IFH 531: Shooting Red Rocket on 16mm Anamorphic & Guerrilla Filmmaking with Sean Baker

12/10/21 • 57 min

Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

You are in for a treat today. We have returning champion writer/director Sean Baker.
Sean Baker is a writer, director, producer and editor who has made seven independent feature films over the course of the past two decades. His most recent film was the award-winning The Florida Project (2017) which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was released by A24 in the U.S. Among the many accolades the film received -- including an Oscar nomination for Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Actor -- Sean was named Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle.
His previous film Tangerine (2015) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won an Independent Spirit and two Gotham Awards. Starlet (2012) was the winner of the Robert Altman Independent Spirit Award and his previous two features, Take Out (2004) and Prince of Broadway (2008), were both nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award.
His remarkable new film is Red Rocket. The audacious new film from writer- director Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine), starring Simon Rex in a magnetic, live-wire performance, Red Rocket is a darkly funny, humane portrait of a uniquely American hustler and a hometown that barely tolerates him.
I watched Red Rocket and I have to tell you it's one of the best films I've seen this year.
Sean and I discuss his creative process, how he shot Red Rocket with a 10 person crew and a very limited budget, during COVID. Red Rocket opens today in theaters.
Enjoy my conversation with Sean Baker.
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Previous Episode

IFH 530: Directing Your 1st Hollywood Feature with Nora Fingscheidt

Today on the show we have writer/director Nora Fingscheidt.
Nora Fingscheidt was born in 1983 in Germany and spent her youth partly in Argentina. From 2003 onward she participated in the development of the self-organized film school filmArche in Berlin. At the same time, she completed her training as an acting coach under Sigrid Andersson. Nora studied fiction directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. Her graduation film, the full-length documentary WITHOUT THIS WORLD about a conservative Mennonite colony in Argentina, won the Max Ophüls Prize and First Steps Award in 2017.
Her narrative film debut, SYSTEM CRASHER, premiered at Berlinale 2019, where it won a Silver Bear (Alfred Bauer Award), won eight German Film Awards and many international awards. SYSTEM CRASHER was Germany’s entry for the Oscars in 2020. She continues to work both in documentary and narrative, as well as with full-length films and shorts.
Nora directed her new film THE UNFORGIVABLE starring Sandra Bullock which will premiere on Netflix December 2021.
Released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime, Ruth Slater (Academy Award-winner Sandra Bullock) re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past. Although she feels a pull to the place she once called home, only harsh judgment awaits her there.
Ruth’s only hope for redemption is in finding her estranged younger sister Katie (Aisling Franciosi), who she was forced to leave behind. In her quest to reunite with Katie and adjust to life on the outside, Ruth encounters obstacles she expects and those she never saw coming from those whose lives are disrupted by her release.
Bullock produces along with Academy Award winner Graham King(Bohemian Rhapsody, Traffic) and stars alongside Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Bernthal, Richard Thomas, Linda Emond, Aisling Franciosi, Rob Morgan, Emma Nelson, Will Pullen, Thomas Guiry and Viola Davis.
Enjoy my conversation with Nora Fingscheidt.
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Next Episode

IFH 532: Epic Cinematography, David Fincher & the Art of Lighting with Oscar® Nominee Jeff Cronenweth

Today on the show we have Oscar® nominee Jeff Cronenweth A.S.C.
Cronenweth worked as a loader and 2nd assistant before graduating high school, and then enrolled in film school at USC where he studied cinematography. Among his classmates were John Schwartzman and Robert Brinkmann, as well as [director] Philip Joanou.
After graduation, Cronenweth resumed working with his father, joining a core camera team that included operators John Toll and Dan Lerner, and 1st assistants Bing Sokolsky and Art Schwab.
Jeff worked with father Jordan Cronenweth (cinematographer most notable for Blade Runner) as a camera loader and second assistant camera during high school, working his way up to first assistant camera and then camera operator until the mid-1990s.
Moving up to first assistant, Cronenweth began working with Toll, who was just beginning his work as a cameraman, and veteran Sven Nykvist.
"I couldn't have learned from better people than John, Sven and my father,"
Cronenweth relates.
"They were all soft-spoken, but very tenacious in achieving their goals. It was a great experience to watch them, learn set etiquette and see how they delegated responsibilities and dealt with producers and crews. I did six pictures with my father and eight pictures with Sven." [From American Cinematographer Magazine.]
The first major motion picture where he acted as a DP was on David Fincher's masterpiece Fight Club. Other notable feature films on which he worked as a DP are One Hour Photo, K-19: The Widowmaker, Down With Love, The Social Network, Hitchcock, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.
Enjoy my conversation with Jeff Cronenweth A.S.C.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.