Movie City Indie Archive for May, 2012

Beasts of the Southern Apprenticeship: Benh Zeitlin’s First Film, GLORY AT SEA (25’48″)

While the short’s been online for over three years, advancing publicity for the summer release of Beasts of the Southern Wild make Glory At Sea worth a second (or first!) look.  [Via Wholphin.]

No Comments »

A Single-Take Steadicam Shot Behind Scenes Of HUGO

Steadicam by Larry McConkey, who also shot the club sequence in Goodfellas.

No Comments »

Paul Schrader posts on his Bret Easton Ellis project, THE CANYONS

THE CANYONS. “The material is classic BEE. Character driven, dialogue driven, explicit in word if not action. Two visual poles are emerging in the low budget world: on one side, Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels. On the other Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats. Both styles mix approaches, use hand held, work economically. Both are composed as opposed to faux vérité. You could distinquish them by saying Fallen Angels aspires to the characters’ POV, Heartbeat to the director’s. A third path? Better examples from the microbudget world?”

John DeFazio will be the DP for The Canyons. John and I are now discussing possible approaches. Many things are possible on a microbudget. Some things are not. For example, you have to plug in for power rather than bring a generator. That limits the amount of artifical light you can use. Which means in turn that post-prod color effects may be more practical than onset gels. And so on. “Undoing” is just one style of cinematography we are dicussing. Any thoughts what the “look” of Canyons should be. Hard or soft? Back or front? Hand held or tripod? There are no longer any rules in cinematography, only choices.” (The project has 11 days left in its Kickstarter campaign, but is already 50% over its funding goal.)

 

No Comments »

Clipping ON THE ROAD: Kirsten Dances; Kristen Drives

 

No Comments »

Lurhmann’s Eckleburg

[Click twice.]

And his “Zeigfeld.”

No Comments »

Holy HOLY MOTORS!! 9 images, video, press kit extracts

  The tweets after the first screening: c’est incroyable!

Epigraph to the press kit: “History adds that before or after dying he found himself in the presence of God and told Him: “I who have been so many men in vain want to be one and myself.” The voice of the Lord answered from a whirlwind: “Neither am I anyone; I have dreamt the world as you dreamt your work, my Shakespeare, and among the forms in my dream are you, who like myself are many and no one.”

— Jorge Luis Borges, “Everything and Nothing”

Read the full article »

No Comments »

Teasing THE MASTER

5 Comments »

Trailering Bond 23: Hello Roger Deakins!

No Comments »

56 Seconds Of THE SOUNDS OF ARONOFSKY

[Kottke.]

No Comments »

Aaron Sorkin’s Syracuse Commencement Speech (16’27″)

“Thank you very much. Madam Chancellor, members of the Board of Trustees, members of the faculty and administration, parents and friends, honored guests and graduates, thank you for inviting me to speak today at this magnificent Commencement ceremony.

There’s a story about a man and a woman who have been married for forty years. One evening at dinner the woman turns to her husband and says, “You know, forty years ago on our wedding day you told me that you loved me and you haven’t said those words since.” They sit in silence for a long moment before the husband says “If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

Read the full article »

1 Comment »

Movie City Indie

Quote Unquotesee all »

 Sunday, May 19 2013 12:52:48

“Two hours in the labyrinth of Paramount’s Avarice…. It was my first–and my last–IMAX venture. Haven’t been to a 3-D movie in years, and it’s bye-bye to THAT scathing visual transgression for the remainder of MY lifetime… It was an unceasing, unrelenting, take-no-audience-prisoners audial and visual back-alley mugging for two hours… I have been beaten up many times; I know what it feels like: this was a two-hour assault. I weep, as Jesus wept, for the generations that will grow up thinking this is what it means to “go to the movies.” I am near-on 79, and I [understand] that this is a generational opinion, but I do not think any sensible person not of a tot age where videogame… overkill is pro forma, could confuse the IMAX “experience” with a Saturday matinee outing. The term “author” as regards Summer Blockbuster movies, is not only moot, it is Urdu. Mountains heave mightily, and give birth to volcanic ant-hills.”
Harlan Ellison Takes In Star Trek: Into Darkness

“One of the things I wish I could do in my life would be to watch this film through somebody else’s eyes. I just can’t. I still see it as just a giant mess, and other people are seeing that it has a shape. That’s really exciting, because I still have a hard time seeing it clearly.”
~ Sarah Polley’s Greatest Wish About Stories We Tell