Due to the popularity of our recent article, Prescreen: Where They Came From and Where They Are Going by Jordan Poast, Chicago DIY Film would like to show our appreciation by offering all of our readers a free movie, compliments of the folks at Prescreen. Check it out! Finding Joe A film by Patrick Takaya [...]
Now in its fourth year, the Talking Pictures Festival takes place from March 8-11, 2012 at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and the Evanston Public Library. The Festival is organized by the non-profit Percolator Films and celebrates the vibrant, diverse and unique stories that independent cinema has to offer. The [...]
Update: As of 3/1/12, Chicago DIY Film is being spun off as a separate, non-monetized site. Up until then, it was a part of the Chicago Art Machine network and subsidized by the network (and consulting service arm). Kathryn Born was at the helm of the network and Robin Dluzen largely ran the editorial and [...]
Jordan Poast Independent filmmakers are all too familiar with anxiety. For most, the predominant fear lies in being unable to secure funds to produce their masterpieces. Yet for those that are fortunate enough to have a finished product, the nightmare rests entirely in distribution. Failing to acquire it means the death of the film, which [...]
Laura Zinger Funding. That’s it. That’s what I’ve narrowed down as the very real complication of being an independent filmmaker. Don’t agree? Then please tell me how you are able to hold down a job to pay your bills as well as make enough cash overflow to fund your next feature? Grants? Trust Fund? Parents? [...]
Award Winning Chicago animator, Jim Trainor’s “The Moschops” articulates his interest in documentary film, and the grimmer qualities of nature. Exploring animals’ interior processes, the director delights in illustrating the divide between bestial instinct, and human emotion and logic.
Jordan Poast Chicago Animator, Jim Trainor Chicago-area independent animator, Jim Trainor, has established a name for himself as the anti-Disney. Despite a predilection for anthropomorphic animals (Jim’s most popular quartet of shorts have been exhibited under the title The Animals and their Limitations), Jim utilizes none of the elements that were hallmarks for Disney. Rejecting [...]
Megan E. Doherty Mike Houlihan Mike Houlihan is a hard one to keep up with. With a career spanning nearly four decades, he has acted, directed, produced, written and filmed. Oh, and he’s been on the radio, too. On December 13, DIY Film caught up with Houlihan – owner of Mike Houlihan Creative – to [...]
Laura Zinger Yesterday, I received an email from a Chicago Filmmaker asking me if I had any advice on how to go about entering their film into film festivals. Of course, my canned response was WithoutABox.com which makes entering your film into multiple festivals a snap as well as a drain on your checkbook, because festivals, [...]
Terrence Flamm As co-founders of the Chicago-based Corn Bred Films, husband and wife Eric B. Anderson and Amella Dellos spin tales of mismatched lovers, ambitious politicians, serial killers, old school newspaper editors, and zombie-fighting country bumpkins. Anderson and Dellos work together, individually, and with other directors and writers on a wide-range of full-length films, shorts, [...]
