The P3 Update Magazine Blog

By Iain Blair

After talking to Steve Coogan, I caught him in the big new hit Tropic Thunder and some of the funniest stuff is the section of faux trailers  - especially Scorcher for Ben Stiller, which is a real hoot.  CIS Hollywood handled the production of the Scorcher sequence, a 90 second entirely CG spoof trailer that explains the story behind action superstar, “Tugg Speedman,” Ben Stiller’s character within the movie. Scorcher was a truly collaborative process with CIS Vancouver creating the original previz and CIS Hollywood producing the final sequence with CIS London’s collaboration. 

What’s also very funny – and strange – about the film is that Tugg is obviously poking fun at Tom Cruise, the real life action superstar whose career has also dimmed in the past two years. But presumably Cruise is a good sport, as he shows up in the film wearing a bald ‘do’ and a fat suit in a cameo as an obscenity-screaming studio head – rumored to be based on such famous screamers as Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein.

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By Iain Blair

I’ve always been a huge fan of Jonathan Demme’s work, and thanks to such films as The Silence of the Lambs, which won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, Philadelphia, Married to the Mob, Something Wild and Beloved, he long ago cemented his reputation as one of the most talented and versatile American filmmakers. But in the last few years he’s been MIA in the world of feature films and when I spoke to him the other day, I found out why;

“I just love making documentaries now and they interest me more than fiction pieces,” he told me. “I just did a second documentary on Neil Young, before that I did one on Jimmy Carter, and I’m also doing one about New Orleans.” Demme still makes features, but it’s interesting that his new film ,Rachel Getting Married, which is a family drama starring Anne Hathaway as Kym, a recovering drug addict who gets out of rehab for the weekend of her sister’s wedding, is shot almost like a documentary by the great DP Declan Quinn (In America, Monsoon Wedding, Shine A Light) who also shot the film in HD.

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 By Iain Blair

Was chatting with British comedian Steve Coogan whose career is going great guns these days.  He’s currently starring opposite Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black in the satirical war comedy Tropic Thunder where he plays a Brit movie director dealing with a bunch of spoiled Hollywood actors.

The comedy is full of inside jokes, along the lines of The Player and Get Shorty, and was directed and co-written by Stiller. Coogan is good friends with Stiller – they’re currently shooting Night at the Museum 2, he told me -but he also gave me some interesting insight into Ben Stiller the director. “He’s really, really tough when he’s in the zone, and very tenacious – it’s “Do it again, do it again,” until he gets exactly what he wants,” he told me. “I shot for 7 weeks in Hawaii and had a wonderful time, although it was a tough shoot as we were literally slogging through the jungle every day.”

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 By Iain Blair

Was invited to the red-carpet premiere of the quirky new film  Henry Poole Is Here at the Arclight. Starring Luke Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Old School), Adriana Barraza (Babel), Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland), George Lopez and Cheryl Hines.

It’s a funny, poignant and uplifting story of a disillusioned man who attempts to hide from life in a rundown suburban tract home only to discover he cannot escape the forces of hope. Directed by Mark Pellington (Arlington Road) and written by Albert Torres, it’s shot by Eric Schmidt and features a great soundtrack including a Dylan song, “Not Dark Yet,” suggested by Wilson.

After the packed screening, we all trooped up to the Arclight rooftop for a great party attended by Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, George Lopez and the rest of the cast, as well as Jake Busey, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon and Jesse Johnson. Open bars, great barbecue and a starry night made for a perfect night.

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By James Thompson

It’s absolutely amazing to see NBC take on the monumental task of broadcasting the 2008 Summer Olympics in high definition from Beijing, China. This is, without a doubt, the most ambitious live-event coverage in the history of broadcasting.

For those of you who tuned in over the weekend, I’m sure you were as amazed as I was to see the exceptional quality of the international athletes competing for a gold medal. I was so impressed that I actually tuned in to events that I normally would pass over, such as fencing and water polo. You could actually see and feel the rivalry. And watching it in HD made the viewing experience even more palpable. At one point during the U.S. men’s basketball game against China, an NBC cameraman captured a close-up shot of coach Mike Krzyzewski, and I could actually read the time on Krzyewski’s hand watch. And, as Michael Phelps received his third gold medal in the 200-meter freestyle swimming event, viewers were able to feel the emotion through the close up of his eyes as portrayed by the terrific camera work.

The LA Daily News reported that, during the 17 days these athletes will compete, approximately 2,900 NBC Olympics employees will record 3,600 hours of video that the company plans to deliver from China. The NBC control room in New York, based out of the “Saturday Night Live” studios at Rockefeller Center, will try to sustain over 2,200 hours of live streaming video.

Kudos to the NBC Olympics management team and their crew for their efforts. Likewise to the many companies that are providing the solid technological infrastructure necessary to capture this content.

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By Dyana Carmella

The Duke City Shootout has begun preparation for next year’s event. Before I received this information about the event, I had no recollection of even hearing anything about this so-called “shootout.” I thought it was just another press event. Looking deeper I came to realize this is quite the idea and a good one at that.

Set for July 24th – August 1st, 2009, the 10th Anniversary of the Duke City Shootout Digital Filmmaking Competition will take place. Each year seven scripts are chosen from hundreds of applicants from around the country. The selected few are flown to Albuquerque and given everything from a camera, cast, lighting equipment, production crew, transportation and post-production facilities. Filmmakers are then given seven days to film their 12-minute story before they are all premiered in front of a live audience. Talk about pressure. 

Many of the films created at the Duke City Shootout have been shown at different film festivals around the world. This gives filmmakers the chance to show off their talent and get seen and heard as they shoot, edit and show their creations in just one week.
For more information visit their website at www.dukecityshootout.org.

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By Iain Blair 

Saw an early screening of the taut new political thriller Traitor about an elite FBI investigator (Guy Pearce of Memento, L.A. Confidential, Fame) who crosses three continents in search of a renegade U.S. military operative (Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda, Crash) who holds the secret to a shocking terrorist conspiracy. As the credits rolled, there was another shock - the film, written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (screenwriter of The Day After Tomorrow) comes from the fertile mind of comedian/author Steve Martin who executive produces.

Traitor takes place in 17 cities around the world on three continents, was shot in 48 days on a relatively modest budget, and feels almost like a documentary because the filmmakers went to Toronto, Marseilles, Morocco and London on location.

The other reason it looks so good is because it was shot by the great DP J. Michael Muro who made his name as a Steadicam operator on such films as The Mighty Quinn, Field of Dreams, James Cameron’s The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He went on to become the cinematographer of the Academy Award-winning Crash (2005), written and directed by Paul Haggis. He has since shot the feature films Rush Hour 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Flicka and The Last Mimzy. Traitor has his trademark cinema verite look all over it.
 

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 By Iain Blair

Movies have been around for a century or so now, and for most of that time, women directors were MIA. Times have changed in the last few decades, but women directors are still an endangered species. So hopefully audiences will appreciate the lyrical and sexy new film Elegy from Spanish director Isabel Coixet, who started making films when she received an 8mm camera for her first communion, and whose international breakthrough came in 2003 with the intimate drama My Life Without Me.

Elegy is another drama, that this time charts the passionate relationship between a celebrated college professor (Ben Kingsley) and a young woman (Penélope Cruz) whose beauty turns his life upside down. The film is beautifully shot, and Coixet is nothing if not a very hands-on director – she operates her own camera (with longtime collaborator Jean-Claude Larrieu as Director of Photography), and the result is a provocative study of human nature that’s well worth catching.
 

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By Iain Blair

I was chatting with Alicia Keys a few months ago– and it’s proving to be quite a year for the singer-songwriter who was in the middle of her hugely successful  worldwide “As I Am” tour, which is also her first arena tour. Her new album, also titled “As I Am,” which debuted at No. 1, has already sold over 3 million copies.

Then there’s the small matter of her film debut in The Secret Life of Bees, in which she stars opposite Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, and Jennifer Hudson. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the period film is co-produced by Will Smith and set for an October release from indie powerhouse Fox Searchlight. She’s also involved with another – much higher-profile  - movie, the new Bond film, and there’s an interesting story to tell.

While we were talking music, I asked her if she was anxious to experiment even more. “I want to do something with the White Stripes,” she announced. “I love the White Stripes because they’re very, very raw.  I don’t know if that would startle people but I’d definitely love that.” Now, months later, Keys has teamed with Jack White on the theme song  “Another Way to Die” for the new Quantum of Solace Bond film out in November and it’s the first duet ever for a Bond theme. Prepare to be startled!!

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By Iain Blair

Brendan Fraser seems to be everywhere these days. He was just hurtling to our planet’s core on his Journey to the Center of the Earth, and now he’s taken a detour to fight his way through the latest Universal Pictures’ installment of its Mummy blockbuster franchise, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. The movie is a total crowd-pleaser for kids of all ages, and  - what could be more timely – is set in China.

As usual, the Rob Cohen-directed spectacular – also largely shot in China  - features enough CGI to stop an evil Chinese emperor and his army in its tracks, and it also features eye-popping opening and end title sequences created by Karin Fong and Steve Fuller of Imaginary Forces. They used brushstroke painting that comes to life, using brushstroke silhouettes of recognizable characters from the film, with 3D models provided by Rhythm & Hues and Digital Domain. The result bookends the movie in a truly inspired way. 

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