Charles Mingus - Film Grants (OPM)

some hbo film's

THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE


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Rated R: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT

Running Time: 90 minutes

Genre: Drama

One of the most idolized pin-ups of all time, Bettie Page had a fresh, breezy appeal that
belied the pornographic content of her photos. Director Mary Harron ('American Psycho')
looks at Page through a new lens, revealing her traumatic youth and the ease with which
she assumed the role of sex goddess in often strange circumstances. Gretchen Mol stars as
the 1950s idol. Screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner. (R) (AC,GL)

Actors: GRETCHEN MOL, CHRIS BAUER, JARED HARRIS, SARAH PAULSON, CARA SEYMOUR, DAVID
STRATHAIRN, LILI TAYLOR, KEVIN CARROLL, JONATHAN WOODWARD, TARA SUBKOFF, MOLLY MOORE,
GREG AINSWORTH, JOHN BOYD, DAVID CALL, GEOFFREY CANTOR, ALEJANDRO CHABAN

Director(s): MARY HARRON

Richard Linklate some info

rRichard Linklater on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...
www.imdb.com/name/nm0000500/ - 34k - Jul 19, 2007

Richard Linklater - Filmography - Movies - New York TimesFrom All
Movie Guide: Self-taught writer/director Richard Linklater was among
the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American ...

When director Richard Linklater decided to cloak his sci-fi book-based movie, A Scanner Darkly, in a surreal look, he turned to computer genius Bob Sabiston. A team of more than 50 artists labored for over a year to turn the entire film from live action to animation. These stills of Winona Ryder show how technology turns people into cartoonish versions of themselves.

Through a 'Scanner' dazzlingly: Sci-fi brought to graphic life
Updated 8/2/2006 12:15 AM ET

July 17, 2007

By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY
Many Hollywood movies lean on special effects to pull off fantastical sequences.
But in the case of Richard Linklater's new film, A Scanner Darkly, the success of the project hinges on an animation technique that sounds like a scary medical procedure: interpolated rotoscoping.

Though some critics say Scanner, which has taken in $4.2 million in limited release, is a movie that only a cult-film fan could love, its style has been praised. The movie's rotoscoping "allows for the dazzling realization of set pieces that live action could not accommodate," Variety reviewer Justin Chang wrote.

The man who conjured up the technology responsible for turning Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder into visions from a graphic novel is a soft-spoken Texas software designer and filmmaker named Bob Sabiston.

"This is a huge jump for rotoscoping," Sabiston, 38, says. Scanner required nine months of tinkering to software he had created for the comparatively crude rotoscoped sequences in Linklater's 2001 film Waking Life. "I suppose this is now as sophisticated as tracing can get."

Technically, rotoscoping does involve drawing an exact duplicate of filmed sequence, one frame at a time. The first commercial use is credited to animator Max Fleischer, who patented the process in 1917 and used it in his Out of the Inkwell cartoons. Perhaps its most notable pop-culture touchstone is A-ha's 1985 music video Take on Me.

But that last effort retained rotoscoping's signature jerky look, the result of animators skipping frames to save time. In 1996, the workaholic Sabiston — back in college at MIT, his late-night computing jags earned him the nickname Cockroach Man — brought rotoscoping into the digital age by writing code that allowed a computer to guess, or interpolate, what those skipped images would look like. That ushered in the possibility of rotoscoping an entire feature film.

A Scanner Darkly comes courtesy of the visionary mind of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, whose works spawned Blade Runner and Minority Report.

The story is about an undercover cop (Reeves) who is asked to spy on a group of drug-addled friends, the result of which is a journey into destabilizing paranoia. It's a lucid foreshadowing of Dick's own demise, which family members attribute partly to drug use.

"It's all about questioning your reality," Linklater says. "Live action would have been cheesy."

For Isa Dick Hackett, the notion of her father's demons being played out in rotoscoped color quickly went from appalling to appealing.

"At first I thought the idea of a whole movie done in this graphic-novel form was preposterous," says Hackett, who recently visited the set of Nicolas Cage's Next, another film based on her father's work. "But we soon realized that because Scanner was semi-autobiographical, the film's technique was crucial for that feeling of being just a bit, well, off."

Downey, who like other actors agreed to work for scale, was intrigued by the thought of inhabiting the world of a Japanese manga.

"It's weird when Makeup goes, 'His hair's different from the last scene,' and they just go, "Oh, that's OK, we'll just erase that later,' " Downey says. "It's a great self-indulgence to see yourself as you really are, but then notice that your eyes are blue-green vs. their normal brown. Could you imagine what it'd be like if you could really rotoscope your life?"

Time-consuming, for one. More than 50 animators put in 500 hours for every one minute of screen time. Of the movie's $7 million budget, $5 million was spent in post-production.

Though Sabiston calls working on Scanner "a great experience," it's one that ended prematurely.

Producer Tommy Pallotta says that after "disagreements about schedules and size of staff," a reference to the film's workload and studio-enforced deadlines, Sabiston and his team left; a legal settlement prevents the parties from revealing details. Pallotta, who had licensed use of Sabiston's software, finished the project.

Sabiston says the end result is lacking: "My team made the trailer, theirs made the movie. The way the movie looks is related to the fact that I wasn't there."

Linklater simply calls Sabiston "a genius" and says he still considers him "a friend."

As a result of the falling-out, Sabiston reversed a longstanding ban on accepting commercial work and reluctantly agreed to use his rotoscoping software to animate Charles Schwab's "Talk to Chuck" ads. Why say yes to Schwab? "I hate ads," he says, but "I owed my artists employment."

Though there remains disagreement on what happened while making the film, Sabiston and the producers agree on its goal: to bring an adult audience to the largely kid-focused medium of animation.

"I'm always first in line to see whatever Pixar does, because of the technology, but, God, I hate those movies," Sabiston says.

"I read novels, I watch The Sopranos, I love Lars von Trier movies. And I think animation can be for adult minds.

"Animation is a fine art, and I'd like to see it used that way. Scanner is a perfect example of what can be done."

WAKING LIFE


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Rated R: ADULT CONTENT, ADULT LANGUAGE

Running Time: 100 minutes

Genre: Drama, Animation

"An appealing new work...that can legitimately be called innovative" (Variety). Richard Linklater's critically acclaimed animated film follows its protagonist through a haunting series of dreams in which he meets characters who discuss the great philosophical mysteries. "Four stars...the movie is like a cold shower of bracing, clarifying ideas" (Roger Ebert). With Wiley Wiggins, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Steven Soderbergh. (R) (AC,AL)

Actors: WILEY WIGGINS, JULIE DELPY, ETHAN HAWKE, STEVEN SODERBERGH, TIMOTHY (SPEED) LEVITCH, ADAM GOLDBERG, STEVE BRUDNIAK, JOHN CHRISTENSEN, CHARLES GUNNING, LOUIS MACKEY, NICKY KATT, PETER ATHERON

Director(s): RICHARD LINKLATER

A SCANNER DARKLY


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Rated R: NUDITY, ADULT LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT, VIOLENCE

Running Time: 100 minutes

Genre: Drama, Animation

Philip K. Dick's nightmarish vision of a drug-infested society in the not-so-distant future follows a federal agent's descent into hellish addiction. Filmed by director Richard Linklater and animated using a rotoscoping technique, the film stars Keanu Reeves as the operative who is deep under cover using a holographic outfit called a "scramble suit" to hide his identity. But losing his true identity is only part of his problem as he gets hooked on a new drug called Substance D that is causing an addiction epidemic. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane co-star. Written for the screen and directed by Richard Linklater; based on the novel by Philip K. Dick. (R) ()

Actors: KEANU REEVES, ROBERT DOWNEY, WOODY HARRELSON, WINONA RYDER, RORY COCHRANE

Director(s): RICHARD LINKLATER
A Scanner Darkly (2006)Anybody who has seen Richard Linklater's mind boggling WAKING LIFE will be instantly familiar (and comfortable) with the way SCANNER looks. ...
www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/ - 46k - Jul 19, 2007 - Cached - Similar pages
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BEFORE SUNSET


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Rated R: ADULT LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT

Running Time: 80 minutes

Genre: Drama, Romance

A young American man and a French woman who shared a brief but electrifying night of conversation and romance are reunited for a day in this heartfelt sequel to Before Sunrise. In the decade since his magical night with the lovely Celine (Delpy), Jesse Wallace (Hawke) has become a successful author. In a Paris bookstore to do a signing, Jesse is stunned to see Celine. Walking through the city with only a few hours to spare, they recall their memorable night, reveal why they never met as planned six months after it...and discuss their present relationships and how they've changed. Did they lose a chance for true love--or was their time just a moment of fancy in the lives of two young romantics? Written and directed by Richard Linklater. (R) (AC,AL)

Actors: ETHAN HAWKE, JULIE DELPY

Director(s): RICHARD LINKLATER

SUBURBIA


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Rated R: ADULT CONTENT, ADULT LANGUAGE, MILD VIOLENCE, NUDITY

Running Time: 121 minutes

Genre: Drama

A ragtag gang of slacker teens hangs around a parking lot one evening discussing life and awaiting the return of a successful high-school friend in this drama. Pony was a singer who suddenly shot to fame and fortune playing concert venues. Returning to his hometown for a show, Pony promises to meet up with the gang at their old stomping ground--a convenience-store parking lot. While pestering the Pakistani couple who run the shop, the group wastes time together conversing about their own dreams and aspirations beyond their suburban town of Burnfield. With Giovanni Ribisi, Steve Zahn, Amie Carey and Parker Posey. Written by Eric Bogosian, based on his play. Directed by Richard Linklater. (R) (AC,AL,MV,N)

Actors: PARKER POSEY, NICKY KATT, JAYCE BARTOK, STEVE ZAHN, AMIE CAREY

Director(s): RICHARD LINKLATER

TAPE


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Rated R: ADULT LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT

Running Time: 86 minutes

Genre: Drama

Former high-school friends meet in a motel room to settle an old score in this "just about perfect" (San Francisco Examiner) three-character drama directed by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Waking Life). Johnny (Robert Sean Leonard), a confident aspiring filmmaker, has arrived in Lansing, Michigan, to present his film at a festival. The far less successful Vince (Ethan Hawke), a sometime volunteer fireman, has invited Johnny to his room for what turns out to be a trap--Vince wants to extract from Johnny a confession of what really happened during a high-school encounter with Amy (Uma Thurman), Vince's former girlfriend. When Amy unwittingly joins the pair, different truths emerge in a shattering confrontation. Hawke displays "both physical and verbal acting mastery" (Roger Ebert). Written by Stephen Belber, from his play. (R) (AC,AL)

Actors: ETHAN HAWKE, ROBERT SEAN LEONARD, UMA THURMAN

Director(s): RICHARD LINKLATER

more BY CYNDI GREENING, ARIZONA, USA

OPM — The Number One Rule of Filmmaking

BY CYNDI GREENING, ARIZONA, USA — The number one rule of independent filmmaking is always use Other People's Money (OPM), preferably a studio's money or a distributor's money. How many times did I give that lecture? Don't use your credit cards. Don't use your family's money. Don't use your friends' money. Statistics say that it is almost certain that your film will not make money; that you'll lose your friends and alienate your family.

The students always argue with me during this lecture. They talk about Morgan Spurlock's film, SUPERSIZE ME. Some folks will talk about Kevin Smith's success with CLERKS. Occasionally, someone will remember the more obscure but equaly suprising Robert Townsend film, HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. They like to recall the miracle filmmaking stories, stories about the people who do just this sort of thing and end up with a wildly, financially-successful film. It's my job to remind them that there are THOUSANDS of filmmakers who follow that film financing path into a very dark tunnel. If a distributor or producer gets behind your film, chances are that they see an opportunity for financial success. Since they've made a whole lot more films than you, that's a good thing. If the money people don't get behind you, they may be doing you a favor in the long run. They may be saving you a lot of heartache and a lot of money. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get distributors to fund educational projects ahead of time. They want to see the finished product to know if the story hangs together because, well, let's be honest, it's students learning by doing. They're cautious about giving money to that sort of thing.

So, how did I end up in the rabbit hole that I did? Surely I know the rule about OPM. If there's anyone who knows this rule, it is me. When I told my filmmaking nephew that I was well over $80,000 on these two films and was probably going to go over $100,000 by the time they were done, I thought he was going to have a stroke. "Are you out of your mind?" Jason gasped. "You used your money? Is that why you sold your house?"

Well, there's nothing like being called on the carpet by someone half your age. And, if I wasn't feeling stupid before he started lecturing me, l surely got there within a few seconds. To add insult to injury, Pamela edited a short video piece on what it took to finance the two Zambian films. I think she should enter it in film festivals or send it to every university and college with a film program. I think they will find it quite educational, perhaps even amusing. Or not.

• Cyndi's Houses (quicktime)
• Cyndi's Houses (swf)

So, now, I've added a new portion to my lecture on OPM. So, if you decide it's a good idea to go to Africa to make two films (and encourage 18 faculty and students to come with you for the learning experience of a lifetime), make sure the OPM you get is waaaaay more than a small educational grant that only covers the flight for about a third of the crew. Unless you don't care if you anyone ever actually sees the films that you made.

Posted by Cyndi Greening at 12:46 PM Permalink

Film Grants (OPM)

ANIMATING ACTORS

July 17, 2007

Film Grants

July 01, 2007

July 17, 2007

Film Grants

OPM — The Number One Rule of Filmmaking