Industrial Light and Magic (ILM)

Industrial Light and Magic

Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) is a motion picture visual effects company that was founded by George Lucas in May 1975. It is a division of the film production company, Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when Lucas began production of the film Star Wars. For many years, particularly during the widespread inception of computer graphics in film during the 1980s, ILM was considered the leading industry standard production house for computer graphics in film; many studios other than Lucasfilm sent scenes to the studio for CG. It is also the original founder company of the animation studio Pixar.



ILM originated in Van Nuys, California, then later moved to San Rafael in 1978, and since 2005 it has been based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired ILM as part of its purchase of Lucasfilm.

The Star Wars saga was an incredible achievement by the company

Revolutionising the digital animation of Hollywood is one thing, revitalising the hand-drawn animation world is another. For Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit ILM was tasked with creating realistic cartoon characters, or "toons" in 1947's Los Angeles.

The process was an intense procedure, everything from highlights, to low-lights, to translucency, to shadows. More difficult still was the tracking of toons before the age of digital computers. Zemeckis wanted to film the picture like any other movie so as to not take the audience out of the moments he presented; he wanted toons to experience high emotion, high melodrama and serious real-world issues. Unlike Ralph Bakshi's Cool World where the limitations were most prevalent when the toons enter the real world.

ILM do the visual effects for most well known films and blockbusters; all of the Marvel movies (under Disney and Marvel Studios), the upcoming Great Wall, Kong: Skull Island, TMNT, The Revenant, Warcraft, Transformers, and most if not all big blockbusters in the immediate future.

Thriller Opening - Analysis Of Tropes

In preparation for our opening, we looked at two different thrillers to address the tropes commonly featured. For 10 Cloverfield Lane by Dan Trachtenberg, the thriller that later evolves into a sci-fi film, the film opens with the common trope of the shaky cam following of our protagonist around a room. Through visuals, no dialogue, we have the scenario of our protagonist explained; she is leaving her fiancee and she is packing her belongings. We get this through her rapid grabbing of her belongings and her hurried packing, the restlessness of the camera entails. And the final panning shot reveals the left wedding ring and the note. This visual shorthand shows us very quickly the events that lead to this, telling us the backstory without forced exposition. As we follow her in her car we reach the second trope, "The Winding Road To Nowhere". This has been seen in such famous thrillers and horror films as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, The Cohen Brother's Fargo and more. We follow her in her car across a bridge, into the country, further and further away from civilisation. The isolation of her in her car, alone in the middle of nowhere is a scary.

In Room (2015) by Lenny Abrahamson, they create tension via several conventional and non-conventional ways. For example, the editing involves very quick insertion of titles so quick that they come across as disorienting, unclear, fragmented, white on black. It adds to the overall affect of the disjointed, abruptness of each shot. In terms of sound, the dull tone and the breathing over the short clips of the room add to the quick paced world building. It's only until the smooth, long take of the reveal of Room and the protagonist's voice over that the soft piano music begins. If the conventional beginning of the film had not happened, we wouldn't think this film was in any way a thriller, based on the shot of the main character and his mother and the music choice they made. The diegetic sound in the beginning, the breathing, sighing and moaning, add to the unknowing and creepy vibe of the scene, the mother's voice telling him to go back to sleep is unnerving if you haven't seen the film and you don't know what happens. Then when the voice-over begins, the sudden disconnect of diegesis , the echoey, unreal quality of his voice make it suddenly so much more calm. The shots in the beginning are obscured visuals, you can't make everything out. The extreme close-ups on mundane, small things keep it in such tight focus that you don't fully comprehend the situation. The camera action, the pull of focus, the shaky cam, the raked angles, the intensely tight shots give sense of claustrophobia. The misleading opening transitioning to the family-drama style situation of our main characters frames it as way of life, showing it as a normality and routine while also keeping an otherness to the scene that keeps you uneasy and unsure.

 

First Day Of Thriller - Log Lines

Having looked at log lines for famous movies, it's becoming apparent that there are only so many plots that can be made and the key is in the details. The way it hooks a studio executive is through key elements such as character cues, simplicity, lines, famous scenes, famous visuals or iconic ideas. For example, Rocky was easy to summarise because it's so simple and effective, utilising a well-known quote to make it identifiable.

Similarly Mad Max is such an iconic story and culturally significant film that it's immediately noticeable to someone like me, therefore it's brilliant to capture an audience and exec's attention.

We were then tasked with creating a log line for our thriller after our original treatment was complete. This was mine:

A girl is abducted and made to carry out riddles and puzzles to secure her freedom. The one who entraps her, known only as Enigma, uncovers secrets and a twisted past in our protagonist that she has been trying to escape, something she cannot remember.

Genesis Cinema - East London

Independent cinemas in London have an important role in London and the rest of the country in distributing indie films. However, when we visited the local Genesis Cinema we saw a blockbuster action sci-fi film, Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens.

Genesis is one of multiple independent cinemas and cinema branches in London. Such cinemas include Everyman, Curzon, The Arthouse Cinema, BFI Southbank, Cine Lumiere, Electric Cinema, Lexi Cinema, Peckhamplex, Phoenix, Prince Charles, Regent Street, Rio and many more. 

Genesis Cinema is a unique film experience. This was originally a music hall now made into an independent cinema, it has its own cafe, pub and very Shining-esquqe bar.

There's an ongoing debate as to the relevance of modern cinemas, due to the internet we all have access to the digital copies online, there is this debate as to whether or not cinema is a dying art. While cinephiles and movie buffs will deny this, and while independent cinema will surely strive to exist long into the future, the advancements in streaming and in online distribution do make questions towards the merits and validity cinemas and film theatres have.

TV Show Openings

In search of ideas for my thriller opening I have researched and studied the following TV intros, Even though we would be making a film opening, it's worth to research it in my mind.

Moodboard

In development of our thriller we made several mood boards to find inspiration for our protagonist Melanie, to be played by Mia Rodgers. This was to find different costuming ideas for her as well as to come up with the theme and palette of the overall film. The look of it was important to me.

Editing - Working With Final Cut vs Premiere Pro

Working with Final Cut was by far the biggest hurdle for me. As someone who's used Premiere Pro, Final Cut was a headache to get the hang of. To me it felt too user friendly for my liking, very hard to work with in all honesty.

Golden Globes 2017 - Nominees and Nocturnal Animals

This year's Golden Globes made one affirmation to us; the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is as buyable as we all like to think. We joke about it constantly but last night it really rang true as it was discovered that Tom Ford, director of Nocturnal Animals, had sent two bottles of cologne to the HFPA. Although they claimed to have sent one of them back (one of them, huh?) the nominations were definitely a little askew. I mean, look at them:

Film

Best Picture, Drama
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Best Picture, Comedy or Musical
20th Century Women
Deadpool
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Sing Street

Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Actor, Drama
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Actress, Drama
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

Best Actor, Comedy
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Best Actress, Comedy
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don't Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Aaron Taylor Johnson, Nocturnal Animals

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Best Screenplay
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water

Best Original Score
Moonlight
La La Land
Arrival
Lion
Hidden Figures

Best Original Song “Can't Stop the Feeling,” Trolls
“City of Stars,” La La Land
“Faith,” Sing
“Gold,” Gold
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana

Best Animated Feature Film
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia

Best Foreign Language Film
Divines
Elle
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann

 

Any field that Ford could have made revenue in was filled alright, Amy Adams chose to rally for lead in Arrival. The amount of awards was surprising since Nocturnal Animals is not very awards friendly (UPDATE: Not a single nomination from the Academy seems to attest to that). And in the grand scheme, only one win for Aaron Taylor Johnson actually made the light.

 

Jimmy Fallon was this year's host, an ABC affiliate so it was ideal, and he did a good job. I did like his intro despite how long it did start to get and how on the nose some of his parodies were. He held his own and kept the show rolling, it was just slightly odd to see the SNL alumni hosting such a prestigious event as this.