The Digital Camera Company That Oscar Nominated Filmmakers Prefer
Last week saw the release of RoboCop, a slick and technologically savvy re-imagining of the 1987 classic directed by Paul Verhoeven. With it’s combination of 3D holographic video screens and large scale multi-tier HD video screens present in every environment, from the corporate computer labs that assemble RoboCop, to the cable news channel studios that cover his exploits, to the sleek design of RoboCop himself, the new movie acts as yet another reflection of ourselves –
USC’s Paul Debevec‘s Role in The Matrix, Avatar, Gravity & More
Paul Debevec can rightfully claim that he has helped, in small ways and large, create some of the most technologically groundbreaking films of the last two decades. Debevec leads the graphics laboratory at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, and is a research professor in their computer science department. He is one of the most influential academics in the film world today.
Debevec’s research and technology have been used in The Matrix
Gravity Shines Light on Future of 3D Filmmaking
How do you create a 3D film that’s truly worth the price of admission? If one lesson can be taken from James Cameron’s Avatar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, it’s that the extra dimension has to be crucial to the narrative itself. It’s not enough to wow people—you need a good story reason for the technology, which all of the above directors had in spades.
3D Serving the Story
Cuarón’s masterpiece took place in space,
One of the Greatest Cinematographers Ever: Gravity‘s Emmanuel Lubezki
He is one of the greatest cinematographers alive, the man directors call when what they want has never been attempted. He has shot films for a slew of legends (Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers), but it’s Emmanuel Lubezki's relationship with his childhood friend from Mexico, director Alfonso Cuarón, that’s truly one of the great partnerships in the history of the medium. If this sounds overblown,
What’s it Like to be a Science Advisor for Alfonso Cuarón’s Upcoming Gravity?
In Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming film Gravity (opening Oct. 4), George Clooney and Sandra Bullock play an astronaut and a medical engineer stranded in space.
Cuarón reportedly spent five years perfecting the look of scenes set in zero gravity, but figuring out how to film floating actors was just one of many technical details necessary for a movie set entirely in space. And one key player in the film’s accuracy never stepped foot on the set.
7 Films We’re Excited About Playing at Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) starts tonight, and the slate is packed with enticing projects. An Elmore Leonard adaptation (the last of his illustrious career, Life of Crime, based on his 1978 crime novel “The Switch”), Spike Jonze’s intriguing Her, and the hotly anticipated return to the director’s chair for Alfonso Cuaron in his space-disaster epic Gravity.
TIFF’s movie schedule is dense with films we’re really excited about,