IMAX
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“I Tried to Make the Film So Everyone Can Find Their Own Bowie”: Brett Morgen on Moonage Daydream
Documentary innovator Brett Morgen once again pushes the boundaries of creative non-fiction filmmaking with his latest doc, Moonage Daydream. Morgen was given access by the artist’s estate to over five million works in the archive — music, film clips, artwork, musings, interviews, photographs and recordings, some of which have never before been seen or heard. The resulting two hour and 20 minute-long film is a kinetic, sometimes euphoric tribute to Bowie and his multitude of stage personalities, career offshoots, and personal reflections. As with his other archive-based work (Jane, Cobain: Montage of Heck), Morgen’s approach is unconventional. Utilizing some of the alternative forms […]
by Tiffany Pritchard on Sep 15, 2022 -
“We Used the Entire Sensor on the Alexa LF Every Single Time”: DP Greig Fraser on Shooting Dune for IMAX
Before Dune’s initial release, director Denis Villeneuve compared watching the film on a television to driving “a speedboat in your bathtub.” Beginning today, audiences have another chance to take that speedboat out into open water as the sci-fi epic returns to select IMAX theaters for a limited run. Cinematographer Greig Fraser was a bit more diplomatic in his analogy. In the December issue of American Cinematographer, he equated seeing Dune in a cinema to dining at a five-star restaurant vs. getting take-out. Ahead of the IMAX return, Fraser (Rogue One, Killing Them Softly, Zero Dark Thirty) spoke to Filmmaker about […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 3, 2021 -
“IMAX Cameras are Sewing Machines—They are So Loud”: DP Matthew Jensen on Wonder Woman 1984
“You still can’t beat reality,” says Matthew Jensen. That may seem like an incongruous proclamation from the cinematographer of a $200 million superhero spectacle that concludes with a flying goddess facing off against a half human/half cheetah. But instead of simply shooting the film’s opening Amazon Olympics flashback in a greenscreen wonderland, Jensen headed to Spain’s Canary Islands and put 10-year-old actress Lilly Aspell (as a young Diana Prince) on horseback on an IMAX-rigged process trailer. Instead of digitally returning a gutted Virginia mall to all its 1980s glory, the Wonder Woman team rebuilt more than 60 period stores. And for […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 22, 2021 -
All the Magician’s Tricks: DP Brandon Trost on The Disaster Artist
In Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, Jason Schwartzman plays a precocious prep school student whose interests include staging age-inappropriate plays like Serpico. Rushmore’s crew had its own precocious teenager in 16-year-old Brandon Trost, who worked on the film as an assistant to his dad/special effects coordinator, Ron. “I grew up on set with my dad. I’ve never had a job outside of the film industry,” said Trost, who was working on set by the age of 12. “You would think that growing up in movies would ruin the magic for you, because you know everything that goes into putting a movie together. But […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 19, 2017 -
How to Appreciate the Techno-Aesthetic Breakthroughs of Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Tonight, Friday, October 14, 2016, the Film Society of Lincoln Center makes cinema history with the New York Film Festival’s world premiere of Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, presented at the 600-seat AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 IMAX theater on its 100-foot-wide screen, the largest in North America. The brief on this technological milestone? Images shot and projected at 120 fps, dual 4K RGB laser projectors that display wide color gamut and high dynamic range, bright RealD 3D, 12-channel audio with overhead speakers plus sub-bass. Talk about immersive! And what of the film itself? Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime […]
by David Leitner on Oct 14, 2016 -
Teaching Immersion and Stereoscopy
The profusion of virtual reality projects showcased at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival is a testament to the fact that the tools and techniques for cinematic storytelling are expanding. Film schools are adapting, often quickly creating new courses that attempt to help students navigate this new frontier. My colleague Eric Hanson, for example, now teaches a course in University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts called “Experiments in Immersive Design.” The course was originally designed to help students understand the history, theory and practice of three-dimensional filmmaking. But under Hanson it has shifted more to incorporate his background and […]
by Holly Willis on Apr 28, 2015 -
“I Wanted to Live in That World From Morning to Evening”: Fyodor Bondarchuk on Stalingrad
Fyodor Bondarchuk’s father Sergei made the 1967 War And Peace, a famously profligate Soviet production with thousands of army soldiers as extras and the biggest budget in the USSR’s history. His son came up through music videos and advertisements, making a splash with 2005’s Afghan War drama The 9th Company. The lavish Stalingrad was shot in two parts, as much as possible in 3D; if nothing else, it’ll go down in a sub-section of film history as Russia’s first IMAX film. It’s a tremendously odd film, the kind of overtly nationalistic take on the WWII battle you’d expect from an […]
by Vadim Rizov on Feb 27, 2014 -
“I’m Envisaging a New Kind of Movie:” SFX Legend Douglas Trumbull on Kubrick, Malick and the Future of Film
Douglas Trumbull has been behind some of cinemas most spectacular special effects. His impressive C.V. includes working on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner and most recently Tree of Life. He also directed Silent Running in 1972 and Brainstorm in 1983, most remembered as the final film appearance of Natalie Wood. He has also been one of cinema’s great pioneers, always pushing technology to its limit, whether that be designing films for World Fairs, making rides for Universal and Luxor Hotels, or simply backing new technologies such as IMAX. Never standing still, the self-proclaimed […]
by Kaleem Aftab on Aug 28, 2013 -
THE NEW HOLLYWOOD
In April, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sent letters of inquiry to four Hollywood’s studios — Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures — informing them that it was investigating their business practices in China. According to Reuters, while neither the SEC, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) nor the individual movie companies would formally discuss the matter, it is assumed that at issue is possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that makes it illegal to make improper payments to foreign officials for business purposes. Such payments are not uncommon in China. Stay […]
by David Rosen on May 10, 2012
