The folks over at Art of the Title have a great interview with Guilherme about the project, so jump on over there to read it and see the titles in violent action.

Here are a few things to bear in mind when you begin to look at your film’s music.

1. Find a Composer You Trust

I was going to write: “the number one important thing to give a composer is confidence.” But actually, it’s not. I say this because there are many composition projects on which I have experienced moments of blind terror and zero confidence, when everything sounds awful. These moments normally come just before I start producing good stuff.

So instead of confidence, give your composer your trust that they will deliver a great score. Meet the people or person that you decide to work with (ideally, sit down with a few composers). If it’s you and me, I like to sit with a director and talk until we connect. I like to feel confident that I understand your vision for the film (if I don’t feel confident, I know from experience that my first compositions are likely to miss the mark).

Am I asking you intelligent questions that make you feel like I’m getting to grips with your film’s narrative and how to support the story? If not, keep talking. If I’m still not asking them after 90 minutes of talking, try the next composer on your list. By the way, don’t worry too much about a composer’s style. Good film composers are super-adaptable. Danny Elfman’s famous for Edward Scissorhands but he also did Mission: Impossible; Rachel Portman’s The Manchurian Candidate is totally different to her Chocolat.

2. Brief Them in as Much Detail as Possible About What You Want the Music to do

Mike Figgis said: “the power of sound to put an audience in a certain psychological state is vastly undervalued. And the more you know about music and harmony, the more you can do with that.” (EGS) Broadly, your job is to tell us what psychological states you want to produce, and ours is to know enough about music and harmony to produce them.

At its best, a musical score amplifies and deepens what’s on screen, in service to the director’s vision. It allows the audience to laugh and cry in the right places, tells them when to worry about characters and when to feel secure. It can bring clarity to any on-screen moments we might be uncertain how to interpret. A great score gives us permission to feel involved; guides us into, through and out of the visuals. The more you know about what you’d like the music to do in your film, the more you’ll be able to communicate that to us, and to judge whether we’re achieving it.

Be as specific as you like about minutiae – in our experience, more information is better than less. Don’t worry about talking in musical terms – use your normal ways of expression. “I want it to sound like the sky is bleeding because she has lost him to gambling” is just as useful as “I thought perhaps an andante waltz with the flute playing the part of Bob”. Be honest and voluble and get everything out there if that’s you; play temp tracks, don’t play temp tracks, whatever. “I want it to sound green and have a hoover in there, otherwise it’s up to you” doesn’t give us much to go on, mind, but perhaps you are a taciturn sort and that’s that.

Yair Oppenheim’s The Functions of Film Music article might help you think about what to include in your brief.

3. Understand a Bit About the Process Your Composer Will Need to go Through

Give your composer a brief, idea, script or cut, and from that point on her brain will be working on the creative. If you understand the stages of work she’s executing, you can probably really help her to make some great music. If she’s anything like us (I work with Alexandra Benedict – we’re a composing partnership), she’ll be answering questions in this order:

a) What Sounds are Right for This Film?
Your film’s unique, right? So, she’ll want to assemble a unique and appropriate blend of sounds to play your score. Sometimes this will include special adaptations to instruments, like playing an organ through an effects pedal, or using samplers or synths to create new sounds where she can’t find exactly what’s needed.

When she’s got the right instruments and sounds together, that’s her ‘sonic palette.’ (By the way, she won’t want to tread on your sound designer’s toes. When I say ‘sounds’ here, I’m talking wholly in the context of the musical score.) Some examples of sonic palettes from our experience:

- fat bass and breakbeats (drug drama)
- large orchestra, rock drums & bass, effected theremin and glitch noises (horror film)
- dumbek, tongue drum, qanun, duduk and jazz piano (comedy drama about culture clash)
- harp, strings, accordion and processed fragments of sea and voice (documentary about a painter’s seaside work).

b) How do the Characters Sound?
This is going to sound highfalutin – sorry about that – but here she’ll be looking to express the truth of each main character, by i) composing a signature phrase or melody; ii) playing it on an instrument that’s right for them.

c) How Does Each Scene Sound?
This is the grunt work of composition. She’ll mock up each cue that’s required, most often to a Quicktime of the final cut; sometimes to script or rough cut or (if she’s on board really early) to ideas. What’s a mockup? A mockup has no session players on it – it’s a demo good enough to show you the idea of a piece of music.

A film composer with a reasonable studio should be able to produce mockups that sound pretty cool. Often mockups are actually good enough to be used on the film, especially when the budget is tight. Here are some screen mixes that are mockups with no live players at all:

- Sleeping Lions Original Soundtrack
- Mama
- TV Cookery School Building

Here are some where the mockups have been augmented with one or several live parts:

- Eden Burning Main Titiles
- Peckish
- Ongoing Funky Runner Dies

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A Word About Time
How fast will she be able to create music? Probably around 90 seconds per day (we got that figure from a Danny Elfman interview).

People will work quicker and slower – Murray Gold scores a 45-minute episode of Doctor Who in a ridiculously short time, sometimes a week. It also depends on the complexity of the palette. On the one hand we’ve been known to take two weeks to score a 60-second commercial, and on the other we’ve churned out seven minutes of TV beds in a day.

If you can give your composer three months to score your feature, she will most likely kiss you. However, if you have two weeks, she will (probably) still want the job – be in no doubt that it’ll be compromised accordingly, but hopefully there’ll still be some gems in there.
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d) How am I Going to Make the Whole Thing Sound as Impressive as Possible?
This might mean anything, from polishing the mockups so they sound the best they can be, to getting scores printed up and going into the studio with real players. Live players will make your score totally unique. If you can’t afford live players for everything, try to budget for one or two soloists to play the most important parts.

If you are going to have some live players then BRILLIANT! Be aware that your composer will have lots of work to do behind the scenes, from preparing scores to booking musicians, studio and engineer, then mixing the recordings so they sound their best. She may employ specialists to do some or all of these things. Once she delivers your final score, bada bing – job done. It’s over to you to take it to your dubbing mixer, who’ll mix it against the dialogue, foley and any sound design.

That’s pretty much the process for us – your mileage may vary. An experienced composer will be able to talk you through their process and how much time they want or need. Don’t worry if you have left music late – most people do, and you can always build it in earlier on your next one. However, DO worry if there’s no budget left for it, because composers have overheads! Time, studio, computers, hard drives, very good speakers, instruments (real and software, from cheap to very expensive), strange audio boxes with knobs on, websites, marketing…

4. Grow your Relationship in Any Way That Feels Right

There’s no right or wrong way to work with a composer – just take whatever looks like the next step. Composers have fragile egos just like any other creatives, BUT good film composers are usually more than happy to improve or renew their cues in response to criticism. They understand that film is a collaborative process and that the director (or producer… or studio executive) has the final say. Keep talking!

5. Treat Early Draft Cues Like Rough Cuts

They can sound shocking, but still contain gems. When you receive a cue that makes you think “has she gone mad? Have I gone mad?” remember it’s a process and you’re the client (unless you are not paying her well enough in which case you might have a bit less leeway).

(By the way, the answer is probably “yes, she has gone mad” and once she has slept on it she will hopefully come round to your way of thinking of her own accord.)

6. Listen Through Your Audience’s Ears – is the Message Truly Carried?

Review the cues as they come – our experience is that the earlier we start getting feedback, the better. If your composer’s doing a good job, it might start to feel like the visuals are improving. Sometimes you might even be surprised that she’s found even more humour or even more tension than you hoped for.

Remember the brief you laid out in point 2? That’s your yardstick. When you can watch the film and feel the right psychological states being produced, you’re on to a winner.

7. It’s Your Vision, You’ll Know When Things are Right

Filmmaking is a thrilling and complex art form. You’re steering the whole massive unwieldy thing through its long journey and you’ll know when the music starts to work. Stick with your instincts (they have probably got you pretty far already) and keep raising issues until you’re satisfied they’ve been addressed.

In your gut you’ll know what to do – keep working with composer/s until you get there.

GOOD LUCK.

If the style of the video feels familiar, creators Alex Takacs and Joe Nankin directed the Lovely Bloodflow video we featured here on DN last year.

Hooray For Earth – True Loves from Young Replicant on Vimeo.

Aside from our usual level of curiosity as to which directors we should run to ground for future DN interviews, this 14th edition of the list is a cause for us to celebrate as it includes our nearest and dearest film friends Andrew S Allen & Jason Sondhi of the ever so excellent (and oft mentioned) Short of the Week. Wow and massive congratulations guys! Filmmaker Magazine picked Andrew and Jason up for their ceaseless work promoting the short form over at SotW and of course the visually stunning, cryptographic short The Thomas Beale Cipher, which Andrew joined us to chat about.

Also amongst the list are a few folks we’re very happy to see make the cut such as; Brent Hoff, who explained to us what the hell a Wholphin is, the 3-headed directing machine Everynone who we’ve been stalking from afar through their Radiolab collaborative shorts Words, Moments, Re:WORDS & Symmetry, and Sophia Takal who discussed jealousy with us after our creepy time in the woods with her feature Green.

Those may be our favourites but to discover whose films you’re going to be desperate to see in the near future, take a read through the full 25 after the jump.

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW (gotye, featuring kimbra) from stark raving productions on Vimeo.

A couple of personal conversations with James Mullighan reassured me that the festival I knew and loved would still be there come June, but judging by the reaction in the Twitterverse it seems that not everyone was convinced. The announcement of the official programme in May appears to have done little to change people’s perceptions – response has been muted to say the least, and in all honesty it’s not hard to see why.

But, it has to be said, low expectations are, more-often-than-not, the mother of great surprises. I’m confident the programme is full of gems waiting to be discovered and I’ll be there, doing my best to uncover them all for DN. Going through the programme there are already a few things I’m excited about checking out (for instance, Mourning for Anna, Albatross, Quality Control and The Bang Bang Club all sound good to me), and that’s to say nothing of what is, in my opinion, EIFF’s biggest coup this year: the presence of the Hungarian maestro Béla Tarr.

I first discovered Tarr when he was over in the UK for EIFF 2007, seeing him talk after a screening of Werckmeister Harmonies in London and then seeing The Man From London at the festival a few days later. Since then he has grown in my mind to become the greatest living filmmaker. Reports out of Berlin suggest that his new film, The Turin Horse, is nothing short of a masterpiece (as if there was ever any doubt after the trailer was released) and, in addition to premiering the film, EIFF will also be screening three films guest-curated by Tarr: American Torso, Passion and The Round-Up. Tarr will be in attendance at the festival, and on Saturday 18th I’ll be doing a triple bill of American Torso, Passion and The Turin Horse. For this day alone I am more excited about my Edinburgh trip than words can possibly describe, and the sense of trepidation I feel starts to radically diminish… So let’s just hope that these high expectations don’t turn out to be the mother of all disappointments!

Essential Killing – MarBelle’s review of Jerzy Skolimowski’s “brave piece of cinema” was full of glowing praise for some challenging filmmaking and rightly so. Vincent Gallo excels in what is surely going to be a contender for the best film of 2011.

Shelter in Place – Not only a good review for an interesting “poetry and petro-chemical” documentary, but also the post that saw our longtime friend Matt Strachan join team DN. Glad to have Matt with us!

TV on the Radio: Nine types of Light – One of my favorite bands, TV On the Radio have killed it not only with the album, but this film! This pick also has to be dedicated to their bassist, Gerard Smith who died last week of lung cancer. RIP.

DN199: Meet Monica Velour – Keith Bearden – Keith (very graciously) credits his The Raftman’s Razor DN interview with getting Kim Cattrall interested in meeting him for the lead in his debut feature Meet Monica Velour. Whether that’s the case or not, we’re mighty pleased to see Keith reach the next level in his career but still have time for us.

Rubber – What a concept, another thing DN has educated me with. Already In my amazon basket, ready for the loan day purchase.

Even before we’d shot the film, we’d put quite a lot of thought into our postproduction process, and, although in honesty it was fairly rough, we did have a postproduction schedule that we wanted to stick to. This schedule was partly dictated by the fact that our producer, Tom Stuart, was due to be out of the UK for over a month from early January, and I really wanted him to see a cut before he left. Although some directors like to take their time on the first cut, this isn’t how I work. I was desperate to get a complete cut of the film as quickly as possible: not because I’m impatient, but because until I’d seen the whole film I felt like I couldn’t really make any informed decisions. I needed to see if the story was coming through, if the structure was working, if the performances were consistent: editing consists of a careful weaving of elements and I wanted to have a proper sense of the bigger picture, the overall pattern, before getting bogged down on each individual thread. I also wanted to make sure that we had everything we needed and that we weren’t going to have to do reshoots or pickups (because if we did, I wanted to do them as soon as possible, before the rest of my team got busy with new projects and forgot about their work on Life Just Is). As Tom and I had worked closely on the development of the script, it made sense to me that he should be a part of this process, and that we therefore needed him to see a rough cut before he left.

As Murat was still busy with his organising, he suggested that I do a paper edit of the film. To me, this made perfect sense. One of the things that I’m aiming to achieve with Life Just Is is a synthesis of form and content, and this means that there is a lot of thought behind the coverage for each scene. As a director who has a fair amount of experience in editing, I always think well in advance about the way the scenes will cut together (and I’d also involved Murat in the storyboarding process), and with this film I really wanted every cut to be motivated by – for want of a better expression – character psychology (this is also the way my cinematographer Yosuke Kato and I had decided upon most of our angles). Working on the paper edit allowed me, for better or worse, to stay in the realm of these somewhat abstract ideas and create the film around them. Had we gone straight into cutting footage, I honestly think that many of them would have got lost or fallen by the wayside as we got distracted by the material plasticity of the footage itself. Yet by creating the first edit on paper, I was able to use my notes and my familiarity with the rushes and turn them into a complete cut while still keeping my initial ideas in clear sight. The paper edit also allowed us to move extremely quickly once Murat had finished his organisation: the actual editing of the rough cut took only three and a half days.

Of course, this slightly cerebral way of working wasn’t without its drawbacks: the ideas might have been there, but at times the feeling wasn’t. There had, in a way, been no proper exploration of the material, and, as Murat and I worked on the rough cut, it was clear that some of the edits worked far better on paper than on the Final Cut Pro timeline. But even during those initial three and half days we were able to begin finding the right weave for our threads and, even better, at the end of them we knew that we had a film that worked. The story, the structure and the performances were all there. Yes, there was (massive) room for improvement, but we knew we had what we needed, and we’d found it out in time for Tom to give us his feedback before he went away.

Using Tom’s comments, Murat’s thoughts and my own feelings, we then spent several weeks working on a new cut. Although this was officially the first proper cut of the film, in reality it was much more like a polished rough cut. Part of the reason for this came down to schedule. In February Murat had a job which would take him off our film (in body, not spirit!) for three weeks, and we wanted the new cut to be finished before then so we could use that time productively by holding our first test screening. This was definitely a good decision. In the weeks spent polishing the rough cut Murat and I began to explore the material and get more of a sense of what was and wasn’t working, while at the same time not walking before we could run: it was all part of getting to know the material and discovering the exact nature of the film that we were making.

Prior to the screening, I wrote up a long questionnaire for our test audience to fill out after watching the film. The aim of the screening was really to find out what worked and what didn’t, what was coming across and what wasn’t: obviously Tom, Murat and I could follow the story and the various character arcs in the film, but we knew them already! So we wanted to find out if other people could too. Ultimately, we ended up also doing a screening for a few select crew members, and although they didn’t come to the film as fresh as some of the people who attended the first screening, their feedback was also invaluable in helping to determine exactly what areas of the film were not yet working in the way they needed to.

After the screenings, I spent about a week processing the feedback we’d been given, looking over the film again myself, and making nine solid pages of notes and suggested changes. Independently of all this, Murat had also been through the film again and made his own list of suggested changes. When we met again for the first time after the break, we spent a whole day talking through the film and discussing exactly what changes we wanted to make. The new list that we drew up was not just about trying to fix problems (as it happens, there weren’t too many), but equally about exploration: now was the time for us to really start pulling things apart and exploring our options – while also doing our best to hold on to all the ideas which I had laid down in the paper edit.

Murat refers to this period of the editing process as our ‘fine cut’. When compared to the three and half day rough cut and the three-week rough cut polish, the fine cut is a long process. The film itself takes place over seven days and, when working on the different cuts, we have always started by working on each individual story day before assembling the film and continuing from there. At the time of writing, we are into our sixth week of working on the ‘fine cut’, and we are currently timetabled to spend at least another week on it before we even assemble it back together and start working once more on the film as a whole. One of the hardest things for me during this period has been to retain my vision for the overall film when working in such a detailed way on each individual scene/story day. In the six weeks of working on the ‘fine cut’, I have only once seen the film all the way through, and that was the polished rough cut. In a sense, Murat and I are working on faith at the moment: faith that it will all fit back together as planned! But I’m confident that it will. In working on this new cut, Murat has found an approach to the material (call it a style, if you will), and by keeping this consistent across the scenes I know that the individual pieces will slot back together. Furthermore, our intentions for this new cut were so thought through and planned before we started it that I believe we have been able to maintain a clarity of vision for the overall weave – a clarity which we would not have had if we hadn’t completed the rough cut before undertaking such an extensive exploration of the material.

Working on this fine cut has been a great learning experience in terms of working methodology. As I had such a strong hand in shaping the original rough cut (it was based on a paper edit which I did alone), it was agreed that now was the time for me to give Murat more space to explore things on his own. Although there have been some scenes which I have taken away and looked at myself, typically the way we are working is as follows: we discuss a scene, Murat spends time alone working on it, then I look over the new cut, we discuss it again, and then refine it further based on my feedback. At first we would meet up to watch the new cuts and work on them straight away, but we quickly found that this wasn’t working. I was having to give feedback before I was ready, before I had had a chance to digest Murat’s suggestions and understand their implications. This meant, at times, that I was too quick to reject ideas or that I accepted them without thinking them through. Once we realised this, we struck on a much better way of working: Murat would recut the scenes and then email them to me (during the organisation stages of the postproduction period, Murat had configured the project in such a way that my laptop setup mirrored his desktop one, meaning that we were able to email Final Cut Pro project files back and forth and load them up in each other’s systems). This new way of working meant that I could look over the new scenes, sleep on them, look over them again and then make notes on suggested changes, or even try things out myself. It’s a much better way of doing it, as it means that I really have time to think through not only Murat’s ideas, but also my own.

One of the most interesting aspects, for me, of this whole process has been realising how short-lived the usefulness of my notes has been. When I made my 75 pages of notes on the rushes, I assumed that they would be definitive and that every time we wanted to change a take or look at our options we would go back to them for guidance. That hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, I’ve barely looked at them since we finished the rough cut, and haven’t touched them once since we started the fine cut. Why? Well, quite simply, things change. As the film comes together, a take that once seemed inappropriate is suddenly the magic ingredient you’ve been looking for, while a ‘perfect’ performance may suddenly have the wrong emotional quality for the moment you’ve created in the edit. Moreover, as well as things changing, you change and you realise that the judgements you made four months ago are not the judgements you would make now. All of this, I feel, is very healthy, but it also makes all those notes totally redundant. Still, they served a purpose at the time of writing them, and helped us get to where we are now…

And where will we go from here? Well, I guess in truth that depends on how the film works when we stop working on individual story days, put it all back together and polish it up. At the moment I feel it will take another pass, or maybe two, at working on the whole film before we’re done. But if the fine cut works as well I believe it will, I think the finish line will at least be in sight. But who knows? Perhaps our next round of test screenings will tell us otherwise. One thing’s for sure though: first we have to finish the fine cut!

I’d like to say a big thank you to Murat for checking over this article, and of course for all his hard work on the edit so far.

DN SXSW2011: Way of the Morris – Tim Plester – I remember seeing English Language with English Subtitles by Tim Plester at Filmstock a few years ago and I remember being blown away by his clever short. Since my first encounter with the talented actor/writer/directors work, I’ve spotted him in numerous adverts, as well as a great cameo in Kick-Ass. It’s great to see directors we’ve featured on the site flourish and with Tim Plester’s eclectic output he definitely looks like one to watch.

An Island – Watching An Island seems to have ruined Efterklang’s music for me forever! Moon managed to capture the spirit and playfulness of the band’s live performance on film so beautifully, the albums just feel flat and lifeless in comparison. Surely, that’s the sign of a great music documentary!

DN SXSW2011 – Sound It Out – Jeanie Finlay – I miss making documentaries, and the type of documentaries that focus on “small and personal stories” are ones I tend to enjoy more than most. Being a student producer I’m constantly looking for ways to raise money for my films and Jeanie and MarBelle’s discussion into crowd funding is so interesting to listen to, not only for people like me but all artists out there.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams – There’s something wrong if a filmmaker/lover doesn’t admire Werner Herzog. I’m yet to watch Cave of Forgotten Dreams but this review has made me even more excited.

DN SXSW2011: Attenberg – Athina Rachel Tsangari – When DN launched in ’06 it was with one simple (and selfish) intention; find films I love and get their directors to tell me how they made them. Along the way that intention has evolved into a desire to broaden and enrich the discussion around independent filmmaking. Spending 90 minutes talking film with Attenberg director Athina Rachel Tsangari felt like taking the next step in my film education. She questioned my assumptions and laid out new directions of thought for me to follow. I REALLY wish she was available to be my regular coffee shop film school tutor.

Not content with hitting us with one of the best animated shorts you’re likely to see all year, the guys at Short of the Week have now provided a detailed explanation of how they launched The Thomas Beale Cipher online. It’s a great insight for filmmakers who want to get their film noticed and shows the planning and preparation needed to successfully launch your work. I also hear it goes particularly well with an interview Andrew did for a certain [cough] site.

How We Launched Our Film Online: The Thomas Beale Cipher

Hi filmmakers. I’m a composer and sound designer and must say I’ve rarely met another group as passionate about their craft as you are. Personally, I’ve never been inspired in the least to make a film but sincerely admire those who do. Frankly, all I care about aside from family, friends, and the general state of the world, is sound. And, through the years not only have I loved sound and sound effects, but I’ve come to care about the quality of sound. So the quality of sound and most specifically the quality of sound effects libraries that many of you frequent to find audio for your films is a topic close to my heart.

So with that in mind, here are some quick tips to make your search for sound effects efficient and productive. Currently, there are dozens of online sound libraries that offer a huge selection of royalty free sound effects you can license cheap and download for use. So, how to you go about figuring out which library is best for your purposes? If you’re serious about your work, and I assume you are, and you want quality sound, as I assume you do, then look out for the following characteristics of a sound library: category structure, quality, and redundancy.

In terms of structure, you want a site that has at least 100 categories and sub-categories of sounds, not 10 or 12. Why? Because your time is valuable and if a site offers 20,000 “sound design” sound effects in a “sound design” category, then you are going to be sifting through hundreds of drones, impacts, hits, etc. when all you really want is a killer whoosh. There are potentially thousands of categories of sound effects and sites that lump them all together without regard for their users’ time are a waste of time. Personally, over at my sound effects and royalty free music site SFXsource.com, we have undergone the rather agonizing but ultimately satisfying process of assigning all 100,000 plus of our sounds into 645 separate sub-categories. This process has taken hundreds of hours, but results in a very efficient user experience. In other words, it’s quick and easy to get to the niche sound you’re seeking.

Quality is an obvious element to pay attention to, in terms of format and the site’s contributors. It is obviously better to go with a site that offers various formats such as 48k aiffs/wavs, 44.1 wavs, and high res mp3s over a site that only has mp3s. Mp3s, of course, are compressed files and their sonic quality is not fit for a film. That’s why ‘free sound effects’ sites often don’t work for serious filmmakers, because they generally only offer mp3s. Furthermore, look at the type of contributors. I’ve noticed over the last five years that larger sound libraries have split into two camps: professional and ‘user-generated’. The contributors to a professional sound effects library are working professional sound designers whose sfx have come as a result from their work on Hollywood films and major indie releases. They are skilled, trained, have pro equipment, and know how to capture and design excellent sound effects. In addition, libraries that host professional sound effects always vet the sounds for quality.

On the other hand, while ‘user-generated’ sites are fun, good for quick youtube films, and give sound designers starting out a chance to distribute their newly found craft, they are not a place for serious filmmakers. User-generated sites grow from creating a sort of social community for new sound designers and rely on huge amounts of un-vetted sounds to attract visitors. It’s sort of like a garage sale of audio. Anyone and everyone can create an account and upload whatever they like. Sites like these are fun and impressive in the amount of traffic they garner, but inefficient for a filmmaker looking for quality audio. In addition, they’re often not any cheaper than professional sites, i.e. $2-$5 per sound.

Finally, redundancy can be a problem with sound effects libraries. Do you really need to preview 897 thunder sounds to find the right one? As I mentioned before, quality sound libraries vet the product before making it available to the user so the time has already been invested on their end. No need to spend an entire hour looking for a good solid thunder clap because the products made available are all good. In other words, beware of sites that are overstuffed with hundreds of instances of a single type of sound.

There are many great sound libraries out there, and in fact the business is rather incestuous so you’ll find many of the same sounds on different sites. The choice then comes down to each library’s sound organization, format offerings and selection.

Somewhere – FINALLY! (A review I agree with). I saw Somewhere at the end of last year, I loved it! And I think we all know the frustration in liking a film that so many other people don’t. El Vez managed to write up a review explaining pretty much exactly how I feel about Somewhere whilst balancing out what other’s have had to say about it.

DN191: Röyksopp – Senior – That Go – Amazing video for a brilliant song, in the words of 50 Cent, I love this “like a fat kid loves cake”. To say I was chuffed when MarBelle got this interview would be just a little bit of an understatement!

Trish Keenan You’ll Be Missed – I took no joy in penning this post but it did mean I spent the rest of the month singing the praises of Trish Keenan and Broadcast, hopefully turning many of you into life long fans of their music.

DN192 – Strange Powers – Kerthy Fix – I wanted this Interview first. I was meant to speak to Kerthy Fix at the London Film Festival, which is when I had the pleasure of seeing Strange Powers. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t happen. Luckily for you guys though, MarBelle managed to speak to her outside of festival business, in much quieter locations then the Mayfair hotel and provide us all, with (let’s face it) a much better interview/listening experience. I’ve recommended you watch this documentary before, so I won’t do it again…

Metronomy: She Wants – I love Metronomy. I love the videos of JUL & MAT. What I hate is bloody fast fingers El Vez who had this in the post queue before I could even type the title!

In related news, we’ll be running our interview with BAFTA nominee Piers Thompson for his film LIN later this next week, so be sure to pop back for that.

And while you’re in the giving mood don’t forget us film bloggers love gifts too!

Part of Me is a film that certainly leaves an impression. In many ways a quite disturbing short, as a viewer you’re left with questions that remain unanswered. A film about two women’s relationship; Nathalie is left distraught when the two closest people in her life betray her. With minimum dialog featured throughout the script, the two women’s actions and expressions speak for themselves. In doing so, Part of Me is a film that leaves your eyes permanently fixed on the picture.

Directed on 16mm by Mihaal Danziger, its producer Cecilia Frugiuele who is given a special mention as part of the UnderWire Film Festival. Born and raised in Milan, Cecilia moved to London to study in 2004 and throughout that time has been devoted to producing and working on both shorts and features. Establishing a growing relationship with the National Film and Television school, she has also collaborated with Parkville Pictures since 2007. Producing three films for Parkville alone this year, Part of Me is the first to hit the international festival circuits having had its premiere at the Budapest Short Film Festival. Cecilia is certainly a young producer to watch out for in the future within both film and television.

Play the Part of Me Promo

Pussy is a somewhat lighthearted delivery of a much more serious subject. Ellie is being sexually bullied by a boy at her school, Rocco. With constant humiliation in front of her peers, she’s struggling to cope alone leading to her parents’ intervention and our introduction of the film. This short is another unquestionably loveable film, seeing the bully put in their place is something an audience will never tire of. Also, the sense of strength and support within this young girl’s family is something that also left me smiling.

Written, directed and produced by Debbie Howard, founder of production company Big Buddha Films, started her career in acting. It was after 25 years spent doing just that when she began to realise the number of women’s roles in films where becoming more scarce and certainly less substantial. She began writing her own scripts featuring strong female characters which eventually led to Big Buddha Films and the aim of creating powerful thought provoking films with female protagonists at their heart. With cuts to film funding in full effect, Debbie is now attempting to self raise funding for her next film Peekaboo, You can watch her IndieGoGo pitch, and donate to the project via the website here.

Pussy (Trailer) from Big Buddha Films on Vimeo.

Mother, Mine is the haunting story of the young Alison, grieving the death of her adoptive mother she sets out on a quest to find her natural mother in the hope of finding a replacement ‘mum’. Her journey begins initially hopeful, with the two women meeting, but things soon spiral out of control for both Alison and her natural mother. The ending we expect isn’t forthcoming, instead the true end of the film brings a reveal hard to imagine.

Written and directed by Susan Everett, a talented lady who started her creative career as an illustrator before turning to novels and short story writing that eventually lead to screenwriting and directing. I honestly can’t count the amount of festivals this film has appeared in and it’s wonderful to see a production full of women both on and off the screen do so well.

Hip Hip Hooray is a short film featuring the instantly recognisable face (at least in the UK) of Kacey Ainsworth, famous for her role as little Mo in Eastenders. Here she plays Pippa, an enthusiastic care worker who’s preparations for a surprise birthday party are quickly revealed to be for herself. Surrounded by bored residents and fellow care workers who aren’t as enthusiastic as herself, she leaves work to celebrate her birthday at home. Although she talks about having plans with friends, we always suspect as an audience that she’s going home to an empty house. It’s her pet rabbit that brings her the only living company that evening except for a hopeful secret admirer. As shy as Pippa himself, he’s just about to ring the doorbell when he turns around and heads towards the garden gate.

Another short written by its director, Lynsey Miller works for production company Ruby Films as well as pursuing independent projects in her spare time. Like Mother, Mine, Hip Hip Hooray has had success at various international festivals including West Hollywood International Film Festival, Clare Valley and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It’s wonderful to see another film full of females that leaves us with a surprise ending, I can see why both films have nods from UnderWire for their impressive scripts.

Some Thoughts by a First Time Feature Film Director

Like pretty much all filmmakers, I’ve always wanted to make a feature. Other, shorter, forms of the medium are all well and good, and certainly have their place on the filmic landscape, but features are the epicentre from which they rumble – and therefore the goal of many an aspiring filmmaker. Yet getting to the stage of being ready to make a feature isn’t easy. I’m not sure I even believe that anyone is ever ready. Many directors will tell you that a film is never finished, it’s only abandoned, and I would likewise say that you’re never ready to make a feature: you just jump in.

But let’s face it: it’s always good to learn to swim before you dive in the deep end.

Back in 2005 I came out of University with a BA in filmmaking and a number of student shorts under my belt. My dream, of course, was to make a feature. But I knew I wasn’t ready. Not ‘not ready’ like I was on October 17th 2010, the day before I finally started shooting my debut feature film Life Just Is, but actually, properly, not ready. I needed to develop more as a filmmaker, and as a person. I needed more practice – and a better understanding – of working with cast and crew. And I also needed to experiment more, make more mistakes, and try and find something approaching my own methodology of filmmaking. I never succeeded in the latter, as I quickly realised that each project is different and therefore calls for you to approach it accordingly, but in making those shorts – and in continuing to watch as many films as possible – I did find something approaching an ideology of filmmaking (though one which, I’m sure, will continue to evolve as I develop further as a person and filmmaker).

Once I’d taken the plunge and decided it was finally time to make my first feature, I set about working on the film in much the same way as I would have had it just been another short. My producer, Tom Stuart, is a big believer in script development, so we used the time while we were pulling the funding together to concurrently work further on the screenplay. I’m pleased that Tom pushed me as hard as he did during this time, as the script is certainly better as a result (the ICA Lab that we attended also proved very helpful in moving the script forward). By this time I also had quite a clear style for the film in mind, so I was able to begin communicating this to prospective financiers and collaborators. The style itself had been slowly formulating in my mind for quite some time. As someone who has grown to believe in the necessity of a synthesis of form and content, I had started writing the film without a fixed style in mind, waiting to see first where the script would take me. But as the script developed, my intentions clarified. I’d started working on the film with some very particular aims in mind, and as the project progressed the best way to achieve these aims stylistically became clear, and a definite style was born.

In an attempt to help us secure the funding, we decided to cast the film during this development/fundraising period. With my shorts I had previously done all the casting myself, advertising on sites like Shooting People and Mandy for actors. For Life Just Is, however, I was lucky enough to work with the amazing casting director Jane Frisby. The response to the script from the actors was incredible, and really gave the production team a boost: as well as being the right age for the characters, the actors were also the same age as our target audience, meaning that it was a great way for us to market-test our project. The enthusiasm we received from the actors really helped us through the depressing months of searching for funding. The only downside to casting so early was that other commitments emerged for some of the actors, meaning that our cast line-up had to change. In the long run, though, I believe that these changes worked out for the best, and I couldn’t be happier with our final line-up. In fact, I feel very lucky indeed to have had such great actors to work with.

Once we were green lit and everything had started falling into place, I began to draw storyboard sketches for the entire film. Luckily for me, my crew was able to understand these sketches, despite their poor quality. Using them as a basis for discussion, my cinematographer Yosuke Kato and I visited the locations, and, with his viewfinder as a helping guide, turned them into a more concrete shot list. As part of my director’s prep I also tramlined a script with each shot, so that everyone knew exactly which shots would be covering which parts of the scene. The combination of the shot list and tramlined script meant that my editor, Murat Kebir, had a clear idea of what material he would be getting well in advance, and was therefore able to advise on changes and improvements to my plans.

Of course, photography is only one element of filmmaking, and I likewise went through the script from a sound point of view (writing notes in blue) and performance (writing notes in pencil). There was plenty of other preparation done, both direction and production wise, but to detail all that here would be beyond the scope of this piece. In the month or so running up to the shoot I was pulling 18 hour days, seven days a week, making sure that I was as ready as I could be. But as I said at the beginning, no one is ever really ready to direct their first feature…

The shoot itself was intense. In honesty, we needed more money and more time… but then I think very few filmmakers would say otherwise, regardless of their budget or the length of their shoot. Ultimately, everyone did the best they could, and that’s all one can ask for. The cast and crew were extremely dedicated to the project, and everyone did a fantastic job, working to overcome the limitations and problems that we had.

On a practical level, there was little difference between the shooting of Life Just Is and the shooting of my shorts, but on a conceptual level it required a lot more energy and effort. For instance, making sure there was some emotional consistency to the characters across the entire film took a lot of thought and lot of planning: when you’re shooting one part of a sequence on the first day of the shoot and another part on the last day it’s important to make sure it will flow when it’s all put together. When shooting a short over a couple of days this isn’t so hard, but when you’re filming the scenes several weeks apart, you need to stay on the ball. Only time (and editing) will tell if I got it right!

As I write this piece I am at the end of a week off that I’ve taken to recover from the months of no sleep. Murat, meanwhile, has been organising and transcoding the footage, getting all the files ultra-organised in order to help us in the edit. While on set our DIT, Tom Ruddock, and I filled in logging sheets for him, detailing the file name, slate, take and shot number, and Murat is using these notes to help with his organisation. Tomorrow I will start looking through the rushes, making notes on my thoughts on every take, and from there we will step into the edit. It’s an exciting time, but also a little scary…after all these years I’m only a month or so away from seeing a completed first cut of my debut feature…

I look forward to being able to share the final cut with all of you in due course.

I also took part in the world’s first crowd funding pitch Seize the Future run by Charlie Phillips. The cash prize was raised by public donation on Indiegogo and awarded to a crowd funded project. We came in tantalisingly close second place.

So What is Crowd Funding?

A “sponsored swim” for independent filmmakers, with perks and pre-sales? A way of getting projects off the ground? The saviour of the film industry?

Here’s a short video from the Guardian at Doc/Fest including a brief mention of Sound It Out. And an article from the Guardian about the filmmakers using crowd funding.

Here’s a little bit about Sound It Out and I’ll explain why I chose to crowd fund this project”

Sound It Out is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, which will run at between 45-60 minutes long.

Director: Jeanie Finlay (Goth Cruise – IFC) Starring: Tom, Kelly, David, Daniel, 70,000 records and the good people of Teesside.

A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, obsession and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives.
Think – High Fidelity with a Northern Accent.

Vinyl records are much more than just music – it’s memories and the soundtrack to our lives and the film shows us just that. I can remember the first 45 I bought with my pocket money, the song I fell in love to, and the LP that healed my broken heart, but I just don’t feel the same about an mp3.

Independent record shops are an endangered species and in the last five years alone, 500 shops in the UK have gone to the great high street in the sky. Sound It Out is a cultural haven in an area of the country that’s struggling with recession, government cuts and industrial decline. It’s important to show Sound It Out as a place that is surviving in spite of all of this and its vital place in the community.

Every penny spent in the shop makes a difference and every penny committed to the film makes a difference – it shows on screen and will help us finish the film.

As backer #126 Ange Taggart puts it – Why fund Sound It Out ? “Because small shops give us hope“. Olly Wood backer #108 puts it this way: “Click the link, watch the clip, nod in agreement, fund the film. Easy as wink.”

Why Crowd Fund?

I don’t think crowd funding will work or be suitable for every project, but there were a few things that made me believe it would work with this film:

Niche Audience – Vinyl and record collectors are a large potential audience for the film.

Low Budget – Ideal to raise a “get on with it” budget. There are an awful lot of projects on Indiegogo with aims of raising $25k plus. I think this is a big ask and it’s better to split your film into smaller more manageable chunks. Raise for shoot, post, music clearances, dvd release, etc. separately.

Committed to the Project – I really, passionately wanted to make the film. I’d been filming for about 12 months unfunded but wanted to get serious and spend more time in the shop. I didn’t want to go through the long, slow dance of meeting with broadcasters and trying the raise money the “traditional way” – crowd funding seemed like an immediate way of connecting with an audience and raising a “get on with it” shoot budget. Charlie Phillips at Doc/Fest also convinced me that it could be a good fit for this film. I had nothing to lose by trying it as an experiment!

From the outset I’ve been ambitious to not let the low budget get in the way of how I want to make the film. I asked all the people that I would choose to work with on a fully funded feature documentary. They are all my first choice. They have very generously taken token fees and helped arrange support in kind to get the film finished.

I’ve been overwhelmed by just how much support I have received in order to get the film made – from amazing funders, to record companies and artists who have donated music gratis or very cheaply, Broadway cinema who have donated space to edit and Sally Hodgson who has been working as Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) in an amazing capacity, helping the film find its audience.

I owe it to everyone involved that the film is finished and is good – no pressure then!

Why IndieGoGo?

I tweeted to see if anyone had any experience with crowd funding. Danae from Indiegogo got back to me within about 5 minutes and was incredibly supportive and helpful. She completely won me over. Also they were one of the few crowd funding sites that used PayPal so I didn’t need a US bank account (unlike Kickstarter).

I met Slava Rubin at Doc/Fest last week. He is a truly positive man who believes in what he’s doing – I have never had so many high 5s in a conversation ever. Sure it’s a great business model – over 12,000 projects on Indiegogo right now, but I think there’s something deeper behind it. Engaging with communities and Doing it with Others (DIWO) was an element that was present when I was making artwork that I missed in filmmaking.

Lessons I Learnt in Crowd Funding

A trailer is not a pitch video!

The main one and a very hard one for me. I had to put my British reserve to one side. When I launched the first campaign I simply put up the trailer and we raised about 10 pence. I attended the Seize the Future workshop by Peter Broderick and Sandi DuBowski and took advice from Indiegogo old hand John Trigonis. They all told me – “Put yourself in the video”. I made a new trailer with me pitching the film and we got some bigger partners on board to help us bang the drum – in particular Record Store Day. It made a world of difference. I now believe that people invest in the filmmakers as much as the project.

DIWO
Find audience and partners out in the world – filmmakers funding other filmmakers is not a sustainable model. Find other people that can help spread the word about your project. Again, a very un-British idea to grasp but essential. It’s planning the PR, marketing and outreach before the film is even made. We’ve tried to reach out to all the different groups of people who may be interested in our film, so we’ve really tried to cast the net far and wide. Friends and family, The North East, vinyl fans, record collectors, customers of the shop, other independent record shops, record labels, flickr groups, press, radio…the list goes on. International Record Store Day have been great supporters and promoted us on their page which has a really big following.

Design good perks that people actually want. You’re not begging, you’re offering something good in exchange for backing and coming on board.

Give Credit
I think it’s really important to say thank you to everyone who supports the project. I built a funders’ page so we can put faces to names and find out why people have funded the film. We have also encouraged everyone who has become a supporter to tell their friends and help spread the word, becoming ambassadors for the project – making our reach much wider than we could on our own.

Don’t be Afraid of Asking for Help
Sally Hodgson came on board as PMD and it has been so much more fun and productive to work with someone else. Filmmaking can be a lonely business and it’s much more fun with someone else.

Any Surprises?
The most surprising moment was connecting with a stranger. In our first campaign Andrew Riggs, a US soldier serving in Iraq, saw the link on Record Store Day and came on board as an Associate Producer with a donation of $2000. It was completely overwhelming and amazing that a stranger would come on board in such an act of faith. His brother works at a vinyl pressing plant in Nashville. He liked the idea that some of the records his brother has made would be for sale in the shop.

What’s Going to Happen to the Film?

The film has been commissioned as an artwork for Sideshow in Nottingham so we’ll be showing a ‘sneak peek’ of the film, along with a discussion event and gig – Das Wanderlust and Russell and the Wolves (Teesside bands who feature in the film) playing live. December 11th 2010.

Sound It Out will be packaged like a 7” gatefold single and released on limited edition DVD for sale in independent record shops in the UK and further afield on International Record Store Day April 2011. We also plan to show the film in a series of hidden-treasure record shops.

Would I Crowd Fund Again?

Maybe…I think so…ask me in 24 hours – see if I made my budget. It is a lot of work, extra different work, in fact all the same work of a fully funded film without the crew or cushion of a film budget. BUT I have really enjoyed talking directly with the audience and just making the film instead of have 50 meetings about making a film, it’s a very liberating feeling that has made me feel like I don’t have to wait in future to make a film. My advice, find the right project, gather your team and give it a go. The surprises are worth it.

Find Sound It Out online at:
Sound It Out
Facebook Page
@sounditoutdoc

Before they leave for Rio, the filmmakers and Vik both have feelings of anxiety. Not knowing what to expect, Vik and his collaborator Fabio look at aerial pictures of the landfill site. Nothing could have prepared them for the reality of the situation; the people endlessly picking rubbish both day and night. Walker talks about their first recce of Jardim Gramancho, recalling one of the eldest pickers Valter as he cycled towards them on his bike decorated with trinkets in head to toe protective layers fit for a voyage into space, it was at that point she knew she had a film.

Vik originally set out with the intention of just photographing the catadores, yet found the photos so striking, he had to do more with them. It was the catadores spirit and personalities that led him to tackle the project he did alongside them. The first thing that struck me as a viewer is how happy the landfill pickers appeared. Confusing though it may be to us, they felt very fortunate to be in the position they’re in. It soon became clear that for most of these people, prostitution and drugs trafficking are two of the very slim occupation options they encounter in their lives.

The two Catadores who leave the most striking impression are Tiao and Zumbi. Tiao is the young charismatic president of the ACAMJP (the Association for the Pickers of Jardim Gramacho). Inspired by political texts he found after being thrown away, he started his association to aid all his fellow pickers. Resident intellectual Zumbi has been picking since he was nine years old, instead of seeing books as recycling paper like most, he’s kept every one he’s found. Part of the ACAMJP too, he also runs his shack as a library for the pickers. Both are highly thought of within the site, and are mentioned many times before and after we meet them on screen.

Wasteland also introduces us to Irma, a remarkable women who cooks for the pickers from the still edible food she finds in Jardim Gramancho.  She boasts of making salads, stews and roasts from her findings and sees it as her job to look after everybody. The sense of unity is almost defiant and an element of what makes this a very special place. One man tells us how his life was saved when 20 of the pickers donated their blood after he’d had an accident on the site.

The pickers recreate the pictures Vik and Fabio took of them with some of the rubbish they collected. As Vik directs from above, they slowly create their own faces before climbing up the scaffolding to see the finished product. We see every member of the group react to their recreations, bringing out both their dignity and pride. The effect of the project is particularly great on some; we see a debate between Vic and his wife as she questions whether he’s being unfair by taking them away from the rubbish to take part in this exciting project, flying them to London, but in the end returning to Brooklyn and leaving the pickers in the same predicament they were in before. At the time you can’t help but see this as a justified point, in the case of Isis especially. One of the younger pickers involved with the project who hasn’t worked at the site as long as the others, she hates garbage picking and eventually reveals the tragedy that brought her to Jardim Gramancho.

When taking the first image of Vik’s and the catadores work to auction in London, Vik takes Tiao with him. With a smile I watched as his photo sold for $50,000, an insane amount for most of us let alone a young garbage picker from Rio.

As the film ends, we see them on the opening night of the gallery that places their faces on the wall. The exhibition was one of the most popular in Brazilian history, coming second only to Picasso.  With the money made from the photos and exhibitions, the catadores were able to put back into their community. They built the recycling centre they had always wished for, Zumbi got the full library he dreamed off, complete with computers and equipment for everybody to learn.

Walker stays close for the whole feature, giving us a chance to learn of the catadores’ individual stories and taking us into their homes. None of these people have had an easy life, some stories are heartbreaking whilst others make you laugh, they really do make the best of the lives they’re living. A group of people who are responsible for removing 200 tons of recycling materials a day, equivalent to a city with a population of 400,000, deserve a lot of respect. 

Soundtracked by Moby, Waste Land was everything I hoped for and so much more. An uplifting and inspirational film which concludes by showing us the amazing power of art as we hear of the pickers’ transformed lives. Waste Land isn’t due for release until March 2011, but with seats still available for the London Film Festival screenings, take my advice and do everything you can to get yourself to one of them this weekend.

The internet, per usual, delivers on this front with a cascade of reading material poking and prodding every nook and cranny of the cinematic arts. While this list is by no means comprehensive — nor does it dismiss the contributions of other resources out there — it does provide a hopefully valuable and diverse starting point for anyone hoping to see their stories get told.

Now, don’t let DN’s inclusion in the Filmmaking section (thanks!) put you off, there are a ton of useful links here for you to check out.

Just over 12 months ago, if you had asked me to list my favourite Australian films, it probably would’ve included Mad Max, BMX Bandits, Crocodile Dundee, Chopper and The Proposition (I’m not counting Walkabout as I count it as a British film made in Australia). Not exactly a glittering list of celebrated films and I must admit, until recently, the land down under wasn’t really a place I associated with a flourishing output of independent films. Saying that, my eyes were really opened at last year’s London Film Festival, where I got a greater taste for the indie flicks of Australia. First Robert Connolly’s intriguing political thriller Balibo had me wondering if I should be paying more attention to the film industry of “Oz”. Before Warwick Thornton’s stunning Samson and Delilah confirmed I definitely should be. That’s not to say that before now Australian cinema hasn’t been successful in the independent area, with the likes of Rabbit Proof Fence, Proof, Shine and Ten Canoes all having gained widespread critical acclaim. Then of course, how can we forget DN favourite and past guest Nash Edgerton and if you’re talking about success in independent film, then surely there’s no greater acclaim than featuring on Directors Notes.

It’d been a good 10 months since I’d seen my last Australian film and whatever came next was going to have a tough job living up to the standards set by Thornton’s Cannes award wining feature debut. Rachel Ward’s directorial debut Beautiful Kate, shares a lot in common with Samson and Delilah and although I wouldn’t say it quite lived up to its predecessor’s standards, it is still an assured piece of filmmaking.

Adapted from Newton Thornburg’s 1982 book of the same title, director Ward has relocated this tale of a troubled family from a Chicago slum, to the isolated outback of Australia. The story follows an all to familiar arc; wayward son Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) returns home at the wish of a dying patriarch (Bryan Brown) and as family secrets are revealed, broken bonds are mended and a separated family reconnected. Where Ward’s film does stand out though, is its tackling of tough, somewhat unexplored subjects as the Kendall family closet is most certainly rammed full of skeletons (although, I suppose a lot of the credit there has to go to Thornburg, for originally tackling these topics in his original novel).

“I am delighted to have won the Australian Cinematographer of the Year award and the Golden Tripod for Beautiful Kate. I am very proud of the success of Beautiful Kate. By using old prime lenses, shift/tilt lenses and in particular Fujifilm stocks Eterna 64T, 250D and 500T stocks I managed to get exactly the look I was after.” – Beautiful Kate cinematographer Andrew Commis talking at the Fujifilm  Australian Cinematographers Society National Awards

Aesthetically, Beautiful Kate is a very interesting film with the parallel stories (director Rachel Ward was very insistent to stress there weren’t ‘flashbacks’ in her film) of the film, deploying two very different styles. The ‘past’ sections of the film are dreamily shot handheld with a tilt/shift lens, as we see the young Ned’s point of view of his small, enclosed world. With the shallow depth of field creating a small focus area, the use of the tilt/shift lens not only added intensity to the point of view style, but also made the world of the Kendall’s seem very claustrophobic and smothering. At times these sections of the film reminded of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, drenched in bright Australian sun, often with the rays beaming right down the lens, they have the same childlike hazy innocence to them. In stark contrast, the ‘present’ sections of Beautiful Kate certainly aren’t presented with the same softness and the claustrophobic world of the film’s family suddenly seems endlessly wide. The camera no longer hugs characters intimately and now instead keeps its distance, with character hugging the edges of the frame, highlighting the distance between the family members. We’re suddenly presented with lots of shots of the outback and everlasting horizon, but most of the action occurs within the dark dingy interiors of the Kendall household. Curtains seem always drawn and no-one shares the same room for too long, the dark secret of this family may have occurred in the past, but it’s in the present where this darkness reigns.

As often seems the case with independent cinema recently, the film is full of powerful performances, we’re all to aware of what the “old-timers” Rachel Griffiths (brilliant as Brenda in Six Feet Under) and Bryan Brown are capable of, but this is a film owned by the talents of the newbies. Adding the only bit of a fun to a dark, dark film, Maeve Dermody is brilliantly playful as the Ned’s carefree girlfriend Toni, skipping around the screen in total defiance to the serious situation she finds herself in. However, the whole film relies on the believability of the past, so the performances of young Ned (Scott O’Donnell) and his twin sister Kate (Sophie Lowe). Director Ward admitted to only finding O’Donnell days before they started rehearsing and what a good find it was. Not only does the debut actor strongly resemble Mendelsohn, but he also puts in a commanding performance that belies his tender years. However, if this was a game of “anything you can do, I can do better”, then Lowe as the titular Beautiful Kate, would surely win. She floats across the frame, exuding small town innocence, but behind her playful purity lurks the sinister face of this golden child. Lowe’s performance is brave and daring for one so young and her portrayal of Kate is an enigma you can never decide to love or hate.

Ward admitted after the screening, she owed a lot to cinemas like the Curzon, as without them, she didn’t feel her film would be seen as it was intended, on the big screen. She also candidly admitted that she wouldn’t mind if people downloaded her film, as long as as many people as possible saw her film, although her distribution company might have a different view. So although Beautiful Kate didn’t quite reach the giddy heights of Samson and Delilah, I felt lucky to be one the few to witness this bold, confident film on the big screen and as ever, grateful to the independent cinema for putting it on.

I look forward to more ‘wizard’ films from ‘Oz’ soon (sorry!)

Claire Denis is fast becoming one of the most respected and critically acclaimed directors in world cinema. With this in mind, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that before this week I could count the number of Denis films I’d seen on one finger (that film being Beau Travail). However, this week I managed to rectify this grave error on my part, by finally sitting down to watch her blood drenched, cult film of 2001, Trouble Every Day. whilst also heading off to the Curzon to watch her latest offering White Material.

Trouble Every Day tells the parallel stories of Shane (DN favourite Vincent Gallo) and Coré (Betty Blue sex bomb Béatrice Dalle), an American scientist and a French doctor’s wife, who both seem to be suffering from violent sexual appetites and a severe lust for blood. It’s a film impossible to pin down to genre, at times coming across as French erotic thriller, before switching to blood fuelled horror, whilst sometimes also managing to somewhat remind of aspects of Jim Jarmusch’s work (although maybe the appearance of Alex Descas just triggered that peculiar link in my jumbled mind). The unusual premise of the film originated from a dream the director had as child, when her mother’s bedtime kisses turned to bites and she started eating her.

Trouble Every Day is definitely not a film based around witty dialogue and quick talkers, in fact Denis’ film is almost silent at times and instead uses strong performances and distinctive cinematography to build a sinister atmosphere. Gallo plays the troubled Shane with his usual sense of style and individuality, injecting his character with an oddness that only he could. As Coré , Dalle brings a totally different kind of strangeness to the film, she slinks across the screen craving blood, skin and sex, as if she were the pure embodiment of raw lust. Her performance is almost animalistic at times and when she is feasting on what she most desires, you really believe the contented look in her eyes. At the complete opposite end of the scale, the stunning, pixie-like Tricia Vessey portrays Shane’s wife as the personification of innocence and purity. Newly wed and on her way to a Parisian honeymoon, she floats across the screen at the beginning of the film, radiating love for her husband. However, as Shane’s problems escalate, she soon appears to be carrying the weight of the world of her tiny frame and her carefree, untroubled nature soon becomes fragile and heavily burdened.

With inventive photography by her usual cinematic collaborator Agnès Godard, Denis has managed to create a film full of contradicting tones and emotions. With close up images of skin and cameras hugging characters’ necks, Trouble Every Day often has a highly intimate and sexually charged feel to it. Yet, the low-lit interiors of the doctor’s house and the trade corridors of the Parisian hotel, fill the film with a sense of dread and apprehension. This is obviously quite confusing for a viewer, as at times you are filled with compassion at the tenderness shown by the characters in the film, then all of a sudden thrown into a state of shock and disgust at their actions.

Trouble Every Day is definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, some will love it, many will hate it! My feet are firmly stuck in the love camp.

The film also features a haunting, trance inducing soundtrack from the Tindersticks, which in turn spawned the great video below.

White Material is similar to Trouble Every Day in terms of being a film that will split audiences, but its style and content couldn’t be more different.

Denis’ 10th full-length fiction film focuses on an unnamed area of Africa, ripe with political and social unrest and rapidly descending into a war zone. At the centre of the film is the resolute, stubborn Maria Vial (the ever-impressive Isabelle Huppert), a French colonist and coffee farmer, refusing to leave her home, despite the impending doom working its way towards her. In terms of story, we’re never spoon-fed too much information and as usual with a Denis film, we’re left to form our own readings and connect the dots.

Isabelle Huppert portrays Maria with a steely determination and unyielding drive, as her blinkered view seems to make her totally oblivious to the volatile situation she finds herself in. The character of Maria elicits mixed reactions for the viewer; at times she is admirable, as her strength and strong will keep her calm and controlled in a time of crisis. Whilst at other times, she is frustrating and selfish, as she puts her family, friends and workers in mortal peril by refusing to shut down and evacuate the plantation. Huppert must be on-screen for at least 75% of the films duration and although the actress is definitely the star attraction, she is capably backed up by some strong performances. Isaach De Bankolé carries on his strong, silent performance from Jim Jarmusch’s Limits of Control, as ‘the Boxer’, a rebel leader whose time is swiftly coming to an end. Whilst Nicolas Duvauchelle, as Maria’s lazy son, Manuel Vial, brings something unexpected to the film as his character transforms from bed-ridden layabout to shaven headed, rifle-wielding rebel.

White Material is a film full of tension, a tension that builds and builds as the film unwinds, the atmosphere bubbles away like a kettle warming up, knowing full well it will reach its boiling point very soon. Dramatic moments and vital information are never dwelled upon or over-played, but are instead casually introduced into the film’s narrative, like a passing comment. The underlying anxiety in the film comes from the unknown and the unexplained and this ambiguity has the viewer forever on edge, never knowing what to expect next. It’s a refreshing approach in an industry all to often riddled with the Hollywood approach of making sure we always know what to be afraid of and even guiding us when to be shocked or anxious.

As with Trouble Every Day, the directors’ latest film seems to straddle genres (not that a film has to be specifically defined to a genre, in fact a lot of the best films aren’t), instead, White Material giddily mixes parts from a variety of film types. There’s not enough war for this film to be a war film, not enough politics for it to be considering a political film and not enough thrills to be a thriller. What this film most certainly is though is a Claire Denis film. At times dreamlike, often intimate, yet always powerfully compelling, White Material has the talented director’s trademark style stamped all over it.

Podcast

There are two situations in which the audio interviews for DN are recorded; live and in person or (by far the most frequent) remotely over Skype.

For the face to face interviews I’m never without a pad, a pen, headphones and my Zoom H4. Despite looking not dissimilar to a taser (which is frequently a good pre-interview icebreaker), I love this recorder. As well as being solid in the studio, it’s perfect in the field. It has two 1/4 Jack/XLR (with optional phantom power) inputs which means you can use pretty much any mic you wish with it, however I tend to let the built in XY crossed pair electret mics do their thing and have never been disappointed. A word of warning however; you can’t hold the H4 and record on the built in mics without including handling noise. I get round this by placing it on a table/solid surface and reminding my guest not to bang, tap or drum on it. Back to the positive, both the memory (SD cards) and batteries (standard AAs) are switchable so no worries about running out of space or power.

The studio set up is a little bit more fiddly and comprises: A Shure 555H Series II mic & boom arm, MacBook running Skype, U-Control UCA202 USB interface, Onyx Satellite mixer, the Zoom H4 and Sennheiser HD 280 headphones. I could easily record the Skype interviews on the MacBook, but I’m paranoid and like the control of using a Mix Minus set up, eliminating the worry of losing an hour of interview if my Mac decides to crash.

I then take the raw recording into Soundtrack Pro for editing and mixing (BTW – getting your head round the Spectral View will make editing so much easier), bounce it to iTunes for tagging, and upload to Libsyn. Hosting the podcast files at Libsyn lets me avoid unexpected bandwidth fees when episodes blow up.

Finally I log into the DN WordPress to create the post, using ImageWell to resize/crop images and TextExpander to take care of the repetitive text and html code. Job done!

Site

If you’ve been visiting the site or reading the full feed then you know that we’ve got a lot more going on than just the podcast, which has meant I spend much more time surfing for films and posting to the site.

I used to do all this from my MacBook but a new addition to my gear and a recent loan are making me reconsider my workflow. You may have noticed the presence of an iPad in the top picture, which in the six weeks since I’ve picked it up has pretty much become my default ‘computer’ – I only return to my MacBook begrudgingly to watch Flash videos or edit audio/video.

My iPad is perfect for checking in with other film sites via NewsRack, watching films on Vimeo, editing pictures with PhotoPad and posting to DN – although I have to use the WordPress web interface as the official iPad app is worse than useless! All I’m really lacking is a decent audio editing/podcasting – tried Caster but it just didn’t cut it – and video editing app.

As I spend most of my time swaddled in Wi-Fi I decided to save the extra £100 for the 3G model and had a vague idea of the possibilities of carrying around a personal hotspot if I ever needed it, which I did a few weeks ago. The kind folks at 3mobilebuzz let me borrow one of their MiFi units which killed that problem dead. I blogged on the bus, on the train and didn’t have to hunt down a Starbucks every time I came to a rest. As long as there was 3G reception I was fine. It’s a forgone conclusion that I’ll be adding a MiFi to my on the go set up. I can see it being particularly useful when El Vez, Neil and I decamp to the London Film Festival later this year.

So those are the workings behind DN. If you have any app recommendations to get me fully committed to the iPad or questions shout in the comments.

It was in the early to mid 90′s when I really fell in love with cinema, the “boom” period of alternative American cinema was in full flow and the  likes of Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Tom DiCillo, Robert Rodriguez and The Coen Brothers were all hitting their peak. These “indie” films were not only the start of illustrious careers for their directors, but were also a place for young up and coming actors to shine. Brad Pitt showed glimpses of his edgier side in Johnny Suede, Johnny Depp put in what I consider to be a career best performance as William blake in Dead Man and George Clooney suddenly went from hunky to TV doctor to heavily tattooed, vampire killing bad-ass. Throughout all these films though, there seemed to be one constant, one thing linking them all together, one man who should be the lynch pin of the six degrees of separation theory, Steve Buscemi.

As an actor I liked Buscemi the first time I ever saw him, as Charlie the Barber in Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, he was like an island  of nerves, surrounded by the sea of cool that was Joe Strummer. Buscemi has made his name playing the roles no-one else can (or wants to); on film he’s the ultimate loser and if a director’s looking to cast for the character of ‘weird-looking, slightly nervous guy’, Buscemi’s name is always going be first on that list. One look at the roles he’s played over his  25 year career and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else playing these characters. Whether as the “kinda funny looking” Carl Showalter in Fargo, the scene-stealing Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs or the down-trodden Theodore “Shut the fuck up Donny” Donald in The Big Lebowski, Buscemi always takes a role and unquestionably owns it. This is undoubtedly the case in one of his most recent roles as Buscemi fills the titular role in Hue Rhodes’ Dante inspired, low-budget debut feature Saint John of Las Vegas and ultimately steals the show.

After a run of bad luck, John (Steve Buscemi), a compulsive gambler, runs away from Las Vegas and toward a normal job and life. Taking a nondescript position in an auto insurance company in Albuquerque, he tries to get ahead in the straight world, amid the ever-present temptations of scratch-off lotto tickets.

When his boss, Mr. Townsend (Peter Dinklage), asks John to accompany his top fraud debunker, Virgil (Romany Malco) on an investigation of a dubious car “accident” near Vegas, John sees an opportunity to get a promotion, though he’s concerned about returning to the gambling game.

Through the journey, John’s confidence builds, and he realizes that he can’t escape his gambling addiction by running away from it—it will follow him wherever he goes. It’s only when he returns to Vegas and his experiences there finally send him on the path to breaking free.

Saint John of Las Vegas follows the wild and funny trip a guy has to take to discover there’s more than one way to hit the jackpot in life.

Ignoring Steve Buscemi for a moment, the plot of Saint John is nothing particularly original as our down on his luck anti-hero tries to turn his life around (in many ways Rhodes film is similar to Wayne Kramer’s 2003 film, The Cooler). However, the film is made by a series of strange encounters and some wonderful casting and is at its most successful when it hits its road movie  section, as Buscemi and Malco head towards Vegas (a place not particularly beneficial for a compulsive gambler trying to kick the habit), trying to uncover the truth behind a suspicious insurance claim. Along the way they stumble into an array of peculiar situations, finding themselves face to face with the Flame Lord, getting a lap-dance with a wheelchair bound stripper and have their path blocked by a group of fire wielding naturists. Alongside Steve Buscemi, he finds himself surrounded by a wealth of strong performances, as Romany Malco (The 40 year old Virgin), Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) and the strangely sexy Sarah Silverman all put in decent turns. There’s even a Buscemi style cameo from Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), playing a cowboy naturist who wont let anything unnatural pass into the reserve, unless it’s a gun…..or boots….or a cowboy hat.

The film has received some pretty poor reviews so far, with some describing it as a pointlessly nonlinear narrative overflowing with superficial walk-on characters or a bad script that somehow got made into a bad movie with good people in it. Maybe this is just going to be one of those films that’s a bit of a secret indulgence for me, but how can you not like a film with a Steve Buscemi in such sparkling form. For me I’m with film critic Roger Moore in agreeing that is a film Buscemi was born to star in and how can that be a bad thing?

When Rian Johnson’s Brick came out in 2005, the class and confidence shown in the young filmmaker’s directorial debut blew me away. For those of you that haven’t seen Brick, it plays out like part hard-boiled, neo-noir detective story and part high school drama; imagine the novels of Dashiell Hammett mixed with Alexander Payne’s Election. It’s a film of great maturity, style and substance, made for under $500,000 and edited on the director’s Apple G4; it truly is one of the few shining examples of low-budget filmmaking of recent years (Johnson even admitted in a recent Q&A at the Curzon, that he believed it was a miracle the film got made, as he was just a “first time director with a weird script”). The main problem with having a low-budget, critically acclaimed, box office hit is how to follow it? In Johnson’s case, you follow with what the director describes as a “character driven con-man movie with an emotional pay-off”; the super-slick The Brothers Bloom.

From an early age the brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) have been conmen, orphaned, the boys get shuffled to foster home after foster home, the art of the con remaining the one consistent element in their lives. Brothers they may be, but these two certainly aren’t cut from the same cloth; Stephen is a con man at heart, he lives and breathes for his elaborate scams, whereas over time Bloom has become disenchanted with a life of lies and “being who he wasn’t”. Bloom tries to leave the life of the fraudster behind, but his brother (and only family) convinces him to come back for the ‘perfect con’, swindling the lonely, oddball millionairess Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz). Joined by the brothers’ mysterious accomplice Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), an explosives expert who apparently just appeared one day out of thin-air, this eccentric foursome travels Europe scamming the hell out of everyone. As you would expect from a con movie, you’re never completely sure who’s the ‘coner’ or who’s the ‘conee’ and the story gets flipped more often than Tony Hawk’s skateboard as Stephen’s confidence tricks get more and more elaborate. Meanwhile, the relationship between Bloom and Penelope blossoms and it slowly starts to becomes apparent that soon he’ll have to choose between his brother and a life of fraud or Penelope and a life of truth. Although this is Bloom’s film (there’s no doubting he’s the leading-man), the story plays out like one of Stephen’s intricate plans, every event unwinding like a note in the margin of his notebook.

Where Brick excelled with a strong sense of originality and an innovative script, The Brothers Bloom left me feeling a little disappointed. There’s no doubting Johnson’s film is overflowing with fun and entertainment, but it does feel a little like I’ve seen it all before (can’t believe I’m saying that about a film containing a drunk camel and and a one-legged cat in a roller skate). In terms of style, The Brothers Bloom couldn’t help but remind me of the films of Wes Anderson; although maybe it’s hard to think of anything but The Darjeeling Limited, when watching a film about brothers featuring Adrien Brody and a train. The similarities run a lot deeper than this though; like Anderson, Johnson has a concentrated eye for quirky details which shows not only in the oddball behaviours of his characters (Penelope’s bizarre list of hobbies is a prime example) but in just about every process of filmmaking, from costumes, to locations, to transitions. Some critics appear to have reacted badly to the levels of twee and eccentricity in the film, describing it as relatively joyless exercise and too contrived to be plausible, too winsome to be quite bearable, but Johnson laughed off these comments insisting he “liked a world filled with one-legged cats in roller skates”. In terms of plot, if you’ve seen the likes of Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men, Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen or James Foley’s Confidence, you’ll pretty much know what to expect from Johnson’s con man movie, even if he does do it with a bit more flair and style than the others. There’s tricks aplenty throughout the film’s slightly overweight 114 minutes and although it doesn’t quite live up to the high standards of Brick, that’s not to say this isn’t a hugely enjoyable film. It’s well written, well cast, well acted and generally well made, but it’s just missing that spark to lift it from being simply a good film to something much, much more.

Although, The Brothers Bloom is slightly too elaborate for its own good, it is still a piece of filmmaking to admire and I’m with Andrew O’Hagan in believing that Rian Johnson is a new and original directing talent. If you get a chance, Johnson is definitely a director I would advise all up and coming filmmakers to hear talk; he speaks openly and honestly about the industry and the processes involved in getting a film made. The main piece of advice he had for people hoping to emulate his success was that “the main path to any movie getting made, lies under the feet of those making it…it’s all about persistence”. He even went on to admit that once you made that first movie, that first leap, the leaps that follow are much easier as “you have better people all around you”, so don’t be afraid to leap.

Johnson’s next venture into features is to be the “dark Blade Runner style sci-fi” Looper, which focuses on a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is to simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. For more clues on the plot of Looper, you can follow the film’s rather cryptic blog.

If you want to know more about The Brothers Bloom, Johnson has even made a director’s commentary available that you can download on to your iPhone or mp3 player and listen to whilst watching the film.

Every year there seems to be a film doing the circuit that is engulfed in controversy and elicits very strong reactions from its audience. Whether it’s Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist and its “shockingly graphic mutilations”, Gasper Noe’s Irréversible and its “sad, sickening exhibitionism” or Vincent Gallo’s Brown Bunny, branded as the “worst film in the history of Cannes”. This year’s film of debate, looks set to be Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel, The Killer Inside Me, which even before viewing the Daily Mail’s Melanie Phillips described as “turning sadism into entertainment”, suggesting it “may indeed inspire a few disturbed individuals to commit acts of violence themselves” (I’m surprised they didn’t go on to blame Winterbottom for the death of Diana and the immigration problem in England). However, delve beneath the smog of controversy and what you’ll actually discover is a highly polished genre film, overflowing with strong performances.

Winterbottm’s film starts off civil enough with its colourful, retro-styled, Bassesque opening credits and its upbeat kitsch soundtrack, however, the pleasantries don’t last long as we’re plunged into the twisted psyche of deputy sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck). The beginning of The Killer Inside Me almost lulls the viewer into an initial false state of bliss, playing out like a film noir of the fifties, showcasing a world where everyone in a skirt is called ‘M’am’ and if a man is caught with his trousers down, you apologize to him first, before arresting him. Behind Affleck’s crooked smile though, you sense that all is not right with deputy Ford.

The main controversial moment occurs quite early in the narrative and involves the unrelenting battering of prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) by Deputy Ford. I wont lie to you, this scene is shockingly graphic, it’s very hard to watch and in my opinion probably only comparable to the ‘fire extinguisher’ scene in Irréversible (a sequence I always found more shocking than the infamous rape). In fact, Affleck’s character doesn’t really do any good throughout the film’s 109-minute duration, raping and killing without much afterthought or remorse for his victims. It’s Fords utter repulsiveness and the first person/point of view approach, that for me, softened the blow of this hard-hitting film.

I’ll admit it takes a lot for a film to offend me (to be honest, I can’t think of any movie I’ve watched and been horrified by…..unless you count the time my girlfriend made me accompany her to the cinema to see the Uma Thurman rom-com Prime), but at no point whatsoever during The Killer Inside Me did I find my self, a) siding with Ford or b) inspired to commit a few acts of violence myself. Ford is a psychotic whose actions are vicious and without purpose or thought and if Winterbottom was to underplay this violence, then surely he would be softening these actions and in turn making his main character less loathsome. For me it has always seemed a petty and hugely misdirected act to point the finger at film, music or any other art form for any human shortcomings and I feel exactly the same about Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me, I think to focus on the violence and controversy in this film is like focusing on a nettle in a field of roses, the violent acts takes up such a small percentage of screen time and Winterbottom’s creation is so much more than just its brutal moments. It’s a film full of convincing period detail and the ever improving Affleck leads a plethora of excellent performances from the likes of the stunning Jessica Alba and the prolific Elias Koteas. The narrative is an unpredictable labyrinth of twists and turns and you truly never know what to expect next from the explosive Ford.

In summary, Winterbottom has produced yet another daring and challenging film to add to his abundant back catalogue. Many will find the violence too much, many will be disturbed and horrified, but ultimately Winterbottom has only been faithful to a renowned author’s celebrated work of pulp fiction. My advice to those thinking of watching this film, if you’re easily offended then don’t go see it, on the other hand if you’re looking for thought-provoking, debate inducing cinema, this should be right up your street. In all honesty, I’d probably find Sex and the City 2 more offensive.

Sometimes I know I’m going to love a film just from seeing one still. Sure, sometimes this assumption can prove hideously wrong, but on other occasions it can be a perfect presumption.

Arriving at the London Film Festival last year, I picked up the heavily packed programme and started thumbing my way through a head-spinning amount of films, ticking the titles I wanted to see (which was a lot!). Around page 39 I was brought to a sudden halt by the image of a one eyed, heavily marked man on his knees in a field of mud, chained to a huge post. I instantly knew I had to see Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising, so I put a big ring around the listing and made a note of the screenings. One of the only bad points with having a press pass at LFF is you can’t always book to see the films you want and unfortunately Valhalla Rising was one of the films I just had to turn up for and hope there was a ticket left. To my surprise, Winding Refn’s film turned out to be a lot more popular than I’d expected and alas I didn’t get in to any of the screenings. Now, almost seven months later, I finally found myself sitting down with great anticipation ready to watch what I was hoping would be a brutal Viking epic. Thankfully, my expectations weren’t let down.

Valhalla Rising tells the story of One-Eye, a fearsome beast of a Viking warrior, held captive by a clan and forced to fight to the death for their gain. The world in which he lives is unforgiving, he struggles to survive day by day and no man shows him any form of kindness. The only person who offers him even the slightest glimmer of hope, is the young son of his captor Are, who brings him food and tends to his wounds. However, a wild uncontrollable force such as One-Eye can’t be held captive for too long and he inevitably (and rather violently) breaks free from the clan imprisoning him. Accompanied by Are and a legion of ‘God’s own Soldiers’, One-Eye embarks on a voyage to the Holy Land, hoping to finally make his way home. The expedition hits many obstacles along the way though as disorientating fog, restless natives and a drug filled water supply all conspire to ensure this oddball ensemble’s passage is anything but smooth.

For those familiar with Winding Refn’s previous creations, it will be no surprise that this is a no holds-barred, uncompromising, brute of a film that like many of his previous works features a dominating performance from its male lead. The talented director has managed not only to inject the film with the unrelenting violence and physicality the story so deserves, but also fill it with haunting beauty and mesmerizing mystery. Playing a mute warrior with just one eye, it was important Mads Mikkelsen created a purely physical character, bathed in intrigue and feared by all he encounters. Snarling, glaring and beating his way across the screen, it’s certainly a performance to behold and for such a governing role, Mikkelsen’s performance is one of subtleties and restraint (his character could have easily been overblown and over the top). One-Eye isn’t the only star of Valhalla Rising though, as Morten Søborg’s aesthetic treatment of the rugged Scotland locations linger on the screen, creating an unnerving sense of dread and tension for the viewer. Søborg frames Mikkelsen almost as part of the landscape at times, like an immovable object rooted to the land or a stony faced rock jutting from a hillside. In the background, a minimal soundtrack from Peter Peter and Peter Kyed rumbles sporadically throughout the film, combining with heightened sounds of nature to enhance the anxious feel the film creates.

I’ve become all too aware recently that when describing things with my writing I tend to gravitate towards using words starting with the same letter (I think I might be alliterate). It’s a bit of a bad habit I’m trying to get out of……but to summarize, Valhalla Rising is bloody brutal, beautiful and beguiling (perfectly predictable huh?).

Time is short, so if you had to boil all the film podcasts vying for your attention down to a perfect 10, then the 10 Podcasts Worth a Listen list in the Spring issue of Moviemaker Magazine is where I’d start.

Now aside from the fact that Directors Notes has made the cut (yea us!), I can honestly say it’s a quality selection, including the likes of /Filmcast, Filmspotting and Creative Screenwriting.

One slight clarification though for those of you who were inspired to visit following the piece:

“What makes this podcast unique is that while one episode may feature an interview with a moviemaker, another could feature clips from the film being discussed, so the audience won’t be in the dark if they haven’t seen the film in question.”

Pretty much ever interview we’ve run on DN, outside of festivals coverage, is proceeded by clips or full films so you always have a frame of reference for the conversation.

This column is an experiment in writing about film: what if, instead of freely choosing which parts of the film to address, I select three different, arbitrary time codes (in this case and for future columns, the 10-minute, 40-minute, and 70-minute mark), freeze the frames, and use that as a guide to writing about the film, keeping the commentary as close to possible to the frames themselves? No compromise: the film must be stopped at these time codes. Constraint as a form of freedom.

via @filmstudiesff

Airports are meant to be transitory spaces; they are bleak and filled with transitory merchandise. At least, they should be, unless you’ve made a really stupid decision and bought a ticket with an 8-hour layover at a deserted airport in Nyköping (pronounced, for better or for worse, Nish-ping), Sweden. Stay in an airport for more than a half-hour, and you’ll surely start to contemplate the place you’re leaving, along with everything you did and didn’t do in that place. Missed opportunity and the nagging reminder of your personality flaws become ridiculed by tabloids, by chewing-gum, by Dan Brown.

During my 8 hour layover, lacking an episode of Seinfeld, 30 Rock, or Six Feet Under, I found myself stuck in a strange predicament: the only thing I had available to watch on my computer was Freaks.

Freaks, for those who don’t know it, was a B-rate horror movie released in 1932 by director Tod Browning – a former circus member – which eventually gained major cult status for its usage of actors with actual deformities in lieu of makeup and prosthetics (though the end, which involves a very unconvincing miniaturized chicken woman, is an exception). It is considered a horror movie, a cautionary tale, an outcast’s manifesto, etc. Despite its reputation as a benevolent, near-moralizing portrayal, the very fact that it is a horror movie implies that there is, indeed, a horrific aspect, and these actors, despite directorial attempts at humanization, have become a grimace mechanism for Smirnoff-ice sloshed tweens at Halloween slumber parties. Of course, the “horror” factor can only come from the monstrous excess stubs, missing extremities, or shrunken heads of the lead actors, and the genre of the film has become the unintended antithesis of the movie’s “inner-beauty prevails” message.

Sitting in the middle of the terminal, resenting the people around me for their good spirit and composure, enveloped in the clouds of insomnia and a hideous, white, fur collared, pizza-stained North Face hoodie/jacket/dress/spacesuit, I couldn’t feel more like a drunken tween at a slumber party. The freaks horrified me. The travelers disgusted me. The nylon on my friend’s – I repeat, my friend’s – North Face was liquefying against my skin. Engines roared and snow churned outside. Nobody sat next to me at the terminal. I smelled like a pizza, a tween, a freak.

I watched the movie – its grainy, high contrast black and white clashing with the florescent lighting and steaming micro-waved sausages in my general vicinity – wondering why I found myself here, in this most arbitrary of airports, salivating over the atrocity of it all. The film gave life to dormant airport objects – a sausage I had ordered bore an uncanny resemblance to Prince Randian (a Ringling Brother’s performer known in the film as the Human Torso – his trademark scene is one in which, being a human torso with head, he rolls a cigarette with his tongue, which could, rumor has it, speak 5 languages); likewise, the woman who had handed me my change and my jiggling, fork-speared Prince Randian spoke in the helium soprano of Hans the midget, around whose misguided infatuations the film’s plot centers.

I was made aware of the fact that the films one watches in airports are always tinted with airport-evoked sensations: churning stomach, twisted metal, life gambling, perspiring mass-manufactured cheese products, candy overload, stale pheromones, X-Rays, drug-sniffing-dog-dander – I will forever associate Freaks with these sensations, and vice versa.

I was further awakened to the fact that whatever the emotional state of the airport misanthrope, the film he/she chooses to watch will inevitably seem to pertain. I came to the conclusion that my situation was not all too dissimilar to that of the limbless and vertically challenged actors that have, for nearly a century, been making people say “oh, did you see Freaks?” “yeah, that shit is messed up.  The pinheads, dude, the pinheads!” “Yeah, but you know, it’s such a benevolent portrayal.”  I had just come from an experience couchsurfing with Swedish anarchists who ran an organization advocating turnstile jumping and wore T-shirt variations on “I Heart NY” that read “I Plane NY.”  I’d found these people terrifying and fascinating and movie-worthy. Couchsurfing was made to be a hospitality spreader – a benevolent portrayal, one might say, of universal loneliness and alienation. Bluntly put, a benevolent portrayal of freaks. My view of these people, and surely their view of me (product of sordid capitalism, stagnant writer, activist of apathy), was a definite view of freakification: I hadn’t made any connections along my travels – rather, I had been horrified and I had been entertained. I was leaving Sweden with just a little more horror and entertainment than when I had arrived. It wouldn’t last – photos would outlast the emotions, and the emotions would morph to match the facial expressions in photos; it, like most trips, had provided an instant fulfillment for the absurd oddity I crave. Yes, another vacation was over, and I had exploitatively freakified the entire experience.

I urge anyone and everyone to create – through their putrid cult movie of choice – their own sensation of terror in airports. All the elements are already there; put them to film and allow yourself to create a memory; it’s not a vacation if your gummy airport sausage doesn’t take on all the characteristics of your most benevolently portrayed movie monster.

Ever since witnessing Anthony Hopkins in his terrifying portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel, Silence of the Lambs, I’ve been pretty much obsessed with the ‘Serial Killer’ movie. Silence of the Lambs is just one of those films I never seem to tire of, from the excellent performances of Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine, to the twisting, turning narrative and memorable dialogue, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again”, it’s a completely engrossing 118 minutes. It was another four years after Silence of the Lambs that I saw another serial killer movie I truly loved, this time David Fincher’s Se7en. Set in a nameless city of endless rain, Se7en is a dark, unsettling tale of serial killer ‘John Doe’ and the detectives who try to stop him, before he completes a psychotic set of murders based on the Seven Deadly Sins. As the feature film that almost certainly announced Fincher to the filmmaking world (I’m not counting Alien3), Se7en remains at the top of its field and is often imitated in terms of both style and content. Since Se7en and Silence of the Lambs, we have seen many more serial killers hit the screen and try to capture the tension and style that Demme and Fincher produced, with mixed results.

In 2000, five years before he brought us Batman, Christian Bale gave us Patrick Bateman, the American Psycho, in Mary Harron’s adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel. Bale’s Bateman persona was slick, smooth, totally out of control and presented us with something we’d never seen before, a serial killer we could almost admire, instead of despise. With the next notable entry to the genre, the Saw franchise started reasonably brightly, but with a never-ending line of sequels following its 2004 release, it quickly descended into a cheap thrills franchise. I was filled with great anticipation, when I heard of Fincher’s return to the serial killer movie in 2007, with his period piece Zodiac. Ultimately though (and I know many will disagree with this), I found myself a little disappointed and empty after watching Zodiac, it just didn’t push the buttons I was hoping it would. I have always promised myself I’d go back and watch Zodiac again, as watching films always depends on your mood and attitude at the time, but sometimes it’s hard to get over a first impression.

Now, in 2010, we’re presented with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and something new; the tension and suspense of a Hollywood thriller, mixed with the style and sensibilities of a European art movie. Adapted from the first novel of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, Män som hatar kvinnor/Men Who Hate Women (as the film’s known in Sweden), Niels Arden Oplev’s taut film is a tale of a family with a dark secret. Odd couple, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, one a controversial journalist, the other an expert hacker and bisexual punk, unexpectedly find themselves engulfed in the search for a serial killer. This is the story in a nutshell (trying not to reveal too much!), but the film is so much more than this. The tension and pace doesn’t seem to relent throughout the film’s 152 minutes and I was totally surprised by just how dark this film was (the side story of Lisbeth and her parole officer was particularly bleak).

Recently Swedish cinema, has displayed a stylized bleakness, recognisable aesthetic and a narrative flair with Låt den rätte komma in/Let the Right One In and these qualities continue in Oplev’s film. With cinematography by Eric Kress and Jens Fischer (son of Bergman collaborator Gunnar Fischer), the film is given a cold look, with a palette full of blues and greens, which work in perfect tandem with its desolate narrative. Style-wise, the film reminds me of Icelandic film Mýrin/Jar City, with which it shares a similar palette and frozen landscapes, as well as a crime thriller narrative. In fact, most Scandinavian cinema seems to share a lot of these attributes and in recent years the likes of You, the Living and The Bothersome Man, have displayed the reasons why cinephiles are attracted to these films.

It’s not often ‘Art House’ cinema (especially that of the subtitled kind) crosses over into the mainstream, but with a fairly wide UK release The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo seems to have done just that. Many would’ve thought the dark undertones of Oplev’s film would have scared off the mainstream audience, but it’s a movie so well-acted, so well constructed, it would be hard for anyone not to be hooked.

Originally a playmate of mockney pretender Guy Ritchie, producing both Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch before heading out on his own directing journey with Layer Cake and Stardust, Matthew Vaughn mixes the brutality of Christopher Nolan’s re-imagined Batman, with the slapstick, kinetic energy of Buster Keaton, by way of John Woo’s balletic gun play.

The film’s set pieces are truly a thing of choreographed beauty, both the physical live action and my favourite, the animated origin story of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. Also, the casts’ performances are delivered with just the right amount of self-knowing levity – Nick Cage’s inspired choice to have Big Daddy’s speech patterns mimic an Adam West styled delivery, has me believing his Bad Lieutenant return to form wasn’t a fluke. However, let’s be honest here, it may be named after Aaron Johnson’s Kick-Ass, but the true star of the show is blatantly Chloe Moretz’s potty mouthed Hit-Girl. When she’s on screen you’re hooked, when she’s absent you’re willing her next big entrance. As I overheard someone’s assertion on the way out, “She’s got future movie star written all over her!”

Watching Kick-Ass with such a hyped festival crowd, it’s easy to wonder postmortem if your reactions have been swayed by the body politic, amped up Banana Splits theme and the ever so vibrant colours, but Kick-Ass isn’t simply throwaway, disposable bubblegum. The Kick-Ass / Big Daddy live stream scene is sobering enough in both its outcome and the mad dash of spectators diving for their browsers to follow along. You know you’d be equally guilty of hitting refresh as fast as you could.

Despite its satisfying ending, I sense the glimmer of a sequel (creator Mark Millar has pretty much already spelt that out) begging to be made. With a start this strong, it would take a barrel full of idiots to mess it up. Not a Hollywood impossibility I know, but I’m sure I won’t be the only one going hero to dole out painful justice if that ends up being the case.

Try as we might, it’s just impossible for us to be at every festival worthy of DN coverage. The fourth year of Paris’ European Independent Film Festival (ÉCU) is one such place. So we asked writer Moze Halperin to bring DN the lowdown on this year’s festival.

Something of a novice as far as film festivals are concerned, I’m caught off guard as I’m stampeded out of the intimate hall (really, though, a corridor that compensates with the title “Le Grand Bar”) of the Cinéma Grand Action in Paris’ Latin Quarter, in which the entirety of the Friday night ÉCU film festival crowd are packed like stylish and remarkably prolific independent-film making sardines.

Tonight people have gathered for a series of eight short films, each one of a caliber worthy of an “official selection.” It’s a sea of accomplishment and post-toil catharsis– half of the people in here have made a film in the far reaches of Europe (and even the world), and here they all are chatting over bar pretzels. It’s a sight to behold– only I cannot, as I am being swept away, up to the screening room. I have a macaron (Paris’s best flour-based offering) in one hand, a delicious albeit amorphous and alien berry sandwich cylinder-mini in another hand, and my third glass of wine somewhere in my third hand. I’m feeling antsy to talk to some filmmakers, albeit unsure of who is who, what language I’ll be expected to speak in, and inevitably afraid I’ll somehow accidentally blabber something cinematically sacrilegious like, “yeah, I really noticed Mermaids’ influence on your style. That actress of yours is beautiful, kind of Meg Ryan-ish circa 2008.” Well, only time and a couple of interviews will tell.

As a thank you to the South by Southwest community he mined for information, Scott Kirsner is offering the full e-book version of Fans, Friends & Followers as a completely free download for the duration of SXSW – where he’s also presenting a panel with Gary Hustwit (Helvetica & Objectified).

We were fortunate to get our hands on a copy and have Scott on the show last year, so can attest first hand that it’s packed full of essential information for new media creatives, delivered directly from the mouths of those succeeding in the digital age. And at $0 it’s a complete no-brainer!

Hitchcockian, Capraesque and Kubrickian are all terms used to describe the relative filmmakers’ distinctive styles, well maybe it’s about time we add Jeunetian to the list (I thought Jeunetesque sounded better for a French filmmaker, but was a bit too close to the already existing Junoesque). It’s not that I’m comparing Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick, that’s a heavy comparison to bear, but when it comes to modern filmmakers with a unique and recognisable look, Jeunet must be at the top of that list. Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and Park Chan-Wook would be other contenders for me, but there’s something about Jeunet’s style that is the most idiosyncratic of all. Whether it’s the greenish orange palette, sweeping camera moves, meticulous attention to detail or the appearance of Dominique Pinon (Jeunet has stated he couldn’t imagine making a film without Pinon), you know when you’re watching Jeunet.

Having only made six feature films, over an almost 20 year period, the release of a new Jeunet film is a big event for me, so I jumped at the chance to see a preview of his latest, Micmacs (which apparently roughly translates as ‘sheenanigans’) at the BFI, especially as it was followed by a Q&A with the Director himself.

Part Sergio Leone tale of revenge, part Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Micmacs tells the tale of Bazil (Dany Boon), a video clerk whose life is flipped upside down after a near fatal incident at work one night. Trying to piece his life back together, Bazil bands together with a peculiar group of oddballs (including a contortionist, a mathematical genius and a fixated world record breaker) to reap revenge on those who have wronged him. Micmacs is a delicious blend of Gallic charm and English humour; Jeunet declared in the post film interview he had been heavily inspired throughout his career by British comedy heavyweights Monty Python and the comic buffoonery of Mr Bean (as weird as it sounds, you can see a bit of Bean in Micmacs).

Having spent two years developing an adaptation for Yann Martel’s legendary, award-winning novel Life of Pi (the production never materialized due to Jeunet’s reluctance to use anything other than a real tiger in the production), the French director poured all of his frustration and lack of creativity over this period into Micmacs. Citing his filmmaking style as, “Like a child who has to use every part of his Meccano set”, Jeunet has obviously employed his obsessive eye for detail throughout every department in the creation of Micmacs. He talks like a man who loves work and loves the art of filmmaking; he speaks of how he storyboards his films religiously, sketching out details he wants to include in the aesthetics of his creations. However, the credit can’t all go to Jeunet, as production designer Aline Bonetto must also take credit for her involvement. Oscar nominated for her design work on Jeunet’s previous two films (Amélie and A Very Long Engagement), again the details in the sets, props and costumes are so breathtaking you wouldn’t be surprised if she found herself on the end of another Oscar nomination. The location and set for the motley gangs’ base at the scrapyard is particularly impressive, heavily ridden with props and junk that could have easily been borrowed from the junkyard scenes in Labyrinth. It’s not just the aesthetics of Micmacs that’s rich in detail though, both the performances and soundtrack are also intricately layered. The scrapyard gang of misfits is flawlessly cast and expertly realized (Jeunet described Bazil and his cohorts as like a film Director and his crew), but in particular, Dany Boon’s Chaplinesque turn as the expressive Bazil is the show-stealer. He stumbles and bumbles across the screen with all the comic timing of one of the classic silent comedians and whether he’s busting robotic moves outside the cafe or microphone fishing down chimneys, his every move and expression is precision personified.

Jeunet the man is not unlike one of the characters in his films, answering questions with overtly expressive body language, his face gurning and twisting like the Elastic Girl in Micmacs, he’s certainly not a Director that likes to keep his cards close to his chest. In a revealing but brief chat after the film, the eccentric French director waxed lyrical on The Lovely Bones, French Cinema and Amélie. He told the eager audience at the BFi how he would have loved to had made an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and how he had such a strong vision for it, he is reluctant to see Peter Jackson’s effort. He went on to talk about his lack on enthusiasm  for young French filmmakers and how a lot of players in France’s cinema industry vilify him for being too aesthetic. Personally though, I feel his most revelatory fact of the night was how he had originally written Amélie with Emily Watson in mind for the lead role. I wonder how the film would’ve panned out if she had accepted the role? Finally, when quizzed about advice for young filmmakers and actors, Jeunet wisely said, in Yoda like fashion, “Do not wait for something to happen, when you can go out and do it for yourself.”

So what next for Jeunet? He’s eager to do an adaptation of a novel. We know it won’t be Life of Pi or The Lovely Bones, but whichever book he chooses, let’s just hope it can compete with his wonderful imagination and endless talent.

“Price, sorry. I wanted somewhere where I wasn’t working in my bedroom anymore. I wanted a house and Luton appealed. I was born in Newbury which is quite a small town and for me the height of luxury was going to Reading for the weekend and Luton has a lot of Reading to it”.

What about it though made it the right place for a budding scribe?

“Wetherspoons, I won’t hear a bad word said about it. It has a library. That and People’s Park. You wander around a place thinking ‘can I live here? What’s it got?’ And it was those two places. I’ve since discovered the bells in the pavement [in Bury Park] which I think are also brilliant”.

I claim we have very nice parks. “You do” he replies before quickly correcting himself, “We do”.

I’m talking to Jack because he has written a feature film due out next month called The Scouting Book For Boys starring Thomas Turgoose and Rafe Spall set on a British Holiday Park. The film is funded in part by Film Four and is a bittersweet, dark drama revolving around the lives of two teens that live on the park. Having written for TV, most recently the reality TV send up Cast Offs featuring an all disabled cast, Jack is turning his hand to the big screen with this independent British film. It is an ode to a world the writer clearly loves. I ask him where the idea came from.

“I’ve always been into caravan parks and it was actually reading Robbie Williams’ unofficial biography and he talked about his Dad being a campsite entertainer. I just thought that was really cool and it started me thinking about what it must be like to live on a caravan site permanently”.

“I think they are amazing places, me and my sister would mostly use the pool. We’d go off during the day, and wouldn’t really go for the entertainment at night, but other people never leave the site, and it’s that sense of ‘the castle’. The director Tom (Harper) talks about it like it’s a complete world for those kids, it’s all they know”.

Talk turns to the kids of today, and the way they spend their leisure time. Jack Thorne is clearly not a teenager but he understands the essence of youth and his talk about the kids in his neighbourhood and the majority of urban dwelling teens is spot on. He knows what it’s like to be young and he knows how to articulate it, as his work on Shameless and Skins has already proved. The Scouting Book For Boys crystallizes the angst and awkwardness of youth beautifully.

The film is a delight, full of dark twists and the ending is stark and surprising. Jack mentions that a lot of people wanted to change it, thankfully it remains unscathed. I don’t want to reveal too much here, because it would give so much away, and I want you to see it.

During the rest of our conversation we cover many bases as Jack rips the Ethan Hawke starring Daybreakers apart (rightfully so), before we lament the Cineworld programme. The recent Oscar and Bafta nominations for An Education are great, because he is currently adapting Nick Hornby’s tough A Long Way Down for the same producers, but struggling with the ‘happy ending’. He has more TV stuff coming up, there’s a project with Shane Meadows. It’s all said with an air of disbelief. After our chat he tweets about seeing the poster for the film at the Curzon Soho cinema in London, one of the few places it will screen and he seems genuinely amazed. It’s fantastic.

He has worked in TV, Theatre, Radio and now film but there is not an ounce of pretension in him. He is a multi-platformist for no other reasons than he likes to tell different stories in different mediums. He clearly works incredibly hard, but is humble to a fault. When he defers my suggestion that the Hornby he’s working on is the successful, recent Juliet, Naked he claims that book is being handled by a ‘real screenwriter’.

It’s modesty. And it’s charming. It’s also misplaced, because he is a real screenwriter. He’s a real, living, breathing writer and he is in our midst. Chat returns to Luton, mainly through my fascination with having a successful writer sitting across from me in my office. It’s clear that he moved here for the isolation and cost, but he is as hooked as the rest of us on the strange energy of our belittled hometown. I tell him of some good restaurants so he can get out more, and a nice butchers where he lives. We finish on agreement. We need a nice bakery.

Have a read and watch.

Esther B. Robinson has, if not found the solution, presented a well thought out strategy in her Big Art, Little Debt Plan for Filmmaker Magazine. The plan comprises three commandments; 1) Make work that matters, 2) Get right with thy personal cash & 3) Know and keep to thy limits, coupled with five steps to help you adhere to them.

Filmmaker Magazine have also been running the filmmaker responses to the questions Esther initially posed when formulating the plan.

via Jonathan Goodman Levitt