In this second of a three part interview, director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, War Games) sits down with Microfilmmaker Magazine to discuss his new book, John Badham on Directing, his thoughts on industry changes and his approach to directing in the midst of the technology upheaval.
In this first of a three part video interview revolving around his new book, "John Badham on Directing," director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, War Games) sits down with Microfilmmaker Magazine to discuss what got him into directing, his thoughts on industry changes and his approach to directing.
Anyone who has gone to film school would immediately see my quest as folly and be able to list dozens of reasons why a one character film was a poor cinematic choice. What's great is that I never went to film school. What's even greater is that once I decided on a one character film, I thought “what if I make a one location film?” “What if it was an entire film that was one setup, a single shot with multiple angles?” “How, by narrowing a story to its simplest could I explore greater creativity?” This is also the point where I crossed feature-length off the list. This idea of painting yourself into a box...
As we prepare for John Badham's new book, John Badham on Directing, it seemed a great time to look at some advice from his last book, Creative Wars: I'll be In My Trailer. This piece comes straight from John Badham’s experience as a director and it rings just as true for the microfilmmaker with a $3000 budget as it does for the Hollywood director with a $300 million budget. However, these rules are perhaps most important to the microfilmmaker, because a microfilmmaker doesn’t have a studio sending someone to babysit him on his film and, if he screws the rules up, he doesn’t have the financial resources to recast it...
The latest trend is to reach out with the same cutting edge technology to both consumers and pros alike, offering near or exact versions to both target markets. No more highly publicized example of this is Apple's move with Final Cut X.
Writer/Director Edward Burns sat down with us at the Sundance Film Festival 2013 to discuss why he loves the freedom that comes with microbudget filmmaking, the compromises that are involved when working with less money, why digital distribution interests him more than conventional theatrical, using social media (primarily Twitter) to reach his audience and why he enjoys it.