PRODUCT REVIEW: Chat GPT for the Screenwriter

AI is here and its mission is to help screenwriters and democratise movie making / decimate the screenwriting profession (delete as appropriate). There are a number of different writing AIs, also known as LLMs,—Large Language Models—but Chat GPT is the best known. As the head of Open AI, the parent company, is currently wooing Hollywood, […]

Marty vs Marvel: the Flaw in the Argument

Listen Marty, some friends of ours—not me—are concerned about what you’ve been saying recently. They’re very concerned. The guys at Marvel have asked me to tell you… ‘it is what it is’. [Apologies to those who haven’t yet seen The Irishman.] After Martin Scorsese doubled-down on his comments about Marvel films not being cinema in […]

When is a Movie not a Movie?

The Spielberg Supremacy ☛ Last week Steven Spielberg called for a tightening of the rules of the American Academy, which awards the Oscars, to prevent films like Roma, which is backed by Netflix, being eligible in future. Now BAFTA is also feeling the pressure, with two cinema chains – VUE and Cineworld – protesting over the eligibility […]

Can movies cause political change?

Covering how to found a country and the devastating power of the ordinary. In the light of recent and possible future events I have been doing some soul-searching about my filmmaking. The not-so-gradual rise of the far right, both in Europe and America, has lead me to question whether there’s more I could be doing […]

Left Hanging

The Art of the Open Ending ☛ Nothing guarantees a good post-movie discussion like an open ending. Some of us love up-in-the-air endings, others hate them, but what are they there for? What do they say? Given this subject matter, be warned: there will be spoilers, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum. […]

Rekindling Old Frames

Deleted Scenes ☛ I’ve recently locked picture on the movie Sparks and Embers and it’s fallen to me to prepare the deleted scenes. As the editor, I work with the audience in mind so, when deciding which scenes to recommend including, I found myself wondering: what do people get from watching deleted scenes? To answer […]

The Spielberg Prediction

What is the future of Cinema? ☛ Recently Steve Spielberg predicted that the movie business would be likely to implode very soon, a sentiment echoed by his friend George Lucas. Put aside, if you can, an irony so vast that the Death Star would take a few shots to destroy it: these two men did […]

Anyone for revolution?

Whatever happened to the DSLR Spring? ☛ 1960: a film called Breathless was released that revolutionised cinema. It was shot on 16mm film, a technology previously only used for newsreels. The French New Wave that followed inspired the counter-culture movies of the next decade, and left a mark still visible in the films we make […]

High Frames Drifter

Is the truth any truer at 48 frames per second? ☛ Like virtually everyone else in the film blogosphere, I’ve been to see The Hobbit recently in its High Frame Rate (HFR) presentation and, like everyone else, I feel drawn to offer my assessment of the new technology, especially since it raises some important questions […]

The Golden Age of British Cinema?

The state of the British film industry ☛ This week saw the publication of the Smith review, commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron with the stated aim of consulting with the industry and shedding light on how the government might help British films. After Cameron so helpfully called last week for “more commercial films”, many […]