Interviews
Interviews
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Color Grading A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, Part 2: Chris Martin on the Art of the Post-Grade
In this second part on the color grading of the movie A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, Chris Martin of SPY describes his work to complete the final grade, the workflow, and the color look of the picture. Chris is a senior colorist at SPY, a post house in San Francisco that does both commercial and narrative feature work. SPY is a visual effects house, but they also have their own DI theater. SPY has been owned by FotoKem since 2009. The first half of the grading process is described in: Color Grading A Glimpse Inside the […]
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10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Director Ken Loach
Few filmmakers bring to life social issues as vividly as Ken Loach. Whether helming grand historical dramas about family, love and civil war (The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Land and Freedom) or character-driven films detailing the plight of the working class (Kes, Riff-Raff, Sweet Sixteen, Bread and Roses) Loach is a master of creating universal stories that are immensely relatable regardless of time or place. His latest effort, a documentary, The Spirit of ’45, which had its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale, continues the grand tradition with a story as relevant today as it was over half a […]
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Armando Iannucci Talks Veep
Armando Iannucci is a veteran of British comedy who came through the ranks with such luminaries as Steve Coogan and Chris Morris, collaborating with them both on the seminal mock news show The Day Today and with Coogan alone on a number of shows featuring Alan Partridge. Recently, though, writer/director/producer Iannucci has become one of the foremost political satirists, starting with the BBC’s astute, dry Parliamentary mockumentary The Thick of It. That show then spawned a big-screen spin-off, In the Loop, a riotously funny dissection of U.S/U.K. political relations in the buildup to the Iraq War that not only became a major commercial hit but also […]
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Color Grading A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, Part 1: Ryan Bozajian on the Art of the Pre-Grade
Like most motion pictures, Roman Coppola’s latest film, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III was color graded in a DI theater at a post house. Unlike many films, this final grading only took two days; extensive “pre-grading” was done using Resolve Lite at American Zoetrope’s own facilities, while the final grade was performed at SPY using the full version of Resolve. With color grading taking place in two facilities and by two people, the facilities had to work together to calibrate equipment and create a consistent workflow. In part 1 of this series, VFX artist Ryan Bozajian […]
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Tugg Co-Founder Nicolas Gonda on Curators, Brand Ambassadors and Artist Entrepreneurship
Celebrating its first anniversary at SXSW 2013 was Tugg, the web-based, theatrical-on-demand platform that allows movie fans to create their own theatrical events while also providing exhibition opportunities for both studio and indie films. The company used SXSW to launch its new website, which offers greater analytics tools for event promoters, and co-founder Nicolas Gonda was on hand to talk up some of Tugg’s recent milestones. Those include the theatrical run of Honor Flight, a doc about World War 2 veterans that, according to Tugg, scored 56% of its total theatrical box-office via the platform. After a limited theatrical run […]
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Meet the Latest SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 1)
Last year on the Filmmaker website, we ran a series of pieces in which we profiled a group of finalists for the San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant, run through the organization’s Filmmaker360 program. Now there’s a new set of finalists, and we are once again putting the spotlight on all those shortlisted for the grant. JOSEF WLADYKA, MANOS SUCIAS Synopsis: A desperate fisherman and a naive young man embark on a dangerous journey trafficking drugs up the Pacific coast of Colombia. Hidden beneath the waves, they tow a narco-torpedo filled with millions of dollars worth of cocaine. Together they […]
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Sidewalk Traffic: Interview with D.P. Dave Kruta
The last time we spoke to David Kruta [DP David Kruta on Shooting the Movie Concussion], he’d just finished DP’ing the independent movie Concussion, which was directed by Stacie Passon. Concussion went on to become an official selection at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and has secured a distribution deal with The Weinstein Company’s TWC_RADiUS division. Kruta recently talked to us about his latest project, Sidewalk Traffic. Principal photography just ended, and the movie will probably be completed by the end of the year. Filmmaker: What is Sidewalk Traffic? Kruta: Sidewalk Traffic is Anthony Fisher’s first feature film; he’s a […]
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Five Questions with My Brother the Devil Writer/Director Sally El Hosaini
Sally El Hossaini’s My Brother the Devil finally arrives in U.S. theaters on the back of a celebrated festival run that started at Sundance 14 months ago, and continued throughout 2012, as the film picked up prizes not only in Park City but at the Berlin and London Film Festivals and also the British Independent Film Awards. This debut feature from Welsh-Egyptian writer/director El Hosaini, a former documentarian who’s been working in film for many years, is set in the East London neighborhood of Hackney and concerns the relationship between two first generation British Egyptian brothers, gang member Rashid (James Floyd) and […]
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Ana Piterbarg on Everybody Has a Plan
A self-assured feature debut from Argentine writer/director Ana Piterbarg, the moody identity-swap thriller Everyone Has a Plan features a remarkable turn by Viggo Mortensen, working in Spanish, as both Agustín, a preternaturally depressed Buenos Aires physician, and Agustín’s identical twin Pedro, a rural beekeeper who suddenly shows up at Agustín’s, dying of cancer and suggesting euthanasia. Seeking a way out of his staid, bourgeoise existence, defined by his unwillingness to adopt a child with his seemingly long-suffering wife, Agustín chooses to take his brother’s place, relocating to the Tigre delta, an evocative and historically rich backwater where Pedro lived. After assuming the dead […]
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Production Design on a Budget
On small budget productions, coming up with locations can be a challenge – especially if you need something a bit unusual. An upcoming music video for the band Run 8 Rider required that a single location represent three different time periods to tell its story. Using a borrowed house as the location, director Sean Meehan turned to production designer Riley Fearon to supervise the transformation of the location. In this interview Riley talks about the challenges of working on a small budget, how he approaches production design, and how he came to the field. Filmmaker: For this project what have […]
