nofilmschool » sundance

Sundance Hit Coming to a Theatre Near You…With a New Title (Or Why Movie Titles Matter)

Christopher Boone — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 18:05:08 +0000

For those of us who eagerly await the release of festival hits in theatres near us, we track film reviews during their festival runs and make our lists of must-see films in the hopes that at least one screen nearby will get a limited run of the festival darlings later in the year (or even next year). So, if you live in New York or Los Angeles, and you’ve been waiting to see the Sundance comedy favorite Toy’s House (because of our in-depth interview with its screenwriter Chris Galletta, naturally), you’d be forgiven for not realizing that the film already opened in very limited release this weekend, albeit as the movie now known as The Kings of Summer. This Sundance breakout certainly isn’t the only film that stood out at this year’s festival to get a new title, nor is this a new trend altogether, which made me ponder this thought: why do movie titles matter so much? (more…)

How to Save Theatrical Distribution After the Home Video Boom and Bust

Oakley Anderson-Moore — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:30:54 +0000

We all know that watching a movie on a 15-inch laptop from your couch just doesn’t compare to a real movie theater experience, and yet every year the numbers of people going out to the movies shrinks – meaning, for filmmakers, so do the number of different films that get to play on the big screen. Is it because of television? The Internet? Kids these days and their short attention spans?! In the entertaining series of videos below captured by 4th Row Films at the Sundance Art House Convergence, Ira Deutchman, suggests how me might save theatrical distribution. (more…)

Reelhouse Paves the Way for the Future of Self-Distribution

Micah Van Hove — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:33:47 +0000

Each new day that passes it seems the world of distribution for filmmakers is being turned on its head. With so many new content destinations popping up all the time, it’s hard to know what’s what. Reelhouse is a company who seems to be breaking through the mold, as a recent partnership with Sundance would suggest. Reelhouse is planning a big launch on April 22nd — read on for our interview with Bill Mainguy, CEO and Founder of Reelhouse and get to know the platform: (more…)

Sundance Channel and Nokia Music Document the Underground Music Scene in 'New American Noise'

Mar Belle — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:20:13 +0000

If you’re heavily into music you’ll undoubtably be aware that certain geographical areas tend to become associated with particular music scenes. For myself here in the UK, I could quickly point to Manchester as the birth place of the aptly named ‘Madchester’ scene comprising bands such as The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, and The Charlatans, and the beautifully idealistic Factory Records, closely followed by rave culture which sprang up around the legendary Hacienda nightclub. Recently Nokia Music in partnership with the Sundance Channel raided Somesuch & Co’s director roster (Emily Kai Bock – Spit Gold Under An Empire, Tyrone Lebon – Atlanta Dream$ & SFV ACID, Bob Harlow – Lords of Detroit & Abteen Bagheri – Electric Noise & That B.E.A.T) for New American Noise; a six-part series of documentaries exposing the underground music scene in six US cities. (more…)

Sundance Institute Presents: NEXT WEEKEND, a 4-Day Film Festival in Los Angeles

Micah Van Hove — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:23:43 +0000

Yesterday, March 4th, coincidentally the only calendar date that doubles as a complete sentence, the Sundance Institute announced a new summer film festival to take place in Los Angeles from August 8th-11th. NEXT WEEKEND, intended to celebrate the “renegade spirit of independent filmmaking,” will feature screenings, panels, parties, and workshops. The festival promises to bring eight unreleased feature films, including selections from Sundance’s NEXT section and new feature films from elsewhere. There will also be a shorts program and the annual ShortsLab: Los Angeles, a half-day filmmaking workshop centered on short films. (more…)

Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Now Accepting Applications for January 2014

Christopher Boone — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:59:46 +0000

After posting about the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting now accepting applications for 2013, one of our NFS readers asked which screenwriting contests I recommend. Well, I recommend screenwriting opportunities that will further your career – namely, making contacts in the industry or finding ways to turn your writing into films yourself (that’s why you’re here at NFS, right?). Beyond making industry contacts, I think there are a few screenwriting opportunities worth considering. The Academy Nicholl Fellowships is one. The Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab is another — a long-standing program known for championing emerging voices in screenwriting and helping those writers turn their words into films. Sundance Institute has now opened applications online for the January 2014 Screenwriters Lab. (more…)

Panasonic GH2 at Sundance and Slamdance: Carruth's 'Upstream Color' and Orbegoso's 'Musgo'

Joe Marine — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:24:13 +0000

The Panasonic GH2 is something of an anomaly in the camera world. Out of the box it looked good enough, but it wasn’t until the hackers got to it that things really got interesting — which was a very similar situation to the previous camera, the GH1. The Panasonic line hasn’t quite taken the industry by storm the way the Canon DSLRs have, which could come down to familiarity and/or high-profile endorsements. Either way, that hasn’t stopped a couple of festival-worthy films — Shane Carruth’s Sundance film Upstream Color (which won an award for sound design at the festival and is being self-distributed in April), and Gami Orbegoso’s Slamdance film Musgo – from shooting on the camera. Check out some footage and clips from both films below. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer Chris Galletta on Sundance 2013 Film 'Toy's House'

Christopher Boone — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:00:08 +0000

For those of us who can remember life before we were plugged into technology, we may remember a time when we had nothing better to do but disappear into a forest with our buddies and wreak havoc out of the eyesight and earshot of the grown-up world. Those days, however, have come to pass. Now that Sundance 2013 has also come to pass, so too shall our series of interviews with screenwriters of feature films from this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition. For our final interview, we present our conversation with Toy’s House screenwriter Chris Galletta, who describes the influence of Amblin Entertainment movies on his first produced feature-length screenplay, the waiting game to find the right director for the project, and the decision to stop trying to write like the next Charlie Kaufman and start writing what he knows. (more…)

5 Steps to Successful Film Festival Schmoozing (the Sundance Edition)

Joe Marine — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:59:58 +0000

Even though the dust is settling on the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, that doesn’t mean you can’t still learn a thing or two about interacting with the folks there (or festivals like it). We had a pretty funny video from last year’s festival that poked fun at this sort of behavior, and now we’ve got another thanks to PBS that shows us how to schmooze at a film festival in 5 easy steps. Click through to check it out and let the hilarity ensue. (more…)

Sundance 2013 Winners Announced, 'Fruitvale' and 'Blood Brother' Grab Top Prizes

Joe Marine — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 04:15:28 +0000

Another Sundance Film Festival has come and gone, and it was a tremendous year for acquisitions, with the rights to at least a dozen films sold for over $1 million dollars. We’ve had a few great conversations with some of the filmmakers from this year’s festival, including Darci Picoult, writer of Mother of George, winner of one of the Cinematography Awards. The top prizes went to Fruitvale, for dramatic, and Blood Brother, for documentary, and we’ve got some material from both films, as well two of the award-winning short films embedded below. (more…)

Distributors Pay Top Dollar at Sundance, Has Indie Film Recovered? Plus a Complete List of Acquisitions

Joe Marine — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 04:31:06 +0000

Another year of Sundance is coming to a close, with the awards ceremony taking place on Saturday night. We’ve featured interviews with a number of creatives who have films playing at the festival, including two that were recently acquired, Austenland and Concussion. There were quite a few distribution deals made at the festival, some for very large sums of money, and it certainly looks like it’s going to be an even better year than last for the independent film market. Click through for a list of all of the movies that have received deals. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer/Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez on Sundance 2013 Film 'C.O.G.'

Christopher Boone — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:37:56 +0000

As the Sundance Film Festival continues in Park City, we continue our series of interviews with the writers of the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films. Today, we present our interview with Kyle Patrick Alvarez, writer/director of C.O.G., based on a short story by author and storyteller David Sedaris. C.O.G. (which stands for “Child of God”) marks the first adaptation of a Sedaris story to film – or more importantly, the first time Sedaris has given a filmmaker permission to adapt one of his stories to film. During our interview, Alvarez describes adapting a story from one of the most distinctive storytellers of our time, how his experiences with his first feature film shaped his approach to this project, and what Sundance means to him now after getting rejected with his first feature film. (more…)

Not Making It to Sundance? Here Are a Dozen Shorts Playing There This Week

Joe Marine — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:15:29 +0000

It’s that time of year again, when filmmakers and celebrities alike descend upon Park City to check out the best that independent cinema has to offer. The Sundance Film Festival has just begun — and we’ve been talking to some of the filmmakers about their work — but you don’t have to trek into the cold mountains of Utah just to see some of the movies playing there. Sundance has made 12 of the 64 short films playing at the festival available online for your viewing pleasure — so click through to check them out. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer Darci Picoult on Sundance 2013 Film 'Mother of George'

Christopher Boone — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:45:09 +0000

As writers, some stories grab us and won’t let go. They hit us in the gut, they work their way into our bones, and they won’t release us until we write the story. For films, writing the story is merely the beginning. For many independent films, writing the story launches a journey over many years to see the film finally come to life. For Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition film Mother of George, the project first traveled to Sundance as part of the Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab back in 2005, and the story’s origin goes back further than that. To share with us the long journey of Mother of George from concept to finished film, we continue our series of interviews with Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition screenwriters with an extensive and generous interview with the film’s screenwriter and a producer of the film, Darci Picoult. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Author and Co-Writer Shannon Hale on Sundance 2013 Film 'Austenland'

Christopher Boone — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:00:43 +0000

Jane Austen has certainly been fodder for several film adaptations (thank you, public domain and large fervent fanbase). To further illustrate this point, at least nine versions of Pride and Prejudice have been produced as films, mini-series or television series with a tenth film version currently in development (and no, I’m not including the future production of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on that list). Sometimes, it makes you wonder if this obsession with Jane Austen has gone too far (blasphemous, I know). To answer this very question, we get to look forward to the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition film Austenland, adapted from the novel by Shannon Hale, directed by Jerusha Hess (Napolean Dynamite, Nacho Libre, Gentlemen Broncos) in her feature film directorial debut, and co-written by Hale and Hess. In our continuing series of exclusive interviews with the screenwriters of Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films, we hear from Shannon Hale on her experiences adapting her novel into a screenplay and collaborating with Jerusha Hess. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer/Director Stacie Passon on Her Sundance 2013 Film 'Concussion'

Christopher Boone — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 14:00:29 +0000

With Sundance 2013 just around the corner, NoFilmSchool is reaching out to the screenwriters of the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films (most of whom are also the directors as one might suspect from a Sundance line-up) to ask them about their screenplays, their screenwriting processes, and their experiences bringing their screenplays to life as films. We hope to publish a series of interviews over the next several days and weeks from these writers as schedules permit. First up, we hear from Stacie Passon, writer/director of Concussion. (more…)

Sundance Announces More 'Accessible' 2013 Lineup, Festival Director Answers Your Questions in Reddit AMA

Dave Kendricken — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:30:35 +0000

The Sundance Institute recently announced the 2013 festival lineup, complete with shorts and features from the far-end of challenging and experimental work, all the way to more mainstream-oriented pieces featuring a number of Hollywood regulars. For the first time ever, the festival received over 12,000 submissions — with 4,044 of those being feature film or documentary submissions, which outdoes last year’s total by only 2 (whereas 2012 saw an increase of 6% from 2011). This isn’t the only unique or buzz-worthy news about the upcoming festival, however. (more…)

Portraying Real Women on Screen with 'Celeste and Jesse Forever' Producer Jennifer Todd

Christopher Boone — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:58:18 +0000

Last time I checked, there were at least seven (probably more) Sundance films currently in theatres. That is, if you live in New York. If you live outside of New York, there’s probably only one. Nevertheless, late August seems to have become the season of Sundance theatrical distribution for those films lucky enough to make their way to the big screen from the country’s most prominent independent film festival. Perhaps distributors see Sundance films as the antidote to big studio releases filling up the multiplexes all summer long, and decide to jam them into the theatres all at once. Riding this counterprogramming wave is Celeste and Jesse Forever, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, directed by Lee Toland Krieger, and produced by Jennifer Todd. Thanks to the Academy Conversations video below, we get a brief glimpse into the story’s origin, shooting location ironies, and portraying real women on screen. (more…)

Sundance-winning ‘Like Crazy’ DP Shares Lessons Learned Shooting on HDSLR

E.M. Taboada — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:57:39 +0000

It’s easy to forget just how liberating shooting with HDSLRs can be — you can follow your characters down a crowded street, get B-roll while your crew is setting up lights, and generally have the flexibility that a small camera allows you. Last year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Like Crazy , got a lot of press for the fact that it was shot on a Canon 7D and was acquired by Paramount for $4 million – but less discussed was why it was shot on a 7D and what the challenges and advantages of doing so were. In an interview with HD Magazine, DP John Guleserian delves into these questions and more — revealing how shooting with a HDSLR has impacted his way of shooting in general: (more…)

How Technology is Influencing Storytelling and Film: an Excellent Panel from Sundance

Ryan Koo — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:40:26 +0000

Here’s an excellent panel from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, sponsored by Adobe and featuring Vincent Laforet, Rob Legato, Jacob Rosenberg, and Sharlto Copley. The 77-minute panel follows, in full, with some pulled quotes and highlights: (more…)