Authors — Sarah Salovaara
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Watch: Jodie Mack’s Glistening Thrills
Now online is Glistening Thrills, a short from 25 New Face Jodie Mack, which was selected for this year’s Rotterdam and New York Film Festivals. Scored to the tones of Elliot Cole and shot on 16mm, Glistening Thrills is an textural interrogation of holographic foil, in all its mass produced, nostalgic glory. In an extensive overview of Mack’s oeuvre, Calum Marsh at Fandor writes “in aesthetic terms alone, Glistening Thrills ranks as perhaps her most exhilarating found-object work; its interplay of light and color, often totally hypnotic, produces an effect unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Watch above.
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 6, 2014 -
Watch: Stitching Birdman Together in Post
If I was at all restless during Birdman, it had little to do with the stakes of the plot, and much more to do with deciphering Emmanuel Lubezki’s visual pyrotechnics. Apologies for the spoiler, but you’ve probably heard by now that Iñárritu’s latest is designed to look like one sweeping take, a nod to its theatrical subject matter and setting. The camera ducks in and out of darkness more than once, but surely the technicians in post found points for incision that are barely visible to the naked eye. In this video interview with Variety, the film’s digital intermediate colorist Steve Scott explains […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 5, 2014 -
Men, Women and Children: The 8th Abu Dhabi Film Festival
In Abu Dhabi, it’s easy to let the smoke cozy up to your eyes. The festival, now in its 8th year, unfolds in one of the city’s most dazzling corners, with the mammoth, labyrinthine, five star Emirates Palace as its proverbial hub. Gold dripping from its vending machines and balconies alike, the place is sheer, 11 billion Dirham, stadium sized spectacle. As a festival guest, you are chauffeured from the seaside St. Regis tower to screening venues in a designated Mercedes, which, barring the unwanted sexual advances that come with being a long-haired, white American female, can make you feel […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 4, 2014 -
TWC and the Devaluation of Content
The notion of VOD as a stigmatized, modern update on the straight to video release has gradually and dramatically disbanded in the past handful of years. Day-and-date pioneers like Magnolia and IFC capitalized on the platform’s ability to cater to a wider, cross-country audience, demonstrating its economic viability, if occasionally at the cost of art houses. Though their sister label Radius-TWC has proven exceedingly adroit at the multi-platform rollout, The Weinstein Company has tended towards more multiplex fare, which makes their recent, free pre-theatrical release of One Chance on Yahoo! Screen even more bizarre than it sounds on paper. Originally intended for a 10 day “pre-release,” TWC […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 3, 2014 -
Paul Schrader on the Theatrical Experience, Web Series and the Death of the Three Act Drama
Last night at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, Paul Schrader had a conversation with Marc Schiller, as part of the latter’s Future State of Entertainment Speaker Series. Perhaps more than any other director of his generation, Schrader seems to have embraced the democratic technologies available to today’s filmmakers, between crowdsourcing on The Canyons and his recent intent to make a web series. Indeed, if the protest surrounding his latest film is any indication, he may be done with studios for the foreseeable future. Throughout the two hours, Schrader and Schiller covered a variety of topics, from new technologies to the phasing out of […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 31, 2014 -
Watch: Anatomy of a Gag in Jacques Tati’s PlayTime
In honor of the Criterion release of The Complete Jacques Tati, David Cairns looks at the building blocks of the auteur’s visual gags in PlayTime, his finely choreographed exploration of technology and the modern era. In particular, Cairns examines Tati’s use of reflections and mirror images, as well as the illusion of space, which all play into the rigidity of the film’s expansive set pieces and its fractured narrative.
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 30, 2014 -
Watch: Visualizing Character Choice in Snowpiercer
“How do you show character choice,” wonders Tony Zhou in this abridged version of his popular “Every Frame a Painting” essay series. Void of melodramatic “there’s no turning back” declarations, Zhou points towards Snowpiercer as a film that is constantly conveying its protagonists’ decision making process through right and left camera looks. Just as effective, if not a touch more subtle than its vocalized counterpart. Be forewarned: massive spoilers ahead.
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 29, 2014 -
Ted Hope on the Need for a Sustainable Investor Class
“The best thing we can do as a film industry is make sure that investors earn risk appropriate returns on their money. We need to create a sustainable investor class,” explains Ted Hope in this video interview with Film Courage. In recent years, Hope has shied away from producing as a career, doing it purely out of love for the film while paying the bills as CEO of Fandor. In order to return to the trade full-time, he’d need for there to be guaranteed returns on investments, as it traditionally goes in the realm of startups and finance. The issue, […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 28, 2014 -
Watch: Cinematography in the Films of Martin Scorsese
There’s no particular point of inquiry in this tribute to Martin Scorsese from Alexandre Gasulla, but it nonetheless does a bang-up job of emphasizing what makes the director a master manipulator of camera movements. From his sweeping booms and tracking shots to jarring static lensing, few filmmakers convey the cinematographic agency that Scorsese gets across in a mere handful of moments. Check out the comprehensive tribute above.
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 23, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence
Formally exacting where The Act of Killing was dazzlingly brazen, The Look of Silence is no less staggering of a feat than its talked-about predecessor. Joshua Oppenheimer’s unflinching look at the victims behind the Indonesian genocide will not hit theaters until next Spring, but the documentary continues to ride a nice critical wave from the fall festival circuit, where it picked up the FIPRESCI prize in Venice, amongst other plaudits. I, too, was wowed by the film’s unflinching probe of military and neighborly antagonization at my NYFF viewing, and look forward to revisiting it in the coming months.
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 22, 2014
