Production design in an HD world

For all the brouhaha about greenscreen effects changing filmmaking, props, costumes, and sets still matter. Production design continues to be vital to even the most effects-heavy movies: just ask the craftspeople who hand-made all the chainmail armor for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, embedded above. But as high-definition cameras, Blu-rays, and auto-smoothing televisions produce […]

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How did movie trailers evolve into tiny blockbusters?

Internet nerd-dom had an outrage flashpoint recently when trailers for the upcoming movie Terminator: Genisys revealed multiple major plot twists, effectively spoiling what may have been the most interesting (or only interesting?) parts of the movie. Contrast that with the ominous trailer for the first Terminator movie. How did we go from brief teasers to […]

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The unexpected new life of Black Angel

Two years ago, we first told you about Black Angel, a recently unearthed lost film from 1980. Black Angel was an influential fantasy short film that played before The Empire Strikes Back during its first theatrical run; its practical effects and “step-printed” slow-motion paved the way for movies including Legend and Excalibur. But copies of […]

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“Lo and behold, there was actually an image in there.” Criterion’s techinical director talks restoration

Restoration is an important component of any film preservation and re-release process, especially the high-quality efforts from the Criterion Collection. Those of us without professional archival training never get a good idea of what happens during this mysterious process. Do they scan the original film? What sort of tools do they use to clean dirt […]

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