Film Formally

Ep 20 - "Cinematic" feat. Nathan Douglas, James Penco & Paige Smith

There seem to be as many meanings for the word “cinematic” as there are people who use it, so we enlisted the help of our listeners to provide their own definitions, all of which we read and respond to in this episode. With help from some of our oldest filmmaking friends, we worked to see where everyone was coming from with their takes — from camera bros to arthouse advocates to jaded skeptics — and try to come to terms with what the word signifies for our personal relationships to cinema. We also discuss a few bits of important news about the podcast at the start of the episode.

Ep 19 - Storyboarding with Studio Ghibli

Join us for a laid back discussion about internationally acclaimed animation director Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and how he utilizes storyboards to plan and create his films. One of our regular hosts, Devan Scott, is away this week, so our associate producer and resident Ghibli enthusiast Paige Smith joins Will Ross to explore how Miyazaki works — and how that affects his films. 

Ep 18 - Vancouver Cinema and Late Capitalism feat. Josh Cabrita

How do prolific local filmmaking communities come about… and how do they slip away? Curator and film critic Josh Cabrita joins us as we take our own home of Vancouver as a case study for how creative and institutional stagnation happens, and what we can do to counteract it.

Ep 17 - Finding Star Wars feat. Drew Stewart

Ever seen the original Star Wars trilogy? Which versions? Multiple new “official” editions of the films have emerged since 1997, with the original films as seen in the 70s and 80s left without any official release. The work of tracking all these changes and preserving the originals has largely fallen to fans, one of whom, Drew Stewart, runs Star Wars Visual Comparisons, a compendium of every visual alteration to the original trilogy. Drew dropped by to talk about how and why all this happened to Star Wars, and how communities rise up when studios fail to protect the legacy of their films.

Ep 16 - Sounds of Commerce in Early Documentary feat. Tanya Goldman

Join us as we open our ears to the stylized sounds of a bustling commercial existence circa the 1930s — that is, the way they sound in some of the more daring documentaries of the time. Tanya Goldman, a Cinema Studies PHD candidate at NYU, walks us through these films, how their radical soundtracks express their politics, and how the soundscapes of documentaries have shifted in the decades since. (All of the main films discussed are available to watch online for free, you can find links in our shownotes at filmformally.com.)

Ep 15 - Visual Textures with Christopher Blauvelt

What does an image feel like? Is it smooth? Coarse? Soft? Sharp? Distorted? These are decisions that cinematographers, directors, and anyone else involved in the creation of a visual language for a specific film must grapple with. Christopher Blauvelt, the acclaimed cinematographer of such films as First Cow, Emma, Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women, The Bling Ring, and Mid90s joins us to discuss the textures that define his work and how he collaborated with directors like Kelly Reichardt, Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant, and Autumn De Wilde to develop these images.

Ep 14 - Revisionist Audio

It’s grievance time! Will and Devan take on the world of revisionist audio in film restoration. A niche subject? Probably. Something you should care about? Most definitely!

 

When you pop in the latest lovingly-restored 4k Blu-Ray release by a boutique label, you might expect that the soundtrack would be given the same faithful treatment as the video. Think again! The world of film restoration is rife with overly filtered audio, anachronistic foley decisions, and questionable surround sound mixes, and Will and Devan are here to explain.

Ep 13 - Documentary Writing and Mr. Jane and Finch feat. Alison Duke

What does it mean to write for documentaries? Alison Duke of Oya Media Group takes us through her experience co-writing the television documentary Mr. Jane and Finch — a process that netted her the Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Writing. 

We went in-depth into her commitment to honoring the truth of her subjects, the challenges of structuring a story as it unfolds in front of you, and some of the ethical quandaries that come with non-fiction filmmaking.

Ep 12 - Fourteen and discontinuous production feat. Dan Sallitt

There are a million ways to make an independent movie, and today Dan Sallitt came on the podcast to tell us about the one he chose to make Fourteen. The film's story spans many years, and was shot in several separate periods in 2018 and 2019 — yet it was precisely planned and plotted from the start.

That topic winds up leading us to personal discussions about how our own personalities, anxieties, and circumstances dictate how we make movies and how we compare ourselves to other filmmakers. Dan winds up offering a pretty candid portrait of his feelings and personal philosophies, a great example of the personal side of production methods.

Ep 11 - Prince of Darkness feat. Mike Thorn

Author and critic Mike Thorn swings by to talk about Prince of Darkness, John Carpenter's 1987 horror film, and how it both expresses and interrogates the subject of epistemophobia — the fear of knowledge. It’s a great movie to go into knowing little, so be aware that we spoil the entire plot in this episode.

We get into how the film withholds or ambiguates information for the audience, the film's balance between pessimism and intellectual humility, and its place in Carpenter's "Apocalypse Cycle" of movies.