“Using handheld (of the blissfully smooth variety), Jonathan Miller’s lens manages to capture the breadth of the city in sun-bleached summer while also narrowing in the focus to…”

“Shot in limber, unfussy style by Jonathan Miller, the film is laced with glimpses of neighborhood basketball games, black-market operations, drug deals and underground graffitist networks, which add to the overall texture, authenticity and energy. Lovely establishing shots of the expansive rooftop cityscape hint at the vastness and inaccessibility of the world beyond these kids’ immediate domain.”

Georgia Guidestones for Travel Channel.

This is an inspiring shot.

Check out the article from Haskell Wexler about this shot from The Cranes Are Flying lensed by Sergei Urusevsky. Uresevksy also shot Soy Cuba (a favorite of mine); he was a master of the intricate long moving shot.

(LINK)

GIMME THE LOOT x CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2012

(Source: dominicbuchanan)

Crazy, interesting read. With all the talk about and samples of 3D at higher frame rates coming out it’s interesting to think about where we’ve come from and why. Sacred Geometry.

Are Indie Movies Getting Too Pretty?

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/are-indie-movies-getting-too-pretty/256367/

Thoroughly enjoyed this.
I totally agree with the sentiment too.

I was totally disappointed with the trailer for Detropia as well. There’s a fantastic documentary to be made about Detroit— the fascinating contradictions, the microcosm of what’s happened to America, the juxtaposition of fantastic architecture, history and decay, the politics, the desperation, the beauty and power of that city; but it hasn’t been made yet.
In general, it seems true that indie movies are all starting to look similar partially because we are all shooting on the same cameras. Slick, grainless, very shallow depth of field, slightly desaturated or over saturated, plasticky movies are the norm right now. I suppose grainy, flat, wide latitude images with deep focus photography will be the next trend. Certainly with LogC and all the Log gammas, wide latitude, flatter stuff is becoming hot— but not deep focus, not yet.
As a lover of grain in my
images I enjoyed reading this. (See Tinker Tailor). “Somehow, somewhere in the independent cinema scene, there should be movies with some grain in them—both literally and metaphorically.”

SAYING GOODBYE TO OUR SPACE PROGRAM?

Space Shuttle Discovery.  A surprisingly powerful object.

It is bigger and more strange and magical then I expected. Notice how scorched and beat up it is after 39 missions out of the atmosphere. I overheard somebody saying it reminded them of the Millenium Falcon after a dust up with a star destroyer. 

                                                (thanks to Mark Weston (AC) for taking stills)