A long-time media artist, Michael’s filmmaking stretches back to 1978. Michael graduated from York University film school with Special Honours, winning the Famous Players Scholarship in his final year. The Rolling Stone Book of Rock Video called Michael's first feature 'Recorded: Live!' "the first film about rock video". Michael served on the board of L.I.F.T. when he lived in Toronto during the eighties and managed the Bloor Cinema for Tom and Jerry. He has been prolific over his past eight years in Victoria, having made over thirty-five shorts, won numerous awards, produced two works for BravoFACT! and received development funding for 'Begbie’s Ghost' through the CIFVF and BC Film.
He then reveals his philosophy and how living a dolly zoomed life helps him achieve it:
“One of the tools that we can use is a term that I borrowed from cinematography called a dolly zoom. And what a dolly zoom is, is where the camera is rolled back, or dollied back, at the same rate as the lens is zoomed in, and it was used in “Jaws” and “Vertigo” and many other films. And what the filmmakers use that technique for is to give altitude to a scene, and as the foreground stays the same and the background stretches. But we could also apply that term to the challenges that we face. If we dolly zoom a situation, that means that we zoom out to the widest geographical area we possibly can, ideally the entire planet, but as we zoom out to that big picture, we don’t lose focus on the worms-eye details on the ground. We don’t zoom out to the point where people become numbers on a spreadsheet or a workforce or a voting block or a consumer block. They maintain their value as valued members of our human society. There’s also a temporal aspect to this. We need to zoom out to the longest time frame possible, ideally multi-generational, but in the process, we can’t lose sight of the short term. The last part of a dolly zoom is to see things from different perspectives, and so we understand the depth of our problem, and that makes our solutions that much more lasting and that much more effective…. What I try and do is to live a constant dolly-zoomed life. I wake up every morning in my bed, but I also wake up on a planet.“
Chris has worked in the film and television industry for almost thirty years as a Creative Producer and has shepherded over two dozen projects, including Good Will Hunting, American Pie, Project Greenlight and Manchester by the Sea.
He begins with:
“The nature of the creative producer’s job doesn’t allow a lot of time to stop and ask questions about the changing industry around us. However, over the past few years, I’ve given myself some time to reflect. Between MANCHESTER BY THE SEA being released by Amazon, and the world shutting down due to a pandemic, it became clear that the job I have now isn’t the one I had when I started back in 1994.”
He continues:
“Many producers of my generation had a business plan for our careers. For me, it was directly dependent on the success of each individual film. Not long ago, profit in the film industry was based on a hit-driven business model. If a lot of people bought tickets to see a film in theaters, rented the DVD, or paid for a digital download, it sometimes made a profit, and was considered a hit. At the time, producing a box office hit led to an easier time getting your next project made and usually with a bigger budget.”
More on the good old days:
“The 1980s through the 2010s was a great time to be a creative producer. Put deals together, own the library of content, and make big money. I came into Hollywood when this was just exploding, and at the same time, foreign markets were opening up, home video was becoming much bigger with the release of DVDs, and cable allowed for many more channels for a piece of content to reach audiences. In comes windowing, in comes licensing, in comes new markets for content. Speculation became a new business model worth pursuing if a creative producer had the stomach for it; there were new buyers and talent looking for content, and all were free agents. It was awesome.“
Then he arrives at the crux of the issue:
“Unfortunately, the hit-driven business model I built a career around is not the reality of the industry we are living in today, and I can finally admit that we are not going back to the way it was. I realized I hadn’t acknowledged how much things had changed. Today, there is a very small speculative market compared to the 1990s and early 2000s, and large companies are no longer driven by the profit of each individual film. The current subscription-based business model removes the opportunity to create a hit. In this new model for storytelling, volume is more important than quality.“
He then list the shortcoming of the streaming model in detail, concluding with possible strategies:
“Become an executive. Choose a specific genre. Choose talent to work with. Work inside a production company or become a manager/producer. Work for a non-profit. Take on a larger company’s liability. Or accept that the old version of a creative producer is now a hobby.”
He firmly believes: “We have to be honest with the next generation that the system we are all in right now is not working nor does it offer the life you might have been promised in film school.”
His final rallying cry:
“All of this soul searching has led me to the simpler solution which is creative producers need to become part of something bigger than themselves and their projects. Rather than wait around and see if the industry is going to make room for us again, we must take matters into our own hands and find the thing that replaces the hit-driven model. If we want sustainability, we have to create a new business model that works within this new era of Hollywood.“
My take: a lot of people blame new economic realities when their job disappears. Chris Moore, however, argues that streamers have distorted the free market because it is now impossible to use the box office to measure success (other than for blockbusters and who cares about them.) Perhaps we need a new Streaming Decree that splits production from distribution once again?
Canadian artist Michael Snow has died at age 94. Torontonians will perhaps know him best for his sculpture called Flight Stop, the 60 geese flying in the Eaton Centre.
Snow was a Canadian artist and experimental filmmaker who is considered one of the most important figures in the development of avant-garde and experimental art in Canada. He is best known for his work in the mediums of painting, sculpture, photography, and film. He was quoted in 1967 as quipping:
“My paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a painter, music by a filmmaker, paintings by a sculptor, sculpture by a filmmaker, films by a musician, music by a sculptor… sometimes they all work together. Also, many of my paintings have been done by a painter, sculpture by a sculptor, films by a filmmaker, music by a musician. There is a tendency towards purity in all of these media as separate endeavours.”
One of Michael Snow’s most famous films is “Wavelength.” It is considered a classic and seminal film in avant-garde cinema and is widely regarded as one of the greatest avant-garde films of all time. The film was made in 1967 and runs for 45 minutes.
The film is made up of a single, static shot that slowly zooms in. It begins with a wide shot of a New York loft space. The camera is positioned in front of a photograph of waves, which hangs on the far wall. The camera gradually zooms in on the photograph, while increasingly shorter wavelength tones are heard (in addition to a clip of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields” over the radio.) The camera continues to zoom in until the photograph fills the entire frame, and the tone is its most excruciating.
Wavelength challenges the audience’s perception of space and time, and has been described as a mind-bending, time-stretching experience. It has been widely discussed and debated by film critics and historians, and has influenced many other artists and filmmakers. It also helped establish Michael Snow as an important figure in the world of avant-garde cinema, and continues to be shown and studied to this day.
“Wavelength” was widely well-received by critics and audiences when it was first released in 1967. It was praised for its innovative approach to filmmaking, its exploration of the viewer’s perception of space and time, and its use of sound. It had a successful screenings at New York’s Film-makers Cinematheque, in European film festivals and also in a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art.
Many critics and scholars have called it a masterpiece of avant-garde cinema and a landmark work in the history of film. The film’s unique, extended long take and use of sound is seen as ground breaking, and it has been credited with anticipating many of the stylistic and thematic concerns of subsequent avant-garde and independent cinema. It also influenced many contemporary filmmakers and has been noted as a huge inspiration in the development of Structural Film.
While “Wavelength” has generally been well-received by critics and audiences, some reviewers have had more mixed or negative reactions to the film. In general, while many have found the film to be a groundbreaking and thought-provoking work, others have found it to be slow-moving, unengaging and difficult to understand. However, it should be noted that avant-garde works of art often elicit polarized reactions as they tend to challenge traditional notions of art and representation and are not easily accessible to a general audience.
My take: R.I.P. Michael Snow. Once upon a time, I had a gig as a part-time Security Officer at the National Gallery in Ottawa, Ontario. I remember studying Michael Snow’s Venetian Blind with bemusement and wondered why he didn’t use a greater depth of field.
Currently there are links to these scripts, with more being added weekly
All The Old Knives (Amazon Studios)
Amsterdam (20th Century Studios)
Argentina, 1985 (Amazon Studios)
Armageddon Time (Focus Features)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures)
The Batman (Warner Bros.)
Bones and All (United Artists)
Catherine Called Birdy (Amazon Studios)
Emergency (Amazon Studios)
Empire of Light (Searchlight Pictures)
The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)
The Good Nurse (Netflix)
Lady Chatterly’s Lover (Netflix)
Living (Sony Classics)
Master (Amazon Studios)
The Menu (Searchlight Pictures)
My Policeman (Amazon Studios)
Nanny (Amazon Studios)
Nope (Universal Pictures)
The Northman (Focus Features)
Pinocchio (Netflix)
She Said (Universal Studios)
The Son (Sony Classics)
Tár (Focus Features)
Thirteen Lives (Amazon Studios)
Three Thousand Years of Longing (United Artists)
Till (United Artists)
White Noise (Netflix)
The Woman King (TriStar Pictures)
Women Talking (United Artists)
Scott says:
“Reading movie screenplays is critical to your development as a screenwriter. Along with watching movies and writing pages, it is a fundamental practice you should put into place. Make it a goal to read at least one movie script per week.”
My take: I will be doing a scene-by-scene breakdown of “Glass Onion.” I’ve done “Palm Springs” previously and can attest that the exercise is very valuable. For bonus insight, I also compare the script with the film and note where extensive changes have been made. So interesting!
He posits how AI was used in the workflow makes an interesting case study of how these types of tools can help filmmakers create movies. ChatGPT was utilized to not only generate some ideas for a short film, but to also write the script, create a shot list, and in essence direct the film.
“With the help of ChatGPT of OpenAI, we were able to not only get it to write us a full script, but also have it direct us in the production of this short film. We were able to ask ChatGPT to give us a full shot list, suggest specific instructions for the Director of Photography and camera operators (choice of camera lenses, camera movements and lighting requirements), recommend wardrobe preferences, and even give us specific prompts to let Dall-E 2 create a full storyboard.”
My take: Looking past the quality of this one film, AI opens up limitless questions. For instance: What are the legal ramifications? What does it mean when everyone can issue prompts for their own personal movies? What happens to the human race if we in effect outsource dreaming to technology?
To celebrate the holiday season, Santa has collected a sack of scripts for your reading pleasure!
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for films, television, and other visual media. Screenwriters are responsible for creating the dialogue, plot, and characters for a film or television show. Screenwriting can be a challenging and rewarding career, but it can also be highly competitive. Successful screenwriters often have a strong understanding of storytelling, character development, and the structure of films and television shows, as well as excellent writing skills and the ability to collaborate with others.
They also have to network, constantly promote themselves and be very, very lucky.
The Black List is an annual compilation of the most popular unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, as determined by a survey of film industry executives. The list is compiled by Franklin Leonard, a former development executive at Warner Bros., and is announced every year in December.
Each year, a group of over 250 film industry executives are invited to participate in the survey, in which they are asked to identify the best unproduced screenplays that they have read in the past year. The screenplays are ranked based on the number of votes they receive, and the top screenplays are included on the Black List.
They list Originals (spec scripts) and Stunts (based on existing IP for entertainment purposes only.) For instance, this stunt script will appeal to fans of SNL and Die Hard: https://www.ericmoyer.com/dielaughing.pdf
My take: reviewing these log lines, pitch decks and scripts is a great education. I really enjoyed Die Laughing — it would make a great group read!
The fountain of youth is a spring that is said to restore the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. This idea has been mentioned in many different cultures throughout history, often as a symbol of eternal youth and rejuvenation. In some stories, the fountain is guarded by a powerful being, such as a nymph or a fairy, and must be sought out by brave adventurers. Despite many people searching for the fountain throughout history, it has never been found and is generally considered to be a mythical concept.
“To make an age-altering AI tool that was ready for the demands of Hollywood and flexible enough to work on moving footage or shots where an actor isn’t always looking directly at the camera, Disney’s researchers, as detailed in a recently published paper, first created a database of thousands of randomly generated synthetic faces. Existing machine learning aging tools were then used to age and de-age these thousands of non-existent test subjects, and those results were then used to train a new neural network called FRAN (face re-aging network). When FRAN is fed an input headshot, instead of generating an altered headshot, it predicts what parts of the face would be altered by age, such as the addition or removal of wrinkles, and those results are then layered over the original face as an extra channel of added visual information. This approach accurately preserves the performer’s appearance and identity, even when their head is moving, when their face is looking around, or when the lighting conditions in a shot change over time. It also allows the AI generated changes to be adjusted and tweaked by an artist, which is an important part of VFX work: making the alterations perfectly blend back into a shot so the changes are invisible to an audience.”
At five seconds per frame, FRAN can age or de-age one minute of footage in two hours.
Shot and projected at 16 frames per second, this footage has had its original frame rate restored, stabilized, upscaled to 240 fps at 4K, colourized and the faces enhanced with AI and finally output at 60 fps.
Dennis details his process in the first four and a half minutes of the film and categorically states, “This is enhanced material and is not historically accurate.”
Nevertheless, the films are a fantastic view into the past. Travel back in time to France, England and Egypt, among other countries. The motion smoothing does impart a different feeling to the footage than the jerky black and white aesthetic we normally associate with old newsreels.
My take: for me, the best shot, at 13:44, is “Panorama of the Golden Horn, Turkey, Istanbul” because it’s one of the few shots that is truly “cinematic” imho. All the other shots are filmed from a tripod and therefore static. This shot is also on a tripod but because we’re on a boat the effect is to dolly to the right, resulting in magical movement with very pleasing foreground, middle ground and background action.
Prahl says: “Nicole Fugere is probably the least-remembered of the live-action Wednesdays, taking on the role just a few years after Ricci’s version, and it also was Fugere’s last acting role. She appeared in the 1998 made-for-TV movie ‘Addams Family Reunion‘ and its one-season sitcom, ‘The New Addams Family.'”
My take: We loved Netflix’s Wednesday! I thought the colour grading was fantastic: the whites were tinged with blue and yet the skin tones and artificial light sources were a very warm yellow. Still trying to figure out how much was done on set and how much in post.
The 2004 comedy was made for only $400,000 but went on to gross $46.1 million at the box office.
Gregory elaborates:
“Speaking to Stuff about his ‘dynamite’ career, Heder confirmed he was paid only $1,000 ‘initially’. As we all know, Napoleon Dynamite is firmly cemented in pop culture and has clearly raked in millions since it was unleashed into the universe. Heder was able to renegotiate his deal and got a cut of the profits. Heder explained: ‘They went a little bit higher.'”
The cult film was based on a film school assignment by Jarod Hess in 2022:
My take: if the budget was truly $400,000, I think $1,000 for the lead was very low. However, if the cash budget was, say, one quarter of that, $1,000 starts to look reasonable. Sometimes shorts do lead to bigger things.
