“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.
Here’s a clip from A.J. Edwards’ feature debut, The Better Angels, which opens November 7th. Edwards has been part of the Terrence Malick team since 2005, when he was an editorial intern on The New World and camera operator for the making of, and critics haven’t been slow to pick up on his mentor’s voice inflecting his feature debut. The Better Angels focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s childhood years, and in this clip you can see Malick’s influence in about five seconds: the Steadicam camera tracks relentlessly through the forest as young Abe arrives at his new log cabin home in […]
“Lenses are extremely delicate and have to be handled carefully, just like they are alive,” a Fuji factory worker says in this video from the company that will walk you through the entire process of making XF series lenses. All the steps are briefly touched upon, from mold pressing to coating, lens barrel processing, surface finishing, assembling, measuring, engraving, and finally packaging and shipping. Process and gear junkies, this one’s for you.
Premiering at DOC NYC is Monsieur Le President,” a film by New York-based visual artist, photographer and filmmaker Victoria Campbell. Check out the trailer above and the DOC NYC description below: Volunteering in Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, Victoria Campbell encounters Gaston, a charming voodoo priest who shows leadership during the emergency, and later manages to open a small, much-needed medical clinic with the support of a foreign funder. He becomes a local hero, a symbol of ingenuity in defiance of the failure of conventional relief efforts. Over three years, he also becomes the filmmaker’s […]
Charles Atlas’ documentary Turning captures Antony and the Johnsons on tour in Europe in 2006, when the band was only part of the visual equation. Opposite Antony, 13 different women took the stage, revolving and acting out counterpoint emotions with their bodies. In this clip we have performance artist Johanna Constantine, an old friend of Antony’s since his first year at university. Turning hits DVD, CD and digital release on November 11 from Secretly Canadian.
The School Project is a series of six, 10-minute documentary video pieces about the Chicago Public School system following the closure of 49 schools. It’s also an unprecedented collaboration between five of the city’s top documentary production companies. The first episode premiered today, and it can be watched above. Below is the statement from the five companies — Free Spirit Media, Media Process Group, Kartemquin Films, Kindling Group. and Siskel/Jacobs Productions — about their reasons for this collaboration. Statement on The School Project Collaboration The School Project is an unprecedented, collaborative, multiplatform documentary series on public education in Chicago. The […]
Here’s a high recommendation: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the debut feature from 2014 25 New Face Ana Lily Amirpour. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is an astonishing debut feature that contains the dark beauty of old-school vampire films, the cool rigor of the Iranian New Wave, and the culturally aware wit of someone with killer taste in music and movies,” is what I wrote in my profile of Amirpour this summer. Now, the film is set for release next month via VICE and Kino Lorber. And Amirpour has been nominated for the 2014 IFP Gotham […]
Producer and screenwriter James Schamus hardly needs another skill set to add to his CV, but let’s go ahead anyway and add “economic commentator” following the premiere of his engaging, witty and nicely analytical two-part, “That Film About Money,” for the 20-episode We the Economy series. Premiering this week online, We the Economy is a collaboration between Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan. (Disclosure: I’m on the Advisory Board of Cinelan.) The series features filmmakers — both documentarians and fiction directors — tackling, in bite-size form, questions surrounding the workings of our global economy and financial markets. For […]
Accompanying the first track of the anticipated collaboration, Soused, between avant-garde crooner Scott Walker and sludgy noisemeisters Sunn O))) is an arresting short film by French director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne. Walker’s music — with or without Sunn O))) — is the stuff of waking nightmares, and Vienne’s dream-like film matches it fuzzed-out chord by fuzzed-out chord. A house in the mountains, a blonde-tressed woman moving in slow-motion epilepsy; a teenage boy (her son?) locked in tremulous horror; a car crash?; and a sudden appearance by French novelist, theater artist and dominatrix Catherine Robbe-Grillet… it’s eerie, disquieting, and, with its […]
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.