Hue's Blog

William Eggleston

At war with the mundane.

The photographer William Eggleston was our cinematic inspiration for Saint John of Las Vegas.  He famously said "I am at war with the mundane."

This isn't photo-journalism, or cosmopolitan pity.  It is a kind of exaltation.  To war with something is to elevate its importance.  The humor here comes from severity.  In Saint John of Las Vegas, auto insurance is the mundane subject, but the characters involved are at war.  That is what makes it funny.

These images are dye-transfer prints from Kodak reversal stock.  We shot 35mm negative film and then adjusted the image via a digital intermediary (which, for non-filmmakers, is like photoshop for movies.)  Unfortunately, reversal film and negative film look very different.  Even if we had used reversal film, Eggleston shot these pictures in the 1970s and Kodak no longer makes the development chemicals he used.  Dye transfer printing also creates a different look than normal printing, even when using the same negative.  So we couldn't use Eggleston's film stock, his chemicals or his printing process.

We asked dye transfer printer Guy Stricherz and fashion photographer Raymond Meier for advice on how to replicate Eggleston's look.  They both said the same thing: resist the temptation to electronically sharpen or increase contrast.  To quote Raymond Meier "it’s extremely hard to fake the beauty of a real imperfection."  Instead, our DP Giles Nuttgens concentrated on emulating Eggleston's framing and lighting decisions.  We made contrast by juxtaposing colors in the frame, so we wouldn't need to enhance contrast digitally.  And we relied on modern lens technology to create all the sharpness we needed.

Our colorist Julius Friede used a wonderfully light touch in the digital intermediary process.  In the end, I think we succeeded in creating a look which pays homage to Eggleston's spirit, even if the film stock, processing and printing weren't the same.

 

 

 

 

             

Your Brand Here

Seth Godin raises an issue that affects all of us trying to establish ourselves as creative professionals.  On the one hand, we need to work.  On the other hand, we are defined by the body of work we do.  Does the project in front of you advance your career, or set it back?  At what point is any job better than no job?  He says:

"Surviving is succeeding, no doubt about it. Doing the work is better than not doing the work. Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. But, and it's a huge but, you define yourself by the work you do, and perhaps you need to redefine what you're willing to take and where you're looking for it."

You can read his entire blog post here.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Don't correct his grammar.

They say "if you meet a talking dog, you don't correct his grammar."  If I am seeing something which is impossible, I tend to hold back the fine-point criticism.

So many people have to risk time, money and reputation to make a movie.  The odds of failure are much higher than the chances of success.  At every step people try to mitigate risk.  Even the most established directors have films they can't get made.  How Wes Anderson collected the infinite list of actor, agent, producer, manager and financier blessings to make an adult-oriented cartoon is beyond me.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a great film, in part because it exists at all.

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Fandango | Netflix

 

Holy Kaw! Q&A with Guy Kawasaki

It seems like everyone is an aspiring filmmaker these days. But shooting YouTube videos is one thing, and making a major motion picture is another. To shed some light on what it’s like to make a movie-movie (the kind you pay to see) we tracked down Hue Rhodes, writer/director of the upcoming Saint John of Las Vegas starring Steve Buscemi, Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and a slew of other famous people.

via holykaw.alltop.com

Guy Kawasaki is a legend in Silicon Valley. In my old start-up days he was the go-to "connector" before Malcolm Gladwell coined the term. Everything comes full circle I guess, because I recently did a Q&A with him for alltop.com.  We talked about William Eggleston, social media and lighting guys on fire.  You can read the whole interview here.

Icon vs. Icon interview

The world of independent film is full of unique stories both on-screen and off. Such is the case with writer/director Hue Rhodes. Not satisfied with his day job after the tech boom of the late ’90s, he took matters into his own hands and began to chase a dream. A fan of movies since his childhood, Rhodes decided to immerse himself in the world of filmmaking and fearlessly blaze new trails. Now in 2009, Rhodes’ directorial debut has been making the rounds on the film festival circuit and is set for a national release in early 2010. ‘Saint John of Las Vegas’ features a top-notch ensemble cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco, Peter Dinklage, Tim Blake Nelson, John Cho, Danny Trejo and Emmanuelle Chirqui.

more at www.iconvsicon.com

Mondrian

Production designer (uncredited)

Saint John of Las Vegas had a limited production design budget.  We decided that it was best to pick a single source of inspiration for the whole film.  Our hope was that simplicity and focus would have the biggest bang for the proverbial (and literal) buck.

Our production designer Rosario Provenza chose the paintings of Piet Mondrian (wiki) because he felt the clean lines and block colors resonated with the mind-set of the main character.  We used this design scheme to blend sets with carefully chosen locations.  As a result, Saint John of Las Vegas has a surprisingly stylized look for a lower-budget film.