A reasonable request
(NSFW for language)
I laughed so so so hard. I saw this last night at a screening in Chicago that was curated by Jim Vendiola.
Tony Zhou on editing
Who needs film school when you have Every Frame is a Painting? This couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as I’m getting into the exciting but difficult part of editing The Deadline.
Joe Swanberg’s Keynote at SXSW on his indie film career and financing his films
I enjoyed this one just as much as the one with Mark Duplass. I really love Joe’s films and while I don’t necessarily work in his style or want to make similar films, I’ve learned a lot from his DIY career approach and the way that he’s making a living as a filmmaker without giving up creative control.
Wide-angle close ups and the Coen brothers
I’ve watched this EFIAP about eight times now. I watched it about a week before production on The Deadline started and I sent it to Nick the DP and he was like “oh man, I just watched that too!” So we ended up stealing the idea of going wide in close-ups and I’m really happy with the way it came out. You really feel like you’re there with the actors.
When I watch the scene in Tony’s video where the camera changes angles on Roger Deakins, I can actually feel an emotional difference–it’s subtle and probably most people can’t tell, but I think it’s meaningful.
I also like the way they shoot from “inside the space” between the two characters. Personally I don’t like dirty close ups because they take me out of the moment. There’s something ‘off’ about a character talking while we’re looking at the back of their head, and it always takes me out of the moment.
Here’s the video:
And here are some stills from the film. They haven’t been colored yet, but you feel like you’re right there with them. At least I do!
Mark Duplass on career development for filmmakers
The first 25 minutes of this, before the Q&A (which is also good), is a great roadmap for how to “make it” as a filmmaker. Become the cavalry, as he says.
“The frame is a playground. So play.”
“So if you’re a filmmaker, work on this. The frame is a playground. So Play.”
– Tony Zhou
I can’t stop watching the Every Frame is a Painting on Edgar Wright and how to do visual comedy.
Here are Edgar Wright’s 8 (nine including a bonus) techniques for doing visual comedy, according to Zhou:
- Things entering the frame in funny ways.
- People leaving the frame in funny ways.
- There and back again.
- Matching scene transitions.
- The perfectly timed sound effect.
- Action synchronized to the music.
- Super dramatic lighting cues.
- Fence gags.
- Imaginary gunfights.
Abstraction vs. realism
I’ve been watching interviews with Roy Andersson about A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, a film I saw a few months ago and fell in love with. It’s what inspired me to take the short film I’m working on now in a more absurd, abstract direction.
Now I appreciate the abstraction more than realism, of course. It’s more interesting… there are not so many details as in realism, but because of that you have the feeling that it’s richer than realism, because you have contact with your fantasy more.
– Roy Andersson
The Art of the Gag
I’m in love with these video essays by Tony Zhou. This one’s about how Buster Keaton did physical humor and it’s amazing to me how well these hold up today.