Posts Tagged "best cinematography"

The Day of the Doctor: Dr Who 50th Anniversary

Posted by RZ on Nov 23, 2013

 Exactly 50 years after Dr Who was first broadcast on BBC One, at 5.15 pm on 23 November 1963, the special 50th Anniversary episode went out – this time to a few more viewers than in 1963.

 The BBC broadcast the episode simultaneously to 75 countries as well as organising screenings of it at cinemas and big screens around the world.

 In its 50th year the series is watched by an estimated 80 million viewers in 206 countries and has been honoured by the Guiness World Records as both the longest running and the most successful science-fiction series in the world

Ted Chung: A Thousand Words

Posted by RZ on Nov 13, 2013

Ted Chung is a talented film director who grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went on to UCLA Film School, where he received the UCLA Directors Spotlight Award.

Chung demonstrates what excellent directing can achieve in a short film of less than five minutes. Simply using the camera, well integrated music, very well chosen actors and a fine understanding of visual communication, timing and nuances he is able to convey the character, feelings and emotions of the protagonists without the use of a single spoken word. 

“A Thousand Words” and his film “Mike” are both shot very effectively in black and white. He elaborates:

” B&W is an immediate way of creating a style – especially when you’re shooting without many resources and can’t control the color scheme as much as you’d like.  After shooting Mike’s and A Thousand Words in B&W, it was great being able to do On Time where everything was built or carefully sourced to align with an established color palette”

 In an interview he explains the importance of music in his work:

“Music has a direct line to the subconscious, to emotion.  Even a baby who doesn’t fully understand language yet can be emotionally influenced by a piece of music.  It’s a very powerful tool in conveying feelings and ideas, but I think it’s important to have some restraint in how you deploy music.  It’s often stronger to be more suggestive and give the audience space to fill with their own feelings. “

He was also selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus, where he directed On Time, a magical realism tale that premiered at the 58th Berlin Film Festival.

He is currently at work on his newest film, the sci-fi thriller I D.

“Ted Chung is one of my top five filmmakers on the web because he understands how to tell stories with or without words. The picture quality is irrelevant to his work. He uses screen direction and movement only when it is necessary to tell his story. He shows emotion and feeling in his characters, in his direction, and in the wonderful actors he casts. Most of the situations in his previous film involved lost chances and that’s some thing we all can intensely relate to.  It is the moment that you are afraid, but you find the courage to take either the chance or not.  Ted understands storytelling and that makes him a real filmmaker- Hollywood style,” says Director Steve Weiss.

Also directed by Ted Chung: “On Time“: http://vimeo.com/12947399
“Mike’s”: http://vimeo.com/16509726
tribecafilm.com/news-features/super_shorts/Super_Shorts_A_Thousand_Words.html
zacuto.blogspot.com/2009/12/steves-top-picks-for-2009.html
vimeo.com/album/159627/page:2 berlinale-talentcampus.de/campus/talent/ted-chung zacuto.com/featured-filmmaker-ted-chung 

“An elegant and very affecting portrait of big-city loneliness and the instant connections that go “ping” and are gone seconds later. The emotions are halting, delicate, true.” -Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere

The Oscar 2013 Winners

Posted by RZ on Feb 26, 2013

The Oscars 2013 Award Ceremony was held on Sunday 24 February

The Winners

Best Picture: Argo

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Lincoln

Best Acress: Jennifer Lawrence
Silver Linings Playbook

Best Actor  – in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz
Django Unchained

Best Actress – in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway
Les Misérables

Best Animated Feature Film: Brave

Best Cinematography: Life of Pi

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Jacqueline Durran

Best Directing: Life of Pi
Ang Lee

Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man
Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn

Best Documentary Short: Inocente
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

Best Film Editing: Argo
William Goldenberg

Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
Austria

Best Makeup and HairstylingA: Les Misérables
Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Best Music – Original Score: Life of Pi
Mychael Danna

Best Music – Original Song: “Skyfall” from Skyfall
Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth

Best Production Design: Lincoln
Rick Carter (Production Design); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration)

Best Short Film – Animated: Paperman
John Kahrs

Best Short Film – Live Action:  Curfew
Shawn Christensen

Best Sound Editing: Skyfall
Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers

Best Sound Mixing: Les Misérables
Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi:
Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: Argo
Written by Chris Terrio

Best Writing – Original Screenplay: Django Unchained
Written by Quentin Tarantino

Vimeo Festival + Awards 2012

Posted by RZ on Jun 7, 2012

The Vimeo Awards celebrate the world’s best videos, and the people who created them. This spectacular visual festival and award ceremony is held in the heart of legendary Chelsea area of New York.

Prizes include $5,000 grants in 13 categories, plus a $25,000 Grand Prize — all to reward creators and help them make new work.

The festival on June 8th and 9th includes talks by speakers which cover the most salient topics in video production today, an area which is explored in even more detail in the many excellent workshops available over the period.

Of course the highlight are the screenings of the videos themselves.

13 Winning videos have been chosen from an original submisson of 14,567 videos – the quality and diversity of imagination in the work is quite phenomemal.

You can see the full schedule of events here:

The event ends on a high with a great all-night party, with a DJ (and an open bar)

TALKS/CONVERSATIONS

• Keynote Address: the End of the Beginning With Dr. Reginald Watts

  The illustrious Internetologist Dr. Reginald Watts returns to the Vimeo Festival + Awards to discuss his latest theories on the tubes, wires, and webs that connect us all. This weekend he addresses a key question: How do you know whether you’re at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

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  1030a • Main Hall

• The Self-Expression Tsunami

  At what point does information about a person become a little too much information? 2010 Festival + Awards Honorary Award-winner Casey Neistat and Sundance winner Josh Safdie explore the growing number of ways in which people divulge seemingly everything about their lives online. Whether we think it’s too much or not enough, these personal sharing trends change the ways we understand our friends, family, and colleagues—and our own place in the world.

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  1145a • Root 3

• Director Profiles: Steve James and Lucy Walker

  Who best to interview a master of interview techniques? Another interview master, obviously. In a very special event, documentarians and unparalleled question-askers Steve James and Lucy Walker take to the stage together to grill each other on their careers, their creative processes, and how they get their subjects to open up on camera.

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  1200p • Main Hall

• Limited Editions in the Digital World

  The art experience has moved beyond the museum gallery to become a dialogue between people and the devices on their desks and in their pockets. How can digital and media artists be effective players in shaping this trend and distribute their art online without giving it all away? How does encountering art online affect its interpretation? Media artist Marco Bambrilla and MoMA curator Barbara London discuss the issues and opportunities that the digital world and the Internet offer artists.

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  145p • Sky Lounge

• The Future of Creative Careers

  The landscape of creative work is changing. Much of the friction that once inhibited independent careers has been removed, and the distance between idea and execution is smaller than ever. During this Q&A, featuring Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance and author of Making Ideas Happen, we will explore the ways in which our professional output is powered by the latest technology and shaped by the new ways in which we collaborate.

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  200p • Main Hall

• Advertising Adapts: What’s a Brand to Do?

  There have been seismic shifts in the advertising industry since TV moved on- demand and audiences moved online. Viewers are increasingly sophisticated, and advertising has evolved in tandem, with brands delivering messages through clever content that viewers choose to watch and share. This discussion tries to identify the line between advertising and entertainment, and examines the consequences – both positive and negative – of erasing that line altogether.

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  200p • Root 1

• Director Profiles: Daniels

  Two guys, one name, one singular vision. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert recently burst onto the scene with videos and commercials that turn chaos into humor and beauty. We ask them to sit still for a moment and tell us where they came from, what shaped their worldview, and why they refuse to be serious even for one second.

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  315p • Sky Lounge

• The New Viral Video: From Keyboard Cat to Ideas Worth Spreading

  Videos with millions of views come in many flavors, but they have a common thread: they inspire us to share them with others. Viral videos have often provided decidedly ephemeral entertainment—think cats playing pianos and dogs riding skateboards. Yet TED is at the forefront of a burgeoning trend that puts ideas worth spreading high up on the list of things your friends and family simply have to watch. What makes users want to share a meaningful video? What drives success? With more than 750 million views to date, the TED case study illuminates some of the most important trends defining the new viral video.

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  330p • Main Hall

• Going Pro

  So, you want to do this for a living, huh? The gap between serious amateur and budding professional can look quite large, so we’re bringing in some new and seasoned pros to share their perspectives on making the leap. We’ll talk with experts Kevin Iwashina, a film, tv & digitalcontent producer and media advisor who spent 10 years working as an agent at CAA and Lana Kim, who represents directors such as Megaforce,Andy Bruntel, Romain Gavras, and Sofia Coppola. We’ll also get the scoop from director Nima Nourizadeh, who recently made the journey from creating low-budget music videos to directing Project X, his first feature in Hollywood.

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  430p • Root 3

• Failure FTW

  Not succeeding plays a hugely important role in the creative process. This session features Ted Hope and Ed Burns discussing the importance of embracing failure in creative work, with postcards from their own personal dark days—jobs that went wrong, ideas that fizzled out, expectations decidedly unexceeded—and exploring how failing miserably is crucial to artistic achievement (and even finding happiness).

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  500p • Main Hall

• Director Profiles: Saman Keshavarz

  Saman Keshavarz was born in Tehran, Iran, raised in the United States, and, according to the bio on his blog, his last known whereabouts were in Smurf Land. But the director, whose music videos for !!!, Cinnamon Chasers, and Deus have made him one of the field’s rising stars, will be right here at the Festival to take us through his journey so far — and let us know what lands he plans to explore next.

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  445p • Sky Lounge

• World Premiere of ‘Limbo,’ the New Film by 2010 Grand Prize Winner Eliot Rausch

  At the 2010 Festival + Awards, Eliot Rausch took home top honors for his touching film “Last Minutes with Oden.” During this profile, Eliot will tell us how winning the Grand Prize changed his life and what he’s been up to since. The session includes the world premiere of Eliot’s new film, “Limbo,” which he made with his 2010 prize money, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at how the Limbo came to life.

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  645p • Main Hall

 Putting the Fun in Funding

• When it comes to obtaining a decent budget for your project, you are no longer reduced to groveling at the feet of rich friends. This session looks at three more dignified ways to find funding: through grant organizations, crowd-sourcing, and brands that want to catalyze great content. Kickstarter’s Art Program Director Stephanie Pereira, The Creators Project’s Global General Manager Hosi Simon, and Adella Ladjevardi, Grants Manager at funding body Cinereach, will tell us how they work, what they’re looking for in projects, and what you need to know when approaching them.

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  1000a • Root 3

• Building Your Audience

  You’ve spent lots of time, energy, and money making your film, and once it’s done you want make sure it doesn’t end up like a wallflower at the online video party—you need to actively seek out watchers. Vimeo’s Blake Whitman, director Philip Bloom and designer Nick Campbell get down to some serious talk around how to grow and maintain an audience for your work.

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  1030a • Main Hall

• The Art of Getting Paid

  Yes, you create because you love doing it, but imagine loving doing it while being compensated appropriately—or even handsomely. Learn where the money is and how to get to it in this insightful look at the financial side of filmmaking through the eyes of fundraising expert and all-round maverick Brian Newman.

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  200p • Main Hall

• The Science of Storytelling

  With high-quality camera equipment now widely accessible, almost anyone can shoot videos that look good. But pretty pictures get you only so far — the way to truly captivate viewers is by telling a story that grips from the get-go and hangs on well after the final frame. And while we can feel that stories are powerful, there’s science behind them, too. Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, draws on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and biology to argue that storytelling has evolved to ensure our species’ survival. With insight on the basic human impulses behind tragedies, comedies, and cliffhangers, this session is a must for anyone who wants to tell a story that hits audiences in the heart, the gut, and other important organs.

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  200p • Root 3

• One Day on Earth – Connecting the World Through Video

  The Internet has enabled creators to call upon the world to act, uniting people and helping us work together on a global scale. This session shines a light on one of our favorite collaborative projects, One Day on Earth, and on how the group galvanized people all over the world to work together on a film that captures what happens on our planet in a single day.

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  315p • Root 2

• Director Profiles: Vincent Laforet

  Vincent Laforet started by making a splash in the world of still photography, working for The New York Times at the tender age of 25 and winning a Pulitzer Prize. He’s since turned to moving images and maintained pace — he received Cannes Lions Awards for Canon’s “Beyond The Still,” and his recent short “Mobius” for the same camera brand immediately went viral. We’ll talk to Vincent about his accomplishments and learn how budding filmmakers can achieve big goals.

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  345p • Sky Lounge

• Beyond the Screen: Notes from the Bleeding Edge of Filmmaking

  Executing big ideas can require big technology, and the most forward-looking filmmakers are inventing their own to bring groundbreaking concepts to life. From holographs to projection maps to apps that facilitate extraordinary levels of audience interaction, the topics of this conversation run the gamut: what’s hot now, what’s next, even what hasn’t been thought of yet. Participating are two of the industry’s leading innovators: Kenzo Digital, the new media heavyweight and creative director behind work for Nike, Beyonce, the Obama campaign, and Nam Jun Paik Studios; and Loc Dao, the award-winning executive producer and creative technologist for the National Film Board of Canada’s digital studio. Led by moderator Lance Weiler, the pair will discuss the technology they are most excited about, how new tools spark new ideas, and why telling a great story is still of paramount importance.

VIMEO

Vimeo is a US based video sharing website where users can upload, view and share videos. It was founded in 2004 by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick, who created the name “Vimeo”, which plays on the words video and “me” to emphasise the site’s dedication to user-made videos. The name is also an anagram of the word “movie”.

All I Can: Best Ski Film Ever

Posted by RZ on May 19, 2012

By Sherpas Cinema

All.I.Can. iTunes HD download: itunes.apple.com/us/movie/sherpa-cinema-all-i-can/id470509338
All.I.Can. DVD / Blu-ray available at: sherpascinema.com
Thanks for your support!!

All.I.Can Awards:
“BEST FEATURE-LENGTH MOUNTAIN FILM” – Banff Mountain Film Festival 2011
“BEST DOCUMENTARY” – IF3 Film Festival Montreal 2011
“MOST INNOVATIVE VISUAL FX” – IF3 Film Festival Montreal 2011
“BEST SKI FILM” – Adventure Film Festival, Boulder 2011
“BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY” – ESPN Fan Favorites 2011
“PEOPLES CHOICE” and “BEST SKI FILM” – Fernie Film Festival, BC 2011
“BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY” – International Freeride Film Festival, France 2011
“BEST PICTURE” – International Freeride Film Festival, France 2011
“BEST FILM OF THE YEAR” – Adventure Film Festival, Copenhagen 2011
“BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY” – X-Dance Film Festival, SLC 2012
“AMBASSADOR OF GREEN” – X-Dance Film Festival, SLC 2012
“BEST FILM” – X-Dance Film Festival, SLC 2012
“FULL THROTTLE AWARD” – Kye Petersen, Powder Video Awards 2012
“BEST NATURAL AIR” – Kye Petersen, Powder Video Awards 2012
“BEST POV” – JP Auclair, Powder Video Awards 2012
“BEST EDITING” – Powder Video Awards 2012
“MOVIE OF THE YEAR” – Powder Video Awards 2012

Press reviews:
“The best movie in skiing.”
– Jamey Voss, ESPN es.pn/pPxkbQ

“Like listening to a Zeppelin song.”
– John Stifter, Powder Magazine: bit.ly/nl0JiT

“The Sherpas are firmly in the lead of a new wave of filmmakers that are changing the face of ski films for good.” – Leslie Anthony, Skier Magazine: bit.ly/mVaYsy

“By the end, as I headed out from the screening, trying to walk straight after being pummeled by what I had seen, the only thought going through my head was that the trailer did not do its movie justice.” – Mark Quail, skistarmovies.com/review/all-i-can

http://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/all.i.can.-by-sherpas-cinema/id470509338