Framin' The Shot

Returning this week with Part 2 of our Marathon Weekend on Documentaries, we explore 4 more shorts and our final 2 features. Originally we had actually watched 8 short films but due to pacing of the episode and the quality of the discussions themselves, I had to make several cuts to get us down to a reasonable length. So here are the videos and films we watched to round out our mar

For our first Marathon Weekend episode, we discuss 6 documentary features along with several shorts.

In Part 2 of our exploration of cartoon adaptations, we now reach the Thought Experiment portion. With the ground-work and context firmly set for what films have come before, my co-host and I now offer up our own ideas for how we might adapt a particular cartoon into a live-action feature. To help guide this process, I spent the previous day (before this recording) writing up a ser

In our first Thought Experiment episode (a two-parter), we start with a particularly tricky topic: how to turn a cartoon into a live-action movie. The legacy of cartoon adaptation is not a very strong, or respected one. There is often a charm to seeing favorite characters portrayed by a beloved actor in a colorful costume, but this excitement doesn't last long if the film doesn't h

A question I've never heard asked before is, "What is Movie Magic?" It can mean many different things, and different things to many people. Cinema and film is full of magic, it's own kind of magic, at almost every stage of production. Even the act of creating magic within a movie is magical behind the camera, and in a seat in a theater, seeing the end result. Today, my friend Cotto

Continuing the conversation from our first episode, Chris and I branch off into discussions on Character Introduction, Characterization/Motivation, and even Voice-Over Narration, all of which not only relate to each other, but also have connections to our previous topic, Opening Sequences. There's a lot that can go wrong, and a lot that can go right when it comes to characters, the

In our introductory episode, my co-host and I discuss the pivotal subject of 'Opening Sequences,' and how to begin a film on the right foot. This can include title sequences, credit sequences, a pre-title sequence, or even just the very first moments of your film. What elements of these initial moments draw us into this new world and these new characters to make us care about them,