FilmmakerIQ.com » Interviews

The Future of Cinema according to Douglas Trumbull

John P. Hess — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:24:57 +0000

Harry Knowles (Ain’t it Cool News) sits down with film legend Douglas Trumbull who created visual effects for films like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner.” Together they cover the evolution of film and the state of film projection today.

Director’s Round Table with Tarantino, Jackson, Cameron, Bigelow, Reitman and Daniels

John P. Hess — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:07:46 +0000

Film directors Quentin Tarantino (‘Inglourious Basterds’). Peter Jackson (‘The Lovely Bones’), James Cameron (‘Avatar’), Kathryn Bigelow (‘The Hurt Locker’), Jason Reitman (‘Up in the Air’), and Lee Daniels (‘Precious’) talk about the toughest scenes they’ve had to film for a movie.

An Interview with Hitchcock’s Writer: John Michael Hayes

John P. Hess — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:53:07 +0000

John Micahel Hayes penned many great Hitchcock films including Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Here is an interview with Hayes done in the 1960s.

ON HOW HE MET ALFRED HITCHCOCK

I had worked on a radio show called Suspense, which was a half-hour drama. Then I worked on The Adventures of Sam Spade and a number of other radio detective shows. He used to listen to them. He heard my name all the time. That’s really what got him interested in me, because I doubt if he had gone to see War Arrow or Red Ball Express or anything else. So he inquired about me. It turned out we had the same agency, MCA, but we were in different departments. He gave me a tryout, and it stuck. He needed a writer for Rear Window, so I went from B movies to A movies overnight.

ON THE WRITING OF ‘REAR WINDOW’

Paramount found Rear Window. Hitch had left Warner Brothers and was looking for a home. And Paramount said if he could get a screenplay out of a Cornell Woolrich story, they would make a deal with him. They gave him a collection called After-Dinner Story, by William Irish [Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1936], a pen name of Cornell Woolrich. Out of about five or six stories, he liked “Rear Window” and brought me in on it. There was no girl in the original. I created the part. Hitch had done Dial M for Murder [1954] with Grace Kelly, and she was beautiful in that film; but there was no life, no sparkle there. He asked me what we should do with her for Rear Window, so I spent time with her for about a week. My wife, Mel, was a successful fashion model, so I gave Grace my wife’s occupation in the film. The way the character posed, the dialogue—it reflected actual incidents in our life.

That was my first A picture with a big director, and I was so keyed up. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have, because I was worried about everything. Yet it turned out well. We worked beautifully together.

Go Into the Story | Read the Full Article

The Traditionalist: an Interview with Christopher Nolan

John P. Hess — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:20:16 +0000

Jeffrey Ressner interviews Christopher Nolan about how he works, the fact that he didn’t go to film school, and why he wears suits on his set.

JEFFREY RESSNER: When did you realize that directing was your life’s calling?
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: To be honest, I’ve always made films and I never really stopped, starting with little stop-motion experiments using my dad’s Super 8 camera. In my mind, it’s all one big continuum of filmmaking and I’ve never changed. I used to noodle around with the camera but I didn’t go to film school. I studied English literature at college and pursued a straight academic qualification, all the while making my own films and wanting to make more. I paid for my first feature, Following, myself and made it with friends. We were all working full-time jobs, so we’d get together on weekends for a year, shooting about 15 minutes of raw stock every Saturday, one or two takes of everything, and getting maybe five minutes of finished film out of that. We went to the San Francisco Film Festival with it [in 1998] and Zeitgeist Films picked up distribution, which really helped me get Memento going. I got paid to direct it, I had millions of dollars in trucks and hundreds of people and everything, and I haven’t looked back since.

DGA.org | Read the Full Article

A Conversation with Martin Scorcese

John P. Hess — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:50:08 +0000

Details sits down with Martin Scorcese to talk about drinking games and cognac… and some filmmaking stuff too… mostly drinking…

DETAILS: Have people mentioned the Martin Scorsese Drinking Game to you since?

Martin Scorsese: Yes, of course. It’s become a thing! All right. Drink. Enjoy yourself! (huge laugh)

DETAILS: When the Academy went to 10 Best Picture nominees, did it somehow cheapen the awards?

Martin Scorsese: I kind of feel it diffuses it, in a way. I’m confused by it. But maybe it’s just me. I’m an older generation. I don’t know.

DETAILS: Is there one performance this year that was overlooked?

Martin Scorsese: There are many, I think. This year was interesting for me. I think of DiCaprio in J. Edgar—he was really remarkable. I’m watching the film and the film is so meditative. And so interior. And it was being drawn into this man’s world, and seeing everything through the paranoid eyes. There’s something in his performance—you really want to see what these people are going to do. And I don’t like them! (bigger laugh) I thought it was amazing. I can’t believe that it was overlooked by the academy.

Details.com | Read the Full Article

Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dali in 1958

Dennis — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:12:16 +0000

Sit back, light up your Parliament cigarettes and check out Mike Wallace interview Salvador Dali in this rare video from 1958.

Creating the Look for ‘Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie’

John P. Hess — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:06:23 +0000

Crafting a look for the genre-defying comedy team Tim and Eric is not a usual walk in the park. Cinematographer, Rachel Morrison talks about the process and what it’s like to shoot in an abandoned pink mall from hell.

For cinematographer Rachel Morrison, the movie presented her with the chance to again work with Heidecker and Wareheim, albeit on a much larger scale. Morrison began her career working on short films and reality TV, before moving onto documentaries and then features, including 2011’s “Sound of My Voice.” Every film offers its own challenges, but a Tim and Eric project usually includes puppets, exploding heads, and intentionally cheesy green screen effects.

Rachel Morrison: I majored in still photography, but I pretty much always knew in the back of my mind I wanted to be able to use my craft to tell a longer story. The moment I held my first film camera, something just clicked (pun intended). I’ve been running with it ever since.

Filmslate Magazine | Read the Full Article

Profile of Mad Men’s Cinematographer, Chris Manley

John P. Hess — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:20:22 +0000

Allentown’s Morning Call profiles their hometown hero Chris Manley who is responsible for creating the beautifully retro look of AMC’s hit show, “Mad Men”.

Allentown native Chris Manley dates his love of photography to a cross-country road trip he took with his family about 30 years ago. He was 11 years old at the time and at the beginning of the excursion, his father gave him a manual 35mm camera and a light meter.

“My dad taught me how to expose [the shots] and figure it all out myself,” Manley says. “I’ll never forget being at Old Faithful in Yosemite and waiting for the geyser to go off. I got so excited I kept shooting. When we got the pictures back, I had 30 photos that all looked exactly alike. It was only years later that I thought, ‘I should have been shooting motion, not stills.’”

These days, Manley is one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed cinematographers. Since 2008, Manley has helped define the look of the Emmy-winning AMC series “Mad Men,” a drama about Fifth Avenue ad men in the 1960s. After joining the series at the beginning of its second season as director of photography, he gradually darkened the palette as the plot has pushed the characters into lonelier and darker places. Manley earned an Emmy nomination for his work in 2009.

The Morning Call |

Hitchcock’s Definition of Happiness

Dennis — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:11:53 +0000

Alfred Hitchcock defines his idea of happiness.

Quentin Tarantino promoting Pulp Fiction on The Jon Stewart Show in 1994

Dennis — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:15:48 +0000

Back in 1994 both Quentin Tarantino and Jon Stewart were on the cusp of becoming household names. In this interview Tarantino previews Pulp Fiction on “The Jon Stewart Show” 2 years before Stewart would go on to create the Daily Show.