director jeffrey zablotny

ILM’s stunning warp speed sequences in j.j. abrams’ ‘star trek’.  from cinefex:

engaging warp drive, the enterprise enters a tunnel of light, which ILM created using combinations of particle effects and streaking image treatments.  ”it was as if the ship was in a tube of warp energy,” commented eddie pasquarello.  ”tom fejes’ team rendered particles, conny fauser then created the overall look from streaking effects generated in saber.”

1999. still trapped in the celluloid age, here’s david fincher ruling out an all-practical approach to the kitchen explosion in ‘fight club’. from cinefex:

fincher decided that he wanted to show the moment of the stove’s ignition in fine detail, excruciatingly drawn out. ”at fifty thousand frames per second, you’d see gas molecules catching fire, which would be a lot more interesting than cutting outside to see furniture flying into the trees.”

fincher considered all-practical approaches to the sequence that included oversized set pieces and motion control; but after reviewing PLF’s previsulaizations, the notion was dropped. ”it would have taken forever to eliminate camera shadows on the ‘macrotures’,” fincher stated, “and the chrome teapot and spatula in the shot would have reflected a snorkel lens. then there were the requirements for shooting it high-speed while still exposing properly for the propane explosion, which would blow out all the detail. the refrigerator door opened during the blast, which meant that i’d have needed a 10k refrigerator light to save the film stock from the lost foot-lumens.”

the godfather (1972)
dir. francis ford coppola

dir. martin de thurah

“I work in quite an intuitive way so it’s important for me to maintain the thrill of expressing new kinds of feeling.”

cabaret (1972)
dir. bob fosse

spellbound (1945)
dir. alfred hitchcock

psycho (1960)
dir. alfred hitchcock

the 39 steps (1935)
dir. alfred hitchcock

‘the 39 steps’, 1935.  inspired by german expressionism, alfred hitchcock has the shadows of the railings painted onto the walls of the set, evident when madeleine carroll passes them.  

‘girl with the dragon tattoo’, 2011.  david fincher has rooney mara wearing special makeup that’s been traced over the shadows naturally falling in that exact spot, under that exact light in the elevator, creating an incredibly heightened look for the two shots that she appears in during the scene.