Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Is Shallow Depth-of-Field a Fad?
Most creative arts suffer from trends. Someone does something new or unusual, and suddenly dozens of others are imitating it; just look at Hollywood. Since the arrival of the Canon 5D Mark II, shallow depth-of-field has become almost a fetish. There’s certainly valid reasons to want to have shallow depth-of-field, as filmmaker Stu Maschwitz wrote on his blog: “With a 5D Mark II, its sensor double the size of a motion picture film frame, we can achieve cinematic focus at F4. We can get fetishistically shallow depth of field at F2.8. At F1.2, we can create abstract art in a […]
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It is being released theatrically by Focus Features on 12.09.11.) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy plays out like a long game of chess whose pieces are constantly being moved across the board without ever reaching checkmate. Each of the many players thinks himself a king, but one by one they’re shown to be little more than glorified pawns. The narrative they collectively form is at once dense but fluttering, broken into tiny fragments whose value as clues and signifiers is constantly being called into question and, once thoroughly vetted, reassembled into something […]
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GARY OLDMAN TALKS “TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY” AND HIS LEGENDARY CAREER
In the first of a series of videos we did at this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards, Gary Oldman talks to Filmmaker about his new film, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which opens Fri.) as well as what he’s gotten out of working on franchises like Batman and Harry Potter and why acting still interests him. Oldman was honored with a Tribute Award at this year’s Gothams. See more news and features from nominees and winners here. Coming later this month (and throughout awards season) we’ll have more videos of winners from the Gotham Awards. [jwplayer config=”FM Player” file=”https://filmmakermagazine.com/videos/Gary_Oldman_Final_Cut_640_338.mov” image=”https://filmmakermagazine.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Gary-Oldman-Still-640-x-338.jpg”]
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MEDIA CURRENT: THE SHELL GAME
On December 2, 2011, Verizon Wireless announced a $3.6 billion deal with Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, three leading cable multi-system operators (MSOs). The deal involves Verizon’s purchase of the cable companies’ interest in SpectrumCo, a holding company controlling 122 high-quality wireless licenses. In addition, it called for a reciprocal marketing-and-sales agreement. If approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), it would make Verizon the nation’s largest holder of wireless spectrum reaching 250 million Americans. The deal will essentially end cable’s efforts to offer wireless services. Sadly, it will likely lead to further telecom industry consolidation, increased […]
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IFP Labs: Ten Things Every Filmmaker Should Know About Distribution Deals
I’ll be blogging this week from the 2011 IFP Filmmaker Labs, which are in their third and final session at 92Y Tribeca. This year’s 21 participating documentary and narrative projects, are nearing completion of the grueling post-production process and are now turning their attention towards the marketplace. Things kicked off this morning with a sobering discussion about sales and rights, led by Jon Reiss, co-author of Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul (presented by PreScreen and Area 23, also written by The Film Collaborative and Sherri Candler). Alongside the other lab leaders, Reiss stressed that filmmakers should always use […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #51
Second #51, 39:57 What is this world? Like piecing together a puzzle over an abyss, we are witnessing the scene of a crime conveyed in secret code. We know, of course, that Dorothy will not kill Jeffrey, but somehow this fact only makes matters worse. The murderers and the murdered. In her never-out-of-date book Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern, Anne Friedberg writes that as soon as the photographic negative made possible a standardized image, photography and then cinematography made possible the seeing of exactly the same image(s) over time. Film experiences had an unprecedented repeatability. . . This notion […]
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SUNDANCE 2012 SHORT FILMS LINEUP ANNOUNCED
Below are the titles selected to screen in the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. See films in competition. See films in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT and New Frontier sections. See films in Premieres section. 64 films have been selected from a record 7,675 submissions (up 16% from last year). This year the shorts program will be presented by Yahoo!. Part of their sponsorship includes featuring a select group of shorts from this year on their premium video destination, Yahoo! Screen during the fest. There you will be able to vote on your favorite […]
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AN OBSERVATION IN MARRAKECH: ON “BLACK GOLD”
Sign of the times: A big-budget internationalist action throwback of sorts, one with some of the goofiest, most downright absurd conceits you’ll find all year, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s both intentionally and unintentionally funny Or Noir (Black Gold) will probably never see the light of day in the States. Relegating it to marginal art-house material because of its odd place on the contemporary film mantle, in which it has been deemed simply too silly and conventional for the American art house crowd and too high minded and not award season-worthy enough for the big leagues, Warners is only handling the U.K., Europe and a […]
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SUNDANCE 2012 ANNOUNCE FILMS IN PREMIERES SECTIONS
Announced today are the titles screening in the out-of-competition Premiers and Documentary Premieres sections of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The complete list of films are below. See films in competition. See films in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT and New Frontier sections. Highlights include closing night film The Words, starring Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde and Zoe Saldana; Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s online arts community hitRECord will be showcased and audiences are invited to interact and contribute to the works; films from Julie Delpy, Nicholas Jarecki, Stephen Frears, Josh Radnor, Spike Lee, James Marsh, Joe Berlinger, […]
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Jonathan Yi Talks About The Canon C300
Last week Jonathan Yi posted a video on the web: “Canon EOS C300 = Awesome”. The video, shot with a prototype of the new Canon C300, pokes fun at camera tests, while also demonstrating many of the capabilities of this camera. Though it was originally produced for Canon’s launch event, the video was not posted at that time because, as Jonathan said “Canon, not thrilled with my sense of humor, does not credit or condone this video.” Canon may have underestimated the charm of the video, or the interest in anything related to the C300; to date, the video has […]
