According to the Wired article, the origin of the financial power behind the company is that Tull, coming from a venture capital background, applied VC financing tactics to movie producing, rasing money from VC investors. For the time being, his formula seems to be a success, for Warners, for the investors and for him.

Track projects:

IMDb:Legendary Pictures
IMDb: Thomas Tull
Legendary Pictures Homepage

Just for you to be on the same page here: I found this list (”Post-modern works“) on the net that assembles a “core” of films which can be considered as being postmodern in nature or dealing with postmodern ideas:

• Stranger Than Fiction (buy)
• Fight Club (buy)
• Being John Malkovich (buy)
• Adaptation (buy)
• Pulp Fiction (buy)
• Mulholland Drive (buy)
• The Big Lebowski (buy)

There might be some value in outliving the inner postmodernist in film, music and art in general. Many (not the “many” as in “masses”, but still) are jumping onto the bandwagon and enjoy experiencing postmodern works, while others might argue that postmodernism will eat itself.

In Paradoxes of the American Presidency, Cronin and Genovese wrote “It is characteristic of the American mind to hold contradictory ideas without bothering to resolve the conflicts between them”, so the idea of postmodernism might appear as a perfect fit for 21st century America and its narratives. But it is also said that art is selection! Telling a story that goes into all directions at once might be deconstructivistic fractalisation, or it might be plain indecisiveness.

If you are thinking of film as art, stories dwelling on the postmodern labyrinth are okay - period. But if you are looking at films as simple entertainment, you are on shaky ground with postmodern films. Marc Forster’s Stranger Than Fiction is a good example of a film that marries an intellectual discourse and a down-to-earth entertaining romance plot. But be careful filmmakers, your audience might as well get lost in your absurd tales of postmodernism…

Even more films

• Memento
• American Beauty
• The Truman Show
• Heart of Darkness
• Vanilla Sky

Postmodernist ideas in Television

• The Simpsons
• Californication
• Seinfeld

Where it all came from: postmodern ideas in literature

• Chuck Palahniuk (1962-) , i.e. Fight Club
• William Burroughs (1914-1997)
• Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984)
• Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
• John Barth (b. 1930)
• Donald Barthelme (1931-1989)
• E. L. Doctorow (b. 1931)
• Robert Coover (1932)
• Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991)
• Don DeLillo (b. 1936)
• Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937)
• Ishmael Reed (1938)
• Kathy Acker (1947-1997)
• Paul Auster (b. 1947)
• Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952).

Books & Papers

• John Eakin: Storied Selves: Identity through Self-Narration. (read)
• Rosalind Sibielski: Postmodern Narrative or Narrative of the Postmodern? History, Identity, and the Failure of Rationality as an ordering priciple in Memento.
• Paula Geyhn, Fred G. Leebron, Andrew Levy: Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology. (buy)
• Paul Martin and Valerie Renegar: The Man for His Time: The Big Lebowski as Carnivalesque Social Critique. (buy)
• Wheeler Winston Dixon: Something Lost - Film After 9/11 (buy)

Also see Wikipedia on postmodern literature, and more on the List of postmodern authors. See this for an interesting bibliography and this seminar for more ideas on what to read/watch/consume.

The classic gangster film canon

• The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• Underworld (1927) (imdb, wikipedia)
• Little Caesar (1930/31)  (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Public Enemy (1932) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• Scarface (1932) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Beast of the City (1932) (imdb, wikipedia)
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (imdb, wikipedia)
• The Godfather (1972) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Godfather, Part II (1974) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Godfather, Part III (1990) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Goodfellas (1990) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• Scarface (1983) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• Casino (1995) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)

Related Films and Television Shows

• Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) (imdb, wikipedia), buy)
• Gloria (1980) (imdb, wikipedia)
• Analyze This (1999) (imdb)
• Analyze That (2002) (imdb)
• Reservoir Dogs (1992) (imdb, wikipedia, buy)
• The Usual Suspects (1994) (imdb)
• The Simpsons, Season 6 Episode 15 (S6E15) “Homie The Clown” (1995) (tvdv, imdb,wikipedia), has some mobster elements (pictured left)
• The Simpsons, Season 6 Episode 24 (
  S6E24) “Lemon of Troy”, Bart’s friend Milhouse speaks the famous last words from Little Caesar (1930) “Is this the end of Milhouse?” (imdb)
• The Sopranos“ (1999-2007) (imdb)
• Dick Tracy
• Michael Jackson, “Smooth Criminal” music video (clipland, wikipedia)
• Gangs of New York
• Sexy Beast

Books

• Gangster Film Reader
• Gangster Films
• Tony Soprano’s America: The Criminal Side Of The American Dream
• more on amazon

Papers

• Warshow, Robert: The Gangster as Tragic Hero.In: Ders: The Immediate Experience, New York 1962. (buy)
• Walker, Helen Louise: Hunting For A Hero. Motion Picture Magazine. July 1931. In: Violence and American Cinema. (buy)

First, there is 1989’s Christmas Vaccation (imdb), one of the modern classics in the X-mas film genre. John Hughes was clever enough to cite a few passages from Capra when doing his draft of a classic holiday season movie. There is the loose stair post, which George repeatedly tears off in IAWL and Clark finally fixes with the help of his chainsaw in CV. Then there is the abstract theme of a man in financial trouble, torn between caring for his family and giving in to outside forces, culminating in a complete disaster right on christmas day. Both films even feature a pool scene, somewhat reminiscent of The Party (imdb).

Having a look at the credits you might point out that Frank Capra III, who is a descendant of the IAWL Frank Capra, was Second Assistant Director on CV. Finally this is the the link that explains further influences like Clark’s living-room rant, which George does as well in IAWL. And the plain fact that both movies end with the local police singing along christmas carols (or the hymn respectively).

Another interesting link that might appear a bit farfetched is the relation to Back to the Future (imdb). George in It’s A Wonderful Life builds Bailey Park, which magically disappears und the angel’s influence, also the town is later on renamed to Potterville. Might be all the -villes here, but the eliptical visits of Marty in BTTF to his housing estate in the 50s and 80s, the Biff-Potter-similarity, struck a chord for me.

Further, the overall concept reminds of the 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol (imdb), in IAWL with Clarence, the second-grade angel, who in the later part of the film guides George around the town. Just like in Dante’s Divine Comedy, a transcendant guide leads the protagonist through a series of carthartic moments that permit him to find new meaning in life. Of course the Muppet’s movie itself is based on the classic Dickens tale A Christmas Carol. Among others, film reviewer James Berardinelli had already pointed out that obvious fact. “In both stories, a man revisits his life and potential death (or non-existence) with the help of supernatural agents”.

Groundhog Day (imdb) , according to the WGA one of the greatest scripts/films of all time, besides the time of year, seems to draw a bit from IAWL as well. Especially in the first half, where George expresses he wants nothing more than leaving this small town, the similarities become clear. A small town, an outbound protagonist - ok, these two films haven’t invented this plot, but the connection is there.

Last a small finding: in 2007 there was a cheesy Vodafone TV commercial (I still have to track it down exactly) where a guy is so electrified by his cheap mobile phone contract that he feels the urge to run around town and wish everybody a cheerful christmas, just like George does after his experience with Clarence.

Only some observations that needed to be shared. Happy holiday!

The need to cut down costs on independent and low- to no-budget productions urged many filmmakers to think about alternatives, while pleasing asthetic demands.The issues arising from not using a film camera and need to be adressed are the difference in: depth of field, the technical background of interlaced vs. progressive scanning, resolution and grain, mostly inferior lenses, exposure and light reception of the sensor and colorimetry.

The post-production approach

As many semi-professional filmmakers had no access to high-quality equipment (but what they had was a simple camcorder) various techniques were invented to post-process an image to make it look like it was filmed with a film based camera. This process became known as doing the “filmlook” on an image. Although many approaches were able to reproduce filmic aesthetics quite well by simulating shutter and film’s color bias, most processes resulted in a loss of quality - similar to the idea of just overimposing letterbox bars and sacrificing the underlying image area for that.

Some methods are homegrown, a set of tools, others are editing software plugin-ins or filters. Some free, some commercial. All in all they are too many to list them all.

Mentioned as a side-note here, the reversal of adding blur, which is most common in a cinematic environment, is the need to increase the depth of field. Focus stacking is one digital image processing technique which enables this by combining multiple images taken at different focus distances “to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field than any of the individual source images. Available programs for multi-shot DOF enhancement include Syncroscopy AutoMontage, PhotoAcute Studio, Helicon Focus and CombineZM.” (wikipedia). Such demands are most common in macro photography where illustrating images need a deep focus that wouldn’t be possible due to pysical limitations otehrwise.

Semi-professional 35mm adaptors

One of the differences between the domain of digital (mostly camcorder) images and true film camera results is the camcorder’s lack of film grain, the inferior lens quality and the larger depth of field due to a smaller sensor dimension.

The latter two of the problems can be addressed by using film quality lenses and a thing called a 35mm adapter. The difference in depth of field (or sometimes depth of focus) is caused by the relation of the lens’ focal length and the camera’s image plane (or sensor dimensions). Most consumer and prosumer cameras/camcorders use relatively small CCDs, which, combined with their internal fixed optic, results in a deep depth of field. While this might be a good thing for the usual family usage, so grandma is always in focus, it subjectively damages the “quality look” of the recorded image compared to a film camera’s output.

With the advent of prosumer semi-professional cameras with the option to interchange lenses, handy people were able to mess with the light’s path into the camera and invented a number of devices to compensate a camcorders optical defects in terms of DoF.

There are do-it-yourself approaches. If you feel inclined to try it yourself, there are still many tutorials online on how to do that, a relic from the time when commercial solutions weren’t available.

On the commercial side, there are basically two types of adapters available:

1. The active ones: they are larger and use a motor that spins a shutter disc. They are heavier and cumbersome, need larger bases and sometimes infere with on location sound recording. Although they are more expensive than the second, they give better results in image quality, and reduce the effects of noise in the image by the roating shutter.

2. Static adapters are quiter and most do not compensate the flip side effect.

All adapters have some problems in common: they deteriorate the image quality (some more, some less) and they steal a bit of light. Another problem with altering the light path is that in the process the image flips, which some adapters try to compensate for. Here is a list of commercially available 35mm adapters:

• CINEMEK G35 (fortmerly Guerilla 35). Is one of the more poppular and  has extensively been used by Spanish DoP MacGregor
• REDROCK’s active M2 was quite popular but seems to have stopped producing it lately.
• P+S TECHINIK. Especially in German shortfilms, the cumbersome but active Mini35 adapter is quite popular. As it is quite expensive, you can rent it from many rental houses.
• CINEDOF. Gone?
• LETUS35. A range of procuts, some prevent the flip-effect
• CINEVATE BREVIS35. carbon-fibre chassis, quite small and microcontroller operated with interchangeable lens mounts
• KINOMATIC’s Movietube is compared to the Mini35 an elegant solution, offering impressive quality and a rigid chassis. Some experiences with the MOVIEtube are here. And more info, also about the Movietube is here.
• SGPRO a small adapter in the tradition of home grown solutions for about 600€.
• WDR35 an italian manufacturer of simple 35mm adapters, similar to the SGPRO and M2.
• INDIE 35 another simple adapter, the H@, available for 510$.

Professional digital cinematography

Among other early adopters, most popularly George Lucas pioneered the adoption of digital cinematography in cooperation with Sony. Today most professional equipment manufacturers offer digital movie cameras.

All of these solution use a full (or very large) format sensor to get rid of the effects of smaller CCDs as prominent in the consumer and prosumer domain. And they offer dynamic recording reates, superior RAW and compression recording modes and professional grade image procession.

Here is a short overview:

• Sony CineAlta, a HDCAM Series, among them the new F35, is a 24P HD high definition video camera most notably for being used on Star Wars Episode II and Sin City.
• ARRI, the German folks at Arnold & Richter, long time supplier of high quality optical devices, introduced their line of digital cameras starting in 2004 with the ARRI D-20 and 2008 the D-21, rivaling Panavision, as the D-21 was used on Bond 22, a Quantum of Solace.
  
• RED, the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, helmed by Oakley founder Jim Jannard, started in 2005 with its RED One to offer professional digital film cameras. Although a bit of bragging about resolution helped them kickstart the company (a high sensor resolution was proclaimed while in reality this resolution needed to be broken down to achieve a good image), the company today offers a range of very high resolution devices, along with trendy marketing, makes them popular in many filmmaker circles.
• Thomson Viper, the Viper is a three-sensor camera design, captures a 1920 × 1080 pixel image. In addition to uncompressed RGB output, the Viper is also capable of outputting RAW sensor data, which allows for more control in post-production.
• Panavision Genesis, Panavision’s step into the digital domain
• furthermore: Panasonic VeriCam, Silicon Imaging SI-2K, Vision Research Phantom, Weisscam, GS Vitec noX and the Fusion Camera System. More reading: a list on wikipedia.

• The Tin Man’s sway - Michael Jackson’s gravity defying sway moves at the end of the “Smooth Criminal” music video.
• The Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man masquerade as guards of the Wicked Witch to sneak into the castle to rescue Dorothy - in Star Wars Luke and Han Solo aboard the Death Star masquerade as Storm Troopers to sneak into the cell block to recue Pricess Lea.
• Jack Haley’s portrayal of the Tin Man was obviously in tone, movement and costume an inspiration for George Lucas’ creation of C-3PO in the Star Wars franchise.

More implications seem to be (according to imdb’s trivia page):

• Judy Garland’s portrayal of Dorothy was the main inspiration for the character of Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island” (1964)
• The Tin Woodsman costume worn by Jack Haley was reportedly so stiff that he had to lean against a board to rest. Thirty-eight years later, Anthony Daniels (who played C-3PO in the Star Wars movie series) had the same problem with his costume.

I can’t tell if venturing into the videogame-as-movie business was such a good idea for Boll, but that one film has not deserved the disastrous 1.6 imdb rating.

While watching this really worthwhile film (an exception is the cheesy and annoying soundtrack btw.) I got the feeling of “hey, I’ve seen that before”. Then it hit me: Alien! I don’t know if this is a well documented fact, but if you look a bit closer at structure, character orchestration and theme, this film closely resembles Alien from 1979 (imdb, wikipedia).

First, there is this diffuse threat, the gang in Assault and the beast in Alien, that is prominent throughout the whole film. One member of the group, the father in Assault and Kane in Alien, was outside and when he comes back in brings the threat with him.

In Alien, the location under siege are the crew quarters on board the Nostromo space ship, in Assault it’s the police station Precinct 13. As soon as the father/Kane is inside, the mean antagonist of the movies, of which we never see a clear face, goes into attack mode.

The character that expresses her fears and conveys the panic and confusion to the audience is Julie, in Alien this role is Lambert, reacting with a striking similarity in hysteria and even dialogue.

Looking at it from today, James Cameron seems to have been very aware of the relationship between Assault and Alien. While writing Aliens (imdb, wikipedia) it appears as if he had revisited Assault to extract further structural elements for the Alien sequel.

Further on, in Assault, the film features defense action, with the gang climbing in. Very similar to what we got to know from Aliens. Actually so closely that while watching Assault you wait for Hudson or Vasquez sealing doors with a torch. Then, the Assault plot takes us into the basement of the station, in the Alien movies we get to see the innards of the Nostromo or the Weyland-Youtani habitat.

Vasquez in Aliens offers Gorman to keep a grenade back to kill them both, a promise she will keep later on while crawling through one of the tunnels (the basement in Assault). In Assault Leigh does the same offer to Napoleon. The strong character of Leigh, by the way, is a close fit with Ripley in Alien, although Leigh isn’t exactly the protagonist.

A very interesting finding while researching the similarities between Aliens and Assault is that Cameron actually named a character Bishop! A character named Ethan Bishop was the lead, the police officer supervising Precinct 13, in Assault.

Bishop along with Ripley is a group of outsiders in Aliens, where the marines think they run the show. In Assault, the three convicts first seem to pose a further threat on the group in the station, while in reality and later on in the movie they become their closest allys - just like Ripley, Bishop and the marines in Aliens.

In order to break out, the group in both movies makes a plan. In Assault, the first attempt is that someone has to crawl through the drain system tubes to reach a car parking in front of the building. It has to be someone with a special capability: to short-circuit and start a car without key. In Aliens, someone has to crawl through a tube to reach a communication link terminal, to remotely steer the drop-ship shuttle down for a pick-up. Bishop is selected with his special capability: only he is able to steer the ship with robotic precision.

Once you’ve found out the parallels, the similarities become obvious. As said, I don’t know if this is a known fact, but if I am the first to notice it, I’d like to write my copyright under it.

You might ask if this belittles the merit of Alien and Aliens. I do not think so. Only in very few cases, art is a completely original process. The Alien/Aliens “homage” is a very good example of telling an appealing story twice through a change in setting while keeping the overall structure. And for every science-fiction fan the Alien franchise is an interesting twist and update on the Assault story. It is evidence that universal themes in literature (and film) never die.

But let’s start at the beginning. A good story isn’t good because of the acting, it is good because of the drama, the specific dynamics the playwright has put into it. The screenwriter is the one who creates great characters and it is the screenwriter who puts all these great characters into the high drama the story unfolds just in front of our eyes.

David Mamet once said, I won’t quote him literally, that he isn’t so fond of “serious acting”, the magical “art of acting”. For him, acting is more like craftsmanship. He used to tell his actors things like “look angry!” and rolls camera. But if Mamet is right, where do all these big moments in acting history come from? Is it really the actor?

Who can tell. For sure, in most cases the actor wasn’t the one who invented the story. The writer is a guy with thick glasses everyone makes fun about. The type of guy you would call up at the very end to join your team, back in the days at school. But it was this guy who wrote the stuff the superstar actor is about to do and to say. Once, in the golden era of Hollywood, writers were the rowing slaves of the system, they even weren’t allowed to join the crew on set.

The set is a good prompt to continue this rant. As the audience, we are inclined to say: oh, this was good acting! But who was responsible for that? Did anyone of us see the actual shooting on set? Seen the actor forgetting his lines. Have we heard the director’s commands? Seen the number of re-takes? No. Somebody just says: “good acting”, and everyone on the media junkett will parrot this opinion, because acting is such a subjective and mysteriously art-form.

There are numerous perspectives you can take tackling the question of good acting. One of it (mine) is to say: there isn’t so much magic in good acting. There is just an actor who managed it to not ruin the cleverly woven fabric of the story and the character. The actor just fits the part - as easy as that. This is why most actors do not actually act that much. They just act out themselves.

“The method“, as taught by Strasberg/Stanislavski is meant to bring the actor into a position where she/he authentically feels like the character and thus is able to reproduce authentic feelings. Acting as a psychological process. Okay. But how much simpler is it to just be like the character? It is not such an achievement if you are a mafia type of guy and thus can quite convincing play a mafia type of guy.

The Academy seems to honor, besides a few others, mostly two categories of actors: the beautiful superstar actor who dares to play a very ugly character, preferably by heavily changing their own appearance. And the actor who works therapeutically on his own life while filling a part in a film or play. So the basic receipt is to (a) gain weight, lose weight, use an ugly rubber nose or some other sort of makeup to fill your part, or (b) be a former drug addict, victim of some crime or the like to prepare for your role as drug-dealer/drug-addict or mass murderer/cop respectively. In all these cases you are basically yourself, but everyone will regard “facing your fears/trauma” as good acting. And such a fit in real life and played life is very welcome in promoting the film/play in the media. Good acting?

Rewind to the poor writer: she/he managed to write an intense story with intense moments. The director is talented enough to translate the written word with the help of the cinematographer and everyone else on the crew into a stream of intense images. The actor is the one who says the lines, in the very focal point of all this, the overall setup. Blam, what a great moment on film. Who is responsible? Of course, the great art of the actor - who in fact just managed to not ruin the scene.

The whole process of casting is basically finding someone who fits the part. If you are looking for a perfect villain, in most cases someone who already looks evil in a way will be a good fit. An actor physiognomally needs to fit the part. So acting is a mixture of the actor’s overall appearance, the gesture and voice. If everything comes in right, there you have it, “good acting”. But wait, where was it again, the art of acting..? Seems it got lost in all the other main criterias.

As said, there are numerous ways to look at it. Acting can be an art-form, in the very few cases where the actor’s attitude (towards acting and the role) and the specific challenges of a certain part meet. It can!

And an actor can make or break it. Please note that I did not say “a good actor…”. To sum it all up (and to placate everyone a bit), for me, it is important to understand that film and theater is a team effort. A single actor can add the final polish, but in every case it is not the singular effort the star-system is making us believe it is. Take my post as a pledge for a more pragmatic acting approach.

Blender (homepage, Wikipedia) [Cross Platform] blender by design is a 3D modeling and rendering software. But the package over the years got so mature that even the internal editing functionality grew to top-notch proportions.

KDEnlive (homepage, Wikipedia) [Linux] quite mature and complete non-linear editing suite.

Jahshaka (homepage, Wikipedia) [Cross Platform] modeled after the commercial packages from Adobe (After Effects) or Discreet’s Flame/Smoke etc. the GUIis very nice to look at. Anyway, the software is in early stage and you can give it a shot but don’t expect too much yet.

Avidemux (homepage, Wikipedia) [Cross-Platform] although the software is not designed to be a full non-linear editing application, it can do simple cutting and inserting, perfect if you need to edit avideo file quickly without effects or sophisticated transitions. It’s imilar to VirtualDub.

VirtualDub (homepage, Wikipedia) [Windows] the classic “simple editor” developed by Avery Lee, has since outgrown its avi-only capabilities and is a good choice for simple cut & paste operations or video transcodings.

And some exotic picks.

ZS4, formerly Zwei-Stein (homepage) [Windows] - a video editor with a quirky user interface.

Wax (homepage) [Windows]

Also refer to the List of video editing software on Wikipedia.

This article here was in desperate need of expansion, thus the above edit on February 12, 2009, the original post just redirected to this article, which discusses three major open-source (which means free!) video editing solutions.