LAST NIGHT

Late night coming home from Rosebuds first ever school concert.

THE BLACK MAGIC

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the Apocalypse Now mash-up featured one of my all time favorite quotes about filmmaking. Francis Ford Coppola dreaming of the day when the professional (out of reach) world of filmmaking would fall away and technology would allow "a little fat girl from Ohio" to make a beautiful film with her fathers camera. There is no doubt the democratisation of filmmaking which Francis prophesied is well and truly with us. Some truly great cinema has been made with minimal 'off the shelf' equipment. I still get excited by a back-pack full of gear (camera, microphone, laptop) being all you really need to shoot and edit a film. With more recent cameras like the 5D greater aesthetic and quality control has been firmly placed in our hands and I'm in still in awe at whats possible with a DSLR's these days.

But today I was sent a box which I believe contains the next giant leap forward in breaking down the technology wall. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a very new and very exciting camera. It provides stunning, jaw dropping image quality (Pro-res or 2K uncompressed RAW) that is so far above and beyond what any DSLR can provide. It's built like a brick and everything that plugs in and out of it has professional connectors that are strong and reliable. No more mini-jacks and fiddly HDMI. It records onto removable SSD and this version comes with an EF (Canon) lens mount.

The Blackmagic doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. Infact it's really basic in it's design and feature set. Personally I find this refreshing. Anything it doesn't do, and it does have limitations, in my mind is instantly erased by how much it costs, a mere $3000(!). I've seen this camera up against the Alexa in the grading suite and it's comparative in look and feel. It's different of course, but not $70 000 different. And way, way different to say a 5Dmk3 which cost the same.

I'm planning on testing the camera from a directors perspective as apposed to a cinematographers. I'm not overly technical though. I'm sure there will be a ton of sites out there providing all the specs and pixel peeping tests that will do a way better job of the geek speak than me. I just want to know it's a reliable easy to use camera that provides good colour depth and gives me gradable detail in the highlights and in the shadows. I kind of already know the Blackmagic does this in spades. DOP John Brawley help test and develop the camera with Blackmagic Design and we used it a little on Puberty Blues. (John has a bunch of info and tests on his blog). But the camera we used then was a beta model and the one I'm holding below is the production one. It will soon to be flying off the shelves and into the hands and hearts of filmmakers around the world.

Duende

Last week I was in New Zealand casting for a commercial. I met a 17 year old girl who had the word 'Duende' freshly tattooed on her arm. Later, I googled the word and found it's meaning fascinating. A wonderful word which goes some way towards describing the indescribable. The elusive, beautiful darkness we are drawn to in music and film and all art in general. I never knew it even had a word to describe it.

Australian music artist Nick Cave discusses duende in his lecture pertaining to the nature of the love song (Vienna, 1999):

In his brilliant lecture entitled "The Theory and Function of Duende" Federico García Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. "All that has dark sound has duende", he says, "that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain." In contemporary rock music, the area in which I operate, music seems less inclined to have its soul, restless and quivering, the sadness that Lorca talks about. Excitement, often; anger, sometimes: but true sadness, rarely, Bob Dylan has always had it. Leonard Cohen deals specifically in it. It pursues Van Morrison like a black dog and though he tries to he cannot escape it.Tom Waits and Neil Young can summon it. It haunts Polly Harvey. My friends the Dirty Three have it by the bucket load. The band Spiritualized are excited by it. Tindersticks desperately want it, but all in all it would appear that duende is too fragile to survive the brutality of technology and the ever increasing acceleration of the music industry. Perhaps there is just no money in sadness, no dollars in duende. Sadness or duende needs space to breathe. Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care."

All love songs must contain duende. For the love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all but rather Hate Songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil - the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here - so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering. [via wiki]

THIS IS DAVID LYNCH

Sunday night and I'm writing a treatment for a commercial I'm pitching on. Which means a little procrastination... and Youtube gems like this.

HCB

Watched a wonderful documentary about legendary french photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and some other artists. I've transcribed part of one of the interviewers below because it's so beautifully relevant and to the point and it won't stop echoing around my head... While flicking through a book of his photographs, HCB pauses at what would arguably be one of his most famous photographs 'Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare' (1932). An image which describes perfectly his idea of 'the decisive moment'.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: I shot this one through... in between planks. I slipped the camera through but I couldn't see. That's why it's a bit blurry. The planks were like this, so only the lens went though. I couldn't see a thing through the viewer.

Interviewer: You couldn't see the man jumping?

HCB: No.

Interviewer: That was lucky.

HCB: It's always luck. It's luck that matters.You have to be receptive that's all. Like the relationship between things, It's a matter of chance.

If you want it, you get nothing. Just be receptive and it happens.

... Here it's geometry, the way it's framed. One shouldn't think about it but the basis is geometry. The divine proportion.

Intuitively, I know how it sits. But thats all I can say.

It's the physical rhythm, 1.618... 3.1416... The Golden Number. We know how it sits. A compass will tell you, but it's in the eye.

I go for form more than for light. Form comes first.

Light is like a perfume to me.

It's such a wonderful note on listening, watching and responding intuitively. Not being technical or academic or overly formulaic in an approach. But being present and open to what is actually happening in front of us at the time. Having your eyes wide open and aware of the things around you.

HCB was 92 in this docco. He died in 2004. The whole film is fascinating, but you can skip to 16 minutes 09 seconds for the gold!

BIG CHILL

Tonight while having a break from the edit we watched an episode of Australian Story about the very different lives led by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey who wrote Puberty Blues (a truthful account of their teenage exploits growing up in Cronulla in the 70's) The book was published when they were only 18 years old. Soon after the book was published they had a huge falling out and haven't really spoken since. While I understand that people can grow apart it seems strange that two friends that were so close and shared so much could not have spoken for over 30 years! Regardless I find their stories really fascinating. Especially Gabrielle who has had one incredible chapter after another.

I must say it breaks my heart to think that the Debbie and Sue in our version of Puberty Blues could ever 'break up' with each other. They are so beautiful onscreen together. And it's been an absolute pleasure as a director bringing it to life on screen.

SUNSHINE IN SHANGHAI

A few people sent this short film to me this week and I only just had a chance to watch it. It's a beautifully shot and constructed portrait of an American tv ad director as he travels to Shangai and makes an ad selling Mc Donalds to the Chinese. Scary how much of this is familiar to me and perhaps some others who may read these pages.

Makes me want to get back to Shanghai asap as well.

UPDATE: Bummer. For some reason this video has become 'private'. If I come across another link I'll replace it...

PUBERTY PRE 2

LOVE / HATE

Why am I the 30 millionth person (on YouTube) to hear and see Lana Del Ray. I didn't know anything about Lana Del Ray until yesterday when I read a newspaper article about why everyone in the world 'hates' her. So then I just had to go and see who and what people were all in a tiz about. And now, I'm obsessed with her... which just proves that old saying "The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about."

I don't really care if she has 'duck lips' or she's the daughter of some rich guy or she changed her name, or she's too pretty / ugly or can or can't sing. I know I'm being sold something that isn't what it appears (or is it?). It's been packaged well, the wrapping is nice and it makes a sweet and mysterious sound when you hold it up to your ear and shake it. Regardless, I think this song and the clip (which makes the song 'sound' even better) is stunningly beautiful.

Catching the big fish...

...with David Lynch.

FIRST LOVE

My photography / man crush on Joel Sternfeld deepens with the release of his new book First Pictures.

MAGNUM MYTHS

On the weekend I watched this wonderful hour long docco about the Magnum photographers agency. I love these guys (who doesn't?), apart from producing incredible work I think most the photographers possess special magical powers. Watch in the opening sequence how Martin Parr approaches some elderly women on the street, where one would imagine a group like this would be upset with a stranger coming up and taking close-up photos of them, Martin seems to have them under a spell from the second he takes the first frame. Amazing. Similarly Larry Towell (at around 4mins 30 secs), take photos of Mennonite farmers, the amazing thing here is seeing the footage that the documentary crew shoots, which is great, but the 'photo' Tony shoots of essentially the same scene is so incredibly beautiful, it's like it was taken at a totally different time and place. Magic!

I love watching this process (some more of it here), it's like watching a type of alchemy take place before your eyes.

Spoiler Alert: Special appearance by Henri Cartier-Bresson in the final sequence. Giving the film a poetic and playful climax as only H C-B could.

BAD POINT OF VIEW

As I'm deep in the heart of watching Series 4 right now, I loved stumbling across this fan cut montage of a lot of the POV shots from Breaking Bad. I never realised this type of camera positioning was such a recurring beat throughout the show. But it's reminded me it's definitely one of the defining elements of the shows visual style.

via The Worlds Best Ever

(FAMILY) ROAD TRIPPIN'

Back from 3500kms of family road trip fun. Xmas good. New Years good. Country air, ocean air, afternoon naps and eating and drinking way to much with family and friends.

"Are we there yet... Are we there yet...?"

Dragonslayer

Scratch this off my 'to-do' list from below... Watched a screener of Dragonslayer the other night. A vérité documentary about 'free spirited' skateboarder Josh 'Screech' Sandoval. The film creates a cinematic portrait so rough and ready, yet so pure and intimate. To be honest, it's the sort of film that makes me want to give up film making altogether because it's the kind I have always wanted to make, and here it is, made. Well not quite... but it's a film that both inspires me and frustrates me in the best possible ways.

The other thing that Dragonslayer does well is give you incredible access into a very 'specific world'. I've seen many 'skate films' and films with skateboarders as characters, but none have given this kind of access into the lifestyles of this subcultures most hard-core players.

It's such a beautifully poetic and fucked up punk of a film.