The P3 Update Magazine Blog

By James Thompson

Filmmakers that want to actually bring their viewers into their films are embracing 3-D production. “It’s time has come,” was the message from leading filmmakers and studio executives as they took turns telling their success’ in 3-D production at the recent 3-D Summit that took place in Los Angeles, CA.

“We’re going to see things that are pretty much going to blow the audience away,” said Michael Lewis, CEO Real D. It appears that 3-D is the next wave of production. There is a push to make 3-D real by the studios, filmmakers that are currently using 3-D and the theater owners that realize audiences want more and are willing to pay for it. Digital technology has allowed this new medium to find its place in production and filmmakers are welcoming it.

Other speakers at the summit included director James Cameron, Vince Pace from Pace, Jeffrey Katsenberg from DreamWorks, Actor David Arquette, Director Eric Bevig, Mark Zoradi from Disney and Producer Charlotte Huggins. It appears the wheels are in motion and this new medium will soon be the main event at theaters everywhere. Also, many manufactures are launching 3-D television sets. Panasonic was on hand with a huge 3-D television screen that I’m sure will be finding its way into homes throughout the universe. This is just the beginning.

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By Iain Blair

Bumped into the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly in the elevator at the Four Seasons hotel and caught up with her latest news. “The family’s great, we’re all gearing up for the holidays,” she told me. She’s also very busy with film work, and apart from starring in The Day The Earth Stood Still redo, she is set to show off her vocal talents in Shane Ackner’s upcoming animated film 9, along with John C. Reilly, Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau. Her first film was Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in America and since then, she’s worked with most of the top directors, with film credits that include Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond, Todd Field’s Little Children, Walter Salles’ Dark Water, Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog, Ang Lee’s The Hulk and Ed Harris’ Pollock. She also starred in Darren Aronofsky’s critically acclaimed Requiem For a Dream and received a Golden Globe, BAFTA, AFI, and Academy Award for her role in Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind.

She told me that next up is Creation, a biopic on the life of Charles Darwin, which stars her husband Paul Bettany as Charles and herself as Emma Darwin. It turns out that the project’s Brit director Jon Amiel (The Core, Entrapment) is also supporting Directors Guild Trust Direct Access Candidate Sarah Grohnert, by providing her the opportunity to observe him at work on Creation. The Recorded Picture Company production is shooting in the UK and will be accommodating Sarah Grohnert on set and during rehearsals and production meetings two to three days per week right through to postproduction. This offers her a great chance to learn more about a director’s role, their responsibilities and methods of practice on a large feature film production through observation and discussion with a professional director. Direct Access; run in association with Skillset, is the only scheme of its kind in the UK. Similar to the established U.S. industry standard DGA Trainee placements, the Directors Guild Trust aims to bridge the wide gap of knowledge and skills between working directors and new talent—a very timely idea.

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By Iain Blair

A friend is working on Avatar, the eagerly awaited new 3-D film from James Cameron, and now it seems as if 3-D is everywhere in Hollywood. Since first arriving back in ’51, 3-D films have enthralled audiences, even when they resembled little more than stunts/joy rides. But now 3-D—partly thanks to Cameron—is being taken very seriously indeed. The success of Disney’s Bolt follows animated hits like Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little, and Disney plans more 3-D releases. Next year sees nearly a dozen 3-D releases – and that’s just in animation—including Pixar’s Up and Dreamworks’ Monsters vs. Aliens.

Another very exciting 3-D trend is in live action in such films as Final Destination 4 scheduled for release by Warner Bros. in August 2009. In Final Destination 4, a sequel in the popular series directed by David Ellis, death once again sets out to collect those who evaded their end—this time in a deadly race-car crash, thanks to the forewarning of a teen’s premonition. “What’s amazing about this film is that it’s the first “gun-and-run”-style 3-D motion picture shot on location, instead of primarily against a green screen,” 3-D guru Vince Pace told me. Vince is the developer of the proprietary PACE/Cameron Fusion System that Cameron is using on Avatar, and he stressed that “3-D is finally coming of age.” Pace also worked closely with Director of Photography Glen MacPherson, ASC and digital imaging technician Nick Theodorakis.  “We showed that it’s possible to shoot a 3-D picture like a real movie,” he told me. “It’s so exciting for all of us who see it as a storytelling device, not just a gimmick.”

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By Iain Blair

When I got back from my Oz trip, I was comparing notes with my old friend, LA-based editor and filmmaker Tony Porter, who was Down Under a few years back and also “totally fell in love” with Oz. Tony, whose television credits as an editor and writer include the Emmy-winning PBS series Faces of Culture, Alf and the documentary, Prefab Doc, a feature film about contemporary architects, has long been an active voice at BAFTA where he’s on the Heritage Archive Committee, interviewing and filming such Brit stars as Tom Courtenay, Millicent Martin and Melvin Bragg for posterity. Now he’s been appointed to the BAFTA board, starting next year, joining such luminaries as Lord Rufus Isaacs and Paul Heller, the producer of such great films as Oscar-winner My Left Foot and Withnail & I. “I’m pretty chuffed,” says Tony, who beat out some very big names—including studio heads—for the prestigious post. Tony’s currently working with Heller on an HD project for The Skirball Center. “We’re doing a big morphing faces piece which is really fascinating,” he says.

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By Iain Blair

Went to an early screening of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a contemporary reinvention of the 1951 science fiction classic, starring Keanu Reeves as the alien called Klaatu who travels across the universe to warn of an impending global crisis, and Jennifer Connelly as a renowned scientist who befriends him. Saw it in IMAX at the AMC in Century City—the only way to see a film like this where the visual effects are true co-stars (the script is the weakest link). They shot it in Vancouver, with the great David Tattersall, BSC ( Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, The Green Mile, Die Another Day), giving it a very sleek, sinister look.

VFX include a lot of CGI. Director Scott Derrickson and visual effects supervisor Jeff Okun used a lot of VFX houses around the world to pull it all together, including Oscar-winning effects house Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, which handled all elements relating to the huge robot Gort and his mechanism for destruction, the spheres and Klaatu’s “alien” form, with significant contributions to other facets of the film’s imagery made by Cinesite, Flash Filmworks and CosFX. Special effects makeup designer Todd Masters and his team created the seven-foot-tall prosthetic alien suit comprised of gray “flesh” that is surgically removed in the story to reveal Klaatu’s human body inside. If you can, see this in IMAX.

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By Iain Blair

Fred Karno’s Army —that’s my band —played our show in Perth, packed the Mosman Club and a good time was had by all. The next day, to relax and wind down, we all drove down to the Margaret River winemaking area which is very similar to Napa and Sonoma and very pretty. Stayed at a friend’s house for a long weekend and spotted plenty of ‘roos hopping about, but they never let you get close.

We also checked out some beautiful beaches, all spectacular with great surf and virtually deserted—no wonder a friend said there’s now talk of trying to get some production happening there, where film gear would be a lot more available (from Perth, a three-hour drive away) than in the far, empty north where they shot Australia.

Got back to Perth and someone told me that it’d been reported that Joaquin Phoenix is retiring from acting —to pursue music instead!! It doesn’t surprise me—or vex me, as he would have said in Gladiator. Last time we spoke, it was for Walk the Line, for which he did all his own vocals, and it was clear then that he had a new passion in his life. “I really love music,” he told me, and he meant it. Still, it’ll be a great loss to the acting world if he retires permanently.

Tomorrow morning I have to catch a VERY early taxi to Perth airport for a 6am flight to Sydney, to make my L.A. connection later in the day. After another long flight, I’ll arrive back in L.A. before I leave Sydney —thanks to the int. date line… even airline officials seem confused about time changes… Happy Thanksgiving!

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By Iain Blair

Flew to Perth across the red, sun-baked interior of Oz —five and ½ hours, like going from NY to L.A., but the climate in Perth is similar to Sydney’s, tho’ a bit hotter and a lot drier, so very like being back in LA, even down to the palms and jacarandas everywhere. The main difference? Much different wildlife and tons of squawking parrots everywhere.

The big news here is the release of Australia, Baz Luhrmann’s epic that many local movie buffs are calling Oz’s Gone With the Wind, or, Oz’s Lawrence of Arabia, or, Oz’s Out of Africa. You get the idea. But with a huge budget, the Fox release is also coming under fire from locals here. Why? Because, the film was largely shot on location in the remote North-West and the Kimberley and used spectacular scenery including the Bungle Bungles and the Cockburn Ranges.

Though local film commissions and politicians reportedly plowed some $500,000 into the film through WA’s ScreenWest funding body to secure production in the area, it turns out that the area never even received a credit. A local filmmaker here also told me that some people are “very upset” because the film has digitally altered and enhanced a lot of the WA locations, “unnecessarily.”

But not all involved are unhappy. ScreenWest chief exec Ian Booth was quoted in a local paper as saying, “It’s estimated that during production more than $4 million was spent in WA” – a huge boost for the sparsely populated area which now wants to increase production with help from more government grants.

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By Iain Blair

Playing the second half of my band’s “world tour” in Oz later this month (we’re doing just two shows – the first was in London, the second’s in Perth). Arrived in Sydney after a long, long flight that seemed to take days – and because of the date line you do arrive two days after you leave L.A.

Weather is gorgeous and Sydney Harbor looks spectacular. Spent the first day on a ferry across to Manly and filmed the whole trip with a great camera, a Hitachi HS303 hybrid hard disc and DVD camera, which lets you record nearly 3 hours on the hard disc, and 30 mins each on the DVDs. The next day we set off for the fabled Blue Mountains on a train and then spent the day hiking around the spectacular sandstone formations, shooting waterfalls and flocks of wild white and black & yellow cockatoos in the rain forest below.  Again, the camera was perfect as it’s so lightweight and easy to shoot with. Sydney reminds me so much of L.A.—similar  climate, equally big and sprawling, but far less traffic and far more exotic birds and wildlife everywhere ——even saw some wild wallabies from the train, running around some parkland in the suburbs.

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By Iain Blair

A lot of writers I know complain that it’s hard to get an inside look at how successful TV writers handle their craft. But some help is finally on the way. An old friend of mine, Sylvia Desrochers, who’s both an accomplished opera singer and a PR maven, is handling the new DVD release – out this month – titled THE WRITE ENVIRONMENT, through her new company Big Time PR & Marketing.

The six episode interview series features top television writers in the industry, including Damon Lindelof (Lost), Tim Kring (Heroes), Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond), Doug Ellin (Entourage), Sam Simon (The Simpsons), and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) – a pretty impressive group.  Created and hosted by screenwriter and journalist Jeffrey Berman, each episode of THE WRITE ENVIRONMENT takes viewers backstage into the here-to unseen world of the writer’s room for intimate interviews that offer a rare look at these diverse writers and what inspires them. From that first idea to the finished script, the writers share their views and stories, examining their successes, failures and everything in between. If these guys can’t help and inspire you, probably no one can.

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By Iain Blair

It’s always refreshing to meet a top dog in Hollywood and find out that they’re basically a big fan of someone else, just like everyone else. I was chatting with uber-producer Brian Grazer, who was telling me about his new film Changeling and the fact that he “loved hanging out on the set” with Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, “Just so I could watch them work. It was amazing to be around them.” It’s also amazing that Grazer isn’t jaded about the process – after all, he has been making movies and television programs for more than 25 years.
As both a writer and producer, he has been personally nominated for three Academy Awards, and in 2002 he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. Next up? He’s posting Angels & Demons, the sequel to a little film he made with his longtime friend and business partner, director Ron Howard, called The Da Vinci Code. 2009 promises to be another banner year for the producer

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