Robert Elswit

Robert Elswit
Originally uploaded by subatomicfilms
The master cinematographer came to the department last night to talk about his experiences. He was kind enough to arrange a screening of a 35mm print of There Will Be Blood, for which he is nominated for an Oscar.

To be honest, I didn't really know his work until I checked him out on imdb, and learned that he's shot some of favourite movies of the past few years: Michael Clayton, Good Night, and Good Luck and Magnolia. An impressive CV.

He mostly spoke about TWBB, working with Paul Thomas Anderson and his unorthodox approach to filmmaking.

He himself said that he's not (nor will Tony Gilroy) going to win on Sunday night, but he'll always be #1 in our hearts. Yeah I said that.

Leaks

Our friends at the Pirate Bay are apparently behind the new wiki-style site wikileaks which allows the dissemination of classified documents pertaining to governments and corporations. It encourages whisteblowers to pass on information, promising anonymous, untraceable uploads.

It launched in late 2006 and gained big hits when it posted the SOP's for the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp.

It is sites like this that are truly making the internet an absolutely essential alternative to mainstream media.

A quick perusal through some of the other docs is scary and infuriating.

James McBride & Spike Lee

Spike Lee's class this semester is all about his next film, which just wrapped shooting 2 weeks ago. It's an adaptation of James McBride's book "Miracle at St. Anna", and the 92nd Division (mostly black soldiers in WWII) experiences through Italy.

Last week we were absolutely treated to see a teaser trailer that was assembled for Hollywood types. The stuff is truly beautiful.

This week, we were lucky to have the author James McBride (who also wrote the screenplay) come to class and talk to us about working with Spike on adapting his own work. It was really great to hear about his writing process, and what goes through his mind when writing for characters. It's interesting to note that Mr. McBride is also a notable jazz musician and journalist (he teaches journalism at NYU).

At the end of the class, Spike said that we were all getting copies of McBride's latest book Song Yet Unsung, which was released on Tuesday. We also got copies of the screenplay. It was like Oprah! I was a fanboy and got them both signed by the author, who was extremely gracious.

It was a great treat to have two master artists in one room, and to hear them talk about storytelling and craft.

Worst Headline Ever?!

Either Toronto is having a snow storm, or just had a massive Taco Bell meal.