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 […]

If There’s a Loving God, Why are there Bad Films?

Filmmaker Jon Gilbert told me the other day that a non-filmmaker friend had asked him, “if the hurdles filmmakers have to jump to get a project off the ground are so high, why do so many dreadful movies get made?” Those of us who aim to make movies are tortured by this question on a […]

Testing Testing

How and Why to Test Screen your Film ☛ I recently cut a comedy sketch for my friend and colleague Gavin Boyter and the question arose should we show this to other people to get feedback? The piece was shot for fun to be put up on the internet – the fate of Warner Bros. […]