filmmaking

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I have officially begun production of my first real film project in more than three years.

And it feels great!

What’s happened since Schrodinger’s Bedroom in 2007? A heapin’ helpin’ of real life stuff, most of which I ain’t even begun to intimate at on this blog. Yah, last summer we destroyed Burlington, North Carolina with giant monsters and it was a hoot. But I’ve been dying to do something that will engage my creative juices for more than a weekend’s worth of work 🙂

And there have been a lot of ideas that I want to follow through on (including Keys, the script for which has been done for quite some time now) but I’m holding off on those for the time being, for various reasons.

This one though, feels just right. For me as a person, and also as a filmmaker for the much-needed jumpstart/kick in ...

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Yeah the one with Charlton Heston, not the black and white silent original.

I don’t know what’s a sadder commentary: that a film this epic and majestic couldn’t be made today without computer-generated effects, that Ben-Hur would likely not even been greenlit for production by modern studios, or that current audiences would generally lack the attention span that those of fifty years ago possessed to really take in this kind of a movie.

I’ve thought for a long time that a film should be judged according to its own time. In its own way, Ben-Hur and movies like it are an excellent synopsis of the sort of people who both made these films, and who appreciated them most.

Sorta a psychological historical document, when you think about it....

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Word broke in the wee hours of the morning that The People vs. George Lucas, Alexandre Phillipe’s documentary about the love/hate relationship Star Wars fanatics have with the creator of their most treasured mythology, will have its world premiere at South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas next month!

Look! Official movie poster!

And look again! New trailer!

And who is that appearing at 44 seconds into this trailer? That’s Melody Hallman Daniel from my very first film Forcery! I’d been hoping and praying that Melody’s amazing performance doing that rant would make it into The People vs. George Lucas… and it did! And Phillipe has hinted to me that there will be a few other clips from Forcery in his film, too.

Can’t wait to see this 🙂...

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I’ve written about Dawn Swartz a few times before on this blog: about how she’s a very sweet friend and terrific actress! She had one of the leads in our film Schrodinger’s Bedroom a few years ago, and recently she was seen briefly alongside Richard Gere in Nights in Rodanthe.

But look at Dawn now, in this screen cap from the short film Ben Pickle…

Dawn, girl… what did they do to you?! It’s like Rick Baker and WETA teamed up to do the makeup on this movie.

Okay, I’ve got to see Ben Pickle now. I’ve also got a strange pic of Dawn with glowing eyes. This kind of wild material is screaming for context of some sort 🙂...

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With Avatar still breaking box office records (it was #1 in theaters for the fifth straight weekend) and now starting to garner prizes (like at last night’s Golden Globes) James Cameron is talking about the practical application of the technology that he and his team came up with for the movie…

Sure, it’s terrific for turning human actors into big blue alien Na’vis. But the photorealistic CGI technology James Cameron perfected for Avatar could easily be used for other, even more mind-blowing purposes—like, say, bringing Humphrey Bogart back to life, or making Clint Eastwood look 35 again. “How about another Dirty Harry movie where Clint looks the way he looked in 1975?” Cameron suggests. “Or a James Bond movie where Sean Connery looks the way he did in Doctor No? How cool would that be?”

In a way, Cameron has already pulled off this trick: Sigourney Weaver appears to

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It’s not the first time that I’ve blogged about this. But a short film this good easily merits sharing more than once. And who knows, there might be some who have never had the pleasure of seeing it before.

Here is that brilliant, spot-on and hilarious spoof of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 that Gene Kranz himself has taken to watching with his family as a holiday tradition.

Behold: Thanksgiving With The Kranzes…

...

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So sayeth Marvel’s president Kevin Feige… and it’s pretty hard to disagree with his logic. 1997’s fourth and final installment of the original Batman film franchise, notes Feige, “was so bad that it demanded a new way of doing things. It created the opportunity to do X-Men and Spider-Man, adaptations that respected the source material and adaptations that were not campy.” Batman & Robin was such an atrocious waste of celluloid that it’s now deemed the benchmark at which comic book film-making hit rock bottom and began the climb toward sincere and serious adaptations like The Dark Knight… because at that point things certainly couldn’t have gotten any worse!

GeekTyrant has more thoughts from Feige. And also from Batman & Robin scribe Akiva Goldsman, who demonstrates enough sincere repentance about the mess that was Batman & Robin that maybe we should finally forgive him and Joel ...

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I’ll just let this image and the circumstance surrounding its existence speak for itself.

This is the opening shot of the third-from-last scene of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This shot and the ensuing dialogue between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu and Yoda are dominated by a brilliant and beautiful sunset, which poignantly echoes the darkness that is now falling across the galaxy…

According to the original online annotations for the Star Wars Episode II DVD on StarWars.com, the background plate in this scene was a photograph made of the Tokyo skyline at sunset.

And this is a photograph that was taken on September 11th, 2001.

If you figure the time zone difference, the dominant element of this pivotal scene in the Star Wars saga was taken from the real world, at about the very same moment that New York City was coming under attack thousands of ...

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Ahhh, Labor Day. The holiday consecrated to the common working stiff. The traditional end of another summer. The start of the final stretch of the year. And as most people know it’s also the occasion of the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Two things I’m compelled to say from the getgo: first, Jerry Lewis is one of the all-time greatest performers of stage and screen. And second, the Muscular Dystrophy Association is one of the finest charitable groups in the land. All of the money that’s raised locally remains local and helps people in your own area. MDA has some of the least overhead of any organization of its kind. I’ve had a number of friends over the years that MDA has been there for, and has allowed them to know opportunities that they otherwise might never have enjoyed. So if you’ve some ...

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This just landed in my e-mail and it’s too hilarious not to share. Those pesky Nigerian scammers are definitely trying a new tactic!

(I’ve made some edits on the profanity and the phone number at the end, which according to the country code is based in Nigeria.)

RANKLE Jones The Golfer “Film Production”

Dear Sir,
I have a full length tragedy movie script title: RANKLE Jones The Golfer. It is a new idea, full of suspense and thrill. I need a production company and financial investment into this movie production as it will make a block buster.
Jones enjoys golf playing, hoping to be a professional golfer like Tiger Woods. Professional golfers play in golf field, ours play at home. No f***ing son of a b**ch will accept correction. The pride of what is yet to be is a destroyer. Jones: Everyone in life have a dream and aspiration to

...
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