Posted on July 31, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Brendan Gleeson gives a magnificent performance as a warm-hearted priest in a sad and damaged world in “Calvary,” opening next week across the country. Here’s an exclusive peek behind the scenes, featuring Gleeson and Director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies Sister Rose Pacatte.
Next week, I will publish an interview with Gleeson and writer/director John Michael McDonagh.
Posted on July 30, 2014 at 3:59 pm
I have one copy of the wonderful soundtrack to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Levine in the subject line and tell me your favorite song of the summer. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only). I’ll pick a winner at random on August 7, 2014. Good luck!
Posted on July 26, 2014 at 10:04 pm
Day 2 of Comic-Con included: an interview with “Sharknado” and “Sharknado 2” screenwriter Thunder Levin, a buggy lunch with Boxtrolls, press events with the directors and casts of four films, and appearing on the Rotten Tomatoes panel, where each attendee was given a paddle with a ripe tomato on one side and a rotten tomato on the other. Members of the audience got up to make one-minute pitches on behalf or against the conventional wisdom (and the legendary RT tomato-meter). In true Comic-Con fashion, we spent much too much time talking about the Transformers, the best two comments of the night were made by kids, and a ninja from “Mortal Kombat” made an impassioned — if not ultimately persuasive — case in favor of “The Notebook.”
The 75th anniversary of Batman is a very big deal here, of course, with a great display of costumes and props from the Batman movies and appearances from the stars of the 60’s television series, Adam West and Burt Ward, to promote the release of the series on DVD. Even Starbucks got into the spirit.
Posted on July 25, 2014 at 11:08 am
Here’s what’s at Comic-Con, which means here’s what’s coming everywhere else: affordable 3D printers with hand-held scanners that transmit 360 degree images to your tablet or laptop instantly. GoPro cameras. Google glasses. Even Oculus Rift, the totally immersive virtual reality headset invented by a teenager and sold for $2 billion that is said to be a literal game-changer (its first commercial use will be in gaming) and could change everything from movies and television to medical imaging.
And, once again, even more fan involvement in everything, the line between creator and consumer of content almost dissolving completely. When you have your photo taken with an alien chasing you, you don’t just get a print-out. You are directed to a console so you can post it to all of your social media. The new Ships of the Line Star Trek calendar will have fan art as well as the official renderings. And the new USA television miniseries from “Heroes” helmer Tim Kring, “Dig,” starring Jason Isaacs, has a virtual scavenger hunt set up at Comic-Con. If you discover the rune-like symbol they have hidden all over the area, you post a photo to Snapchat with their hashtag, you can win a chance to chat with someone from the show. And you can see prequel footage and engage with the writers via Wattpad.
I attended a press event featuring the people behind the new “Madagascar” animated series spin-off, “Penguins of Madagascar,” including writers/directors Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith (reuniting for the first time since “Antz”), Tom McGrath (director of the earlier films and voice of Skipper) and John Malkovich, who provides the voice of the villain, an evil octopus. The film also features Benedict Cumberbatch as a dashing, James Bond-style secret agent. It takes place just after the end of the last film (not the television series), as the penguins need some rest after the excitement of the circus adventure. “What starts as a birthday romp turns into a world tour.” Like the Bond films, they wanted to have a series of exciting locations.
McGrath says he always envisioned Robert Stack as the voice of Skipper, and tries to channel him when he performs the part. I asked Malkovich what was fun about playing a bad guy. He said that “this one is quite fun because he seems happy, he’s lazy, not particularly profound or remorseful, and that’s always a pleasure.”
“Dig” looks very impressive, and the chase scenes they showed us from the first episode really highlighted the locations in Jerusalem. (They will continue filming in New Mexico.) Isaac said he took the part because “I get to run around and pretend to be cooler, tougher, sexier, and smarter than I am.” Anne Heche plays his boss (and sometimes more). “We wanted to make it cinematic, multi-layered, epic,” said the cinematographer. They used a 90-year-old lens to “embrace the golden light” in Jerusalem, and an up-to-the-minute lens for the “calmer, cooler, beautifully crisp” light of Norway to achieve the maximum contrast. Because it is a limited “event” series, they know where it is going to end from the beginning, no “art of the stall.” They warned us that no one in the series is what he or she seems and that we should “look out for the color red,” which is almost another character in the story.
Posted on July 19, 2014 at 8:00 am
One of my favorite stops on our tour of LAIKA Studios to see the sets for “The Boxtrolls” was our visit with Georgina Hayns, Creative Supervisor for Puppet Fabrication. Is that the coolest job title ever or what?
She described the world of the film as “fantasy Dickensian.” They began with silhouettes of the era, then a maquette (model) style guide, then animation. The characters all have skeleton armatures inside, with ball and socket, hinge, and swivel joints, just like a human. And other parts are in motion as well. ” Snatch has a big belly and it has to move.” All the characters have to be able to shift shape and weight as they walk, dance, or reach.
For faces, they begin with clay and the characters with limited emotions can be done mechanically (with animators using their fingers to adjust the mouths, cheeks, and eyes). But for the main characters and those showing a range of expressions they have a “library” of replacement faces numbering from hundreds to thousands.
She said that when she first saw the images of the Box Troll characters, she was initially excited to think about all of the mechanics they could hide inside those spacious boxes. But then it turns out that their heads, legs, and arms retract, “so all our space is gone” and they had to find some other way to build in all of the functionality they needed. “Every aspect of the figures has to be lockdown or animatable.”
To create the look of the costumes, they took inspiration from the gorgeously imaginative Ballet Russe. The Red Hats are the bad guys. For the embroidery, they used a sewing machine set to the tiny 1/5 scale. “In a close-up, you have to see the detail,” she told us. “We’re all about cheating the eye.”
For the ballroom sequence, they were inspired by “Gone With the Wind.” They said, “Let’s do hoops!” To create the effect they needed, “the frill is wired.”
The magnificent coiffures in the ballroom scene were made from hemp. “We go to town on our basket-weaving for the hair.”
An army of specialists work on the puppets, including engineers, seamstresses, jewelers, miniature hair people, and armature experts. Some of them have surprising backgrounds. “We have a ceramicist doing hair and a philosophy major doing armatures.” There are 185 puppets, with the most for the two main characters: 12-65 Snatches and 25 Eggs. It took about six months to make the first one for each of them. “And they break a lot, so we have puppet ER.”
