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Criterion will stream notable titles by black filmmakers for free
Criterion Collection announced a few steps it’s taking to fight systemic racism, including lifting the paywall on select titles from black filmmakers.
Apple TV+ signs Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón to a multi-year deal
Apple has scored a coup by landing Alfonso Cuarón, who won directing Oscars for Gravity and Roma, to a multi-year deal with its upcoming streaming service, Apple TV+. Cuarón will develop television projects exclusively for the service, marking one of the few times he's ventured out of the film production world, according to Variety.
Panasonic's S1H is the pinnacle of mirrorless video, for a price
Panasonic was not willing to give away its crown as the ultimate mirrorless camera company for video shooters. It has officially unveiled the 24.2-megapixel S1H and it definitively blows away all rival mirrorless cameras from Sony, Canon and Nikon when it comes to video. For the first time on a mainstream mirrorless camera, you can shoot full-frame, uncropped 6K video (5,888 x 3,312) at 24 FPS, and 60 FPS 4K using a cropped, Super 35 (APS-C) sensor size. The S1H can handle video with 4:2:2 10-bit billion color depth, both internally and externally, for maximum flexibility when editing. Sure, this doesn't measure up to what Blackmagic's Pocket Cinema 6K camera can do -- at least, not yet. But unlike the Pocket 6K, Panasonic's S1H has a continuous contrast-detect autofocus system, a fully-articulating display and in-body stabilization -- huge features for vloggers and shooters on the go. This comes at quite a price, though, so to get a feel for the camera and see how it performs, I shot with a pre-production S1H for a day at Panasonic's launch event in Los Angeles.
Facebook will change video ranking to prioritize original content
Facebook wants to make it easier for filmmakers to grow their audiences and for viewers to connect with content creators. To do so, over the coming months, Facebook will change how it ranks videos. It will give more weight to videos based on their originality, intent and viewing durations. In a press release, the company said this will affect how videos are distributed across platforms like News Feed, Facebook Watch and Facebook's video recommendations.
GDC 2018 will feature the event's first film festival
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) takes place in San Francisco next month and this year's event includes the GDC's first ever film festival. For three days starting March 19th, the GDC will host a selection of documentary and narrative films focused on the art and culture of video games, and Q&As with the filmmakers will follow most of the screenings.
Xprize enlists sci-fi authors and filmmakers to map our future
Science fiction has been instrumental in creating the future from the very beginning. Real-life manipulator hands, originally created for the nuclear industry, were named after Robert Heinlein's short story, "Waldo." It makes a lot of sense, then, that when the Xprize program partnered with All Nippon Airlines (ANA) to "imagine a bold vision of the future," it would look to celebrated science fiction novelists, writers, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters. The collaboration has produced the Science Fiction Council, a group comprised of high-octane sci-fi storytellers from nine countries, including luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Cory Doctorow, Andy Weir, Charles Stross, Ernest Cline and Nancy Kress.
DJI's first-person goggles look to the future of drone flight
The new DJI Goggles put you in the cockpit of a quadcopter, giving you a first-person, VR-like experience in the real world. The goggles have a couple of screens through which you can see whatever the drone's camera is pointing at. You can even control where the camera is pointed simply by moving your head. While we were able to take a quick test-drive of this immersive headset last summer, the company's been rather coy about sharing specifics. Now, though, DJI has revealed a more detailed set of features for its goggles, as well as information on the new Ronin 2, an image-smoothing gimbal rig for professional filmmakers.
Tribeca Film Festival welcomes a tech-driven change in storytelling
Storytellers are finding new mediums, like mobile apps, virtual reality headsets and web-based products, to convey their narratives. Of course, events like Sundance and Tribeca Film Festival are the perfect place to exhibit any fresh or interesting project, where people can actually experience them firsthand. And they all have one thing in common: The key is to make you part of the story. At Storyscapes, an exhibit at the Tribeca Film Festival that showcases immersive creations, we came across some that caught our eye. For example, a couple use VR to express the director's message, another an app and, in the case of Door Into the Dark, a 6,000-square-foot labyrinth that relies on audio to guide those who try it. Sounds like fun, right? Don't worry: You, too, can check these out if you happen to be in New York City from today, April 16th, through April 19th.
Martin Scorsese voices support for preserving the future of cinema on film
Saving celluloid film is a big deal for many reasons, and the movement recently got another major voice in its corner. Legendary director Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino) has come out in support of the Hollywood coalition to save Kodak. In a statement spotted by First Showing, Scorsese notes the advantages of shooting digitally (like lighter and cheaper cameras), but fervently details why film needs to continue to exist, likening the medium to paintings. "Would anyone dream of telling young artists to throw away their paints and canvases because iPads are so much easier to carry? Of course not."
Filmmakers share the story behind Find Makarov and Operation Kingfish
Among the festivities this weekend at Call of Duty XP in Los Angeles was the premiere of the second "Find Makarov" short film, subtitled "Operation Kingfish." In case you missed it on the live stream, you can watch the short above -- it's a segment set in between Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2, featuring part of the origin story for soldiers Soap and Price. The filmmakers from digital agency We Can Pretend and visual effects company The Junction sat down with me here at the convention to chat about how Find Makarov originally came about, how Activision contributed to this Operation Kingfish followup, and what's next for these creatives and the Call of Duty brand on film.
