OLD SCHOOL, NEW SCHOOL. MANY VISIONS, ONE VOICE.

A terrific documentary....with a cast of brilliant minds
Better than a $2,500 creativity workshop..


Steven Fischer, a two-time Emmy nominated documentary filmmaker, is traveling the United States in search of meaningful conversations with master storytellers.

OSNS collects intimate conversations between Fischer and master storytellers from all disciplines (dance, music, literature, cinema, etc.) into a cinematic study that explores how an artist can reach his full creative potential. The conversations center on three major themes: how to find your own voice, taking risks, and defining success in the arts. These accomplished artists offer engaging insights and generous wisdom, sharing a lifetime of real-life lessons learned about the essential matters every serious storyteller wants and needs to ponder.

The incisive on-screen questions by Steve Fischer and the revealing answers from the cast of brilliant minds participating in the documentary engage any viewer in a participatory way. The answers reveal an insight of their creativity process as individuals and they become the master advice to anybody who is searching their creative path and probably life purpose.

Although OLD SCHOOL, NEW SCHOOL is still a work in progress, the message becomes very personal to the audience and after the editing process is done, the sequential inter-cutting of questions & answers could become an anticipatory progression to a climax. There is a final answer to achieve your goals? There is a golden key or a template?. Or taking risks while you are trying to succeed is the answer?.

FEATURING:

WILLIAM FRAKER, ASC - six-time Oscar nominated cinematographer of "Rosemary's Baby", "Bullitt", "War Games", "The Freshman". Select ON-DEMAND to watch a portion of the interview with Mr. Fraker.

EMANUEL AZENBERG - Tony Award winning Broadway producer of "Rent", "Brighton Beach Memoirs", "Biloxi Blues", "Long Day's Journey Into Night".

BEN JONES - actor "The Wonderful World of Disney", "As the World Turns", "The Daily Show", most recognized as Cooter from "The Dukes of Hazzard".

KIRSTIE SIMSON - Britain's celebrated dance artist. Simson teaches and performs throughout Europe, Asia, and North America.

JOHN BAILEY, ASC - Legendary Hollywood cinematographer of "American Gigolo", "The Producers", "In the Line of Fire", and "He's Just Not That Into You". Select ON-DEMAND to watch a portion of the interview with Mr. Bailey.

JAMES RAGAN - acclaimed poet and former head of USC's Professional Writing Program.

SAM McCREADY - renowned Yeats scholar and playwright. Former teacher of Liam Neeson, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Spacey.

OLD SCHOOL, NEW SCHOOL, marketing and distribution strategy for completion funds seems more altruistic than solely commercial. At key presentations, the original interviewees are invited for a Q&A talk and in their absence another brilliant guest panel is invited for the Q&A talk to dissect creativity and other issues from own their perspective. All panels are composed by high caliber creative people at the top of their totem pole providing fantastic inside vision of the creative process. The screening and the Q&A portion is a motivational and educational evening for personal enrichment. I would summarize it as better than any $2500 creative workshop offered often around Hollywood or New York City.

The last screening of OLD SCHOOL, NEW SCHOOL to which I was fortunate to attend was organized by Hollywood Shorts, Kimberley Browning. The Q& A panel was a chuck full of creative wisdom and experience composed by Brett Pasel (author Mommies who Drink), Mark Goffman (producer Law & Order: SVU), Steve Melendez (producer The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe; Peanuts, Garfield), Mike Polcino (director The Simpsons, Family Guy) and moderated by Steve Fischer.
Steven Fischer conferencing at
Bill Melendez Productions

KODAK EVENTS AT LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL

Emmy®-winner Robbie Greenberg, ASC shared his experiences at the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF), which showcases new American and international cinema. Greenberg offered his insights into the artistry and technology of his craft as he showed and discusses his work from a career that spans over 30 years. The festival, now in its 15th year, ran June 18-28 at venues in and around Westwood Village.
Michael Houser, Kodak's Account Manger of Entertainment Imaging, moderated the presentation and Q&A. Houser serves as Kodak's liaison for the major studios and independent filmmakers acquiring film stock. Houser relationship with Hollywood top cinematographers and his awareness of their production needs made him the right choice for the conversation with Robbie Greenberg.

Robbie Greenberg has won two consecutive Emmy® Awards for his work on Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and Winchell, as well as three additional nominations for Warm Springs, Iron Jawed Angels and James Dean. His work on four of these telefilms also earned him American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Awards. Greenberg's extensive credits include The Milagro Beanfield War, Free Willy, Fools Rush In, Save the Last Dance, and Wild Hogs.

After a brief introduction by Houser, Greenberg was received with a thundering applause by the audience. The attending audience consisted of a mixed bag of festival goers, film school students, camera department professionals and first time filmmakers.

The afternoon program consisted of a 10 minutes clip screening of some of his award winning films followed by a candid conversation with Houser and a Q & A with the audience. A note worth to mention was that the screening was projected on film stock. The quality condition of the three prints screened allowed the audience to evaluate the sharpness, color rendering and forgiving latitude of the Kodak negatives used by Greenberg in these three different genres.

The first clip presented was The Milagro Beanfield War, a compelling pastoral social rights issue drama directed by Robert Redford. The mesmerizing screening focused into the almost constant magic hour landscape photography captured by Greenberg, who highlighted the storyline with a surreal multicolor glow and a naturalistic mountain ambient light.

The audience was stunned by the emotive beauty of the framing, composition and photography of the film and made many questions ranging from the relationship between cinematographer and director, camera placement and actor blocking, choice of film stock, lenses and aspect ratio, production design as complementary to cinematography and, of course, Greenberg's working relationship with Robert Redford.

The second clip was Winchell, a made for TV biopic spanning several decades. In order to emphasize the different periods of Winchell's saga, Greenberg lit the many scenes with the proper elements of the different eras. As an example, to photograph Winchell's youth scenes in new York's lower East Side (at Paramount lot), he re-styled a textured lighting plot with deep shadows reminiscent of The Godfather's youth scenes. "The intent was to be able to span the many decades of Winchell's life and to keep each period unique". Greenberg also recreated and mixed stock footage with the actors, offering seamless black and white newsreel style photography.

At other moments, when Winchell is at the top of his game as the hottest journalist in town adulated by politicians and the stars of the moment, Greenberg uses a very sharp and glossy photography to show the decadence of the era.

The last clip presented was the feature crime story Even Money where the narrative describes the lives of three otherwise unconnected people and their destructive addiction to gambling. Here, Greenberg lit each people world's completely different to the other. Each character has it own "signature" lighting trough the storyline that is complementary to their personality, shortcomings and destructive behavior.

Other events organized by the festival also include Kodak Speed Dating, which offers session participants the opportunity to talk one on one with industry professionals, and Kodak Fast Track, an intensive film financing market that connects filmmakers seeking funding and financiers, production companies and other high-level industry professionals who can provide assistance.
Previous Fast Track projects include Amreeka, Frozen River, Kabluey, Four Sheets to the Wind, Ira and Abby and After Innocence. "We're thrilled that the innovative filmmakers who are exhibiting their work here at LAFF continue to create their vision on film," says Peter Boyce, Kodak's general manager of North and South America. "Our goal is to listen, and continue providing the highest-quality tools that filmmakers want. We are committed to bringing the best products and services to the creative community, so they don't have to make compromises at any stage of the filmmaking process." Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division is the world-class leader in providing film, digital and hybrid motion imaging products, services and technology for the entertainment industry. For more information, visit www.kodak.com/go/motion.

HD EXPO - NEW YORK CITY

September 17, 2009-New York, NY
November 4-5, 2009-Los Angeles, CA

THE GREAT DAYLIGHT MONITOR SHOOTOUT

Camera Support a designer and provider of crane, rail and moving camera platforms for the film and high definition industry and a Stedicam rental house in Burbank hosted yesterday The Great Daylight Monitor Shootout.

The public at the event

A "rotisserie" was constructed with speed rails to hold 14 different new daylight monitors available for Steadicam and other flying rigs. There were 14 clips and a live camera feed. To demonstrate the features of the monitors the rotisserie could be rotate 90 degrees to position the monitors from horizontal to vertical. Several of the manufacturers were present to answer any questions about the features and price of the monitors.
The "rotisserie" with daylight viewing monitors for close evaluation

Steadicam operators checking features

Gaylen Nebeker of Nebtek answering questions

Some of the companies who participated in the Daylight Monitors Shootout were, Nebtek, Inc who showcased three monitors namely, the Blackbird Sunlight Viewable 6.5" Screen Monitor and the Solar 7" HD and HDS Sunlight Viewable TFT LCD Monitors. These monitors offered a superb color rendering and definition at a glance at different viewing anglers under the direct afternoon sun. Another practical accessory showcased in their booth was the CW-5HD HD Wireless Transmitter and Receiver along a with bracket to handheld the monitors. Pretty nifty!

Transvideo the premier state of the art electronic company for the film industry was showcasing couple of monitors of their flagship series, The Rainbow Series, a 5" daylight viewable monitor with a outstanding amount of features and the choice of many Steadicam operators. The monitors offered at glance easy viewing of the image and color at several angles, along with an array of many necessary adjustment and features such as underscan, overscan, vectorsope, waveform, histogram, blue check, gamma, zoom, 4.3, 16:9 and 2.35:1 ratios and much more. Also they had available many accessories necessary to the displays such as a 6" Night and Sun Hood, a Spirit level, a raincover and a wireless handheld bracket to name some.

Bernie Keach of Marshall Electronics

The largest company in the shootout was Marshall Electronics, a veteran manufacturer in the broadcasting industry. The quality of their outdoor viewing monitors is outstanding with an larger array of sizes to choose from the outdoor 6.5" TFT to the 15" TFT offering the technical characteristics and performance Marshall Electronics is known for. Their 6.5" and 7" portable camera-top field monitors are fully featured monitors with False Color and Peaking Filters with a variety of inputs and outputs, including 3G, HD and SDI and a variety of battery configurations.

Randy Gomez, CEO of Camera Support and
Tisha Matthews, camera operator

CINEGEAR EXPO 2009 WAS A BLOCKBUSTER!

CINEGEAR kicked off its 13th expo on Thursday June 4th with a big bang returning to its original stomping grounds, the Paramount Pictures Studio lot in Hollywood. The program started with the Film Series, a tribute to the Visual Art of Filmmaking which included the Student Short Film Competition, the Independent Short Film Competition, the Independent Feature Film Competition, and the new Documentary Film Competition.

CINEGEAR at Paramount, the place to network
and see the latest of the motion picture industry
(double click for detail)

An elliptical Airstar space lighting balloon
over a lower Manhattan street.
(double click for detail)

CINE GEAR opened its doors to the general public on Friday 5 at 4:00 pm and in matter of a few minutes the studio filled with attendees visiting the impressive exhibits on display. Among the companies exhibiting their products or services were: Creative Handbook, Pictorvision, Motion Picture Marine, Birns & Sawyer, Kodak, Airstar America, Nevada Film Office, Lensbaby, Carl Zeiss, Technocrane, Photo-Sonics , Mole Richardson, Society of Camera Operators, Schneider Optics, Fuji Film, Walter Klessen FX, Warner Bros, American Society of Cinematographers and many more.

The main venue for vendors exhibiting massive outdoor displays was the realistic exterior set of the lower Manhattan streets. The cavernous Stage 16 was the venue of choice for other companies like Panasonic, Filmtools, Rosco Labs, the UK Pavillion, Bron Kobold, Litepanel and Chimera to mention some of the participating companies.

Tom Hallman , Pictorvision and CINNERS President
along with Dave Arms, Aerial Operator and Technician showcasing
the new PictorFX 3D scanning and modeling system.


Creative Handbook, the # 1 entertainment resource
David Shapiro and team


PRESERVING THE FUTURE OF THE MOVING IMAGE, A PREMIERE SEMINAR AT CINEGEAR

The Premiere Seminars series started with Preserving the Future of the Moving Image held at the sold-out Sherry Lansing Theater and co-presented by the BSC, British Society of Cinematographers and the ASC, American Society of Cinematographers, moderated by Bob Fisher. The BSC panelists presented an evaluation comparing images produced with 18 different digital cameras and film stocks in Super 16 and Super 35 formats to provide an objective visual reference and factual information to help guide decisions about the choice of media for the production of narrative motion picture and television programs.
The evaluation included day and night, interior and exterior scenes and close-up shots that were produced at Pinewood Studios. The images are in the process of being taken through a state of the art post-production workflow for projection in both film and digital formats.

After an introduction of the members of panel by Bob Fisher, the President of the BSC, Sue Gibson presented the evaluation and workflow process supported by a video projection of several key images and footage taken in different settings and lighting situations by accredited members of the BSC. The evaluation presentation was followed by a Q&A with the participation of the inquisitive audience covering gray areas for some, such as format, image acquisition, proper workflow and global technical standardization.The BSC and ASC members of the panel responded with a unanimous voice about the proper way of utilizing the discussed cameras, being digital or film, as a unique tool for your specific job at hand. No digital camera supersedes a film stock reflex camera or vice-versa, they all just represent another tool in your cinematographer's bag . The immediacy and grain less images of the digital camera realm has brought the need of the comparison test implemented by the BSC and ASC members.

America, Europe and the world in general, looks up to the BSC and the ASC for their artistic, ethical and technical guidelines, thus creating the need of a coherent and bona fide technical reference to follow, rather than a subjective manufacturer sales sheet that provides marketing specs to their prospective clients as described by Michael Goi, ASC President.

Few moths ago, the ASC conducted a similar comparison test in conjunction with the Producers Guild Of America (PGA) spearheaded by Curtis Clark, ASC and Dave Stump, ASC, using the following cameras: Arri 435 (various Kodak film stocks, but primarily 5217), Arri D21, Panavision Genesis, Panasonic 3700, RED One, Sony F23 , Sony F35 and Thomson Viper and released its findings last Sunday, July 7 during Produced by Producers held at Sony Studios. (Upcoming posting)
Sue Gibson, BSC President and Michael Goi, ASC President

The BSC/ASC panel was integrated by Sue Gibson, BSC President, Joe Dunton BSC, John Daly BSC, Martin Hammond, ASC President Michael Goi, Steven Poster ASC, Richard Crudo ASC, and Nic Morris, BSC, Board of Governors. As a closing highlight, the panel discussed the preservation of the moving image for future generations, preceded by the presentation of a clip of a restored film and a Q&A.

Bob Fisher, Joe Dutton, BSC and Phil Meheux, BSC

CINEGEAR VP PARTY & AWARDS

The highlight of Friday night at CINEGEAR was the VIP reception sponsored by Fujifilm and hosted by Ross Matthews from The Tonight Show, where the Life Time Achievement, Anniversary and Film Competition Awards were handed out to their deserving recipients namely, Ed Phillips, President and CEO of Matthews Studio Equipment, Band Pro, Yellow Jacket, Society of Camera Operators (SOC) and the winning filmmakers of the competition.

Riffing on the blues, awards, gourmet delicacies and choice of
spirits kept all guests entertained. Karl Kresser and Juliane Grosso,
CINEGEAR organizers, making sure that all is up to par.

Daryn Okada, ASC (Ghost of Girlfriend's Past)
and Jeffrey Okun, VES Chair.(Last Samurai)

Shane Hurlbut, ASC (Terminator Salvation) and
Rodney Taylor, ASC (That Evening Sun)

Richard Crudo, ASC (My Sexiest Year) and
Kramer Morgantheau, ASC (Life on Mars)

Nancy Scheiber, ASC (Every Day) and a guest.

David Malhmann, SOC Events Chairman, Dan Kneece,
SOC President and Warren Yeager, SOC Treasurer,
celebrating the Fujifilm Award.

Victoria Adams and David Grober, producers of the award winning
Perfect Horizon, Motion Picture Marine mingling with friends.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 AT CINEGEAR

The activities started early on Saturday the 6th with several seminars, master classes, and presentations by key members of the industry. The vendor exhibit areas were crowded by the attending public inquiring about products and services. The site looked like a tribute to the choreography of a Busby Berkeley film with so much in-sync movement and functionality together under one roof. Sky high zooming towering cranes, moving dollies, up and down jibs, steadicams flying about, floating lighting balloons, camera cars, tingling lighting pattens and hundreds of people moving about sharing a common bond for motion picture production.


Two of the many outstanding seminars at CINEGEAR, I could attend were The Taking of Pelham 123, and A Dialogue with the BSC and ASC Cinematographers.

The Taking of Pelham 123 was moderated by Bob Fisher and presented a dissection of the anatomy of the remake of the original film and shooting styles of two directors of photography, the veteran master Owen Roizman, ASC and the younger and talented, Tobias Schliesser, ASC. Owen Roizman was the cinematographer of the original film directed by Joseph Sargent and Tobias Schliesser was the cinematographer of the remake helmed of Tony Scott.


I still remember the day when I saw the original film in a cramped Times Square theater, I was taken by the dynamic directorial pace, the motley crew cast of characters and the fluid cinematography that took place in such confining location. The action scenes inside New York City subway cars and tunnels of my neighborhood prompted to investigate how such action movies where made.


Tobias Schliesser ASC, Bob Fisher and Owen Roizman, ASC.

"It was a single Panavision camera shoot on Kodak 100 ASA negative stock on top of a dolly and I used anamorphic lenses. No storyboards, no special effects and I relied only on the available electrical power offered by the MTA (Manhattan Transit Authority). The film was pre-flashed at 20% with an optical printer and processed photochemically and I approved the dailies at the lab every day before coming to the underground set".

"I used the train overhead fluorescents and the tunnel tungsten illumination to my advantage coupled it with several inkys, tweenis, babys, juniors and 500 watts photofloods. Due to budget and insurance constraints, our electrical power was provided by the city and our lighting package was basic. For example, I used the car electrical out lets to fire our rigged 1oo watts inky fixtures bounced into dentist mirrors and the car available fluorescent overheads for the close ups and eye lighting".


In contrast, Tobias Schliesser ASC, lit the set for Tony Scott using the latest technology in fluorescent and tungsten lighting. The camera setup was a multi-camera setup or EFP style using Kodak 500T film stock on Panavision cameras tethered to a video village, covering every aspect of the performance while Tony Scott commanded the framing and moves via headset. Another big difference in the shooting style of the two films was the choice of lenses. Tobias Schliesser used Super 35 aspect ratio on faster Primo zooms and high speed primes lenses from his arsenal to capture the distinctive look that matches the fast pace of the edited storyline.

"I was there to make sure that the highly storyboarded and choreographed set was properly illuminated. We discussed every single move and lighting scheme prior our working day. Tony sketches very detailed storyboards and follow them as much as possible but I never stayed on the video village while the shooting, but in the middle of the action, close to the camera operators making constant lighting adjustments for such complicated coverage". The processing of the resulting exposed film was photochemical and scanned to a digital workflow for DI colorizing and other pertinent adjustments.


After the fantastic conversation with these three masters of their craft, I am looking forward again to sit in a dark theater to revisit the emotion I felt once for 90 minutes and watch the remake this classic New York City thriller.



Cinematography by Owen Roizman, ASC