Clik here to view.
Where Peter Jackson stands right now on high frame rate cinema
When I saw The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies last week, it was projected at the traditional, but not original, 24fps. Just saw every other frame of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, now...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Richard Geddes from Terracotta on the new Classic Kung Fu label
I’m a big fan of kung fu movies so, despite having some reservations about their first release, I remain very excited about Terracotta’s new Classic Kung Fu imprint. I was keen to know more about the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John Fusco on Marco Polo, Netflix and the Crouching Tiger sequel
The creator of Netflix’s new Marco Polo series is John Fusco, screenwriter of Young Guns, lover of wuxia, martial artist and trekking adventurer in his own right. We had a chat about the show, about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rob Marshall on why She’ll Be Back was cut from Into the Woods, and a clip...
Updated March 2nd, 2015. There’s now an excerpt from She’ll Be Back in a video player at the bottom of the story. Adapting Stephen Sondheim‘s stage musical Into the Woods for the screen was not an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exploring the aesthetic of Exodus: Gods and Kings, Arthur Max and Ridley Scott
Arthur Max has worked very closely with Ridley Scott, designing almost all of his projects since GI Jane. On the occasion of their collaboration on Exodus: Gods and Kings, I sat down with Max to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arthur Max on The Martian, Prometheus 1 and 2, Blade Runner 2 and more
When I sat down with Arthur Max to talk about his work on Ridley Scott‘s Exodus: Gods and Kings, we also took some detours into other discussions. Not only did we chat a little about Scott’s planned...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Taken 3’s Olivier Megaton on the theory and practicality of action cinema
If we’re being pedantic about it, almost all cinema is action cinema of some degree or another. Perhaps not Derek Jarman’s Blue. But there are action movies too, where action could get a capital A....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Marc Platt on Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim’s Company and Steven...
Marc Platt has experience in producing theatre, in producing film, even in pulling the strings from the top of movie studios. He’s been in London to support the UK release of Into the Woods, and I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A masterclass in musicals from Into the Woods’ Rob Marshall and John DeLuca
After 27 years and at least a half dozen dead ends, there is finally a big screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine‘s Into the Woods. We have director Rob Marshall to thank for this, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The man behind The Projection List
When The Projection List launched towards the end of last week, it made quite a lot of noise amongst film bloggers and journalists. In effect, it’s a very simple website, offering release dates for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dietrich Brüggemann’s masterclass on the careful compositions of Stations of...
There are very few edits in Dietrich Brüggemann‘s feature film, Stations of the Cross, and even fewer camera movements. Instead, this film uses careful pictorial composition and design to bring...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Matthew Vaughn on the political, satirical Kingsman: The Secret Service
KIngsman: The Secret Service was first manifest as a comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, though Matthew Vaughn, the co-writer and director of the feature film adaptation, was involved from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Jim Henson Company’s Halle Stanford on Doozers, responsibility and gender...
Very few people ever left their mark on television the way Jim Henson did. The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street are dazzling achievements, blending deep, witty characterisations and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Katharine Isabelle on Torment, filmmaking adventures and a woman’s POV in horror
Jordan Barker‘s Torment has been released on DVD in the UK this week, but there’s a fairly good chance this is the first you’re hearing of it. Like many other low-budget horror films and thrillers, it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Disney movie masterclass from Big Hero 6 director Don Hall
Animated feature films do not come together quickly and require a lot of dedicated artists to pull their weight. It all starts with the core idea, which might come from inside a single mind, but will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A character animation masterclass with Big Hero 6 and Disney’s Zach Parrish
For decades now, Walt Disney Animation Studios have been fostering wave after wave of excellent character animation talent. For their current picture, Big Hero 6, Zach Parrish was promoted to Head of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Bobby George taught Johnny Depp how to swear in Cockney
As part of this year’s Comic Relief fundraising campaign, the BBC will be airing a pro-celebrity darts tournament. To me, that’s TV catnip and I won’t miss a second of it. And so I admit it, I leapt at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An animation masterclass with Patrick Osborne, director of Disney’s Feast
Last weekend, Patrick Osborne‘s Feast won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. This put a well-earned bow on top of a very successful awards season for Osborne and the movie. But better still,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Peter Ferdinando on corrupt cops, keeping his acting organic and Hyena
Director Gerard Johnson and actor Peter Ferdinando are cousins who have developed an even closer creative working relationship. Each of Johnson’s feature films is a very tightly-framed portrait of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Trade reporter Jeff Sneider on how the other half lives
There are many places you can read about film online, and the majority are focused on breaking news. Amongst the most popular sites, there would seem to be two breeds in particular. There are the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Janty Yates on the costumes of Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Martian and...
Ridley Scott‘s films are almost forever being lauded for their design and aesthetics, with no small amount of thanks due to the director’s collaborators behind the camera. We already spoke to Arthur...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Darius Wolski on cinematography, Exodus: Gods and Kings and The Walk
We have now spoken to all three of Ridley Scott‘s chief visual collaborators on Exodus: Gods and Kings, not to mention several of his other recent and forthcoming movies. First of all there was Arthur...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Josh Lawson on the strangeness and structure of A Funny Kind of Love, aka The...
Josh Lawson’s debut feature film was called The Little Death when released back in his native Australia. When it reaches UK cinemas on Friday May 15th, it will be retitled A Funny Kind of Love. Its an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Romain Duris on The New Girlfriend, his dual role, Ceasefire and Un Petit Boulot
A couple of weeks back, Romain Duris stopped over in the UK to discuss his role as David and David’s role as Virginia in Francois Ozon‘s The New Girlfriend. It’s hard to discuss the film without...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brad Bird on why we’ll only ever see the ‘full’ Tomorrowland on IMAX screens
There are two significantly different versions of Tomorrowland on release this weekend. There’s the ‘traditional’ or ‘standard’ format, and there’s an IMAX version with its own aspect ratio. We can’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Discussing Moomins on the Riviera with Sophia Jansson, mogul of the Moomin...
The Moomins are like Mickey Mouse’s quiet Finnish cousin, figureheads of an international brand and globally recognisable stars of several animations and comic strips. They started life in a series of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof discuss Tomorrowland
Though director Brad Bird‘s filmography wouldn’t take you long to read out loud, it is already studded with shining examples of quality entertainment. From The Iron Giant to Pixar gems Ratatouille and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Hall on Big Hero 6, Disney technique and helping Moana
Today sees the UK release of Disney’s Big Hero 6 on DVD and Blu-ray. It remains an affecting, resonant film with some very accomplished animation, and like all of Disney’s modern work, a generous...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kevin Corrigan on Andrew Bujalski’s Results, good writing and the craft of...
A film doesn’t just take one step out into the world, it takes many. Andrew Bujalski‘s Results first inched into the light at Sundance, and now it’s about to stride into cinemas across the US and UK,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alex Ross Perry on Listen Up Philip, Winnie the Pooh and ‘mud and mustard’
On release across the UK from today, Listen Up Philip is the breakthrough film of writer-director Alex Ross Perry. The Philip of the title is played by Jason Schwartzman, is named in reference to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Director Peter Sohn on the painstaking detail of Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur
This morning, director Peter Sohn has premiered some footage from Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur at the Annecy animation festival. While there weren’t many complete sequences on show, these smaller clips –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John MacLean on the secrets of Slow West, and planning for a new heist movie
John MacLean‘s measured, oneiric western Slow West is mesmerising audiences in cinemas across the UK right now. I had a chat with MacLean on the phone, to talk about his processes and ambitions, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Song of the Sea masterclass from Cartoon Saloon’s Tomm Moore
The second full-length feature from Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon locks down their status as a world-class animation studio, standing shoulder to shoulder with Studio Ghibli, Disney and Pixar. Song of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Inside Out masterclass from director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera
Pixar Animation Studio’s truly extraordinary Inside Out is now playing in UK cinemas, finally arriving after some months of well-stoked anticipation. We first saw the film back in Cannes, where Craig...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A very close look at Everly with director Joe Lynch
Joe Lynch is one of the biggest surprises we’ve met in recent cinema. He made an impressive debut with 2007’s Wrong Turn 2, an overclocked engine of a film that most audiences would have been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The making and marketing of Hitman Agent 47 with producer Adrian Askarieh
In UK cinemas today is Hitman: Agent 47, a new feature film adaptation of the now-classic Hitman video games. A powerful driving force behind this and the previous Hitman movie was producer Adrian...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Director Wes Ball on the tribulations and tests of The Scorch Trials
The Scorch Trials is the second film in the Maze Runner trilogy, bridging last year’s first instalment and 2017’s finale, The Death Cure. Wes Ball made his feature directorial debut on Runner, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Joe Dante on the future of cinema, test screening technique and Burying the Ex
Joe Dante‘s latest is Burying the Ex, a cocktail of screwball comedy and zombie movie tropes. On the occasion of the film’s release, I had a chat with Dante about this film, his decades of filmmaking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The sounds of space – Harry Gregson-Williams on his score for The Martian
The music of Harry Gregson-Williams first caught my attention in 2005, on viewing Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. The sound world Gregson-Williams created for that film left such an impression that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ridley Scott on his shot choices, storyboarding, making The Martian and...
Ahead of the release of The Martian, which is now in cinemas across the UK and US, Ridley Scott and I had a brief chat about viral marketing, storyboarding, and about the director’s desire to never...
View Article
