6300 Results for “Open ”
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Leitner’s Mondo NAB, Part 3: SSD, Tapes and Storage
Originally posted April 2011. At back-to-back press conferences prior to the opening of NAB’s show floor, both Panasonic and Sony acknowledged the still-unfolding natural disaster in Japan and asked that our thoughts be with the Japanese people. Sony added that despite critical damage to its media plant in Sendai, supplies of HDCAM-SR tape would return to normal by June. Sony’s Sendai Technology Center (which I’ve visited) practically invented the high-performance tapes necessary to DV and HDV (metal evaporated) and HDCAM-SR (metal particle), and still manufactures a preponderance of them. Having persuaded both film and television industries to adopt HDCAM-SR as […]
by David Leitner on Nov 27, 2011 -
Leitner’s Mondo NAB, Part 1
Originally posted April 2011. The big NAB show in Las Vegas opened Monday, and I’ll be filing reports for Filmmaker’s readers at the end of every day through Thursday, when the show floor closes. For those unfamiliar with NAB, it stands for National Association of Broadcasters, a powerful trade association and influential Washington lobby, no bastion of progressive politics. But for filmmakers and indie producers, it also stands for the huge annual April trade show in Vegas, where the latest in cameras, lenses, recorders, lighting, audio, and all manner of production gear are introduced. TV execs, techies, DPs, and crew […]
by David Leitner on Nov 27, 2011 -
IFP GOTHAM AWARDS: A GREAT RUN FOR “GIRLFRIEND”
I was on my way back to the U.S. after spending a week in Belgium for the 2011 Ghent International Film Festival, where my first feature film Girlfriend had screened in the World Cinema section. My week in Ghent was spent seeing many of the great festival films of the year, eating Belgian chocolate, waffles, and enjoying all the different beer varieties the country proudly offers. In the Mariott elevator I met my favorite foreign filmmaker of the moment – Andrei Zvyagintsev, whose new film Elena ended up winning the festival. I knew Ghent was likely going to be our […]
by Justin Lerner on Nov 26, 2011 -
The Storm Within: Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter
Originally published in the Fall 2011 issue. Take Shelter is nominated for Best Feature and Best Ensemble. As I write this introduction the financial press is buzzing about the BBC appearance of a trader, Allesio Rostani, who flatly stated, “I’m dreaming of a global recession.” He says he hopes — and expects — the world economy to crash. If it does, he’ll make a lot of money because he’s short the Euro and various European government bonds. There’s speculation that he’s a member of the political prankster group the Yes Men, not because of the substance of his commentary (there […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2011 -
Michel Hazanavicus, The Artist
Remarkably, given the decibel-raising, sensorial overkill of our current mainstream film culture, Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist—an exuberantly charming black-and-white silent melodrama about the birth of the talkies—is finding a foothold in awards season thanks to a Best Actor win at Cannes for French star Jean Dujardin, effervescent word of mouth, and the mighty muscle of the Harvey Weinstein machine. Hazanavicius, a onetime gag man for a TV comedy troupe and writer-director of the nutty James Bond spoofs OSS 117: A Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, conceived of the film as a formal experiment that would […]
by Damon Smith on Nov 25, 2011 -
LOST IN AMERICA: KELLY REICHARDT’S “MEEK’S CUTOFF”
Originally published in the Winter 2011 issue. Meek’s Cutoff is nominated for Best Feature. Before you see the first image of Meek’s Cutoff, you hear the film. Simultaneously swelling is the whoosh of rushing water and Jeff Grace’s unnerving, anxious score, which sounds like strings on guitar played backwards. Imagine a rusty fence gate slowly opening. That’s your invitation to the film. Then a title card — hand-stitched on what looks like the potato-sack material used to cover a wagon — announces that we’re in Oregon, and the year: 1845. This happens quickly, in less than 20 seconds, but by […]
by James Ponsoldt on Nov 23, 2011 -
WATCH GARY OLDMAN DISCUSS “TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY”
At the Gotham Awards next Monday night, IFP is honoring actor Gary Oldman with a career tribute. Oldman’s thirty-year acting career has included memorable performances in Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy, Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, Oliver Stone’s JFK, and, more recently, the Batman and Harry Potter franchises. Oldman’s latest is Tailor, Tinker, Soldier Spy, an adaptation of the 1974 British spy novel by John le Carre. In this interview from Lovefilm.com, Oldman discusses working with costars Colin Firth, John Hurt, and Tom Hardy. And check out this clip from the film, in which the head of the British foreign intelligence […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Nov 22, 2011 -
What Lies Beneath: David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method
Originally published in the Fall 2011 issue. David Cronenberg is a Tribute honoree at this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards. A Dangerous Method opens in theaters Nov. 23. David Cronenberg’s new film A Dangerous Method is a period piece dealing with the personal and historical relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly). It’s a work that in some ways feels out of place in the Canadian filmmaker’s filmography, and in other ways, perfectly Cronenbergian. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton (who also penned a stage play from which this was developed) is meticulously […]
by Peter Bowen on Nov 22, 2011 -
Gerard Ravel and the Super 8 Festival that Launched J.J. Abrams
In Super 8, writer/director J.J. Abrams (pictured) tells the story of a group of adolescent filmmakers in a small Ohio town whose big dream is to get their film into the fictional Cleveland International Super 8 Film Festival. The film never shows us if their movie makes it — the kids are sidetracked by an alien invasion, after all — but in real life Abrams was part of a real life band of teen filmmakers showcased at a festival titled “The Best Teen Super 8mm Films of ’81.” Held at L.A.’s Nuart Theater in March 1982, it helped launch the […]
by Todd Longwell on Nov 22, 2011 -
GUS VAN SANT CHATS WITH MIKE MILLS ABOUT “BEGINNERS”
Originally published in the Spring 2011 issue. Beginners is nominated for Best Feature and Best Ensemble. “There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.”–Rainer Maria Rilke About the three characters in Mike Mills’s altogether winning second feature — Oliver, a sensitive yet romantically challenged graphic designer in his mid-30s (Ewan McGregor); Anna, a beautiful, single French actress (Melanie Laurent); and the designer’s father, Hal, a retired museum director and widower in his 70s, who has just come out of the closet (Christopher Plummer) — the film’s title, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 21, 2011
