I’m the first to arrive at a panel on “Sexism & the Film Industry” at the inaugural Berlin Art Film Festival in Kreuzberg. As Berliners trickle in at a considerably early 2:00 PM on a Saturday, I notice that the modest audience is all women. I’m reminded of my conflicting feelings about Emma Watson’s recent HeForShe speech at the UN, a campaign to formally invite men to join the feminist movement. Naturally, a conversation about gender inequality without participation from all genders is insufficient. It’s just that the unspoken camaraderie in a room full of women feels somehow appropriate, at […]
I am walking into a play, my most highly anticipated production of the year – Ivo Van Hove’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage at New York Theater Workshop in the East Village. Obviously Bergman is a cinematic legend; he’s also my personal favorite artist. Van Hove’s stage adaptations tend to have a very different aesthetic than the films upon which they are based, but they are colored with the same emotional hysteria that deeply affected me when first watching Persona at the impressionable age of 20. Years later, Persona still takes my breath away. In […]
I am at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice during my very first trip to Los Angeles, feeling appropriately like a Lost Angel. My close friend Marjon has fled New York, not for beachy weekends but for a career opportunity. With our trendy Intelligentsia coffees in tow, we pore over astrological renderings on the back sofas of Mystic Journey, and conversation takes a familiar turn. The Sheryl Sandbergs and Sophia Amorusos of the world may be providing smart macro-level discourse on workplace age, sex, and gender politics, but there’s an equally vital conversation, I am discovering, happening between young women confronting […]
The School Project is a series of six, 10-minute documentary video pieces about the Chicago Public School system following the closure of 49 schools. It’s also an unprecedented collaboration between five of the city’s top documentary production companies. The first episode premiered today, and it can be watched above. Below is the statement from the five companies — Free Spirit Media, Media Process Group, Kartemquin Films, Kindling Group. and Siskel/Jacobs Productions — about their reasons for this collaboration. Statement on The School Project Collaboration The School Project is an unprecedented, collaborative, multiplatform documentary series on public education in Chicago. The […]
Has it been too long since you saw the Trimark pyramid logo? Would you like to revisit an ill-spent vidiot past but you’re in a hurry? This efficiently quasi-nightmarish video exploits the inherent strangeness of logos derived from primitive computer graphics and rudimentary synth tones, layering about 50 such specimens on top of each other. The dual visual and sonic pile-up is hypnotic in a vaguely unnerving way.
The video’s issued by Adobe itself, so take the endorsements contained therein with more than a few grains of salt. Still, for those interested in David Fincher’s ever-evolving post-production process, here’s a little over five minutes of his Gone Girl post-production team talking about their all-Adobe workflow. The big takeaway is how this integrated workflow has made it easier to incorporate f/x into the image sooner rather than later, eliminating the sprawl of coordinating efforts from special effects houses spread out all over and accelerating everybody’s timeline.
If ever there was a city that embraced variety, San Sebastián is surely it. From its wide boulevards and art nouveau buildings, where Spanish royalty took time off in the 19th century, to its Bay of Biscay beaches that see surfers mixing with families and the higgledy-piggledy Old Town, where every bar is groaning under the weight of creative canapes (pintxos), this is a town that celebrates its own strengths while still being open to adventure. The same could be said of its film festival, which just celebrated its 62nd year and fourth edition under the directorship of José Luis […]
I’ve been shooting exclusively with Blackmagic cameras for the past year. Their three primary offerings, the 1080p Pocket Cinema Camera, the 2.5K Cinema Camera, and the 4K Production Camera, to my mind, are the most practical low-cost/high-quality cameras currently available for DIY filmmakers. Are they perfect? No. In fact, many people prefer going with the Panasonic GH4, the new low-light sensation Sony a7S, or even the Canon 5D Mark III. The truth is, there is no perfect camera, just personal preference. There’s always been a specific camera at a specific time that works best for me. In the prehistoric age […]
Director Timothy Woodward Jr. is currently in post-production on Checkmate, an action thriller with supernatural undertones shot using the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K. The movie is expected to be completed by October, and is one of the first features shot with this camera. We spoke to Woodward about shooting with the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, as well as about shooting action sequences and why you shouldn’t “fix it in post.” This is part one of the interview. Filmmaker: Where did the story come from? Woodward: We found the story on a service called InkTip.com. It was very clever. It was well […]
Thunder Funder is the recently announced film production arm of Thunder Studios, a Long Beach, California soundstage and production house, and it’s making a bold play for independent projects. Rodric David, founder and CEO of both Thunder Funder and Thunder Studios, has announced $12 million in annual investment and partnerships with several other companies — post-production services vendor Pace Pictures, Red Digital Cinema and, to handle distribution, indie vet Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales — to bring to independents “all the tools required to present audiences with a film that is truly the best it can be.” A dive […]