Life is busy — and scaaaaaary (in unsettling ways most days but in a fun way today). It can be tough to stay up-to-date on all the film industry news, profiles, analysis, and advice. That’s why we’ve curated some essential reads you may have missed over the past month. So take some time to catch up with this month’s good reads!
This Month’s Good Reads (October 2024)
Is the Future of Movie Sets an Eight-Hour Work Day With Childcare? This Indie Director Made it Happen on a Tight Budget (via William Earl for Variety)
Nora Fiffer’s work-life-balanced approach to filming Another Happy Day.
Dogs! Distribution! Oh My! (via Max Cea for Nothing Bogus)
An interview with Utopia head of distribution Kyle Greenberg.
The First Film Festival Inside a Prison: How a Formerly Incarcerated Documentarian Secured Approval, Funding and Celebrity Jurors for San Quentin’s Inaugural Event (via Selome Hailu for Variety)
Inside the first San Quentin Film Festival.
Should Indie Filmmakers Embrace or Avoid FAST and AVoD Platforms? (via Manori Ravindran for Screen Daily)
Tubi or not Tubi?
How the Daily Wire Engineered Its First Box-Office Hit (via Chris Lee for Vulture)
Behind the success of Am I Racist?, the year’s highest-grossing documentary.
Hollywood Veterans Get Brutally Honest About Mentoring Next Generation Amid Industry Turmoil (via Christi Carras for Los Angeles Times)
Does mentorship take a hit when the jobs are scarce?
Filmed in New York, Hold the Taxis and Radiators (via Christopher Kuo for The New York Times)
How Rosemead faked Southern California in the Big Apple.
Could the Church of Al Pacino Make Me a Convert? (via Imogen West-Knights for Slate)
How the Godfather star’s new memoir swayed a skeptic.
How Streaming Elevated (and Ruined) Documentaries: A Statistical Analysis (via Daniel Parris for Stat Significant)
Tracking the doc landscape, from Hoop Dreams to OJ: Made in America to Tiger King and canceled Prince projects.
This Is God: How Freddy Krueger Continues to Haunt Our Nightmares 40 Years Later (via Claira Curtis for Letterboxd Journal)
Four decades of A Nightmare on Elm Street and its knife-fingered star.
Producers United’s Policy Revisions Embraced By Warner Bros Discovery, Disney, Paramount, Universal & HBO; Changes In Fee Structure & Healthcare Will Help Career Producers Survive (via Mike Fleming for Deadline)
Quickly made strides for the new producers collective.
How to Compose a More Chaotic Film Score (via Darren Fung for No Film School)
The art of “f*cking up the sounds” of your movie score.
Has Winnipeg’s Greatest Filmmaker Gone Hollywood? (via Mark Binelli for The New York Times Magazine)
Canadian auteur Guy Maddin on debuting Rumours, his highest-profile film yet.
Want to Be a Horror Director? Upload Your Movie to YouTube (via Aaron Couch for The Hollywood Reporter)
How upstart indie directors are paving their way by posting their content online.
From Hundreds of Beavers to The Graduates, the Future of Indie Film Is Microdistribution (via Brian Welk for IndieWire)
Thinking small for your theatrical release.
In case you were ignoring us (aka blatant self-promotion)
Film Independent Forum 2024 Highlights
Recapping this year’s filmmaker networking event, featuring SAGindie and Esterseals’ The New Wave Actors.
The Gotham Awards 2024 Nominees
The films, filmmakers, and actors up for the season’s first big awards show.
Videos worth watching
Boo! The history of horror movie jump scares (via Vanity Fair)
How ’bout you? Read anything good this month?
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If you’re an independent filmmaker or know of an independent film-related topic we should write about, email blogadmin@sagindie.org for consideration.
