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Sean Cunningham

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  1. Sean Cunningham
    Yeah....he's kinda an acquired taste.  I ran afoul of his often contradictory ways but have since found a balance where I just see him like a lot of people I know who are very smart.  Some smart people will comment (often in an authoritative way) on things they don't have direct experience with based on prior knowledge of various related issues.  They recognize that without serious, paradigm shifting changes to technology or manufacturing you can make very educated guesses regarding new stuff based on knowing how, who and with what it was put together.    They aren't always going to be right but more often than not they will.  They'd rather folks believe them up-front than play "I told you so" weeks, months or years later.  You get kinda used to that when you've worked with some of the folks that I've worked with, who are just scary, scary smart (imagine the cast of Big Bang theory, but with more psychadelics).  I guess my point is, in the cases where they do end up being wrong it's never arbitrary.  They always had a reason for thinking what they did at the time.  Now, getting them to admit they were wrong, that's a different story, lol.   Anyway, here's the threads:   http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/4674/chinese-manufacturers-catched-leaders-and-went-ahead-of-ipads/p1   http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/4653/chinese-offer-tablets-with-retina-screen   http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3693/hacked-playback-on-android-tablets   ...that last one is good for reference as well, making sure to get one with enough lead in its pencil is likely important as well as knowing what supplemental software would be needed for playback of footage directly, if necessary.
  2. Sean Cunningham
      And here's where I can also say there's a big difference between someone like Deakins and Miranda, at least in the case of PI.   I worked on the first ever, end-to-end feature film to get a DI.  That was cool, but you know who took it deadly serious?  Roger Deakins.  He wasn't satisfied to just shoot Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and say, "well, I shot it, now it's up to them."  The end result would be, even if he wasn't the one tweaking the dials personally, a reflection on his work.  End-to-end.  He lived and breathed that film all the way to the end.     Oh Brother had a sequence which, just like in PI, a majority of the frame would end up being totally digital.   This was the sequence I was lead over.  You know who took this sequence deadly serious, because it had to not only match the tone of surrounding photography but would ultimately be a reflection on his work?  Roger Deakins.  And so he was there, defining, tweaking and crafting the look with us.   Miranda just isn't that guy, if we're to use PI as an example.  He was not there, at R+H, when the look and impact of the film was actually being crafted.  He was absent from the process.  There is no plainer way to say it so that someone like Leang can understand.  I'm sure he'll still try to find some BS, third party source to try to maintain his fantasy to the contrary.   This will be my parting statement on the subject.
  3. Sean Cunningham
      Awww, but the real problem here is your reading comprehension and ability to process information.  How is a "film off" going to help you grow and learn?     I'll remind you, the patronization started on your end.  It's not my fault I'm better at that than you as well.   Beyond that, I'm not skerr'd but I don't want to be really mean so I'll just leave it at that.
  4. Sean Cunningham
      He just doesn't get it.  His exposure to filmmaking is academic, the press and Turkey.  We really shouldn't expect so much from the boy.
  5. Sean Cunningham
      Yes, he was not there.  He may have never even stepped foot in the doors of R+H, the place where the imagery was actually crafted.  It's absurd that they use imagery with the R+H tiger and ocean and sky in that article because he was not present when those aspects of the film were being created.    You're very comedic.  
  6. Sean Cunningham
    Next to Bladerunner, my favorite film is Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia.  I take a lot of heat for that with some of my friends but I don't care, it's beautiful and masterful.  Anyway, I watched it for the first time in several years tonight with a friend that had never seen it before.  I went looking for the trailer to show them and found this:     http://vimeo.com/56335284     ...his combination of anamorphic photography with steadicam is a favorite facet of mine.
  7. Sean Cunningham
      And FX is the only area I'll (currently) claim any expertise in (check back in ten years or so and it'll be a different story).  I'm pretty good in other areas but they are still very much works in progress.  I'm the first to admit that.  It doesn't mean I won't have strong opinions about other areas though.   I'm fully aware that I know less about these cameras than someone like Andrew, and so I keep tabs on his stories and this site.  I know I know less about lenses than someone like Tony, or Rich, amongst a few others, and so I keep an eye on what they say.   Shian is an excellent source of information on grading and lighting.   It's unfortunate that the only other person here (that I'm aware of) with independent feature experience has nothing to say that I'm interested in and nothing for me to learn from.  I only respect him for having the guts and ability to see a project through to the end, which is exceedingly rare.     For every finished independent feature that gets any form of exhibition or chance at reaching an audience there are scores that never will, that are finished and sitting in a closet somewhere.  There's likely ten times or more beyond this that never made it through post production and likely ten times beyond this that never even get through principal photography.   Whether I like what he does or has to say, at least on this point, he has my full respect.
  8. Sean Cunningham
      That's an easy postion to take not knowing how this stuff actually works.  You and the Academy share something in common in that respect.  They don't understand this stuff any more than any other uninitiated.   I've got no complaints about his work.  Eat Drink...was a beautiful movie, that he actually shot, for instance.   I've got complaints about him getting credit where he didn't work.  He was not a participant in the crafting of the imagery of PI.  That's a simple fact.  That's what this thread is really about and the news that he now has an even more respected-than-himself peer calling him out for this farce and not just the VFX riff raff.  What's extra funny, to me, is that Doyle likely doesn't even realize he only knows half the fraud that went down Oscar night.     edit:  I'm not just quoting a story here for the schadenfreude.  These are people that I know that have been affected by this.  My brother, a lead artist (he's basically a department head) on PI , put in more time on that film than Claudio Miranda did.  This is a company that myself and brothers have all worked now.  This is a company that I've followed since its inception in the late 1980s, since I was still in high school teaching myself how to do what they did so well.  This is something I have a personal interest in.  It's a firm and people I have made a personal investment in and who did the same with me.
  9. Sean Cunningham
    Check out the thread on Personal-View for inexpensive Android handhelds.  
  10. Sean Cunningham
      Nobody is claiming to be.  That's just some bullshit he said, implying that since nobody here is ASC then nobody here has any valid opinions.  He talks like he actually has a lot of experience doing...anything.     And you'd be wrong there.  I'm disappointed, Mark.  Or do you somehow respect one of the Coen Bros. more than the other, because only one of them sits in the director's chair?  That is the partnership I have in creating two features, beginning to end, hands on every single frame, creative partner in every single aspect (and not just the director's chair).  Distributed in markets around the globe and only at that point is one of these projects out of my hands or direct control.   And we're laying the groundwork now for a third, we just have so many more options and opportunities we want to pick the right one.   Maybe you should re-evaluate your assumptions about this process, Mark, and what it takes to make a feature length motion picture.         That's easy to find out.  Big ups to him for being a part of a low budget indie that actually finished and got a limited theatrical in Europe.  He enjoyed a healthy majority of available Turkish screens for a period and a screen or two (in Muslim neighborhoods I'm betting) for a week at a time or so in some other countries.  They might make their money back on home video deals.     I've never seen statistics on the movie buying versus pirating habits of America-Haters to fully project...there's a lot of them out there though, all over, but he's at the same quandry as every other indie working outside the establishment with no marketing muscle: how do I get the word out about my film so people even know it exists?
  11. Sean Cunningham
      Contributed to a couple billion dollars worth of other people's films.   I was cutting my teeth creating iconic imagery for James Cameron, only a year after being able to legally buy and drink liquor,  when you were still gnawing on your fudge-sickle, watching Howdy-Doody.  Within a year after that I was a co-supervising artist on his "alimony" project with Katheryn Bigelow and then a whole score of name brands.  Creating techniques.  Figuring it out.  That was my job.  To figure shit out.  Figuring you out, I could do that in my sleep.   Since then I've co-written, co-produced, co-created two features, shot one.   Did you write Bendeyar?  No.  Did you produce it?  No.  Did you shoot it?  No.   Did you raise the money for it?  No.  Did you put your hands on every single frame of it after it was done?  No.  Did you (co)design all of its supplemental art?  No.  Did you run off fresh out of school, no real experience in the industry to speak of, to a country with a few hundred theaters and your Columbia degree to play big fish in a tiny pond?  Could be....   I'm not going take anything away from you, Leang, in your feature debut as a hired director.  Only people who have actually made a feature know what it takes from us to do it.  But if you want to continue with your charade of experiential or artistic superiority to anyone here I will be so happy to oblige blowing you right the fuck out of the water.   I've created a damn sight more than you, boy.
  12. Sean Cunningham
      WTF are you talking about?  LOL, just say more random stuff that has nothing to do with what you're quoting or anything here.  It's comedic.   He was not there and not involved in the real crafting of PI.  How daft are you to not get that?  How presumptuous are you to lecture anyone?  
  13. Sean Cunningham
    I'm likely going to investigate the use of inexpensive, Retina-based Android tablets for "video village" on an upcoming project.     Things have come a long way from pulling/pushing around a 24" HDTV CRT, weighing in at near 100lbs and about 2' deep or so, on this library-looking A/V cart.  The Texas summer heat likely took its toll on that sucker's guts but those old Sony broadcast monitors were certainly "built Ford tough".   As for that monitor listed above, you need to order one of the battery plates it's designed to use.  That or invest in a lot of "stingers" (extension cords).
  14. Sean Cunningham
    FYI, just got additional confirmation, Miranda was never involved at the facility during post production on PI.  All reviews of work were with Ang Lee, his editor and Bill Westenhofer, the R+H supervisor who got the shark at :45 on the program.     So, there you go, all the really really cool shit that happens in the movie and in the trailer to get you to go see it, yeah, Miranda had nothing to do with that.  Doyle is calling him out likely working under the assumption, same as most people giving Miranda the benefit of the doubt, that he was there working with the VFX team creating the world of PI.  That, he doesn't consider cinematography.     But it's worse than that, and this fact likely hasn't even crossed Christopher Doyle's mind.  I'm betting the notion that a whole team of people he'll never meet are going to step in to actually craft the look and feel of a film his name is attached to would make his head explode, or he just might find new and interesting ways to tell everyone to "fuck off."  That's what Miranda did.     Other people crafted the film in his absence and he took credit for it.  He had that moment, that Brady Bunch or Growing Pains or Diff'rent Strokes moment to do the right thing and say, "shit, fellas, I was off playing X-Box or getting laid while these other guys finished the movie."  But he didn't, or at least hasn't yet.
  15. Sean Cunningham
        In case he's too modest, here you go:   http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4675381/   @ VIMEO   http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Plft7Sf2cGcJ:www.joelleang.com/index.php%3Fp%3D1_4_About+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us   http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/joelleang      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYotqzqnTTI   http://youtu.be/nQnBu_-nPtA
  16. Sean Cunningham
      Goddamn, Leang, we can always count on the academic propagandist to say something dumb...   A)  Miranda is a fraud in this instance.  Period.  That's a fact.  Even the smart JAFOs can recognize this if they look at the readily available, public information.  I'm sure he's a swell guy but the longer he keeps the award, the longer he perpetrates and perpetuates a fraud.   B )  An article in an art magazine curated by a French Canadian philanthropist is hardly an example of your bullshit accusation.  Is it questionable writing?  Maybe, but good journalism kinda died a long time ago.     Do you even think before you type between hookah hits?  (you'd be correct if your hyper-vigilant spider-senses told you that was some American sub-text...not racial, even though most ignorant people conflate cultural criticism with racism, but take it however you like).   PS> that's really, really funny, you talking about the "real world" of filmmaking.  
  17. Sean Cunningham
    Roger Deakins is different from the norm.  He's involved.  The Coen Bros. were smart enough to realize there was no reason to have studio or "client side" VFX supervisor on Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?  (there almost never is a good reason to have one, but this is the golden parachute for lots of has-been VFX guys who don't like to work so hard at the facility level).  The Coens came for some dailies screenings but it was Roger Deakins who kept the look of everything on track.    We had several similar types of shots to what was in PI, in terms of foreground water plates extended to the horizon, often with more than 50% of the frame being digital.  The difference between that film and PI is that Deakins took responsibility for everything going into the image (and can, unlike Claudio, actually claim ownership in the final result).  He wasn't just a pair of initials on some notes filtered back to artists with comments like, "make it 20% less mysterious."     On his all-CGI work he lights like a DP, within the digital space.  The tools have evolved enough that this can be done, in no small part because of hands-on participation and ownership of the process by Roger Deakins.
  18. Sean Cunningham
    Miranda was not involved in the crafting of the digital image, not in the way Deakins has been involved in the digital projects he's been a part of.     Miranda is guilty of plagiarism  here and the only honorable thing for him to do would be to give the award back.  Maybe 5% of the film is a result of him as a cinematographer in any true sense.  I'm willing to bet he wasn't even most responsible for the plate photography, which makes up most of the film, which is generally the case.  I've yet to see a behind-the-scenes picture or video where I can detect Lord Raiden.  And he did not set up shop at R+H, living and breathing the work, crafting the film as the visual General for the army of artists that made that film work.   Oh, and balls to George Lucas, Leang.
  19. Sean Cunningham
    I want to see the documentary he's done, with himself as an "unreliable narrator".  Sounds like a hoot!   I'm trying to find any way of checking out that "pink musical" he shot recently with the Kappa...like, what?  This guy is nuts!  He might just be my new hero.   @Bruno, yeah, I was maybe a bit too quick to label him as skeptical towards digital.  It's just the section talking about PI that made it seem that way, beyond the fact that Claudio took home a trophy for shooting like 5% of a movie.  
  20. Sean Cunningham
    Pretty amazing level of frankness here...     ".....Then we asked him about Chilean-born American cinematographer (and wizard lookalike) Claudio Miranda’s best cinematography Oscar for the effects-heavy “Life of Pi”. Doyle’s first response was his idiosyncratic cackle. “Do you want me to tell the truth? Ai yay yay yay. Okay. I’m trying to work out how to say this most politely, and no offense to – I don’t know him personally – but what a total fucking piece of shit. Let me be blunt. Ah, fuck. I don’t care, I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy and I’m sure he cares so much, but since 97 per cent of the film is not under his control, what the fuck are you talking about cinematography, sorry. I’m sorry. I have to be blunt and I don’t care, you can write it. I think it’s a fucking insult to cinematography." http://sea.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/874483/christopher-doyle-interview-part-2-life-of-pi-oscar-is-an     ...this guy is obviously a die hard skeptic when it comes to digital technology, but he's right on the money here, about the role of cinematographer on  PI and the 110% political nature of how the Oscars work.  Just his work with Wong Kar Wai is enough to shame most working DPs so it's not like he has to worry about how this might affect his career.  
  21. Sean Cunningham
    That's not anamorphic, Rich.  It's the cine zoom "taking" lens portion.     edit: ah, beat me to it.
  22. Sean Cunningham
      Yeah, people forget that even if, by some miracle, a set of C, E or Primo series Panavision lenses magically dropped from heaven into their laps or were willed to them by a rich, eccentric uncle, or even if they stole them off the back of a truck from a movie crew working their town, these would be, for all practical purposes, useless on a full-frame camera  :wacko:
  23. Sean Cunningham
    I don't know how on-board I am for no digital effects while grading and other very non-period digital effects are permitted, but, so be it.
  24. Sean Cunningham
      It has me thinking of special uses for these kinds of strips, for sure.     The throw is potentially significant.  Those smaller, compact lights I've read have a faster falloff than you'd expect.  With the reflector and surface area it could still be quite useful as-is for close-ups in place of a China-Ball maybe?
  25. Sean Cunningham
    Only problem is, these aren't high-output but perhaps strips of higher output LEDs could be located.     In the comments on the video they quote the finished item as 360 lumens but you can get 660 lumens out of a 160-LED (high output) like the cheap NEEWAR CN-160 that goes for under $40 on Amazon with color temp and diffusion filters included, plus built-in dimmer and battery operation.
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