Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Ridley Scott Teases Prometheus with TED Talk from the Future
Now this is transmedia! Ridley Scott has created a TED Talk from the future for his forthcoming Prometheus. (Actually, here are the credits: “Conceived and designed by Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof and directed by Luke Scott.”) The talk is by “Peter Heyland,” who looks quite a bit like Guy Pearce and is introduced on the TED page like this: Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade. Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to […]
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This Is Not A Film — A Hammer to Nail Review
(This Is Not A Film begins a two-week engagement at Film Forum today, courtesy of Palisades Tartan. The movie will then open in other U.S. locations, starting with Los Angeles in early March. Go to the film’s website for details.) For those unfamiliar with the backstory: Jafar Panahi, one of Iran’s most acclaimed directors (The White Balloon, The Circle, Crimson Gold, Offside), was arrested in 2009. A known supporter of the opposition movement, Panahi was charged with “activity against national security and propaganda activities against the regime.” Despite domestic and international outpourings of support, he was sentenced in 2010 to […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #84
Second #3948, 65:48 “Can a photograph be lonely?” is a question asked in Don DeLillo’s novel Libra. Another version of the question might go, “Can a photograph make a person lonely?” How about a movie frame? How deep can loneliness get, at 24 frames per second? What follows, below, is a visual descent into loneliness, just under two seconds in movie time. It happens so quickly in movies, moments like this. We remember them not frame-by-frame, but decompressed, stretching out and out, a kiss that lasts forever. A kiss that, in our memory, takes up more film time than it […]
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Festival Cinematography Notes: Of Sundance, Berlin and the Canon 5D
Blogging from last year’s Sundance I wrote that “if I could give an award to the camera delivering the most impact on screen at Sundance 2011, it would go to RED One.” That was then. In the 12 months since, ARRI’s Alexa has all but conquered TV series production in the U.S., and now you can add a dozen low-budget indie films at Sundance too, like the bittersweet romcom Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg and photographed by David Lanzenberg. Sony’s new budget-friendly F3 made a splash at Sundance as well, responsible for Spike Lee’s Red […]
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FILMMAKER READERS RECEIVE DISCOUNT TO ONLINE SCREENING OF “RETURN”
The IFP and Focus World are hosting a screening of the highly recommended drama Return, by Liza Johnson, on the online screening platform Constellation tonight. Filmmaker readers receive 25% off, and Johnson will be participating in a post-screening Q&A. From last week’s newsletter, here are the details. (And if you haven’t subscribed to our newsletter, why not? It’s free, and I write something special for it most weeks.) On the heels of its theatrical release earlier this month, IFP will be co-presenting with Focus World a special interactive screening of the feature film Return on Tuesday, February 28th – presented […]
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MEDIA CURRENT: BRUISED APPLE
The shine on Apple’s corporate identity has been tarnished. For a period following Steve Jobs’ death after a long bout with pancreatic cancer, the company was in a national media halo, celebrated for its innovative technology as much for its stock performance. As indies long knew, the iMac and Final Cut Pro editing software revolutionized movie making. However, a January 2012 in-depth New York Times exposé about Apple’s manufacturing practices in China undercut the Jobs halo and gave the company a black eye. The report on its Chinese manufacturer, Foxconn, exposed Apple’s questionable business practices as well as those of […]
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NATIONAL FILM SOCIETY HOSTS PBS ONLINE FILM FESTIVAL
Wow, that was quick. At Filmmaker we’re used to spotting and promoting young filmmaking talent and, within a few years, seeing them graduate to studio blockbusters whose press screenings we aren’t invited to. But when we partnered this Sundance with the nascent National Film Society, we figured we had at least 24 months before they busted out of this joint. Just five weeks after we ran the National Film Society’s Park City spots, though, the duo of Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco have gone network…. Well, they’ve gone PBS, and that’s a network in our book. From February 27 – […]
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RECAPPING THE 27TH ANNUAL FILM INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS
Actress Penelope Ann Miller took the stage early at the 27th Film Independent Spirit Awards to accept the first of four awards Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist would receive Saturday afternoon. It was for cinematography, and when it was announced d.p. Guillaume Schiffman was on a plane to Los Angeles along with the rest of the film’s contingent following their wins (six awards, including French Film of the Year) at France’s Cesars just a night before. (Befitting a movie that traffics in self-aware nostalgia, The Artist was shot on film, not digitally, although it was lensed in color and converted to […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #83 (Part 2)
Second #3901, 65:01 (pt. 2) And so, for the first time in this project, two posts on the same frame. Why? Most of all, it’s because of the brown, paneled wall to Sandy’s left. A wall where you think a window ought to be. Why do you think this? What gives rise to the suspicion that a wall artificially covers (hides) a window? Probably because it’s linked to the first time Sandy and Jeffrey were together at Arlene’s (covered in post #25). Even though it’s possible that they are simply at a different booth, one framed by a wall and […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #83 (Part 1)
Second #3901, 65:01 1. Jeffrey: “I’m seeing something that was always hidden.” 2. J. G. Ballard, from Concrete Island, 1974: When he reached the embankment and searched for the message he had scrawled on the white flank of the caisson, he found that all the letters had been obliterated. 3. André Breton, from “Manifesto of Surrealism,” 1924: Under the pretense of civilization an progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, or fancy . . . It was, apparently, by pure chance that a part of our mental world which […]
