Independent Film

  • Notes from the Set of a Werewolf Film

    Notes from the Set of a Werewolf Film

    When news editor Will Carruthers offhandedly suggested I write a dispatch from the set, he had no idea I had been keeping a production diary. Films are what I do when I’m not newspapering, and this particular film, presently titled Wolf Story, is a bit of Gen X angst spun as a rom-com but with fangs…

  • Moonshot: Why I’m Making a Werewolf Movie

    Moonshot: Why I’m Making a Werewolf Movie

    It all began in a community college course circa 1993 when Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf met my contrarian attitude toward required reading. I ached through a few chapters of the slender novel, which proved to be a valentine of sorts to its author’s shrink, Carl Jung (whom we can thank for archetypal psychology and a surname that will…

  • How to Make an Indie Film in Sonoma

    I have an iPhone app called “Location Scout” that couples the device’s geo-location ability with the Internet Movie Database. What this means is that wherever I am, I can activate the app and instantly know what movies were shot there. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the app’s usefulness is well below, say, “potato salad,” which,…

  • Shot Heard Around the World

    Variety reports that Oscar-winning filmmakers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment will make a feature documentary on the cultural impact of the 1972 theatrically released porn film Deep Throat. Beyond exploring the obvious cultural impact of sticky theater floors, directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato will add to their swelling repertoire of similarly-themed films,…