Welcome to the Special Fall 2013 Edition of SHOOT’s Directors Series. Since our fall Directors Series coincides with the first installment of our annual multi-part The Road To Oscar Series, there’s a bit of crossover between the two features in this issue as we have directors who are scoring early season Oscar buzz among the talent profiled–from filmmakers Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips) to Brian Percival (The Book Thief), Ben Stiller (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Scott Cooper (Out Of The Furnace) and J.C. Chandor (All Is Lost).
And in our Cinematographers & Cameras feature within this Directors Series are two DPs who also have been deemed worthy of Oscar contention this awards season: Barry Ackroyd, BSC (Captain Phillips), and Anthony Dod Mantle, ASC, BSC (for Rush directed by Ron Howard).
The third DP profiled is Adam Arkapaw who earned this year’s primetime Emmy Award for Best Cinematography in a Miniseries or Movie on the basis of BBC/Sundance TV’s Top Of The Lake.
Rounding out our lineup of Director Series profiles are: Drake Doremus, a lauded feature filmmaker (Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Like Crazy) who made a major splash in the ad arena with Intel/Toshiba’s The Beauty Inside, which scored three Grand Prix honors at the 2013 Cannes International Festival of Creativity; John X. Carey, who’s landed at a new production house roost after his “Real Beauty Sketches” for Dove drew more than 56 million YouTube views on its way to netting the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes; and Nicolai Fuglsig, the director behind this year’s primetime Emmy Award-winning commercial, Canon’s “Inspired.”
We also have our separate feature on Up-and-Coming Directors, spotlighting eight individual filmmakers: an actress/writer who has successfully diversified into filmmaking; a music video director who shows promise as a commercialmaker; a spot director Down Under who has moved stateside; a production company principal who initially served as a DP to his shop’s roster of directors only to later gain momentum as a director himself; a comedian, radio show host and former producer of the TV series Monk who recently gained his first commercial production house representation; an artisan from Spain who’s extending her creative reach into the U.S. market; a 2013 SHOOT New Directors Showcase helmer who just joined his first production house; and a director who just missed the Showcase cut earlier this year but has since made major strides.
Plus we have two sponsored content profiles in which directors Jay Patton of Dictionary Films and James Lipetzky of Foundation Content reflect on their most significant, creative challenging work this year, as well as lessons learned about the business and/or themselves based on their experience/projects in 2013.
So read on and enjoy. As always, we very much welcome your feedback.
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More