It’s rare that a film combines the various elements of narratology in a manner that inspires excitement and anticipation to the degree that RZA’s upcoming masterpiece, “The Man with the Iron Fists” has. Like any exemplary narrative, some of the most important elements – characters, setting, conflict and a masterfully spun plot – truly shine in this upcoming movie, but also included are several intangible elements that can’t simply be explained by narrative theory alone. When Aristotle first fo... [Read more]

You might think you've peeked the scene You haven't, the real one's far too mean The watered down one, the one you know Was made up centuries ago It may just sound all whack and corny Yes, it's awful, blasted boring Twisted fiction, sick addiction Well, gather 'round, children, zip it, listen! - Nicki Minaj As Lindsay and her mother Dina Lohan sped away from Manhattan’s Electric Room in the back seat of their SUV, one can only imagine the conversation that ensued. Early reports sug... [Read more]

Interviews Interviews are the bread and butter of your documentary film. Whether you’re interviewing the President of the United States or your grandmother, your ability to provide lucid, insightful questions and direction to your subject is essential to the success of your documentary. If your documentary doesn’t have a focus, chances are you’re line of questioning won’t either. Be sure to know what the objective of the interview is and what you expect to get out of it before you shine a li... [Read more]

Audio/Visual Technique One of the beautiful things about the current environment for filmmaking is that everyone has the ability to tell a story. The rise of the digital age and the democratization of technology has made the equipment, software and knowledge of cinema available to everyone. The ability to shoot, edit and distribute a documentary has been put quite literally in the palm of your hand.Read more...

katja kodba / Shutterstock.com Troubleshooting “It is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion, such as the production of a magical effect for the first time in public, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Whether we must attribute this to the malignity of matter or to the total depravity of inanimate things, whether the exciting cause is hurry, worry, or what not, the fact remains.” - Nevil Maskelyne, Stage Magician Most if not all film productions manifes... [Read more]

  Introduction Welcome to The Mechanics of Documentary Filmmaking. This four part series will cover the basics of bringing your non-fiction tale to the screen including File Management, Trouble Shooting, Audio/Visual Technique and the Interview Process. As a medium for storytelling, the documentary provides a unique format for meshing the art of cinema with real life in a way that bends the rules of non-fiction to make room for aesthetics and poetic license. The first part in the serie... [Read more]

Sadly, Marvin Hamlisch passed away Monday night. And if you don't know who he is, you have probably seen (or, more likely, heard) something from his extensive list of life accomplishments. With a career spanning a half a century, including theatre, live music performance, film, and television, and touching the lives of millions, he will be missed. Read up below on just some of this man's many notable achievements. (1) He wrote music for some serious Broadway hits. Ever heard of a little show ca... [Read more]

In the wake of the Rotten Tomatoes fan-boy community tongue-lashing given to negative reviews posted about The Dark Knight Rises, the site’s Editor-in-Chief Matt Atchity made the bold decision to disable comment posting altogether for the film and alluded to discontinuing anonymity on the website, disallowing comments before a movie opens and moderating all dialogue on the site, essentially abolishing all the things that make the site fun. The backlash started when the first negative review pos... [Read more]

The 7 Coolest Boozing Setups from Film and TV The glamor and glitz of TV and film ain't what it used to be. We'll never return to those heady days of leaded gasoline, sharing an in-flight cigarette with Boeing 707 "air hostesses", cufflinks and cool boozing. Well, maybe not the cufflinks and the in-flight cigarettes, but booze is stylish, despite the current message to the contrary from our Puritan Overlords. But they used to do booze a lot better than they do today. Ahh, when men were men. No... [Read more]

From the man who brought us…the Gimp, along with countless other cultural touchstones including Mr. Pink, Clarence Worley, Vincent Vega, Beatrix Kiddo and Operation Kino comes the latest in a long line of mash-ups, send-ups and homages to the great films of yesteryear. The Master of Disaster and the Grindhouse Champion of the World Quentin Tarantino is about to unleash another of his ambitious, dialogue-heavy masterpieces on the bloodthirsty public this Christmas day with the release of his spa... [Read more]