We are proud to announce that Stranger Things will be premiering in competition at the 2010 Woodstock Film Festival.
The “fiercely independent” Woodstock Film Festival takes place September 29-October 3 in the beautiful Hudson Valley. Stranger Things will have two screenings at the festival:
- October 1, 2010 / 2:00PM / Upstate II – 6415 Montgomery St, Rhinebeck, NY 12572
- October 3, 2010 / 2:30PM / Upstate Films WOODSTOCK – 132 Tinker St, Woodstock, NY 12498
Here’s the Indiewire press release. For more information go to woodstockfilmfestival.com. More news coming soon!
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Adeel Akhtar has won the 2010 Norman Beaton Fellowship and will be joining the BBC Radio Drama Company this summer. The Fellowship is a competitive flagship initiative run by BBC Radio Drama as a key part of the department’s (((soundstart))) actor talent events. Congratulations Adeel!
Ted Hope posted a list of “No-Budget Commandments” on Truly Free Film yesterday, which he put together with his colleagues when his production company, The Good Machine, was starting out. It’s interesting to see how many of these we abided by when making Stranger Things without ever having encountered the list or even many people who think along these lines.
Adeel Akhtar (Mani) between takes, STRANGER THINGS
Bridget Collins (Oona) on location, STRANGER THINGS
Some of the principles we followed included writing to direct and writing for what we knew and what we could obtain. Writing for our location and for our actors also helped us enormously with co-directing, as we hadn’t imagined up vastly different versions of the characters or locations from each other. We knew we had to be flexible filmmakers and we always wanted to make an intimate film, so that one came easily. For anyone planning to make an independent film without a huge amount of money behind them, I would definitely recommend checking out the full list of commandments.
It’s been a long road to get here, but thanks to the amazing talent of Michael Taylor, who came aboard as editor this spring, we are delighted to announce (albeit belatedly) that Stranger Things has reached picture lock. A huge thank you to everyone who came out to our test screenings and gave us such good feedback and helpful notes. Extra special thanks to Brian Kates, Lou and Andy Ford, Iyabo Boyd, Rose Vincelli, Tom Wallin, Ray Rizzo and Nick Ordway. Also, big thanks Gretchen McGowan at Goldcrest and Frank Green for hosting screenings. Biggest thank you of all to Michael!
This process has really taught us the importance of test screenings. After putting so much love into your film, it’s hard to expose it to criticism. But obviously that’s the whole point and the way to make it into the best film possible. Watching the film with an audience feels so different to watching alone in the edit suite. It’s wonderful hearing the audience react to the surprises, funny moments and emotional beats of the story.
Ron is directing the music video for ‘No Surprises’ for Amanda Palmer’s new album of Radiohead covers, which is called Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on her Magical Ukulele. The video is going to be fab. It involves a lot of animation. We shot the video for the animator’s reference today (I was the DP) and Amanda was great. You can read about the album on Amanda’s blog: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/
Chris Morris’s debut feature film, Four Lions, comes out today in the UK. It received a great review in The Guardian from Peter Bradshaw. Adeel Akhtar plays dim-witted Fessel in the film.
Click here to see the Four Lions Trailer.
This poignant video piece by photographer Briony Campbell reminds me of our main character Oona with her voice recorder. It’s part of Campbell’s photography project The Dad Project, in which she recorded the last few months of her father’s life — very touching, personal filmmaking.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/apr/13/briony-campbell-father-cancer
Amazing news! Eleanor and I are very happy and proud to announce that Stranger Things has won the IFP Narrative Lab’s Finishing Grant! The award is a package of services worth $45,000, including post-production services from Goldcrest Post New York, post-graphic services from Edgeworx, Inc., legal consultation from Gray Krauss LLP, publicity consultation from International House of Publicity, test screening space courtesy of The Tank, and promotional materials from 4over4.
This award make an enormous difference to us in finishing Stranger Things. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the grant donors listed above, Rose Vincelli, Amy Dotson and everyone at the IFP, and the grant jury members: producer Lisa Cortes (Precious); Warrington Hudlin, filmmaker and founder of DV Republic and Black Filmmakers Foundation; and filmmaker Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos).
We also wanted to congratulate Rebecca Richman Cohen whose documentary War Don Don won the Documentary Lab’s finishing grant.
Our fellow finalists for the Lab Grant were Russell Costanzo and Mellisa Miller with The Tested and Amy Seimetz with City on a Hill, both awesome films.
The IFP’s Press Release can be found here: http://www.ifp.org/ifp-presents-90000-in-grant-packages-to-independent-filmmaker-lab-alumni/
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Christina Beck and Annette Murphy (Perfection) get feedback on their cut from editors Kate Williams and Sabine Hoffmann, in the 2009 IFP Lab
The IFP Filmmaker Lab is accepting applications. This is an amazing opportunity for all you first-time feature filmmakers out there. Eleanor and I participated in the 2009 Lab last summer and it was an incredible experience – it made an enormous difference to how we’ve approached finishing our film Stranger Things. During the course of the lab, we got advice from some amazing mentors (indie producers Scott Macaulay, Gretchen McGowan, and Anish Savjani, editor Brian Kates, new media genius Lance Weiler, just to name a few…).
There’s one lab for narrative films and one for docs. Each section accepts 10 films. Applications are due February 12 (for documentary) & March 26 (for narrative), so hurry up and apply!
Adeel is currently on the front page of the Guardian website, starring in a very funny clip from Chris Morris’s new film Four Lions, which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this Saturday.
Click on this link to see the clip:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/jan/21/chris-morris-four-lions-sundance
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