his Bob Dylan-inspired film, I'm Not There. It wasn't.

Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
by Julie Taymor
From Oscar to Tony, Julie Taymor has found success in Hollywood and on Broadway as a writer, director, producer and costume designer. In 2003, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Frida, which she also directed. Her latest film, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, is on DVD now. Here she shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.

Tamara Jenkins Gets Savage
By David Fear
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A moviemaker workshops a script through the Sundance Institute, the finished feature gets accepted into the prestigious festival and the critical hosannas start pouring in. Then he or she gets courted by a number of studios, several projects stall and years pass… Soon, the moviemaker is regrettably relegated to the “Where are they now?” files, along with a number of other indie film alumni who sprint out of the gate and then find it hard to get a follow-up made.

Julian Schnabel Paints The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
By Phillip Williams
In his latest picture, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, artist-moviemaker Julian Schnabel returns to familiar terrain while managing to explore a new landscape. Like his previous outings, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, the film is a biopic—the story of an artist living on the margins of life, searching for his voice. The true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of Elle France, The Diving Bell brings us deep into the inner life of its main character, a man who, flush with all the trappings of worldly success, is suddenly felled by a debilitating stroke.

Javier Bardem Breaks Big
By Kevin Canfield
Though he's best known to American audiences for his Oscar-nominated role in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, Javier Bardem is redefining audience expectations with starring roles in two of this fall's most anticipated movies, Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera and the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #70 [Summer 2007]

Food Film Festivals
By Nancy Rosenbaum
A new wave of film festivals are taking the tried and true "dinner and a movie" combo to a whole new level.

Cook Up Your Own Food Film Festival
By Nancy Rosenbaum
Have you got a hankering to cook up a food and film festival close to home? Here’s some handy information about the dollars and cents you’ll need to make it all happen.

Mixed Reviews: Guilty Pleasures
By Travis Crawford
From 1970s Euro sleaze to Italian Neorealist classics, it's time to admit some guilty pleasures. DVD and book reviews.

Virginia’s Indie Film Revolution
By Jennifer M. Wood
Whether you’re aiming to make the next Revolutionary War epic or just need a film-friendly rural locale for your low-budget indie, Virginia will welcome you with open arms. Here, a few members of VA’s independent movie community weigh in on why the commonwealth is a great place to shoot.

Master of the Movie Prop
By Brian Malik
Just about anything an actor touches in a film that isn’t nailed down is a prop. Props serve to enhance a character’s backstory, improve the look of a location or, in the case of fake projectile vomit, simply gross out the audience. The talented artists who furnish the canvas of cinema with their treasures are called property masters. MM spoke with Kevin Hughes, an industry veteran who began his career as an assistant on Apocalypse Now, and more recently has worked on such films as Boogie Nights, Borat and Bobby.

Classic Movie Title Sequences
By Peter Weed
Take a closer look at some of the most memorable title sequences of the past few years.

Using Movie Title Sequences Effectively
By Peter Weed
Released in the mid-1950s from the relatively static role of simply assigning credit, title sequences have evolved into an art form in their own right.

Neil Jordan's Golden Rules of Moviemaking
By Neil Jordan
"Never tell the truth on a junket" and other lessons from the director of The Brave One and Interview with the Vampire, Neil Jordan.

All the Right Moves: Stabilizing Your Camera
By Matthew Power
Not every director likes to move the camera. Some simply can’t afford it. Go back and look at Kevin Smith’s Clerks, for example. Almost every shot in that movie was a locked-down tripod shot—no movement at all. At the other extreme is Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov’s mind-blowing Russian Ark, an entire feature film shot in one continous, moving shot, featuring 2,000 actors in 33 different rooms.

Features: Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris
By Daniel Nemet-Nejat
After sharpening her multi-tasking skills with Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy is writing, directing, producing, editing, scoring and starring in her own take on cross-cultural romance with 2 Days in Paris.

Random Thoughts From the Set of Jeff Garlin's I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
By Jeff Garlin
From soundless filming to nausea on the set, Jeff Garlin relives the experience of writing, directing and starring in his directorial debut, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With.

Features: Silent Movies Are Still Creating an Echo
By Bob Mastrangelo
From Griffith and Eisenstein to Chaplin and Keaton, MM revisits the 15 greatest directors of the silent era.

Features: The Robert Rodriguez Effect
By Mallory Potosky
When it comes to getting an education in film, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all option. But apparently the same can’t be said for a film school’s “model moviemaker.”

Ethan Hawke Grows Up in The Hottest State
By Ethan Hawke
When I was 21 and under the influence of books like James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans and Larry McMurtry’s All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, I started writing a wildly autobiographical piece of fiction about my experiences upon arriving in New York. I wanted to write about trying to “make it” as an actor and centered the story on a soul-crushing, identity-defining encounter with first love.

Features: John Carpenter’s Business of Insanity
By Jason Matloff
In Hollywood these days, it sometimes seems easier to find an actor who’ll admit to having had plastic surgery than it is to find an original idea for a movie. Case in point: Legendary horror director John Carpenter.

Features: Halloween, Too
By Mallory Potosky
Given his predilection for stepping behind the lens it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Rob Zombie announced his foray into feature moviemaking with 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses. But Zombie remaking John Carpenter’s hallowed horror classic, Halloween? That announcement did shock some people… including Zombie himself.

Features: David Levien & Brian Koppelman: Ocean’s Two
By Kevin Canfield
Brian Koppelman and David Levien are among the movie business’ most sought-after screenwriters. If all falls into place, they’ll soon be turning their attention to scripts for Robert De Niro (he’ll reportedly star in the Koppelman/Levien-penned mafia tale The Winter of Frankie Machine) and Brian De Palma (the would-be director of a prequel titled The Untouchables: Capone Rising).

Notebook: Moviemaking: The Eternal Balancing Act
By Timothy Rhys

Jodie Foster: The Brave One
By Kevin Canfield
An Oscar nominee at 14 and still at the top of her game after more than four decades, Jodie Foster knows how to get what she wants--like director Neil Jordan and a killer script for her latest thriller, The Brave One.

The Signal: A Collaboration in Three Parts
by Dan Bush, David Bruckner and Jacob Gentry
A hit at Sundance, The Signal offers a new chapter in the world of cinematic collaboration as three directors each take a turn in the director's chair.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #71 [Complete Guide to Making Movies 2008]

Power Writer: Bringing a Blank Page to Life
by Mark Fergus
The Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Children of Men says that as a writer, digging down deep is the only way you're going to bring a blank page to life.

Writing Backwards: Plot Construction Using Reverse Cause and Effect
by Jeffrey Kitchen
Every script has a beginning, middle and end - but sometimes it can be helpful to write them in reverse order.

Coming Clean: Confessions of a Hollywood Hack
by John Weidner
Know thyself. A Hollywood screenwriter comes clean on the freedom he found when he got his mind and his talent in alignment.

Great Adaptations: A Winning Script Doesn’t Have to be Totally Original
By Christina Hamlett
With so many of today's successful movies based on existing material, it pays to know how to translate a literary work into a cinematic one.

Script Criteria Checklist
by Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein & Laura Scheiner
Whether you're looking for investors for your latest project or getting ready to finance it yourself, make sure your script has these six essential elements - which translate to audience appeal.

Cycle of the Screenwriter
by Craig Mazin
Just like the stories they write, a screenwriter's life is one based on cycles. One of Hollywood's most in-demand scribes sounds off about his own.

The Context of Innovative Film Finance
by Nelson Gayton
You have a great script, an incredible director, cast and team and you're passionate about making this film. Sounds like a slam dunk, right? Wrong! You still need the money - and, in an ideal world, the distribution to pay it back.

Casting is Everything: Expert Advice on How to Cast for Success
By Phillip Williams
Warren Beatty may have said it best when he declared that "Casting is everything." And sometimes type-casting is the way to go.

Balancing the Roles of Writer and Director
By Billy Ray
Determining the roles of "writer" and "director" begins and ends with one simple question: What is the story I'm telling?

Other People’s Money
By Dov S-S Simens
You've learned how to block a scene, move a dolly, mix a soundtrack, cut a negative, color-correct a work print, watch Hitchcock and critique Spielberg - but you don't know how to make money. Here's how.

Cinematic Storytelling
by Jennifer Van Sijll
From Citizen Kane to American Beauty, the history of cinema is filled with examples of "cinematic storytelling" - films that use the full complement of moviemaking tools to tell theis stories.

View this issue

Order this issue

Issue #69 [Future of Moviemaking 2007]

Features: Judgment Day for Movie Theaters
by Mark Sells
The traditional movie theater is battling for its very existence in a volatile environment comprised of advances in technology and rapidly changing consumer tastes.

Features: Tomorrow’s Technologies
By Nick Dager
Just how is last year's co-financed arthouse affair an "independent" film if it makes The Ten Commandments look like a kitchen-sink drama? Not long ago there was no such thing as an "indie studio." Things have changed.

Features: Big Little Indies
By Jerry Weinstein
In the 1990s, the six major studios owned specialty divisions and shed them. But today's "indie studios" exist in the context of an industry that finds itself negotiating art against a backdrop of both a technological flux and an austere bottom line.

Features: The Future of Moviemaking
By Henry Jaglom
What does the future hold for the moviemakers of tomorrow? One of film's most fiercely independent players takes a moment to play prognosticator.