Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: A Brief History of Motion Capture’s Past and Present
With Robert Zemeckis back in the live-action world and James Cameron taking his time to gear up Avatars 2-4, there’s not been much discussion lately of motion capture. That doesn’t mean it’s gone away, and this video from Vice’s The Creator Project is a nicely succinct overview of what motion capture’s evolved from and where it’s going next; the participation of the technicians behind the technology is a big plus. The baby project described and shown at the end may just be the one that crosses the uncanny valley.
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Watch: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach Fundraise for Orson Welles’ Final Film
You’ve probably heard about the latest push to finally produce a finished, edited version of Orson Welles’ uncompleted final film, The Other Side of the Wind. In support of an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach have taped a video message urging you to just contribute already. Unusually for the famously controlling Anderson, he appears to have shot the video handheld selfie style.
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Watch: Bill Murray on David Letterman’s First NBC Show, 1982
Given the overwhelming surplus of articles about David Letterman’s retirement, career and final show tonight, there barely needs to be anything said here. Bill Murray was the guest on last night’s penultimate show, which is fitting, as he was the first guest on Letterman’s first NBC show in 1982. They antagonized each other, watched a panda video and then Murray performed Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical,” which is basically everything you need for good television.
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“Olivia Can Fly”: Oscar Sharp on The Kármán Line
A BAFTA nominee, Oscar Sharp’s The Kármán Line tells the unusual tale of Sarah (Olivia Colman), who inexplicably begins to levitate in her living room, showing no signs of slowing down, not even as she breaches the atmosphere above her very roof. A rich tonal brew, the film is also a showcase for some seamless visual effects as Sarah moves through floors and the sky alike. Since The Kármán Line premiered at SXSW, Sharp signed with Tobey Maguire’s Mental Pictures and is in development on a sci-fi feature. You can watch the short, now streaming in The New Yorker‘s Screening Room, above, and hear from […]
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Trailer Watch: Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack
In our current print issue, Approaching the Elephant director Amanda Wilder interviews Crystal Moselle about her Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner The Wolfpack, and how she went about navigating the reclusive existence of the Lower East Side Angulo brothers. You can check out the first trailer, which displays a head-scratching R rating from the MPAA, above. Magnolia Pictures will release the film on June 12.
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Trailer Watch: Arabian Nights, The Three-Part, Six-Hour Follow-Up to Tabu
Miguel Gomes — the wildly talented director of Tabu and Our Beloved Month of August — will be premiering his new film at Cannes. Technically, Arabian Nights might be considered three separate films, since it’s six hours long and in three volumes. As The New York Times‘ Rachel Donadio explained in a fine profile last year, the film examines the Portuguese recession and its fallout on citizens through a dozen stories. The trailer is lively.
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Short Film: ornana’s All Your Favorite Shows
ornana’s latest short form outing, All Your Favorite Shows, might just be my favorite yet. Length notwithstanding, it features some of the most exacting and exhilarating editing you’re likely to see anytime in the near future, as it seamlessly shifts from film clips to Danny Madden’s original animation in the blink of an eye. I asked Madden to elaborate on his collaboration with editor Mari Walker in designing the film and stringing together its “found imagery”: The clip selection began at the storyboards. I laid out these high energy action moments that followed as many modern film and television tropes as I could […]
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Watch: 69 Ways to Break the Fourth Wall
A couple of years ago, Leigh Singer shared a supercut of 54 instances of the fourth wall being broken. Now here’s the sequel, Breaking the 4th Wall II: Break Harder, which assembles another 69 examples. The editorial work done here is above average for this kind of supercut, with extended sections dilating on various films’ tampering with the 20th Century Fox logo across the decades and different varieties of product placement. Anything that allows a segment from Gremlins 2 to speak for itself at extended length is definitely a good thing. As is often the case, hat-tip to Fandor’s David Hudson for the tip.
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Watch: Mel Gibson and George Miller Talk Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, 1985
Given how much public perception of Mel Gibson has shifted in the last 30 years, this 1985 interview with the star and director George Miller is kind of a trip. Sitting down together to discuss/promote Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the duo are first asked to describe each other’s strengths. Gibson says Miller is so focused you could drive nails through his feet while he was working and he wouldn’t notice; for his part, the director says Mad Mel is an actor, not just a “personality.” It’s a relaxed, collegial sitdown. Other highlights: Gibson on getting into a harness and discussing the finer […]
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Watch: Jonathan Rosenbaum on Orson Welles at 100
Today would’ve been Orson Welles’ 100th birthday, so to commemorate here’s a new video essay made by Kevin B. Lee with critic/avowed Wellesian Jonathan Rosenbaum. This clip-heavy overview argues that it’s more productive to think of Welles as a successful independent filmmaker who sometimes used Hollywood equipment rather than a failed prodigy who got himself kicked out of the studio system. Along the way, Rosenbaum touches on Welles’ views on actors, dislike of Antonioni, the way he stages combat scenes as if from a child’s point of view, and much more.
