It is perhaps indicative of how low-key this year was that when I first scribbled out a list of things that were “big” in 2013 I discovered that half of them were on last year’s list! In many respects 2013 proved to be a year of tentative advances and waiting, rather than one of incredible new tools to play with. Which is not to say that some interesting products weren’t announced and delivered. Sony shipped the F5 & F55, as well as the 4K upgrade for the NEX-FS700, and at the other end of the spectrum Blackmagic shipped its $1,000 […]
by Michael Murie on Dec 31, 2013Daniel Hubbard made a parody of the movie Gravity that has already received a lot of internet attention and over 640,000 views in just four days. The short features two people hopelessly lost in an IKEA store. Hubbard works as a video editor for Broadway.com in New York while studying improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and producing sketches with his group, “sure sure sure.” We asked him to explain how he came up with the idea and how it was shot. Filmmaker: How did you get the idea? Hubbard: I love Gravity, and I thought the trailer was […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 18, 2013Kristyn Ulanday and Max Esposito graduated from the journalism department of Boston University in 2010. They both work commercially as freelance photographers and filmmakers, but in 2011 they also began a collaborative project called Full Frame America to tell the stories they wanted to tell. The first result of that collaboration is a 24-minute documentary, The Druid City, that focuses on the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and how the residents have coped after the town was hit by an EF4 tornado in April 2011. Filmmaker: How did you come to make this movie? Esposito: We both felt like we […]
by Michael Murie on Apr 29, 2013When manufacturers are preparing a new camera for release, they often loan pre-production units to filmmakers in the hope that they’ll make a video the company can use to promote the camera. Such is the case with the Canon C100. Canon loaned the filmmakers of StillMotion two C100 bodies and financed the making of a short video, Pulse. As StillMotion described in their blog post on the making of the video, the idea for the video came from a potential client: We’d recently been approached to make a Kickstarter film for a team who had created a pretty remarkable innovation […]
by Michael Murie on Jan 8, 2013Originally published in the Director Interviews section on Oct. 6, 2011. Hell and Back Again is nominated for Best Documentary. Perhaps the most viscerally harrowing documentary account of the war in Afghanistan yet, Danfung Dennis‘ Hell and Back Again is an intense visual experience, one that with the dynamism and fluidity of a narrative film takes you into the heart of the conflict in this troubled corner of the globe. Dennis, who left behind a career in economics to become a war photographer in the middle of the aughts, focuses on Sargent Nathan Harris, a Marine infantryman in Echo Company […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 15, 2011At her Iva Asks blog, Iva Radivojevic looks at how the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement is inspiring a new protest culture at CUNY. “This is a document about the struggle of students and adjunct faculty at Cuny,” she writes. “This local struggle is part of an international student movement against neoliberal dictatorship. This is only the beginning. The time for action is now.” As she often does, Radivojevic writes on her blog the inspirations for her work. For this new video piece, one influence is a film by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. From the blog: And the latest […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 6, 2011Originally posted in the Web Exclusives section on February 11, 2011. Hell and Back Again is nominated for Best Documentary. “At first my view of war was boyish and romantic,” Danfung Dennis told me in his Brooklyn loft five years after we initially met in Kabul, “but that view of war was based on video games and Hollywood.” In the spring of 2006, Danfung flew from Beijing to Kabul and was driven to the Le Monde Guest House. I remember when he arrived. His clothes were neat, his hair stylish, he wore an easy smile and had soft brown eyes. […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Nov 2, 2011With a hat tip to Photo Cine News, here are clips from two Sundance 2011 prizewinners shot on DSLR cameras. The first, the Grand Jury Prize-winning Like Crazy, was shot on the Canon 7D. (Felicity Jones, featured in this clip, also won a Special Jury Prize for her acting.) The second, Hell and Back Again, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize as well as the World Cinema Cinematography Award. It was shot on the Canon 5D with custom-built rigs. Hell and Back Again clip from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2011Vimeo has launched what they’re calling Vimeo Film School — a collection of online videos walking you through the process of selecting a camera, learning to shoot and take sound, and mastering the next level of technique, like using follow focus and lighting. Here’s one of the early episodes below, in which Philip Bloom shows Andrea Allen the Canon 5D Mark II, the Canon 60D, and the new Panasonic GH2. Watch them all at the link. Introduction to DSLR Cameras with Philip Bloom from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 3, 2011If you think that DSLRs haven’t caught on for filmmakers in a big way yet, think again. Following up a series of Twitter posts by its director, the website Peta Pixel reports that the season finale of House has been shot on the Canon 5D. The site compiles director Greg Yaitanes’ tweets into an impromptu interview (a neat journalistic trick I will make a point to try sometime), including this summation of his experience: “i loved it and feel it’s the future. cameras that can give you these looks.” Check out Peta Pixel for the whole conversation. The episode airs […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 13, 2010