November 9, 2021

Jay Rosenblatt, independent filmmaker, artist and professor on being a jury member of CamerImage

Our host Illya Friedman had the opportunity to speak to one of his former film instructors, Jay Rosenblatt at CamerImage back in 2019. Jay taught Super 8 Filmmaking at San Francisco State University and has made over 30 short films. As a member of the jury for the Energa CamerImage film festival in Poland for the past several years, Jay looks for innovative storytelling in the films they screen.

Jay’s latest short film is When We Were Bullies, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and will be screening at CamerImage next week.

The 2021 CamerImage film festival begins in Torun, Poland next week.

Find Jay Rosenblatt: https://www.jayrosenblattfilms.com/

WIN an autographed copy of Directing Great Television by last week’s guest, director Dan Attias! Follow us on Instagram @thecinepod and comment on our post for this episode!

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com//ep147/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com

Sponsored by Assemble: Assemble has amazing production management software. Use the code cinepod to try a month for free! https://www.assemble.tv/
Be sure to watch our YouTube video of Nate Watkin showing how Assemble works! https://youtu.be/IlpismVjab8

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The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

August 10, 2021

Cinematographer Flavio Labiano on Jungle Cruise, Timecrimes, Day of the Beast, and more

Cinematographer Flavio Labiano doesn’t consider himself an artist with a capital “A” but more of a craftsperson. To him, cinematography is a craft that you learn by making mistakes and taking risks, like any other craft that you hone and improve over time.

On Disney’s Jungle Cruise, Flavio found the planning and pre-production stages of the huge-scale movie to be especially challenging. It was about 100 days of planning, with two different sets- one in Hawaii and one in Atlanta, Georgia, and with the second unit shooting footage in the Amazon to use as background plates. All the exterior tank work was done in front of a blue screen in a parking lot in Atlanta. The town of Porto Velho, where the jungle cruise adventure begins, was mainly shot in Hawaii. Flavio paid close attention to the orientation of the sun in order to match the set in Hawaii with the set in Atlanta. He also had to match the hard sunlight in the South to the sunlight in Hawaii, and the crew had to deal with the constant interruptions of summer afternoon rainstorms in Georgia. Flavio and Jungle Cruise director, Jaume Collet-Serra, have worked together on several films including The Shallows, another movie that takes place mostly in water.

Flavio grew up in Spain, then moved to Los Angeles to attend AFI. He found his first film jobs working for Roger Corman’s studio alongside Wally Pfister, Phedon Papamichael, and Janusz Kaminski. Flavio moved back to Spain for film work and has made most of his career there with movies such as The Day of the Beast, which was a huge commercial success in Spain, and Timecrimes, an exciting and mind-bending thriller. Shortly after Timecrimes, he and fellow Spaniard, director Jaume Collet-Serra began working together. Influenced by director Alfred Hitchcock, who enjoyed making thrillers with characters who are celebrities, the two made Nonstop and Unknown with Liam Neeson.

You can watch Jungle Cruise on Disney+

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/ep135/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

August 4, 2021

Director Braden King and cinematographer Declan Quinn, ASC on The Evening Hour

In the film The Evening Hour, director Braden King wanted to immerse the viewer in a fully formed world, with spare dialog and little exposition. This approach appealed to cinematographer Declan Quinn, ASC. With such little dialog, Declan paid close attention to finding the right camera placement, how each scene was composed and how the images told the story, with natural and motivated lighting.

The Evening Hour tells the story of Cole Freeman, a health aid at a nursing home who lives in a fictional rural West Virginia town. He makes a little extra money on the side selling his client’s prescription medication, until an old friend comes back to the Appalachian town and tries to convince Cole to get further involved in the drug trade. The film was shot entirely on location in Kentucky. Braden specifically wanted to shoot in autumn in order to capture the beauty of that time of year and show in images the collapse of these rural towns due to the opioid epidemic and the risk of environmental destruction by mining companies. Declan enjoyed actually shooting on location in the real Appalachia, instead of having to fake it on a soundstage or in a different area. He was able to freely capture everything in the environment, letting the art of cinematography work its magic in the film.

The Evening Hour is screening in limited release in New York at the IFC Center and Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica on August 6th. https://www.laemmle.com/film/evening-hour
Twitter & Instagram: @eveninghourfilm

Braden King: www.bradenking.com
Twitter:@bradenking
Instagram: @truckstop

Find Declan Quinn: https://www.artistry.net/clients/directors-of-photography/declan-quinn-asc#category=narrative

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/ep134/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz