Disney has a research division, and this video demonstrates something pretty cool they’ve been working on: an algorithm that automatically cuts together footage from multiple cameras. This isn’t entirely a new development: in the video above, the research team compares their results with those obtained using Vyclone, which kind of does the same thing. But Vyclone has trouble sorting footage in an orderly fashion if the camera pans between two separate actions happening in the same area, tending to randomly cut between the two. There are other advantages to Disney’s algorithm, which respects the 180-degree-rule when cutting between multiple sources, […]
With the Chris Marker series underway at BAM this week, it seems like a topical time to share this 2013 rumination on the essay film from Kevin B. Lee. Lee purports that the essay diverges from the rest of cinema in how it “[explores] its subject and at the same time [explores] how it sees its subject.” Words, images and sound interact and inform one another, producing a commentary that is often relegated to the external, or the conscience of the viewer. In his visual discussion of the three pillars of an essay film, Lee draws on Marker’s own Sans Soleil, Godard […]
Not too long ago I was asked to read a script, and when I finished I had one question: what year was this script set in? I wondered because the whole script revolved around people in different cities being completely unable to communicate with each other, to know what was going on in each other’s lives. Yep, this present-day film took place in a world where mobile phones had not been invented. You’d be surprised at how often screenwriters ignore today’s modern means of communication. And not just phones — in order to be truly contemporary, filmmakers must incorporate text […]
Artist, designer and model Daphne Guinness adds music to her CV with this new single, “Evening in Space,” produced by long-time David Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti. The video is directed by photographer and director David LaChappelle and, according to the notes, “features custom fashion by many of Guinness’ favourite houses, including Iris van Herpen and Noritaka Tatehana, alongside pieces from her own celebrated clothing collection.”
Perhaps I’m being contrarian, jaded and/or anti-clickbait, but David Wnendt’s Wetlands isn’t as wildly gross out as it’s cracked up to be. I have a harder time digesting, say, Pink Flamingos. There’s substance behind the film’s good humored gags, coalescing as they do around the liberated but fundamentally unhappy protagonist, Helen. Which brings me to another bargaining chip amongst all its provocations: one of the most enjoyable performances of late, courtesy of the emotionally acrobatic Carla Juri. Brandon Harris and I at least agreed on that in our respective takes from Treefort and SXSW. In any event, Strand Releasing has the film slated for a September 5 release […]
Revisiting the characters and locations of Spike Lee’s classic, Do The Right Thing 25 Year Anniversary: A Beats Music Experience is a 22-minute short documentary just released under the banner of, yes, Apple’s newly acquired Beats Music. Lee, Danny Aiello, production designer Wynn Thomas and others from the film stroll its Bed-Stuy block, recalling moments, interviewing current residents, and trying to remember just which apartment Rosie Perez lived in. Unlike Lee’s recent Old Boy, it’s an official Spike Lee Joint — spirited, not too nostalgic and capped with a block party performance by Public Enemy doing “Fight the Power.” Sadly, […]
“Music supervision is creative and business, married together,” says music supervisor Tracy McKnight in this Variety Artisans roundtable featuring a group of professionals who oversee the use of music in movies. Watch here as McKnight, who has a rich career in both studio and independent film, and a group of colleagues with credits ranging from Boardwalk Empire to Breaking Bad, discuss the dimensions of what can seem to be a mysterious position.
Following the warm reception of Twin Peaks (1990-1991), ABC commissioned a little seen follow-up from Lynch/Frost Productions in 1992 called On the Air. The series was a characteristically off-kilter sitcom about a ’50s television network struggling to rejuvenate their variety spot, The Lester Guy Show. What sounds like a quixotic collision of Network and 30 Rock instead turned out to be an unmitigated disaster: ABC put the ax on On the Air after only three episodes. Still, as cult followings are want to do, the series attracted a cluster of devotees when it screened in its entirety in the UK and Australia. The first (and only) season is now available on YouTube, […]
Here’s a compact instructional video from Eric Stemen, who demonstrates how to pull off a dolly zoom timelapse using some basic gear and software. A dolly zoom timelapse allows for both accelerated views of changing light and some impressive distortions of space; it’s an effect that’s very showy and always gets attention. Stemen’s short video walks you through the surprisingly relatively process of pulling off this expensive-looking trick. Hat tip to our friends at No Film School for spotlighting this video.
In 1987, the late Lauren Bacall paid her last of five visits to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. She had two recently completed movies to talk up, but in the first interview segment above, the actress and host don’t get around to lesser-remembered titles Appointment with Death and Mr. North. Instead, they focused on Katharine Hepburn’s recently published memoir The Making of The African Queen: Or How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, with Bacall telling stories about her time on the set. The clip’s given new resonance today by an […]