| Director Matt Ross Examined His Own Life to Make "Captain Fantastic"
Written and directed by Matt Ross, "Captain Fantastic" follows a father (Viggo Mortensen) raising his six kids in isolation off the grid. When their mother dies, the family is confronted with interacting with the rest of the world in order to attend her funeral, forcing them to evaluate their choices and lives.
Ross says he was inspired by his childhood growing up in communes, and his own life as a parent now. "At some point, I was thinking a great deal about what my values are, what I wanted to pass to my children. I had a lot of questions about what I wanted to pass on to my children. And I put them into the form of a narrative really asking those questions."
Taking Flight: National Drone Show
We're only just starting to see what's possible for video professionals using unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and the opportunities are already amazing.
"We live in exciting times," says Scott Strimple, a pilot, cinematographer and producer for CinemaVisuals, a company specializing in low-altitude cinematography and photography. "We're witnessing the birth of the civilian small unmanned aircraft industry. The attraction is the camera's unrestricted freedom of movement, giving just about any visual artist the ability to provide a fresh perspectivean ability previously reserved for high-budgeted Hollywood projects. As artists, storytellers and filmmakers, we are always excited about new ways to communicate with our audience."
With that in mind, I'd like to let you know the dates for our 2016 National Drone Show, a conference and expo about UAS video production. Held Dec. 7-8 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., the National Drone Show brings thousands of video professionals together for two days of cutting-edge discussions and demos of the latest UAS solutions. We'll have a drone flying cage, screenings of our D.C. Drone Fest entries, free-to-attend sessions on the exhibit floor covering the latest drone technologies and regulatory topics, and in-depth training sessions for UAV users.
The Daniels Use Their Experiences With Unique Music Videos for "Swiss Army Man"
Directing duo The Daniels discuss their feature film debut "Swiss Army Man," a project that won them the directing prize at Sundance this year. The quirky film stars Paul Dano as a man stranded on a desert island who finds a flatulent corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) that he then uses to sail across the ocean.
As the directors explain, "One of the things we have in our back pocket the whole time while we're pitching these insane ideas is the backlog of music videos and short films that we've been doing which are more insane than this movie is. So we show that [to potential financiers] and say, 'Look, this kind of works. Maybe it'll work in a longer form. Just come along on this adventure with us and we'll find out.'"
Download the 2016 Best of Show Guide: NAB Show
The Best of Show Awards program covering the spring NAB Show continues to grow! Now your free Best of Show Program Guide from NewBay Media is hot off the virtual presses and you can read it here.
It's a great way to learn about 280 (!) new products that were introduced at the spring convention for TV/video, radio, audio and pro AV professionals.
Todd Solondz on Bringing "Wiener-Dog" to the Screen
"People make good movies every year, and they come out of unexpected corners, unexpected places, sometimes from filmmakers that you have always loved or admired or been interested in and sometimes people you've never heard of," says "Wiener-Dog" writer and director Todd Solondz. "So I'm always hopeful. I think it's one of the good things with the technology that makes moviemaking more economically viable for young people is that the bar has been raised. It's not enough to say, 'I did it for only $10,000.' It has to be done for $10,000 and still be good, still be engaging in some way."
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