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Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts

13 Edward Hopper Paintings Are Recreated As Sets For Indie Film 'Shirley - Visions of Reality.'



above left: original paintings by Edward Hopper and above right, the set designs for Shirley - Visions of Reality.

Director Gustav Deutsch brings 13 Hopper paintings to life in his film, Shirley - Visions of Reality, the story of a woman whose thoughts, emotions and contemplations lets us observe an era in American history.



The set designs by Hanna Schimek are a fabulous reproduction of Hopper's palette and light.


above: an example of Hanna's diligent research for the set designs

I have found 12 stills from the film and compared them Hopper's original paintings for you below. The comparisons are followed by information about the film.

Comparisons of the Sets to the Actual Paintings:














SHIRLEY - VISIONS OF REALITY - About the film



The film synopsis:
Shirley is a woman in America in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and early ‘60s. A woman who would like to influence the course of history with her professional and socio-political involvement. A woman who does not accept the reality of the Depression years, WWII, the McCarthy era, race conflicts and civil rights campaigns as given but rather as generated and adjustable. A woman whose work as an actress has familiarised her with the staging of reality, the questioning and shaping of it; an actress who doesn’t identify her purpose and future with that of solo success or stardom but who strives to give social potency to theatre as part of a collective. A woman who cannot identify with the traditional role model of a wife yet longs to have a life partner. A woman who does not compromise in moments of professional crisis and is not afraid to take on menial jobs to secure her livelihood. A woman who in a moment of private crisis decides to stick with her partner and puts her own professional interest on the back burner. A woman who is infuriated by political repression yet not driven to despair, and who has nothing but disdain for betrayal.

Shirley, an attractive, charismatic, committed, emancipated woman.

Directors statement:
As the starting point for this film, which has at its heart the staging of reality and the dialogue of painting and film, I selected Edward Hopper’s picturesque oeuvre, which on the one hand was influenced by film noir – in his choice of lighting, subject and framing as seen in paintings such as Night Windows (1938), Office at Night (1940), Room in New York (1932) and his direct references to cinema such as in New York Movie (1939) and Intermission (1963) – and on the other hand influenced filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders.


above: Edward Hopper, Night Windows, 1938

Based on my conviction that history is made up of personal stories and influenced by my reading of John Dos Pasos’ USA novel trilogy[1] in which the life stories and destinies of a few are representative of the wider public and social and cultural history of America, I have chosen an actress as the film’s protagonist – Shirley – through whose reflective and contemplative inner monologues we experience America from the beginning of the 1930’s through to the mid-1960’s.


above: still from the set, photo by Michaela C Theurl

Here we have three decades, which have seen great upheavals at all levels – political, social and cultural – that have changed the country and its people forever: Pearl Harbour and WWII, the atomic bomb and the “conquest of space”, McCarthy and the Cold War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the start of the Vietnam War, Duke Ellington and the big band swing, Billie Holiday and the Southern blues, Elvis Presley and the rock n’ roll, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the protest song, The Group Theatre, The Living Theatre, Method Acting, The Actor’s Studio and its affiliated movie stars such as Anne Bancroft, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, the Stock Market Crash, the Depression, Fordism and Interstate Highways, race riots and the Ku-Klux-Klan, the March on Washington and Martin Luther King. These events, names and legends, which are inscribed into our collective memory, evoke images and moods. Shirley experiences and reflects all this as a committed and emancipated actress with left-leaning politics. She enjoys jazz, listening to the radio and going out and loves film. She is a woman with strong opinions and both feet on the ground, even during times of personal or professional crisis. She is attractive, charismatic and likes to play outsider roles such as that of the prostitute Francie in Sydney Kingsley’s play Dead End. Besides art, she is also interested in socio-political issues. As an ensemble member of the Group Theatre and Living Theatre she combines art with her socio-political involvement.


above: still from the set, photo by Jerzy Palacz

While Shirley and her partner Stephen, a photojournalist for the New York Post, share an apartment on only two occasions during these three decades, their private and professional lives are deeply connected: unemployment as a result of the Depression, disappointment after the betrayal of Group Theatre members in front of the McCarthy committee, repressions as a result of the politically-minded theatre, career retirement as a result of an ill partner, loss of the partner, retirement to the countryside and questioning of the effectiveness of art, emigration to Europe – personal destinies that are pursued in front of and influenced by world-changing events, cultural revolutions and socio-political upheavals.

History is made up of personal stories.

-Gustav Deutsch, January 2013

The Hollywood Reporter reviews the 95 minute film here.

Credits:
Writer / Director / Production Designer / Editor: Gustav Deutsch
Key Scenic Artist / Head Painter: Hanna Schimek
Director of Photography: Jerzy Palacz
Assistant Director / Script Continuity: Bernadette Weigel
Key Grip / Gaffer: Dominik Danner
Costume Designer: Julia Cepp - mija t.rosa
Key Make-up Artist / Hairdresser / Costume Standby: Michaela Haag
Composer Original Music: Christian Fennesz / David Silvian
Sound: Christoph Amann
Script Consultant / Creative Producer: Tom Schlesinger
Production Manager / Line Producer: Marie Tappero
Produced by: Gabriele Kranzelbinder
Production: KGP Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production

Cast:
Shirley: Stephanie Cumming
Stephen: Christoph Bach
Mr Antrobus / Cinema Goer: Florentin Groll
Mrs Antrobus / Cinema Goer / First Train Passenger: Elfriede Irrall
Chief Clerk: Tom Hanslmaier
and Yarina Gurtner Vargas, Peter Zech, Alfred Schibor, Jeff Burrell, Jim Libby, Dennis Kozeluh, Anne Weiner, Julien Avedikian

About the installation (Images after the text):

The point of departure of VISIONS OF REALITY is the world of visual arts.
The idea to explore the depiction of reality not only by means of film, but also with the aid of the exhibition medium, seems obvious.

The settings of VISIONS OF REALITY are created in co-operation with representatives from the fields of painting, architecture and music. The artist Hanna Schimek, for example, visualises the landscapes outside the windows in Hopper’s works and the pictures shown on the walls in the form of paintings corresponding to the real size. This once again focuses on the theme of the exhibition – staging reality, imagining reality – with the devices of painting.

Because the film sets were built for a specific camera position only – the camera always retains the angle of viewing of the paintings, i.e. with a skewed perspective and only true to detail from the viewing side – visitors will be able to move around in anamorphic three-dimensional reconstructions of Hopper’s paintings. Only then does it become clear that – contrary to the ostensible fidelity to reality – they actually often display false perspectives, unreal direction of light and shadows. The visitors perceive the barely noticeable distortions of perspective in the film and thus experience the tension between film reality and actual reality. On the one hand, the exhibition permits visitors to look “behind the scenes” of the cinema illusion machine while, on the other hand, giving them the opportunity to enter the film sets and thus putting them in the role of the actors in the film and the figures in Hopper’s paintings.

Images of the sets and installation from the exhibitions:






A live video camera that is set up to record exactly the same detail of Hopper’s painting, also records the movements and activities of the public. The recordings are projected live in the rear part of the installation.

Team Installation Kunsthalle Wien:
Concept und Realisation: Gustav Deutsch
Illusionary painting and colour concept: Hanna Schimek
Assistence painting: Peter Niedermair
Object design: Richard Pirker
Architectural Advice: Arch DI Franz Berzl
Support: Filmfonds Wien, BMUKK Innovative Film, Kunsthalle Wien

Team Palazzo Reale:
Concept und Realisation: Gustav Deutsch
Illusionary painting and colour concept: Hanna Schimek
Object Design: Richard Pirker
Architectural Advice: Arch DI Franz Berzl
Management Milano: Arthemisia
Support: Palazzo Reale

Shirley stills and info courtesy of KGP production and Gustav Deutsch

The 85th Oscar Nominees Have Been Announced - And Here They Are. The Entire Official Nominee List.






BEST PICTURE
•Amour (TBD, Producer)
•Argo (Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Producers)
•Beasts of the Southern Wild (Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers)
•Django Unchained (Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone, Producers)
•Les Misérables (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward and Cameron Mackintosh, Producers)
•Life of Pi (Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, Producers)
•Lincoln (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers)
•Silver Linings Playbook (Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen and Jonathan Gordon, Producers)
•Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison, Producers)

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
•Denzel Washington (Flight)

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Alan Arkin (Argo)
•Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
•Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
•Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
•Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
•Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Amy Adams (The Master)
•Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman)
Frankenweenie (Tim Burton)
ParaNorman (Sam Fell and Chris Butler)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Peter Lord)
Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Anna Karenina (Seamus McGarvey)
Django Unchained (Robert Richardson)
Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
Lincoln (Janusz Kaminski)
•Skyfall (Roger Deakins)

COSTUME DESIGN
Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Durran)
Les Misérables (Paco Delgado)
Lincoln (Joanna Johnston)
Mirror Mirror (Eiko Ishioka)
Snow White and the Huntsman (Colleen Atwood)

DIRECTING
•Amour (Michael Haneke)
•Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
•Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
•Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
•Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
•5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi)
•The Gatekeepers (TBD)
•How to Survive a Plague (TBD)
•The Invisible War (TBD)
•Searching for Sugar Man (TBD)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
•Inocente (Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine)
•Kings Point (Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider)
•Mondays at Racine (Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan)
•Open Heart (Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern)
•Redemption (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill)

FILM EDITING
•Argo (William Goldenberg)
•Life of Pi (Tim Squyres)
•Lincoln (Michael Kahn)
•Silver Linings Playbook (Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers)
•Zero Dark Thirty (Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
•Amour (Austria)
•Kon-Tiki (Norway)
•No (Chile)
•A Royal Affair (Denmark)
•War Witch (Canada)

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
•Hitchcock (Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel)
•The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane)
•Les Misérables (Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell)

MUSIC (Original Score)
•Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
•Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
•Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
•Lincoln (John Williams)
•Skyfall (Thomas Newman)

MUSIC (Original Song)
•Before My Time - Chasing Ice (Music and Lyric by J. Ralph)
•Everybody Needs A Best Friend - Ted (Music by Walter Murphy, Lyric by Seth MacFarlane)
•Pi’s Lullaby - Life of Pi (Music by Mychael Danna, )Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
•Skyfall - Skyfall (Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth)
•Suddenly - Les Misérables (Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil)

PRODUCTION DESIGN
•Anna Karenina (Production Design: Sarah Greenwood,Set Decoration: Katie Spencer)
•The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Production Design: Dan Hennah, Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright)
•Les Misérables (Production Design: Eve Stewart, Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson)
•Life of Pi (Production Design: David Gropman, Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock)
•Lincoln (Production Design: Rick Carter, Set Decoration: Jim Erickson)

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
•Adam and Dog (Minkyu Lee)
•Fresh Guacamole (PES) See this here!
•Head over Heels (Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly)
•Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” (David Silverman)
•Paperman (John Kahrs)

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
•Asad (Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura)
•Buzkashi Boys (Sam French and Ariel Nasr)
•Curfew (Shawn Christensen)
•Death of a Shadow/Dood van een Schaduw (Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele)
•Henry (Yan England)

SOUND EDITING
•Argo (Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn)
•Django Unchained (Wylie Stateman)
•Life of Pi (Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton)
•Skyfall (Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers)
•Zero Dark Thirty (Paul N.J. Ottosson)

SOUND MIXING
•Argo (John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia)
•Les Misérables (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes)
•Life of Pi (Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin)
•Lincoln (Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins)
•Skyfall (Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson)

VISUAL EFFECTS
•The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White)
•Life of Pi (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott)
•Marvel’s The Avengers (Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick)
•Prometheus (Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill)
•Snow White and the Huntsman (Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson)

WRITING (Adapted Screenplay)
•Argo (Screenplay by Chris Terrio)
•Beasts of the Southern Wild (Screenplay by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin)
•Life of Pi (Screenplay by David Magee)
•Lincoln (Screenplay by Tony Kushner)
•Silver Linings Playbook (Screenplay by David O. Russell)

WRITING (Original Screnplay )
•Amour (Written by Michael Haneke)
•Django Unchained (Written by Quentin Tarantino)
•Flight (Written by John Gatins)
•Moonrise Kingdom (Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola)
•Zero Dark Thirty (Written by Mark Boal)

The Oscars air on ABC, Sunday, February 4th. For More info, visit Oscars.org



When Los Angeles Is A Man. A Short Film For Louis Vuitton By Jean-Claude Thibaut.




This is the second short film in a series on cities around the world for Louis Vuitton, using gender as a lens to interpret each city's identity.





above: stills from Jean-Claude Thibaut's When L.A. Is A Man

Directed and written by Jean-Claude Thibaut, the film has some very beautiful scenes of Los Angeles (as in the stills above), despite being accompanied by a voice over of which I am not a big fan (excerpt shown below).

“From the hill, suspended above the starry skyline, L.A. appeared to me as a whole.

He’s a lonely and secretive player, blazing and unrefined, dedicating himself to his dreams - and incidentally ours - with a disconcerting ease.

He has the nerve and imagination of one who has nothing to lose, always walking a tightrope. His weaknesses are concealed.

Untouched by criticism, L.A. works in faith and finds his way to a new era, the one he imagines being his own future. The burning ease of his achievements has something of prodigality and childishness. Each scene of his life is the most important. L.A. is fated to be young forever, eternal. He walks through the night, striding along, indolent while unrestrained, with the style of a gifted kid.

In my mind a far-fetched idea is growing slowly: it seems L.A. gave me this blind confidence to turn things into art, without ever looking back. L.A. drove me where I have never been before.”

I do think the direction is wonderful, even though I exactly don't love the casting and the copy. But it's a lovely look at LA. What do you think?


info and video courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Splitscreen: A Love Story by James W Griffiths. Shot Entirely on the Nokia N8 Mobile Phone.




As Adam Fraser reports on Nokia's conversations blog "Arm eight filmmakers with two Nokia N8s each, a $5,000 budget and ask them to produce a short film within a few weeks and what do you get? A bunch of amazing mini-movies, that’s what. However, there can only be one that wins the top prize of $10,000 USD. That award goes to JW Griffiths, for his movie – Splitscreen. You can see it below.

Love. It’s been the subject of many a movie since the dawn of, well, movies. Splitscreen is about two people falling in love who come from different parts of the world. Using two perspectives at once on the same screen, we’re able to follow each person’s journey through life as they embark on a journey to foreign lands, only to bump into each other half-way across the River Thames on Golden Jubilee Bridge."

Here’s the winning short film, Splitscreen, Shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone.



Director: James W Griffiths
Producer: Kurban Kassam
Director of Photography: Christopher Moon
Editor: Marianne Kuopanportti
Sound Design: Mauricio d'Orey
Music composed by: Lennert Busch

Get the music on iTunes: tinyurl.com/6acl6yp

The 20 Best Academy Award and Oscars Infographics in One Place.




From Social Media predictions, fashion trends, media spending and statistics to fun trivia and history, here's a round up of 20 the best and most interesting infographics pertaining to the Academy Award and Oscar.

Click on each infographic below to enlarge them in a separate window.

If Social Media Could Predict Oscar Winners
Behind the scenes at the Academy Awards
Women at the Oscars: 22 Years 220 Dresses

Oscars Infographic - Media Buying for the 2012 Academy Awards
Infographic: All about Oscar and the Academy Awards

Everything you wanted to know about the Oscars (infographic)


above: detail from IMDB infographic

More infographics (click to view larger in a separate window):


Vulture has a clever infographics for each Best Picture Nominee:



See all the Best Picture nominee infographics from Vulture here


The Face Group did some Augmented Research (above and below) with various infographics as they added variables:

Check that out here.

Slate has a an interactive infographic about The Oscar Acceptance speeches and who gets thanks the most:

There's even an infographic for an Oscar drinking game:


Infographic Credits:
IMDB
flowtown
facegroup
webtrends
Banyan Branch
US Dish
Radian6
Locate TV
Slate
Vulture
Waggeneredstrom
WayToBlue
Drinking game infographic by James A Janisse.
Other sources mentioned within the infographics.

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