director jeffrey zablotny

‘photos every day’ this is a spot by tbwa/chiat/day...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:22:00 -0400

‘photos every day’

this is a spot by tbwa/chiat/day for apple, called ‘photos every day’. the craft is fantastic, and there’s some subtle, unusual attention to detail in it.

let’s take a look at the sound mix. here’s a waveform of the spot:

and now here’s the waveform of a conventionally mixed spot — this is that ‘old spice’ commercial everyone flipped out for a couple years ago. it might as well be any ad you see on tv today.

huge difference. there’s incredible restraint in the amount of compression applied to the music in ‘photos every day’. (from wikipedia, compression “reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or “compressing” an audio signal’s dynamic range”.) my point here is that if you caught this on tv, it would be substantially ‘quieter’ sounding than other ads around it.

the other interesting thing about the mix is that the iPhone shutter click sound is substantially undermixed. it comes across as incidental, and unobtrusive. the ambiences are the real star here, and the sound editor wasn’t even afraid to drop them out entirely for effect (see snowy skyscraper, 0:23).

other observations:

• there’s a real nice match-cut at 0:06 of the guy jumping off his skateboard into the shot of the jogger running.
• 0:25, the iPhone bobs up and down at a concert, and halfway through, the shot itself starts bobbing with the phone, keeping the screen stationary in the frame.
• overall, there’s a very careful variety of perspective, scale, and involvement. are we peering over someone’s shoulder? watching from across the street? ostensibly taking the picture, ourselves?
• i could have done without the voiceover at the end.

the red shoes (1948)dir. michael powell & emeric pressburger

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:53:39 -0400

the red shoes (1948)
dir. michael powell & emeric pressburger

Photo

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:13:00 -0400

fincher, on a shot without personality

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:10:00 -0400

the continuous shot through the house in ‘panic room’, specifically the segment through the kitchen, was well documented as a visual effects nightmare with many failed attempts, each reboot requiring more and more labour-intensive work. below, david fincher defends the shot’s cold, mechanical feel. there’s a subtext in his comments that suggests that he wasn’t totally happy with the way it turned out, or alternately, a general misunderstanding of what the shot was supposed to accomplish.

“i don’t think it has a personality, maybe it does. i sort of saw it as: there’s no one there. there’s no one pushing the dolly. there’s no one pulling focus.”

Photo

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:25:21 -0400

another round:the hudsucker proxy (1994)dir. joel & ethan...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:06:59 -0400

another round:
the hudsucker proxy (1994)
dir. joel & ethan coen
cinematographer roger deakins

the hudsucker proxy (1994)dir. joel & ethan...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:21:50 -0400

the hudsucker proxy (1994)
dir. joel & ethan coen
cinematographer roger deakins

deadwood - ‘dead water’dir. davis...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:19:59 -0400

deadwood - ‘dead water’
dir. davis guggenheim
cinematographer david boyd

“where do you and me stand?”

top of the lake (2013)dir. jane campion elegant, essential...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:14:00 -0400

top of the lake (2013)
dir. jane campion

elegant, essential coverage in this three minute scene in which robin meets kimmie, who reluctantly discusses her pregnancy. for the dialogue: clean singles only on michelle ang’s coverage. one medium for elisabeth moss. the choices are completely assured and fully reflected by performance.

hot docs 2013 has announced its lineup, and my short film...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:56:00 -0400

hot docs 2013 has announced its lineup, and my short film leonardo is premiering in it!

Leonardo (8 min.) Two young brothers once imagined the ductwork of their childhood home to be a secret sewer passageway for their action figures. Over a decade later, a favourite toy remains lost in the vent after several failed childhood attempts to retrieve it. Stu, now a young man, returns home to conduct an excavation to rescue the toy and reminisce about adolescence.

it’s meant to be seen in a big dark room with lots of strangers. if you’re in toronto, you can see it attached to screenings of jonas poher rasmussen’s film ‘waiting for bill’. details on the screening and tickets.

Mon, Apr 29. 11:59pm. Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
Wed, May 1. 4:30pm. TIFF Bell Lightbox
Thurs, May 2. 1:00pm. TIFF Bell Lightbox

the godfather: part ii (1974)dir. francis ford coppola

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:41:11 -0500

the godfather: part ii (1974)
dir. francis ford coppola

ILM’s stunning warp speed sequences in j.j. abrams’...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:24:00 -0500

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...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:24:31 -0500

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

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:25:38 -0500

the godfather (1972)
dir. francis ford coppola

dir. martin de thurah “I work in quite an intuitive way...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 12:46:14 -0500

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.”

steven soderbergh on making stuff, via vulture: “I was watching one of those iconoclast shows...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:14:00 -0500

steven soderbergh on making stuff, via vulture:

“I was watching one of those iconoclast shows on the Sundance Channel. Jamie Oliver said Paul Smith had told him something he hadn’t understood until very recently: “I’d rather be No. 2 forever than No. 1 for a while.” Just make stuff and don’t agonize over it. Stop worrying about being No. 1. I see a lot of people getting paralyzed by the response to their work, the imagined result. It’s like playing a Jedi mind trick on yourself, and Smith is right. That’s the way I’ve always approached films, the way I approach everything. Just make ’em.”

cabaret (1972)dir. bob fosse

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:55:01 -0500

cabaret (1972)
dir. bob fosse

spellbound (1945)dir. alfred hitchcock

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:47:18 -0500

spellbound (1945)
dir. alfred hitchcock

psycho (1960)dir. alfred hitchcock

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:32:00 -0500

psycho (1960)
dir. alfred hitchcock

amarcord (1973)dir. federico fellini

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:33:00 -0500

amarcord (1973)
dir. federico fellini