Waiting 2B Scene

Tag: Cinephile

  • Interview: John C. McGinley (Speakeasy)

    Like many, the hit hospital sitcom Scrubs quickly became go to viewing for me. In fact – I still really enjoy it. How much? Well let’s say that it is enough to have just completed a marathon viewing of seasons 4 to 8, and leave it there!

    Anyway…

    I think that Scrubs‘ continued appeal for many lies in the way in which it connects to the audience. Bill Lawrence seamlessly combined a unique blend of outrageous, in-your-face, slapstick humour with the kind of dramatic sincerity often left to high profile dramas. For quite a few of these moments, you will be hard pressed not to find the indomitable, acerbic, Dr. Percival Ulysses Cox somewhere near the scene. And the incredible actor who brought Dr. Cox to life was John C. McGinley.

    So today, in honour of the show and in honour of the man that brought J.D’s worst fears and highest hopes to life, I want to share this great early-2015 Speakeasy interview with McGinley.

  • Video Essay: What’s in the Box? (CineFix)

    ** Spoiler alerts a head… though if you haven’t already seen this after twenty years, shame on you. **

    It was one of the most numbing thrillers of the mid-90’s… And if you didn’t immediately think of Se7en after reading that sentence, then you really missed out on something special!

    After a fairly tried-and-true series of murder-somethings throughout the 80’s, Hollywood screenwriters really started toying with audiences by switching it up in the 90’s. Misery served as the decade opener – but it was really The Silence of the Lambs that announced things had gone to a whole new thrilling level – becoming one of the few thrillers to receive a wide array of Oscar’s, including Best Picture1.

    By the time 1995’s Se7en rolled around, few thought that the thriller would turn out to be any good. Especially coming from by a first-time screenwriter and a director who had cut his teeth on music videos – and then had bombed in his “contribution” to the Aliens franchise. But the film wasn’t just good. It became a modern genre classic. And that, in no small part, came down to this very scene… a scene that Brad Pitt (among others) had to fight New Line Cinemas to keep in the film. In EW, Pitt was quoted as saying,

    “With Se7en, I said, “I will do it on one condition – the head stays in the box. Put in the contract that the head stays in the box.” Actually, there was a second thing, too: “He’s got to shoot the killer in the end. He doesn’t do the ‘right’ thing, he does the thing of passion.” Those two things are in the contract. Cut to: Se7en has been put together, and they’ve tested it. They go, “You know, he would be much more heroic if he didn’t shoot John Doe – and it’s too unsettling with the head in the box. We think maybe if it was the dog’s head in the box…” “

    And so today, in honour of it’s twentieth birthday – it is with great pleasure that I am sharing this excellent Video Essay by the CineFlix team – Se7en’s “Box Scene” – Art of the Scene:

  • Tribute – Robin Williams – SMILE (Grabowiec)

    This is a short post, as the video tribute to Robin Williams says it all. Very well done.

    https://vimeo.com/139250268

  • Mashup: Elba as Bond in SPECTRE (Vulture Remix)

    James Bond is a cinematic icon. And the fact is that for over 50-years now Bond has always been a suave, sophisticated, whiter-than-white, chauvinist Brit that gets to sleep with beautiful women and play with a lot of cool toys.

    Of course, this has not escaped the attention of, well, the world. Thus for the last few years, pop-culture thoughts of Bond as a black man – or perhaps even a woman! – have been increasingly entertained. I mean – they could do worse right? For example, what if they decided to release a film where Bond was to encounter an evil splinter group he had already polished off in Diamonds Are Forever back in 1971?

    Well played writers and producers. 

    Anyway – back to the true topic at hand. What would a Bond of colour look like? I’m glad you asked… and this Vulture Remix gladly answers!

  • Video Montage: A Retrospect Of British Cinema (Rhys)

    If you have ever marvelled at an epic masterpiece on the silver-screen, there is quite a reasonable chance that it was made by the grand lady of American cinema, Hollywood. For those who reside in the USA, however – it might surprise you to hear that, “As we enter the twenty-first century, the study of the previous century’s distinctive art-form – the cinema – seems to have come of age… there is an almost palpable sense of intellectual excitement in the air – and at its heart lies the systematic and creative process of rethinking British cinema.“¹ (emphasis mine).

    Yes, you read that correctly. British cinema. It has played an important role in global cinema over the years. So I was super excited to find that the aspiring writer-director Calum Rhys – who hails from England himself – had taken it open himself to montage some of the great elements of British cinematic history. Indeed, he writes that, “I set out months ago to create a short montage featuring the best of British cinema, however over time that montage transformed into a six minute film.” And what a job he has done (the list of films included is here)! You will love this, I am sure.

  • How To: The Inverse Square What? (Hazelton)

    To quote the second greatest font of Internet knowledge, Wikipedia, the physics term known as the inverse square law,  “is any physical law stating that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. The fundamental cause for this can be understood as geometric dilution corresponding to point-source radiation into three-dimensional space.” (as demonstrated in the diagram… apparently).

    In photography, film, and even theatrical lighting – the inverse-square law has been used to determine the lighting “fall off” on a subject as it moves closer to or further from the light source. If you want to get into the physics and the mathematics of how to light well for photography and video, then please feel free to do so. As for me – however… well…

    If you are one of the less mathematically-minded types, and you just want a demystified breakdown of how to get light working for you – then Eve Hazelton and the Realm Pictures crew have you covered. I have posted about one of their lighting tutorials before… and I continue to like their style. I hope you will find today’s how-to just as useful.

  • Video Montage: Keeping The Distance (Between the Frames)

    Last time I shared a video essay and an article that opened up on the whole idea of framing beyond the rule of thirds. Well today I want to continue in that vein with this great little piece by the Between the Frames channel over at Vimeo. As written in the description, “This video explores how director Bennett Miller consistently uses wide shots throughout Foxcatcher to highlight the physical and emotional distance between characters, their situations and how we, the audience relate to them.”

    Honestly, the montage of all of these elements might leave you feeling a little cold: but it is well worth watching and seeing how much an effect celever framing can have.

  • Article/Video Essay: Beyond the Rule of Thirds/The Quadrant

    Whether you started out in photography, or you were dumped into the deep end of video and film – you will know of the rule of thirds (RoT). It’s one of those unstoppable forces that influence every aspect of both!

    Like many “rules” in avenues of artistic endeavour, the RoT is an excellent starting point – particularly if you haven’t yet developed an instinct for good visual composition. Once you know the why and how behind effectively utilising the RoT, however, you ought to expand your visual vocabulary – developing visuals that aren’t necessarily tied down to the RoT (I can’t help but think of Barbossa here: “the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.”).

    So if you are willing to wade out into the deeper waters of visual framing and composition, then this article by Doddle offers a great variety of framing illustrations that go beyond the rule of thirds: the golden spiral, quadrants, diagonals, the centre, as well as playing around with the edges and intentionally unbalancing the frame.

    If you happen to want a more in-depth video essay to help you shake your RoT shackles, then look no further than this great example by the Every Frame of Painting YouTube channel – it breaks down the quadrant system of framing that was used in the 2011 film Drive. Enjoy!

  • Video Essay: Side-By-Side Comparison of Insomnia (Lee)

    So today I stumbled on this great little video essay by Kevin B. Lee for Fandor Keyframe. It takes us on journey into one of the key sequences in the film Insomnia. Interestingly, it does so by giving a side-by-side comparison so that we can really drill down into exploring the differences that may be found between the original 1997 Norwegian version (featuring the always impressive Stellan Skarsgård as investigator Jonas Engström), and it’s 2002 Hollywood counterpart (featuring the stupendous Al Pacino as detective Will Dormer).

    I think that the work is very well done, and I personally found that it highlights and emphasises what I wrote about in my previous post: when it comes to a thriller, “…we need good pacing. This is critical.” Honestly, I couldn’t have found a better illustration of how much influence pacing has… here we have the exact same story, and the exact same sequence being followed… and yet the emphasis by the directors in each makes for telling differences. Erik Skjoldbjærg is more deliberate, building tension through slower edits. Christopher Nolan on the other hand builds tension by increasing the pace, communicating a more frantic mood. Seriously, you will love this: what a difference timing can make!

    https://vimeo.com/137388966

  • Blog/Video: Thriller Horror on a Budget (Simon Berry)

    If there is anything that a film such as Paranormal Activity can demonstrate, it is that a creative idea doesn’t actually need an extravagant budget in order to be brought to life. I would argue that is especially true when it comes to the thriller/horror genre. And I will share a video that demonstrates that quite nicely. But first…

    For the sake of my blog space I want to touch on just two (of the admittedly many!) components that contribute to the success of a thriller or horror. If you would like more, well, Google will be your friend.

    Firstly, we need a good story. In a large majority of thrillers and horror films alike we will find a variation of this common theme: protagonist falls victim to someone/something else’s scheme – gets stuck in a moment of dread. There is a reason for that: it lends itself to being a good story. What happens to the protagonist? Do they get out? Are they overcome? Why does this other person/thing want the protagonist involved at all?  Etc etc etc. Exploring this style of thriller doesn’t need a big budget to be brought to life: just an intuitively thrilling way for the story to be told.

    Secondly, we need good pacing. This is critical. Just think about the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Seriously. The guy was able to develop a proverbial stranglehold on his audiences! I recently read some reviews that suggested Hitchcock was slow and stodgy in his work – honestly, the effects of the reduction in attention span have clouded their judgement! Thrillers and horror are all about the suspense and the tension – and mark my words, Hitchcock was the best at that genre… and he held the mantle for a very long time. He was a maestro who knew how to effectively pace his stories in order to build the suspense. Like all thrillers, he was able to keep the audience in that constant tension of asking, “What comes next?”

    So then – let us turn our attention to the video part of today’s blog. This is fresh off the press, and is a little gem. At under 4 minutes, Simon Berry does wonders with this short thriller/horror. And more to the point – he did so with just a two day turn-around, and working with a micro-budget! He crafts a simple story, and builds tension with the pacing. Simple, yet effective. I think you will enjoy it.