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Francis Ford Coppola. Mr. Coppola, you once said that it is very difficult to be a good artist if you are rich. Do you still think the same way? These days I think that it’s good to be rich because you are not going to make any money making personal films. (Laughs) Nobody will go see them. If you want to make money in the movie business you have to make the kind of movies that the biggest audience wants to see, a film that’s like some other movies they’ve seen. That’s why they make so many sequels. Isn’t it hard to fight against this trend? It’s hard when you ask the audience to go on a different trip than the one they already know. What is the reason for this disinterest in art? It happened a long time ago. What is your definition of success if you don’t care much about the commercial aspect of the film business anymore? When you make a dinner and you invite ten people over and they eat the dinner, you want them to say, “Oh, what a nice dinner.”

I have to make movies because I love them. What interests you? The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema | 100. Night Watch | Empire | www.empireonline.com. From Brazil to Japan to France and Senegal, from Neo-Realism to Dogme to J-horror, we've compiled a list of the very best films not in the English language (note: features, not documentaries). So rustle up some sushi, strike up a gauloise and make sure you've locked your bicycle as we count down the top 100 world cinema movies... 100. Night Watch Year: 2004Country: RussiaDirector: Timur Bekmambetov It's Buffy meets The Matrix meets Blade! Hollywood remake? Stream Night Watch now with Amazon Video 99.

Year: 1993Country: ChinaDirector: Yuen Woo-ping It's the Robin Hood story transferred to the Ch'ing Dynasty, helmed by Yuen Woo-ping, the martial arts director that would go onto create such western fighting spectaculars such as Kill Bill and The Matrix Trilogy. Hollywood remake? Buy Iron Monkey now on Amazon 98. Year: 1985Country: JapanDirector: Akira Kurosawa Akira Kurosawa was almost blind when he directed his biggest movie, in 1989, and yet it's possibly his most beautiful. Hollywood remake? Rediscovering Morality Through Ashgar Farhadi’s A Separation. There is no shortage of ugliness in the world, If Man closed his eyes to it there would be even more. But Man is a problem solver. The House is Black (Khaneh siah ast, 1963) Introduction Today morality is an awkward word associated with genuflections and fairy tales, prejudices and superstitions. Morality is concealed from ourselves, either out of convenience or coercion. With Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (A Separation, 2011), Ashgar Farhadi shows us what cinema can do; it can make us believe again in a moral world.

Yet Farhadi is no preacher, no cinematic priest. His desire for us to see that life is moral asks each of us not only to assess our judgements but how we make them. Ashgar Farhadi – An Overview Ashgar Farhadi is the director of five titles: Raghs dar ghobar (Dancing in the Dust, 2003), Shah-re Ziba (The Beautiful City, 2004), Chaharshanbe-soori (Fireworks Wednesday, 2006), Darbareye Elly (About Elly, 2009) and now A Separation. The Double Success of A Separation Overcoming Censorship. Amazon Studios. A ton of useful information about screenwriting from screenwriter John August. ForeignFilms.com - The best place to find foreign films on the web. I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script. We know you've been working very hard on your screenplay, but before you go looking for some professional feedback, you might keep in mind the following piece by A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson.

I will not read your fucking script. That's simple enough, isn't it? "I will not read your fucking script. " What's not clear about that? If that seems unfair, I'll make you a deal. You're a lovely person. But I will not read your fucking script. At this point, you should walk away, firm in your conviction that I'm a dick. Yes. I was recently cornered by a young man of my barest acquaintance.

I doubt we've exchanged a hundred words. Now, I normally have a standard response to people who ask me to read their scripts, and it's the simple truth: I have two piles next to my bed. Most people get that. But hell, this was a two page synopsis, and there was no time to go into either song or dance, and it was just easier to take it. Weeks, is the answer. How To Do Super-Slow Motion: Part II, Software. Being the big super slow-motion fans that we are, last week we went over the several solutions that are there out there to make some good super-slow motion. We began with Cameras that are good to do it. In this post, we’ll take a look at Software. You see, even if you don’t have a camera that will allow you to shoot at 1,000 frames per second, you will still be able to mimic how that will look like with a few software programs.

And it is less expensive that most slow-motion cameras, so let’s see: The king of it all is Twixtor. It is one of the most used plugins for doing slow motion and does a brilliant job at it. Take a look at one example: Pretty cool, huh? Now, Twixtor is not a software program per se, more actually a plugin that works with your editing/compositing software of choice, either After Effects, Premiere, Avid, etc. And how to actually do it?

Awesome! The basic version of Twixtor costs $329.99. Although Twixtor is the king, it doesn’t mean it’s the only player in town. ScriptShadow. Ten Must-See Art Documentaries | Art School Guide. Alfred Hitchcock - The Master of Suspense. Strictly Film School. 25 Things Every Writer Should Know. An alternate title for this post might be, “Things I Think About Writing,” which is to say, these are random snidbits (snippets + tidbits) of beliefs I hold about what it takes to be a writer. I hesitate to say that any of this is exactly Zen (oh how often we as a culture misuse the term “Zen” — like, “Whoa, that tapestry is so cool, it’s really Zen“), but it certainly favors a sharper, shorter style than the blathering wordsplosions I tend to rely on in my day-to-day writing posts.

Anyway. Peruse these. Absorb them into your body. Let your colonic flora digest them and feed them through your bloodstream to the little goblin-man that pilots you. Feel free to disagree with any of these; these are not immutable laws. Buckle up. 1. The Internet is 55% porn, and 45% writers. 2. A lot of writers try to skip over the basics and leap fully-formed out of their own head-wombs. 3. 4. I have been writing professionally for a lucky-despite-the-number 13 years. 5. Luck matters. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Screenplay Basics - Scripped. A Scripped Compendium by Johnathan Carr Traditional storytelling recounts past events, whereas screenwriting is locked in the present - thus you may not deviate from PRESENT TENSE.

You may also be tempted to describe every inch of the world you're creating - don't! Take comfort in the idea that a screenplay is not meant to have any literary value. As you're writing, be mindful to preserve only the most important details: information that will advance the story. At the beginning of a feature film script, often but not always, the first line will be: FADE IN. Scripped defaults the first line to a SCENE HEADING, but you can always change the element if you'd like to add FADE IN or something else. While you can write a longer ACTION paragraph, think about keeping it under five lines at a time. In the ACTION line, be sure to capitalize SOUND EFFECTS, CAMERA DIRECTION and the first appearance of a speaking CHARACTER.

Whereas here the action is broken to suggest a new camera angle on Tymon: The Cinemas Pool. Film Fest Journal: Notes from Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2011. List of motion picture terminology. Mental_floss Blog » How to Write Movie Scenes. Ever wondered how screenwriters do their thing? Lots of people have, and there's a whole genre of books out there devoted to helping up-and-comers understand the arcane art of movie-writing. Despite all the screenwriting panels and workshops and books and DVD commentaries in the world -- all the billions of words printed about screenwriting and how it's done -- when it comes down to it, most writers are relatively private about the nitty-gritty of their process.

That's why I love reading John August's blog. August's credits include Big Fish, Go, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Prince of Persia and Corpse Bride, among others (so he's definitely not one of the many screenwriting book authors or teachers with flimsy/ancient credits) and one of the best things about his blog are the videos he's been making. They're essentially long-form screen captures of John writing or editing scenes, and talking as he does it. So here's how to take a good scene and make it better. Ghosh/Shahid. Times go by turns. Kristin here— Last week during the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image conference here in Madison, I got to talking with Prof.

Birger Langkjær of the University of Copenhagen. He asked me some questions about the concept of “turning points” in film narrative as I had used it in my book, Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Specifically he wondered if turning points invariably involve changes of which the protagonist or protagonists are aware. The protagonist’s goals are usually what shape the plot, so can one have a turning point without him or her knowing about it? I couldn’t really give a definitive answer on the spot, partly because it’s a complex subject and partly because I finished the book a decade ago (for publication in 1999). Characteristics of turning points Most screenplay manuals treat turning points as the major events or changes that mark the end of an “act” of a movie. 1. 2. Groundhog Day: end of development. 2a. 3.

Thirteen movie poster trends that are here to stay and what they say about their movies. 1. Tiny People On the Beach, Giant Heads in the Clouds These movies are always sappy dramas. Do not allow you to be mislead by the trailer or calibre of the people involved into thinking otherwise. The protagonist/his little brother/father and/or love interest is very likely to end up dead. You probably should keep your tissues handy because you'll cry tears of sorrow, tears of joy, tears because you just wasted 13 dollars on this movie. This sort of poster is inevitably used for anything that involves Nicholas Sparks. It was requested that this post should be edited down So edited down it was. 2.

Posters hereThe movies that use this sort of poster will feature a lot of action with a thin veneer of pretentious intellectual posturing. 3. Posters hereThese poster are used for rom-coms that lean more on the comedy side of things. 4. Posters hereThe ultimate false advertising - these movies that use The Bed will feature very little sex and a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of talking.