Depinot Grigio

Steve Depino tagged me last week and I haven't had a chance to respond yet, but I promise I will. Check back.

Superbadass

I posted about Superbad a few months ago which much anticipation. Well I saw it last weekend and it's easily one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. No kidding. Just go see it. Now. Go.

"May the good Lord-

-Shine A Light on you"

UPDATE: Looky what dropped on youtube a few days ago.



Being a HUGE fan of Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones it's an understatement to say I'm over the muthafuckin moon about their new documentary, Shine A Light. The film will document a concert the Stones put on at the Beacon last year. Scorsese assembled some of the best DP's working in the movie business today to shoot it. Looky here. He also documented the lead up to the concert including preparations. Scorsese has already made the single greatest concert film ever - The Last Waltz, and the Stones are the greatest rock 'n roll band ever so this destined to be nothing less than beautiful and brilliant. Yes I love The Beatles too, but the Stones exemplify everything good, great, wonderful, decadent and perfectly imperfect about rock 'n roll. They've also been around longer and their longevity means a lot to me in terms of their status of greatest rock 'n roll band ever.
Had John Lennon not been killed it might be a different story but this argument is for another post. A brief but somewhat insightful article was recently done with Scorsese about the film. He's a longtime, die hard fan of the Stones and his use of their music in his films are nothing if not inspiring and ingenious. He was also one of the early adopters of using current pop/rock music in films. See Mean Streets.(and if you do take notice of Robert De Niro's attire in the film. Sylvester Stallone clearly ripped it off for Rocky 2 years later. But I digress, as usual)

Of note, The Last Waltz is a great film documenting The Band's last performance. Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, a very young Neil Young and many more grace the stage. The way he shot this film set the stage for the way every concert was shot since. Although I doubt anyone has ever approached it the way Scorsese did. He contacted each band, found out which songs they were going to perform and then he made a shot list on a music sheet- each lighting and camera angle motivated by the lyrics and music within the song. Yes he did. There's evidence too. Pick up the DVD. You'll be dancing in your living room.

Shine A Light was supposed to come out this fall, but recently it was pushed to the fall as Scorsese is still editing and mixing. I'm disappointed only because I'm anxious and you should be too!

Zodiac

With much anticipation, I watched Zodiac over the weekend and it was worth the wait. I'm a big fan of All the Presidents Men and also, The Insider, as I've mentioned. They are both thrillers, but not really in the conventional sense. They are thrillers with drama cranked up a few notches. Zodiac is very much the same type of movie. All three involve men who are obsessed. Obsessed to the point where it consumes their lives. In the case of Zodiac, it is the infamous Zodiac killer who murdered 5 people, frightened countless others, and in the end, was never captured that obsessed such men. The first third of the film has some intense and hair-raising scenes involving some of the murders. It then settles into a film about process and obsession as different investigators and newsmen try to solve the crimes and it is engrossing.

The performances are excellent across the board. Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gylenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, Dermut Mulroney, Chloe Sevigny and Brian Cox are all wonderful. Ruffalo particularly impressed me. So did Chloe Sevigny, but I'm a fan of them anyway.

David Fincher, the director, delivers one of his best films date (Fight Club is still number one in my book.) His attention to detail is impressive in all of his films but here it really shines in a period that has always appelaed to me. It looks like it was shot in the late 60's/70's. They even used the old paramont logo. Fincher is very restrained here. He has a few camera tricks up his sleeve and some very complex moves, as usual, but nothing overly flashy. As he said, "Two guys walk into a room, sit down over a cup of coffee and then proceed to rip through six pages of dialogue."

The film was shot in HD (High Definition) all recorded directly to a hard drive. The video I just shot for Steve Depino was recorded in a similiar manner (see a post below). We didn't record to hard drives, we recorded to what is called a P2 card. Either way, it's interesting to me because this is the new trend and I'm excited. Michael Mann shot 85% of Collateral in High Def and recorded directly to a hard drive. Fincher is doing his next film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the same way. As an editor, I can tell you firsthand that digitizing (loaded the footage off tape and into your computer) sucks. It's boring and frustrating for someone like me because once I start seeing footage I start getting ideas for cutting and get even more impatient. Now you can import or copy/paste the files and find something else productive to do rather than babysit the ingest of footage. Granted, I'm sure problems can arise this way, but so far so good for me and hopefully the more the workflow is ironed out, the less the problems will be. That being said, Zodiac is a very good film and well worth checking out.

The Truthiness of SteveDepino.com

Steve Depino is a truly gifted photographer. One of the things that impresses me most about him is that he is constantly pushing himself and his style. You look at his work over the last few years and you see growth. Impressive and amazing growth. Growth that didn't need to occur because his work was so strong to start with. You see the growth of someone who is driven to change, adapt and break new ground, whether they need to or not. His photos consistently blow me away and the fact that he has the balls to always be pushing himself and not be content- to always be restless- is very admirable and most of all, inspiring. Very few artists, in any field, push themselves when they are already working at the top of their game, but Steve does. It's not just something to be commended, but to be emulated. Go to his site and check his work out. You'll see. Check out his blog too, he posts more than the Drudge Report, but he's struggling for readers, unlike this robust site, so help the brother out. Any-who, I decided to hitch my horse to his wagon, literally, not figuratively, and make a mini-documentary about him. We shot for 2 days. One day was interviews and the other was shooting Steve shooting a wedding. Then I tucked away into the edit room to try to piece together the puzzle that is the Steve Depino Photography experience. The result is below. Feel free to make any comments - good or bad - I welcome all.

I want to thank a few people who helped me immensely with this piece. I want to thank Adrian Correia, who is a superbly talented Director of Photography, for his time and beautiful lighting. Also, Mary, Brian, Jeff & Dawn, who all gave up a saturday in april to sit down with us and put up with my questions, requests and admittedly diva-like behavior. I want to thank Kelli & Petter who were kind enough to let me follow Steve around at their wedding. Thankfully, they have accepted my apology for knocking over their wedding cake. It was an accident, no matter what any of their guests say. Carla ten eyck, another amazingly talented photographer and super cool person, lent me some incredible photos of Steve rolling around in the grass taking pictures, all from her own collection of work. This was not something she had to do- she just did it out of the goodness of her heart and the segment wouldn't have been the same without them. She also took the photo of Steve featured at the top of this post. Sonia Baghdady was generous enough to also give up her saturday to do makeup for our interviewees as well as Steve. I think she'll agree with me when I say that Steve got a little carried away with the makeup. Some touching up is fine, Steve, but purple lipstick and neon yellow eyeliner is just way over the top, and frankly not very becoming on you. Speaking of Steve, I want to thank him for his patience with my busy schedule this summer and understanding that filmmakers need time to procrastinate and self-doubt. Actually, I think he was patient, I mean he swore up and down it wasn't him who slashed my tires, sugared my gas tank and spray painted "dick" on the side of my house, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Last but certainly not least I want to thank Bob Sylvia. His help was invaluable. He gave up 2 of his saturdays to help me on this project as well as many hours on graphics. He also listened to my bullshit on the train in the morning. "The stupid HDV footage is breaking my balls" "I need to find more music" "The room I edit in at home has no AC and it's hot as hell" and so on. Bob is also responsible for the presentation of Steve's photos in the video and he had the great idea of scanning Steve's business card to capture his signature graphicly so we could use it in the video. He was also responsible for animating that signature. He shot second camera, ran sound and transferred all the files on set. To say he's an exceptional utility man is a massive understatement.

Thank you again to everyone.

Am I hallucinating?

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the director of Daddy Day Camp. Shocked? Yeah me too. I'm always fascinated to see who directs these kinds of movies and why. And by "these" I mean movies you would typically expect to go straight to video or simply be amazed they were able to secure a budget, cast and crew. So everytime I see a movie like Daddy Day Camp or Who's Your Caddy come out I always check to see who the director is. Ironically my fiancee asked me the other day if I had a chance to direct Who's Your Caddy (or something like it) would I? I think I would. If for nothing else I would do it for the experience. Even the best directors have made shit films. Who cares if you have some crap movie you're not proud of. Maybe you would be proud of it- who knows? At least you could say you directed a feature, and hopefully from there you'd get better work. Seeing Fred Savage's name as the director shocked me though for a few reasons. One, I had no idea he was directing. Two, it was the last name I expected to see. Looking at his imdb page, he's been directing ALOT. So if you've been wondering whatever happened to Kevin Arnold, he's directing Daddy Day Camp, among other things.

ps Cuba Gooding Jr. needs to have a serious discussion with his manager and agent.

New Cloverfield Poster

The film is still shooting in NYC so they're going to have a short time in the edit room. Actually they're probably editing as they shoot, but for a film with appears to have a lot of cgi they're going to be busy. On the poster, notice the wake left behind by whatever storm in the city destroying everything.