Avoidance

oldhollywood:

Above: The partial set from Citizen Kane consists of a foreground doorway and the butler (Paul Stewart), while Kane (Orson Welles) stands on a distant soundstage floor. 

Below: The final, deep-focus image was completed with a matte painting by Chesley Bonestell. The live-action elements of the doorway in the foreground and Kane in the background were optically composited with a painted hallway, columns, and floor. The distant reflection of Kane on the floor was painted as well. 

(via)

mrgolightly:

Looking At You (movie montage featuring 148 clips of characters looking at the camera)

islandbirdproductions:

If I Leap is an amazing short film written and directed by the talented Jackie J. Stone. Shot by DP Brad Young and starring Adepero Oduye (breakout star of the upcoming film Pariah) and Anslem Richardson.

I was thrilled to be one of the Production Managers. The short was an official HBO short film selection and screened on HBO in February 2011. 

snowce:

Blade Runner opening sequence (FX Storyboards)

“On The Set With Katharine Hepburn,” two-page spread for SYLVIA SCARLETT, Picturegoer Weekly, Jan. 4th, 1936.

(Source: katharinehoughtonhepburn)

thebronzemedal:

“Despite his reputation as a perfectionist and having enough money to remake the whole thing right now in his backyard if he wanted to, James Cameron has been proudly adamant about how he’s changed nothing for Titanic’s 3-D re-release, save its hugely expensive and time-intensive stereoscopic conversion. Otherwise, everything about the 1997 film remains intact and un-tweaked—except for one element that has long bothered astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, whom you don’t want to bother. As the Telegraph reports (and Tyson himself has related a few times over the years), Cameron received a “snarky” email from Tyson informing him that “at that time of year, in that position in the Atlantic in 1912, when Rose is lying on the piece of driftwood and staring up at the stars, that is not the star field she would have seen.” And while Cameron certainly could have ignored Tyson’s email, or purchased him, had him bronzed in gold, and hung as his new chandelier, instead he did the right thing and acquiesced, asking Tyson to send him the correct star field and then digitally inserting it into the scene—the only technical change you’ll notice in the film, provided you are the sort of person who, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, can recognize star field placements at a glance. In which case, you are now free to get swept up in the tale of epic romance and frozen corpses, secure in the knowledge that the skies above them are astronomically accurate.”

— Neil deGrasse Tyson got James Cameron to fix Titanic for you.

“As if Japan weren’t small enough to begin with, I fail to understand why it is necessary to think of it in even smaller units. No matter where I go in the world, although I can’t speak any foreign language, I don’t feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet?”

- Akira Kurosawa

(Source: strangewood)

oldfilmsflicker:

look at Ben Foster looking like De Niro and shit

Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel, The Shining. This well-worn book, now housed in the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, is filled with Kubrick’s notes and comments. Many passages are highlighted, and Kubrick has filled the margins with hand-written notes that run the gamut from notating passages that inspire him, to crossing out sections he found silly. (click images to enlarge)

(Source: the-overlook-hotel)

Martin Scorsese :  In Raging Bull, I guess the boxing scenes have a lot to do with the action sequences in my mind. All this editing and all this camera movement that I’d been exposed to for the past 25 years or 30 years came into play in those sequences, and Hitchcock had a lot to do with it, there’s no doubt, particularly in designing the scene where Sugar Ray Robinson, in the third bout that they have, when La Motta’s on the ropes, looks up at him, and Sugar Ray comes in for the kill. And there’s a kind of edited sequence of punishment that this character’s taking. I based it on, shot by shot, the shower scene of Psycho. And so I designed it correspondingly, in a way. The glove corresponds to a knife. And so, we shot it that way.

(Source: lawyerupasshole)

Nor does anyone not named Charlie Brown fall for the promise that this year, this year!, the show will be fun and zippily paced TV. Not unless your idea of entertainment is Brad Pitt and George Clooney co-starring for three hours in Waiting for Godot—which is, admittedly, something I’d saw off my big toe to see if Brad and George were using Samuel Beckett’s script.

and

If only Jonah Hill’s character had gotten leukemia and Brad Pitt had rushed over from an A’s game to hear his dying words—”You’ll never beat the Yankees with this system, Billy. Fuck you, I lied. I lied because I’m in love with you”—its chances would be much better.

and

Fanboys are the Tea Partiers of the moviegoing world, and in similar need of placating. At least they still care, you know?

Love you, GQ.  Except Carson’s hate on Midnight in Paris bums me out a little. But still, love you.

2012 Movies, Man 

callmekreston:

For real, I’m pumped.

• The Hunger Games
• The Avengers
• The Amazing Spiderman
• Anna Karenina
• The Great Gatsby
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Men in Black III
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Brave
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
• The Dark Knight Rises
• World War Z
• This Is 40 (I hadn’t heard of this one!)
• Les Misérables

Kreston, we must see all of these!  Except… Is This Is 40  going to be any good?