IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit

Spike talks about trying to capture the essence of Beastie Boys’ friendship and the unusual (and totally “unprofessional”) creative process he, the band, and editor Jeff Buchanan went through in creating this unique documentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real-time virtual sets are Hollywood’s future. These enormous (75 x 20 feet) curved LED walls serve as a live backdrop that eclipses the need for green screen. But what does that mean for filmmaking? We talked to Fraser about exactly that. The cinematographer has been pioneering “Stagecraft” with ILM for years and with "The Mandalorian" being its first large scale implementation, he saw firsthand...

One of the best reviewed films of 2020 is coming to VOD early (Apr 3), but before its theatrical run got cut short by COVID-19 I sat down with writer/director Eliza Hittman and one of her closest collaborators, her husband and editor Scott Cummings, to talk about the origins and making of this incredible film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sciamma talks about how to film desire, memory, and getting out of the conventions of a normal love story. She breaks down the creation of the incredible chanting song and bonfire scene, the laborious process of lighting the interiors, and how filming the ideas behind a movie can be the most rewarding type of cinema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the help of translator Sharon Choi, director Bong talks about the careful construction of the Oscar winner “Parasite.” From his days of being a tutor and that feeling of infiltrating a wealthy family's home, to the careful construction of the house set in his film, to the profound influence of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How after over 40 years of working with Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman" offered something the 3-time Academy Award winning editor had never done before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wilde explains how Big Lebowski influenced Booksmart, being intimidated about not having gone to film school, advice she got from Clint Eastwood about directing herself (in her upcoming thriller/horror film), and building ultimate high school movie soundtrack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lulu Wang on learning not to compromise her voice, how and why she used widescreen long takes, shooting in China, her next sci-fi project, and her real life grandma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gerwig goes deep into the process, craft and inspiration behind her remarkable adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deakins and Mendes talk about shooting their new WWI film so it was experienced as one-long take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tarantino talks about about falling in love with Richardson and the unusual circumstances in which he hired him to shoot "Kill Bill." While the two collaborators breakdown their most recent film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Recorded at Camerimage in Poland, where Tarantino and Richardson were honored for their work together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Safdie Brothers break down their improbable 10 year journey to making "Uncut Gems," working their way through a handful of different NBA stars (including Kobe Bryant), while "earning their stripes" and learning how to tell a story of this scale. What it meant to go union, how famed cinematographer Darius Khondji helped shape the project and sound mixer Skip Lievsay introduced them to incredibl...

How Heller emotionally grounded a story about Mr. Rogers and made it her own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spoiler Warning: Rian Johnson gets into the nuts and bolts of how he built his modern day Agatha Christie whodunit, the murder mystery "Knives Out." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trey talks about writing / scoring Waves to Frank Ocean, Kayne West and Animal Collective, while mining his personal story of grief, as we break down the color, sound and movement of his remarkable third film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The duo behind the Netflix's "American Factory" share their insight into how documentary filmmakers can gain trust and access, crafting story, and how they shot this remarkable film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Marriage Story" Director Noah Baumbach by Chris O'Falt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"One Child Nation" Director Nanfu Wang by Chris O'Falt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mangold breaks down what’s wrong with our modern day green screen, sensory overload action films and how his new racing film, “Ford v Ferrari,” is a throwback to a more classical mode of Hollywood filmmaking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most Screenwriters Work to Music, Robert Eggers Listened to Waves and Wind in creating Willem Dafoe's Pirate Dialect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cotton Club was intended to be a well balanced story about the black and white performers, patrons and gangsters of the legendary Harlem club in the 1920s & 30s. Coppola talks about the pressure he faced to trim down the film so it focused more on Richard Gere's story and his recent effort to restore and re-edit it to bring the film back to what was originally intended. "Cotton Club Encore" is the...

On Kubrick, Brad Pitt and how hard it is to make a film in a black box with one actor on a wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Praised by Guillermo del Toro, Aronofsky, Iñárritu and critics everywhere, Landes is one of the most exciting new directors to emerge this year. On the podcast he talks about making his allegory for the 60 year Colombian Civil War, shooting in impossible situations, and how he got composer Mica Levi to score the film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 14 time Oscar nominee on the importance of the right location, why VFX shouldn't be separate from cinematography, and how Donna Tart's novel felt personal to him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stiller on what it took to make his prison escape series as authentic as humanly possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices