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Man on a Ledge
REVIEWED BY: Nikki Baughan
RELEASED: February 3, 2012
For his feature debut, Danish filmmaker Asger Leth follows his 2006 documentary Ghosts of Cite Soleil (co-directed with Milos Loncarevic) with something entirely different; a high concept action thriller that is about as Hollywood as they come. That’s to say that everything is overblown, from premise to location and effects, and – like so many of its genre – it’s entirely throwaway.
Sam Worthington takes the lead as Nick, an ex-cop turned escaped con who is threatening to throw himself from one of the top stories of a towering Manhattan hotel. As the city comes to a standstill below him, troubled police negotiator Lydia (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk him down. But the more time that Nick spends on the ledge, the more Lydia begins to realise that there’s far more to his suicidal behaviour than she could ever have imagined.
And to say any more than that would be to expose the narrative foundations on which this film so depends; suffice it to say that Nick’s brother Joey (Jamie Bell) also has a part to play in this tallest of tales. Indeed, what enjoyment there is comes from surrendering to Pablo F Fenjves twisting screenplay, which just reveals a little more at every turn; albeit casting a great deal of credibility and logic aside in its pursuit of high octane thrills. And while the cast do their best, their characters are simply not developed past being vessels to carry the plot.
Indeed, concentrate on the one dimensional characterisation, the derivative nature of the script, the cliché ridden dialogue or the pat ending, and Man on a Ledge will be completely lost. But if you can remember that the action genre has always operated within its own unique set of rules—where the most audacious behaviour always generates the most explosive results, virtually every set piece and plot point has been done before and the end always, always justifies the means—and the film’s simplistic charms may well win you over. Just don’t expect to remember them in the morning.
2 stars
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Unknown filmmaker wins MOFILM opportunity to showcase during Super Bowl
Unknown filmmaker wins MOFILM opportunity to showcase during Super Bowl
Leading filmmaking contest community MOFILM, have announced that one of the most coveted ad spots in worldwide television, the Super Bowl, will be taken by a young filmmaker thanks to the first ever global competition for an unknown creative to produce an advert for a world-leading brand.
Zach Borst
Zach Borst’s light-hearted film for Chevrolet (titled Happy Grad) features a college graduate receiving a gift from his parents. The ad will air and run for 30 seconds during the telecast of Super Bowl XLVI to a global audience of over 163 million.
Andy Baker, President and Co-Founder of MOFILM, said: “We are incredibly proud of Zach’s film and that we’ve helped to create what will be one of the stand-out adverts of this year’s Super Bowl. This is a great ‘David and Goliath’ situation for MOFILM and will help inspire other young filmmakers to grab the opportunity MOFILM offers them and see where it leads – perhaps the biggest showcase in the world!”
Zach Borst, winning filmmaker, said: “What I love about MOFILM is that I can make a living doing what I love most and having my film shown during the Super Bowl has changed my life. I’ve been able to have full creative control from beginning to end – which is unheard of within the world of big brands. Anyone can submit to a MOFILM contest and they are proud to celebrate and support their pool of talent and help showcase their work to millions of people around the world.”
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UK inward investment from international features tops £1 billion
UK inward investment from international features tops £1 billion
The British Film Commission today released figures which reveal production spend from large scale international features shooting in the UK, exceeded the £1 billion mark in 2011. The figures represent a healthy year on year increase in inward investment on 2008′s low of £432.9 million and 2010′s total of £979 million.
Adrian Wootton, Chief Executive of the British Film Commission said: “2011’s production figures are further evidence that the UK is home to some of the world’s most talented and sought-after film-making talent. Coupled with our excellent infrastructure and facilities, the UK film industry is continuing to have a positive impact on the economy.”
Productions which started shooting in the UK in 2011 include the 23rd Bond film Skyfall, Cloud Atlas, the international ensemble drama starring Tom Hanks; Danny Boyle’s thriller, Trance; Ridley Scott’s epic sci-fi adventure Prometheus; period drama Hyde Park on the Hudson directed by Roger Michell; Gambit a comedy starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz; Marc Forster’s geo-political thrillerWorld War Z starring Brad Pitt; and Bollywood film Housefull 2starring Amitabh Bachchan.
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Pinewood TV launches into 2012
Pinewood TV launches into 2012
Not content with just being the UK’s premiere studio destination for international features, Pinewood TV has also made a strong start to 2012, welcoming back four shows, recording new series for 2012. Got To Dance 3 (Sky1HD) and New Tricks (BBC1) are currently based at Pinewood. The Magicians 2 (BBC1 HD) and the cult classic, Red Dwarf 10 (Dave) are based at Shepperton.
Got To Dance and The Magicians continue the recent trend at Pinewood for large Light Entertainment shows making use of the Group’s film stages to create some amazing sets – and with Got To Dance, hosting an audience of 1200. The productions have again taken accommodation and location space, enabling them to have a secure yet flexible set up to record. Both shows are being broadcast live, Got To Dance taking advantage of Pinewood’s direct HD lines straight to BT Tower.
Paul Darbyshire, Managing Director of Pinewood TV commented: “We’re really pleased to consistently be involved with some of the biggest TV productions in the UK and we’ve started this year strongly. What’s really pleasing however is the fact that all of these productions have chosen the Pinewood Group for repeat business. It shows great confidence in Pinewood TV’s facilities and dedicated, expert team. We can tailor solutions to meet every production’s needs and we hope to continue this early success throughout 2012 as we constantly develop and improve our offering.”
The Magicians, produced by Shine TV returned to Pinewood Studios Group this month, broadcasting live on J Stage at Shepperton Studios. BBC1 aired the new series live, the first time it has transmitted magic as it happens in more than 30 years.
The third series of Got To Dance is back; bigger and better than ever. The new series exploded onto our screens on Sky1HD from January 1st and the live semi-final shows from Pinewood’s R Stage start from Sunday 29th January. Got To Dance airs at 6pm on Sundays.
BBC One drama New Tricks has been commissioned for a further two series, to air in 2012 and 2013. Starring Amanda Redman, Dennis Waterman, Alun Armstrong and James Bolam, New Tricks follows an unconventional bunch of ex-coppers brought out of retirement to work on unsolved and open cases. Series 9 and Series 10 will each comprise of 10 new episodes.
…
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Young Adult
REVIEWED BY: Anton Bitel
RELEASED: February 3 2012
In 2007, young director Jason Reitman and first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody teamed up to create whipsmart teen pregnancy comedy Juno. Now their latest collaboration, Young Adult, represents a reunion in more ways than one, as they revisit previous preoccupations (adolescence and parenthood) from the perspective of arrested grown-ups rather than precocious teens.
In her most fearless (and monstrous) performance since 2003′s Monster, Charlize Theron plays 37-year-old Mavis, an aimless, alcoholic Minneapolitan drawn back to smalltown Mercury by news that former high school beau Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has just become a father. Mavis turns to Matt (Patton Oswalt), a crippled geek who like herself has never recovered from his teen years, for help in her unhinged scheme to win Buddy back from his newfound domestic bliss.
The film’s title refers more to the genre of fiction that Mavis ghostwrites for a living than to Mavis herself—who is neither as young nor as adult as she imagines—but Cody’s writing has certainly matured, with the sparky stylisation of Juno giving way to something altogether more cynical and spare. This is a cruelly funny portrait of the scars, both physical and psychological, left by high school experience—and it is pleasingly unusual for a rites-of-passage film in that precisely no lessons are learned, as Mavis’ narcissistic fantasies are allowed to go on, dented but essentially intact.
4 stars
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Don’t Think
REVIEWED BY: Tom Seymour
RELEASED: February 3, 2012
Don’t Think director Adam Smith met The Chemical Brothers—then known as The Dust Brothers—on the London clubbing scene 20 years ago. While Ed and Tom did their thing on stage, Smith created some of the best light, movement and visual shows in the business.
For their last album, Further, he worked with Marcus Lyall on a separate film for each of the eight tracks, before a worldwide tour climaxed with a no-holds-barred extravaganza at Japan’s Fujirock festival. Don’t Think is an extraordinarily experiential account of that mildly psychedelic evening, with Smith’s camera swooping and swooning over an audience going bananas to the throbbing force of The Chemical Brother’s beats.
Watch this space. After being headhunted to direct episodes of Doctor Who and Little Dorrit, Adam Smith has got two features slated for production this year. The Chemical Brothers will do well to keep hold of him.
4 stars
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Martha Marcy May Marlene
REVIEWED BY: Naila Scargill
RELEASED: February 3 2012
Martha Marcy May Marlene is initially quite involving, its maintenance of mystery very effective. Our titular character has run away from an overcrowded house in which the women appear to be servants, and has no idea as to her location. The story is then drip-fed via flashback, as we learn that Martha had disappeared after indoctrination into an extreme cult.
Olsen is absolutely fantastic as the troubled individual, portraying the blank-faced trauma of her ordeal very convincingly. Without her, Martha Marcy May Marlene would be a much lesser film; it’s hard to believe this is her first feature role.
The problem is that the story’s raison d’être—the long-term psychological impact on Martha—doesn’t lead us anywhere; there is no development of character, other than the predictable inflation of paranoia. As such, the film feels terribly drawn out; frustratingly, the tension of initial scenes just does not pay off. This is more due to an overly ambitious idea for a feature debut, however, than bad filmmaking. The scene had been set well. Should Sean Durkin attempt another psychological journey in the future, it will probably be worth a watch. As for Elizabeth Olsen, she could be destined for great things.
2 stars
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Neville Page – Fantastic Visions
Neville Page – Fantastic Visions
As a concept and creature designer working on the likes of Watchmen, Cloverfield and Star Trek, Neville Page is responsible for the look of some of modern cinema’s greatest successes. But, as he explains, new technologies are bringing new challenges…
British-born, but a long-term resident of California, Neville Page teaches at the state’s Art Center College of Design, the Otis College of Art and Design and the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, and is a design consultant for the entertainment, toy and automotive industries. He is also one of Hollywood’s hottest concept and creature designers, whose best-known films include Avatar, Piranha 3D and Super 8.
You’ve designed creatures that were very much to the director’s specifications and you’ve also occasionally had much more free rein to come up with your own ideas. Which approach do you prefer?
I like both directions, honestly. The most important thing always to remember is that you have been hired by someone to realise their vision and their dream. It’s not about you, it’s not for you to come up with your idea; even in the cases [on Star Trek, Cloverfield and Super 8] where JJ Abrams has really given me a tremendous amount of latitude, he’s still ultimately looking at my variations on a theme, selecting what he likes, and then guiding that. So I might have more input, but at the same time it’s JJ who’s at the helm, defining what he ultimately likes.
James Cameron is a visual artist, and can describe what he’s looking for not just in words but with a drawing, so you have a much clearer target to shoot for. But there were occasions on Avatar where, because Jim just didn’t have the time always to be around, we would just continue and do things he never asked for. Most of it just falls on its face, but sometimes he’d see it and go, ‘I hadn’t even thought of that, that’s a good idea, I’ll take it’. You take whatever direction they’ve given you, and try to come up with the answers as proficiently as possible.
In films like Star Trek, TRON: Legacy and Green Lantern, you’re building on design concepts that are already iconic. How do you find a balance in trying to satisfy the traditionalists in the audience and those looking for something new?
The balance sometimes is, almost thankfully, out of your jurisdiction, particularly on something like Green Lantern, where there were so many different players involved who ultimately made the decision of whether the choices that we were suggesting were appropriate. But we do have to start somewhere and give them something so, of course, we’re thinking about it all the way through. Green Lantern was a particularly odd one. The creatures in the comic book are so inventive that the starting point was pretty fantastic, but at the same time sometimes a little bit debilitating, because the concepts were so zany, so bizarre, that my concern was, how do we get that to fit into a film that is going to be visually realistic? So that’s when you really have to let physics, plausibility and the realities of nature define how something would transcend from comic book to an actual moving picture.
In the case of TRON [Legacy], that was easy, because the language that was defined visually in the original TRON was so specific and graphic. It wasn’t as difficult as on other productions for us to come up with a whole new aesthetic and pay homage and be respectful to the audience—and yet to have it feel like the original to fans—because once you impose that graphic design visual quality, you’re already in that world, and I think that when audiences see that concept elevated to the technology that we have today, they are instantly satisfied.
In the case of Star Trek, redesigning the Romulans felt to me the most high-risk, because the fan base knows the history of all the characters from Star Trek, and any deviation potentially brings some backlash. Quite honestly I was surprised that we didn’t get more ridicule for going down the path that we did, but I think that JJ and the writers came up with a brilliant storyline opportunity that gave you the latitude to create a relatively different aesthetic that did maybe go against the grain of what the franchise defined, yet still allowed the audience to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth in the revisit.
Have advances in technology and the shift to the digital domain changed the fundamentals of your work?
Over the most recent years, where digital technology has allowed the image that we create to look photoreal, the attention [is now] on design. Whereas years ago, as digital was new and the ability to create a realistic image on screen was relatively new, it was acceptable for audiences to just see something fanciful and realistic-looking. In a way the entertainment value of seeing a movie years ago, when digital was first coming out, was that you were getting a whole different level of entertainment, whereas now audiences only expect it to look real. It cannot not look real, whether it’s a spaceship flying over a planet, or a forest as with [Avatar's] Pandora, or a creature running across a landscape—with any of that now, it is just the demand and the expectation of the paying customer that it will look realistic. So much design had been done with spacecraft and worlds and aliens that the spectacle of realism is not as critical now as the story and good design.
So, strangely enough what I’m saying is that my job has become a lot harder, but I kind of prefer it to be as difficult as it is to try and be creative because that’s really what audiences are now gravitating towards: a good story, with good design. The realism that CGI offers is becoming more and more invisible, which is a shame for the people that do that work, because I don’t think they get the attention they deserve. Their work is not meant to appear overt at all. It’s kind of ironic. •
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Stellan Skarsgård – Nothing but the Truth
Stellan Skarsgård – Nothing but the Truth
Whether taking a role in a blockbuster (Pirates of the Caribbean), drama (Melancholia) or gritty thriller (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake), Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård approaches them all with the same goal: to get to the truth of the character.
Sandwiched somewhere between ABBA and the Millennium trilogy, Stellan Skarsgård remains one of Sweden’s most successful exports. If it’s Danish director Lars von Trier that provided his most potent roles, from his Breaking the Waves breakthrough to this year’s Melancholia, Skarsgård has proved a popular force in America, with blockbusters from Pirates of the Caribbean to Thor dominating his CV. Now, the 60-year-old Skarsgård splices his homeland with Hollywood, starring as CEO Martin Vanger in the US remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher’s controversy-baiting take on Stieg Larsson’s first Millennium novel. Sweden won’t know what’s hit it.
How do you choose your roles?
The director is extremely important to me. There are some directors who I say yes to without even seeing the script. [Hans Petter] Moland and [Lars von] Trier, I’ve worked with again and again. The roles… you usually want to do something you haven’t done. At least, I do. I try to find material that is different to what I’ve just been doing. That’s why I also go back to do independent films after doing the big American films. I have to do that—where the stakes are higher. Not the financial stakes, but the artistic stakes.
You can get into trouble if… If the director or some star is pompous or self-obsessed, it’s not nice. I hate it. I don’t care if they’re geniuses; I don’t want to work with them if they’re not decent people and they can’t respect everybody’s work and integrity and create a good atmosphere on the set. It’s not worth it. It’s just a film. But when you get a bit older, and you’ve made 90 films, there’s very few that can come and create an atmosphere that you don’t accept.
How was your experience working with David Fincher on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
That’s a filmmaker who knows everything about the technical side of filmmaking, the imagery. And he has his tools. It’s fun working with him. His way of getting life into his imagery is different to Lars. He does 40 takes instead. And that fucks up the actor enough to make them come alive. I like it. We shoot on Red, on video, and you just roll and roll and roll. And I’m fine with it. I can roll 15 hours, as long as the days are, and feel good. What I hate is when your flow is interrupted all the time. No, we have to tweak the light a little or fix this or that, or change the mag on the camera…
Fincher has a budget of $130m or something. But he spends it all on time. So there are not a lot of trailers and you don’t have enormous pay cheques. It’s just time. He takes eight or nine months to shoot a normal film. Which is wise. He wants it all up on the screen.
Do you feel protective over the material, given it’s from a hit Swedish novel?
I haven’t read the book! I don’t read many crime stories. I saw the first of the Swedish films. That was OK. Noomi Rapace was great in it. But Rooney Mara, she’s great too. She’s a different character. Less of a woman and more of a child. Which is interesting.
What do you wish to achieve through your acting?
To be as truthful as if I was an amateur. If I ever use my skills, it must be invisible. I’m technically extremely skilled; I can hit a mark blindfolded. There’s one film where we didn’t even have marks. I was out of focus several times. And the focus puller said, ‘It can’t be Stellan. It must be something wrong with the lens.’ And it was. But all this technique, I have to destroy all the time. And then working with Lars, when you get all that freedom, you can try everything. That has also influenced my way of working with more traditional directors. I crave more freedom and I crave the opportunity to make mistakes now. I tried to be perfect once. I don’t try that any more.
You just worked with your son, Alexander, in Melancholia. How was that?
Ah, it’s great. I have three sons that are actors, and I’ve worked with all of them. It’s fun because you see… First of all, being in a room with your family is nice. But also when you start working, it’s very easy when you start talking about the scene; you reach a point of understanding so much faster because you think the same way. Also, you know each other so well, and you recognise things in each other and laugh at them. It’s very funny. It’s also a warm feeling. And it was nice to see him work so well with Lars, and Lars loved him so much. After every take, Lars came up to me and said, ‘You see, he’s much better than you are!’ I’d say, ‘Lars, that’s evolution for you!’
Are you amazed by Alexander’s success in True Blood?
Yeah, but the kind of success in terms of fame, you cannot predict. But I saw him in Generation Kill, where he was very, very good. Flawless American accent. That was a great, great job. When I saw my son naked on the front of Rolling Stone magazine, then I realised he’s gotten somewhere!
You’re coming up in the ultimate Marvel film, The Avengers. Will it be the greatest superhero film of them all?
I don’t know. There are a fucking lot of people [in it]! Poor Joss Whedon is writing it, and he’s got to get all those characters in, all those stars happy, and still have a story that somebody can follow. It’s a tough task but I think he’s done a wonderful job. •
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Film As We Know It
While there is a widespread, vocal opposition to the advent of 3D, there are many who believe that it is crucial to the future of filmmaking. Here, film critic Scott Jordan Harris explains why we should embrace the third dimension…
To many film critics, 3D is a disease. They think it is a gimmick that pushes audiences into paying more than they should and that pulls filmmakers away from the traditional skills of their art. Mark Kermode, for example, believes the issue important enough to identify himself as ‘militant about 3D’ even when limited to the 160 characters of a Twitter bio, and many like him oppose the stereoscopic image whenever it appears, arguing that the development of 3D is entirely unnecessary for film. They’re wrong. 3D is essential to the health of cinema, and those who can’t see that fail to understand the evolutionary principles that drive, and have always driven, filmmaking.
There are many complaints against 3D: it is too dim; it is too expensive; it encourages the retrofitting of 3D into films shot in 2D; and it turns films into a fairground attraction. Some of these complaints are, in the short term, quite correct. 3D films are more expensive and their pictures are dimmer. But this will not always be the case. If technology improves, and if 3D becomes commonplace, prices will fall and standards will rise. When sound first came to the cinema, cinematography suffered. Cameras became too heavy and awkward to rotate and glide and swoop as they had before. But these limitations were soon overcome; they were not used to dismiss sound as a disposable gimmick.
Those who love film should never fear its evolution but only its stagnation
The complaints against retrofitted 3D are right: it is an abomination akin to the colourisation of black-and-white films. But, again, if 3D filmmaking becomes more commonplace, retrofitting will quickly become unnecessary and unprofitable. The argument that 3D makes film into a fairground attraction is nonsense; it has always been one. From the first freakish appeal of witnessing images appear to move on screen, to the wonder of seeing astonishingly sophisticated 21st century CGI, the marvel of new technology has always been one of cinema’s chief attractions.
Beneath the specific attacks on stereoscopy is a single, simple, fear: that a 3D film—or perhaps a future in which 3D films make up the majority of major releases—simply isn’t cinema as we understand it. This fear, though understandable, is all but baseless.
Film is a uniquely capacious art form; it is capable of absorbing and extending almost every other art we have created. What’s more, whenever a new art or technology appears (and the emergence of one is often linked to the emergence of the other), film seizes it too, and, eventually, great movies are made because of it. So it will be with 3D.
But the success or failure of 3D itself is actually immaterial. What matters is the principle behind the 3D experiment: that finding radically new ways of making films—and, yes, of finding radically new ways of making money from films—has always been essential to maintaining the power and prominence of cinema.
Film is forever moving forward. Had cinema ever stayed as ‘film as we know it’, it would have rejected feature-length productions, sound, colour, Technicolor, animation, widescreen, special effects and a hundred thousand other innovations, enormous and minuscule, that have stretched cinema to be all that it is. Those who cringe at the idea that the majority of movies will one day be in 3D would, years ago, have been appalled at the prospect that the majority of movies would one day be in sound or colour.
Film will only ever truly cease to be ‘film as we know it’ if it abandons its built-in mechanism for expansion, adaptation and appropriation. And that means it must forever change from that to which we are accustomed into that of which we are unsure. If it does not, film will stop being what it has been practically since its birth: the frontier of both art and entertainment. Those who love film should never fear its evolution but only its stagnation. To resist progress, and be overtaken by other forms of art and entertainment more in line with contemporary technology, therein lies obsolescence.
To those who make movies, I say this: go out to the technological limits of filmmaking and keep pushing forward. Many of your experiments will fail. Some will succeed. But all will benefit filmmaking. To those who fret over the future of film in the age of digital 3D, or the age of CGI, or the age of holograms being beamed directly into our brains that seems certain to follow, I can say only this: relax. Film will be fine. •
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Hard Work and Good Luck
As summer hit Super 8 comes to DVD and Blu-ray, the film’s Scottish first assistant director and co-producer Tommy Gormley takes us on an exclusive journey of the making of the film…
JJ Abrams first mentioned his idea for Super 8 to me in late 2009, but I think the idea had been in his mind for many years. Set in a small American town in 1979, it’s a combination of a coming-of-age tale, action/adventure film and monster movie. The main protagonists are two young amateur filmmakers who are making their own Super 8 zombie movie when they witness a life-changing event.
When the project was green-lit in summer 2010, Paramount Pictures asked me to come on board. It would be the third time I had served as JJ’s first assistant director, after Mission: Impossible III and Star Trek. On this occasion, I was given the added responsibility of being the movie’s co-producer. A great team was assembled alongside me, including executive producer Guy Riedel, associate producer and UPM Udi Nedivi, cinematographer Larry Fong and production designer Martin Whist.
From the time principal photography began in September 2010, Super 8 presented myriad challenges. For starters, it wasn’t a classic summer tent-pole movie; it had no big stars, wasn’t a sequel or a franchise, and it wasn’t a superhero movie. It was a potentially very expensive and complex movie to make: a period film with big action and visual effects sequences. Yet we knew that it couldn’t—and shouldn’t—be big-budget. Because it is, in many ways, such an intimate film, this would have done it a disservice. So we resolved to make the film for as little money as possible, while still giving it the scale and spectacle it warranted.
Having come off a run of mega-budget pictures, it was interesting for me to re-examine every stage of the process. Less resources actually make you more resourceful. I was always conscious of my times working with Ken Loach; Ken is the master of doing more with less, and he knows that the more stuff you have, the more it gets in the way of telling the story.
On Super 8, the biggest challenge, from my point of view, was the kids. Namely, how you plan and shoot a movie on a very tight schedule, starring six kids, that’s set mainly at night. Kids’ working hours are extremely limited: nine hours total, made up of five hours of actually working, three hours of school and one hour of rest. The kids also have to finish by 10 p.m. on a school day and 12.30 a.m. on a weekend. This is a scheduling nightmare.
Added to this, only two out of the six kids had ever acted professionally before. You can’t presume that someone who’s never been in front of a camera before can deliver the desired performance in normal time—it might take them 20 or 40 takes, not three or four. As one of the people who had promised to deliver the film on budget and in just 66 days, that was a slightly scary prospect! But my worries proved unfounded. They were great kids, honest, talented and real, and they matched the amazing Elle Fanning—the only experienced actor among them—scene by scene. With intelligent use of photo and stunt doubles, we managed to continue filming long after our young friends had gone home for the night.
Photo credit François Duhamel
We started shooting in the old steel town of Weirton, West Virginia. It’s a place that has suffered greatly from the loss of its primary industry, and it’s also deeply atmospheric, with a sense of time having stood still. It was an exhilarating location to work, thanks entirely to the local people. We were welcomed with open arms, and no one complained when we spent endless nights blowing up the neighbourhood. After four weeks there, we moved back to LA for the rest of the shoot. The train-crash sequence was shot in a ranch in a valley north of LA, the bus-attack sequence was shot in the citrus groves of Ventura County, and all the film’s interiors were either LA locations chosen to match Weirton, or sets we built inside the famous Howard Hughes aircraft hangar at Playa Vista.
The most complex scene to shoot was the train crash, which involved three separate blocks of work. We built a beautiful train station, and shot on it with the kids for several nights for the pre-crash scene, using green screen for the moment the train is racing past them. Then we went away for a week, and came back after the station had been rigged by the special effects team. This was particularly nerve-wracking; with six cameras and no possibility of take two, we blew the place up using a giant 20-ton steel sledge as a makeshift train, and a huge amount of pyrotechnics. These events always make me nervous, but your job is to stay calm, rehearse it endlessly, run the safety meetings, watch the crew and cast like a hawk and breathe the biggest sigh of relief when you roll and it works as planned. We left again while Martin Whist’s team built the post-crash carnage, and returned to shoot the aftermath sequence.
Unlike most current major movies, our default setting was always, ‘How can we do this in camera, with no tricks?’ If there was a way to achieve a shot without resorting to visual FX, we chased it fanatically. It suited our film.
As the filming drew to a close, the pressure increased. The ending, which was just an outline when we began shooting, coalesced into something rather more complex, so the weight of work we needed to shoot increased. But, by a combination of hard work, long hours, goodwill from an amazing crew and large chunks of sheer good luck, we completed principal photography just before Christmas 2010. And an unusually accelerated post schedule, with much credit due to ILM for the visual effects work, allowed Super 8 to be ready in time for a summer 2011 release.
My colleagues and I were relieved, knowing that we had taken an ambitious project, done it justice in terms of scale and scope, delivered it on time and budget and most importantly, had helped realise the film JJ Abrams wanted to make. For me, it has become a great template for how to approach future projects.
Super 8 is released on DVD and Blu-ray from Paramount Home Entertainment
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Red State (DVD)
REVIEWED BY: Nikki Baughan
DVD & BLU-RAY: January 23
Retrospection is a powerful tool when it comes to assessing Kevin Smith’s latest feature. When Red State was released in cinemas in September 2011, it was accompanied by a Twitter-fuelled furore after the director refused to screen the film for UK journalists and publicly aired his feelings about critics and all those who failed to appreciate or understand his work. Whether genuine tirade or publicity stunt, a cloud of controversy hung over Red State during its big screen outing. But, while Smith’s personality always casts a very large shadow over his features, the passing of time has certainly helped this film to stand on its own two feet.
After Smith’s disastrous foray into more mainstream fare with Cop Out, he’s back in familiar territory with this uncompromising horror/satire hybrid. At its core is Five Points Church, the extremely fanatical religious sect led by the utterly terrifying Abin Cooper (Michael Parks). When they are not campaigning against homosexuality, they are luring promiscuous teens to their isolated homestead and subjecting them to bloody punishment for their sins. When the local police force realise what’s going on, they call in ATF Agent Kennan (John Goodman) whose team surround the farm and attempt to bring Cooper to his knees…
As you’d expect, it’s all utterly outrageous; from the hapless victims being strapped to a cross to the shocking fate of one of the almost-survivors to an ending that’s the crazy cherry on top. But while the characters and their situations may be painted in broad, blood red strokes, the points Smith is making are rather more specific. And, as indicated by the film’s chapter titles of ‘Sex’, ‘Religion’ and ‘Politics’, it’s not just America’s religious right who are in his cross-hairs, but American culture itself. In this story, personal responsibility is virtually non-existent on both sides of the good/evil divide, the police are as reckless as the cult members, unchecked gun culture puts multiple weapons in the hands of maniacs and, in the film’s most politically overt exchange between Keenan and his superiors, constitutional rights are utterly disregarded.
The reason Red State works is because it embraces its own madness, and everyone on screen completely invests in Smith’s vision. Parks is undoubtedly at the heart of it all; in a role written specifically for him he veers from quiet menace to unrestrained insanity. It’s a virtuoso performance deserving of acknowledgement and respect whatever your thoughts on the film at large. Acting stalwarts Goodman and the wonderful Melissa Leo, cast as Parks’ equally as unhinged daughter, manage to keep their tongues in their cheeks and their faces straight, so lending the gravitas needed to keep the narrative from spinning into farce.
A white trash, balls-to-the-wall horror mishmash it may be, but Red State has far more depth than perhaps even its director would have us believe. And while some of its finer points may get trampled by Smith’s desire to offend, it’s both entertaining satire and a welcome return to form for a filmmaker with much to prove. 4 stars
Extras Both the DVD & Blu-ray contain a making of, Sundance footage, a conversation with Michael Parks, deleted scenes and poster gallery – all introduced by Smith – and the Blu-ray also features several of Smith’s Smodcasts about the film. 3 stars
As proof of just how divisive Red State is as a film, and Kevin Smith is as a filmmaker, our reviewer Naila Scargill awarded the movie 1 star when it was released theatrically. Click here to read Naila’s review.
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Blast From the Past
Film critic and author Mark Kermode explains why 3D filmmaking is nothing new, and how it is destined to remain part of cinema’s history rather than its future.
There are two great myths about 3D cinema: firstly, that it is a new and exciting development which somehow represents the ‘future of film’; secondly, that the artistry of this emergent art form is simply waiting for the technology to catch up. Neither of these statements is true—indeed both are pure baloney.
There is nothing new about 3D movies; in fact, stereoscopy is as old as cinema itself. As Ray Zone points out in his exhaustively researched tome Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952, the patent documents for Edison’s Kinetoscope issued way back in March 1893 had “several stereo claims [and] depicted an optical system with two lenses for stereoscopic viewing of moving object”. Apparently Edison never got round to actually using the system, but clearly the concept of 3D moving pictures actually predates the projection of film. Everyone knows about the Lumière brothers’ epochal short film showing a train coming into a station at La Ciotat, early screenings of which were reported (perhaps apocryphally) to have sent patrons scurrying from the screen in fear. Yet how many remember that Louis later remade this film in 3D, only to discover that its effects were in no way enhanced by the addition of stereoscopy? The 2D version of L’arrivee d’un train… is a milestone of cinema history; the 3D version remains nothing more than a peculiar footnote.
Early 3D movies were anaglyph productions, designed to be viewed through those red-green/blue glasses which turn everything on screen to a peculiar shade of mud. In 1936, the anaglyph short Audioscopiks was nominated for an Academy Award in the self-explanatorily entitled Best Short Subject: Novelty category (if only Avatar had been eligible for a ‘novelty’ award!) That same year, Edwin H. Land started demonstrating his version of the polarised 3D system with which we are now all depressingly familiar. Thus, by the time the great ‘golden age’ of 3D rolled around in the fifties, throwing up titles such as Bwana Devil (‘A Lion in Your Lap! A Lover in Your Arms!’), House of Wax and Dial M for Murder, 3D cinema had already had half a century to get its technical act together. Yet still audiences remained unconvinced that stereoscopy was an advancement on a par with the arrival of colour or the advent of sound. Indeed, it was the dawn of CinemaScope, with its wide panoramic picture, that became the real audience hit in the fifties, with Fox’s flagship ‘Scope production The Robe being marketed with the tagline ‘The miracle you can see without glasses!’
The truth is that the fifties 3D craze was driven not by audiences but by studios, who had become desperately worried that the rising popularity of television would cause potential punters to drift away from the movie houses. Similarly, in the early eighties, when titles such as Jaws 3D, Amityville 3D and (most memorably) Friday the 13th Part III in 3D hit the screens, it was in response to the explosion of home video which was giving movie lovers a good reason to stay home. And once again, it was not stereoscopy but another innovation altogether which proved the saviour of cinema, this time the emergence of reliably impressive cinema sound, spearheaded by George Lucas’ THX-certified systems, which finally put paid to the God-awful tinny whining which most people had come to expect from a disheartening trip to their local fleapit.
In the case of the most recent 3D fad, it’s hard not to conclude that the ongoing battle against movie piracy was the driving industrial force. Although James Cameron may have a genuine and passionate devotion to the format (he thought that The Hurt Locker would have worked better in 3D—really), the studio heads who forced slapdash stereoscopic conversions on movies like Clash of the Titans (against the wishes of its director) had no such high ideals. As with previous stereoscopic cycles, the pattern was all too familiar: a brief period of audience interest in the novelty factor spawning a few high-profile hits, followed by a growing irritation with both the price and the aesthetics of the format, resulting in such costly box-office bombs as Mars Needs Moms, from which punters stayed away in droves.
Despite the financial success of a 3D retrofitted re-release of The Lion King and the anticipation which awaits both Scorsese’s Hugo and Spielberg’s Tintin, industry pundits predict that stereoscopy is once again in decline—something which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows their cinema history. As for the home-entertainment industry, take up on 3D TVs has been sluggish at best. Not even the dream of ‘glasses-free’ 3D can save the day; the long-awaited Nintendo 3DS arrived with health warnings about eye strain for the young (the target market), reminding us that the Russians tested a glasses-free lenticular screen system in the first half of the twentieth century, but concluded that it had no future.
Ultimately, the problem with 3D is not the technology, but what director Christopher Nolan calls the parallax illusion itself. Contrary to Hollywood propaganda, 3D is not immersive; a century of cinema proves that it is in fact alienating. Think about it: when was the last time you watched a really good movie and thought; ‘That was great, but I couldn’t get immersed because the image was so flat?’ The answer is, never. That’s why, whatever the suits try to tell us, 3D is not the future. It is, was, and always will be the past.
Mark’s new book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex is available now from Random House.
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Todd Haynes – It’s Not Just TV
Todd Haynes – It’s Not Just TV
Director Todd Haynes reveals why making Mildred Pierce for HBO gave him such exhilarating creative freedom, and why the small screen is offering exciting opportunities to big-screen talent.
HBO, Todd Haynes, Kate Winslet and James M. Cain… it’s a delicious combination. So it’s no surprise that Mildred Pierce is one of the great pleasures of this year. Already made into a movie with Joan Crawford in 1945, Haynes’ five-hour take on Cain’s novel—for the groundbreaking cable network behind The Sopranos—sees Winslet on stunning form in the title role, a 1930s mother-of-two who faces divorce, tragedy and betrayal with stoic grace. At this year’s Venice Film Festival, where Haynes’ earlier films Far From Heaven and I’m Not There both played, the director grabbed a few moments in-between jury duties to sit down with movieScope and discuss what drew him to his first television outing.
Did you ever consider making Mildred Pierce a film, like the 1945 movie?
I never considered making it a feature-length film. It was always going to be a long, multi-part film. Carlos was also made as almost the same length, and it had a theatrical release, which is more possible in Europe. So I had a fantasy: we could maybe show it in two parts. It was always meant to be in multiple parts. The original film version had done that and had to condense the material in its own unique way. The whole reason to do it again was to do things that that film couldn’t do.
The 1945 film has the murder of the Monty character—that’s not in the book or your version—which frames the story…
They made it into a film noir. They made it into the kinds of crime novels that James M. Cain had become most famous for writing, and which had been adapted into films as well—The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. And that was the furthest intention on Mildred Pierce. He was really trying to write a serious, respectable, realist story of a mother-daughter relationship. And they added a murder, and put in a detective as a framing device.
So what attracted you to Mildred Pierce?
I always wanted to do something set in the 1930s. Every time I get to do a period film—and almost all my films are period films—it’s just an amazing opportunity. I feel like I’m giving myself a gift of education, however partial, about a specific time and place. The clothes, the politics, the social backdrop, the language, the behaviour.
How did you come to cast Kate Winslet?
I knew there were things about this character, Mildred, that she embodied. Kate has this physicality about what she does. There’s a sense of work and labour that she puts into everything that she does. It’s incredibly total. And you needed that with Mildred. And Kate has real self-awareness, which Mildred does not have. But Kate knows how she functions by compartmentalising aspects of her life. When she’s working on a movie, she’s totally there one hundred per cent. When she’s with her kids, she’s totally there one hundred per cent. So I think she understood that aspect of Mildred. And how Mildred had blind spots between those different compartments.
What differences did you find between shooting for television and making a movie?
Nothing really, except the schedule, and how much we were meant to shoot a day. That was the difference. Other than that, my version favours a lot of wide-angle shots. It plays most strongly, I think, on the big screen. I might have failed the television test, because I didn’t really change the way I wanted it to be shot or covered, thinking just of a smaller screen. I really let the wide shots carry a lot of the storytelling.
Had you ever thought about directing episodic TV before, say on a show like Mad Men?
I’d thought about it as a way to make money—I’m lucky even that I have that as a possibility if I need to make some money. But, no, not really. I’d rather be the consumer of it. It’s fun to be on the other side of the TV screen and watching it from that vantage point.
What sort of freedoms did HBO give you?
It was an amazing experience for me. I’ve never worked with a studio before as a filmmaker, and I’ve never met studio executives as smart, as conscientious and as literate as these guys. They wanted this to be a complex, compelling piece of work. They didn’t want it to be commercial. They wanted to respect the integrity of what we were doing, which was amazing.
So there was no censorship?
God, no. They want more sex. More Kate having sex please!
Do you think television is becoming more attractive to actors like Winslet?
Certainly. Absolutely. It’s just because they don’t make dramas [for cinema] any more in the United States. Television is the place where stories about real people, with complicated problems and nuanced relationships can happen. Of course there are exceptions to this, and I covet them. I hate what’s happening. I hate that people don’t go to the movies any more to see serious drama. I hate that minimising, reductive, Marvel Comics inspired franchises [that] are motivating studios to make films, when they’re making record profits. And I always thought when you made record profits that was exactly the time you could diversify and broaden your base.
Would you go back to television again?
I would love to do it again. It’s all about the material. When the material warrants something that needs a longer, broader palette or canvas to tell the story. And not everything does. Some things should be experienced as features, in one viewing.
What will you do next? A movie?
Yes. The script I’m working on is about contemporary, populist, conservative politics. This would be reaching a different audience that I usually reach with my movies. I would want people who are swayed by conservative ideas to see this film. And I would want to be sensitive and open to how they think, and why they think the way they think. Which will be hard, but it’ll be an amazing learning experience for me.
Mildred Pierce is on Blu-ray and DVD from HBO Home Entertainment
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Alan Niblo – Best of British
As co-founder of Vertigo and producer of many of the UK’s recent indie hits, Allan Niblo tells us why it’s never been a better time for British filmmaking…
Allan Niblo is one of the founders of independent production and distribution company Vertigo Films, which has a reputation for supporting first-time directors whose films have met with both critical and box-office success—Paul Andrew Williams, Steve McQueen, Rupert Wyatt and Gareth Edwards being among them. It is through being a judge on short-film competitions, such as Short Stories and SCI-FI-LONDON’s 48 Hour Film Challenge, that Niblo is finding the next wave of British talent. movieScope caught up with Niblo at the launch of this year’s Short Stories, to discuss his role in the UK industry.
There are many interpretations of the role of a producer. How do you approach it?
There’s many different ways a producer can operate, right from an all-encompassing producer who comes up with the concepts, finds the money, finds the director, finds the talent and sees it all the way through to the DVD and even the TV release, and is involved in every single step of the way and every part of the decision-making process. Or you can have a producer who brings a bit of financing to the table and is more hands-off, but they are both credited as a producer.
[I am] a bit of both, to be honest. I’m involved in [some] films as a producer [who] will just bring a certain element, and work with co-producers. On other films, like Monsters, I was there from the very start, all the way through to the release of the movie, and [I am] still working on the extended version of that film now. That’s a passion project that is taken all the way.
Vertigo was started when you teamed up with distributor Rupert Preston for Human Traffic. Is this mix of producing and distribution a good way to work?
Absolutely. It’s really, really hard making a film, but it’s 10 times harder to get it into cinemas. It was really touch and go with Human Traffic whether it was going to get a cinema release or not. We were down to the final distributor who wanted it, and was only going to release it on 10 prints. Once it started screening, the kids started loving the movie, and the cinemas loved it, then the journalists loved it and it was eventually released on 300 prints. It’s a really painful part of the process, so the more you can control it and own it, the better chance you’ve got of being happy with the result.
When you are looking at a new project do you consider it for its artistic merits or its commercial potential?
It’s actually both. The two recent extremes are Street Dance, which is a popcorn, multiplex movie that was a worldwide teen hit, then there was Ajami, which is a real art-house film, nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. So we’ll look at both extremes. My background’s more art-house cinema than mainstream, but in order to make art-house films you need the finance. Hopefully we can do both, which is our ambition.
Do you find that short film contests are a good place to find new talent?
It’s invaluable; short films are the way to get noticed. You get quite a lot of directors that are coming through Eastenders, and you can’t tell if they’re a good director or not, if they’ve got a vision or a voice, because it’s not really directing, as such. A short film can, like in the case of Gareth Edwards, show that he’s got a real vision and a real voice, and that will inspire you to want to make a film with them. Now he’s directing Godzilla and is one of the hottest young talents in Hollywood.
It must make you feel proud…
It does. We’ve worked with a few people like that. We did a film called The Escapist, and [director Rupert Wyatt’s] next film was Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He went from a little British film to getting noticed on a global scale. It just shows you it’s possible.
There’s a huge resurgence in feature docs at the moment. Do you think that is down to the fact that people want to see more interesting stories than Hollywood is providing?
Absolutely, and hopefully that can bleed into dramas. I’d love to capture some of the spirit of documentaries into a feature. For example, the crowd-surfing clip from The Pit [a Short Stories film]; I’d love to start a film with that, as a character in a drama. I love crowd-surfing and that would be a unique start, to me. I look for elements where you can see the person’s voice and the spirit or the passion you live your life with. Some of these elements you can bring into dramas. It’s interesting to look at documentaries from that perspective.
Vertigo has distributed many documentaries; would you like to produce one?
If the right project came up we’d do it. In fact, we’re looking at a couple of documentary feature projects at the moment. It would be for cinema, not for television. We would definitely look at a cinematic documentary.
As a company we are commercially ambitious. I would love to make everything from Notting Hill to Control to Kick Ass. There’s a lot of subject matter we want to get our teeth into.
Is the British independent film scene strong enough at the moment?
It’s never been better. It’s literally a vintage period at the moment. It’s unheard of to have two films in the top two at the box office, with The Inbetweeners and One Day. It’s a great time at the moment and we’re getting the balance between commercialism and artistic content right.
Allan Niblo is a judge for the Relentless Energy Drink Short Stories Filmmaking Competition. For more information, and to view this year’s entries, visit relentlessenergy.com/shortstories
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Jason Lew – A Personal Journey
Jason Lew – A Personal Journey
Having started out as an actor in films like The Experiment and Recalled, Jason Lew turns his attention to screenwriting with the recently released Restless. And, as he explains, watching Gus Van Sant turn your first script into a movie is an experience like no other…
Has getting to the point of seeing your first screenplay put into production been a hard slog?
I wrote the play when I was living in New York in probably 2004, so it’s been a long process. But there was a whole period of about a year-and-a-half or two where I just sat on my computer. I’m also an actor, and people generally don’t like to get scripts from actors. But I was able to get it to my friend Bryce [Dallas Howard] and she very much responded to it, and we did it together just as a little project for ourselves, because we really believed in the story.
The film is about a terminally ill girl and a death-obsessed young man who is friends with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot. How did this story come about?
I had three little ideas and scenes. One was a young girl with a terminal illness who was playing Operation, the board game, with her older sister. The other was a story about a teenage boy who was in love with death and they had this relationship. And the other was this grandiose, pretentious, docutheatre thing I was doing about Japan during the Second World War. None of them were really working on their own but, for some reason, when I put them together, it seemed to work.
My father’s a paediatric oncologist and I grew up around a lot of these children, who were my friends, and I would see him go to funerals all the time. So I had this early relationship to [sic] death, and it’s obviously affected me. With all due respect to films that came before [that dealt with cancer], I never found that it’s necessary to see everything, because I find it almost manipulative. I felt like I wanted to keep the illness present, but in my mind it’s a movie about life, it’s not about death.
Did the kamikaze character stem from your general interest in the theme of death?
My family’s from China, and I grew up hearing stories about the war. Also, I read this book Japan At War, that was all oral history, and just became fascinated with that time period, and the psychology, and that culture. It was just such a cauldron of intense emotions. So, I just wanted to see if I could marry it with this odd story, because they all seemed to be dealing with death, one way or another.
I feel that in Japanese culture there is a real romanticism of death and that has always moved me. I think in Western culture, and in America especially, we have the attitude of ‘don’t talk about death and dying, it’s ugly’. I was always moved by the Japanese mentality that there is beauty in death.
You admit that you have had no screenwriting training, so how did you approach getting this story down in traditional screenplay format?
It’s funny because I found out [about proper scriptwriting] terms after. I was like, ‘The second act turn? What are you talking about?’ I never took a screenwriting class so it was more, ‘Oh, I feel like this needs to happen now. This needs to happen now’ and it came organically. I did get a lot of help from Ron Howard, who really brings that old-school structuralism. Which helped because if it were left up to me, I would have two characters talking in a room all day. I’m a playwright; I started out as a playwright. I think it was a good marriage of style all across the board, from producer to everybody that’s been involved.
So you were open to suggestions about your script, even if it meant making changes?
Yeah, but I come from the theatre so I really enjoy collaboration. Screenwriters are going to kill me for this, but I consider a script a blueprint for a collaboration; I don’t think it’s gospel. I think if you really want something like a novel or poetry, that’s something that’s a personal snapshot of something that’s inside of you. But it’s odd to have delusions when someone’s giving you a million dollars that they aren’t going to want to have a say in what the final project is. It is about navigating.
What was it like having Gus Van Sant direct your first produced screenplay?
Well, they asked me to make a list of directors and I put him right at the top. He is incredible with two things that I think were essential for this movie: his portraits of youth are always, I feel, very authentic and moving; and he often deals with death and outsiders. He treats outsiders with respect, and that was something that was essential to me. It could have gotten very washed over.
The ending of the film is very strong but also very ambiguous; did you always have it playing like that in your mind?
I don’t like speeches at the end of films when somebody comes up and says, ‘This is what the movie’s all about’. I’m very influenced by French cinema—you’d be very hard-pressed to find a filmmaker who’s not influenced by the nouvelle vague—and it always blew me away in French cinema where you could have a story and it’s ‘this is the story and it starts here and ends here. We’re just going to show you this part and the implications’. It’s more exciting to me what we imagine he was going to say than anything I could have come up with.
With the release of Restless, would you now define yourself as a screenwriter?
I believe I am. I’ve worked on a couple of specs since and I’m getting them out there. As a writer I’m better when I can generate a story and then people come in. I like to build the furniture by myself, but then I like having others help me move it around.
Restless is now on general release.
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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Stuck in the Middle
Creative Screenwriting’s Danny Munso examines why films with a mid-range budget may be the most challenging to write…
Movies come in all different shapes and sizes. More specifically, for this commentary, they come in all different budgets. Each year, movie theatres fill up with blockbusters and indies; each film comes with different expectations about what it needs to gross to consider it a success. Indeed, what’s considered a success for one film could be the death knell for another.
The film industry is in a state of flux and has been for a number of years. The recent economic downturn that has befallen the United States has certainly hit Hollywood on a number of fronts. People’s income has fallen; it’s not surprising, therefore, that box-office receipts are in decline as well. Couple that with the advent of home video and rising ticket prices, and it’s getting more and more difficult for theatre owners to fill their seats.
It’s common to take a glance at the weekend box-office results, see a film that has grossed into the nine figures and feel emboldened. But when you account for inflation and compare the grosses of the films of today with those released just a decade ago, it’s plain to see that the bottom line remains this: less people are going to the movies than before.
A popular refrain when confronted with this information is ‘Well, if they made better movies…’ Look, everyone even remotely involved with the film industry wants quality over quantity. But there are great films that no one goes to see, just as there are horrid films that way too many see—yes, people who saw The Smurfs, I am talking about you.
So what does all of this mean for you, the screenwriter?
It means that, just like your favourite restaurant or clothing store, movie studios exist to make money. They are a business and their goal is to make a profit at the end of the year, just like any other company. Unfortunately their business acumen doesn’t always translate to what moviegoers want to see on the big screen and that’s when it begins to affect screenwriters, both professional and aspiring.
The studios see great value in blockbusters, the so-called summer and fall tent poles—as they should. True, there are always a series of flops; for every Thor that exceeds expectations, there’s a Green Lantern that wildly underperforms. But there’s also an inherent reliability with these types of films: often they are adaptations of popular works (such as 2011’s late-year release, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), or sequels to films that no one thought should have them (hello, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides). These projects have built-in audiences, so the studio can count on a certain number of filmgoers to attend. If the films are well-made, all the better.
Octavia Spencer in THE HELP
The indie genre can also be a lucrative avenue for filmmakers. Make a film on a shoestring budget and maybe you will hit the jackpot, as 2007’s Paranormal Activity proved. But even at the $5m-and-under range, there are successful films being made that don’t require a large audience to turn a profit. And so we come to it: the mid-range budget, the ‘dying breed’ that don’t fit into either of the categories mentioned above. And it is this level of film that is finding the most difficult traction, both at the box office and in the executive boardrooms of studios. It’s difficult to find an exact formula for why this is the exact case, but my opinion is that it is due to the subject matter often found in films of this budget range. Stories found in blockbusters are meant to appeal to a wide audience and multiple demographics. The ground covered in indies is irrelevant, because of how little they need to make to be deemed a success. Mid-rangers have a tough time because often their subject matter appeals to just a specific enough audience to ensure that it fails.
A good example of the risks studios encounter with this type of film is exemplified in this year’s Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns collaboration: Contagion. On the surface, this should be a successful movie. Soderbergh is one of Hollywood’s best helmers and the cast features luminaries such as Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, to just name a few. The budget came in at reportedly around $60m—modest, considering all the talent involved. But the story is a bleak one: a virus that threatens the human race is beginning to break out.
Luckily for fans of film, the early returns on Contagion are positive and the film should make its money back and then some. But this film, despite the star power, was a risk; audiences could have easily shunned it, considering the dark subject matter. And it’s this risk that you need to take into account as a screenwriter.
As you get late into the creative process, it’s OK to take some business aspects into account. After all, what’s the use in writing a great screenplay if you’re not going to give yourself every opportunity to get it read? The reality of the mid-range budget is that it could get your movie shut down before it even begins. Despite the positive feelings around Contagion and the great success found by The Help at the box office this year, realistically you need to take a look at your story and think about what kind of changes you could make for it to fit a more marketable budget range.
In most cases, this will mean scaling back instead of turning your story into a blockbuster—but that could also apply if it interests you. Analyse your story and focus on the following items: locations and cast size. How many different locations does your film feature; are all of them necessary? Locations add to a budget, so anything you can do before your script gets read to cut down on them will benefit you greatly. Same with the cast: the question you need to ask yourself is, ‘Are all my characters serving a purpose?’ If they’re not, can you cut those characters or maybe even combine two into one? Be economical, because that is what studio readers will be looking for.
I know what you’re asking right now: is the mid-range market really in this much trouble?
Sure, Contagion’s early numbers seem promising but don’t get too excited. If making films were simple math then I, and most, would have predicted that Steve Carell + Ryan Gosling + Julianne Moore + Emma Stone + smart writing + romantic comedy would have equalled major success. The film I just described was, of course, Crazy, Stupid, Love, a movie that cost over $50m to make and made barely $80m at the US box office. Sure that seems profitable but take into account marketing and publicity, and that profit margin is pretty slim. While you couldn’t call the film a flop, you would be incorrect in labelling it a success.
That was the epitome of a mid-range budget film that had too many frills. For the record, I liked the movie but, looking at it from an economical standpoint, there were changes that could have been made to shrink the budget. This is the problem you, as a screenwriter, will be faced with: can you scale your story back without losing any elements you feel are essential to its core? You never want to change your story in a major way to accommodate budget; that’s not what this column is about. This is about you needing to find the excesses in your screenplay and remove them. Because a few million dollars removed from a budget could mean the difference between a pass and a sale from a studio, as they begin to realise that mid-range budgets are becoming less and less feasible as time goes by.
While we can all hope that The Help and Contagion will lead to more quality mid-range films made and backed by the major studios, don’t let your script fall victim to the dreaded ‘middle’.
Taken from movieScope magazine, Issue 25 (Nov/Dec 2011)
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The Woman in Black
REVIEWED BY: Nikki Baughan
RELEASED: February 10 2012
Having relaunched in 2010 with the promise of delivering solid horror films for a modern audience, the output from the rebooted Hammer Films has been something of a mixed bag. While its inaugural release, remake Let Me In, was received with great fanfare, subsequent films The Resident and Wake Wood have been less successful. So with its first big release, The Woman in Black, Hammer has much to prove – and has piled on the pressure by choosing to adapt a story that’s not only a bestselling novel but also a long running West End play.
An additional challenge is that tale is so effective because of its simplicity; there are no big set pieces for a filmmaker to hide behind. So it’s reassuring to see that, while some elements of Susan Hill’s story have been tweaked to give it more of a cinematic scope, the narrative runs fairly true. At its heart is young lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who, still reeling from the death of his wife in childbirth four years previously, is sent to a remote village in order to organise the paperwork at the isolated Eel Marsh House. On his arrival he finds the locals most unwelcoming, believing that anyone disturbing the peace at the house brings tragedy to the village. Although initially sceptical, Kipps soon discovers that the mansion holds horrifying secrets, and that one of its former occupants is determined to exact terrifying revenge…
As written, Hill’s vision is terrifying, thanks to is its intimate scale and clever manipulation of universal fears. Thankfully, in Jane Goldman and James Watkins, the producers have found a screenwriter and director who appreciate and share Hill’s approach. Realising that her chilling prose provides an effective blueprint for scares, they have given it room to breathe – which means no flashy effects or complicated CGI. Instead, an atmosphere of malevolent unease is created by the good old-fashioned methods of solid writing, expert cinematography, clever sound design and strong performances.
The latter is particularly true of Daniel Radcliffe, who is facing intense individual scrutiny as he steps into his first post-Potter role. Although perhaps rather young to be taking on the mantle of a bereaved husband and father, it’s soon clear that the 22-year-old has the power to handle the raw emotion that’s central to his character. Appearing desolate and haunted before he even sets foot in Eel Marsh House, Radcliffe’s performance ensures that Kipps’ battle with his own personal demons remains as dominant as his supernatural wranglings, the synergy between the house and Kipps’ psyche providing essential dramatic grounding.
Radcliffe is supported not just by a great cast of co-stars, including the wonderful Ciaran Hinds as Kipps’ confidante Mr Daily, but also by those behind the camera. Cinematographer Tim Maurice-Jones, responsible for the intense visuals of White Lightnin’, uses the contrasts of light and dark to draw the viewer in; deep shadows and flickering candlelight creating an ever shifting visual landscape in which Eel Marsh House comes eerily to life. That’s bolstered by Kave Quinn’s exceptional production design; stuffed to the brim with well-chosen ephemera of the Victorian era – including a multitude of creepy windup toys – it pulsates with its own energy. (The infamous rocking chair is, as it should be, one of the stars of the show.) And the visuals are compounded by eerie sound design; Watkins is unafraid to use silence as a powerful tool, and it’s far more effective than the intrusive audio cues found in most other genre movies.
Ultimately, it is Watkins’ complete understanding of this story and how it should be told, along with an appreciation of the expectations and imaginations of his audience, that sees justice being done to Hill’s prose. By ensuring all the elements of the film work in harmony, and that none of its understated charms are obliterated with special effects or gore, Watkins has succeeded in making this classic ghost story relevant and accessible for a new audience. And so, despite its period setting, this Woman in Black is an effective modern horror; one which, like its petrifying protagonist, is sure to haunt your dreams.
4 stars
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Mercenaries
REVIEWED BY: Adam Thursby
RELEASED: January 27 2012
Paris Leonti’s first movie was the 2008 London geezer bank-heist-goes-wrong, Daylight Robbery. His second big screen offering is another low-budget genre flick from one of Sly Stallone’s favourite action sub-genres: the mercenary-style mission-based adventure — here conveniently titled Mercenaries.
As the names suggests, the film concerns itself with an elite group of wayward soldiers-for-hire drafted in to undertake a dangerous top-secret rescue mission in the heart of a war-torn Serbia.
Whether for budgetary or creative reasons, Leonti dispels with the theatrics of, say, a Rambo or an Expendables, in lieu of a tauter, less showy, less self-indulgent affair. And while it falls short of true satire, there’s certainly a sense of playful irony with Leonti clearly enjoying those “essential” genre traits, from the cigar chomping baddie and his snarly, eye-patched second-in-command to the mercenaries sharing inane witticisms while en-route to their mission target.
Paris Leonti is a director with a firm grasp on filmmaking; he knows how to put a movie together and, occasionally, his camerawork shows flashes of lucidity that elevate him way above the workaday herd of directors who graze similar genre pastures.
Mercenaries, however, never fully rises above its thematic shackles, and is ultimately held back by a computer game script penned for an Xbox generation more familiar with first-person shooters than intelligent, memorable cinema. But perhaps that’s the point. This is, after all, a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin hour and a half of Friday night flimflammery that knows its audience and, for the most part, delivers on its promise.
2 stars
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BFI Unveils Latest Films To Receive Funding
BFI Unveils Latest Films To Receive Funding
The BFI has revealed the list of British film projects that have received funding in the nine months from April 2011. Over £13.2m has been awarded to 20 features, which include five from female directors and ten from first- or second-time filmmakers.
Those films supported by the BFI Film Fund range from 3D features (such as Streetdance 2, pictured) to documentaries and drama. Speaking about the funding, Amanda Nevill, CEO of the BFI, said, “We’re delighted to be part of such a wide range of dynamic new British films. One of the most exciting thing about the BFI’s Film Fund is that we can support talented new filmmakers making their first features, and help some of the UK’s most well known and respected directors create ambitious, large scale films. This remarkable breadth of inspiring films offers such an exciting proposition for audiences, and this is just the beginning.”
One project to receive funding from the BFI is Under the Skin, director Jonathan Glazer’s follow-up to Sexy Beast. A science fiction film about an alien in human form, it has been adapted from the novel by Michael Faber and stars Scarlett Johansson. Other directors to benefit from BFI funding support include Mike Newell, for his adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations starring Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Robbie Coltrane; Mat Whitecross, for his Manchester-set coming-of-age tale Spike Island; Rufus Norris, for his directorial debut Broken which stars Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy; and Ben Wheatley for his Kill List follow-up Sightseers.
The full list of feature film production awards approved since April 1, 2011 (most recent first):
Last Days on Mars (Director: Ruairi Robinson, Qwerty Films Ltd) – £1,000,000
Blood (Director: Nick Murphy, Neal Street Productions & Red Production Company) – £700,000
Bomb (Director: Sally Potter, Adventure Pictures Ltd) – £1,020,000
Mister John (Directors: Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, Desperate Optimists Productions Ltd) – £300,000
Spike Island (Director: Mat Whitecross, Fiesta Productions) – £900,000
Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers (Director: Havana Marking, Roast Beef Productions) – £165,000
This is London (Director: Julien Temple, B&W Films Ltd) – £355,000
Seven Psychopaths (Director: Martin McDonagh, Blueprint Pictures) – £1,057,500
Broken (Director: Rufus Norris, Cuba Pictures Limited) – £267,500
Fast Girls (Director: Regan Hall, DJ Films) – £630,000
Great Expectations (Director: Mike Newell, Number 9 Films) – £2,000,000
Sightseers (Director: Ben Wheatley, Big Talk Pictures / Rook Films) – £300,000
Swandown (Director Andrew Kotting, Fly Film Company) – £215,750
Last Passenger (Director: Omid Nooshin, NDF International) – £428,000
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (Director: Mark Cousins, Hopscotch Films) – £185,000
Under the Skin (Director: Jonathan Glazer, Modern Films Ltd) – £185,000
Welcome to the Punch (Eran Creevy, Beat Films Ltd) – £500,000
Streetdance 2 3D (Directors: Max Giwa & Dania Pasquini, Vertigo Films) – £500,000
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (Director: Sophie Fiennes, P Guide Productions & Blinder Films) – £270,000
Shadow Dancer (Director: James Marsh, Unanimous Entertainment & Element Films) – £750,000
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