Unity Series: Part I – Grips

Exploring the craft every other production department relies on. By Pauline Rogers.

To kick off our first in a five-part series on IATSE crafts, we asked grips across the country not only to define their jobs but to reveal how they go about, as New York-area Local 52 member George Patsos describes it, capturing on film the dreams of others. “Grip actually comes from an Old English term that referred to suitcases with handles,” Patsos explains. “As time went on, people moving the camera cases, which resembled those suitcases, became known as grips.” Read more

Stranger Than Paradise

Oscar winner Guillermo Navarro, ASC, AMC, brings the otherworldly down to earth for the sci-fi thriller I Am Number Four. By Kevin H. Martin. Photos by John Bramley.

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Exposure: Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky is a confirmed New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn to parents who were both teachers, he was trained as a research biologist with The School for Field Studies at a ranch in Kenya and Prince William Sound, Alaska. When Aronofsky entered Harvard University in the late 1980s, it was to study anthropology, live action film and animation. His senior thesis film was a finalist in the Student Academy Awards, and that honor inspired further studies at the American Film Institute (AFI), where he earned an M.F.A. in directing. Aronofsky was honored with the prestigious Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Award at AFI, but perhaps even more importantly, it was where he met a kindred creative spirit in cinematographer Matthew Libatique, ASC. As young mavericks, the pair set out to forge a new path for independent filmmaking, beginning with Pi, which won the Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and the Gotham Open Palm Award. Aronofsky went on to make visionary narratives like Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and his latest, Black Swan, all with Libatique behind the lens. In fact, The Wrestler (shot by Maryse Alberti) is the only film of Aronofsky’s not done with Libatique. Pauline Rogers talked to the director about the youthful film school exuberance he continues to bring to each project, and his 15-year dream of making Black Swan. Read more

Exposure: Davis Guggenheim

If you think you know filmmaker Davis Guggenheim by his many episodic TV credits or iconic last name, you’ve missed most of his story. Raised on social justice documentaries by his father, Charles Guggenheim, whose first Oscar-winning film, Nine From Little Rock, explored ‘60s era school desegregation, and whose second Academy Award-winner, Robert Kennedy Remembered, paid tribute to America’s greatest public education statesman, Davis Guggenheim’s first and best passion is nonfiction filmmaking, and the opportunity it gives him to “be a part of something much bigger than yourself.” His 2007 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, placed climate change front and center in the national debate. And with his new documentary, Waiting for Superman, which won the Audience Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Guggenheim has again tapped into the national zeitgeist, exploring America’s failed public school system through the eyes of five different children whose futures literally depend on a tumbling ball in a lottery basket. As evident by the conversation below, Guggenheim, much like his father, truly believes in moviemaking as a transformative medium. In that respect, Waiting for Superman is his chalkboard and the educators who come before his cameras are textbook examples of how to change our troubled world. Read more

Eve Stewart

A conversation with the Oscar®-nominated production designer of The King’s Speech.  Read more

President’s Letter – February 2011

Why Awards Matter

Why are awards important? Why do we spend three months out of every year having industry media outlets screaming, “awards season has arrived”; obsessively watching them pick favorites, underdogs, and dark horses like it was opening day at Santa Anita? Why do awards matter and how do they benefit the members of Local 600? Read more

ICG February 2011

I AM NUMBER FOUR
DP Guillermo Navarro, ASC, AMC
By Kevin H. Martin

HALL PASS
DP Matthew F. Leonetti, ASC
By Valentina I. Valentini

OPRAH OSCAR SPECIAL
By Debra Kaufman

AWARDS SEASON COVERAGE
By Bob Fisher and David Heuring

UNITY SERIES PART 1: GRIPS
By Pauline Rogers

FLASH FRAME: Jay Kulick

DEEP FOCUS: Mauro Fiore, ASC

EXPOSURE: Gregory McMurry, ASC

GEAR GUIDE: Awards Show Focus

REFRACTION: Andy Maltz & Milt Shefter