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Go Ahead, Make My Movie

Around 2003, Montreal filmmaker Brett Gaylor realized there wasn't a term to describe the experimental technique he wanted to use for his latest project, so he decided to invent a new one. In the process of developing a documentary about piracy, Gaylor wanted to take a revolutionary step by involving his future audience in the production. He called the concept "open source cinema," and the name stuck. "At that point, there were few concrete ways they could do this," Gaylor recalled in a recent interview. "The barrier to participation was quite high."

Five years later, the director is nearing the finish line with his cut of the film, called Basement Tapes -- but, on one level, he intends the project to be eternally incomplete.

Basement Tapes director Brett Gaylor.

Electoral Thoughts

'Election Day' and the State of the Modern Documentary

by Eric Kohn

A scant few hours after Hillary Clinton rescinded her presidential bid, the entire political kerfluffle of the past several months had been processed, organized and neatly tied together in a smartly edited package. The result, a video on Slate titled The Democratic Race in Eight Minutes, provides exactly the succinct overview its name suggests. Containing both a dense collage of facts and a keen satirical edge, the video shows an impressive amount of creativity in its narrative -- and qualifies as a documentary in short form. Who said journalism couldn't have a cinematic edge?

The rules have changed. Filmmakers working with non-fiction materials must manage the pressures of creating topical projects without getting sloppy. It's a trend that Katy Chevigny, founder of Arts Engine Inc. and the Media that Matters Film Festival, knows too well. "There are many documentary filmmakers in the business of trying to make films quickly, so they can make a strong argument hooked into something that's happening," she said in a recent interview. "Fahrenheit 9/11 was a little bit like that." A documentarian herself, Chevigny chose a different route. "I still believe there are some documentaries where people want a longer look at something," she said, and her latest movie proves it: Election Day, which premiered at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival, chronicles the voting experience of a handful of Americans during the consequential rush of activity on November 4, 2004.

Hammer Horror Goes 'Beyond' the Screen

'Beyond The Rave' Takes a Classic Studio to the Web

by John Lichman

Film is innately seductive. It whispers a promise to take us away for 90 minutes to the things we only daydream about: monsters, heroism, true love and impossible situations captured perfectly framed and timed. But if you're Hammer Films, the production company best known for immortalizing Christopher Lee as Dracula and making "British Horror" become a genre onto itself, the film experience isn't as simple as sitting down and hitting play. The audience wants to be completely drawn into a new, darker world.

Beyond the Rave is the first film co-released by Hammer in 20 years, and at first glance it seems like a comfortable return to basics: Ed (James Dornan), a soldier about to ship out to Iraq, decides to spend his one free night with his friend Necro (Matthew Forrest) and make amends with his girlfriend Jen (Nora-Jane Noone) at a rave. This gets more complicated when the rave's location is discovered--a trailer-sized space with one entrance/exit in the middle of nowhere; Ed then learns that Jen has taken up with Melech (Sebastian Knapp), the lithe and pale leader of a group who just epitomizes "something bad is about to happen." And because this is a Hammer film, it most certainly does.

Go Ahead, Make My Movie

Electoral Thoughts

Hammer Horror Goes 'Beyond' the Screen

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