Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: How to Build a Beach on a Soundstage (for A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence)
How precisely does one go about building an entire beach on a soundstage? That’s one of the many challenges posed by master Swedish director Roy Andersson’s regular working method, which involves constructing meticulous sets to stage his mordant tableaux and droll takes on despair and death. This brief video shows his crew building a beach from the ground up — not a photo-realistic set, but pretty close, complete with meticulous arrangement of sand and one friendly dog roaming around. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence will be released here next year by Magnolia Pictures.
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Watch: Film Noir as a Subversion of Melodrama
Noir is a “challenge to dominant values,” according to critic Peter Labuza in this concise visual essay on one of cinephiles’ favorite “modes.” Bridging The Classical Hollywood Cinema with the writings of Linda Williams, Labuza considers film noir as a method of subverting the building blocks of melodrama, thus imbuing its viewers with a “feeling of displacement.” Perhaps most disorienting is that in everything from Mildred Pierce to My Name is Julia Ross, there is no weepy sense of satisfaction for the taking.
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Afternoon Smackdown: Pre-Vis’ing a Fight Scene
Action cinematographer Lawrence Ribeiro forwards this short video of an afternoon’s work — literally. Below, he explains how, with a camera and two top stuntmen, he can mock-up a dynamic fight scene. From Ribeiro: Here’s a chase and fight sequence we shot, in five hours, using two top stunt professionals and one camera. In 2nd unit, we’d consider this type of shooting a level above pre-visualization (previs). Previs is a critical tool for designing action sequences. Sometimes all a script will say is, “…and they fight.” So videos like this allow us to experiment with choreography, and save time and […]
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See No Evil 2 Directors The Soska Sisters on Collaborative Directing
In the upcoming issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson writes about directors who work in pairs. Robinson’s focus is on how two directors is better than one when it comes to navigating the development and financial aspects of being a director, and she surveys a number of them on how they structure their work. But then there’s the also the basic question: how do they actually do it? Is everything discussed jointly? Does one talk to the actors and the other direct the camera? Is one more dominant in production and the other in post? In this short clip, Jen and […]
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Watch: How to Create a Forced Perspective
Distance from Camera x Scale of Model=Distance between Foregrounded Model and Background. That simple bit of arithmetic, as illustrated in the latest Shanks FX episode, is all you need to achieve an accurate “forced perspective.” The technique, recognizable from Back to the Future and myriad 80’s blockbusters, allows for the manipulation of objects to appear larger/smaller or farther/closer than they actually are. In other words, it’s VFX done on the (relative) cheap.
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Watch: LG’s 34-Inch 21:9 34UC97 Curved Monitor Provides More Pixel Power without Color Shift (Sponsored Post)
The following is a sponsored editorial post from LG. For editors looking to limit the number of screens they’re looking at, LG’s 21:9 ratio 34UC97 monitor is an exciting new option. At 34 inches wide with QHD resolution of 3440×1440, the 34UC97 provides 2.4 times more pixel power than a 16:9 monitor with full HD resolution. Editors worried about the color shift that can occur on the edges of ultrawide monitors won’t have that problem with the 34UC97, whose IPS panel is specifically designed to prevent color inconsistencies at the corners caused by VA monitors. That means you don’t have […]
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Watch: New Beverly Ex-Manager Julia Marchese’s Documentary on 35mm and Rep Cinema
For many years one of the public faces of Los Angeles’ New Beverly Cinema, today Julia Marchese posted an unnerving account of her experience since Quentin Tarantino became the theater’s owner and programmer. It’s worth reading in full, but the gist is that Tarantino’s team put inexplicably tight social media muzzles on all staff and effectively fired (“demoted”) Marchese less than two weeks after her promotion to a managerial role. In short: her hopes dashed for a New Beverly 35mm premiere of her documentary Out of Print — about the importance of 35mm repertory cinema in general and the theater […]
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Watch: The Art of Terrence Malick’s Voiceovers
They’re a tricky thing, voiceovers, and arguably no one utilizes them as frequently and as effectively as Terrence Malick. Where many filmmakers deploy them as an expository device, Malick allows voiceovers to deepen his characters’ perspectives through literal and abstract observations. This video essay from Kevin B. Lee and Scott Tobias at the Dissolve analyzes the evolution of voiceovers in Malick’s films, from a young Sissy Spacek and Linda Manz in Badlands and Days of Heaven to the layered choruses of The Tree of Life and To The Wonder.
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Watch: Seven Ways to Hide Lavalier Microphones
This video has been up for a while, but it serves well as a primer for the inexperienced on how to conceal lavalier microphones. With the opening warning that you’re better off not doing that at all, video expert/enthusiast Izzy Hyman demonstrates seven ways to conceal a lavalier microphone on your person while keeping it from making distracting crackling sounds when it brushes against fabric. Starting with a button-down shirt and tie for extra concealment options, he eventually strips down to a t-shirt to show that even there, hiding the mic is possible. Thanks to No Film School for the […]
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Watch: Gone Girl‘s Post-Production Team on their All Adobe Workflow
The video’s issued by Adobe itself, so take the endorsements contained therein with more than a few grains of salt. Still, for those interested in David Fincher’s ever-evolving post-production process, here’s a little over five minutes of his Gone Girl post-production team talking about their all-Adobe workflow. The big takeaway is how this integrated workflow has made it easier to incorporate f/x into the image sooner rather than later, eliminating the sprawl of coordinating efforts from special effects houses spread out all over and accelerating everybody’s timeline.
