CineGRFX

You’ve Seen Their Movies, But Don’t Recognize the Name

admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Many actors dream of landing a starring role in a movie as a leading man or leading lady, while others are content to be working in a dimmer version of the limelight as character actors. Many of these actors consider themselves to have the best of both worlds. They are able to make a living doing something that they love, but since they are not known for a particular “starring” role they maintain a higher level of privacy than their A-list peers.

Occassionally actors who are first known as character actors start to get more recognition for their name as well as their face. William H. Macy is one example, but for the most part fans may see them and simply do a double take, remembering that they saw them somewhere, but can’t quite remember exactly where.

John C. Reilly is one of those actors, who incidently worked with Macy in the movie Magnolia. He played the cop that fell in love with the drug addict. He also played second fiddle to Will Ferrell in Stepbrothers, and was Roxy Hart’s whipped husband (aka Mr. Cellophane)in the movie Chicago.

Catherine O’Hara’s face is another you might recognize, even if you don’t know the name. She is the quintescential mom, playing the supportive maternal role in the Home Alone movies, and also playing Claire Daines’ aunt in the made for TV movie Temple Grandin, as well as numerous other roles.

Luckily for the movie going public these actors continue to put their all into their performances with or without the promise of fame and fortune and help keep us all entertained in the process.

3 Up and Coming Directors

admin — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Today it can be extremely hard for new directors to get recognized considering schools are producing thousands of film graduates every year, not to mention those out there that are striving for work. However, there are quite a few that are starting to make a name for themselves.

Charlie Kaufman, most known as a screenwriter for such movies as Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaption, made this list by directing Synechdoche,New York. Although this film is his first and only film that he has ever directed it was one of the most critically acclaimed films of its year.

Pete Docter is a name most people would recognize in conjunction with Pixar studios for helping write WALL-E, Toy Story 1 and 2. In 2001 he excelled as a director by creating Monsters Inc. followed by UP in 2008. Docter has been ranked as one of Pixars MVP’s and has a lot of hope to bring more to the table in the future.

Darren Aronofsky, although famous for different genres and cult films, most everyday people may have not heard about this rising star. Even with films like Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain under his belt, his best piece of work is The Wrestler (2008). Aronofsky is expected to hit the director A-list this summer with his newest film Robo-Cop.

Directors Guild of America Awards

admin — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

On January 30, 2011 in Los Angeles, California, the winners of the Outstanding Directorial Achievement were announced during the 63rd Annual Directors Guild of America Awards Dinner. The show was hosted by director Carl Reiner and featured a rousing opening by DGA President Taylor Hackford. The audience of more than fifteen-hundred guests was a who’s who of Hollywood.

Winners of the night were: Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin) for Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Mini-Series; Charles Ferguson ( Inside Job) for Directorial Achievement in a Documentary; Martin Scorsese (Boardwalk Empire) for Achievement in a Dramatic Series; Michael Spiller (Modern Family) for Achievement in a Comedy Series; Glenn Weiss (64th Annual Tony Awards) for Achievement in a Musical Variety; Eytan Keller (The Next Iron Chef) for Achievement in Reality Programs; Larry Carpenter (One Life to Live) for Achievement in Daytime Serials; Stacy Wall (Imperial Woodpecker) for Achievement in Commercials; and Eric Bross (The Boy Who Cried Werewolf) for Achievement in Children’s Programs.

It is a commonly accepted that the recipient of DGA’s Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement will go on to win the Academy Award for Best Director. This case was no different. Tom Hooper took home both the DGA Feature Film Award and then later the Academy Award for ‘The King’s Speech’.

TV vs. Movie Direction

www.cinegrfx.com — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

While critics gush over big screen directors come every Hollywood awards season, film directors are far from the only artists capturing their work on rolling camera. Television direction is commonly a stepping stone to take one’s talents to, in this case literally, a larger stage.Think about the similar skill sets involved. Someone who can successfully

Direct a movie must have had experience on a smaller scale prior to taking on a feature film
Direct tv deals with the day-to-day logistics of a set
Direct movies must know how to get the most out of the talent at their disposal
Direct tv works with a wide spectrum of actors, each with varying backgrounds and experience levels

In short, directors who spend time in television are more aptly prepared to take on the daunting task of a major motion picture. The primary difference between tv and movie direction is the sense of ownership taken on by a film’s director. Most tv directors will not direct the same show for the full length of the series, often not even a season, rather directing individual episodes at a time, rotating in and out with other directors. As a result, responsibility for the creative control and collective cohesiveness of the show ultimately falls on the shoulders of the producer(s). This stands in stark contrast to movie making, where the driving themes, motifs and character development are ultimately subject to the director’s interpretation and/or opinion.Television work gives directors a means to reach technical proficiency and provide their own personal touch on a micro scale. Movies, on the other hand, offer the opportunity to create something entirely your own. No disrespect to tv directors, however, as both can be artful, both can be expertly done and both can be done head and shoulders better than other directors in the same field. It’s merely a matter of personal preference and long term career goals. In fact, many famous movie directors will take to directing television either as a novelty or new experience, as the two closely intertwined occupations are not mutually exclusive.

So you want to direct movies?

www.cinegrfx.com — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Directing a movie doesn’t necessarily require a degree or educational background; after all, in theory all you need is video camera and a well thought out execution plan. However, it’s nearly impossible to make any sort of name for yourself or produce anything of quality without the proper tools to succeed and networking opportunities. With the right blend of a properly tailored education, natural talent and real world experience, a great director you yet may become. Where to get started?College Attend a 4 year university while majoring in filmmaking or a very closely related subject matter. Ideally, you should choose an institution with a well-established program for filmmaking, most of which are located in either the greater New York or Los Angeles area. Go where the movies are After graduation, move where movies are actually made. Traditionally, this is again New York and Los Angeles, though tax breaks in many states have encouraged many directors to shoot a large number of films in other cities, such as Atlanta and New Orleans. Work as a production assistant Before you start directing films on your own, you will need to get a feel for how movie sets work, beyond what can be taught in the classroom. Though many production assistant positions are either very low paid or completely unpaid, it is a necessary rite of passage for many future directors, learning the basics from the ground up. Production assistants are the movie industry’s equivalent to interns, and may even be found under ads and listing for internships. Try your hand at various positions on set Production assistant is just a starting point. There are several positions on a movie set a good director knows well. Take as many jobs as possible in order to further your technical proficiency and see movie sets through a more cumulative perspective. Shadow a director If through your work you are able to use personal connections to shadow a directory, this can be an effective way to learn the nuances of the craft. Otherwise, training courses are offered by organizations such as the Directors Guild of America in order to teach particulars of large scale directing. Give it a go Direct something on a small scale and see how it goes. Obviously at this point you won’t have the budget for a major studio picture; however, with the proper fundraising or a small-enough project, you can soon have a picture to call your own.

Try it at Home: Stop Motion Movies

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:53:59 +0000

For amateur or novice directors, stop motion special effects offer a viable option for both entertaining and artistic filmmaking. While the process can be at times painstakingly tedious, the stop motion technique allows for a story to be told without any real acting talent required, thus no auditions, less paying wages to actors or recruiting volunteer extras, and even better, no actor egos. The most famous form of stop motion is clay-mation, in which clay figures are repositioned frame by frame to create a “flipbook” motion type of effect. Though clay is a popular choice due to the degree to which it can be easily altered, the concept works for any object with movable parts, including Barbies, dolls and action figures. While full stop motion films fall under the category of animation, thus may fall short of authentic directing in the eye of some critics, when done well they can still showcase a visionary’s brilliance and creative flair. Stop motion, and clay-mation in particular, have become staples on YouTube in recent years as comical ideas and storylines can be easily acted out without the need for big budget special effects. After all, even middle-schoolers can afford a couple cans of play-doh on their weekly allowance. The advent of social media and video sharing has catapulted stop motion back into mainstream consciousness.Despite advancements in computer animation and other more sophisticated movie making technologies, stop motion films have maintained a relevant place in the professional industry as well, perhaps due to their intrinsically quirky quality and the artistic/technical expertise necessary to turn out impressive bigger budget stop motion features. Major Hollywood directors such as Tim Burton and Henry Selick have made major waves in the movie industry with their large scale stop motion films, including The Nightmare Before Christmas (Burton and Selick), James and the Giant Peach (Selick), Coraline (Selick) and Corpse Bride (Burton).

Match Cuts: convey the passage of time with two simple frames

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:45:28 +0000

Throughout the history of film making, directors have searched for a way to easily convey an idea, parallel or theme to an audience without having to come out and explicitly say it in the dialogue or narration. One tool which revolutionized this process is the match cut, or the pairing of two similar objects in both shape and position within the frame across two separate but chronological shots. The match cut allows for the viewer to easily infer the correlation between shot 1 and shot 2, allowing the nuances of the directors overall vision for the film to be interpreted easily and subtly by the audience. Looking back over the past several decades of film and television, the match cut has been used in thousands of instances for several different purposes.Perhaps the most iconic of all match cuts comes from legendary director Stanley Kubrick in his visionary film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the first shot of the match cut, we see a bone, used as a crude tool by the apes in the film to kill other apes and defend their territory, cast in the air. The camera zooms in to a point where it seems as if the bone is almost floating. The image then jumps to a white, slender space craft (just as the bone is white and slender), hovering in similar position against the black, star-filled background. This match cut allows for Kubrick to equate today’s technology to the ancient tools of our ape ancestors, capable of both helping us as a species to advance our goals and destroying each other along the way. This theme of utility vs. destruction continues throughout the film, as it was effectively established during this open scene.Match cuts are also useful for directors when trying to establish the aging of a character. A young boy or girl with a unique feature to the main actor or actress, such as baby blue eyes, can simply be shown in the same position in the frame, leading the audience to infer that this is the same character after several years have passed, without having to risk complex makeup schemes.

Locking off: The grandfather of all camera tricks

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:41:50 +0000

Long before the modern days of Avatar, Lord of the Rings or even Star Wars for that matter, movies and television shows were being made by innovative directors without the big budgets now required to effectively showcase visual effects. This doesn’t mean the scripts they were putting on screen were devoid of the imagination that might require such illusion. As a means of coping, arguably the oldest visual effect in cinema history sprung out of a cheap camera trick: locking off. Locking off, though it probably was discovered as more of an accident than an innovation, actually played a crucially important role in the development of modern day cinema by altering viewer expectations to include even the seemingly ridiculous. Though it would not fall into the same category as say the believable effects of big, blockbuster movies, locking off provided an easy way for sitcoms and comedies, particularly those of the black and white era, to provide humor through magic and fantasy. In other words, locking off revolutionized the directors repertoire in a time when either technological or budgetary limitations would’ve otherwise siphoned creativity. So what is locking off exactly?Locking off occurs when the camera is stopped and something is simply added or removed to a frame before the camera is turned back on and filming resumes. For locking off to be most effective, a director must make sure that everything in the frame remains exactly the same, people included, except for the planned addition or subtraction. When the tape is played objects will simply vanish into thin air or appear out of nowhere. This technique was very popular in its time, prominently featured in both Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, allowing each leading lady to use her supernatural powers to either create instant solutions or make pesky annoyances disappear.

Forced Perspective

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:33:22 +0000

Despite what entertainment media may have repeatedly bludgeoned into your head, forced perspective is not just a what-could-have-been look back over the career moves, personal choices and fashion faux pas of a fallen from grace Hollywood star. Forced perspective is an optical illusion that is often used to create visual effects in movies, saving time in constructing large scale sets that would use more expensive materials. It is not a concept unique to filmmaking, having long been seen in various forms of art and architecture dating back centuries. Forced perception uses carefully calculated scaled objects positioned according to the viewer’s vantage point in order to manipulate visual perception and achieve a misrepresentation of an object’s relative size, length and or width. The Potemkin Stairs in Odessa, Ukraine, famously captured in Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film The Battleship Potemkin, use a form of forced perspective in order to appear significantly longer than they actually are when looking up from the bottom, but much shorter than in reality when looking down the giant staircase. This is achieved through a series of flat landings between the steps and a varying width from level to level. Modern architecture uses the concept mostly as a form of entertainment particularly in larger than life arenas such as the Las Vegas Strip or Disneyland.In film, the technique takes advantage of the camera’s 2-Dimensional vision. Quite simply, if an object is both in focus and closer to the camera, it will appear larger on the screen. Conversely, smaller objects will seem further away in the background. While forced perspective is primarily thought of as a pre-CGI visual effect, it still has practical use in today’s Hollywood. More subtle applications of the practice can help to compensate for actor height discrepancies, making Russell Crowe seem taller and more intimidating amongst Roman gladiators or Sylvester Stallone loom larger than his rumored 5’7” height. On a larger scale, the Lord of the Rings series used the first moving track to enhance forced perspective, allowing larger numbers of normal sized actors to play short-statured hobbits and dwarves throughout a more complex series of shots.

5 Milestones in High Tech Movie Making

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:20:07 +0000

With the release of Avatar and James Cameron’s masterfully woven combination of 3-Dimensional CGI and live action marking the height of special effects film making, it’s time for a look back across the timeline of modern cinema at some of the milestones that have allowed movie making to reach such seemingly impossible heights. Here is a list of 5 of the most ahead of their time movies (in the CGI era at least) from a visual perspective, bolding integrating new technology to paint their picture on a moving canvas.5. Looker (1981) Michael Chrichton, of Jurassic Park fame, made history with this less celebrated science fiction suspense story by releasing the first commercial film with a realistic computer generated character and the use of 3D CGI shading. The film commented on the standards of beauty in the media, by portraying a day when TV and advertising could use completely computer generated actresses/actors. Ironically, that day seems to be at hand already.4. Total Recall (1990) Directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall marked one of the last large-scale uses of miniature effects instead of computer generated imagery. The films 42-second CGI sequence, which was the first to use motion capture for CGI characters, went on to pave the way for future use of the technology on a larger scale production.3. Terminator 2 (1991) Just a year after Total Recall, Schwarzenegger strikes again, this time ushering in the first realistic human movements on a CGI character and the first use of a PC to create major movie 3D effects.2. Casper (1995) Edging out Toy Story (which was actually a much more impressive overall accomplishment) by just 6 months, Casper the friendly ghost was the first CGI main character in a feature length film and the first character to realistically interact with live actors.1. The Polar Express (2004) This come to life Christmas classic was the first CGI movie in which all live acting performances were fully motion captured.