Independent Film Producers - Report Example

Independent Film Producers Independent Film Producers An independent film refers to film production that results in a feature film that is majorly or entirely produced outside the main film studio system (O’Meara, 2014). Besides being produced and disseminated by independent theater companies, independent films are also distributed and produced by firms of major film studios. These independent films are commonly distinguishable by their style and content as well as the way the personal artistic vision of the filmmaker is realized (O’Meara, 2014). Independent films are produced with considerably lesser film budgets compared to major studio films. Also, the marketing of these films is usually marked by limited release though they can also have major promoting campaigns as well as a full release. They are often screened at international, national, or local film festivals before being distributed (O’Meara, 2014). This paper presents a biographical essay of three independent film producers: Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, and Noah Baumbach Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American writer, playwright, comedian, actor, and director. He was born in 1935 in the Bronx (Girgus, 2002). However, he was raised in Brooklyn, New York. Allen was the son of Nettie, a bookkeeper, and Martin Konigsberg, a waiter, and a jewelry engraver. He had a sister named Letty, born in 1943. Allen’s family was Ashkenazi Jewish. .Allen’s childhood was not for the most part happy. Besides the shaky relationship with his uncompromising and temperamental mother, Allen’s parents did not cope (Girgus, 2002). Allen has three wives. These are Harlene Rosen, Louise Lasser, and Soon-Yi Previn (Bailey, 2010). Although he had a romantic relationship with Mia Farrow for twelve years, they never married. Besides, Allen had romantic affairs with Diane Keaton and Stacey Nelkin. He spoke Germany in his early childhood. While going to Hebrew school for eight years, Allen attended public school 99 and proceeded to Midwood High School. During this time, he stayed in an apartment in 968 east 14th street. Despite his comic personality, he had more interest in baseball than school. He captivated students with his astonishing talent at magic tricks and card. Allen could write jokes for agent David Alber to raise money, who later sold these jokes to the newspaper columnists (Lax, 2000). He started to call himself Woody Allen. When he turned 17, Allen changed his name and was called Heywood Allen. At this age, he used to earn more than the total salary of his parents. After graduating from high school, Allen joined New York University to study film and communication (Lax, 2000). Later, he briefly joined City College of New York where he soon failed. He then decided to learn through self-study instead of classroom learning. Eventually, he became a teacher at the new school. Allen worked as a comedian in the 1950s. He wrote scripts and jokes for television besides publishing various books that comprised of short pieces of humor (Lax, 2000). In 1960s, he started acting like a stand-up comedian with more emphasis on monologs than jokes. He then developed the personality of an intellectual, insecure, and fretful person. In 2004, he was ranked fourth out of the 100 comedians by comedy central. The United Kingdom survey, however, ranked him the third best comedian. Allen’s first movie was titled Whats New Pussycat? that was produced by Charles K. Feldman and released in 1965 (Lax, 2000). In this film, Allen wrote the screenplay. However, the final product disappointed him, thereby inspiring him to start directing every film that he would write (Bailey, 2010). His first directorial work was Whats Up, Tiger Lily? in 1966. In 1969, he directed, featured, and co-wrote, in collaboration with Mickey Rose, a film titled Take the Money and Run. This movie received several positive reviews. Later, he signed an agreement with United Artists to produce many films. These films included Love and Death, Bananas, and Sleeper. In 1972, he wrote and featured in the movie Play It Again, with Herbert Ross as the director. In 1977, Allen started a poignant and humorous film called The Front. These two films became his most famous films winning him Academy Awards (Bailey, 2010). On 13th January 2015, it was broadcasted that Allan would write and also direct a thirty minutes television series for the Amazon Studios. This marked his first time to establish a television show. Wes Anderson Born in Houston, Texas on 1st may 1969, Wesley Wales Anderson was the son of an archeologist, TexasAnn, and Leonard Melver Anderson, who was a worker in the advertising and public relations company (Orgeron, 2007). Anderson is the second of the three boys. His parents divorced when Anderson was eight. Mel, his elder brother, is a physician while Eric, the younger brother is not only a writer but also an artist whose designs and paintings have appeared in many of Anderson’s films. He is of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. Anderson graduated in 1987 from St. John’s school in Houston. Later, he used this school as his prominent scene throughout Rushmore (Orgeron, 2007). During his childhood, Anderson used his father’s super eight camera to make silent films. He featured his friends and brothers in these films. However, his first ambition was becoming a writer. He attended college while doing a part-time job as a movie projectionist. He later graduated in 1990 with a degree in philosophy from the University of Texas, Austin. It is while in the school that he met Owen Wilson, his future common collaborator. Bottle Rocket was Anderson’s first film to be released in 1996 (Orgeron, 2007). The film was based on a short movie that Anderson made in collaboration with Owen Wilson and Luke. The film was about a crime escapade and focused on a group of young citizens of Texas who aspired to attain major robberies. Although the movie was well reviewed, it did not perform well at the box office. Rushmore was Anderson’s second film. It was released in 1998 and was a strange comedy about a young high school student’s affection on an elementary school teacher (Hancock, 2005). The film featured Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray. This movie was a critical success. From then, Murray has been appearing in each and every Anderson film. In 2000, Martin Scorsese, filmmaker, praised Rushmore and Bottle Rocket. Anderson’s next comedy drama film entitled The Royal Tenenbaums was released in 2001 (Hancock, 2005). This film was about a prosperous artistic family in the New York City and its hated patriarch. This film represented the greatest success of Anderson until the release of Moonrise Kingdom in 2002. The film could earn over fifty million US dollars in domestic box receipts. As a result, the film was successfully nominated for an Academy honor and ranked as the 159th best film that was ever made, by Empire Polls. The Life of Aquatic with Steve Zissou was Anderson’s next feature in 2004. This movie was about a documentary of Jacques Cousteau-esque, the filmmaker. This documentary was played by Bill Murray (Hancock, 2005). This movie served as a classic model of Anderson’s style. However, its critical reception appeared less favorable compared to Anderson’s previous films. Therefore, its box office could not compete the levels of The Royal Tenenbaums. As a result of the disappointing sales and critical reception of this film, Donald Fagen, Steely Dan’s, and Walter Becker released a sardonic intervention letter in 2006 for the artistic Malaise of Anderson (Hancock, 2005). Declaring themselves to be world cinema fans, particularly Anderson, they gave Anderson their soundtrack services to use in his film The Darjeeling Limited. These included lyrics for the title track. In 2007, Anderson released his film, The Darjeeling Limited. This movie was about three brothers who were emotionally distant and traveling on a train together in India (Browning, 2011). This movie was a reflection of a more theatrical tone of his previous film, The Royal Tenenbaums. However, this film also faced criticism just like The Life Aquatic. In an interview, Anderson acknowledged that he had gone to India to flick the 2007 movie and partly to give tribute to Satyajit Ray, the Indian filmmaker, whose films have greatly inspired all his other movies in one way or the other (Browning, 2011). This movie featured Anderson collaborator Jason Schwartzmanas well as Roman Coppola. Anderson was hired in 2008, to write a screenplay for an American adaptation of a French film entitled My Best Friend by Brian Grazer, the producer. His first draft of the film was called The Rosenthaler Suite. In 2009, the stop-motion animation adaptation for Anderson of the book Fantastic Mr.Foxby RoaldDahl was released (Browning, 2011). Though the film did not earn much more compared to its production cost, the film received lots of praises leading to its nomination as the best animated feature for the Academy Award. Due to the critical success of the film fantastic Mr.Fox, Anderson released Moonrise Kingdom that opened the 2012 Cannes Film Festival (Browning, 2011). This movie was symbolic of Anderson’s style and came out as a financial success by earning Anderson yet another chance to be nominated for Academy Awards for his screenplay. The latest film released by Anderson in 2014 was entitled The Grand Budapest Hotel. The film featured Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Ralph Fiennes, and Murray Abraham together with most of his common collaborators like Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson (Browning, 2011). The film was set in the 1930s and made a marvelous ridicule of history by changing its horrors into graceful jokes as well as mischievous gestures. The film turned out to be one of Anderson’s greatest commercial and critical successes earning about $ 175 million globally besides earning several nomination awards including four wins in nine Oscar Nominations (Browning, 2011). The major cinematic influences for Anderson include Louis Malle, John Huston, HalAshby, OrsonWelles, and François Truffaut. Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach is native of Brooklyn, New York City. He was the son of Jonathan Baumbach, a film critic and a novelist, and Georgia Brown, a village vice critic (Baumbach, 2013). Baumbach graduated from Midwood high school in Brooklyn in 1987. Later in 1991, he attended Vassar College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Soon after his graduation, he shortly worked at the New Yorker Magazine as a messenger. His mother was a Protestant while his father was a Jewish. At the age of twenty-six, Baumbach made his writing debut with Kicking and Screaming. This was a comedy that consisted of about five young men who graduated from a university and were not willing to move on with their lives (Baumbach, 2013). This film featured Carlos Jackot, Josh Hamilton, and Chris Eigeman. It premiered at the New York film festival in 1995. As a result, Baumbach was selected as one of ten new faces of the year 1996 in the Newsweek. Later in 1997, Baumbach not only wrote but also directed a film entitled Mr. Jealousy (Baumbach, 2013). The film was about a young writer who was extremely jealous of his girlfriend to an extent of sneaking into sessions of group therapy of the girl’s ex-boyfriend in order to discover the kind of that they used to have. Baumbach, under the name Carter Jesse, he co- wrote and directed a comedy of manners that was set in New York. The comedy film was known as Highball. Together with Wes Anderson, Baumbach co-wrote a film entitled The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004 (Baumbach, 2013). In 2005, he produced a film The Squid and the Whale. This movie was an autobiographical drama comedy about his childhood life in Brooklyn. In this film, he recounted how his parent’s divorce affected the entire family in 1980s (Baumbach, 2013). In the movie, he made the film stars, Laura Linney, and Jeff Daniels to play the parent roles. Baumbach recounted in an interview with BOMB magazine author, Jonathan Lethem, that whenever he thought about the entire experience of his childhood it appeared like a joke. He also admitted that besides being inspired by his childhood dreams, the film was also inspired by his parent’s divorce (Baumbach, 2013). He added that the movie was the first script he did not show to his parents when he was working on it. However, he did that not because he to protect his parents from anything, but because he wanted to keep the film as his experience. The Squid and the Whale distinguished itself as a critical success and a sleeper hit, getting Baumbach two serious awards in the SundanceFilm Festival of 2005. It was also rated as the best original screenplay in the academy award nominations (Baumbach, 2013). Additionally, the film received three Golden Globe Nominations and seven Independent Spirit Award Nominations. In 2007, Baumbach wrote and directed Margotat the Wedding, a comedy drama in which he featured Jack Black, John Turturro, Nicole Kidman, and his wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh. In this film, Kidman acts as a woman called Margot, who spends very many days visiting Pauline, her sister (Leigh) the day before Pauline weds black’s character (Baumbach, 2013). This film was shot in City Island, Bronx, and Hampton Bays in 2006. It was then first released by Paramount Vantage in the United States in November 2007. Baumbach has also helped in writing and directing the short films New York Underground and Clearing the Air, all of which were co-written and co-produced by Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, cast members, and broadcasted on Saturday Night Live (O’Meara, 2014). In New York underground, Baumbach featured Hader, who acts as a British journalist performing a piece on peculiar secretive musician Joshua Rainhorne. In Clearing the Air, he featured PaulRudd, Hader, and Armisen. In this film, they are trying to clear the air over a lady they all had sex with. In the fall of 2008, both films aired on SNL. In the 2009 Film Versions, Baumbach co-wrote a screenplay of Roald Dahl, named Fantastic Mr.Fox. This film was directed by Wes Anderson using the stop motion technology (O’Meara, 2014). In March 2010, Baumbach’s film Greenberg was released. This movie was voted for the golden bear that was to take place at the Berlin International film festival. In 2012, Baumbach’s film that was co-written by Greta Gerwig and named Frances Ha was included in the Toronto International Film Festival. Baumbach has also shown empathy for writing on the east coast elite. Also, he has written an adaptation of the novel Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. Moreover, he co-wrote a screenplay for Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted by Dream Work Animations (O’Meara, 2014). Baumbach also worked on Jonathan Franzens novel adaptation The Corrections. However, the film was never completed. Lastly, in his personal life, Baumbach was married to actress Jenifer Jason Leigh whom she met in 2001 when she was being featured on Broadway, in the film, Proof (O’Meara, 2014). They later married on 2nd September 2005. On 17th March 2010, they were blessed with a son whom they named Rohmer Emmanuel. On 15th November 2010, Leigh filed for a divorce from Baumbach in Los Angeles, over irreconcilable differences (O’Meara, 2014). This divorce was later concluded in September 2013. His creative and romantic collaboration with Greta Gerwig, an actress, and a writer, which began in 2011, has been described in the New Yorker, April 2013 profile. References Bailey, P. J. (2010). The reluctant film art of Woody Allen. University Press of Kentucky. Baumbach, R. N. (2013). Noah Baumbach. The Alden Ehrenreich Handbook-Everything you need to know about Alden Ehrenreich, 213. Browning, M. (2011). Wes Anderson: why his movies matter. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger. Girgus, S. B. (2002). The Films of Woody Allen. Cambridge University Press. Hancock, B. M. (2005). A Community of Characters–the Narrative Self in the Films of Wes Anderson. The Journal of Religion and Film, 9(2). Lax, E. (2000). Woody Allen: a biography. Da Capo Press. O’Meara, J. (2014). A Shared Approach to Familial Dysfunction and Sound Design: Wes Anderson’s Influence on the Films of Noah Baumbach. The Films of Wes Anderson: Critical Essays on an Indiewood Icon, 109. Orgeron, D. (2007). La Camera-Crayola: Authorship Comes of Age in the Cinema of Wes Anderson. Cinema Journal, 46(2), 40-65. Read More