My Good and Bad Predictions
A Follow Up Round Up
Whether it’s international policy or navel-gazing awards shows, I seem to be manifesting changes in the universe lately. Except when it comes to the conclave, for some reason.
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Papal Prognostication
I was hanging out with same Catholic filmmaker friends during the one and only night of the conclave, and the conclusion we could agree on was, “I don’t know who it’ll be, but it definitely won’t be an American.” Shows what we know.
But speaking of Catholic filmmaking friends, some animators I know have launched a Kickstarter for a new film about St. Joseph. You should check it out.
Oscar Ideas: One Down, Four to Go
Just before the Academy Awards ceremony this year, I posted Five Crazy Ideas to Fix the Oscars.
Tl;dr—
Create two best picture awards.
Limit each award to only five nominees.
Only nominate real (theatrically released) movies.
Require filmmakers to pick a single “best” category.
Modify the acting categories by combining actor/actress awards, and add voice performance and best stunts.
About a month later, the Academy announced a brand new Stunt Design category!
And it’s not just me. In the comments of that same post, my friend
suggested that Academy members should only be allowed to vote if they’ve seen every nominated movie.Lo and behold, the Academy acquiesced to his demand a few weeks later, saying that voters will no longer be able to cast final ballots in categories in which they haven’t seen all of the nominees.
Tumultuous Tariffs
Earlier this week, I briefly wrote about President Trump’s confusing announcement that he would place 100% tariffs on movies produced outside of the US, whatever that means. A few days later,
offered his usual sardonic insights on his podcast at (You can on iTunes or on Spotify.) takes an even broader view that’s also worth considering— “Hollywood is a Ghost Town and Everyone Knows it.”But the problems with Hollywood aren’t just on the production end.
, a former film marketer, has published two articles in a three-part series on the problems with the theatrical movie experience, and possibly how to fix them. I highly recommend reading both Part 1 and Part 2, and then subscribing to to get the third when it comes out.Some Light Reading
Deep inside every grizzled, cynical, sardonic old gaffer is the soul of a poet. Sometimes, it’s buried very, very deep, but not in the case of
—Forty years working in set lighting introduced me to the infinite variety and qualities of light on set and out in the real world, teaching me to appreciate the light all around us: its directionality, tones, and ever-varying textures. Although the actual work of set lighting begins and ends with wrangling very heavy cable (and in between, manhandling and adjusting equally heavy lamps that are usually extremely hot), the end result of all that sweating, grunting labor is the creation of something shimmering and bright up on screen. Although I only worked with one DP who was a big enough asshole to declare, “I paint with light” — and he was a spray-painter at best — when you get down to it, that’s exactly what a gifted cinematographer does.
Read the whole thing here.
Appreciate the shoutout, Matt. Thank you so much!
Thanks Matt!