This is just a quick post, as I’m a bit behind the eight ball. But like so many others already out there, I would like to pay homage to one of the greats. RIP James Horner: your sounds helped to shape a generation of Hollywood films. And in many ways, they also played out as an indelible scoring to much of my life. You will be missed.
Tag: Cinephile
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Concept Video: CMYK x Greyscale x RGB (Guadalupe)
Today I want to share a clip that is neither a resource nor informative as such. Rather, as a fellow Adobe CC user, this post is sharing something that I simply found to be quite an interesting concept piece. This is the most recent work released by New York native Ernesto Guadalupe (a digital video junkie whose portfolio of clients has included the likes of Nautica, Ralph Lauren, and Fox Sports). I think that you will like the complexity and direction that Guadalupe takes CMYK x Greyscale x RGB in.
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Video Montage: Cinema in Cinema (Paredes)
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a fun little video montage by Spanish videographer Eusebio Poveda Paredes – namely his homage to cinema in cinema.
Featuring an amazing 139 clips from 93 different films – there is not a whole lot to add to the joy of simply diving in – so please do, and enjoy this fun little labour of love.
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Video Essay: That’s Just Too Much Johnson Welles!
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a short video essay that interestingly brings to light the more humble beginnings of Orson Welles.
74-years after crafting a picture that tells a simple, subtle story that works brilliantly in capturing our attention from the first frame onwards, Orson Welles still inspires. And for many cinephiles, the greatness of Citizen Kane is inextricably linked to the fact that the masterpiece was Welles’ debut work. Even so, whether it was his first or thirteenth film – there ought to be no disagreement that it stands as one of the most arresting films ever produced.
Having said that, Welles did in fact have pre-Kane films. The relatively recent 2014 surfacing of his 1938 work Too Much Johnson is an excellent case in point. Though somewhat rudimentary – we can see elements of the master technician practising his craft at least 3-years before Kane’s release. The work also does a lot to dispel the occasional assertion that Welles was a cinematic naif unschooled in the basic grammar of film. Oh, there is so much that may be discussed about this… but rather than bore you with my own verbage, let me rather introduce you to this little video essay by Kevin B. Lee on the whole matter.
Note: allow me to add this – I find it absolutely fascinating that the surviving film elements of Too Much Johnson somehow ended up in an Italian warehouse before being acquired by the USA’s National Film Preservation Foundation! It is almost as fascinating as the man himself!
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How To: The Five Pillars of Exposure
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent little tutorial on how to get the most out of exposure. Seriously. You have no idea how much I want you to see this video. This is one of those kind of clips… the potentially life altering ones!
Okay, that was a bit OTT. Still – I love this clip.
The team at Realm Pictures have taken what is often a long-winded subject (exposure and lighting), and they have cleverly condensed it into a nice neat package of just over 6 minutes. Whether you are just starting – or you just need a reference guide reminder on how to best use exposure in your videography – then this gem is definitely what you will want to come back to. Please enjoy responsibly. 🙂
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Video Essay: Rear Window (Michael McLennan)
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a short clip that was pieced together by one of my friends, Michael McLennan. Michael also happens to be a long-time cinephile who has worked as producer, director of photography, editor, sound designer, music editor, and has also taught across a variety of film disciplines at the Sydney Film School. Recently picked up by the Indiewire team, today’s clip is a simple video essay that demonstrates Hitchcock’s amazing capacity for structural story-telling. In this instance, we find the story engaging with the audience through a carefully constructed repetition of symmetry.
I personally find that such examples really ought to reinforce the idea that while amateurs point and shoot and think something along the lines of, “I hope this will look good!” – professionals plan and plan and plan, thinking more along the lines of, “How do I want this to look?” If we want to up our game and get our work seen – then we can all continue to learn tricks from the masters of cinema like this. I hope you enjoy.
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Article: “Camera Choices for Avengers: Age of Ultron”
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to link out to a great little article that gives a concise breakdown of the camera choices that were made for the latest Marvel Universe blockbuster – Avengers: Age of Ultron – with insights by the DP himself, Ben Davis. You can read the full piece here.
The fun fact for me was seeing that the diverse little beastie – the BlackMagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera – gets a shout out as a one of the tools used to make the film. Yeah that’s right – portions of the epic Avengers was shot on a BMDPCC! Very cool. So check out the article, and let me know what you think.
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Audio Interview: Kay Cannon – Comedy Writer of Pitch Perfect 2
Continuing my series of resource links, today I wanted share a piece that discusses the recently released movie, Pitch Perfect 2. For those who don’t know (or don’t care, I guess), this comedy sequel is about about a cappella singers (which, for what it’s worth, made more than US$70 million at the box office on its opening weekend . That is more than the first Pitch Perfect took in over its entire theatrical release in 2012 – as well as being the biggest debut ever for a movie musical).
As the title suggests, today’s link is to an audio interview done with Kay Cannon: writer of Pitch Perfect 2. Well before Pitch Perfect came on the scene though, Cannon sunk her teeth into writing for comedy television – such as NBC’s hit 30 Rock (she won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedic Series for her work on 30 Rock on three separate occasions) as well as Fox’s New Girl.
From NPR’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, this is a fascinating insight into the world of comedic writing for film and television in particular… and it is a great reminder that all of you writers out there are an indispensable part of the production process.
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How To: Colouring Compliments in Photoshop
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent tute that goes through some mid-level colour correction using Photoshop.
Now why on earth would I want to share a Photoshop tutorial on a blog that has to do with videography and the like? The simple reason is that I like the presenter. That and the fact that understanding how to utilise complimentary colours is one of those fundamental techniques we all ought to be aware of, regardless of whether the images we work with are still or moving.
Those who have learned their colour-jiu-jitsu are generally the ones that have been able to progress from a mobile phone kind of photographer/videographer that needs Instagram filters to help prop up their shots. Take it from me – tutes like this one are a great way of building up your skill set in this area. I hope you enjoy it.
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How To: A Comprehensive Cheat Sheet for Adobe
Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent infographic. For those of us who are part of the Adobe Universe, you will know that short-cuts have a funny way of increasing productivity, right? If only there was a way to easily find and/or remember what some of the really important ones were! Oh wait – there is!
Thanks to the team at Set Up A Blog Today, we now have access to a comprehensive cheat sheet that outlines a range of the important short-cuts to a host of our favourite Adobe products: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, FireWorks, Flash, Premiere Pro, and After Effects!
Need some of that action? Get it right here. And as a bonus tid-bit – scroll down the the bottom of the post to get access to the PDF versions of the individual cheat sheets.
Waiting 2B Scene 