June 2000

Part production company, part film school, Cityscape Motion Picture Education launches this month as a place for emerging filmmakers to learn their craft using the best method available -- doing it.

Cityscape's founder and director Laura Wilson recently talked with NewEnglandFilm.com about Cityscape, educating filmmakers and total-immersion filmmaking.

TP: What inspired you to start Cityscape?

Michelle Le Brun and Mel Howard had been married less than three years when they discovered he had terminal liver cancer. Mel had lived his life as an actor, director and producer and had taught film at New York University and Boston University, and the couple had already established the habit of filming the events of their married life. It was only natural that they decide to film their effort to cope with Mel's disease.

Gloucester, Mass., was in the grips of "The Perfect Storm" for nearly six weeks during the summer of 1999. The film, shot on location in Gloucester and adapted from the book by Sebastian Junger, is due to hit theaters on June 30. Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Diane Lane and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, "The Perfect Storm" is a true account of the brave Gloucester men and women who fish for a living, and specifically the story of the crew from the doomed "Andrea read more...

26-year-old Andrew Mudge is steeped in all three. He has written and directed four short films. He also edits them and acts in them. All of his shorts have traveled to film festivals. One even traveled to that famed fest in Park City, Utah.

During this time, I gave thanks for my left-brain writing experience with business jargon, corporate compositions and marketing documents. This enhanced my ability to write the press kit for this project. The read more...

Supposedly it's as tough to complete independent work in Boston as anywhere else. Supposedly. For nearly 25 years now, the Boston Film/Video Foundation has provided local filmmakers with invaluable services, from low-cost technical support and a wide range of workshops and master classes to screenings and exhibitions of work by members and local artists. Encouraging extensive interaction among video and filmmakers, BF/VF has perhaps single-handedly nurtured the growth of a noted independent filmmaking community in Boston.