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Filmmaking

Burlington Beauties

By Kellie Speed
Members of The House of LeMay apply high gloss before a performance.

Members of The House of LeMay drag performance troupe have become part of the fabric of Burlington, VT. First-time filmmaker Russell Dreher discusses the importance of documenting their story.

When Russell Dreher set out to make his first full length film in 2006, he had no idea the roller coaster ride to completion would include unemployment, cancer, and drag queens. As the director of Slingbacks and Syrup, Dreher focused the story on the adventures of the documentary’s subjects, a “family” of comedic drag queens living in the rural state of Vermont.

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Working with Volunteer Actors

By Raúl daSilva
Still from a Hong Kong action short film entitled "Somebody to Love."

Volunteer actors give of themselves in more ways than one. Raul daSilva offers some helpful advice for first-time and student filmmakers as they begin the process of learning production etiquette.

In the annals of motion picture production we find a handful of producers and directors that were beloved by actors. Two names that quickly come to mind are the late Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood. In Altman’s case it was a matter or sheer intelligence and awareness that performing is an art form. In Eastwood’s case there is the added fact that he is also an actor.

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Staying Power of Tze Chun

By Karen Sampson
Actors Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu, shooting a scene from Children of Invention.

At age 28, Tze Chun has learned the most important lesson of filmmaking: persistence. His latest project, Children of Invention, is pending festival acceptance.

If ever there were a prime example of what a person can do with a camera, the help of a few friends, and a lot of perseverance and determination, 28-year-old filmmaker Tze Chun is it. Over the past six years, he has steadily plotted and followed a career path that has enabled him to progress from an undergraduate student in film studies to an accomplished writer/director with nine feature-length screenplays, 12 short films -- and recently, his first feature -- under his belt. “Prolific” is one word that could be used to describe him. “Focused” is another.

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A Christmas Gift from Baghdad

By Julia Cox
Amal in the classroom in Santa Claus in Baghdad.

Raouf Zaki’s Santa Claus in Baghdad (watch trailer) promises gifts of hope and understanding for audiences – especially young people. For that reason the Holliston, MA filmmaker is releasing the film online to educators on December 9th.

From the bustling streets of Baghdad and the dreams of two Iraqi children -- a little boy who wants nothing more than a toy car and his teenage sister who desperately needs medicine -- come an unlikely Christmas story. Rich in the textural sounds, images, and characters of modern day Iraq, Raouf Zaki’s Santa Claus in Baghdad, a film shot in Massachusetts, tells a story that crosses ethnic and religious lines in a resounding message of hope and understanding.

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Archiving a Presidential Campaign

By Julia Cox
Howard Dean (right) speaks with director Heath Eiden (left) at his first fundraiser in Stowe, Vermont.

Heath Eiden sold 16 acres of Vermont soil to make his political documentary, Dean and Me: Roadshow of an American Primary, screening this month at the Somewhat North of Boston (SNOB) Film Festival.

Heath Eiden, director and co-producer of Dean and Me: Roadshow of an American Primary, loaded up his car and followed Vermont Governor Howard Dean on the campaign trail for the 2004 presidency. It was only patriotic, says Eiden. He laughs as he admits this, knowing that, especially lately, it’s a loaded word: a reality that attests to the timely release of his film. After six years of fulfilling his patriotic duty, from poring over footage to struggling to find the money to finish the piece, the documentary is finally complete.

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Sex, Lies, and Documentary: Cindy Kleine gets Personal

By Deborah J. Hahn
Phyllis as a young woman.

Cindy Kleine discusses Phyllis and Harold, a documentary in which she questions her parents’ satisfaction with their 59 years of marriage, screening this month at the Boston Jewish Film Festival.

In an era when the failings of our credit and mortgage system have led to an international crisis not seen since the Great Depression, the sunny Leave it to Beaver mythology of the post-WWII American family and its idyllic lifestyle seems but a distant dream. And yet the fantasy of the nuclear family happily dwelling in their suburban tract houses dominated the American cultural and psychic landscape for at least two generations. Cindy Kleine’s Phyllis and Harold is one of several early 21st century films to confront this mythology head on.

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Staying True to Louisa May Alcott

By Julia Cox
Alcott had more than one side (NY Public Library).

Through painstaking research and a commitment to historical accuracy, Harriet Reisen and Nancy Porter’s documentary introduces a new dimension to the life and work of a literary heroine.

Viewers erupted in applause after a Saturday afternoon screening of Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Alcott may be a local legend but so are her recent biographers, filmmakers Harriet Reisen and Nancy Porter, and this crowd showed their admiration.  Reisen and Porter took the stage and graciously thanked the audience for supporting a project that has been “simmering for a while.”  read more...

How to be a... Sports Camera Operator

By Mike Sullivan
Michael Porta knows cameras and sports.

Michael Porta has found a niche in remote broadcast television, which can be a launching pad for other creative projects.

He’s been to more than 1,000 MLB games, 500 NHL games and 500 NBA games plus 35 Nascar races.  And he’s never once sat behind a post, in the nosebleed section or next to an obnoxious drunk with BO, cheering for the Yankees.  His name is Michael Porta and he is a camera operator/technician for remote television broadcasts.

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Behind-the-Scenes of "Don McKay"

By Erin Trahan
It could be anywhere, but it's actually North Andover, MA.

An independent feature chooses Massachusetts over New York to the benefit of local crew members.

Story details have been purposefully muddled, but I can tell you this much:  Don McKay involves cops.  Cop cars.  Possibly sirens.  Handcuffs. 

The feature stars Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue, and Melissa Leo -- you may know as much since they’ve all appeared in the local press.  But the folks who haven’t yet are exactly who is interesting to NewEnglandFilm.com.   

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How to be a... Line Producer

By Kate Fitzgerald
On the set of Cutlass, directed by Kate Hudson (right).

If you're someone who can make a budget, stay calm under pressure, is diplomatic, and doesn’t need sleep, then being a line producer might just be your dream job, says Chris Stinson. This month the NH native has four short films screening at the New Hampshire Film Festival.

Over the last 12 years, Chris Stinson, founder of Live Free or Die Films, has worked his way through several jobs -- assistant director, production coordinator, and line producer on more than 30 feature and independent films -- including The Hammer, directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld, Harsh Times, starring Stinsontian Bale and Eva Longoria, and Me and You and Everyone We Know, winner of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize, and read more...

Left Out In The Cold, For Now

By Scott R. Caseley
Booster and bleeder, Joe Wysocki, loves the Whalers.

Die-hard Connecticut hockey fans keep their hopes alive in Kevin Massicotte’s debut documentary,
Bleeding Green, playing this month at the Southern New England Film Festival and the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival.

In New England, you can’t turn the corner without running into a member of Red Sox Nation.  They are a loyal bunch.  But they’ve got nothing on Hartford Whalers fans, according to filmmaker Kevin Massicotte.  “It’s more like the Rocky Horror Picture Show crowd.” 

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How to Make Low Budget Soundtracks

By Sarah Stedwick
Kristin Palker is a proponent of DIY sound.  Photo by Andre Perkowski.

Kristin Palker, a recent grad of the Berklee film scoring program, sheds light on the process of composition and how indie filmmakers can get a signature DIY sound.

A bad soundtrack or cheesy stock library selection can really hurt an independent film, especially if a filmmaker writes or even shoots the piece with a particular song, finding out later that it costs $50,000 to use.  What do you do when that's the entire budget of your film times 10?  Times 50?  Find someone skilled at pulling together existing recordings -- the mysteriously-named music supervisor -- you know, one of those jobs in very small font on a credit crawl.  Or bring in a composer to record something original or read more...

On Making a Films in the Berkshires (or Any Rural Area)

By Marc Maurino
Marc Maurino (L) directs actor Steven Vause (R) on the set of All in the Game.

Marc Maurino recounts tips and foibles while making films outside of a major production hub. His Berkshire-made short, All in the Game, screens as a work-in-progress this month at the Berkshire Filmmakers Showcase.

I was recently at a birthday party with one of my kids when another dad asked what I do. I said that I'm a filmmaker.  Surprised, he asked, Oh, is Western Massachusetts a hotbed of filmmaking? 

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How to Make a Short Film: Part Two

By Michele (LaMura) Meek
Director Michele Meek with cast members James Patrick Flynn Jr. and Shelby Mackenzie Flynn at the Woods Hole Film Festival.

In this second piece, writer/director Michele Meek takes readers through editing, scoring, obtaining music rights, submitting to festivals, and finally, screening her film.  The result, Red Sneakers screens this month at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

A few month ago, I wrote the first part of this piece which covered the planning, casting, and production of Red Sneakers.  Of course, a film is not much more finished after production than it is after a script is written.  In fact, I was surprised to hear from the actors in Red Sneakers how often they simply never hear back from a filmmaker after the shoot.  But the key to making a short film, no matter how awful or great it might be, is actually finishing it.  So here's how it works.

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Stop Motion

By Mike Sullivan

Lowell filmmaker James Higgins talks about the technology
behind his innovative
short films, screening this month as the trilogy Shadow Worlds, and explains why his next project, at 30 minutes, is epic.

Two phrases lingered with me after my meeting with Lowell
filmmaker James Higgins. The first was “you have to have an obsession with
images” and the second was “it’s tricky to shoot a film with a still camera.” 
Indeed, the former and the latter collide in four short films that Higgins has
produced since 2006.  In a distinctive technique Higgins calls “stop motion,”
these shorts combine ethereal movement, light, and sound, with themes and stories
about gangs, abuse, addiction and alienation. 

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RIIFF Student Film Sampler

By Julia Cox
From Missed Connection.

NewEnglandFilm.com taste tests three options from the generous
helping of films slated for the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

For the past eleven years, the Rhode Island International
Film Festival (RIIFF) has offered a vast cinematic buffet for film buffs to
devour.  The 12th Annual Festival, August 5 -10, is no different.  Boasting a
wide array of side contests that complement the typical festival competitions, RIIFF is known for its size, as New England’s largest film festival, as well as
its caliber, as New England’s only Academy Award qualifier for short films.  A
horror film contest, a Jewish film festival, a gay and lesbian film festival and

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Native Daughter, Indigenous Soul

By Mary Trainor-Brigham
Photographer Robert Capa.

Documentarian Anne Makepeace returns to New England with a
Guggenheim and a fellowship to the Radcliffe Institute.

Even her name sounds American Indian: Anne Makepeace,
evocative of the legendary and eloquent Peacemaker, founder of the Iroquois
Confederacy.  It certainly must have had immediate appeal to the selection
committee of the Guggenheim Foundation, which recently awarded her a grant in
support of their mandate to “the cause of better international understanding.” 
Their monies, along with support from the Sundance Documentary Fund and a
year-long Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, will allow Makepeace to focus on her

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International Focus

By Mike Sullivan
Jean Desire, Programming Director (at left) and Patrick Jerome (on right).

Patrick Jerome, director and founder of the Boston
International Film Festival, talks about his inspiration for making films and
for creating the festival.

I asked Patrick Jerome, the director and founder of the Boston International
Film Festival (BIFF) and the writer/producer/director/editor of many music
videos and independent movies, what was the inspiration that set him down the
long and winding road to filmmaking. Jerome sat back in his chair and exhaled,
recalling his youth in Haiti. He couldn’t remember the name of the movie, he
said, but he was 12-years old and it starred Clint Eastwood.

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Imagine: Crewing a Reality Show

By Jared M. Gordon
Photo by Swami Stream.

This fictional account of a production assistant imagines the
behind-the-scenes drama of a reality show.

A month ago, I received a call from Sandra Mills, associate
producer of Music Nation, a network reality show in which musician
contestants sing and perform their way to a contract with a major record label. 
Sandra says, “You worked with Ellie Glasser on the
History Channel’s Hefty Men series.  She recommended you for this gig. 
Will you be a production assistant for us on the new season of Music Nation
in Los Angeles?” 

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Off Road

By Jamie Schiappucci
Kongsfjord, Spitsbergen, 2000

Gregory Roscoe left a stable job to make a film about a
family that circumnavigates the globe in a 33 foot sloop.

“Could I get your full street address so I can just plug it
into my GPS?”   

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What's In A Word?

By Lorre Fritchy
Katy and Tracy celebrate their marriage.

Filmmaker Francine Rzeznik talks about her collaboration
with nonprofit Love Makes a Family on Marriage Makes a Word of Difference,
screening this month at the CT Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Marriage Makes a Word of Difference presents
testimony from six gay Connecticut couples in their struggle to convince
lawmakers and neighbors alike that providing gay couples with anything less than
the word "marriage" is precisely that: less than.  Compelled to use her video
camera as a tool for social justice, director Francine Rzeznik (that's "zhezhnik,"
folks) donated the majority of her time and resources to fast track the project
in less than 10 months to influence legislators ruling on "civil unions" vs.

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From Both Sides

By Ellen Mills
Tania Raymonde in Other Side.

Self-taught filmmaker AD Calvo turned his triggerstreet and
YouTube success into a feature, The Other Side of The Tracks, a spooky
tale of lost love and mysterious visions, screening at the Woods Hole Film
Festival on July 31st.

AD Calvo will let you borrow a great scary story to tell
around the campfire this summer, and you’ll find it in his latest feature film,
The Other Side of The Tracks. 
It’s the story of a man haunted by visions
after the tragic death of his girlfriend 10 years earlier.  His best friend
tries to help him move on, while a mysterious new woman captures his attention. 
 

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Sprint to the Studio

By David Pierotti
mill-big.jpg

Five New England locations vie to build the area’s first
major motion picture studio.

In 1918, Louis B. Mayer left Boston to form
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Los Angeles.  Thus ended New England’s very brief run as
a home for movie moguls.  Until now.  Maybe.  As a result of competitive tax
incentive policies, studio film production has skyrocketed in the region,
spurring entrepreneurs and filmmakers to consider making New England their home.  

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Beyond Black and White

By Jared M. Gordon
From the once-banned Titicut Follies.

Paul Sherman expands the definition of Boston filmmaking in his new book,
Big Screen Boston

Former Improper Bostonian and Boston Herald film critic
Paul Sherman has been keeping busy.  This month he releases
his
self-published Big Screen Boston: From Mystery Street to The
Departed and Beyond, an exhaustive compilation of 250
motion pictures shot in the city.

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Renaissance Producer

By Hermine Muskat
Jeremy Thomas defines producing.  Photo by Hermine Muskat.

Jeremy Thomas receives the Coolidge Award and local
audiences learn what it means to produce

What exactly does a producer do?  Traditionally, a
producer is not seen as the creative force behind a film as much as the person
who develops and maintains a creative space for others.  A producer raises
funds, hires personnel, facilitates the filmmaking process, and then arranges
for the film’s sale and distribution.  A producer is there from beginning to end
but doesn’t necessarily receive artistic acclaim.  Thomas explained the job as,
“A cross between a facilitator and a policeman.  The one who makes sure the work

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The Boston Twelve

By Erin Trahan

Twelve directors help each other make 12 (loosely connected) shorts in 12 months.  The resulting feature premieres this month at the Independent Film Festival of Boston.

He may be reluctant to give himself a title, but Scott Masterson spearheaded and facilitated the distinctly structured, and distinctly Boston feature film, Twelve.  It’s composed of 12 segments shot in and named for the 12 months of the year.  The directors include Masterson (January), Seanbaker Carter (February), Andy McCarthy (March), Garth Donovan (April), Luke Poling (May), Noah Lydiard (June), Megan Summers (July), Brynmore Williams (August), Joan Meister (September), Marc Colucci (October), Jared Goodman read more...

45 Hours and Counting

By Michele (LaMura) Meek
Nearly 100 teams gathered to learn their genres and elements for the 48 Hour Film Project Boston.

A 'live' report from the first night of the 48 Hour Film
Project, Boston on April 4, 2008 at 10 pm.

In my first night leading the team Little Plum Pictures in the 208 Boston 48
Hour Film Project, my hope is for everyone to have some fun and for us not to
create the worst movie ever made. So far so good, the genre I drew
was "thriller/suspense' which means I dodged 'historical fiction' and 'musical or
western'. 

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Kibitzing with Kate

By Deborah J. Hahn
From the archives of Matzo & Mistletoe.

Kate Feiffer’s documentary, Matzo & Mistletoe,
examines what it means to be a secular Jew in contemporary America.  It screens
this month at the Maine Jewish Film Festival.

Kate Feiffer’s professional background ranges from serving
as associate producer of the PBS/Frontline Red Flag over Tibet, writing a
humor column for Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, to authoring children’s
books, including one in collaboration with her father, well-known illustrator
Jules Feiffer, among other projects.  Matzo & Mistletoe explores what it
means to be Jewish in America when you don’t practice the religion.  Feiffer
intertwines interviews with family, friends, and fellow Martha’s Vineyard

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It's a Wrap!

By Michele (LaMura) Meek
Here I am 'directing' Kenneth Breese and Christine McFadyen.

A 'live' report from the first night of the 48 Hour Film
Project, Boston on April 6, 2008 at 9 pm.

So it turns out when you only have 48 hours to make a film, you don't have a
whole lot of time for blogging.  Hence my silence til the end.
After an action-filled weekend of organizing, shooting and editing, I can
confidently say we accomplished my goal of having fun.  Having done this
project a few years back in New York, I definitely think this time around was
smoother, more relaxed and organized, and ultimately we were able to create a
pretty decent film.

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Wizards of Gore

By David L Tamarin
Jeremy Kasten on set.

Emerson alum Jeremy Kasten opens this month’s Boston
Underground Film Festival with his re-make of The Wizard of Gore.

In 1970, Herschell Gordon Lewis released The Wizard of Gore, about a cabaret-style musician who cuts up women on stage as part of his act.  In the original, the women turn out to be fine. Then 24 hours later they die in the way they were killed on stage.  Kasten’s version takes place in a post-punk downtown LA, where the gruesome "illusions" of Montag the Magnificent prompt a journalist to take a closer look.  The film stars Crispin Glover, Kip Perdue, Jeffrey Combs, Bijou Phillips, Brad Dourif, and features read more...