June 2004

Anyone who has worked on a film or video shoot, a stage crew or in a restaurant kitchen can tell you that it’s hard work, dirty, tiring and often thankless. The bright lights and the accolades don’t necessarily find their way backstage at the end of the performance. If you have held any of those jobs, Kathryn Shehade knows what you’ve been through and she’d like to show the rest of the world. In her new TV series "The INdustry," her mission is to strip away the glamorous façade of the entertainment business.

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Summer in New England is off to a fast start and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved -- from festivals and competitions to networking events.

In a mere three years, Tribeca has built a solid reputation that’s rocketed into the class of long-standing festivals such as Sundance (23 years), Toronto (28 years) and South by Southwest (17 years). Of course with start-up star power of the likes of Robert Deniro and Martin Scorsese as festival founders, it certainly had much better odds than most fests.

Steven Feinberg started making movies in his Cranston, Rhode Island basement when he was eight years old. In his teens, he dreamed about going out to California to pursue movie-making on a larger scale, and at 18 that’s exactly what he did, traveling across the country to attend the USC School of Cinema. He has since been able to cultivate a successful career as a writer and producer in Los Angeles; starting his own production company, writing a number of films, and working on a few television programs that are close to production.

The film festival is a strange beast. In theory it represents the cinephile’s dream: days of films from near or far, directors up close, and that magical possibility of discovery. In practice, unfortunately, these events consistently get bogged down in technical snafus and logistical emergencies or put glamour and glitz before quality and craftsmanship. Maybe this truism is why the 2004 Independent Film Festival of Boston was so impressive: it lived up to its promise to present a wide array of superb films without the requisite chaos.

No Schwarzenegger in this film. No Terminators, big budgets, or "I’ll be backs." Local writer-director Brad Anderson’s latest movie "The Machinist" made its New England debut on May 9 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Known for such indie classics such as "The Darien Gap," "Happy Accidents," "Next Stop Wonderland," and "Session 9," Anderson continues his trend of producing medium-budgeted, high-quality films with "The Machinist" and once again proves that read more...

Sound design doesn’t end before mixing begins, and the idea that you can always "fix it the mix" is going to get you into trouble one day. Here are some of the steps to take before mixing to preserve the focus of the sound design -- not to mention the sanity and well-being of everyone else involved.