Top StoriesGangster Squad's Creative Team
Written by Dyana Carmella
Every filmmaker knows that creative collaboration is an essential part of production. This topic was highlighted when Film Independent recently held a discussion with the creative team behind the stylish Warner Bros. film Gangster Squad. The movie’s period look and noir atmosphere was created by a team of talented artisans, including Director Ruben Fleischer, Editors Alan Baumgarten and James Herbert, and Academy Award-nominated Costume Designer Mary Zophres (True Grit). Set in Los Angeles in 1949, Gangster Squad stars Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone and Sean Penn in an action-packed story that follows Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (played by Penn) and the secret band of cops who want to take him down.
After a lackluster 2012/13 television season that was sparse on new hits, the broadcast networks have increased the number of pilots ordered in hopes of striking gold. According to a report filed by Nellie Andreeva of Deadline.com, ABC, CBS, the CW, Fox and NBC have a combined order of 98 pilots, including straight-to-series orders, making for a 14-percent increase over last season.
At the 85th Academy Awards ceremony, six of the nine Best Picture nominees were shot on film stock: Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Les Misérables and Best Picture winner Argo. Throughout its 84-year history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has only awarded its Best Picture Oscar to movies shot with film stock. And, in today’s digital age of filmmaking, many cinematographers still prefer the depth, grain and richness achieved when shooting on film.
The live broadcast of a major sports event can provide plenty of technical and creative challenges. And when the event is as high profile as the Super Bowl, which combines a football game, a half-time show worthy of Broadway, and an audience of hundreds of millions, the stakes are even higher. To prepare for the Super Bowl’s expansive broadcast schedule and telecast from New Orleans, several networks turned to broadcast equipment rental company Bexel to handle their on-site production needs and fiber infrastructure.
Nineteen years ago, a group of filmmakers with work rejected by the Sundance Film Festival pooled their talents to start the Slamdance Film Festival. Slamdance has since come into its own — with more than 5,000 submissions in 2012 — as low-budget independent filmmakers continue to embrace the annual Festival as a new home. For one week in January, Slamdance provides a unique community as filmmakers from all over the world converge on Park City, Utah to show their work in a celebration of independent cinema.
The first time that I reviewed Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve, I spent 110 hours trying to read the manual and book. And while I learned enough to get started, it wasn’t enough to master the Resolve software. What I really wanted was to sit down with a trained colorist and learn firsthand how to make regular images look beautiful, but that just wasn’t going to happen since I live in Tampa, Fla. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear about the Tao of Color series from 
Express Video Supply and Videotape Products, Inc. recently hosted an event to introduce JVC’s new GY-HM650 professional video camera to the Hollywood, Calif. market. Held at the Containment Field Studio in North Hollywood, the event gave camera operators and industry professionals with a specific interest in mobile newsgathering an up-close look.
It’s time to get your movie greenlit. You have a polished screenplay and you’ve just sat down with the gatekeepers: studio execs. The opening of their big gate can lead to big audiences and bigger rewards. You want them to go forward with the movie — your movie — and all eyes are on you. You’re tense and fear the one wrong remark that will sabotage the meeting. This is crunch time.
You can never have too many plug-ins. While most editing software comes with FX plug-ins to get you started, there will be times when you’ll need something special to get the job done. Boris Continuum Complete 8 AE from Boris FX delivers the most comprehensive VFX plug-in suite ever created for Macintosh and Windows versions of Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro CS6, CS5.5, CS5 and CS4.