Archive for the 'Sundance' Category

• 08.25.08 What do you do when the buzz fades?

  I’m in a new situation that I’m trying to navigate, and I was hoping you could help for my benefit and the benefit of those who read your column and blog and might find themselves in a similar situation.

  I recently wrote and directed a low-budget feature that played at a film festival in [...]

   5
• 07.06.08 Self-distributing an indie feature

  Todd Sklar, who I know from his work up at the Sundance Labs, wrote in to agree with a lot of the points I raised in my post-mortem of The Nines. His experience with the indie film he made and self-released is alternately inspiring and exhausting, but worth careful attention for anyone considering making [...]

   31
• 07.03.08 I never told Robert Redford to suck it

  I want to expand, redirect and challenge some of the discussion on my earlier post about Sundance, The Nines, and the death of independent film.

  For starters, many in the P2P world were all too happy to declare victory over, well, logic. (The Nines Director: Forget Sundance, Use P2P Instead). That’s incorrect on a lot [...]

   28
• 06.30.08 Sundance, The Nines, and the death of independent film

  A quote from Mark Gill in the LA Times last week would seem discouraging for independent filmmakers:

  Of the 5,000 films submitted to Sundance each year — generally with budgets under $10 million — maybe 100 of them got a U.S. theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of [...]

   79
• 06.25.08 A good time, despite the dead children

  I’m back from Utah, where I was working as an advisor at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. I had five projects in three days, which made for a lot of reading and meeting, picking-apart and putting-back-together.

  The scripts this year were as emotionally challenging as ever — of the projects I covered, three involved the [...]

   21
• 01.19.08 Mysteries of Pittsburgh

  The LA Times has a great article about my friend and former assistant Rawson Thurber, whose adaptation of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh debuts at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I’ve seen the movie five times, and am ridiculously proud of Mr. Thurber.

  Trivia: If you’re watching The Nines, that’s Rawson’s house which gets burned down at [...]

   11
• 01.15.08 The Nines on BitTorrent

  Since well before our Sundance debut last year, I’ve been curious-slash-paranoid about when The Nines would start showing up on the BitTorrent trackers, the online repository of pirated movies and a few legitimate wares.

  It was inevitable that the movie would get bootlegged at some point. The timing was the delicate issue. If it showed up [...]

   69
• 10.08.07 Sundance Advice

  The folks at Sundance asked what advice I’d offer people whose films are chosen for the 2008 festival. In case they don’t use my quote, I thought I’d share:

  Remember that the reason you’re in the festival is because you made a terrific movie. Once the lights come up after the first screening, there’s no [...]

   3
• 08.28.07 The Nines opens Friday

  I feel like I’ve done so much publicity on it that everyone probably sick of me talking about it, but here’s the direct appeal:

  My movie THE NINES opens this Friday, August 31st, in Los Angeles and New York.

  Please come see it. And if you can’t, keep reading to find out how to get it [...]

   51
• 08.02.07 Permitted filmmaking

  Writer/director James Ponsoldt, one of the fellows at this summer’s Sundance Filmmakers Lab, emailed me some information about new regulations on filming in New York City’s five boroughs. Under the proposed rules (.pdf), a city permit would be needed for:

  Two people with any camera, shooting in a public location (defined as any area within 100 [...]

   11
• 07.23.07 The Nines goes to Venice

  A reader alluded to it in the comments of an earlier post, but today we can officially announce that The Nines was chosen to play the Venice Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week.

  (At least, I assume we can announce it. We were sworn to double-super secrecy, which is presumably now over, since it [...]

   22
• 06.26.07 Summer Sundance, part two

  What exactly do you discuss at Sundance? They’re entering with completed scripts, which I assume are perfect to them at the beginning, so where to next? And if you participate in the Screenwriting Lab are you automatically given a Directors Lab spot, if that is what you so choose to do with your completed work?

  – [...]

   16
• 06.24.07 Summer Sundance

  I’m up at Sundance for the summer filmmakers’ lab, where I’ve worked as an advisor for the past seven years.

  For those unfamiliar with the labs, it’s a workshop in which newer filmmakers (generally writer-directors) meet with established screenwriters in one-on-one sessions to sort out issues in their scripts. There’s a winter lab, which occurs [...]

   14
• 04.11.07 The Nines gets all domestic

  Ever since Sundance, when I announced that GreeneStreet scooped up international rights to The Nines, I’ve been faced with many questions. I knew the answer to the big one but couldn’t say. The answer to all the others depended on the first. So I’ve been sitting patiently, feigning detached acceptance, when I [...]

   33
• 01.31.07 What is independent film?

  How do you define an independent film?

  – Lee Myers via imdb

  Classically, an independent film was one that was made outside of the conventional studio system, be that Hollywood, Bollywood or Pinewood. But with the rise of the “independent” labels of the major studios, such as Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage, that distinction is pretty much [...]

   19
• 01.30.07 MTV Overdrive on The Nines

  Josh Horowitz from MTV News wrote in to point out that The Flash business wasn’t the only thing they ran from our Sundance interview. In fact, the full version, now up on MTV Overdrive, succeeds in making both Ryan and me sound coherent, which is no small feat.

  Here’s what you can’t see in the [...]

   20
• 01.25.07 Sundance, expanded edition

  Throughout the week, I’ve been trying to convey the Sundance experience with the Twitter feed, but there’s only so much one can communicate in a sentence or two. So I thought I’d fatten out a few entries to give a better sense of how Sundance really went.

  Checking through the itineraries and packing lists. Do [...]

   31
• 01.18.07 About the live updates

  If you’re reading this site via the RSS feeds, you may not be aware that the “real” site features a continuously updated list of what I’m doing at Sundance. Call it microblogging. It’s powered by Twitter, and doesn’t show up in the main feed.

  However, you can subscribe to the just the Twitters at [...]

   1
• 01.18.07 Sundance panels

  In addition to the screenings, I’ll be a panelist at two different events at the festival.

  HD House

  Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber and I will talk about the HD of it all, with clips from the movie. Monday, Jan. 22nd, at 7 p.m. Yarrow Theater 2 More info here.

  BMI Composer Roundtable

  Composer Alex Wurman and I will be talking about the music [...]

   2
• 12.29.06 Sundance catalog is out

  The catalog for this year’s Sundance Film Festival came this week, which was my first chance to see what everyone else’s first impression of The Nines would be. The festival organizers write the descriptions for the films, so you’re sort of at their mercy. Fortunately, John Cooper wrote up a very nice blurb [...]

   8
• 12.23.06 Seeing The Nines at Sundance

  I’m not going to suggest that devoted readers fly thousands of miles to see The Nines at Sundance. But I’m not going to not suggest it.

  I’ve long been of the mindset that there’s no reason to go to Sundance unless you have a movie there. I haven’t been since Go debuted there in [...]

   14
• 12.14.06 I heart WriteRoom

  For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the production notes for The Nines. The document will end up being about 20 pages, detailing the backstory of how the movie got made, from inspiration through editing, along with everyone’s bios. It’s part of the press kit for the film, helping the journalists [...]

   20
• 12.05.06 The Nines screening schedule at Sundance

  The good folks at Sundance just sent out the screening times and locations for The Nines. Their website doesn’t show the schedule yet, but I presume it will be up soon.

  Sun. Jan 21, 9:30 pm Eccles, Park City

  Mon. Jan 22, 8:30 am Prospector, Park City

  Tue. Jan 23, 9:00 pm Sundance Village

  Sun. Jan 28, [...]

   6
• 12.02.06 Why isn’t The Nines in competition at Sundance?

  I was wondering if you could explain the difference/reason for competitive and non-competitive categories at Sundance and why you chose the latter?

  – Steve Lakeland, FL

  It’s the Festival’s call. They decide whether or not they want to show the movie, then which category they’re going to put it in. They don’t explain their logic, but [...]

   4
• 11.30.06 The Movie is premiering at Sundance

  After months of vague hints, I can finally reveal information about The Movie I wrote and directed this summer.

  It’s called The Nines.1 It stars Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy. It’s a drama. Funny in places, suspenseful in places, but basically a drama. It will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

  This last point [...]

   31