#which in itself the cinema experience in different countries is always so interesting! people laugh outloud so much more here than home

[aphrodites-hipdips]

saw barbie yesterday was working so hard the whole time to hold myself together, i love women, i love being human. (i cried 2.5 times)

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in June

Now I think I’m comfortably in a rhythm to get these posts out. For one, I’m writing up short reviews either straight after watching a movie or sometimes it might take a few days. But June was a fairly good month in terms of the amount of films I watched. I got to go to the cinema quite a bit which is always fun. Anyway, let’s get on with it! If you’re looking for something good to watch (or maybe even something bad), I hope this list can help in some way to introduce you to new and different movies that maybe you’ve never heard of, or were thinking of checking out. Here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 30th of June 2021.

Bo Burnham: Inside (2021) - 10/10 Everyone was going off about how great this film is. An hour and a half of Bo Burnham in lockdown, singing songs and being upset is definitely a powerful hook and I have to agree with the general consensus because Inside blew me away. More thoughts on this in my podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon episode 34.

Bo Burnham: Make Happy (2016) - 7/10 After watching Inside, I figured I’d rewatch some of Burnham’s older stand-up shows on Netflix. Make Happy is a lot of fun, injected with a lot of introspection from Burnham that really makes the special stand out, despite a lot of gags that just didn’t land for me.

Bo Burnham: What. (2013) - 6/10 It’s plain to see just how much Bo Burnham has grown over the years and how he has honed his comedy and music. ‘What.’ is a good stepping stone in the comedian’s career, showcasing loads of promise in him from a young age. There are some jokes that haven’t aged as well and some that straight up dragged, but overall the show is still enjoyable.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) - 3/10 Packed theatre for this one, obviously. People love a Conjuring movie, and I’d also say people love a good scare… but this movie isn’t scary, or good for that matter. More thoughts on episode 35 of the podcast.

The Conjuring (2013) - 6/10 After the horrendously disappointing debacle that was the third Conjuring movie, I decided to watch James Wan’s original movie and man, if this wasn’t better in literally every way. I don’t tend to love James Wan movies but I can’t deny he’s got so much talent in how he makes movies and it makes The Conjuring a lot more fun to see competent filmmaking in the horror genre in a way that actually creates an eerie atmosphere with creative uses of camera-work and editing.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 8/10 Normally I’m not big into the old slasher movies. I appreciate that for the time, perhaps they hit differently, but now I just don’t tend to connect with them. Wes Craven’s ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ is a bit of an exception. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not particularly scary, though it does employ a lot of interesting techniques and designs. Undeniably, the design for Fred Krueger is a staple in cinema, with the striped jumper, hat, scarred face and knives for fingers not leaving the mind of the general public any time soon. Elm Street doesn’t have too many kills but when it does, it is so effective and fun to watch. Craven was one of the greats, truly.

One Cut of the Dead (2017) - 8/10 This has to be one of the most engaging zombie movies I’ve seen in a long time. There’s a lot to spoil with One Cut of The Dead but I won’t go into that here. It is clever and funny, subverting expectations in ways I really didn’t expect. I really cannot recommend it enough.

Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones (2019) - 8/10 Since we’re watching Chappelle's Show for episode 45 of the podcast, I wanted to get an idea for what I was in for, so I watched Dave Chappelle’s stand-up show from a couple of years ago. Yeah, really funny, which I suppose is what you want from a stand-up special, but what makes it better is Chappelle’s commentary on the world at large and how he’s able to combine humour with intelligent criticism.

Fear(s) of the Dark (2008) - 4/10 A few years ago I think I watched this animated black and white anthology film on a New Year's Day when I had foolishly decided to pull an all-nighter and then go out with mates for ice cream. Never again. But I’d forgotten what I thought of this movie and decided to get the DVD for cheap on eBay. Perhaps I am doomed to watch Fear(s) of the Dark only when I am tired because I popped this on when it was nearing midnight. I was lucid enough to understand what I was watching though… and it was quite boring. These short films emulate the filmmakers’ nightmares - an interesting premise in theory, but pretty weak on execution.

The Bourne Identity (2002) - 3/10 We marathoned the first three Bourne movies for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, episode 36 so check that out for my expanded thoughts on this, the best Bourne of the three.

The Bourne Supremacy (2004) - 2/10 Immediately after, we did the deep dive into Supremacy, the second Bourne and the worst of the three (albeit by a very slim margin). Check out episode 36 for more.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) - 2/10 I really couldn’t care less about these terrible movies. It was a horrible chore to sit through them. Ultimatum was also rubbish. More gripes and discussion in episode 36 of the podcast.

The Father (2021) - 10/10 Another trip to the cinema for this masterpiece. I tried very hard not to sob loudly in the theatre where aside from myself, the audience totalled three people. More discussion of The Father in episode 36 the podcast.

Drag Me To Hell (2009) - 2/10 I’m pretty shocked that Sam Raimi directed this. Usually when I watch one of his films, I can see his staple of fun gore, practical effects, crazy camera movements… but there was none of that here. It just felt like a really bad horror, indistinguishable from the regular affair, with no personality or passion. Drag Me To Hell might even have been one of those movies I’d avoided in the past when I was younger because it seemed too scary but no, it was just boring and bad and I feel like there’s something I’m not getting out of this that other people seem to be.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - 8/10 At this point, I feel I have to admit Wes Anderson as perhaps my second favourite director. His movies are just so nice and beautiful to watch. Moonrise Kingdom is a quirky love story between two kids and honestly, with any other director, could have been handled poorly because the story is quite simple. But Anderson injects so much of his signature style and personality into the film. A powerhouse of actors with the likes of Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis and Tilda Swinton, among a few of Anderson’s regulars, make Moonrise Kingdom a breeze. Good for a dark day to lift the spirits.

Nobody (2021) - 8/10 I needed something to fill an otherwise uneventful day, so I hopped on a bus and booked a ticket for Ilya Naishuller’s new action movie, Nobody. The film started and to my annoyance, the lights in the theatre were still on. When I go to the cinema I don’t really want to see the other people sitting around me, so I got up from my seat, abandoning the first two minutes of the film to find a member of staff to turn the lights off. After showing them that the lights were in fact still on, I took to my seat and watched the movie for what felt like a little while before the lights went off. Nobody is a really fun action movie. Perhaps similar in a lot of ways to John Wick, but with more personality to the main character. More thoughts on episode 37 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - 8/10 After procuring the Criterion blu-ray from my local hmv, I delved into all the supplements it had to offer, including a making-of documentary, chats with the director, and a gallery of polaroid pictures from when they were shooting the film in India. The Darjeeling Limited is perhaps not peak Wes Anderson, but I do kind of love it. It makes me want to go on a journey to another country with my brother and sister, perhaps in ten to fifteen years. Here, the main characters are three brothers who travel to India seeking some kind of spiritual experience. Things don’t seem to work out that way, however, because I’m not sure how spiritual an experience you can have when you plan out an itinerary to schedule it. Fantastic performances all round and of course, beautiful direction and cinematography.

Face/Off (1997) - 3/10 Was I supposed to laugh? Maybe I was just too tired but I really couldn’t stand Face/Off. It didn’t feel particularly special and despite a couple of fun ideas, it was mostly quite boring.

Luca (2021) - 5/10 The new Pixar movie leaves a lot to be desired. The animation is really second to none and I can’t fault how beautiful the movie looks, more so when it’s set in this little Italian town than under the sea. The story is so uninspired though, with the basic premise being that the protagonists want a Vespa so they enter a competition to win the money to buy one. Also they’re fish that turn into people on dry land. Maybe that’s enough for some people, but I couldn’t shake the familiarity of Luca. It never went in any interesting directions and basically did exactly what I figured it would do. I don’t believe it’s out here to subvert expectations but I would like some creativity when it comes to the writing. Perhaps if I watched it again, I might like it less. It was pretty dull.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - 10/10 I’m a little disappointed with the Criterion blu-ray for Punch-Drunk love. It’s supplements host a couple of low-quality deleted scenes that were clearly deleted for a reason, and some weird artsy music videos that incorporated footage from the movie. I was quite shocked at how low-effort it all seemed. The movie itself is fantastic though and I do believe it to be Adam Sandler’s best performance (and I really liked Uncut Gems). He portrays a man who is constantly put down by his family, clearly has some kind of social disability, and on top of it all he’s getting scammed by a sex line. Amongst all this, he’s trying to navigate a new relationship and it’s so sweet to watch all the interactions between Sandler and Emily Watson. It’s a perfect melding of romance, comedy and anxiety, beautifully directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Fargo (1996) - 9/10 Another movie you wouldn’t expect to be so funny, especially since it’s based on this horrific true story about murder, deceit and money. But the Coen brothers know how to handle it. Excellent performances, beautiful colour palette, and a story that just gets more and more insane as it goes.

House (1977) - 7/10 House (or, Hausu) was a recommendation for episode 37 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast so check that out for more discussion. Generally speaking, this Japanese horror/comedy was bonkers. Insanely creative and abstract (which at points can detriment the film) with an almost Balamory-esque presentation. I was happy to find that the comedy was not lost on me at all; this is a hilarious film, albeit maybe not all the time.

The Princess Bride (1987) - 10/10 I reviewed this in my May wrap-up but this time around, I had recommended The Princess Bride for the podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 37. It all clicked this time around. It is such a fun, warm movie with a lot of laughs and superb production.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - 8/10 Another Rob Reiner joint, a few years before The Princess Bride. This Is Spinal Tap is lauded as a masterpiece in comedic cinema and I might agree; this movie is hilarious. Shot in mockumentary fashion, it follows a band playing shows and trying to get gigs, coupled with the inevitable screw-ups of live performance and creative disagreements. It lost me every now and again but it’s still a must-watch.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) - 6/10 A decent Disney flick but certainly not their best. One highlight includes the villain singing a lament about wanting to have sex with Esmerelda and calling her a witch for giving him a boner.

Ponyo (2008) - 4/10 Not sure if I’ve ever disliked a Miyazaki movie before but I did not vibe with Ponyo. It came across as very baby and as such, there really wasn’t much to read into. The animation is fantastic as always but so much of it felt specifically tailored to a younger crowd.

Roman Holiday (1953) - 9/10 Classic romance at its best. I had heard on a podcast that this was the sexiest movie the guest had ever seen and while maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, I do get where they’re coming from. I was tearing up with just how lovely it all was, following a princess who runs away and spends the day with a man she meets in Rome (where it was shot on location), doing all the things she’s wanted to do but never could because of royal responsibilities. Fantastic performances from Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck who sell the chemistry of the characters so well.

F9 (2021) - 2/10 I’ve never seen any of the Fast & Furious movies and after watching the ninth in the series, I don’t want to. This is basically the Vin Diesel show; we watch him drive cars fast and punch people a lot. Wow! I don’t really understand what it (and forgive the pun) driving people to see these movies if they’re all in this same vein. As far as I can tell, F9 is the goofiest of the series so far and I’ll admit I had a chuckle or two at some of the truly implausible moments, such as a part where one of the team gets shot by about ten men with machine guns, yet manages to kill them all without being affected by the bullets… but overall, in this two-and-a-half-hour experience, I was largely bored.

Shaolin Soccer (2001) - 7/10 I love this movie! Shaolin Soccer is so much fun; it is goofy and out there and completely crazy, all by design. Steven Chow knew what he was making when he set out to craft this insane story of a group of guys using Kung-Fu to play football. The basic story itself is nothing new but it’s elevated by the infectious comedy and implausibility of what’s happening. Balls are kicked into space and across fields so fast the very ground is torn asunder. A man eats an egg off a dirty shoe. This is cinema.

Casino Royale (2006) - 7/10 I had seen a trailer at the cinema for the new Bond movie and I have to say, I’ve never really given 007 the time of day, aside from a few of the very first movies I’d tried watching a while ago. But the new trailer kind of got me hyped, so I wanted to watch all of the Craig era Bond movies, starting with Casino Royale. I had a great time! Even though there’s not loads of fighting or weapons or fast cars, the meat of the movie actually comes from this poker game Bond is playing against the villain, played brilliantly by Mads Mikkelsen. I was surprised to witness a bit of cock-and-ball torture in this 12-rated movie but I would be lying if I said it didn’t stick with me.

Quantum of Solace (2008) - 5/10 Immediately after Casino Royale, I jumped into the second of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, Quantum of Solace. Sadly it’s quite weak, with not much going on aside from the general Bond fare. Mathieu Amalric’s villain lacked a lot of menace or motivation and generally, I’m not super worried about a brilliant story in a Bond movie, but even the action felt weak in this. Quantum of Solace didn’t exactly upset me but it failed to wow me in any way either. The saving grace of the movie is certainly Daniel Craig as the hero, capturing Bond and what he’s supposed to be.

Skyfall (2012) - 6/10 A marked improvement from its predecessor, Sam Mendes helms Skyfall, Craig’s third outing as Bond. Skyfall delves into Bond’s past as he seems to be slipping a bit, not as much the expert operative he once was. It would have been nice to see more of his fall from grace, as they don’t really show us how he’s become less efficient as much as they give other characters expository dialogue telling us how he drinks and does drugs and is haunted by childhood trauma. For me, that’s where the meat of the story lies and I would have preferred more of a character piece if indeed they were delving into that side of the character anyway. That being said, the fights are still better choreographed than the last instalment and the colour grading and scenery is often very visually interesting. Everything in Skyfall is better than its predecessor and it’s surely thanks to Sam Mendes who does a great job at directing.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Another go round for Howl's Moving Castle, as this was a recommendation for my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. My opinion, I feel, is unchanged. It's a fantastic film, and you can listen to more of what I have to say in episode 37. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 - 3/10 A pretty poor end to a poor series of movies. I'm surprised I've watched the Twilight movies as many times as I have but I also know I'll watch them again. Part 2 I watched with the YMS commentary track on YouTube which, again made the experience a lot better. But otherwise the series seemed to get better as it went along… until the last movie. Ultimately my biggest problem with it is that nothing actually happens and the plot feels like a late addition rather than a natural progression of the story. It’s basically a whole movie of set-up to a payoff that doesn’t even canonically happen. A big thing with YA adaptations in this era was making a final book into two movies, regardless as to whether it needed that much time or not. Breaking Dawn does not need to be two movies at two hours each. About ten new characters are introduced here and the film is afraid of killing even one of them off. It's the last movie! We're not going to see these characters again! Kill some of them! There's just no emotional weight to any of it and I hate to say I was disappointed with the ending because I have such low expectations for these films but man, this was so unsatisfying.

Frances Ha (2012) - 8/10 Life is hard. And I hate this movie because it shows me so much of what terrifies me about being alive. And I love this movie because it shows me so much of what I’m alive for. Noah Baumbach’s brutally honest depiction of growing up and fending for yourself struck me in a way I wasn’t expecting and I think it’s because I’m at a point in my life where I’m worrying a lot about how it’s all going to turn out. The titular character is burdened with the stress of working low-paid jobs and paying rent while juggling school and making time for her passion of dancing as she tries to connect with people she’s lost, as temporary friends and housemates come and go. She feels like a lonely character despite often being around a lot of people. Frances Ha is fantastic and heartbreaking and uplifting… but it made me feel bad so I hate it.

[aion-rsa]

Edgar Wright on Ghosts, Musicals, and Last Night in Soho

https://ift.tt/3lqkd1z

Edgar Wright is trying to cure himself. That’s how the writer-director describes his latest movie Last Night in Soho: a cure for the nostalgia that’s followed him all his life, and which still causes him to daydream against his better judgment about 1960s London as if it were a golden age.

“I have this recurring time travel fantasy about the idea of going back,” Wright says with the air of a confession. “But I think it’s always that thing, this nagging fear that it’s probably a really bad idea.”

It’s a surprising admission for a filmmaker who has spent his career often looking to the past in order to find something new and clever to say about our present. After all, Wright’s breakthrough was directing the game-changing British sitcom Spaced, which featured so many references and nods to the movies he loved that the show’s DVD introduced the “Homage-o-Meter” bonus feature. And his early cinematic achievements in the Cornetto Trilogy—Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End—are nothing if not love letters to the genres that inspired him and co-writer Simon Pegg.

That sense of always being aware of the history of things weighs on Wright, even as he appears happy and relaxed when we meet on an August afternoon. He’s at the tail-end of the UK rollout for his new music documentary The Sparks Brothers, and the filmmaker is relieved to just be out of his flat and in a London hotel room (in the Soho district, of course). Sitting 90 seconds from his home down the street, the director is taken back to both better and stranger days in this neighborhood, including when he decided to set his first psychological horror movie there.

In Last Night in Soho, audiences follow Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), a young woman who has come to London with starry eyes for what the big city was like back in the day. Unfortunately, her reveries take a more insidious turn once she actually travels to the tumultuous ’60s decade, shadowing a mysterious lounge singer (Anya Taylor-Joy) toward dark places.

Looking back now, Wright is swept up in the excitement he found in  shutting down whole streets and redressing them like their seedier glory days while Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith zip by in mod attire. He’s also haunted by the evenings when he found the courage to return there during lockdown, becoming affected by the sudden silence of the district and memories of friends who were recently lost, including ’60s luminary Dame Diana Rigg.

“It was completely and utterly deserted, which added an extra poignancy to it,” Wright says. “And there’s another separate part of it that’s bittersweet and elegiac in a way. Soho is rapidly changing. Some of those buildings with ghosts in them, they’re just going forever, which is very sad.” Clearly such spirits walk beside Wright, be it in his wistful comedies or serious ghost stories. Below is our conversation, edited for length and clarity, about those shades.

In Last Night in Soho, a character says, “This is London. Someone’s died in every room and on every street corner.” Is that something you think about when you’re walking around town?

Oh, my God! I mean that character says it because I believe it. This specifically is to say there are buildings in London that are hundreds of years old, of which most of Soho is like. That’s the thing that inspired the movie, really. I’ve been in London for 25 years. I’ve spent most of that time working in Soho. I’ve probably spent more time in Soho than I have in some couches in flats that I’ve been in. Because I’ve written there, I’ve edited movies there. Nearly all of the movies I’ve done, even the American and Canadian ones, have been edited in Soho. I’ve just spent an enormous amount of time there. It’s also an entertainment district, so there’s restaurants and bars, and cinemas. 

But it’s also that thing where, even now, it is on the border of a darker side of the underworld, which is still there in contemporary Soho in plain sight. And then going back, when I first moved to London, that side of life was a lot more prevalent, and then if you go back to the ‘60s, even more so. It’s not necessarily always a great place to be, and I guess that’s the point of the movie: that there is a danger of romanticizing the past, and obviously the ‘60s is a decade to get totally obsessed with, and I certainly am in terms of having grown up with my parents’ record collection, which was predominantly ‘60s records.

You can’t help but think when you go to London, “Oh my God, the swinging ‘60s and Soho, and film and fashion and music!” But of course there was a darker side to the place. And I guess that’s what the movie ultimately is: a cautionary tale for time travelers. Like, if you could go back, should you?

Diana Rigg has a wonderful role in this. What was it like working with her and also having her as a resource on a project like this?

I was just really lucky to get to work with her and get to know her, and I guess call her a friend. Because after we’d filmed and before the lockdown, I saw her a number of times or called her on the phone. I mean all through the early lockdown, I would be calling Rita Tushingham [who also appears in the movie] and Diana Rigg and just chatting, and talking about old movies.

In terms of a resource, that would be true of Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham, and Diana Rigg. All people who have got an incredible body of work, and obviously all three of them started essentially in the ‘60s. I mean Rita Tushingham, who plays Thomasin’s grandmother, was 18 when she shot Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey. She was the same age as Thomasin McKenzie was shooting Last Night in Soho. So the idea of her playing the grandmother—I couldn’t think of anybody better to play this part. Also Thomasin, before shooting, I think she’d already met Rita once and then she watched A Taste of Honey and she said, “Ah that film is so great but now I’m starstruck by Rita!”

So as a resource, it is really interesting, because obviously they have amazing stories to tell. But there’s another thing that I think is a microcosm of the movie itself. There are ways that I’m like Eloise. There are moments in the film where Eloise, in a puppyish sort of way, is talking very excitedly about the decade to somebody who was there. And I’ve done that to people, whether it be actors or people in a film, where you’re going, “Oh wow, the ‘60s must have been so cool, right?” And I feel like the answer from them is always, Yes… dot, dot, dot. There’s always a dot, dot, dot, because yes, great things happened but also terrible things happened, as well. 

These older actors are the living memory of that era, but you also have Anya and Thomasin channeling it for a new generation. Why was it important for you to enter this era through a female gaze?

There’s that one element where all of my movies have featured young males, and you have to challenge yourself in your career and write slightly outside of what you know. Just writing what you know all the time is not very progressive or challenging, ultimately… Also there are a lot of movies of that time that are not horror movies or psychological thrillers, but dramas of the ‘60s, and they’re cautionary tales about girls coming to London. I think what a lot of those movies were was the old guard slapping the young generation on the wrist, as if to say, “How dare you come to London and make it big?” There are a lot of moralistic films made around that time. There are some very good ones and there are a lot of ones that are of a genre that seem like they’re wagging their finger, and I always found those films quite fascinating. 

So that part of the story of Soho is to show us a different version of one of those films told in parallel decades. That you see Thomasin coming to London in the modern day, and you see Anya coming to London trying to make it big in the ‘60s.

Do you think about how Eloise’s London is different from the London Shaun moves through in Shaun of the Dead?

Well, not that there’s much that you could join the dots between the two, but Shaun is in his late 20s, living in the suburbs, and at the point when you meet Shaun in the movie, he’s clearly been around there for a long time. So he’s quite comfortable, nigh complacent, in where he lives. I think the thing is, coming to London for the first time, like any big city, is a very lonely experience. I mean, where are you?

New York. And I’m not from New York originally.

So I’m sure moving to New York is very similar to coming to London. When you first get there, it’s really forbidding. It was the same for me. I’m from the country. I’m from where Hot Fuzz is shot in Somerset, and when I came to London [in the mid-’90s], it’s that thing where we even used the term in the movie, it’s like country mouse. One of the mean girls at fashion college calls Thomasin country mouse, and I remember reading that book, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, when I was a kid. And I remember when I was going to London, I was like, “Ah, I’m the Country Mouse.” [Laughs]  Because I do not belong here, or even if you don’t belong, it’s like with any big city, you have to find your own way in and you have to let the city open up to you.

Some people never have that experience. I’m sure you have friends as well that come to the city and never get in sync with it and leave. When you find your place in the city, sometimes it’s really hard won. So I’m not Eloise, and I’ve never been an 18 year old fashion student, but I certainly had a very similar experience to her coming to London and feeling totally out of place, totally outpaced by everybody. And Krysty [Wilson-Cairns], who co-wrote the screenplay with me, is from Scotland and she came to London. It’s a very powerful thing when you come to the big city and you’re not from here.

Do you think that this experience you had when you first came to London is why you have made so many stories like Spaced or Scott Pilgrim, or even Shaun, where young people feel aimless in the world?

I guess so. You’ll never not be the kid from the country. It’s a powerful thing, and it’s something that—I don’t know. That’s a good question.

Yet, unlike many of those characters, you knew what you wanted to do since you were 14.

Yeah, and whatever the quality level of my first film, A Fistful of Fingers… I realized after the fact I’m really glad that I made it in Somerset and then came to London. Because then I always had this weird calling card in terms of, even if it was a slightly kitschy thing, it’s like, “Hey, this kid, he made a Western in Somerset!” Now it may not have been a great film. It got a good review in Variety. Empire gave it one star. So opinion on it is mixed. But the thing is that because I did it in my hometown and then came to London, I had sort of done something outside of London.

I think if I had come to London without having made anything and tried to make it in the film business, now you’re one of tens of thousands of people who want to be a film director… That can be really tough. I think it’s always a thing that I’ve given advice to younger filmmakers: If you can make a film on your own patch first, it can be more powerful.

You’ve mentioned on social media being enamored as a child with posters for movies like Alien and Friday the 13th, and your parents would say “no,” leaving them to your imagination. Do you feel like that forbidden nature influenced your tastes?

Yes, absolutely. There’s something where you start to imagine what those films might be like. And sometimes they live up to your imagination and sometimes what’s in your imagination is more powerful. That particularly became the case with the VHS mania, when there were video libraries everywhere. My parents didn’t have a VCR. They sort of refused to buy a VCR. So I didn’t actually have one in the house until I was in my late teens when I could pay for it myself. 

Prior to that though, I remember very distinctly when I was maybe 10 years old going into a video store that was around the corner from my house. And I’d usually go in the afternoon when it was empty, and just look at the covers and the back covers of 18-rated videos. I’d be looking at the cover of Brian de Palma’s Body Double, and just trying to imagine what the film was like from the poster image and the little stills on the back, and maybe what the synopsis said.

Then occasionally there are movies from that period where I’ve never seen the movie, and I realize it would be better not to see the movie, because I’m not sure it could ever live up to the cover art. Like I remember specifically being quite obsessed, aged 10, with a film called Zone Troopers, which is, I discover now, directed by Rachel Bilson’s dad, Danny Bilson! But I just remember seeing that poster, and it’s got an alien pointing, saying, “Your universe needs you!” and “Zone Troopers.” I never saw the movie and it’s probably not a good time to start now, but as a 10 year old, I’m thinking, “Woah, what is that movie?!”

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What did your parents think of your genre interests, particularly as they continued into your adult professional life?

They knew that my brother and I were both very interested in genre movies, and I think we had kind of tried to convince them on a number of levels [that genre is great]. I mean, long before I knew that I wanted to be a director, I definitely knew I wanted to do something in film, and there was definitely, like with a lot of kids, an early obsession with makeup. There are films where those things are more acceptable as a kid, where Star Wars has the cantina sequence or Raiders of the Lost Ark has the whole ending with Nazis melting. And then other things are more illicit. My Mum and Dad are well aware that me and my brother would really like to see Alien, really like to see The Thing, really like to see American Werewolf in London, but can’t.

Then I think it was when I was 10 years old that An American Werewolf in London was shown on network TV for the first time. I managed to convince my parents to let me stay up and watch it, and they acquiesced, and they let me and my brother watch it until midway through that dream sequence with the Nazi monsters. When they slit David Naughton’s throat, my Mum was like, “Okay, that’s it. Bed.” So I didn’t see the rest of the film for another three years after that! I had terrible nightmares because I never saw the story resolve. I really did, I’m not kidding around! I really had terrible nightmares because I never saw the resolution of the story.

I don’t think the resolution would’ve prevented the nightmares.

That’s true! [Laughs]

You’ve been described in the press as the ultimate film nerd fanboy. Do you like that title?

I mean, it depends how it’s used. If it’s used as an insult then, sure, I’d rather not. But in terms of, am I a fan of cinema? Of course. Like you could use the word enthusiast. It doesn’t really annoy me. I guess it only sort of is a thing where people assume that means I only like a certain type of movie, which is not true. I like all types of movies. And certainly in recent years, I’ve gravitated away from what people might think is more like the comic book nerd kind of movie, just because a lot of it tires me out to be honest. I mean, weirdly enough, I just saw James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad this weekend and I thought, “Oh, that’s the first comic book movie in quite a long time that I actually enjoyed.”

But there’s a certain type of movie that I feel like I’ve grown out of for the most part, and certainly in terms of the things that I watch. I try and watch a bit of everything. In fact in the pandemic, for the start of it, for like the first five months where nobody was going to work or couldn’t do anything, I decided to make a dent into my long list of films that I’d never seen, which had an enormous breadth to it in terms of the types of movies I was watching. And it was an amazing experience to sort of get through some of these films on the list of things that I had never seen.

I read your list of everything you watched in lockdown, and saw a movie on there which I thought about while watching Last Night in Soho: Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. Was that intentional?

Yeah, I’m a big fan of Bob Fosse full-stop, and actually just before the pandemic, they had a musical season at the BFI in London, and they had a triple bill of Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and All That Jazz, and I think I hadn’t seen any of them on the big screen actually. So I took my choreographer from [Last Night in Soho], Jenn White, and I said, “What are you doing on Sunday?” She said, “Why?” I said, “Let’s watch the three Bob Fosse films in a row!”

I love Sweet Charity, as well, and there’s a poster of Sweet Charity in Eloise’s bedroom at the start of [Soho]. And not just the Sweet Charity movie poster with Shirley MacLaine but also a photo of Judi Dench playing the character on the West End production of Sweet Charity.

In Baby Driver, you wrote into the script the songs you planned to shoot and edit the scenes to. Is that something you continued then with Eloise’s love of ‘60s music here?

Last Night in Soho was similar to Baby Driver in the sense that I had specific songs worked out for specific scenes. And in a lot of cases in the way that I write, especially with Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho, the song in some ways inspires the scene. Maybe not in terms of what’s happening in it story wise, but the rhythm of it or even the length of it. 

So there’s one song in the movie in the first dream sequence, the Graham Bond Organisation version of “Wade in the Water,” and sometimes it’s like this movie, which I’ve had in my head for 10 years. Sometimes I’ve had those songs connected with the movie for that long. If they come up again, like maybe you’re working on something else and you hear that song and you’re like, “Ah, I’ve got to make Last Night in Soho!” So I know what this scene is. 

Because the film is set in the ‘60s, I zeroed in on a particular period and a particular type of song. The majority of them were by female singers. And a lot of them I feel have, even if they’re pop-y, they kind of have a melancholic edge to them in the lyrics. That’s something that always, I find, very striking about some of those songs by Cilla Black or Dusty Springfield or Sandie Shaw.

But I love making films that become music-centric. Both with Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho, working with a choreographer on a day-to-day basis—on both films, we had a choreographer there every day because it was not just the dance sequences. It’s kind of everything involved in movement and how that relates to the music that might be in the scene. It was a great experience. Some director friends of mine have said outright, “When are you just going to make a musical?”

That’s my next question.

Alfonso Cuarón said it to me after he watched Last Night in Soho! He really liked the movie and he said, “But honestly, when are you just going to make a musical?” [Laughs]

Has it been in the back of your head? You flirted with it in Scott Pilgrim, and the first reference I caught in Spaced is to The King and I.

I can’t claim credit for The King and I reference in Spaced. That was definitely a Jessica Hynes reference. But yeah, listen, if I found the right subject matter or something that I felt could be a really great movie that I could make, then yeah, for sure. It would be amazing. They’re always a genre that I absolutely adore, right back to some of the early sound musicals, especially all of the Busby Berkeley films of the early ‘30s. I just find them mind-boggling.

I mean the thing about those movies made in the early ‘30s at Warner Bros. is that it would be difficult to better them now. Like that’s what’s crazy. Also nobody would make them with that many dancers now. The studio would be like, “Um, do you really need 60 dancers? Can you, like, CGI them?” So that to me is what’s amazing about that. Like good luck trying to top that now.

Read more

Movies

Exploring the Music of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy

By Mark Harrison

Culture

Baby Driver: Edgar Wright’s Musical Inspirations for the Soundtrack

By Edward Douglas

What is harder to block for the camera: a fight scene or a musical number?

Well, they’re very close. I’d say they’re equally difficult, because they both require the same thing. A fight scene requires not just the choreography itself, but it requires strategy in that, where do you put the camera to best showcase this action? So that’s where in Scott Pilgrim and The World’s End, and working with [cinematographer] Bill Pope and [stunt coordinator] Brad Allan was incredible, because Brad Allan is an amazing stunt coordinator. I mean, he’s now directing second unit and he did second unit on Scott Pilgrim. And then Bill Pope has obviously shot incredible action films, including The Matrix. 

So another thing with action is it’s not just the choreography; it’s also where is the best place to put the camera? That’s what’s great about all of the Hong Kong cinema, the golden period of Hong Kong action. It’s just looking at it in terms of camera placement. Here for this, here for that. It’s sort of the opposite of the Western style of filmmaking, which is when I think you can get a more bog standard take on action, because they’ve just hosed it down with coverage. Whereas all of the Asian influence in action is to be very specific about this piece works for this camera, and now this piece works for this camera. 

So there was an element of that in Scott Pilgrim and The World’s End, and then with Soho, with some of the dance sequences, it was more in some cases building these extended shots. There are some very complicated one-take dance sequences. One thing I’d say about it without giving too much of the game away, I think people would be shocked at how much of Soho is in-camera. Things that you might think, “Ah, that must be motion control. Oh, that must be like a green screen.” No. A lot of it is actually in-camera, and maybe eventually with the Blu-ray we can pull back the curtain and reveal some of the trickery.

Since you already mentioned the ‘30s, did you do the Harpo Marx trick with the mirror scene between Anya and Thomasin, as seen in the trailer?

There’s an extra bit of complexity to the start of that shot, which maybe I won’t reveal. But let me put it this way: It’s all in-camera, including the part at the start of the scene where there is really a mirror there. And then the later part of the shot—you have to sort of watch the shot to figure out exactly how it’s done, but it’s like good old fashioned magic, optical illusion stuff. 

But yes, when Anya and Thomasin are facing each other in the mirror, they are in the take together and they are essentially doing choreography to mirror each other. Even if you watch the shots in the trailer where they’re twirling their hair and tapping, when they tap their fingers, it looks like there’s glass there, but they’re just going like that. But it’s not just the choreography and the actors, it’s also about the camera operator needs to be in the right place at the right time. And we had an amazing camera operator, Chris Bain. So whenever we were doing one of those sequences, we would rehearse with him.

For instance, there’s the scene on the dance floor where Matt [Smith] is dancing with Anya and sometimes Thomasin, and sometimes back to Anya, and that’s all one shot. And that is all about, we rehearsed it in a town hall with dancers and we recorded it on Steadicam, and then on a Saturday, I think it was literally the day after Anya had wrapped Emma., like with no break, she had to come straight onto the set to rehearse this dance number with the camera. And director friends of mine would watch that shot and say, ‘Is that motion control?’ No, it’s just a Steadicam shot.

You mention filmmaker friends, but do you have long conversations with filmmakers who you’ve heavily homaged? Has Michael Bay ever come up to you and been like, “We’re going to talk about Hot Fuzz?”

I’m not sure that Michael Bay has ever seen Hot Fuzz. I once met him at a birthday and I introduced myself to him, and I think this was just after Hot Fuzz came out. So I introduced myself and said, “Oh, I don’t know if you know, I’m Edgar Wright, I made the film Hot Fuzz.” And he went, “That’s the film with the guy from Mission: Impossible III?” I said, “Yeah.” And that was the end of the conversation. So I have a feeling he’s never seen it. [Laughs]

And George Romero?

Well, George was probably the first director who was a big hero of mine that I got to meet, or talk to before meeting. Specifically because when we made Shaun of the Dead, we wanted to reach out to George to watch it, because we felt that it was such a valentine to him that we’d feel bad if he didn’t like it. It was obviously a nerve-racking thing to do because what if we show it to him and he fucking hated it? Me and Simon would be devastated.

But we reached out to him through Universal, and he watched the film when he was on holiday in Florida in 2004, and he called us that night. I always remember that moment. It was before the days of group Zoom calls. He called Simon first and then he called me, and I remember I was standing when I got the call, and talking to George Romero about Shaun of the Dead and hearing this voice that I knew from documentaries and DVD commentaries. 

Now George Romero knew who we were and liked our film, and liked it enough to give it a poster quote. He was really the first director who I really admired that I met. But I also remember that as the moment that the world started getting smaller.

Last Night in Soho opens in theaters on Oct. 29.

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WatchDownload Movie Black Widow 2021 Full Online HD

STREAMING MEDIA

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.

Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.

Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.

Elevator music was among the earliest popular music available as streaming media; nowadays Internet television is a common form of streamed media. Some popular streaming services include Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, the video sharing website YouTube, and other sites which stream films and television shows; Apple Music, YouTube Music and Spotify, which stream music; and the video game live streaming site Twitch.

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COPYRIGHT

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. [better source needed] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.

Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.

Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration. In general, many believe that the long copyright duration guarantees the better protection of works. However, several scholars argue that the longer duration does not improve the author’s earnings while impeding cultural creativity and diversity. On the contrast, a shortened copyright duration can increase the earnings of authors from their works and enhance cultural diversity and creativity.

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MOVIES or FILM

Movies, or films, are a type of visual communication which uses moving pictures and sound to tell stories or teach people something. Most people watch (view) movies as a type of entertainment or a way to have fun. For some people, fun movies can mean movies that make them laugh, while for others it can mean movies that make them cry, or feel afraid.

It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc. Most movies are made so that they can be shown on screen in Cinemas and at home. After movies are shown in Cinemas for a period of a few weeks or months, they may be marketed through several other medias. They are shown on pay television or cable television, and sold or rented on DVD disks or videocassette tapes, so that people can watch the movies at home. You can also download or stream movies. Older movies are shown on television broadcasting stations.

A movie camera or video camera takes pictures very quickly, usually at 24 or 25 pictures (frames) every second. When a movie projector, a computer, or a television shows the pictures at that rate, it looks like the things shown in the set of pictures are really moving. Sound is either recorded at the same time, or added later. The sounds in a movie usually include the sounds of people talking (which is called dialogue), music (which is called the “soundtrack”), and sound effects, the sounds of activities that are happening in the movie (such as doors opening or guns being fired). In the 20th century the camera used photographic film. The product is still often called a “film” even though there usually is no film.

A genre is a word for a type of movie or a style of movie. Movies can be fictional (made up), or documentary (showing ‘real life’), or a mix of the two. Although hundreds of movies are made every year, there are very few that do not follow a small number of set plots, or stories. Some movies mix together two or more genres.

Action movies have a lot of exciting effects like car chases and gun fights, involving stuntmen. They usually involve ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’, so war and crime are common subjects. Action movies usually need very little effort to watch, since the plot is normally simple. For example, in Die Hard, terrorists take control of a skyscraper and ask for a big ransom in exchange for not killing the hostage workers. One hero somehow manages to save everyone. Action movies do not usually make people cry, but if the action movie is also a drama, emotion will be involved. Adventure Movies usually involve a hero who sets out on a quest to save the world or loved ones. Animated movies use artificial images like talking cartoons to tell a story. These movies used to be drawn by hand, one frame at a time, but are now made on computers. Buddy movies involve 2 heroes, one must save the other, both must overcome obstacles. Buddy movies often involve comedy, but there is also some emotion, because of the close friendship between the ‘buddies’. Comedies are funny movies about people being silly or doing unusual things or being in silly or unusual situations that make the audience laugh. Documentaries are movies that are (or claim to be) about real people and real events. They are nearly always serious and may involve strongly emotional subjects, for example cruelty. Dramas are serious, and often about people falling in love or needing to make a big decision in their life. They tell stories about relationships between people. They usually follow a basic plot where one or two main characters (each actor plays a character) have to ‘overcome’ (get past) an obstacle (the thing stopping them) to get what they want. Tragedies are always dramas, and are about people in trouble. For example, a husband and wife who are divorcing must each try to prove to a court of law that they are the best person to take care of their child. Emotion (feelings) are a big part of the movie and the audience (people watching the movie) may get upset and even cry. Film noir movies are 1940s-era detective dramas about crime and violence. Family movies are made to be good for the entire family. They are mainly made for children but often entertaining for adults as well. Disney is famous for their family movies. Horror movies use fear to excite the audience. Music, lighting and sets (man-made places in movie studios where the movie is made) are all designed to add to the feeling. Romantic Comedies (Rom-Coms) are usually love stories about 2 people from different worlds, who must overcome obstacles to be together. Rom-Coms are usually light-hearten, but may include some emotion. Comedy horror movies blend horror and comic motifs in its plots. Movies in this genre sometimes use black comedy as the main form of humor. Science fiction movies are set in the future or in outer space. Some use their future or alien settings to ask questions about the meaning of life or how we should think about life. Science fiction movies often use special effects to create images of alien worlds, outer space, alien creatures, and spaceships. Fantasy movies include magical and impossible things that any real human being cannot do. Thrillers are usually about a mystery, strange event, or crime that needs to be solved. The audience is kept guessing until the final minutes, when there are usually ‘twists’ in the plot (surprises). Suspense movies keep you on the edge of your seat. They usually have multiple twists that confuse the watcher. Western movies tell stories about cowboys in the western United States in the 1870s and 1880s. They are usually action movies, but with historical costumes. Some involve Native Americans. Not all films that are set in the American West are made there. For example, Western films made in Italy are called Spaghetti Westerns. Some films can also use Western plots even if they are set in other places.

[80068mimiwang]

Gentarou Ishizuka – The magic of sight as shown by the Alaskan wilderness

Gentarou Ishizuka is a travelling photographer. The first time he ventured overseas was in his teens, and since then he has been creating international bodies of work spanning from Africa to Asia, which can be seen collected in his book, “World Wide Wonderful”. His standout work, however, is said to be his “PIPELINE” series, where he – as the name suggests – photographs pipelines all over the world.

W.W.W. also refers to the World Wide Web, the heart of the Internet, and through this play on worlds Ishizuka attempts to demonstrate that his work is not only about the journey. It’s also about never losing the curiosity and desire to experience more, and a shifting way of thinking about sight.

In this interview, we ask Ishizuka what being a photographer and the journey means to him.

Amongst his large portfolio of works is “PIPELINE”, a series of photographs of oil pipelines all over the world. In his current exhibition, he gives a new spin on it by turning it into a 360 panorama.

Ishizuka:              I’m sure there are a lot of people who look at this exhibition and sigh exasperatedly, “Not the pipelines again!”. I do often ask myself whether or not I should move onto something different (laughs) but honestly, I still want to do more with this. I started this project in Alaska and have since gone on to photograph pipelines in other places like Australia and Northern Europe, and working on this project takes me back to when I was wandering the globe in my 20s. It’s a subject that’s very charming in its own way.

—What made you want to shoot pipelines in the first place?

Ishizuka:              I first went to Alaska during one of my global adventures, and right outside the Arctic Circle there’s a town called Fairbanks where they’ve got a pipeline for tourists to come and look at. It was a touristy spot where they were selling souvenir hats and the like, and it was surrounded by all this tundra forest. And amongst all that wilderness was this huge metal tube, and I took a lot of photos of it because it just stood out so much. However, it was only when I returned home and revisited the photos I took that I began to really get excited and think “hey, there’s something pretty interesting about this”.

—And that was where it all began.

Ishizuka:                             That was when I started to research pipelines. I found out that it spanned a total of 1280km and I wandered to myself, what does this pipeline look like when it goes past Fairbanks all the way to the north? I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

—And so you decided to start shooting this series.

Ishizuka:              That’s right. I’m the kind of person to lay down the groundwork before I start anything, so before I dove into the project I made two rules for myself. The first was to shoot only on a large format camera, not digital, to capture as much detail as I could. The second was to buy a Ford SUV in Alaska and live on the road while shooting this project.

—You began your journey being bound by these rules?

Ishizuka:              That’s right. Once I crossed the Brooks Range, a mountain range that runs horizontally across Alaska, I was met with this magnificent spread of nature with the pipeline running off endlessly into the distance. And that’s when I, well, fell in love with Alaska, if you’ll excuse the cliché. You could also say that it was also the beginning of a relationship that I can never really pull myself out of (laughs).

—They say that the arctic circle is a realm beyond human comprehension, but could you not also say that the landscape there looks a little dull and barren?

Ishizuka:              Oh no, no. It’s always changing depending on the season and the timing; I could never get tired of photographing it. I would describe my relationship with the pipeline as… Let’s see… There’s a Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa, who is known as the father of tropical modernist architecture. At his signature work, a country house called the Lunuganga, he’s got these urns all around the place.

—Urns?

Ishizuka:              Yes, urns. When I was shooting there, I realised that he didn’t put urns all over the place simply because he liked urns, it was to give the eye something to focus on in a sprawling landscape. It’s easy for the viewer to feel a little uneasy when they’re in the middle of a huge sprawl of landscape because of how endless and aimless it can be, so Bawa’s urns were a way for the viewer to not fall into this unease.

And then I realised… these pipelines are to me what those urns were to Bawa. And both urns and pipelines are very simple in form so on the first glance, it can be hard to tell what you’re looking at sometimes. You might have to get right up to the photograph or even stand further from it to tell what it is, but at the same time you might have more questions once you figure out what you’re looking at.

—It makes for an interesting viewing experience.

Ishizuka:              And for an interesting shooting experience. In a large format camera, the film is about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, and the finder is about the same size too. When you’re under the large format camera’s black cloth composing the photograph in the camera, it feels like you’re making a sculpture of the landscape before you. And when you’re doing all this by yourself in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness you can’t help but think, “man, this is kind of dangerous, isn’t it?” (laughs) But it’s fun.

—So what sparked your interest in the visual medium?

Ishizuka:              I think it started with films. When I lived in Tsukiji and commuted to Ikebukuro for school, I’d often coop up in one of the revival houses in Ginza or Takada-no-baba or Ikebukuro whenever I felt like skipping school. I watched a lot of Iranian and Portuguese films then and I really felt that they were showing me a world I had never seen before.

—And that links with this recurring theme of “journey” that you so often explore in your work, right? So on your website you’ve got these portraits of Wim Wenders (a major figure of New German Cinema) and Jean-Luc Godard. What’s that about?

Ishizuka:              I was lucky enough to meet them during my travels and photograph them. I’m a landscape photographer more than anything so I’ve always thought that I’m no good at portraits but photographing a movie director is really something else.

—They let you photograph them when you were just a 20-something backpacker wandering around? Especially Godard, known for being particularly moody. I was really surprised that you were able to get a picture of him looking so amicable.

Ishizuka:              I think he’s only moody before the critics. He was quite accommodating when I went to meet him. I read in a magazine that he lived in a small village by Lake Geneva so I just rode over on a bicycle.

—Oh?

Ishizuka:              I was having breakfast at a café by the lake, and the customer sitting next to me came to talk to me and I said that I was here because I liked Godard. I was extremely lucky, because it turned out that customer was a friend of Anne-Marie Miéville, Godard’s partner. And then even Ms. Miéville herself appeared. (laughs)

—Wow.

Ishizuka:              Ms. Miéville was very amicable and said, “Why don’t you try giving him a call?” and gave me his phone number. I called him right then and there and Godard himself picked up and said to me, “All right, I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”

—That’s quite the story!

Ishizuka:               And it was a really fun shoot. Movie directors have a very keen eye, and they look at everything with that keenness. It really feels like they’re acting the role of themselves. He would direct me like, “open the curtain and let the light in from there”, or “take this shot from in front of the editing gear”. I felt like I was the one being photographed rather than him. (laughs).

—I can see why. (laughs)

Ishizuka:              Wenders and Manoel de Oliveira (a Portuguese director known for being the oldest movie director ever, having passed at the age of 106) were like that too. Happy times… but I digress. I’m still not great with photographing people. I think I’m really meant to be a landscape photographer so I’d like to keep honing my skills in that area.

—So why did you choose to pursue photography over film when you clearly like films so much you’d go chasing film directors?

Ishizuka:              Photography is such a simple and easy way of showing your viewers something. Clicking a shutter is a much more simple action than, say, drawing an entire image by hand. Anyone can take a photo as long as if they’ve got a smartphone with them, and pretty much everyone has one. But when you want to capture something that no one has ever seen or done before you start to question if that’s even possible because photography is so ubiquitous. I’ve been asking myself that question for a very long time.

—You spoke about feeling like you were making a sculpture of the landscape when you’re shooting earlier. How do you feel when, say, you’re at Alaska and it looks just like how you had envisioned?

Ishizuka:              I take my inspiration from the land, so I don’t go somewhere with an image of how it should look in my mind. I think what this “vision” is will be different for each photographer, anyway. Last year, I had the chance to work as a supervisor on the exhibition “Michio Hoshino’s Journey”, a travelling exhibition held in commemoration of 20 years since his death, and I was able to see all of the photos he had taken during his time. And of course, Hoshino did a wonderful job of capturing the animals and landscapes that he did, but they didn’t speak to me in the same way that the pipelines did. And I think that somewhere in there lies the key to what makes photography so wonderful.

—Which is?

Ishizuka:              “Photo” means light, or the sun, and “graphy” means “to draw”, right? So the name itself implies that it’s a result of the coexistence of the manmade and the natural. I feel photos that readily embrace this duality are very pure and authentic. I think what modern day photographers need to do is find new and interesting ways of interpreting and depicting this purity and authenticity.

—And you try to reflect that in your current exhibition and recent work?

Ishizuki:                I’ve been working on a panorama series of glaciers, and for a panorama of an ice floe I’ve had to create it out of numerous images to make one big composite image. If there was a spot that needed filling in, I’d fill it in with a photo from someplace else. So when you’re looking at this ice floe, you’re actually looking at a completely made-up scenery.

―So while reconstructing a real environment into something purely made up and be quite a violent act in and of itself, it also captures this duality of the natural and the manmade that you said makes photography so pure and authentic?

Ishizuka:               Hmm… Yes, that’s part of what makes photography such a unique medium, but I think it’s also related to how tiny our vision, as humans, can be. An ice floe can be around 7 metres tall, about the height of a small housing complex. When you’re out there in rowing amongst these floes the sheer size of them can make you feel like you’re in a space of endless ice, rowing for eternity. These floes have been moving and growing over the span of tens of thousands of years, and trying to capture them in a shot I thought to myself, what am I really taking a photo of here? In trying to capture and contain something that, by its nature, cannot be captured or contained, I began to realise just how foolish I was.

—I guess you could say that that’s the trap of relying on our sight too much. People say that of all the information our five senses receive, 80% of it comes from sight. And that may lead us to being over-reliant on our sight and being too trusting of how things appear. Speaking of sight, you recently announced a new body of work, “N/P” that you shot at home, where you overlay the negative and positive of an image over each other, slightly unmatched. That’s another exploration of the sense of sight, correct?

Ishizuka:               I’m always thinking about this idea of duality in photography, what with the positives and negatives as well. I also find the duality and the huge difference in lugging a large format camera around the Arctic Circle and the vast wilderness, to being cooped up in a tiny darkroom printing photos to be very interesting, photographically speaking.

—Do you find that these scenarios, despite being so different, also have things in common with each other?

Ishizuka:               For how otherworldly and majestic the pipelines are, sometimes a mug left on the table with the light hitting it could be just as beautiful. Sometimes I think that if I could photography that mug and do it justice, I would be the most satisfied man in the world.

Photography is magical in the way that the extraordinary and the ordinary all collide in one single click. That’s what I want to believe, anyway. That’s what I ultimately what to show through my work.

—In a previous interview, you said that when you return to Tokyo after a long period of travel, you ease yourself back home by eating GariGari-kun [a typically blue, lemonade-flavoured ice block popular in Japan] and I thought that was such a perfect way of illustrating how far you are from home when you’re out travelling.

Ishizuka:               Pretty much. When I was eating those GariGari-kuns after I came back from shooting glaciers, I thought, “This thing’s like an ice floe!”

—So a GariGari-kun is capable of making you feel the same sort of wonder the ice in Alaska does.

Ishizuka:               Yes.  And with pipelines, there are people who read at them as emblematic of human and nature, and there are also people who interpret them as a sexual symbol, which I find very interesting . And with photographs that also double as information, you can do a lot of interesting things with it, and at the same time I’m veering into some dangerous territory with it…

—Although this interview started out as one focusing mainly on travel, I feel like we got to explore a lot of other topics, and that was fun. Photographers like Risaku Suzuki and Thomas Ruff who interrogate the sense of sight a lot in their work have been getting very big these past years, too. I can really feel the zeitgeist.

Ishizuka:               Thank you, I had a great time as well. I still have a long way to go in applying my concepts to a body of work, but going forward I think I’d like to work more on how words can be used and exploring the relationship a photograph can have with words.

The boundary between photographs and words used to be pretty clear cut, but now that smartphones and social media are indispensable to our everyday lives, we often turn to photos to show people something instead of describing it. It’s much easier to show someone a photo of, say, whipped cream and have them understand how fluffy and soft it is from that photo than if you used words to describe it to them.

—As someone who writes for a living, I do often feel irritated by how restrictive words can be. I think that’s why a lot of websites, especially ones for entertainment, use collages and images to facilitate laughter and reactions in their readers.

Ishizuka:               I do think that what people want is to communicate with words. I think a lot of people would agree that getting a comment on something is better than getting a like. We all want other people to comment on our photos, that’s why we take them. However, as a photographer, I want to keep honing my wordcraft so I can produce words for photos rather than the other way around, and keep working on it until words and photographs can at least be on equal footing.

—Speaking of, you wrote Glacier Diary, Glacier Bay outlining your photographic journey, which you started writing a few years back, correct?

Ishizuka:               Yes I wrote about my day-to-day happenings and when I docked at the glaciers. I feel like “glacier” and “diary” link together like how I talked about “photo” and “graphy” do  earlier. (laughs) Robert Frank, whom I greatly respect and have learnt a lot from, incorporated a lot of text in his photos. It’s always exciting to try and see which decisions were conscious and which weren’t I’d like to make a body of work that really interrogates the boundaries between image and text one day.

[jb-blaq]

Luke Cage is the Voice of this Moment in African America.

By Jre Best

July 20th, San Diego Comic-Con, 5:45 pm, I am in the audience of the “Luke Cage” panel. Cheo Hodari Coker The showrunner for "Luke Cage" says "The world is ready for a bulletproof Black man" and when he said that I knew that we were in for something special September 30th, 2016. The Netflix "Luke Cage" series is possibly the most relevant television series of this decade so far, it is a show that not only captures black culture but discusses the problems within black culture with a level of intelligence that I rarely see. It's a show with a lot on its mind and a lot to say and tries to say it in the most entertaining way it can, making a modern-day blaxploitation television series. Does this approach work? Did it strike a chord with audiences? Did it get across its point clearly? That's what I'm going to be looking into.

A little context "Luke Cage" is based on the Marvel comics character of the same name more specifically the comic book "Luke Cage Hero for Hire” from 1972 which was where he first appeared. This was Marvel's way of capitalizing on the blaxploitation genre of film which was at an all-time height at this point. The premise of the series was simple Carl Lucas was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. At this prison he was subjected to cruel and unusual experiment that left him with bulletproof skin. After breaking out of jail he forms the Heroes for Hire if you need a job done and had the cash to pay for it then you go to  Luke Cage. It was a fun and clever premise for the time, unfortunately, it didn't last too long with the series being canceled a year later. Then the series was revitalized and just called Heroes for Hire where it starred Luke Cage and fellow superhero Iron Fist, who also has received his own Netflix series. Nowadays this book is known for being a cult classic and rather important to the comic book industry known for its culturally relevant storytelling. Unfortunately, at the time Blaxploitations hay day had passed and started becoming derided by so-called “enlightened film press” As seen in Williams, LA and Carmona, George article in the New York Amsterdam News. So heroes for hire and Luke Cage faded into the background only really being brought up to be laughed at as a silly some might say offensive figure. It took a long time for mainstream culture to come to terms with blaxploitation movies and the conversation about these films is still going on today but generally, nowadays people agree that there was a lot of value in these seemingly schlocky films. This widespread reappraisal mostly happened around the early 2000s, documentaries like “BaadAsssss Cinema” and tribute films like “Undercover Brother.” This was also the same time when Marvel felt it would be good to bring back Luke and in a big way not only was he a supporting cast member in a critically acclaimed series called Alias but also was moved to Marvel's premier team the Avengers, eventually coming to lead his own Avengers team. Nowadays Luke Cage is one of Marvel's most respected and beloved black superheroes. So when Marvel decided it was going to start making Netflix series based on some of its street-level superheroes it was no question that Luke was going to get one.

With such an important and interesting character as Luke Cage who was going to make the show? Enter Cheo Hodari Coker the man behind Southland Tales one of the most beloved and well-written television series of the  21st-century. Coker was brought onboard to run "Luke Cage" not only because of his history as a showrunner but also because he had a pre-existing love for the character and knew that you could do a lot with the show. Coker was determined to make sure “Luke Cage” felt as authentic as possible even saying in an interview with the Philadelphia Tribune that it’s important that Luke Cage isn’t "a hero that happened to be Black, The same way I'm not a showrunner that happens to be Black." "Luke Cage" couldn’t have come out at a better point in time not even two years away from the infamous Ferguson riots and the mass reporting on police shootings of unarmed black men, “Luke Cage” came in and became the hero that the black community needed at that time. Speaking from my own experiences it was scary even for someone who lived in a place that seemed as safe as San Diego it was still a scary time, the community was angry and scared. And Coker knew that making a show about a bulletproof black man at this point in time was a big deal. 

As for the show itself it delivered. "Luke Cage" is a show that gets black culture. I watch a lot of TV & Movies, I read a lot of comics, and due to the states of those industries most of the media I consume is made by white people which isn't a problem at all but I've always felt a sort of disconnection from it; there's something about the way the characters talk they don't feel relatable to me. In the same way, I find there's a disconnection when I'm talking to white people as opposed to say, my family. But with "Luke Cage", I don't get that. I often say everyone in "Luke Cage" is someone I've met before. This is because "Luke Cage" is one of the few western tv shows where the characters don’t speak “proper English” they speak in AAVE or African-American Vernacular English. AAVE is commonly misunderstood as slang AAVE is actually the evolution of the specific type of English Africans slaves used when they were brought to America. Most fail to understand the difference and simply have their black characters lazily speak in ridiculous and vapid slang. The use of AAVE is a big part of the reason "Luke Cage" is so good at representing black culture.

Bulletproof. Bulletproof Skin isn't something special in the realm of superheroes, it isn't even special when compared to superheroes on TV or film. It's usually among a heroes least impressive abilities so why is it so important in Luke Cage? To understand why Luke Cage having Bulletproof Skin is so important you need to know the history not only of police brutality but of America's relationship with the gun. America's one of the youngest first world nations out there. The United States didn't exist before firearms, more importantly, we wouldn't be an independent country without them. Guns whether you like it or not are a part of the American identity. But the slaves that these Americans owned, the gun wasn’t a symbol of power, how could it be? It was just another tool for oppression. Quick long range death that guaranteed that even if you were a fast runner there was still no escape from your enslavement. Even when slavery was abolished and torture devices like the cat-of-nine-tails or the tin mask faded away the gun remained. Guns have never stopped being a symbol of oppression for African Americans. Gun violence from Law Officers on people of color has never not been an issue in America as seen in Katie Nodjimbadems article “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” but in recent years the media increased their coverage of stories like the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and now people are angry again and want things to change. Things like Black Lives Matter have started and people aren't afraid to talk about this anymore. Here comes Luke Cage a character whose defining trait is that he is a black man that cannot be shot down, is getting a show released on the biggest streaming platform on the planet (Netflix) backed by the biggest entertainment company on the planet (Disney) the timing couldn't be more perfect. Samantha Blackmon shines a light on Lukes clothes in her essay “Be Black for Me: Lincoln clay and Luke Cage the Heroes We Need” she points out that Luke is commonly dressed and dark hoodies which resemble the clothes that Trayvon Martin was shot down in. This is not some coincidence, the image of a black hoodie riddled with bullet holes is use time and again in "Luke Cage" all this culminating in the sequence Bulletproof Love. A little context Luke Cage is being assaulted by a police officer well he's heavily injured, he doesn't want to engage the cop but he is forced into throwing the man into a nearby car and injuring him. Footage of this is captured and goes viral, along with Diamondback the main villain killing a cop while impersonating Luke. In one day Luke goes from Harlem's hero to public enemy number one with the entire Harlem City Police Department after him. Later on, Luke Cage ends up running into and saving Method Man from the Wu-Tang Clan and Luke gives him his hoodie which just so happens to have bullet holes in it at the time, what first seems just like a cute cameo becomes a whole lot more. We follow Method Man to a radio show where he talks about his experience running into Luke Cage. He defends Luke's character describing him as a hero and when the host of the show ask Method Man to end the show with a freestyle he raps Bulletproof Love. It's a song all about Luke Cage describing him as the hoods superhero someone who stands not only for himself but for his community of Harlem. And as this song plays we see a montage of the police in pursuit of Luke but unable to find him because the people of Harlem start wearing all his previously cast aside bullet-riddled hoodies in an effort to protect Luke. The hoodie has become a symbol of Harlem’s hero. It's a sequence that is great not only because of the context of the show around it but also because of the then current day. After the 24-hour news cycles covering all these police shootings, a song that acknowledges the love shared between the black community. Something saying that things will be okay, it made me cry the first time I saw it. That's why Luke Cage being bulletproof is so important.

Unfortunately, the thing that's probably the biggest mistake of "Luke Cage" is also the thing most people were looking forward to and that was the commentary on police shootings and gun violence within the black community. Besides the bulletproof sequence, and a few bits in the latter half of the show it's hard to even say that it fumbles the police brutality angle and more so doesn't want to talk about it. Except for flashbacks of Luke being treated unfairly in prison most of his interactions with police officers are peaceful, there are dirty cops but they're under the employee of the real villains of Cottonmouth, Black Mariah, and Diamondback. Not that it’s necessarily a flaw that the police are depicted mostly in a positive manner but to come out of the time that it did with the premise that it has it seems like an immense missed opportunity to not comment on the then current events more. These events are probably the reason this show got so much marketing and attention on it in the first place. But that's not the only flaw. Luke Cage's main ability is that he is bulletproof this is important to his character and to what he means, while the "Luke Cage" show does not choose to talk that much about police brutality it does have a lot to say about gun violence and it does it very well. Which is why it's so unfortunate that one of the biggest twists in the shows and the main plot element is that one of the villains Diamondback creates a gun that actually can pierce Luke Cage's skin. The metaphorical meaning of that is zero; what does this represent? Nothing, it comes off as cheap only there so there can be some suspense that Luke Cage might die at some point during the series. It doesn't work and these two issues are the biggest problems in "Luke Cage".

Despite these issues I love Luke Cage, It's a bright and bold television show that takes all the elements that informs and inspires it and presents them proudly. This show is destined to become one of those classics in the realm of African American entertainment that captures it's moment in time so well it's surprising. As I'm writing this we are only two weeks past the premiere of “Black Panther” Marvel's first film starring a black main character, the most successful blockbuster with a majority black cast and the first Hollywood feature to embrace Afrofuturism as its defining aesthetic. And we are only one week away from A Wrinkle in Time premiering in America the first film directed by an African American woman to have a 9 digit budget. We're entering into a new era of media. Stories told by African-Americans about African Americans are finally being put on the same global stage as everybody else. And Luke Cage is a part of that movement a little bit of the future that we got in the present. Sweet Christmas.

Work Cited 

Blackmon, Samantha. “Be Real Black For Me”: Lincoln Clay and Luke Cage as the Heroes We Need.”CEA Critic, vol. 79, no. 1, 2017, pp. 97–109., doi:10.1353/cea.2017.0006]

Coker, Cheo Hodari, et al. Luke Cage, Season 1, Netflix , 30 Sept. 2016.

L A, Williams, and Carmona George. “Cage Match: Does the Comics' 'Luke Cage' Jibe with TV's?” New York Amsterdam News, 6 Oct. 2016, pp. 1–1.

Lisa Respers, France. “'Marvel's Luke Cage' Is Music to Cheo Coker's Ears.” Philadelphia Tribune, 4 Oct. 2016, pp. 4B–4B.

Nodjimbadem, Katie. “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” Smithsonian, 27 July 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/.

Sliva, Tylah, and Emerson College. “What's the Difference Between Slang and AAVE?” Study Breaks, 5 July 2017, studybreaks.com/culture/aave/.

[thelondonfilmschool]

“LFS is just this mixture of people that brings this energy which holds in its center cinema itself” - Jiajun (Oscar) Zhang

Jiajun (Oscar) Zhang (above third left) graduated from the MAF program this year and has recently taken part in the Asian Film Academy, which takes place every year in Busan in South Korea.

AFA, similar to the Berlinale Talent Campus and Serial Eyes programmes, is “an educational program hosted by Busan International Film Festival, Busan Film Commission and GKL Foundation to foster young Asian talents and build their networks throughout Asia.” Over the past 12 years, 289 alumni from 31 countries have taken part, along with world-renowned directors such as Béla Tarr, Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Lee Chang Dong, participating in a program which includes short film production, workshops and special lectures. The two short films completed by attendees are then officially presented at the Busan International Film Festival. 

We spoke to Oscar having just completed the programme to find out how he found his way to London Film School, what he learnt from his time here and at AFA, and where he’s headed to next…

Sophie McVeigh: Could you tell me a little bit about your background before coming to LFS?

Oscar Zhang: I was born in China, in Shanghai. It’s a big city and I was interested in cinema since I was 14,15 years old. As a lonely teenager I naturally got drawn into cinema, like a lot of us! Then I studied at university, a media subject, and I started making short films at that point. That got me started... travelling to small festivals around the world, and I thought, wow, this is really a career that I could do. After that I started working as a commercial director, to make a living for about two years. I got really tired of it, so I thought maybe it was time to stop. By that time, I was working with a bunch of guys who had studied in London and came back to China, and they told me there was a good film school called the London Film School. They said if I wanted a change of atmosphere I should consider going there.

S.M: What made you want to come to Britain, over say the US or schools in Asia?

O.Z: I guess because a lot of my friends, they’d graduated from UK universities and they came back and worked in the industry. I was living with a bunch of older boys at the age of 18, 19, and they were telling me about life in the UK every day, so it seemed natural for me to go there.

S.M: How did you find adapting to life in London when you first arrived?

O.Z: It’s super different to Shanghai, the system and how everything works, and my English wasn’t perfect when I arrived. I couldn’t understand all of the classes at first. That’s what I most regret because I realised the stuff I missed could have been very important! But later on, it got better and better and I started to get the most out of it, lecture-wise and making friends.

S.M: Did you always want to specialise in directing?

O.Z: So, at LFS we have six terms and we make films each term, but you have to pitch to be a director. I was kind of lucky, I did five times directing out of six terms. I think I optimised my chances in school as a director! So, I think I can call myself a major in directing (laughs). I was always writing my own scripts too for all those terms.

S.M: Can you tell us a bit about your graduation film, which has been chosen to screen in the Showcase in December?

O.Z: It’s a film that’s actually inspired by one of my colleagues in my class. She’s from Taiwan and she’d been living in Shanghai all her life. The political situation between Taiwan and mainland China is kind of sensitive. There’s actually 800,000 immigrants in my city but they don’t have a proper identity. So, what I heard from this girl, she was complaining to me one day as we were walking in Covent Garden, just chatting. She said, “I don’t know what to do when I go back to China, because I grew up there, but they don’t really want me for any jobs when they see my identity as a Taiwanese. It’s hard for me to get a working certificate, but if I go back to Taipei I don’t have any friends there so it’s gonna be hard as well. I’m really in a state of limbo.” That inspired me to make a film focused on a character like that. So, my main character is a teenage Taiwanese girl working in Shanghai. She’s living with her family and there’s an emotional story around the relationship between her, a teacher and a younger boy. This was the film I submitted to get accepted to the AFA (Asian Film Academy).

S.M: Can you tell us a bit more about that?

O.Z: It’s a selective group that takes part for one month and it’s like a platform. You have the most prestigious directors in Asia. All the candidates are from Asian countries, it’s one or two candidates from each country, and they select 24 people and you make two short films there and attend a bunch of lectures. They will be in this sort of Busan Film Festival family from that moment, so you get to be part of it and to submit your film later. There’s also a pitching session to pitch our first feature script idea. Luckily, I got the first prize for that so they’re sending me to LA next year for further pitches to producers and stuff like that. The film I pitched was one of the ideas that I submitted with my application to LFS. It was an idea that had been in my head for a long time which focuses on contemporary Chinese society issues. One thing I liked the most about the experience was that it’s this dream like place, that gathers all the filmmakers from across the region. And the moment you leave the platform after spending almost a month with all these people sharing the same kind of dream… at one point, I felt like all of these people had been like a family before, you know - a filmmakers’ family just like the people I met at LFS. We belonged to the same unknown planet, and were sent to this world to create something. But then, after we die or before we were born, we would be always together, as a family, and we would meet each other in that place after death, a place that belongs to all worthy filmmakers. That’s the kind of crazy dream idea I got after this emotional experience there!

S[4] .M: Are the issues in contemporary Chinese society something that you’re focusing on at the moment in your filmmaking?

O.Z: Yeah, in a way I am doing that. But, at the same time, as I look at all the films that I’ve done, including the ones at LFS, I realise that most of them aren’t really about social issues that much. They are in the background, but I was mainly interested in relationships between people rather than the hardcore social issues.

S.M: What did you like about living in London?

O.Z: It was just party after party (laughs). I met a lot of people that I thought were strange at first, in terms of my culture, but as it went on I realised they were very interesting and inspiring. Not just people from Britain, actually, I was influenced by people from all over the world. It’s just this mixture of people that brings this energy which holds in its centre cinema itself. This kind of turned me into a hardcore cinephile! That was the most life-changing event that’s ever happened to me. And the BFI (British Film Institute) as well. The BFI is the place me and my cohort mostly slept (laughs). We went there very early in the morning and we came out after the last screening finished, when we didn’t have classes. You don’t have to buy tickets, it’s free. Me and my colleague actually collected the tickets and there were hundreds of them. I think we made our school fees back! The films they screened there were invaluable.

S.M: What was the most important thing that LFS taught you?

O.Z: I think I’d divide it into two parts. The tutors that I encountered were two or three of the most important in my life. They were there back in the day of the early British film movement. Their experience, their knowledge, the insights they gave me – they gave me a lot, and they opened me up, to put it simply. For example, one of the tutors would show Westerns films, like the films of John Ford that I would never have touched because Westerns are nothing to do with my culture, I was super not interested in Westerns! But he analysed the film and the way he turned it into a useful strategy for us to learn as directors was just very precious for me. The tutors were great. The other part is that I learnt the most from my colleagues at the school. I had the luck to have the best cohort I’ve ever seen! We were a big bunch, 36 or something of us from 30 different countries, but strangely we bonded very well together. They were all very passionate people. We would go for drinks and not stop talking about film. When we graduated some of us were still working together and making films together. After leaving I’ve visited three different countries to meet LFS colleagues. I guess I learnt my life’s lesson from these people.

S.M: Do you think that international influence has had an effect on your filmmaking?

O.Z: Absolutely. One of my colleagues, Keenen and I were talking about what the next wave is going to be – you know there was French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realism, all this. So, we were thinking, what’s gonna be the next one? And he told me what’s going to happen is that it’s not going to be regional waves anymore, it’s going to be a global one. As you can see, how the internet brings us together, how this school brings us together. We are really becoming a world family, this film society. And as we experienced in the school, when I make a film I would have 15 non-Chinese people on-board and we worked perfectly fine. So that enabled me to think about being a global filmmaker. My next feature project, I was thinking it will be collaborating in Korea, I’ve got something else that I’ll shoot in London, another in Malaysia… so that’s what the school brought me, the courage to become a filmmaker that will make films globally.

S.M: What are your plans for the coming year?

O.Z: Me and some other colleagues have decided to meet regularly somewhere and make small independent film that really don’t cost very much. The next one we’re going to do is in Seoul, South Korea, next year. At the same time, I will work on scripts both for indie films and the Chinese film industry. I’ll be in the US for a year at some point. At the moment, I’m really into super low-budget shoots. Anywhere I go, I have my camera and sound-recording equipment. We’ve got a cohort in the States, so we’ve been talking about working together there.

S.M: What advice would you give to someone who’s been accepted to LFS, to help them make the most of their time here?

O.Z: I think the reason why we were a very conscious cohort was that we had good tutors who told us the truth and kept us sober. My most critical advice is, in any circumstance, be aware of your work and always reflect on that. We are here in film school to learn. Open your heart to a lot of things. And also, don’t rush your career. In my experience it’s better to wait and perfect your skills than rush into stuff. 

FOLLOWING (27:11 mins, 2017)

Writer-Director: Zhang, Jiajun Producer: Gong, Yingqing Production Designer: Pyun, Heeyoung Cinematographer: Marranghino, Vincenzo Assistant Director: Testa, Julien Camera Assistant: Walsh, Paisley Sound Editor: Chim, Terence

Interview: Sophie McVeigh | Photos: Annual Show by Katie Garner, Group Selfie by Putri Purnama Sugua, Film Poster of FOLLOWING