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All Features articles – Page 498
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Features
Production - Joined up writing
In the beginning was the word. Then there was the motion picture. And now it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference.The film industry is going through a book adaptation frenzy. While this has been an important part of the inspiration for films since the industry began, today books are ...
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Features
Marketing - How to win friends
The rise of MySpace has propelled social-networking communities into the web stratosphere. Launched in 2003 and sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580m two years later, MySpace's early symbiosis between indie-rock bands and their fans - and the ability for users to personalise their pages - earned it a ...
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Features
The critical eye - Tolly good show
I have a suspicion we're on the verge of a sub-prime crash in commercial film style. It's a crash that has been postponed by Hollywood's traditional strengths in the script and acting departments, not to mention the studios' marketing muscle and distribution leverage. But it seems to me that in ...
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International - Compass points up
While The Golden Compass was largely responsible for the 14.5% week-on-week increase in the international top 40, two new entries from France made their presence known taking a collective $4.3m.Roissy Films' comedy L'Auberge Rouge was the second highest new entry, coming in at number nine with a $3.1m take. The ...
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United States - Quarterlife change
I don't watch TV, I make TV," says Marshall Herskovitz. "I don't do what other people do. I do what I do and I do it the same way, whether it's film or TV or the internet."Herskovitz and partner Ed Zwick - who between them have writing, producing and directing ...
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Features
Awards Countdown - Screenwriting - Keeping To The Script
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY1. Tony GilroyMichael ClaytonGilroy, who wrote all three Bourne films, came up with one of the year's smartest original scripts in Michael Clayton, which also marked his directorial debut. If he is pushed out of the director category by heavyweight veterans, he will likely be the front runner for ...
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Features
United States - Slings and arrows
Writer-director Alex Holdridge has been on Hollywood's radar for several years, yet circumstances led him to shoot his third feature, In Search Of A Midnight Kiss, for just $12,000.Holdridge, who attended the University of Texas, was living in Austin when he was inspired to move into film by the early ...
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Features
United States - Syvan's secret
New York-based producer Lemore Syvan is gearing up for The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, the next feature from director Rebecca Miller, which starts shooting in Connecticut in April.The movie, which stars Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder, marks Syvan's fourth collaboration with Miller, following the director's critically ...
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Features
International - Nessun dorma
Italy's box office may typically be dormant during summer months but it is making up for it now as three titles generated nearly $7m this weekend, accounting for 5.5% of the international top 40's revenue.New entry Winx Club: Il Segreto Del Regno Perduto catapulted to number eight in the chart, ...
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United Kingdom - Outfoxing the Competition
"Sometimes I feel like a conductor in an orchestra," says Elizabeth Kesses, UK marketing director at Twentieth Century Fox. While she is not holding a baton, Kesses does have the constant challenge of creating standout marketing initiatives for Fox titles in what she calls "the most cynical" market for film ...
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Features
China - Stone's man on a roll
In mid September in China's south-east coastal city Xiamen, Ning Hao was shooting his fourth feature, Silver Medalist. More than 50 Chinese reporters visited the set for interviews - just a year ago the 30-year-old film-maker could not have imagined his new film would attract so much attention.The reason for ...
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Features
Production - Festival focus - Dubai fest bids for star status
Now in its fourth year, the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) has become a focal point for the Persian Gulf's growing interest in the film industry as an economic, cultural and PR platform.Festival chairman Abdulhamid Juma points out that until recently, the territory was known in the film world chiefly ...
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Features
Belgium - Extra dimension
Earlier this autumn, Summit Entertainment acquired North American distribution rights to 3D animated feature Fly Me To The Moon. Following three stowaway flies inside the helmets of lunar astronauts, the film was directed and produced by Ben Stassen, also co-founder of Belgium-based nWave Pictures. "It makes it easier to control ...
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Awards countdown - People - Awards people
NICOLE KIDMANThe star of both Margot At The Wedding and The Golden Compass tells Mike Goodridge how she tackled such dark roles.We may see her on red carpets looking every inch the style queen, but Nicole Kidman says her natural instincts are not to embrace the glamour. "I seek out ...
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Production - Coming attractions - Drawing on history
Dhulm - Years Of Torment (Lib)Director: Najdat AnzourStatus: pre-productionBased on a treatment by Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi, who is also financing the $50m project, this historical epic was launched provocatively at a Rome press conference in October. The multi-linear drama, due to start shooting at the beginning of next year, ...
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Features
Estonia - The end of violence
Writer-director Ilmar Raag was inspired to tell the story of The Class when the Columbine tragedy in the US awoke memories of his own school days.Citing a recent study which estimated 76% of Estonian schoolchildren have encountered violence at school, Raag says: "I don't pretend to know what happened in ...
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Distribution - Market Snapshot - Diversity pays dividends
Plenty of enterprising young distribution companies, including Vertigo, Dogwoof, Soda, Swipe and Revolver, have sprung up in the UK, ready to give theatrical releases to the best 'auteur' films and the most challenging documentaries.Bigger companies such as Lionsgate UK (which enjoyed enormous success with The Lives Of Others and recently ...
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Distribution - New talent - Cutting edge Propositions
Back in 1962, the German directors who signed the Oberhausen Manifesto (the birth point for the 'New German Cinema') were among the first to recognise film festivals were becoming the main launch pad for directorial talents. The acclaim given to various short films at international festivals, said the Oberhausen collective, ...
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The critical view - Same old story
Beowulf is an ideal subject for a Hollywood adaptation. The original poem, written in Old English some time before the year 1010, is heavily formulaic. It features a seemingly indestructible hero whose bodily strength is highly fetishised. There's plenty of violence - and we can generate a bit of sex ...
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Distribution - The view from the cool kids - The new cinephiles
There are those who enjoy movies, can discuss directors at dinner parties and regularly read film reviews; and then there are the cinephiles. A breed apart from 'regular' movie fans, they are afflicted by a passionate, argumentative, all-consuming love of Film As Art, and have figured out ways to accrue ...