Award Winning Documentarian Rachel Beth Anderson on Filming in Conflict Zones
Rachel Beth Anderson is a cinematographer-turned-director who has spent her career working almost exclusively in conflict zones. She was recently awarded the cinematography award for a U.S. documentary at Sundance, along with Ross Kaufman, for her work on E-Team, which followed a group of four Human Rights Watch workers documenting war crimes around the world.
Along with filming in Syria, Anderson has worked in Libya,
In Their Words: Some of This Year’s Oscar Nominees on Their Craft, Part I
One of the strongest years in recent cinema history will officially come to a close this Sunday at the 86th annual Academy Awards. What just about everyone agrees on is that, with a few exceptions (most people seem fairly convinced Cate Blanchett has Best Actress locked up, for example), it’s anyone’s guess (including our social awards season app, the DataViz—but it's doing just a little bit more than guessing) who might take home Oscar.
The Digital Camera Company That Oscar Nominated Filmmakers Prefer
Last week saw the release of RoboCop, a slick and technologically savvy re-imagining of the 1987 classic directed by Paul Verhoeven. With it’s combination of 3D holographic video screens and large scale multi-tier HD video screens present in every environment, from the corporate computer labs that assemble RoboCop, to the cable news channel studios that cover his exploits, to the sleek design of RoboCop himself, the new movie acts as yet another reflection of ourselves –
Looking Back on Some of our Favorite Stories of 2013
When we launched The Credits a little more than a year ago, we aimed to shed a light on the many talented filmmakers who often don’t get much press for their work. While we’ve occasionally spoken to folks who need no introduction (John Waters, for example), most of the filmmakers we’ve focused on have a little less name recognition but a huge amount of talent. We interviewed a lot of people, so the below roundup is really just a taste—there were far too many people to mention in a single post.
The Many Moving Parts to The LEGO Movie
The toys and games of our youth have long been fodder for filmmakers. There have been six films (all direct-to-video, it should be noted) made from Mattel’s ‘American Girls’ line. Dungeons & Dragons was made into a feature film in 2000 and starred Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons. G.I. Joe has been called into duty twice, in 2009 and just this year, in monster big budget spectacles. Transformers have been clanging their multi-purpose parts together since 2007 in three films,
Star Wars: Episode VII’s Galaxy of Talent Behind J.J. Abrams
As useful as IMDBpro is, it’s recommendable to take the “projects in development” rubric with at least a grain or two of salt. Because really, how could one man have 28 projects in development, including the next Star Trek and Mission Impossible, while also working on a little film franchise called Star Wars?
If it were any one other than J.J. Abrams, you’d be right to assume that most of these would fall through,
Breaking Down Rom-Com Master Richard Curtis’s About Time
Richard Curtis wrote three of the most beloved romantic comedies of the mid 90s and early 2000s—in a remarkable string, he penned Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones Diary (which he co-wrote with Helen Fielding and Andrew Davies). His directorial debut in 2003, Love Actually, which he also wrote, was an international success and helped create cross-pond love for fantastic actors like Bill Nighy, Chiwetel Ejiofor (now poised for an Oscar nomination for his starring role in 12 Years a Slave),
Everlasting Love: Jim Jarmusch’s Beautiful Only Lovers Left Alive
How often do you walk away from a vampire film and think, ‘Well, that was really lovely’? I’d wager never. Yet that is exactly the feeling I left with after the screening of Only Lovers Left Alive at the New York Film Festival.
True to its title, Only Lovers Left Alive is a love story, even a comedy. It’s a film about Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton),
The U.S. Premiere of 12 Years a Slave at the New York Film Festival
Screening in the United States for the first time, Steve McQueen’s powerful, heart rending 12 Years a Slave once again left a festival audience in silence and many viewers weeping in their seats. The story of Solomon Northup’s betrayal, his years of horror while a slave in Georgia, and his desperation to return home to his family in New York requires the viewer to face an unflinching portrayal of humanity at its worst trying to break a man taken at his best.
One of the Greatest Cinematographers Ever: Gravity‘s Emmanuel Lubezki
He is one of the greatest cinematographers alive, the man directors call when what they want has never been attempted. He has shot films for a slew of legends (Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers), but it’s Emmanuel Lubezki's relationship with his childhood friend from Mexico, director Alfonso Cuarón, that’s truly one of the great partnerships in the history of the medium. If this sounds overblown,
The Future of Film, Television (& More): 5 New Mind Blowing Technologies
There are so many scintillating technologies in the works one imagines looking back on James Cameron’s Avatar as almost quaint. As absurd as that sounds, looking around the technology space is like looking into a future that would have seemed nearly impossibly only a decade ago. With the truly mind blowing speed with which the internet, smart phones and digital cameras have increased in functionality and ubiquity, so to has the ways in which you can shoot,
Building the Perfect Engine: The Filmmakers Behind Universal’s Rush
Ron Howard’s Rush hits theaters September 20, and early reviews are hailing it as one of the greatest racing movies of all time. Centered on the intense, often brutal rivalry between Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) during the 1976 Formula 1 season, Rush itself was built with the scrutiny and care of a great race car team. Once Peter Morgan's script made the rounds, an incredible team of filmmakers was assembled to create one of the year's most exciting films,
Vision Quest: 5 Cinematographers & Their Unique Techniques
The role of cinematographer is a sort of hybrid between translator (of a director’s vision), guru (they impart wisdom to everyone on set on how a scene can be blocked, shot) and first mate. They’re as close to a director’s equal as you can get in the dictatorship that is a film. While every member of a film crew, to varying degrees, shapes the final product that we see in the theater, the cinematographer is second only to the director to the power they exert.
Talking With DP Jonathan Ingalls About Killer Whale Documentary Blackfish
For the past 10 years, producer, director, and cinematographer Jonathan Ingalls has been making compelling documentary television (MTV’s I Used to be Fat, A&E’s The First 48 and films such as City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story.) This week, perhaps his most controversial project, Blackfish, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles, after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January and making a giant splash.
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle Puts us in a Trance
Chances are you’ve seen the trailer to this weekend’s Trance, and while it may be an incredibly intense three minutes, you’re likely left with several questions. Fear not, many of them might never get answered. But that’s okay, according to the film’s director of photography, Anthony Dod Mantle. Trance tracks what is a largely internalized journey taken on by an art auctioneer-turned art thief (James McAvoy) forced to see a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) to help him recall where he’s stashed his latest haul.
A Q&A With A Good Day to Die Hard Cinematographer Jonathan Sela
At the ripe old age of 34, Jonathan Sela has turned his childhood passion of shooting films in Israel into a big time Hollywood career. As the cinematographer on A Good Day to Die Hard, Sela was reunited with director John Moore (they worked on The Omen and Max Payne together) to film the fifth installment of an action franchise that has spanned 25-years and grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.
A Q&A With Greig Fraser, Cinematographer on Zero Dark Thirty
With Kathryn Bigelow’s extraordinary action thriller Zero Dark Thirty opening wide tomorrow across the country, viewers will have a chance to see this picture’s tale of the CIA’s decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. One of the most talked about scenes of the year (arguably, of the new decade) is the spectacular, harrowing final raid on Bin Laden’s compound, all shot using night vision technology. Bigelow spoke about her “tremendous” cinematographer’s handling of that crucial set piece in a recent New York Times interview.
Visionary Filmmaker & Inventor Douglas Trumbull Talks The Hobbit and his Latest Incredible Invention
The frame rate for a film refers to the frequency (or rate) at which a camera creates unique consecutive images (frames). Almost every film you have ever seen has been shot and projected at 24 frames-per-second (FPS). We have become so accustomed to seeing films this way that shooting at any other rate can be potentially jarring. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit was shot in 3D at 48fps, twice the normal rate. It will be projected at 48fps on 400 of the 10,000 theaters when it opens on tomorrow,
Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, and Sam Mendes Make Skyfall an Instant Classic, While Taschen Releases the Epic “The James Bond Archives”
James Bond returns with a vengeance in Skyfall, and this superb 23rd entry in the legendary movie series is a smashingly successful tribute to the iconic British spy, who’s celebrating his 50th year in movies. After rebooting the 007 franchise with Daniel Craig as the new Bond in Casino Royale (2006), not only one of the best films in the series but one of the best films of that year,
Putting the Walk in The Walking Dead: An Interview With Stargate Studios CEO and VFX Guru Sam Nicholson
Stargate Studios CEO Sam Nicholson is a visual effects legend (VFX). A cinematographer by trade, Nicholson hails from the mother ship of visual effects gigs, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His work on The Enterprise shot Nicholson’s career to stratospheric heights and spans some of the greatest television shows in recent memory—and we’re not being hyperbolic. Nicholson founded the incredibly busy visual effects house Stargate Studios, which has performed post-production visual effects for TV shows including CSI,
