Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Local 600 Cinematographers Take Sundance By Storm
January 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under Web Exclusive
Consider that for this year’s Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected including 87 world premieres, 19 North American premieres, and four U.S. premieres representing 21 different countries. These films were selected from 3,661 feature-length film submissions, composed of 1,905 U.S. and 1,756 international films. For us here at Local 600, that translates into a bumper crop for the New Year: nearly 40 percent of all the features selected for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival were shot by Local 600 cinematographers. That’s the largest number of Guild cinematographers with projects since the festival’s inception, offering even more proof that Local 600 members have penetrated every level of filmmaking in the industry, from the mega-budget Hollywood tent pole flicks we’ve always been known for, on down to the micro-budget indies that created the Sundance brand. Read more
Sundance Focus: Innovision Probe II
With the INNOVISION PROBE II, a tubular lens that offsets from the camera, I can put my lens anywhere in a car without being restricted - on the dashboard, through the steering wheel, or even overhead - and set up is quick. I can also move the camera in ways that are impossible with conventional lenses. On the movie Staten Island I did a shot that started on the New York skyline. The camera pulls back to reveal the interior of a car with Ethan Hawke staring out the passenger’s window. The camera continues to pull back to reveal the driver and then pulls out through the driver’s window to reveal that they are in a truck at a red light. The truck pulls away and we end on the skyline again. With creative options like that, the Probe II gives my films a competitive edge at festivals like Sundance. I’m always looking for opportunities to use it. –DP Chris Norr
Credits: What Doesn’t Kill You, Staten Island, The Hottest State, Second Best, One Last Thing…, Into the Fire, Timeless
www.innovision-optics.com
Surviving Sundance
FOUR Park City publicity pros offer SEVEN tips to the 10 craziest days in January.
By Margot Carmichael Lester
PARK CITY IN JANUARY … To indie filmmakers and their crews, those four simple words are akin to winning the lottery. To the Local 600 publicists who represent Sundance movies (or those heading up to the mountains to promote the filmmakers), the phrase can send a lightning strike of anxiety and stress searing right through their Blackberries. What began as a “casual” little film festival has become the hot industry ticket, and nothing screams that more loudly than the marketing avalanche cascading down Main Street every winter. Linda Brown-Salomone, owner of Indie PR in Studio City, Calif., has been representing films at Sundance for 15 years. She says the festival has become a media frenzy like none other. Now, “the biggest star names and quirkiest of campaigns [are the ones] most often winning press time and space over a truly magical film that may deserve it more,” the Sundance regular observes. So let’s say you have a film that got in and it’s your first time down the slopes. How can you keep from getting buried alive? Here are seven tips to surviving the Sundance publicity game:
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Exposure: James Gray
New York City-native James Gray studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California and made his first commercial film, Little Odessa, in 1994, when he was just 25 years old. That film (photographed by Tom Richmond) earned the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Since then, Gray has written and directed The Yards (2000, photographed by Harris Savides, ASC), We Own the Night (2007), and the forthcoming Two Lovers (both photographed by Joaquin Baca-Asay), all of which were each nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Gray’s cinematic turf is Brooklyn, where Two Lovers is set. But unlike past forays into the borough’s criminal underworld, the romantic drama features Joaquin Phoenix as a downhearted man, driven to connect with a dangerous woman (Gwyneth Paltrow). According to his colleagues, Gray is well versed in cinematic history and often describes his ideas by referring to specific scenes and shots from older movies. David Heuring caught up with this fiercely independent, regional filmmaker to get at the heart of his fascination with Brooklyn, and his working relationships with creative partners like Baca-Asay and Phoenix.
A Most Excellent Adventure
