— Variety and others report some disturbing US box office trends: 1. Movie theater attendance went down 6% in 2014 from 2013 2. Young people are going to the movies much less +++ Link: Variety article: http://bit.ly/1xaGKlk
Jan 022015
Dec 312014
— I posted my second interview with the legendary Douglas Trumbull, a VFX maven who worked on 2001, a Space Odyssey, Close Encounters, Blade Runner and, most recently, The Tree of Life. Douglas also invented the Showscan 70mm 60fps system in the 1970s, and is currently proposing a system called MAGI for shooting 3D at [...]
Dec 152014
— Images from the trailer to Terrence Malick’s new movie, with cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. I want to see this film, and almost feel like going to Berlin to see it open at the Berlinale. Link: the trailer +++
Nov 302014
— I published a post looking back at what I saw and did at Camerimage on thefilmbook blog on the ASC web site or, put differently: Looking back at 3 Frogs 4 Seminars & 37 photographs +++
Nov 012014
+++ The Camerimage 2014 Schedule is online. 9 days of Screenings, Seminars, Workshops +++
Oct 292014
— Camerimage has announced the films in their Main Competition, the list includes: 3 American films, 3 British films, 3 Polish films, 2 French-Canadian films **, 1 Austrian film, 1 Chinese film, 1 Palestinian film & 1 Russian film. More details on Camerimage’s web site Notes: I’m disappointed not to see a French film in [...]
Oct 282014
— Cool video about how scientist Kip Thorn collaborated with the folks at Double Negative to create a scientifically true visualization of black holes for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The key concept is from Einstein’s General Relativity: gravity bends light. And therefore the intense gravity around a black hole acts a distorting lens for the light [...]
Oct 192014
— “Truffaut said that Hitchcock filmed lovemaking as if it was murder, and filmed murder as if it was lovemaking.” I have posted my third commentary about Alfred Hitchcock‘s brilliant film, Strangers on a Train. My first post discussed the opening sequence, comparing the shooting script to the film, and Truffaut’s vision of Hitchcock as [...]
Sep 202014
— “For me, the person in the shot is the star. He may have only one line of dialogue in the film, but I’m going take care of him in the same way I’m going to take care of Scarlett.” Part 2 of my interview with Luc Besson on thefilmbook blog on theASC.com +++
Sep 112014
— In the video below from The Hollywood Reporter, visual effects maven Douglas Trumbull gives a brief review of his involvement with immersive cinema, and presents his current Magi system, shooting 3D at 120 fps. Trumbull is travelling around showing Ufotog, a demo film shot with Canon C500s and projected with Christie’s 4K 3D projector. [...]