by Iain Blair
Now the holidays are over, Oscar talk – and buzz – is heating up again. As usual, the end of the year was swamped by quality releases - “No Country for Old Men” from the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers, “Gone Baby Gone,” Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, “Atonement” and “The Diving Bell and theButterfly,” the […]

by Iain Blair
Not everyone’s affected by the strike. Was talking to Kevin Ward, a well-known DP whose extensive credits include the movie “Dust to Glory”and over 500 commercials. “I’m one of the few who isn’t being hurt by it,because what I do is so off-the-map,” he told me. He’s not kidding. In January he heads […]

by Iain Blair
The writers strike is taking a toll, especially on the writers. Talked with top TV writer David Assael  (“Northern Exposure,” “StarTrek”  “Picket Fences”) who also has two films in development at Utopia Pictures, “Evan’s Crime” and “Glazed-Over.”  He jokes, “It was always hard explaining to me son exactly what I did, as there […]

by Iain Blair

If you really want to get a sense of how the film business is rapidly changing, talk to crew members. Was chatting with Mark Shane Davis, a top key grip (“Pulp Fiction,” “Blue Velvet”) who’s currently shooting the big true-life football story “Comeback” for the Weinstein Co. in Shreveport. “The business has […]

by Iain Blair
Went to a BAFTA screening of much-talked about new Fox Searchlight movie “Juno” written by first-time screenwriter (andex-stripper) Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman (“Thank you for Smoking”) who were both there. Chatted with Jason afterwards who said while the story is set in the mid-west, “we shot it all in just […]

by Iain Blair

Got to hang out with Francis Ford Coppola, a true legend of modern cinema, at The Four Seasons. He was in LA to talk about his new movie,“Youth Without Youth.” A friend cut neg on it and told me she was paid in wine! So I asked him, “Is […]

by James Thompson
I recently attended PlasterCITY Digital Post’s Open House in Los Angeles where they were demonstrating the RED camera and postproduction workflows with RED data laboratory services. While standing in the DI theater line for the demo, Ted Schilowitz from RED Digital Cinema approached me to discuss the event.
I told him that at […]

by Iain Blair 
Lots of buzz about the new Will Smith apocalyptic drama “I Am Legend” from Warners, but the REAL drama playing outbehind the scenes may be more compelling. Insiders at the studio tell me that the film has been plagued by problems in post. “The production attitude was‘fix it in post’ when they had […]

 Iain Blair

Chatting with an old friend, veteran production sound mixer Lee Orloff, about how the current strike is affecting the rank-and-file. Orloff has worked on many high profile shoots, including “Terminator 2” (for which he won an Oscar), “The Abyss” (we hung out on the S. Carolina set together), “Heat” and all […]

by Iain Blair
The strike has put a lot of people out of work but not everyone. Just got a call from a friend who’s so busy on the set of“G-Force,” the new Jerry Bruckheimer film ” about a team of genetically enhanced guinea pigs working as spies for the U.S. government,that she’s even working […]