The Grand Budapest Hotel
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“I Don’t Want to Sound Negative About Digital”: DP Robert Yeoman on NAB Show, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Shooting Film
From April 11-16th, more than 100,000 tech heads and industry professionals will descend upon Las Vegas to gorge themselves on the latest cameras, lights and gadgets at the annual NAB Show. Nestled among this digital idolatry, you’ll find at least one psalm to the archaic when cinematographer Robert Yeoman takes the stage to talk the miniatures, stop-motion animation and 35mm photography of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Yeoman will be featured as part of NAB Show’s Creative Master Series on April 13th in a conversation with American Cinematographer managing editor Jon Witmer titled “Checking into The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Sponsored by […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 8, 2015 -
Watch: Melancholy and Loss in The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson’s detractors often delight in taking umbrage with the filmmaker’s “twee” aesthetic, claiming that his formal specificity undermines the emotion his films ought to inspire. This video essay by Matt Zoller Seitz, one in a series adapted from his book The Wes Anderson Collection, dismantles that claim through the lens of The Grand Budapest Hotel, and its myriad melancholic layers of loss and thwarted re-invention. With respect to Zero, Seitz notes that “The most important parts of a story are the parts people omit, the abysses they sidestep,” and how Agatha becomes a vague, distant cypher — both narratively and through Yeoman’s […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 17, 2015 -
Led by Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Complete 2014 Academy Award Nominations
Here’s the full list of the 2015 Academy Award nominees, led, improbably, by Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel with nine apiece. Best Picture American Sniper Birdman Boyhood The Grand Budapest Hotel The Imitation Game Selma The Theory of Everything Whiplash Best Actor Steve Carell, Foxcatcher Bradley Cooper, American Sniper Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game Michael Keaton, Birdman Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything Best Actress Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything Julianne Moore, Still Alice Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl Reese Witherspoon, Wild Best Supporting Actor Robert Duvall, The Judge Ethan Hawke, Boyhood Edward Norton, Birdman Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher J. K. Simmons, Whiplash Best Supporting Actress Patricia Arquette, Boyhood Laura Dern, Wild Keira Knightley, The Imitation […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 15, 2015 -
Watch: Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel Q&A
This post-SXSW screening Q&A for The Grand Budapest Hotel is a few cuts above average. For one thing, Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman and music supervisor Randall Poster get to have Richard Linklater as their moderator, which makes for a higher class of question and a more relaxed rapport between two sympatico filmmakers. Native Texans who’ve both worked with animation, Linklater and Anderson are equally ready to discuss the films of Max Ophuls and which Stefan Zweig books in particular they have or haven’t read. Other highlights: Poster talks about how they arranged to record with a full balalaika orchestra, Anderson […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 4, 2014 -
Let There Be Natural Light
“Fuck it, I’m going for it.” That, says cinematographer Yves Bélanger, was his response when presented with the challenge of shooting Dallas Buyers Club using only natural light. But aided by the ALEXA digital camera and his freewheeling director Jean-Marc Vallée, Bélanger handily shot the entire film without the heavy equipment usually associated with movies starring the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. No tripods, no lighting kits. His only artificial source of illumination: a small Kino Flo he used at the beginning of each day to shoot his color charts to make sure the color balance was correct. […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Apr 28, 2014 -
A Breakdown of the Special Effects in The Grand Budapest Hotel
It’s no surprise that Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel was a technically complicated production, and a video posted this week by VFX house Look Effects, Inc. breaks down exactly how complex putting the movie together was. In a nearly-five-minute reel that can’t be embedded (you should definitely take a look here), a variety of post-production work is highlighted, from color correction of the typically fastidiously coordinated hotel to the mechanics of the dizzying climactic downhill mountain chase. There are surprises big and small, including the amount of physical “snow” used on-set (thereby avoiding the usual hazy look of CGI […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 25, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson’s sensibility has, I suppose, always been somewhat “European,” so it’s not a big stretch for him to be extending his storytelling realm to include one of the great cities of Central Europe in The Grand Budapest Hotel. And he certainly seems to be having fun with this star-studded, 1920s-era romp, which may be the most visually lavish and designed film of his career to date. On the surface, the film looks like a companion piece to Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England, which tackles similar subject matter but with a comic bite and political engagement that […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 17, 2013
