Bronwen Hughes

You need to have a very specific vision of what you are aiming for. But you have to simultaneously retain an openness to allow serendipity to creep in.

Canadian director Bronwen Hughes is nominated for a Genie Award for Achievement in Direction for her film Stander, which is a hidden gem. You can read some Advice from Bronwen Hughes on directing and filmmaking from MovieMaker magazine.

The Oblique Strategies Web Site

The Oblique Strategies Web Site has information about the "over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas" that can help get you out of creative ruts when you're trying to make decisions that were created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. There are links to software versions of the cards as well. An version of Oblique Strategies for Mac OS X was created by Shayne of Curved Space.

Podcasting 101

Podcasting is the hot new thing that is sweeping across the blogosphere. It is kind of like user-driven radio where anybody can start a broadcast. You can find out more about Podcasting at ipodder.org, but even if you don't want to do a podcast, you can get some great audio recording tips in Tod Maffin's Podcasting 101.

HorizonZero

HorizonZero covered digital art and culture in Canada from August 2002 through December 2004. You can browse through the archives and find lots of great stuff from this project that is hosted out of the Banff New Media Institute.

file : pictures

File magazine has striking and powerful images. One of the neat things that I've found there is a selection of panoramic pictures taken by actor Jeff Bridges between takes on films that he has worked on. Fascinating glimpses from the sets of films and the people who are there.

Guardian Unlimited Film | Into the deep

Writing on my own is not fun for me. With Life Aquatic, Noah and I would meet every day at a restaurant before lunch and we'd stay six or seven hours till dinner. We'd make each other laugh. That's how we got it done.

The always-interesting Guardian Unlimited Film has an interview with Wes Anderson called Into the deep where he talks about filmmaking, past and upcoming projects.

WIL WHEATON dot NET: and now for something completely different

Wil Wheaton is an actor and active blogger who you may remember from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He's also a geek and a very good writer, who shares large chunks of his life at wilwheaton.net and you can get some great insight into the life of an actor in his entry and now for something completely different. A neat juxtaposition of what is going on in someone's personal life and their professional life.

O'Reilly: High Definition in Focus at 2005 Sundance Festival

The shift from miniDV to HD in the independent film world is starting and you can find out a bit more about it in O'Reilly: High Definition in Focus at 2005 Sundance Festival, but the interesting thing to note is that many of the films at Sundance this year were shot on old-fashioned 35mm film.

How we work: Joel and Ethan Coen, directors

How we work: Joel and Ethan Coen is part of a series of entries on the rodcorp blog that explains how the brothers dealt with writers block while they were writing "Miller's Crossing."

Mike Leigh and Lynne Ramsay Interview

...when you film a real event, it exists whether you film it or not. But you turn it into something else by the action of filming it. And what we do is have that sense of it being an actual living moment, beyond it merely being the function of a narrative.

In the Guardian Unlimited Mike Leigh and Lynne Ramsay interview each other and have a great conversation about their films and filmmaking. Some great insight from two distinctive filmmakers.

How not to choke (kottke.org)

It is only through repeated exposures to genuine stress that our body learns how to function effectively under that kind of pressure.

Jason Kottke points to an interview with Malcolm Gladwell related to the upcoming Super Bowl and sees ways of How not to choke that could also apply to working on a film. What I found fascinating about the interview and what Kottke points out is how repeated exposure to stress can help us deal with it. The question is how to you expose yourself to stress and still do your job. That's why you get better every time you work on another shoot.

PIXELSURGEON | Interviews

Pixelsurgeon has a great selection of Interviews, including film-related ones with Edgar Wright, Bruce Campbell and Jared Hess.

DVD Capture

On the Blank Rebel Productions: Downloads page you can find the DVD Capture application which is what I use to grab screen shots from DVDs that I can use for presentations. It works great and is free (but you can contribute if you like). There are also lots of great scripts here.