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  • Video Essay: On Archive Remakes?

    Continuing with this series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to circle back around to an idea that I have often ruminated upon: that of the cinema remake. There are the obvious remakes, of course. Same name, same (or similar enough) plot-line… just large chunks of the same same same. Gone in 60 Seconds, The Planet of the Apes, Annie, The Absent Minded Professor… you get my point.

    But what I continue to love discovering is the myriad of videos that highlight those less distinguishable remakes (such as the essay I shared a little few weeks ago about Scorsese: while not a direct remake, there are enough similarities in the visual elements – and the story itself – to notice that the same director had made the piece, albeit with 50-years separating them). And so on Monday I happily stumbled upon a fun little piece that does a side-by-side comparison between archive films and the Paramount/Spielberg phenomena – Raiders of the Lost Ark! Yep, you read that correctly: this side-by-side comparison by a Vimeo user named Stoo clearly indicates that Raiders seems to have borrowed from quite a few old film ideas and visuals as well. But seriously – why just read about it: you have to see this for yourself!

  • The Best and the Worst Thing About Movies

    Today I plan on taking a small detour from my series of informative posts so that I can have a minor rant about movie trailers. I have always loved the trailers: and growing up with vocal-maestro’s such as Don LaFontaine and Hal Douglas leading the charge for many years, I think it is easy to see why. Nevertheless, as I get older, and as my appreciation for the work and machinations of cinema and television has deepened, I must admit to a growing discontent with more modern trailer traits.

    Even though director Robert Zemeckis once claimed that the purpose of trailers was to inform the audience – “We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It’s just one of those things.” – I tend to disagree. For me, the point of a trailer is to hook in the audience: to tease us, to leave us wanting more, to get us to a point of wanting to depart with our hard-earned money in order to see the production. That is the non-verbal contract that is entered into when an audience member – namely, me – watches a trailer. And to be honest – a poorly made trailer can very easily break that contract.

    So having just watched a brand new trailer – let me share it with you (as well as a comparison trailer), and I’ll explain where I’m coming from.

     

    To my mind, the trailer that fails in its duty of audience-teasing is the one for Southpaw. The reason is fairly simple: minus the ultimate ‘battle’ sequence (which to be honest, we can already draw our own conclusions on, right?), it feels like I have just seen the whole story. Seriously.  The. Entire. Story. It is already behind in points by simply being film which explores a tired premise (a fallen champion looking for redemption/love) dumped into our laps – but then we get a blow-by-blow plot outline while we’re at it. Who needs to see the film when the trailer has basically given us a Reader’s Digest Condensed Books version of the movie? The contract is broken, and I feel no need to see the film.

    Comparatively, Nolan’s teaser for The Dark Knight was a total knock-out for millions of fans globally. It is not like the world doesn’t know about Batman, you know. Given that the Dark Knight’s greatest nemesis has always been the Joker, his involvement was also a no-brainer. Nevertheless, we were masterfully teased into wanting more. That is what I am talking about!

    I am mourning the loss of genuinely great movie trailers that don’t have to spell it out. Is anyone with me?

  • Video Montage: “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” (Jeff Smith)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share a fairly comprehensive video montage compiled by independent filmmaker Jeff Smith while he worked under the former film blog FilmDrunk (now an integrated part of the Uproxx machine).

    We have all endured the time-wasting ravages of poor film-making. Genre, acting, writing, editing, CGI… the lists that have been made to scorn the worst films are in abundance! And really, this montage is tipping it’s hat to this time honoured tradition of naming and shaming. Where it differs is in the manner with which it dispenses the shame. Rather than stick to the script of a “top ten” or “25-worst” list – this fun little montage rather cleverly shames one of Hollywood’s cheesiest go-to lines: “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” (and variations thereof). Packed with 102(!) examples of this writing cliché at its dreadful best – regardless of film (blockbuster, cult-hit, international film, or whatever) – I hope you can have a bit of a laugh at this throw back clip from 2011!

  • Video Essay: Fade to White (Swinney)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to take a look at a short video essay by Baltimore-based editor, filmmaker, and fellow cinephile Jacob T. Swinney. For a wide range of cinematic reasons, the “fade from black” and the “fade to black” are ubiquitous in film and television. As such, the less frequent use of a “fade from white” or a “fade to white” makes for quite the visual impact upon a viewer. Where black offers transition and/or closure (and additionally these effects are subtly controlled by the amount of time taken to complete the fade) – Swinney has postulated in the description of today’s video essay that “the much less common fade to white seems to create a sense of ambiguity.”

    The fascinating thing for me is that doing a Google search of the term “film fade to white” predominantly returns various bloggers sharing this very clip. Prior to its release last week, it seems that about as many people were talking about this film-makers tool as those who happened to use it. So it is excellent to see such extra interest being generated for a simple – albeit quite evocative – effect! Without further ado then, may I add to the conversation by sharing the same video that many others have already shared. 🙂

  • How To: 20 Premiere Tips in 20 Minutes (Jeff Greenberg)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want share an informative how-to video clip presented by Jeff Greenberg on behalf of Future Media Concepts – and as the title suggests, today’s how-to is for the proud Adobe Premiere Pro users.

    I understand that many of us will know these tips and tricks – nevertheless you might be surprised to find one or two gems that may have forgotten about. Or better yet, you will learn something altogether new – such as having the capacity to adjust the gain on an entire bin of music. That was news to me!

    I will warn you though: while the content is definitely informative, the presentation of the how-to is somewhat dry. If you can handle that – then jump on in to some of this Premiere Pro trickery with the rest of us!

  • Video Essay: Hitchcock’s Cuts in ROPE

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to take a look at a short video essay. In it, this clip succinctly explores just one of the myriad of cinematic techniques that were employed by the film maestro of thrill and suspense – the “eloquent, suspenseful, quirky, and eminently entertaining”1 Alfred Hitchcock.

    In this, Hitchcock’s first colour film (and first use of James Stewart) – audiences the world over became somewhat convinced that the 1948 thriller was a single-take wonder. Now don’t get me wrong: these have been done since this film. But in Rope we find Hitchcock employing an especially creative use of framing to create and maintain an illusion of continuity (as in practice, reels only had either 10 minutes or 20 minutes to film on). By 2015 standards it may seem passé, but I would strongly suggest that any of the techniques employed by a technical master of cinema such as Hitchcock is worth considering in any age. Ergo, I hope you enjoy this video essay by Vashi Nedomansky.

  • Interview: The Directors (The Hollywood Reporter)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to do another throwback. This time, I want to take you back three years to an extraordinary round-table style interview with a few of Hollywood’s great directors: Quentin Tarantino, David Russell, Ben Affleck, Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, and Gus Van Sant. Be warned though, it is an hour-long! With that being said, if you are something of a cinephile like me, then let me assure you that it is an hour well spent. Especially when we get insights such as this gem from Tom Hooper:

    “There’s a very curious and complex relationship between time pressure and instinct in that we all hate the time pressure… It’s the hidden narrative of most films. The audience when they’re watching it don’t realise that most of the decisions have been made in relation to time pressure, and that you’re fighting this battle with a ghost that the audience never see. And yet, it’s the time pressure that means that the only thing you can do is work on instinct…”

    Anyway, in terms of film stock – these are a group of better people than me, and they are waiting to spend the next hour with you! So quit wasting time with me, jump on in, and enjoy the rarefied air that these Hollywood directing alumni have on offer!

  • News: Blackmagic Design Show Off at NAB (13-mins)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – I needed to get this additional post out today as it was too good not to share immediately. Anyone involved – and/or interested – in video production will have already heard the news out of NAB (come one, why wouldn’t you keep abreast of the NAB happenings?) that once again Blackmagic Design has shifted the world of camera production with the announcement of their new 4.6K and 15-stop URSA Mini which is due for release later this year.

    If, like me, you are kind of itching to get a look under the hood of this new toy – then you will be pleased to check out this interview with the BMD Director of Sales Simon Westland as he takes us through some of the new camera’s functionality. Enjoy!

  • Video Montage: Everything is a Remix (Wilson)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to take a jump back in time – to do a remix, if you will. If you aren’t concerned with the violence and blood-letting that has become something of a trademark for Tarantino’s work, then join me in revisiting an excellent video montage by editor Rob Wilson that explores Tarantino’s 2003-2004 masterpieces, Kill Bill 1 & 2.

    Over the years, my own anecdotal evidence has highlighted an interesting recurrence. There are most often two fields of thought when it comes to Quentin Tarantino: people either love him, or hate him. It seems that the rarest of the Tarantino consumers is someone like myself however – and that is one who is neither a lover, nor a hater. In my own case, I have enjoyed his work overall – though, I can’t just chow down on some Tarantino… I must be in the right frame of mind to choose to watch his work. The exception to that rule is Kill Bill. I unexpectedly fell in love with it!

    I had a recurring sense of déjà vu throughout the whole piece: “I’m sure I’ve seen (something like) this before!” But why? Like the montage below, watching the Making of Kill Bill revealed a lot. Tarantino went to extraordinary lengths to echo genre cinema. It is quite fair to say that almost every element of the film was used to both tell Tarantino’s story, and simultaneously pay direct homage to various forms of genre cinema (such as martial arts, spaghetti westerns, anime). And that is why I loved it. I have not seen anything come of Hollywood that quite matches Tarantino’s attention to so many cinephilic details as this. That is why I am happy to revisit this classic Tarantino film today – and I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane too.

  • Article: “Ten Things To Remember Your First Day on a Film Shoot”

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share with you a fun,though potentially career-saving, list of things to make sure we do on the first day of a shoot so that, “No matter how low you are on the food chain… [you] make sure your first day isn’t your last day.”

    It’s a great piece put together by media maestro (producer, author, and presenter) Phil Cooke: and I am sure we can all learn something from this once again – even if it from reading the comments section!

    Ten Things To Remember Your First Day on a Film Shoot.