08.07.15 |
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Ken Adam is a legendary, British production design designer, most famous for his innovative work on early James Bond films (e.g. Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball). Later in his career, Adam was the production designer for The Spy Who Loved Me. To quote the Youtube video:
One of the sets included the villain’s secret lair that was located inside of an enormous tanker ship. Adam struggled with lighting the massive set, and called in a favor from his old boss…Stanley Kubrick. Under an
agreement of total secrecy, Kubrick was snuck onto the empty set, where he spent 4 hours setting lighting and advising Ken Adam.
05.05.15 |
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Wonderful, exhaustive look at David O. Russell’s career by Steven Hyden of Grantland. One smart observation:
Russell makes movies about families — some bound by birth (The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook), others by circumstance (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, and American Hustle). But they’re always loud, frayed, self-destructive, and yet somehow functional units.
04.16.15 |
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A deep dive over at BFI on Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic. There’s coverage of the film’s origin story, treatment of sex and race, direction, and its prophecies of the future.
10.31.14 |
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I thought I’d move past linking to more Gone Girl articles, but here we are; it’s that strong of a film. DP Jeff Cronenweth talks about Fincher’s preferred visual style:
I think that, for the most part, the camera is never in a position that would be a typical shot. There are no shots that are ever taken for granted. There’s a purpose behind everything — without getting crazy; obviously certain situations allow you a lot more freedom than other situations, but it always intrigues me that it’s slightly not normal, or not traditional, rather. The camera tends to stay lower; we’re always looking at people in an observational way that allows you, really, to study them and give them an opportunity to express whatever turmoil’s going on in their heads that then reflects in their performances. The camera has movement but nothing is ever moving for the sake of movement, you know? There’s purpose for everything, as opposed to filling in a void in content or our energy by deciding to make some interesting camera moves. The camera moves have a reason.
10.10.14 |
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Considering Gone Girl was just released it’s an apt time to review director David Fincher’s filmography. There’s surely a lot of other good video essays out there, but this recent analysis by Every Frame a Painting is excellent. It’s devoted to a technical breakdown of Fincher’s preferred shot composition, supported by many examples from his entire filmography (with Gone Girl of course, exempted.)
08.29.14 |
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An informative video by Tony Zhou that outlines the techniques director Michael Bay resorts to again and again throughout his filmography. As Zhou illustrates, it’s distinctive, at times visually impressive, but overblown and overused to the point of exhaustion for the audience.
08.15.14 |
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The prolific, brainy director has been profiled and interviewed in countless magazines. He’s a good subject, but the quality, usually due to the publication and questions asked, has run all over the place. That’s why I was a bit surprised that Esquire, of all magazines, had a knockout of a a Soderbergh interview. Smart, profane and frank. One example:
Esquire: After you won an Academy Award for Traffic, did you wrestle to keep your ego in check?
Soderbergh: No… What’s hilarious about it, ironically, and nobody will ever believe this… I was in the middle of shooting Ocean’s Eleven, which for me, as a director, was much harder. I just had to laugh. Best door prize ever. But I was literally set up to work the next morning. Sunday night was the Oscars. I flew to Vegas that night and I’m on set first thing Monday morning confronting a scene that I couldn’t figure out how to shoot. At the end of the day, the quote I use is “In the land of ideas, you are always renting.” The landlord can always go “Bye!” If you’re not humbled by that then you’re an idiot and you will fail. You will fail. The process of discovery or coming up with an idea is so resistant to formula.
03.05.14 |
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The sound and picture quality isn’t pretty, but it’s wonderful seeing Spielberg and a much younger Harrison Ford make history. It’s an hour filled with interviews and behind the scenes footage. Speilberg’s direction bits to the actors is especially interesting (via Jason Kottke.)
02.18.14 |
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David Chen, the host of the Slashfilmcast, has been venturing lately into video essays, especially for year end recaps from the best in film. They’ve been fairly well done, but this compilation of director Edgar Wright’s (Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) closeup work is standout. Pay attention to the discussion between Chen and Wright as the shots play out; I learned a lot.
02.06.14 |
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The actual content isn’t super in depth, but there’s no way I could pass up sharing a twenty minute interview and discussion between two of arguably the most talented directors today. It’s always interesting to hear Kar-wai talk about his near obsessive, rigorous shooting schedule and his long working relationship with Tony Leung.