NoFilmSchool » interview

Silent Film Director Shows You 'How to Be a Motion Picture Director'

E.M. Taboada — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:28:04 +0000

With The Artist up for an Oscar this weekend, I found this little item to be apropos. If we were to travel 100 years back we’d be avidly reading articles like the following interview with silent film director Marshall Neilan – “How To be a Motion Picture Director.” There’s a lot we can learn from watching silent films in terms of pure visual story telling, but it’s not often you hear advice about the business side. Mr. Neilan delivers in a big way, showing that as much as things change, some things stay the same: (more…)

'Margin Call' Writer/Director J.C. Chandor on Making His First Feature

Ryan Koo — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:15:53 +0000

I checked in on the Oscar odds the other day out of curiosity, as it’s always a head-scratcher to me to find out which films are favored. One thing’s for sure: it seems to have very little to do with the zeitgeist (most recently evidenced by The King’s Speech winning over The Social Network). J.C. Chandor’s excellent $3 million financial drama Margin Call to me is the kind of film that should represent the year in movies (or, more to the point, the year in society), so here’s an interview by DP/30 with the first-time feature writer/director: (more…)

Nicolas Winding Refn on Directing 'Drive'

Ryan Koo — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:08:52 +0000

Given I just closed down comments on a post about camera technology, I felt the need to post something about movies — writing, directing, anything other than cameras! I don’t think anyone would deny that Drive was one of the year’s most distinctive films, and so here’s a video interview with director Nicolas Winding Refn that was just posted by DP/30: (more…)

'Prince of Broadway' Director Sean Baker on No-Budget Filmmaking, Improvisation, and Long Release Cycles

Ryan Koo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Touching and darkly hilarious, Sean Baker’s second feature Prince of Broadway is about a scrappy knockoff peddler in midtown Manhattan who faces an unexpected paternity dilemma. Prince was released on DVD today and is one of my favorite low budget films from the past few years. In the following interview, Sean and I talk about about no-budget filmmaking, on-set improvisation, and interminable release cycles. Here’s the trailer: (more…)

Three Interviews About 'Man-child,' DIY Filmmaking, Film School and DSLRs

Ryan Koo — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:07:35 +0000

It’s been a very slow Labor Day weekend for the Man-child campaign — dang federal holidays! So while I’m working on a video update specifically for NoFilmSchool readers, in the meantime here’s a brand-new video interview I did with TV Writer Podcast presented by Script Magazine. In the interview, we talk about film school, crowdfunding, DSLRs, and DIY filmmaking (please forgive the aggrandizing bio at the beginning): (more…)

To Start a Film Career, How Important are Contests? Two Interviews with Competition Veterans

Guest Author — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:34:45 +0000

When I was 19 I was awarded grand prize in an online video contest put on by a now-defunct site named FirstEye. My music video entry (shot on a Sony VX1000, before HD, 24P, DSLRs, and After Effects made this video look primitive) won me a professional Sony video camera, which I used to shoot several successive projects — before selling it and buying a newer camera (which I’ve since done several times). Winning that contest gave me more confidence to keep pursuing film as a bona fide career, and every project I’ve shot since has been with that camera or its successors — including The West Side. In my own experience, contests offer a great opportunity to jump start a career. With this in mind, the following is a guest post by David Hinds, from video hosting platform Vzaar. They recently announced this year’s video festival winners. (more…)

6½ Questions With: Scott Macaulay

Ryan Koo — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:45:55 +0000

Scott Macaulay is a New York-based producer (Gummo, Idlewild, Raising Victor Vargas) and the editor of Filmmaker Magazine. Here, we talk about new media, favorite films, productivity tools, and some of the changes in independent film since the ’90s. As always with these interviews, because I can’t do pullquotes in any sort of ideal way, I’ve bolded select passages. Thanks very much to Scott for giving such honest and illuminating answers to my questions: (more…)

6½ Questions With: Robert Pratten (Part 2)

Ryan Koo — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:09:33 +0000

Earlier in the week I began a discussion with filmmaker and transmedia developer Robert Pratten; we talked about why transmedia is more than a buzzword and why forward-thinking filmmakers should be planning for their next project to reach across multiple mediums. In this second part we talk about the initiative as an artist to develop not just “products” (e.g., feature films) but also “byproducts” (e.g., transmedia software) in order to self-sustain. In case you missed it, here’s part one of the interview. And here’s part two: (more…)

6½ Questions With: Robert Pratten (Part 1)

Ryan Koo — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:43:20 +0000

Robert Pratten is a ~~UK-based~~ San Francisco-based, UK-born filmmaker who has directed two features, London Voodoo and Mindflesh. His posts on transmedia and the independent filmmaker at the Workbook Project should be required reading, and he is currently launching TransmediaStoryteller, an online platform for designing and delivering transmedia experiences. Here, Robert answers why forward-thinking filmmakers should be thinking about transmedia, and why it’s much more than a buzzword. He gives some great in-depth answers to my questions, so I’m splitting the interview into two parts – think of this as 3.25 Questions With. (more…)

6½ Questions With: Tze Chun

Ryan Koo — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:26:15 +0000

Tze Chun’s Children of Invention premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year, journeying on to play 45 more festivals and picking up dozens of awards along the way. Variety called the film “austerely poetic,” Filmcritic.com said Chun elicited “touching performances from two pint-size leads,” and the New York Times called it “a modestly scaled, quietly effective independent movie…a fine feature debut.” Chun and producer Mynette Louie decided to self-distribute the film, releasing Children of Invention theatrically in eight cities in 2010. In this interview, I talk with Chun about the autobiographical nature of COI, as well as TV writing and self-distribution. If you haven’t had a chance to see the film, the deluxe edition of Children of Invention is now available on DVD; here’s the trailer. (more…)

6½ questions with: Lynn True & Nelson Walker

Ryan Koo — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:14:34 +0000

Lynn True, Nelson Walker, and Tsering Perlo’s documentary Summer Pasture premiered at this year’s Full Frame Film Festival, where it received a Full Frame Inspiration Award Honorable Mention. Summer Pasture takes place in the Kham region of Tibet, where nomads have lived off the land for 4,000 years — but many nomads today find themselves at a crossroads of tradition and modernity.

Among a hundred other documentaries and dozens of premieres, Summer Pasture jumped out at me because of the dedicated and principled filmmaking on display — not to mention the gorgeous cinematography, which was achieved without the support of a grip truck and an electrical department but rather by living in the field and grabbing shots opportunistically while putting to use solar-powered battery chargers. The film addresses timely global issues of rural self-subsistence living versus urban wage labor, and despite the faraway setting, Summer Pasture addresses universal themes through its depiction of the young couple at the heart of the film, Locho and Yama. Here’s the trailer; my interview with directors Lynn True and Nelson Walker follows. (more…)

6½ questions with: Barry Jenkins

Ryan Koo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:10 +0000

Barry Jenkins’ terrific DIY feature Medicine for Melancholy won awards at the Sarasota, Woodstock, and San Francisco International film festivals and garnered three Spirit Award nominations. A.O. Scott of the New York times called it an “exciting debut” and made it a NY Times Critic’s Pick. M4M was picked up for distribution by IFC Films and was released theatrically last January (VOD and DVD releases followed).

Barry and I attended the Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium together in 2002 and have run into each other a few times since on the festival circuit. Here we talk about DIY filmmaking, distribution deals, VOD, new media, brand integration, and film school.

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