Annie Leibowitz fotograferer skuespillerne i «The Newsroom»
Ny tv-serie fra Aaron Sorkin? Jada, det er rett og slett umulig å ikke glede seg overstadig… Manusforfatteren som ga oss skuddvekslingene i The Social Network, karakterbyggingen i Moneyball og selvsagt – det latterlig bra manusarbeidet bak Presidenten, ser ut til å samle alt han har av kreative evner i sitt nye prosjekt. Ta bare en titt på den ganske så lovende traileren til The Newsrom; amerikansk premiere er 24. juni.
Jeg tenkte å finne et klipp som sier noe om alle grøsningene og tårene avdøde Theo Angelopoulos har påført meg på kinolerretet, og fant denne scenen fra Odyssevs’ blikk å dele med dere – en film jeg første gang så halvveis bortreist på whiskey i Blindern Filmklubbs litt for store visningssal i Sophies Lie auditorium. Om whiskeyen bidro vet jeg ikke, men jeg husker jeg hadde gåsehud filmen igjennom. En tragisk bortgang for en av de største filmpoetene!
The Norwegian Short Film Festival may not be famous, perhaps not even even well-known outside of Norway. But in a country where film is seen more as a form of entertainment than art, this is, and has been for years; the most important meeting place for short film makers. And there are quite a few of them around, exemplified with the record setting 283 titles submitted for consideration to this year’s preselection jury. Here’s the festival’s raison d’être, taken from the homepage: «The Norwegian Short Film Festival started in 1978 as a young and radical counterculture to the Norwegian film industry and a monopolistic Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).» In the end 58 short films and 25 music videos have been selected, among them my film The Knife. This year’s edition kicked off yesterday and will go on til Sunday.
There may not be much left of the countercultural radicalism stated back in the late 70s. Instead the festival has grown into a solid and important meeting place and an opportunity to screen short films in a country where they are almost nonexistent in cinemas and on tv. But that should not be enough. As a short film maker with both ambitions and hopes on befalf of the format itself, I wish and hope the festival will work harder to emphasize and put the spotlight on the importance of short films in the future. Not as a door opener into the world of multi-million features, as I fear most industry members see short films in this part of the world, but as an art form in itself.
In the meantime, here are a few glimpses of last year’s festival:
It’s been a while since my last blog entry. Since my last post, my short film The Knife has had its’ premiere at our local cinematheque and is finally ready to travel with a good DCP finally available. Minimalen screened the film in competition a couple of weeks ago, and last Friday it was also included at the 2011 Kosmorama. The same day, we premiered the film in Ringen cinema here in Oslo, where it will run for an entire month. You can read more about that program here (in Norwegian) – the screening is at 17.30 every day, free of charge.
On top of all this, the film is also selected to screen in competition at The Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad in June; the most important festival of its kind here in Norway. Great news and hopefully there will be more soon as we’re waiting for the first international festivals to give their verdict. Until then, here are some stills from our film:
«Gud, va jävligt hårdt det er at synka host!» -My Swedish sound designer is probably a lot more tired of coughing than he tells me – except for that outburst a few minutes ago. Carl Svensson and I are sitting in the mixing cinema at the film studios here in Oslo, and syncing our protagonist’s coughing is one of the few difficult details that remain in what has become a complex sound design.
Yesterday we wrapped the VFX-work after a two months long creative and rewarding process with the effects gurus at Storyline. I’m very satisfied with the end result, especially how we managed to create what I believe is a rich sensation of ambiance and texture. It remains to be seen if people agree, though – two months in front of computers sure make you blind to whatever effect this will have on the audience. And I guess the same goes for our sound work, as we finalize everything with the cinema mix this weekend. We had no reference sound from the shoot, and the landscapes are all created entirely from scratch. They come from a variety of sources, with 80-90 tracks and more than 1000 individual sound effects, ranging from very alive horny frogs to dead metal cling noises and jazz impro. It’s all there, up on that large cinema screen in front of me. Now it’s all about setting those all important levels, and The Knife is finished.
Looking at the monitor with VFX supervisor Øystein Larsen
It’s time to paint that sky blood red.. After four weeks of work, we locked the editing in the beginning of this month. I’m very happy with the result, both because we ended up with a final version that remain close to my original idea, but also because I feel we’ve been able to make it very character driven. After all, this is a short film and the goal has always been to make it no more than 14 minutes. It’s 12:37 to be precise, sans générique.
But hey, the film is far from finished and much can still happen. Another two months of postproduction remain, as we kickstart VFX work with color grading this week. Norwegian postproduction house Storyline Studios will handle both the grading and the VFX/sound work. I’m very excited about this part of the process, as I have yet to see the image in high resolution. Further more, as the whole film was shot day for night, I’m anxious to finally being able to see our “night look”. With that finished, we will start working on the VFX itself. The editing process has resulted in less effects work than I had previously envisioned as the final edit is a much more intimate and character driven story. Still, there are a number of effect shots, and some are quite a challenge. Supervisor throughout all of these, will be Øystein Larsen – the man responsible for, amongst others, 2nd World War blockbuster Max Manus. Frankly, we couldn’t be in safer hands. Øystein was present during the whole shoot, and knows pretty much every detail about everything that could affect the work we’re now starting. Having an effect supervisor on set is becoming more and more normal in the industry, even here in Norway, but I still feel lucky having been able to have his guidance throughout.
The work deals with everything from creating an articifial sky over the head of our protagonist to developing dreamy visions of the jazz singer. I have a very clear image of all of it in my head, and whenever I close my eyes I can easily see them play out in my mind. But the problem is to get it out there and across the table to the animators. I have never done anything like this, so it will surely be a learning experience. It’s all very exciting, and just a little bit nerve wracking too…
Five days, 24 cans of super16, 28 crew members, three actors, four musicians, two locations drowned in rain, one location dressed all in black, blocked streets with every sign of modern life removed… Late Friday we wrapped The Knife after an intense, but very satisfying shoot. Hopefully the material will do justice to the hours spent creating all the elements that was needed to bring such a project to life. I have to admit I have a good feeling, but you never know. All I do know, is that I’ve been very fortunate to work with such an enthusiastic crew and cast! In two weeks, we start the postproduction at Drømmesuiten, with editor Pål Gengenbach, co-editor Svein Olav Sandem and myself in front of the macs, trying to find a way to cut all this weirdness together.
Below are some very discrete, non-revealing glimpses from the production, taken by our set photographer Line Skjærvik. For details on every photo, head over to my Flickr account.
It’s been almost precisely three years since I met jazz singer Tora Augestad in a bar in Paris. The meeting resulted in me going to a concert with her ensemble Music for a While a few weeks later. That ended up being the foundation of what later developed into the short film The Knife, a screenplay I first started drafting in the fall 2008.
I'm an aspiring and ambitious filmmaker with wide interests in the world of cinema, dividing my time between personal film projects and editor-in-chief work here at Montages.
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