- True Grit Cinematographer Roger Deakins Talks About His “Shot of the Year”
Deakins is a cinematographer’s cinematographer—the type who writes detailed responses on super fans’ discussion boards, sharing technical specs (“a 1K pup [without a lens] and two Tweenies coming through the window”), giving credit when it’s due (“Nancy Haig and I tested a number of blind samples”), and dishing personal advice (“Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”). He isn’t driven by praise—just the desire to tell a great story. “When I read a script, I think about the development of the characters—I don’t really think about the visuals. Generally, when you read a script that Joel and Ethan have written, it seems very obvious what it should look like,” says Deakins, which may make him the only person in Hollywood who finds the notoriously uncommunicative Coen brothers completely transparent. - The Art of the False Comparison; or, Why Freddy Got Fingered is Better Than Touch of Evil
We all know how false comparisons work. Everybody has a number of movies they like that (most, or many) other people don’t. And everybody also has a number of movies they don’t like that (most, or many) other people do. So you just compare films from the first category to films from the second category (even if they have absolutely nothing to do with one another) and watch the outrage pour forth. You can maximize the outrage if you also make sure that the films from the second category are widely-acknowledged classics. (I realize that Armond White kind of does this with his annual “Better Than” list, though he confines it to new movies.) - Video Game Trailers are playing hardball
In a bid to give movie trailers a run for their money, Techland, the creators of Zombie video-game Dead Island assemble something mighty impressive. Not quite the 28 Weeks Later Opening, but it certainly worth a look to see why all the game-geek and web buzz was so ubitquitous last week. - Editing out The Bible for a Wider Audience
When you aim to please everyone, you probably will please no one. Producers, director and the studio trying to capture both the Blind Side / Passion of the Christ audience as well as secular families with Soul Surfing. - A Festival You DON’T want your film at
This is the type of Film Festival logic and logistics that you never want to see as a filmmaker!See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf6f6cIKvCQ&hd=1
The link goes to 14 minute VIDEO of the 2010 ‘mix-up’ by the Swansea Film Festival which outlines just how frustrating festivals can be to the filmmakers whose films are there to be celebrated; in fact this video could be an outtake or extra scene from the documentary on lower-tier film festival circuit, Official Rejection.
- The real director of the Room? Not Tommy Wiseau
Although Tommy Wiseau’s name is synonymous with The Room, having written, directed, produced, and starred in his cult tragicomedy like a latter-day Orson Welles with an ass fetish, filmmaker Sandy Schklair has now come forward demanding that he be the one recognized as directing one of the worst movies of all time. In an upcoming interview with Entertainment Weekly, Schklair reportedly says that he was initially hired as a script supervisor, but his responsibilities quickly expanded as it became clear that Wiseau was too busy acting and, presumably, lighting candles to answer questions regarding his dialogue or directions, so it fell to Schklair to step in and call the shots.
You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:
