Weekly round-up of filmmaking articles

A Drone Went Bowling. Hollywood Noticed.

A drone flies into a bar, swoops through an adjacent bowling alley and crashes into the pins. The drone’s operator, who shot the 87-second video in a Minneapolis bowling alley last week to rally support for the business, didn’t expect it to be viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, or to win high praise from Hollywood directors. But it was and it did.

#filmmaking #storytelling #cinematography

Read the article in full, here.

Smartphone Filmmaking 101: Learn to Shoot Mobile Video

‘When it comes to anything we do in life, the thought that crosses our mind before doing anything is where do we start? Filmmaking can be overwhelming if you don’t feel you have the appropriate skills to start shooting a script you developed. This post will guide you through the process of filming with a smartphone and make you more confident in shooting with a smartphone than ever before.’

#filmmaking #storytelling #creativity

Read the article in full, here.

​Go Behind the Scenes of How to Make a Music Video During the Pandemic

A detailed, behind the scenes analysis of a music video which was created with Covid-safe protocols, showing room scans, 360-still shots and video, taking viewers from pre-production to the finished product.

#filmmaking #storytelling #behindthescenes

Read the article in full, here.

How They Shot the Stargate Sequence in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey

My god, it’s full of stars! And innovative slit-scan photography!

Grappling with the financial reality that 2001 had to go into production, Stanley Kubrick set out to complete a handful of preliminary test shots. Hiring a small VFX outfit called Effects-U-All, he rented an abandoned brassiere factory and turned it into a chemical lab. The team set up tanks of black ink and isoamyl acetate, a noxious World War II-era paint thinner infamous for smelling like bananas.

The effects team surrounded the tanks with high-intensity film lights, shooting in reverse and over-cranking the camera. Technicians dripped blobs of white paint and lacquer into the vats with toothpicks. Reacting with the thinner, the blobs produced shapes mimicking massive cosmic events: galactic tendrils, dying stars, and explosive nebulas.

#filmmaking #cinematography #behindthescenes

​Read the article in full, here.

The evolution of how car chase scenes are filmed for movies

Incredibly interesting article today from @Insider that looks at how the car chase has changed over eight decades of filmmaking, tracing the evolution of the Hollywood chase sequence from “Bullitt” to the “Fast & Furious” franchise.

#filmmaking #storytelling #behindthescenes

​Read the article in full, here.

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