Tag Archives: Film

Street Kings

I’m a crime novel junkie. I’ve read every Michael Connelly, every Harlan Coben, every Jeffrey Deaver and every James Lee Burke novel there is. Lee Burke’s main character is Detective Dave Robicheaux of New Iberia Parish in Louisiana, and you can virtually smell the bayou and the grilled crawfish and the pimples of sweat on the necks of characters and beer bottles. Michael Connelly has Detective Harry Bosch whose turf is LA; every time Bosch steps out, you almost need to squint in the SoCal sunshine, and the smog sticks viscerally to the back of your throat. Great writing.

James Elroy is another crime author who’s made LA his beat – and the vividness of his settings have translated well to movies – think of the remarkable LA Confidential, or Dark Blue, or the creepy and kind of sick Black Dahlia. Elroy also wrote the novel of Street Kings, and he also wrote the script of the film that bears the same title.

Street Kings is again a convoluted and twisting tale of trust and betrayal in and around the LA Police Department. Basically Keanu Reaves – somewhat fleshier, wearier and evidently ageing (occasionally the camera angles aren’t kind) – is a drink-addled, hot-head vigilante-style cop whose boss (Forest Whitaker) is always getting him out of scrapes. When Reaves learns that his ex-partner has gone to Internal Affairs, he thinks he’s been set up. However, things are not quite what they seem. I say ”not quite” because – inspite of a great supporting cast that includes Hugh Laurie and Chris Evans (beauty-and-the-geek) – it takes about three and a half minutes to realise what the twist is going to be. Shame, really.  

Where Street Kings works though is its atmospheric portrayal of LA in all it’s scuzzy, sprawling, chaotic grunge. As the Channel 4 review says:

To acknowledge Street Kings’s one major bonus first, Ayer’s insistence on ensconcing his film in LA’s less salubrious, violent heartlands reaps its rewards, adding an irreplaceable scuffed authenticity to the tale. Unfortunately movies, unlike housing, aren’t all location, location, location. 

Oh My God, Can You Rent the Colosseum?!

For a Locations junkie, I took my own sweet time to get around to blogging about Jumper, the Hayden Christiansen / Samuel L Jackson sci fi pic about a young man who learns that he has the power of teleportation. Given his special skills, it’s unsurprising that the movie’s locations include Paris, China, Egypt, the Sahara, Toronto, New York, Michigan, Tokyo and Rome.

Most impressive of these, the Rome Film Commission granted rare access to film in the Colosseum for three days.

Jumper

The New York Times reports this film-making coup to have been made possible by Rome Mayor, Walter Veltroni, “an unabashed cinephile with a soft spot for Hollywood glitz. Mayor Veltroni dined with Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes on the eve of their Italian wedding, and was primarily responsible for creating the Rome Film Festival, which took place for the first time in October. On the business front, his administration has streamlined the process for getting filming permits, and authorizes more than 2,000 shoots in the city each year.”

To make Jumper happen, the crew was required to keep equipment off the ground by using harnesses and to rely only on natural light for filming the Colosseum’s scenes.

Kenya Film Commission visits South Africa

I’m pretty excited; the Kenyan Film Commission has been visiting on a fact finding mission in South Africa – and also to define a Terms of Reference for a consulting contract with Martin Cuff Consulting.

David Maingi took over as the CEO of the Kenya Film Commission just over a month ago, and has thrown himself headlong into the task of repositioning of both the Commission and the entire Kenyan film sector (a challenge made all the more difficult by the current political crisis in the country).

Fernando Meirelles on the Nairobi set of The Constant Gardener

I get the sense though, that Mr. Maingi is not the type to be easily daunted. His visit sought to unpack a range of insights and ideas from South Africa that could be applied back home in Kenya. Wendy-Leigh Boise at Martin Cuff Consulting assisted with planning and organising a packed schedule of meetings with key South African industry organisations, including the National Film and Video Foundation, the Cape and Gauteng Film Commissions, the Commercial Producers Organisation, the Stills Producers Association, Continue reading →

The Da Vinci Code’s Virtual Location

Watched the Da Vinci Code on MNET last night. On a second viewing, I thought it was pretty good – better in fact than the book which I found a bit obvious (my dog is sharp enough to have guessed the clues.) But it’s still a solid, well made Ron Howard movie that presses most of the right buttons.

I mostly mention the Da Vinci Code because of the massive tourist interest that’s resulted from the film. Just Google it – you’ll find tens of websites promoting guided tours, walking tours, virtual tours of the locations included in the film.

As I was reading about it though, I came across an interesting piece by Emile Lorditch at the American Institute of Physics about the location of Saint-Sulpice Chapel. The location, which is pretty pivotal to the plot, is a historic site that saw the actual baptisms of the Marquis de Sade and Charles Baudelaire and the wedding of Victor Hugo. It was not made available to the filmmakers, who instead, the team turned to technology to solve their problems:

To recreate Saint-Sulpice Chapel artists applied photo projection technology in 3D. First, the compositors started by looking at still photographs taken from inside the chapel. But Mathew Krentz, lead compositor at Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects, discovered a challenge right away. “All the reference images were taken during the day and the scene was happening at night.” Krentz and his team were able to digitally darken the scenes and even add in moonbeams later to the film to give a dark and shadowy effect. Once the reference images were ready, Les Quinn, lead 3D artist at Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects, and his team used Lightwave software which uses geometry to create a 3D version of the chapel.

Da Vinci Code Saint-Sulpice Chapel 2

You can read the full story here

Cape Town backs Film Studio

DREAMWORLD

Back in October 2003, there was international news about a new movie studio to be built in Cape Town. And then, nothing except silence, rumour and doubt. So it’s something of a relief that South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Newspaper is finally able to report:

“The City of Cape Town is making R30-million available to restart the development of the Dreamworld Film City project, which is still hoping to turn the eastern suburbs of Cape Town into a southern-hemisphere Hollywood. …..Simon Grindrod, mayoral committee member for economic development and tourism, said “This project represents the single biggest opportunity to secure billions of rands’ more income for the city in terms of film production and associated industries,” he said. “The Cape Town film industry is estimated to be worth R20-billion.”

Now, this is all very lovely. The folks behind Dreamworld are some of our industry’s finest, and if anyone can make this studio work, it’s them.

Dreamworld

But the City’s approach – funding a film studio when the City’s own Film Permit Office remains under-funded, ill-equipped, understaffed and restrained by all sorts of bureaucratic nonsense – is wrong-headed. Indeed, the film industry’s lack of confidence in the City is at such high levels that some 250 Cape-based producers and locations professionals issued a manifesto via the CFC to the Department of Economic Development Councillor just before Christmas, in a desperate attempt to get the city to listen to their concerns.

Funding for the Film Studio is really great news. Being able to reliably and professionally access permits to film in City streets, parks, buildings and beaches would be even better. Or maybe I’m just living in a dream world?

Heath Ledger

So poor Heath Ledger is dead. A terrible, sad end for a prodigious talent.

heath-ledger.jpg

Since I tend to be interested in Film Locations and the remarkable economic impacts of film production, it’s worth recalling one of Heath’s most remarkable achievements; boosting tourismto a setting where filming didn’t actually take place.

Fans of Brokeback Mountain don’t seem to care the movie was actually filmed in Canada. They want the Wyoming experience. The Wyoming Business Council’s travel and tourism department has received hundreds of calls asking about scenery in the movie, which is based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx’s short story about two gay Wyoming cowboys.

Read more at USA Today……

The Golden Age

‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age’ tells the thrilling tale of an era – the story of one woman’s crusade to control love, crush enemies and secure her position as a beloved icon of the western world. At least that’s what the blurb says at the Working Title films site.

But is it? Um, not so much.

I should start off by saying that I really loved the first Elizabeth movie. Really, REALLY loved. (I am both English and something of a history geek when it comes to the late 1500s, so it worked for me.) Of course, Cate Blanchett is also quite simply an extraordinary actress, and the story of Good Queen Bess’ perilous ascension to the throne of England was both sumptuously and rivetingly portrayed.

This time, Director Shekhar Kapur gets the sumptuous bit spot on, but sadly fails with the riveting. The costumes are lush, ornate and drag-queen fabulous (poor Cate evidently spent much of her time on set stuck in a wind tunnel) and I do love the quirky way he often positions the camera on high, so that the characters shrink and the architecture becomes part of the story.

Elizabeth the Golden Age

Abbie Cornish as Bess Throckmorton at the Palace of Whitehall, actually Wells Catherdral.

But whilst the movie evidently took great pains to look fabulous, it’s not much of a substitute for actually being fabulous. The Golden Age tries to do too much and tell too much and show too much and ends up being kind of unengaging.

However, there’s a major bonus. If you are vaguely interested in production on location, I would urge you to visit the Production Diary of Justin Pollard, the historical researcher on the film.
It’s a fascinating insight into the processes behind filmmaking, and a remarkable record of the huge efforts made to create an air of authenticity.