Recommended reading #1 May 16, 2010
Posted by joost in : film, recommended reading , trackbackIt should be no surprise that I follow plenty of film (making) related news. It is my intention from now on to provide an overview of some of those noteworthy stories under the heading Recommended reading. The frequency of these posts will probably vary, when I’m busy I will read and post less, whereas downtime will presumably lead to more news reading and publishing.
B stands for Big Business
A company called The Asylum specializes in creating and selling B-movies. Forget about “art” or “originality”, their philosophy is follow the market: “The real definition of an Asylum movie is a movie that has already been sold before we ever make it“. Wired has more on them in an article called Now Playing: Cheap-and-Schlocky Blockbuster Ripoffs. Asylum’s latest success: scoring 2.2 million viewers for the premiere of Mega Piranha (trailer) on SyFy channel in the USA.
Doc distro
With the film making and distribution landscape changing rapidly, everyone is searching for answers and success stories. IndieWIRE writes about six case studies of distributing feature length documentaries.
Directing us
An older gem that I recently discovered is an essay by David Bordwell on staging in a long continuous shot. In Hands and faces across the table he says: “One task facing any director is to direct—not only actors but us. The filmmaker must direct our attention to what’s important for responding to the drama at any moment.” Bordwell notices a “lost art” of having the action develop in the scene and within the frame instead of the currently established film grammar of rapid cuts back and forth. Fortunately a film like P.T. Anderson‘s There will be blood shows fine examples of such continuous shots.
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