Jason Kohn says he didn't make Manda Bala in order to raise awareness of poverty, or to effect change in Brazil. He says he made it more to challenge what he saw as hopelessly mundane, limiting ideas about what documentary films could and should be.... »
He's not exactly a household name, but movie buffs know Wong Kar Wai as one of the most distinctive stylists working in film today. F&V asked him about his first time working in the U.S., why digital cinema is "too perfect," and the future of film-watching.... »
Building out storage and rendering power for Hollywood projects at a new facility in Santa Monica, PostWorks executives think they see the future of the high-end television pipeline — and it looks a lot like a feature-film DI workflow. The proof of concept is its recent implementation of a datacentric, largely tapeless workflow for the five-nights-a-week HBO series, In Treatment.... »
“Our Final Cut workflow wasn’t just about saving money and being more efficient—which we were in a big way—but about how creative and humane a cutting room and post process can actually be in today’s environment.”... »
Fight for Life focused on the body’s ability to fight life-threatening health issues from infancy through old age, and Jellyfish’s work enabled producers to go into the body to examine trauma, all the way to the microscopic level.... »
Visual effects house Framestore NY has created large feathered creatures before in feature films but the CG pigeons in this spot for FedEx had to be done in a fraction of the time, and still wow an audience watching the Super Bowl in HD. ... »
“When I first read the script for Semi-Pro, I was struck by the very intelligent story, and that made me laugh out loud every other line,” recalls Shane Hurlbut, ASC. Simultaneously, I was envisioning a look, including textures and colors that evoked the appropriate feelings for this story.”... »
Many recent American documentaries have downplayed cinema's aesthetic possibilities, but Laura Dunn's The Unforeseen (opening in limited release this week and screening on the Sundance Channel later this year) plays out its environmentalist politics by honoring the beauty of the nature threatened by unchecked land development in Austin. Focusing on developer Gary Bradley and the threat his plans pose to Barton Springs, a natural spring-fed pool, Dunn combines a variety of textures, from new footage shot on HD video and Super-16 to TV news footage dating back to the '70s. Executive produced by Terrence Malick, it shows his influence everywhere. Not content merely to luxuriate in gorgeous imagery, The Unforeseen describes the battle between liberal and conservative activists in Texas and offers a surprisingly sympathetic character study of Bradley.... »
Be Kind Rewind gradually evolves into a utopian celebration of DIY, community-based filmmaking, as Mike and Jerry turn from remakes to a film about jazz pianist Fats Waller. You're not likely to see a studio release with a more irreverent attitude towards using copyrighted material as a springboard for original creativity.... »
On the indie film 3 Days Gone there were several road bumps along the way, from the camera inexplicably shutting down on set to the r3dcode codec crashing their Final Cut system. Hear from the director, cinematographer and editor about how they dealt with all these issues.... »
Rhinofx used 2D and 3D techniques to place CG versions of 2008-model cars into the spots, replacing the original live-action elements depicting the 2007 models.... »
Fox Sports Creative Directors Mark Denyer-Simmons and Jason Scott oversaw a promo piece for Fox's coverage of the 2008 NASCAR season that revs up viewers by depicting a race set inside a massive, city-sized engine.... »
"It is about people becoming reporters," director George Romero says. "I guess there's a collective subconscious. You've got Redacted, you've got Cloverfield, you've got Vantage Point. Everybody seems to be aware of this camera that's on us. It's like, 'I am a camera.' Everybody's a camera these days."... »
Technical supervisor Clark Graff devised a tapeless workflow for Captain Abu Raed, a Jordanian film produced by GigaPix Studios (Chatsworth, CA) that played in competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, using custom-built digital film recorders both to capture footage from the production’s Arriflex D-20 cameras and to conform the feature using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3.... »
