Celebrating the Flavors of Filmmaking at Slamdance

by Rebecca Pahle | Published Feb. 6, 2012

Last month, Josh Gibson went to the Slamdance Film Festival with his short film Kudzu Vine… and came back with his very own Panasonic AG-AF100, a full HD camcorder that retails for $4,995.00. Gotta say, not too shabby. For Gibson, an associate director and instructor of film at Duke University, the boon came courtesy of Panasonic's Five Flavors of Filmmaking contest, held in cooperation with Slamdance. The contest called upon five teams to use the AF100, the official camera of the festival, to create a one-minute film based on a flavor. Gibson chose to interpret the flavor he was assigned—watermelon—with an experimental film that brought to life three haiku poems by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho. (No comments yet)

Robert Richardson’s 3-D Journey Back to the Future

by Bob Fisher

Martin Scorsese's Hugo takes audiences on a 3-D journey inside an underground train station in Paris during the 1930s. The story revolves around a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo, who makes a home for himself behind a wall at the station after his father dies. Hugo interacts with the owner of a small toy booth in the station, an eccentric girl, passengers on the platform and a mechanical man that his father created.

Digging for Deep Gold with Michael Gleissner

by Kyle Rupprecht

In the new action-thriller Deep Gold, a champion free-diver and her sister are drawn into a deadly conspiracy while investigating the disappearance of a government plane carrying a fortune in gold. Filmed entirely in and around the exotic islands of Cebu and Palawan in the Phillipines, Deep Goldfeatures eye-popping 3-D action sequences.

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Who Needs HD When You’ve Got 4K?

by Laurel Dammann
Techies rejoice! A new toy is hitting the market. Of course, JVC's GY-HMQ10, the world's first handheld 4K camcorder, isn't a toy, per se; the high-tech wonder captures, records and plays video at a resolution that trumps the 1080p image quality of high-definition television four times over. (No comments yet)

Haskell Wexler: The Last Indie Rebel

by Timothy Rhys
Haskell Wexler is simply one of our greatest living cinematographers. He’s in a class by himself as much for his fearless sense of justice as for his groundbreaking technical innovations, but it’s his lifelong commitment to putting his lens where his mouth is—as with his second film as a writer-director, 1985's stunning Latino—that makes Wexler such a unique source of inspiration to so many moviemakers.
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Mark Friedberg Designs The Tempest

by Ryan Bradford
Mark Friedberg has served as production designer on some of the most visually striking films to come out in recent years, among them Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Julie Taymor's Beatles-infused musical Across the Universe. With his recent work on Taymor's The Tempest, Friedberg faced the challenge of rendering the magical island that serves as the locale for Shakespeare's strangest play using natural settings and locations. To celebrate the recent home video release of The Tempest, MM spoke with Friedberg about working with Taymor and creating a magical setting from a barren landscape. (No comments yet)

Tarsem Singh Draws from the Classics (Literally) with Immortals

by Phillip Williams
Tarsem Singh is on a roll. With his new film Immortals soon coming out in theaters across the globe and Mirror Mirror—his highly anticipated take on the story of Snow White—making its way through post, the director is picking up the pace. No more the promising, often brilliant visual stylist who comes out with a rare movie gem (The Cell, The Fall) every few years, Singh has set his sights on becoming a more constant force in moviemaking, and he certainly has the potential to become one to be reckoned with. Singh recently chatted with MovieMaker about how he constructs the always-striking visuals of his films and the somewhat unlikely inspiration for the overall look of Immortals, in theaters this Friday. (No comments yet)

Aaron Yeger Discovers A People Uncounted

by Kyle Rupprecht
In his feature directorial debut A People Uncounted, directed Aaron Yeger sheds light on the story of the Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies. While the Roma have to a large extent been romanticized in popular culture, the real-life intolerance and persecution, both past and present, inflicted upon them has been largely ignored. With his documentary, Yeger explores the rich culture of the Roma, linking their present state to the tragedies of their past, notable among them the murder of an estimated 500,000 of the Roma during the Holocaust. (1 comment)

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