“No Sesame. All Street. THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS is a filthy comedy set in the underbelly of Los Angeles where puppets and humans coexist. Two clashing detectives with a shared secret, one human (Melissa McCarthy) and one puppet, are forced to work together again to solve the brutal murders of the former cast of a beloved classic puppet television show.”
“Very quickly you could tell this was not a kid’s film. Parents were yelling at the projectionist to stop, covering their kids’ eyes and ears. It was dreadful. A few went out to get a staff member but she was overwhelmed and didn’t really know what to do. Some parents fled the cinema with their kids in tow. Eventually a senior staff member came in with a walkie talkie and he shut the screen off. To his credit he apologized and offered us complimentary movie passes to make up for it.”
Watch the trailer:
My take: back in the day, when I was a repertory cinema manager I used to order trailers for upcoming films and play them sight unseen before the nightly films. However, I think all the trailers were made for general audiences. Of course, who can forget The Tale of Peter Rabbit has Mr. McGregor who chases the rabbits with murderous intent, so maybe the horror film trailer is not so far off the mark after all.
Two interesting developments in the realm of auteur filmmaking to report today.
Firstly, Adam Epstein writes on Quartzy that Guillermo del Toro is “getting his own film label at Fox Searchlight, the studio where he directed this year’s best picture winner, The Shape of Water.”
“For the longest time, I’ve hoped to find an environment in which I can distribute, nurture and produce new voices in smart, inventive genre films and channel my own. In Fox Searchlight, I’ve found a real home for live action production — a partnership based on hard work, understanding of each other and, above all, faith.”
“According to French media outlet Capital.fr , EuropaCorp is in advanced talks to be purchased by none other than Netflix. There’s no terms to the agreement, and honestly, the report is very heavily leaning on unnamed sources, but the structure of the deal is clear. EuropaCorp, founded in 2000 by filmmaker Luc Besson and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, would be purchased by Netflix, with Besson to stay on to oversee the creative side of the company. The goal is to have the deal worked out by the summer.”
My take: once upon a time, this might be considered selling out. Now it’s monetizing your celebrity in exchange for a promise to keep moving in the same direction. It shows just how much money mini-majors and Netflix have to invest in building up their artistic credibility and aligning with like-minded creatives. That’s the short play — the long play is betting on which streaming service will rule them all.
“The new Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a ton of features that’ll appeal to that market — like a mini XLR connector, LUT support, and 4K recording at 60 fps — but it still has limitations that’ll keep the camera confined to a niche audience (which, to be fair, is kind of true of every camera). Basically, unless you’re a filmmaker who’s typically in control of lighting and the overall environment they’ll be filming in, this camera probably isn’t for you. It doesn’t have in-body stabilization, and the small sensor will struggle in low light and require adaptors to get the depth of field you’d get from full frame or even Super 35 cameras. That might not matter to some filmmakers, but it could be an issue for people on fast shoots or traveling to unfamiliar locations.”
“Veteran entertainment industry marketer Amorette Jones joined with technologist Matej Boda to build a blockchain-based platform for the film industry. Their new venture, Treeti, would seek to harness the disruptive power of blockchain to create a new way for filmmakers to distribute and monetize their creative projects.”
Treeti.com is short on details right now. Their promise to creators is:
“Our platform is designed to make it easier to distribute, market, and monetize your content with an engaged global audience. Sophisticated data connects you to fans who are most eager to discover and promote your content.”
My take: I so want this to take off. There is tons of potential in the blockchain. Unfortunately crypto-currencies are giving it a bad name right now.
“The 65-inch display sits flat and sturdy on your wall, like a normal television, until you’re done with it. With one push of a button, the display descends down into its stand, rolling around a coil like wrapping paper. The screen can roll up completely for safe storage and easy transportation, or you can leave a small section of it sticking up, at which point the screen automatically shifts into a widgetized, information-providing display with weather and sports scores. LG’s device has almost nothing in common with most TVs, other than its size. Functionally, it’s more like a really big tablet.”
Fully unrolled, the aspect ration is 16:9.
But wait, there’s more! It can roll down to 21:9, eliminating the black bars above and below widescreen movies.
My take: I want one! I would hang it upside down from the ceiling, so it would mimic a cinema screen of yore.
Get ready for an onslaught of new immersive video cameras.
Youtube launched the VR180 format last year and parent company Google has just partnered with Lenovo to make the world’s simplest point and shoot camera, the Mirage.
180 is the shorthand for VR180, which is the moniker for 3D VR180. The two front-facing lenses approximate your eyes, creating depth.
Lenovo has published the camera’s specs but the biggest drawback I see is the lack of a view screen. It truly is a point and shoot camera, although you could use the onboard WIFI to send the picture to your smartphone for viewing.
“VR180, like most things in VR right now, is the simple-but-usable version of what will someday be much cooler. It exists for a few reasons: because 360-degree video is actually really complicated to do well, because there aren’t many great ways to watch 360 video, and because even when they do watch super-immersive footage, viewers don’t tend to look around much. With VR180, your camera can look and operate more like a regular point-and-shoot, and viewers get a similarly immersive feel without having to constantly spin around.”
There’s also the YI Horizon VR180 coming soon and it includes a view screen, higher resolution and HDMI out, I believe. See Think Media‘s review:
My take: I’m a big fan of 180 and can’t wait to play around with both of these cameras. (Also, I wish the ‘VR’ label would just go away since this technology is not “virtual reality” but basically “reality”. Virtual Reality to me means computer-generated environments; video games are a prime example. 180 is as close as we’re going to come to reality other than actually being there.)
(Use your A, S, D and W keys to move in space if you don’t have a headset. I found the 1440 resolution provided the best balance between detail and smooth playback.)
His upcoming 3 year, 300 date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour will be his last; Elton (currently age 70) intends to quit touring to spend more time with his young children and husband.
My take: kudos to Elton John for embracing VR (and AR the previous day.) With over 700,000 views to date, the piano man shows us how to build buzz and steal the show.
A lot of my movies have been entries into the wonderful competitions that CineVic has held over the years: Scrapshots, Reel to Reel, One Shot Wonders, Film Slam, and Film Festivus.
My latest film, however, belongs in the “self-motivated” category. These are the films I’ve made because I needed to make them. Films like Alpbach, Thankful, Awoken, Red Tape and The Dolphins. In each case, I wanted to document a moment in time or explore a creative challenge.
The creative challenge behind The Dolphins was, “Can I make a fiction film on vacation in Mexico?” Not a travelogue, but something with a theme and no crew; just me and my DSLR.
So it’s kinda ironic that it has its premiere at a film competition. Bryan Skinner is hosting the Alan Smithee Awards and The Dolphins is entered.
Bryan is making Open for Submissions, “a comedic, feature-length mockumentary about a newly appointed film festival Executive Director who must overcome sabotage and betrayal in order to save his job and keep the screens alight.” He created the Alan Smithee Awards to source films for his feature.
Some will remember Kodak as the leading photography film company of the last millenium, toying with bankruptcy in 2012.
The good: Kodak has fully jumped into 360 VR with the Pixpro ORBIT360 4K:
“The KODAK PIXPRO Orbit360 4K VR Camera adopts a minimalist approach to an all-in-one 360 ̊ VR camera, with two fixed focus lenses housed by a futuristic camera body. Each curved lens is designed to work in tandem, to capture full 360 ̊ 4K Video and easily upload 360 ̊ videos and photos to social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube via the camera’s Smart Device App while on the go.”
The real news from CES 2018 however is that Kodak plans two new cameras for later this year. See 2:05 in this report from Digital Trends:
The bad: Kodak has stated that the price for its upcoming Super 8 camera will be in the $2,500 to $3,000 range, which is three to five times more than originally planned.
They also released some test footage:
To my eye this is soft and jittery. I much prefer the rock-steady footage from Logmar:
My take: On one hand, I’m really looking forward to Kodak’s 360 camera that can fold out into a 180 3D mode because I feel this format has the best chance to win the immersive VR stakes. On the other hand, shame on Kodak for jacking up the price of their inferior Super 8 camera.
