Tag: cinema

Thoughts on Cafe Society

 

Woody Allen has always been on my top list of directors, from the classic Annie Hall to Midnight In Paris to You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (which I was fortunate enough to walk the red carpet at Cannes for) he has captivated me with his dry humor and quick wit. Sure his style of cinema is a bit slow moving but the writing is top notch.

Cafe Society had a star studded cast with some of my favorite people to watch including Jesse Eisenberg and Blake Lively. Being a period piece during this cinephile’s favorite era of Hollywood was icing on the cake. The vernacular and the outfits were impeccable, I have always imagined what it would be like working in the film industry during the early part of the 1900s when the studio houses were on the rise. People like Adolf Zukor and Marcus Loew were the ones to rub shoulders with.

Ever since I started learning about the history of America’s film industry in Cinema History classes I became obsessed. I stumbled across an old copy of Fitzgerald’s Love of the Last Tycoon in a library in Holland and ate the novel up in a measly six hours. Hollywood’s Big Six had me captivated with every scandalous detail.

Back to Woody’s most recent masterpiece, I really appreciated seeing the way a young naive boy can go out to Hollywood, get chewed up by the industry and spit out a hardened soul capable of things that previously seemed out of character for them. Eisenberg played this character well, perfectly portraying the nervous awkwardness of a child new to the scene then flowing into the fast talking, swanky NYC club manager rubbing shoulders with all of high society.

It was painful for me to see Eisenberg’s character go through the despicable male flaw that his uncle portrayed back in Hollywood. It was disgusting to see him move on from his first love, find a beautiful woman who had his child, just to turn around and cheat on her with his first love – who is married to his Uncle. It was practically incestuous. I was glad to see that they didn’t take it further than a lot of time and a kiss but sad that he went down that road at all. He seemed like a stand up guy for the majority of the film.

Regardless of these thoughts, the characters were three dimensional and the writing was superb in a classic Woody Allen style. I would highly recommend spending a couple hours with Cafe Society. Have you watched it? What thoughts did you have on the piece?

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Dear 35mm: With Love, A Former Projectionist 

I remember when film was film, when a laser read a strip of audio from each frame and little bracket holes guided the film through the projector. If you listened closely you could hear the film running through the projector creating an unconscious timing. The viewer usually doesn’t notice it amidst the soundtrack of the motion picture they are experiencing. 

Films open on Thursday at midnight. Typically the reels arrive  between Monday and Thursday afternoon. It is broken into about 5-7 separate reels for the projectionist to build, adding the cinema’s personal reel as well as a few trailers to the beginning.

The projector has a three plate system. Once the projectionist has built the reels into one continuous piece of art they insert a ‘brain’ to the center of the plate. The film is then delicately threaded through the brain and across to the projector itself. There were many nights throughout my six years working with real film where we would fight the brain. Trying to save the film from as much harm as possible as it wrapped around the brain.

You must be sure not to get fingerprints on the frames, that the sound strip lines up properly, and you have left enough space in certain areas to eliminate any tearing of film during the timing. Your eyes can see twelve frames per second. 

Once everything is in place, hit a button – light the lamp, the projectionist watches through the window listening in. Ensuring they have done an admirable job in presenting an artist’s masterpiece.

When the switch to digital projection came about I will admit it significantly improved the smoothness of the business side of the theater. However there was no art in projectionists’ work. It became dull. The frames no longer tick by unconsciously timing the artistry. It feels more like lining up clips in iMovie than projecting a feature film to it’s first audiences. It was heartbreaking.

I first learned projection I was fifteen and had to beg my way in. I was told girls aren’t projectionists, I was too short, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Well I’m a pretty tenacious human being capable of doing anything she puts her mind to. Eventually they taught me. I was good, I cared about each frame that I touched. In some way I felt connected with the director whose vision created the film. 

Ultimately, it was this experience that lead me to pursue film production. I have a deep love of the painstaking agony that goes into every motion picture. It is a beautiful thing knowing how much work was put into a single showing. The credits don’t do those unsung heroes any justice, these are the people that drive a directors goal into a reality. They were on set 12 hours each day and more most of the time in all sorts of weather conditions. They are the true cinephiles. It’s a beautiful, diverse community of artists. Do you have a favorite cinema memory?

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Couldn’t Finish This Film

There are very few movies that I have started and simply could not finish. Typically, if I start a film the student in me needs to see the end to complete my understanding and personal analysis of it. The first film I couldn’t finish (and to this day still have to watch in multiple sittings) was Blood Diamond. The way it threw reality right into your face and let it dance around was jarring. Seeing so many kids being treated in such a way and manipulated into killing others. I still  can’t look at a diamond with the idea of ‘girls best friend’, all I see is spilled blood for vanity’s sake. It disgusts me.

This week I have been on a huge Spike Lee kick; I’ve watched She’s Gotta Have it, Red Hook Summer, Miracle at St Anna, Inside Man, Crooklyn and Mo’ Better Blues. Today I’ll be watching some of his earlier short films and for the rest of the week I’ve got Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Old Boy, and Passing Strange planned with a finale of Do The Right Thing which is my favorite Spike film and happened to come out the year I was born.

I tried watching Da Sweet Blood of Jesus and it became the second film I couldn’t finish watching. Have you tried watching this 2014 film? It’s pretty raw. I felt a constant state of unease and nausea. Although I did not finish this film, I’m certain that I was feeling exactly what the director wanted me to feel. His framing was on point like usual, it was just the content of drinking human blood to get closer to Jesus – or however he put it – that truly disturbed me to the core.

Maybe I do live with some rose colored glasses on but certain things kill my soul – children being slaughtered and slaughtering others and humans killing other’s to drink their blood. Oddly enough, I believe I have been conditioned by  the media to feel this way. At least about the blood. Vampires are one thing because we know they aren’t real so when they ‘come to suck your blood’ its almost comical, but the way Spike Lee shows this man losing his mind, stealing blood from a blood bank, and cutting open someone’s neck to go in there and drink the blood is too real – too raw. It reminded me of tribes of the world that have traits of cannibalism and shook me to my core.

Have you ever seen a film that you couldn’t finish? What are their titles? What themes do you find yourself shying away from?

Just a little disclaimer here: I’m sure there are plenty of horror films I couldn’t finish but that is an area of filmmaking that I will work on I just can’t watch! I’m a wimp – unless it has a solid storyline then I’m in!

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Chase of the Wolf

Chase of the Wolf was my first short film at film school, I was so nervous during this process. Being inspired by Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, I intertwined the story of the Three Little Pigs with my fictional story about a couple of kids who attempt to escape their alcoholic father.

There were so many tribulations on this production. Most stressful being that the “friend” who offered to play the third child chose to get drunk that night and be MIA for call time to drive to location (we carpooled from university). I started hyperventilating immediately – I thought the picture was finished. Who could I get on such short notice or no notice? My dear friend, who later became my producer, got behind the wheel and told me to start rewriting on the drive. We would make it work.

How could my story be an adaptation of the Three Little Pigs if there were only two ‘little pigs’? Not wanting to make my own screen debut while also directing, writing, producing, filming, and editing on my own, I pulled out my pencil and started cutting and editing my script. It felt all too natural to be making another draft – I had already done so many.

This was my first experience with lighting and the XL-1 that I was filming with so it was really trial and error. I learned so much just by doing it. When showing my film in narrative class, my teacher swore I filmed with the XL-2 because of how well lit she said my shots were. I was beaming. Something I thought would be ruined was turning out pretty okay.

I like to go back to this whenever I am starting a new project to remind myself that things always turn out better than I expect. As TG (my advisor and mentor) always says ‘always have a plan A – Z’ , This set taught me to be ready for everything and stay creative in working around a camera. I used a long board as a dolly for one shot and really just tried as many techniques as I could during the time I could get my friends to do whatever I said. It was great. Here’s a look at my very first film:

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