BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain" led the Academy Awards field Tuesday with eight nominations, among them best picture and honors for actor Heath Ledger and director Ang Lee. Also nominated for best picture were the Truman Capote story "Capote"; the ensemble drama "Crash"; the Edward R. Murrow chronicle "Good Night, and Good Luck"; the assassination thriller "Munich."The Johnny Cash biography, "Walk the Line," considered a likely best picture nominee, was shut out,...
The nice thing about owning your own post house and doing your own editing is you can, well, keep editing on projects. Of course this can be a bad thing too (i.e. endless revisions), but in this case I think it's good.I re-cut the opening sequence of the movie this morning and I like it a lot better! Not that I didn't like it before, but I just think it tells the story better now. I got inspired this weekend watching "Apocolypse Now Redux" and rushed in this morning to make the changes.Now I...
Great article on DV.com from Adam Wilt on an HD camera shootout they did with all the new sub $10K HD/HDV cameras - and with the big boy Sony Cinealta and Panasonic Varicam.You have to register to read entire article, but it's a good one for anyone looking at these cameras: www.dv.comHere's the article's summary per Adam:All the 1/3" cameras clustered together more tightly than we expected. Each camera excelled at some aspect of image rendering, but all of them were more alike than different;...
Bad sequels and remakes tortured movie audiences last year, and they provided a smorgasbord for the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof that pays heed to the worst in Hollywood. Read the full article (it's funny who's on the list):http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060130/ap_on_en_mo/film_razzies-Bla...
Typically I'm going to only review movies that are truly independent or that are produced with new technologies such as HD video, but I saw Woody Allen's new film "Match Point" yesterday...This was a really good film. His best in years. Not a comedy though, not at all. It's very similar to one of his earlier films (and one of my all time favorites) "Crimes and Misdemeanors".The story follows a former tennis star Chris (played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in a star making role) and his affair with his...
Just did a shoot for Frank Ford and Shane Estep for a movie clip that will appear on their website www.frankandshane.com. Check out the site. It's currently under construction, but they do have some content on there now. The new stuff will be uploaded soon.Frank Ford is best known as a member of the improv comedy troupe Four Day Weekend. He also had a lead in my second feature film "Hit". Shane Estep also had a small role in "Hit" and now he and Frank have formed a comedy writing team (or at least...
Last night was the "Day & Date" premiere of HDNet Films, 2929 Entertainment and Steven Soderbergh's new HD movie "Bubble". For those that don't know, "Day & Date" means they release the movie in theaters, on DVD and on HDNet on the same day.I Tivo'd the movie and watched it last night after I got home from happy hour. It was probably a good thing that I had a few beers...The movie was "interesting". Not bad-bad, but I would definitely say, not good. Some people I'm sure will HATE the movie....
Let me first start by stating that I am not an engineer, or necessarily a technical expert when it comes to the video field. I consider myself very technically savvy, but not in the realm of an engineer. So, I approach technology in the video world (especially the post side of things) from a user friendly POV, a cost POV and a "does the darn thing work right" POV.Last week I had the opportunity to demo the Panasonic 1200A HD deck. Now, I know, this is not a new deck per se, but it is to me and...
If you're into filmmaking and the technology it involves you need to check out the Creative Cow podcast on iTunes. It rocks, well, actually it talks - but you know what I mean. Subscribe to it today. It really is well done and very informative.Creative Cow is best known for their forums (probably a hundred of them out there), but they're broadening their appeal through podcasts, and they are also launching a new magazine. Cool stuff.-Bla...
Last week we did our final pick-up shot needed to complete the photography on "Killing Down". It was a stunt shot where the main character (Steven Down) dives through a window. The actor playing Steven is Matthew Tompkins. He's a very athletic person, which was a good thing, because we had him do his own stunt!
Everything went very smoothly once we got our hands on some breakaway sugar glass to put in the fake window. Being in Dallas, there is not a lot of that around. We tried (unsuccessfully) to mix and pour some of our own - but ended up calling Jack Bennett to save the day. He was an effects guy for 35 years in Texas (he's retired now), but luckily he still had some old glass in his warehouse that he was willing to sell.
Here's a shot of the window on the soundstage: 
It was a "one take" shot since we really only had enough glass to construct one window and we could only afford to have one camera rolling. But, things turned out well. I'll provide a link to the behind-the-scenes video we shot during the stunt - and I'll also have the actual shot from the movie available to see in the near future.
-Blake
Hope everyone's 2006 is off to a great start... mine definitely is as we are finishing up the editing on "Killing Down" and moving into the sound design and scoring phase. If you're not familiar with my new feature film, please visit www.killingdown.com.Met with the composer yesterday to spot the film for music cues - of course I made one small mistake - I brought the film to him on DVD with NO timecode burn-in. Why is this bad? Well, he had to use the timer on the DVD player to mark the cues!...
