gear, filming techniques, and subreddits

On No Film School's site, the first thing that caught my eye was a mention of Charlie Kaufman talking about animators. You've probably heard of Eternal Sunshine, or Adaptation, or his first classic feature Being John Malkovich; all magnificently written. My personal favorite is his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. It's the most depressing movie I've ever seen, and it's fucking beautiful. I hope we're allowed to curse here. It's my blog, so I want to be real and honest and real honest. It's fucking beautiful. I haven't yet seen his latest work, Anomalisa, but It's one I've been looking forward to. It's fully animated, stop-motion made using 3D-printed puppets. Knowing Kaufman's work, it's surely a sad tale, and those are always the ones that are the most powerful and moving films in my experience.
The work that goes into making a stop-motion film is tremendous. This is some of the most detailed, beautiful stop-motion animation that I have ever seen. If you haven't seen the trailer, here it is: 

 At first glance, I'm blown away by how lifelike these characters are. Not just how detailed and real they look, but the way they move, the way they speak; the entire process is phenomenal.

Anomalisa is the first R-rated film to be nominated for an Academy Award. I wanted to add a .gif from a scene in the movie involving cunnilingus, but I figured this blog should be somewhat SFW since it's for a class. So here's link to it: NSFW. I did not want to add this just for no reason other than it's sexual nature, but the extreme detail in his facial muscles, it looks so real; so human. I can't imagine how tedious this film must've been to make, but so relieving and empowering it must feel to finally be able to release to the public. I can't wait to see this film.

Another film, one that I've seen a few times now in theatres, The Revenant, has some very interesting filming techniques and gear used. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, along with the same cinematographer he had with him on his previous Oscar-stealer Birdman, I was certain going into the film that it would be a magnificent visual experience. 

Emmanuel Lubezki, the DP for The Revenant, used ARRI's Alexa 65 for the filming process. This was the first film to use the camera. Here are some specs I found from this No Film School article:

• 65mm Digital Cinema Camera
• ARRI A3X CMOS sensor
• 5-perf 65mm (full camera aperture)
• 6560 x 3102 resolution (maximum recordable)
• 54.12 x 25.58 mm Sensor size (active image area)
• Weight: 10.5 kg / 23.2 lb
• ARRI XPL Mount (64mm diameter)
• 200 - 3200 ISO. Base is 800 ISO
• Dynamic Range: >14 stops
• Uncompressed ARRIRAW
• LDS metadata
• Electronic Shutter 5° - 358°, adjustable in 1/10° increments
• 0.75 to 27 fps (upgrade to 60 fps implemented in early 2015)

 The most impressive use of gear (that I can think of from my recollection of seeing the film) is whatever Lubezki used to beautifully and fluidly switch from regular tracking within a long take to continuing that take but now following a horse trodding away. If you've seen the film, you know what I'm talking about. How the hell do they do that? I'd like to learn.

The film has been called by the crew the hardest thing they've ever done, with temperatures being in the -20s. Lubezki said that they experienced lots of issues with the gear due to these conditions, and at one point the monitors even froze. But it all paid off in the end. If you haven't seen it, go see it while it's still in theatres. I'm really feeling like Leo might finally grab that Oscar, despite his very low amount of dialogue. His acting surely made up for that. 

I frequent /r/filmmakers, and they're always giving tons of tips and gear recommendations. Here's a list of subreddits full of filmmaking tips and tricks in all it's glory. There's bound to be at least one that piques your interest.