-
News & Updates
June 4, 2017
Shane Black’s ‘The Predator’ Finishes Filming; Jacob Tremblay Celebrates
We’re still many years away from Hollywood completely running out of franchises to reboot, but it’s not all bad. Shane Black’s take on “The Predator” shows promise, what with the “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Nice Guys” writer/director’s skill for rapid-fire dialogue and the sci-fi series’ rapid-fire combat; we’re now one step closer to seeing the film, as it just completed filming.
Co-star Jacob Tremblay — whom you may remember as the moppet from “Room” — marked the occasion on Twitter (under the supervision of his folks, natch): “#ThatsaWrap! Time for me to #GETTOTHECHOPPA!!! ✌ #ThePredator”
Black, whose first prominent acting role can in the original “Predator,” began production in February. Sterling K. Brown, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn also star in the film, which is scheduled for an August 3, 2018 theatrical release.
#ThatsaWrap! Time for me to #GETTOTHECHOPPA!!! ✌ #ThePredator pic.twitter.com/a1NvWUJ0nd
— Jacob Tremblay (@JacobTremblay) June 1, 2017
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Source: IndieWire film
June 4, 2017
Neill Blomkamp Reveals Why He’s Forming His Own Studio — and the Fate of His ‘Alien’ Sequel
Neill Blomkamp’s “Alien” sequel may not be happening now that Ridley Scott has taken back the reins on his franchise, but the “District 9” director is busy all the same. His next project is more ambitious than just another movie, as he’s forming Oats Studio as a sort of testing ground for short films that will be released for free online — and, if all goes well, perhaps even expanded into features.
READ MORE: Watch Neill Blomkamp’s Crazy Trailer for Alien Invasion Story ‘Volume 1’ From Oats Studios
“At the end of making ‘Chappie,’ I wanted to try to figure out a different method for making films and expressing myself,” explained Blomkamp to the Verge. “I felt that if I could sell smaller pieces directly to the audience, the sale of those small experimental pieces would keep this machine alive so that it became an ecosystem that was self-sufficient.”
Part of the idea is to allow viewers to peek behind the curtain in a way that iTunes and similar services don’t. “The more I thought about that, the more it became, ‘What if the users had access to all of the 3D files that we used for the visual effects?’ If we just gave that away with any one-time purchase and you could render stuff yourself?”
As for his “Alien” sequel, it seems that we won’t be seeing it anytime soon. “I think it’s totally dead, yes. That would be an accurate assumption at this point,” Blomkamp confirmed. “It’s sad. I spent a long time working on that, and I feel like it was really pretty awesome. But politically, the way it’s gone now, and the way that it all is — it’s just not going to live.” Read more here.
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Source: IndieWire film
June 4, 2017
‘Fallout 4’ Mod Inspired by ‘The Witch’ Invites You to Game Deliciously — Watch
The world of “Fallout 4” is as open as they come, with endless side quests, oddball characters and other distractions to while away the hours in the wasteland. Thanks to a new mod, the post-apocalyptic RPG can now double as something akin to a horror film in the vein of “The Witch.”
READ MORE: Robert Eggers Wins Independent Spirit Best First Screenplay Award For ‘The Witch’
That’s fitting, as the long-standing series owes much of its aesthetic to another movie: “Mad Max.” Among the features in the “Pilgrim — Dread the Commonwealth” mod are a greyer color palette, film grain and new soundtrack, but perhaps most exciting of all is an upcoming addition that will swap out the faithful canine sidekick Dogmeat with none other than Black Phillip himself. Wouldst thou like to game deliciously?
Robert Eggers’ 17th-century-set film was released last year after premiering at Sundance in 2015. The new mod was made by l00ping and TreyM, whose work can be found here. Get a glimpse below.
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Source: IndieWire film
June 4, 2017
‘Toni Erdmann’ Director Maren Ade: ‘There Need to Be More Films Made by Women, Period’
Maren Ade’s time as a Cannes juror has come to an end, but the festival and one of its most pressing issues are still on her mind. The “Toni Erdmann” director spoke to Vulture during Kering’s Women in Motion program, saying that “there really needs to be a profound change; there need to be more films made by women, period.”
“I read something recently that felt true for me,” she added, “that if a woman ends up finally making a film, the chances that it’s a good one, statistically, is very high, because once we get some money in our hands we try not to make something bad.”
READ MORE: ‘Toni Erdmann’ Director/Producer Maren Ade Will Not Be Involved With the English Remake
That said, she doesn’t think it should have to be that way. Rather, women should be able to make bad movies without all other female filmmakers suffering for it: “We all need to be able to make bad films in order to be in the end that some of us make ten good films over, say, 50 years of the competition. I really think that it’s not the festival’s problem.” Read more here.
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Source: IndieWire film
June 4, 2017
Voices of the StoryCorps Justice Project: Recording with the Bronx Freedom Fund
StoryCorps recording days, carried out in partnership with community-based and service organizations, offer clients and constituents an opportunity to take part in a StoryCorps signature interview: a facilitated, 40-minute conversation that is recorded and preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Many partner organizations work closely with us to co-create these recording events, using storytelling as a vehicle for their clients to share their histories and leaving an important record of personal reflection on today’s most pressing issues for future generations.
Recording Days with the Bronx Freedom Fund
As part of the StoryCorps Justice Project, we partnered with New York City’s Bronx Freedom Fund, a charitable bail organization with a revolving fund to pay bail for people accused of misdemeanors with the goal of keeping them in their jobs, with their families, and out of jail while they await trial. We facilitated recording days with clients of the Bronx Freedom Fund, which primarily serves the South Bronx, a community with a backlogged court system and many residents impacted by poverty.
Elena Weissmann, Director of Bronx Operations, offered us a behind-the-scenes look at how a recording day with StoryCorps turned into a new and exciting storytelling tool for her organization:
In our work with StoryCorps, we saw an opportunity to elevate our clients’ voices and stories.
StoryCorps facilitated a process that honored our clients’ lived experiences and empowered them to speak about their contact with the justice system in a safe environment. Using a strategy that prioritized deeply informed consent, transparency, and the centrality of our clients’ truths, the StoryCorps staff helped our clients to truly own this experience, tailoring the recording process to fit the very specific legal needs we faced as an organization working with sensitive court topics, along with our organizational goals.
Selecting participants for this opportunity event was a daunting task. With hundreds of clients who each have an important narrative to share, how to select one over another? In putting these stories out in the world, we wanted to highlight non-traditional voices while also underscoring some of the most common injustices our clients face. In the days leading up to the recording event, some of our participants expressed fear in discussing their sometimes painful interactions with the courts and jails.
I conducted one of the interviews, with a client I’d met with a handful of times. He was never particularly talkative with me, but when we sat down with a facilitator he completely opened up and said things about his experience with jail and organization that were so, so moving. An experience which could have been retraumatizing or at least intimidating was completely the opposite.
The Partnership Continues through Community Cuts
Following the recording days, an important collaboration unfolded: Gautam Srikishan, StoryCorps National Facilitator, worked closely with Bronx Freedom Fund to produce a series of “community cuts,” short, edited versions of the 40-minute recordings that are like the segments we share on NPR. In engaging this way with Bronx Freedom Fund, StoryCorps was able to extend the life of the partnership beyond the recording days, providing tools to help them further their work, message and mission.
Stories Made Visual
In a most imaginative use, Bronx Freedom Fund then partnered with illustrator Eleanor Davis to showcase stories from these interviews, pairing them with images and text that tell the stories of their clients in a way that we think is accessible and powerful. She reflected on the project, particularly on her visual retelling of the story of participant Jorge:
I’m very glad I got to work on this project because I’ve never done reportage comics before. Drawing someone else’s life and experiences is a big responsibility…. I hope my hand was able to illustrate Jorge, Ronald and Malikia’s stories in a way that feels at least a little true.
Here are some sketches of Jorge and his wife, and roughs of a couple sequences from Jorge’s comic.
Source: SNPR Story Corps
June 4, 2017
Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Cheap AR goggles, 3D printing on a conveyor belt
Check out our roundup of the coolest crowdfunding projects and product announcements that hit the web this week. You can’t buy this stuff yet, but it sure is fun to gawk!
The post Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Cheap AR goggles, 3D printing on a conveyor belt appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital Trends VR
June 3, 2017
What Would a Terrence Malick Shot List Look Like?
The cinematography in Terrence Malick’s films are undoubtedly gorgeous, but what do they look like on paper?
Director Terrence Malick is one of cinema’s greatest visual philosophers. His collaborations with cinematographers John Toll, Tak Fujimoto, and Chivo Lubezki have resulted in beautiful cinematic landscapes where reality and dreams are synthesized into pure movie magic, but what does it all look like on paper? In this interesting video, Studio Binder has broken down several of Malick’s iconic shots from Knight of Cups and The Tree of Life to show you what one of the Oscar-nominated director’s shot lists might look like.
It’s pretty fascinating to see a visual breakdown of the approach Malick and his world-class DPs take to designing the look and feel of every shot, especially considering how unique his visual style is. The one technique that seems to heavily influence this style is the Dutch angles, which Malick uses frequently in his work.
Source: NoFilmSchool
June 3, 2017
Watch: Is Film School Necessary?
The answer is pretty clear—no. But if you’re not going to learn filmmaking within the hallowed halls of a distinguished university, where are you going to do it?
The debate over whether or not one should go to film school to become a filmmaker has become less fiery over the last several years. The internet and an active creative community ensures that most of the important information you’ll need in order to learn at least the basics of the craft is readily available to almost anyone who wants it. However, for those who have decided to forgo the four-year film degree in favor of semi-autodidacticism, you’ll want to know about some resources for getting your learn on. Ryan Connolly provides some excellent ideas in this video from Film Riot.
Source: NoFilmSchool
June 3, 2017
Watch: Why ‘Silence’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’ Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
This video essay teases out the thematic links shared by Apocalypse Now and Silence, and finds two films that are almost mirror images of each other.
Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic, had a famously troubled production that could have cost the director the farm (literally) had it not been a massive hit. Likewise, Silence, the recent Martin Scorsese film, had a less manic, but just as harrowing journey to the big screen, taking over 25 years to be realized. Both movies were made by filmmakers who are famous for their films on organized crime, and neither director is a stranger to long and tricky productions, but according to this video essay from Jack’s Movie Reviews, that’s just the most superficial of similarities between the two. (Note: There Will Be Spoilers.)
Source: NoFilmSchool
June 3, 2017
New Panasonic EVA1 Could be The Ultimate Indie Cinema Camera
Panasonic takes aim at the C200 and the FS7 with the new EVA1.
Source: NoFilmSchool