Film of The Day - 12.12.12

I decided to make a post every day on a film that reminds me of the events happening today or something related to my experience of the day. This is to do with one of my resolutions which I am starting today rather than on Monday or in New Year - a resolution to write a blogpost every day.

Today the Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his usual annual speech to the nation. It was broadcast live from the hall of Sover Federacii where the rest of the Parlament was listening to his speech.

I am not going to go on how many of things he said were true and how many were lies, and how his viewpoints are different from his actions. Actually, the last one is relevant.

Being a politician at the top, one learns how to reason and justify their actions even when they feel those actions are wrong. We don't know what actually Putin thinks and maybe he doesn't even justify the reasons for his idea of treating the Constitution the way he wants and allow such a serious miscalculation in election votes to make him President for two more times.

I want to remember of another politician today and the way he faced truth after he was retired. Those historic events were captured in the film Frost/Nixon (2008).

This film gives us a great way to understand the way people at the top make decisions. The drama of that interview being broadcast live to the whole nation, brings the sense of "immediate" sharing.

This film makes me think of what would happen if right now, while Putin speaks live, something happens and he says something completely truthful and new. But this is not an interview and there is no one to challenge him.

Here is trailer to Frost/Nixon, if you haven't seen it yet, watch it. Maybe next time you see a live broadcast - maybe it's another historic event taking place.

The Whole Era of Soviet Sci Fi is Over...

...as Boris Strugatsky died today.

Part of Strugatsky brothers tandem, he was one of the most influential sci-fi writers not only in the USSR but in the whole world. Born to the society fascinated with space he and his brother also touched on the Soviet and universal problems through philosophical prism.

His works can be known to you through the film of Andrei Tarkovky's Stalker.

But their sci-fi books are so fantastic that they deserve more and more films to be made.

Rest in Peace, Boris.

Sweetheart had Raindance Worldwide Premier!

Last Sunday our film Sweetheart that I directed, had its premier at Raindance Film Festival. Sweetheart was screened alongside other short films in the selection of Program 14 named "Thrillers".

The atmosphere at the festival was amazing, previously several days before the screening all the tickets were sold out so the organisers moved this selection to a bigger screening in Apollo Cinema. But couple of hours before the program started all tickets were sold out again. It was packe! People were queuing up to find seats. Every film was welcomed with a round of applauses.

Before the program started filmmakers could introduce the film and say couple of words to the audience:

Huge thanks to all the crew and cast who worked so hard on this film!

We shot film at the end of March 2012 and through making this film I met so many great people!


Here is a picture of the team at the Raindance:

You can read more about the film, its team, news and watch the trailer on Sweetheart's Website.
Also follow Sweetheart on twitter and facebook.

Lawless - my very informal view

Lawless is a new gangster-drama by Joan Hillcoat, director most known for The Road and The Proposition and his collaboration with Nick Cave.

Nick Cave wrote a script for this one as well - this time adapting Matt Bondurant's novel.

I haven't read the novel and these kind of films are usually not my cup of tea unless they are more about the drama rather than the time.

Reasons are, well, half of the time it is hard to understand what they are saying. And it's not just me being foreign and stuff. A lot of British people I talked to could not understand completely, of course they did, but not entirely.

Another reason - not being a person who grew up with the notion of this Prohibition era I can hardly sympathise it. When people were starving in the other countries it is hard to think about poor people not having alcohol and it just feels that like everyone was a baddy those times. The trick is to show that they are baddies with a human face or with very strong dramatic reasons for being baddies. Boardwalk Empire really succeeds with that. And Broadwalk Empre creates characters not out of the blew, of course it has hours and hours to show exposition. A feature-length film does not have this luxury and needs to dig into the story.

But still, a lot of the characters in the Lawless I am left not connecting too. Take the "villain" Guy Pearce. Why on earth is he so weird and so violent? What is it in for him? Why is he so persistent. The greatest way was to show that something bad happened to him or that he actually has his truth. But just being the force of evil is not enough. Besides he is not evil if you think of it - they are breaking the law, and he is enforcing it. In terms of a soldier mind, or a perfect cop or samurai - serving the law or master is matters of pride and dignity. In this case Guy Pearce's character's master is the government.

I am sure there are all these reasons in the book. But I found it difficult following it in the film and sympathising characters.

Acting-wise, everyone was amazing. The way the move, talk, creating the reality in the voice, smiles. From little performances of the Cricket guy to stunning Jessica Chastain and super-sincere performance by Shea LaBeouf. I am not going to talk about Tom Hardy. He is one of the best actors in his generation and I hope he is going to take up more roles like this, central and creating reality from scratch.

Technically-wise, it was beautifully shot and edited, great blocking and compositions. I had some problems with cutting in terms of continuity of movements. It was a stylistic choice but at some points it was taking me out of story. But who cares.

My favourite film of John Hillcoat is the The Raod and this hasn't changed after Lawless came out.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We are at Raindance!

Last night one of the most important independent film festivals in Europe - Raindance opened its doors for the 20th time.

I remember several years ago someone recommended me Raindance as great evening course for screenwriting. It was the first step in my filmmaking career (which only just began). I remember the thrill of getting to the course in the evening in Apollo cinema and then hours of talking to fellow film-inspired folks in the local bar.

Two years later and our film is in the festival. Short film Sweetheart that I directed this spring is in the official selection of Raindance in program 14 to be screened in Apollo theater on October the 7th at 17.00. You can view details and book tickets here.

It's been a great year so far for Sweetheart and we are really excited about the future of this film.

Here is a trailer to the short film:

"My Week With Marilyn" review or "Why did they even bother getting great actors?"

It's 1956 and Hollywood goddess Marilyn Monroe arrives to London to work with famous Laurence Olivier in his film "Prince and The Showgirl". Young and passionate about films Colin Clark uses his connections and dedication to get a 3rd assistant director role on the set of Olivier's film. He observes working relationships on set and starts his own close relationships, including one with Marilyn Monroe.


Michelle Williams plays Monroe and while she does it with charm and delicacy, let's just say truth: she is not Marilyn and one can only pity an actress who has to portrait on screen someone as charismatic as her. Same goes to Laurence Olivier played by Kenneth Branagh. If you want to imagine how these two would go on, it's enough to watch the real "Prince and The Showgirl" and picture Monroe and Olivier playing a Director versus Star. I am not going to criticise Williams' performance as she had to keep up with some astonishingly cheesy lines.

Cheesy lines, that's what downgrades Eddie Redmayne's otherwise brilliant performance. He is usually great with being extremely innocent and sweet, that's what makes him the best for this role and casting couldn't make a better choice for Colin Clarke's character. But saying out loud what belongs to romantic novellas and girls' diaries does not make one look very convincing.

While story is beautiful and sweet, it lacks conflict and scriptwriters failed to dramatise it. Instead they injected a full amount of super-sweet lines in places where silence, a look and a pause on actors' eyes would do a better job. Why cast great actors anyway if you make them narrate all of their feelings? Actors are there to get those feelings out on screen so the audience trust what they SEE not HEAR.

This is what cinema is about.

It's about reaction, when one character is on the front and talks to someone who is standing behind, sometimes reaction is more important than words. But director Simon Curtis decided to go on a narrow lens to make every shot stylish and "cinematic", i.e. using shallow depth of field. It is very frustrating when one can't see a face of an actor/actress just because they are out of focus for stylistic reasons. Why do you need these great actors at all if you keep on not showing their faces?

The middle part of the film was quite flat and repetitive. Shot as a beautiful postcard of Britain it lacks the bittersweet feelings of young Colin Clark. Great sunny weather only suggests that everything is brilliant, while Colin knew at the bottom of his heart it's just a silver lining in the enormous black cloud that covered Marilyn's life.

It is a great film to watch for aspiring filmmakers to see what could be done better at scriptwriting stage, editing and directing. This story could have been saved and had all the potential for being one of the best films this year, Mr Weinstein.

Grading Digital

Hello everyone,

As some of you know I am a filmmaker and currently studying at Metfilm School in Ealing Studios.

Anyway, until now I was only editing and never had a chance to grade or colour correct, now I am in editing class having to grade one third part of a feature film. We are mostly using Colorista II in Final Cut Pro, as it's most suitable for the quality of digital footage we have.

Just wanted to show you a quick example from a first day - I was trying to create an effect of Sepia for one of the flashbacks to 1942.

Here is an original footage:

And here is the changes I applied in Colorista II playing with colours:

To be honest this pictures reduce quality significantly, but you can see the idea behind it.

Have a nice week!