Category Archives: Storytelling

Focus on screenwriting but also story telling in general

Prince of Persia workout

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Jake Gyllenhaal Prince Of PersiaNow, Jake was pretty ripped in both Jarhead and Brokeback Mountain.

He takes it to a whole new level for the Prince of Persia. The Jerry Bruckheimer’s production seems to be of epic scope indeed, since Jake has an year to get in character: note the hair, it’s not a wig (I think).

I find it amazing that someone in Hollywood has “underwritten” transferring Prince of Persia to the big screen – as a summer blockbuster too.

Effectively, this is a $150-million one-way bet on video games. Uwe Boll shot video game movies in Canada for 10M and barely broke even. Some even claim he did it for tax purposes, as German investors could write off the losses as an “investment in art.”

I can tell you right now what the NEXT game movie blockbuster is going to be. Sam Raimi was attached as Director to a World of Warcraft movie. Blizzard makes a billion a year in revenues from their hit MMORPG, I’m certain they can fork up $150 million.

Update: Gemma Arterton has been working out and tanning quite a bit too. She confessed she had to shed 10 pounds for the role of the princess. So it’s not just Jake that is a “serious” actor as Daily Mirror put it.

Increased dynamic range (tutorial)

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This is a tutorial on how to increase the dynamic range of an SLR. SLRs and camcorders are pretty close in terms of dynamic ranges, so you might find it useful in your post-production of video as well. Keep in mind that “digital” has a significantly smaller range when compared to film, so every little bit helps.

How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range (Tutorial) from Luka.

Warcraft movie gets a screenwriter

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You’ve probably heard that Blizzard has embarked on a quest to extend the World of Warcraft into a movie franchise.

Wired announced that Robert Rodat (the screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan) has been working on a draft for Director Sam Raimi.

That’s my first concern, when hearing about a game-based movie – the script. Uwe Boll has created a dozen of infamous movies with mediocre (putting it mildly) scripts.

I still think a Diablo horror movie based on Diablo will work MUCH, much better for Blizzard but it’s pretty obvious they want to exploit WoW’s popularity while it lasts. I hope they want to release Diablo 3 first to spark up Diablo’s popularity.

Droidmaker – free book download

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droidmakerMichael Rubin, an author of books on Mac and editing, has decided to give away his Droidmaker book for free!

The book describes in detail the development of nonlinear editing (NLE) and computer graphics. The book is written from his perspective of working with Lucasfilm and Pixar.

I think this could be a valuable tool for independent filmmakers too, after all, the cost of doing computer effects has been falling steadily.

Polanski’s fate still undecided

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Roman Polanski found himself in jail facing extradition to the USA, when he tried to attend a film festival in Switzerland.

According to the NYT: “Roman Polanski lost his first bid to win his freedom Tuesday as the Swiss Justice Ministry rejected an appeal by the 76-year-old to be immediately released from prison, an official said.”

Galli told The Associated Press that the risk was too great for the government to accept bail or other security measures in exchange for the release of the filmmaker who is wanted by U.S. authorities for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski was apprehended Sept. 26 as he arrived in Zurich to receive an award from a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles consider him a convicted felon and a fugitive, and Switzerland says there has been an international warrant out on him since 2005.

His legal representatives are also asking Switzerland’s highest criminal court to free Polanski. Galli said the Justice Ministry has submitted a letter to the tribunal explaining why it opposes release even on bail.


So the Oscar-winning director remains in jail with very little chance to get himself off the hook (again, that NYT story). At the time of his arrest he was working on The Ghost, a movie starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor.

Sam Raimi joins Warcraft movie

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Blizzard have just announced that Sam Raimi joins the team working on a Warcraft movie. Now, I can understand where their excitement is coming from. After all Sam Raimi has turned the Spiderman franchise into a goose that lays golden eggs.

And on the surface, you could say that Warcraft and Spiderman aren’t that different. Both are cartoony and appeal to nerds.

However, I can’t imagine what a scrip meeting will be like … in Blizzard’s Global domination HQ. Sam will want to limit the protagonists to a reasonable trio, with one being a love interest and one being the comic relief (see Conan). Blizzard will argue that a party of three will get nowhere even if they have been twinked up. Plus, PVP isn’t balanced in groups of three.

A Diablo movie on the other hand will be Sam Raimi’s dream come true. After all, he made his name with the Evil Dead (at least in my book). Total nightmare, one protagonist… hell, he could use the already excellent Diablo 2 cinematics as a jumping point!

Worst of all, when the Warcraft movie gets awful reviews, Uwe Boll will be telling everyone that he was the first to come up with the recipe for turning a good game into an awful movie.

Great movies

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I was lying in bed thinking about great movies that I revisit a lot. So what’sthe first line that comes to mind… No objectivity whatsoever!

Conan The Barbarian
Amazing soundtrack and little dialogue to distract you from the imagery/music

Das Boot
The only war movie that runs close to 4 hours and I still feel it was cut short

The Engish Patient
Walter Murch took an year to patch this movie together and I’m still confused after seeing it for the fifth time.

Lawrence of Arabia
Every time someone tells me I’m the most arrogant person they know, I check out Lawrence to make sure I’m still a dwarf (albeit standing on the shoulders of a giant)

American Movie
I think of Mark whenever I feel I’m giving 110% and still failing miserably.

The Producers
When I was a kid I dreamed of meeting Mel Brooks because he’ll recognize me as his rightful heir… the time is running out

What’s your reason for viewing a movie again and again?

Must-see Transformers

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Now, this isn’t a review of Transformers 2… I haven’t seen it myself yet.

I have seen part one and it was typical teenage fair. In typical Michael Bay tradition, he amped it up in the sequel. The most obvious result is that Megan Fox is SO sexy, it hurts my eyes.

megan fox transformers

That’s her at the LA Premiere of Transformers… The only way for Michael Bay to go further will be to have Megan Fox go topless in T3!

New Conan, Arnold clone found

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roland kickingerThe new Conan has finally found a lead. You might find it hard to believe but the new lead shares a LOT of similarities with Arnold.

Roland Kickinger

  • is born in Austria (check)
  • has been a pro bodybuilder (check)
  • probably sports a thick Austrian accent (check)

I guess the list could go on and on. I could imagine someone from Nu Image is having a DUH moment right now. They’ve looked everywhere but the one place where Arnolds are born and bred. They gotta be careful though, so that photos of him in skinny jeans don’t surface anytime soon.

Review: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

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lose friends alienate peopleDon’t worry! How to Win Friends and Influence People is not essential reading in order to enjoy this movie.

The movie is based on a memoir by British writer Toby Young. So you could say, this is a TRUE story. Or rather, it would’ve been, if the the script writer didn’t change the memoirs almost completely… which is an irony itself.

The plot is straight-forward: Sidney Young, a small time journalist, goes to New York City. His task is to cover the world of celebrities. In order to keep his job, he has to do a favorable article about Sophie Maes (sexy Megan Fox even without makeup).

Sidney is attracted to Sophie and all the glitz. However, when Sophie is high and he has a shot, he … well, misses.

The movie has a few funny moments but it goes too many times from romantic comedy to satire and back again. The only redeeming feature is that we get to see Megan Fox wet and almost nude.

Review: The Girlfriend Experience

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the girlfriend experienceThe Girlfriend Experience is the new Soderbergh movie which premiered at Sundance.

The movie is definitely low-budget (rumor puts it at less than two million) and some of the scenes can be improved with better lighting or better camera locations.

One of the most talked about “features” is the lead character, a high-end escort by the nickname Chelsea, who is played by real-life pornstar Sasha Grey.

Now, I can understand the attraction of a A-star shooting a hot, sex scene. But I don’t think it works the other way around. Sasha’s face is flat, her tone is monotonous… and frankly, she’s not even sexy.

Shockingly, Sascha is the only professional actress in the movie … the others could be people from the street (or Soderbergh’s less-known friends).

The majority of the scenes deal with Sasha Grey listening to a confession from a “boyfriend” paying for the girlfriend experience. It’s incredibly boring and doing it over and over again doesn’t make it better.

In short, the movie could only be viewed as a sort of an exercise for Soderbergh. If you’re interested in Sasha, there are better “titles” out there. If you’re interested in a coherent movie with at least one professional actor, same thing applies.

Review: Tobruk

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tobruk reviewIt’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie coming from Eastern Europe with decent production values. And I’m not talking about the crap-o-rama coming from Nu Image.

Tobruk is a solid war movie. I’m not using the term drama here because it’s next to non-existent. Some reviewers have attributed it to lack of action scenes. Not so.

Tons of TNT have apparently been used to recreate the battle of Tobruk. Yet, I couldn’t care less if anyone from the section (about 10 men) dies or lives.

Part of the reason is we don’t get a lot of background on them, e.g. protagonist Liebermann wants to open a bookstore when the war ends…

This kind of shallow characterization is one reason why the movie seems to go for hours, when in fact, it’s just a bit over the bare minimum (at 100 minutes). Maybe if you’re writing a thesis on squad-level tactics, you could put the movie in your footnote.

I’m not going to ruin the “suspense” by describing the last scene but it felt anti-climatic and cliché.

To sum up, the production values are what sets this movie apart. When you look at some of the desert cinematography, you feel this could be The English Patient or Lawrence of Arabia. Unfortunately, the similarities end there.

Review: Personal Effects

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personal_effectsPersonal Effects starts with much confusion (e.g. who’s the narrator/protagonist) and ends with a simplistic happy end.

So is there a meaty middle part?

Here’s the plot: Ashton’s character has lost his twin sister in a violent crime and he’s having a tough time recovering from it.

Michelle’s character is similarly struck by her husband’s being shot to death.

Being a MILF (in the parlance of our times), requires her to be a mother (of a a deaf/mute teenager). Michelle’s son becomes the link between the two. This guy makes an unlikely Cupid and I couldn’t find anything likable about him.

In short, Michelle and Ashton fall in love… and the only twist is that the son (Cupid) ends up in jail.

I hope I’m not ruining the surprise factor (there is none), since both Michelle and Ashton are type-cast and regardless of the context (recovery from losing a loved one), the movie does play like an extra long version of MILF hunter.

Review: Killshot

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killshot mickey rourkeI saw Killshot for one reason only – Mickey Rourke. After his acclaimed performance in The Wrestler, he has made an impressive comeback. So has he the Midas touch too?

The short answer – NO. Long answer is NO because a good actor needs a lot more than just good acting to make a come back. He needs a good plot, a good director… the list goes on.

At least on surface, Killshot has a good plot. After all, it’s based on Elmore Leonard’s book by the same name.

Mickey plays a Toronto hitman who messes his last job and has little choice but to take an unlikely partner – Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – a petty thief and extortionist.

The two are seen by a couple going through divorce and in Mickey’s character’s world that means a death sentence. The couple is supposed to have their own problems but they are so cliche that one is forced to look for entertainment in Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance who chews the scenery both literally and metaphorically.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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Monty Python are one of the prime examples of indie cinema. Look at this episode and tell me it cannot be shot on shoestring budget.

No fancy lighting, the camera is static (no dolly)… the list goes one but you don’t think about production values. You think about how a “farcical aquatic ceremony” cannot be the basis of a government system. Hilarious!

Review: Arn: The Knight Templar

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arn knight templarThe Knight Templar has such a descriptive title it’s really difficult to mistake the movie for something it is not.

Yet, I find it amazing that the forum at imdb is full of people whose expectations were not met. Some expected more battles, others expected more love scenes…

Part of the reason is that the movie is based on the books by Jan Guillou – the so called Crusader trilogy.

The movie tries to stay close to the book but with a meager budget of just over $30 million, it falls a lot shorter than say … Kingdom of Heaven. At the same time, it’s the highest budget for a Swedish movie, so the expectations are high.

In short, the plot follows a familiar arc. Arn is a nobleman’s son. He falls from a watchtower and his parents make a vow that if he survives, they’ll send him to do God’s work. When he does recover, he is sent to a monastery where he meets a monk who has returned from the Holy Land. He gets his martial training at the monastery (duh).

When he falls in love with a fair maiden (not sure if she was virgin though), he is excommunicated for impregnating her (true) and sleeping with her sister (false). On he goes to Jerusalem to join the Knights Templar.

While thus serving God, he meets Saladin (incredible stuff) and by getting to know the enemy, he is able to predict Saladin’s next attack. So he leads a crusader party and stages an ambush in a narrow pass. THE END.

If you’re into medieval fantasy, this isn’t a movie for you. Same advice goes for people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), there’s a single battle scene at the end of the movie. So the core audience for the movie remain those who have read the Crusader trilogy.