Every year, IndieWire reaches out to the cinematographers behind the films premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and asks which cameras, lenses, and formats they used, and why they chose them to create the looks and meet the production demands of their films. Here are the responses from filmmakers who brought scripted narrative features to the festival; check back tomorrow for a survey of the 2023 documentary lineup.
Films appear in alphabetical order by title.
“The Accidental Getaway Driver”
Dir: Sing J. Lee, DoP: Michael Cambio Fernandez
Format: 3.2K Arriraw
Camera: Arri Alexa Mini
Lens: Hawk Anamorphic
Fernandez: I think the wide aspect ratio helped tell the story of four characters in small spaces and emphasize the feelings of being trapped. The Mini helped us get into limited spaces and using one camera allowed the characters to move with what limited spaces we had. The story is about three escaped...
Films appear in alphabetical order by title.
“The Accidental Getaway Driver”
Dir: Sing J. Lee, DoP: Michael Cambio Fernandez
Format: 3.2K Arriraw
Camera: Arri Alexa Mini
Lens: Hawk Anamorphic
Fernandez: I think the wide aspect ratio helped tell the story of four characters in small spaces and emphasize the feelings of being trapped. The Mini helped us get into limited spaces and using one camera allowed the characters to move with what limited spaces we had. The story is about three escaped...
- 1/19/2023
- by Sarah Shachat and Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
After allegedly fatally shooting four people, setting off an hourslong manhunt and putting schools and residents on alert for an armed man, the owner of a small towing business was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in his truck in the woods, state police said Monday. The search for Jody Lee Hunt, 39, began about 10 a.m., when state and local authorities warned people to look out for his black 2011 Ford F-150. Hunt was wanted in three separate shootings - two in the Westover area, outside Morgantown, and another in the Cheat Lake area in Monongalia County, state police said.
- 12/2/2014
- by Associated Press
- PEOPLE.com
Granted, its title sounds very much like a threat, even at 76 minutes, but the fourth installment of the once-mighty animated phenomenon actually marks an improvement on the feeble examples of big-screen Poke-mania that have preceded it.
More focused and better-looking than the others (not exactly a difficult feat), the ecologically themed "Pokemon 4 Ever", which introduces the time-traveling, forest-dwelling character known as Celebi, also manages to splurge on some extensive, if bizarre, computer animation.
Despite the improvement, by this point most will regard the film's theatrical arrival (word has it that yet another is in the works) as an instance of flogging a dead pocket monster, and Miramax, which has stepped in after Warner Bros. Pictures distributed the first three, will likely have to wait until it plays Pikachu at the video store for the dollars to start kicking in.
Reincorporating the natural elements and themes of cooperation and friendship that are more closely aligned to video game creator Satoshi Tajiri's original concepts, the new adventure takes ace Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum, his buddies Misty and Brock and, of course, trusty and only mildly annoying Pikachu to a magical forest. The place had been the domain of Celebi until he was required to flee an evil Pokemon hunter by zipping 40 years into the future, taking Sam, an unwitting young visitor to the forest, along with him.
Ash and company help restore Celebi's strength thanks to the miracle cure of the forest's Lake of Life, but then along comes the ultra-evil Iron Mask Marauder, who's hellbent on capturing the creature and determined to obliterate anything that stands in his way.
It still makes for some truly odd, at times confusing, kids entertainment (a situation no doubt made even more so by the English-language interpretations and dubbed American voices), but at least this time there's some centered storytelling to go along with all the weird stuff.
The latter would have to include an extended computer-animated sequence in which Celebi, forced to use his powers for evil, turns himself into a gigantic destructive twig monster. It's certainly eye-catching, especially by the "Pokemon" movies' usual low-tech standards, and at the same time sort of perversely out of place given the gentle hug-a-tree tone of the rest of the piece.
Still, at the rate the feature series seems to be going, the next installment just might be half-bad.
POKEMON 4 EVER
Miramax
Credits:
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Adaptation director: Jim Malone
Screenwriter: Hideki Sonoda
Adaptation screenwriter: Michael Haigney
Producers: Yukako Matsusako, Takemoto Mori
Executive producers: Masakazu Kubo, Takashi Kawaguchi, Alfred R. Kahn, Norman J. Grossfeld
Editors: Yutaka Ito, Yumiko Fuse
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Music: Shinji Miyazaki
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, Ikue Otani, Tara Jayne, Dan Green
Running time -- 76 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
More focused and better-looking than the others (not exactly a difficult feat), the ecologically themed "Pokemon 4 Ever", which introduces the time-traveling, forest-dwelling character known as Celebi, also manages to splurge on some extensive, if bizarre, computer animation.
Despite the improvement, by this point most will regard the film's theatrical arrival (word has it that yet another is in the works) as an instance of flogging a dead pocket monster, and Miramax, which has stepped in after Warner Bros. Pictures distributed the first three, will likely have to wait until it plays Pikachu at the video store for the dollars to start kicking in.
Reincorporating the natural elements and themes of cooperation and friendship that are more closely aligned to video game creator Satoshi Tajiri's original concepts, the new adventure takes ace Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum, his buddies Misty and Brock and, of course, trusty and only mildly annoying Pikachu to a magical forest. The place had been the domain of Celebi until he was required to flee an evil Pokemon hunter by zipping 40 years into the future, taking Sam, an unwitting young visitor to the forest, along with him.
Ash and company help restore Celebi's strength thanks to the miracle cure of the forest's Lake of Life, but then along comes the ultra-evil Iron Mask Marauder, who's hellbent on capturing the creature and determined to obliterate anything that stands in his way.
It still makes for some truly odd, at times confusing, kids entertainment (a situation no doubt made even more so by the English-language interpretations and dubbed American voices), but at least this time there's some centered storytelling to go along with all the weird stuff.
The latter would have to include an extended computer-animated sequence in which Celebi, forced to use his powers for evil, turns himself into a gigantic destructive twig monster. It's certainly eye-catching, especially by the "Pokemon" movies' usual low-tech standards, and at the same time sort of perversely out of place given the gentle hug-a-tree tone of the rest of the piece.
Still, at the rate the feature series seems to be going, the next installment just might be half-bad.
POKEMON 4 EVER
Miramax
Credits:
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Adaptation director: Jim Malone
Screenwriter: Hideki Sonoda
Adaptation screenwriter: Michael Haigney
Producers: Yukako Matsusako, Takemoto Mori
Executive producers: Masakazu Kubo, Takashi Kawaguchi, Alfred R. Kahn, Norman J. Grossfeld
Editors: Yutaka Ito, Yumiko Fuse
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Music: Shinji Miyazaki
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, Ikue Otani, Tara Jayne, Dan Green
Running time -- 76 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 10/7/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The "Pokemon" movies provide a good argument for the installation of personal viewing screens in movie houses, similar to many airlines' in-flight movies systems. This way, adults can watch another movie while their young children thrill to "Pokemon". The initial "Pokemon" movie may well have been the first smash hit in movie history where a goodly percentage of the audience -- those parents who drew the short straw and accompanied their kids to the cinema -- was bored out of its skull.
The Pokemon phenomenon has not seriously abated since November's release of "Pokemon the First Movie", so this second installment should create another small-fry superhit for Warner Bros.
Clearly, Nintendo of America, which manages the Pokemon franchise, and Warners, were in a hurry to get a new Pokemon movie into theaters. So "Pokemon the Movie 2000" is something of a rush job: a 22-minute short, "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure", and an 80-minute feature, "The Power of One", from Pokemon's original creators in Japan, have been slapped together and adapted into English by director Michael Haigney and 4Kids Entertainment Prods. president Norman J. Grossfeld.
Once more, the aggressive crudeness of the animation will make fans of that art form wince. One can only hope those same parents will take their youngsters to see "Chicken Run" or "Fantasia 2000" to generate some appreciation of what glorious things animation can really do.
The virtually pre-literate "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure", keeping dialogue to a bare minimum, follows that Pokemon hero's escapades in an underground forest. "The Power of One" sees young trainer Ash Ketchum attempt to save the world by restoring the harmonious forces of nature, symbolized by three Pokemon birds: Moltres (fire), Zapados (lightning) and Articuno (ice). To do this, he must battle against, of all things, a greedy Pokemon collector, who has thrown nature out of balance.
To follow any of this, one must have a thorough understanding of the Pokemon or "pocket monsters," which young children (called trainers) collect and "train" in order to play an interactive video game. Without such understanding, the film could just as well remain in Japanese for adults.
And that bewilderment will only increase when parents realize they are essentially paying for the privilege of watching a 102-minute commercial for games and products.
POKEMON THE MOVIE 2000
Warner Bros. Family Entertainment
Warner Bros. Kids presents
a 4Kids Entertainment production
Producer: Norman J. Grossfeld
Director, Japanese production: Kunihiko Yuyama
Director, American production: Michael Haigney
Screenwriter: Takeshi Shudo
English adaptation by: Norman J. Grossfeld, Michael Haigney
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Art director: Katsuyoshi Kanemura
Music: Ralph Schuckett, John Loeffler
Editor: Jay Film
Animation producers: Toshiaki Okuno,
Shukichi Kanda
Animation production:
Shogakukan Production Co.
Color/stereo
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein, Ted Lewis, Ikue Otani
Running time - 102 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
The Pokemon phenomenon has not seriously abated since November's release of "Pokemon the First Movie", so this second installment should create another small-fry superhit for Warner Bros.
Clearly, Nintendo of America, which manages the Pokemon franchise, and Warners, were in a hurry to get a new Pokemon movie into theaters. So "Pokemon the Movie 2000" is something of a rush job: a 22-minute short, "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure", and an 80-minute feature, "The Power of One", from Pokemon's original creators in Japan, have been slapped together and adapted into English by director Michael Haigney and 4Kids Entertainment Prods. president Norman J. Grossfeld.
Once more, the aggressive crudeness of the animation will make fans of that art form wince. One can only hope those same parents will take their youngsters to see "Chicken Run" or "Fantasia 2000" to generate some appreciation of what glorious things animation can really do.
The virtually pre-literate "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure", keeping dialogue to a bare minimum, follows that Pokemon hero's escapades in an underground forest. "The Power of One" sees young trainer Ash Ketchum attempt to save the world by restoring the harmonious forces of nature, symbolized by three Pokemon birds: Moltres (fire), Zapados (lightning) and Articuno (ice). To do this, he must battle against, of all things, a greedy Pokemon collector, who has thrown nature out of balance.
To follow any of this, one must have a thorough understanding of the Pokemon or "pocket monsters," which young children (called trainers) collect and "train" in order to play an interactive video game. Without such understanding, the film could just as well remain in Japanese for adults.
And that bewilderment will only increase when parents realize they are essentially paying for the privilege of watching a 102-minute commercial for games and products.
POKEMON THE MOVIE 2000
Warner Bros. Family Entertainment
Warner Bros. Kids presents
a 4Kids Entertainment production
Producer: Norman J. Grossfeld
Director, Japanese production: Kunihiko Yuyama
Director, American production: Michael Haigney
Screenwriter: Takeshi Shudo
English adaptation by: Norman J. Grossfeld, Michael Haigney
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Art director: Katsuyoshi Kanemura
Music: Ralph Schuckett, John Loeffler
Editor: Jay Film
Animation producers: Toshiaki Okuno,
Shukichi Kanda
Animation production:
Shogakukan Production Co.
Color/stereo
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein, Ted Lewis, Ikue Otani
Running time - 102 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 7/21/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sure, the decidedly low-tech, on-the-cheap animation makes Saturday-morning TV fare look rich and sophisticated by comparison, the storytelling is awkward and laughably arch and the tone is all over the place, but thanks to its brilliantly timed release, " Pokemon the First Movie" will handily buck the boxoffice fate of most non-Disney animated features, riding the mighty wave of Pokemania all the way to the bank for Warner Bros.
Most big-screen attempts at cashing in on a craze seem to arrive on the scene a year too late. And while this picture may have the look and feel of a rush job, that won't matter to the legions of card-trading, game-playing youngsters who have made Pokemon the sixth most-searched-for word on the Internet.
The Japanese production, which could have just as easily been called "Nintendo the Motion Picture", has been rescripted and rescored for American consumption and is packaged with a 20-minute short that serves as something of a primer for those who don't know Pikachu from peekaboo.
But while the sweetly benign "Pikachu's Vacation" seems to be targeted to "Pokemon"'s younger fans, the tone abruptly becomes much darker for the main event.
It begins with a confusing prologue in which strands of DNA from the legendary Mew have been bioengineered by scientists into a more powerful clone known as Mewtwo. Annoyed that he has been turned into a Pokemon equivalent of Frankenstein's monster, Mewtwo swears vengeance on mankind.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ash Ketchum and his fellow Pokemon trainers Misty and Brock are summoned, by mysterious invitation, along with their pocket monsters to New Island, where Mewtwo has orchestrated a fight-to-the-finish showdown against his newly cloned versions in his bid to become the World's Greatest Pokemon Master on his way to total global domination.
Adults may cringe at the preachy heavy-handedness and the extremely limited motion animation that sets the art form back a couple of generations, but youngsters will no doubt delight in seeing their beloved collectibles and Game Boy characters come to life (well, sort of) up on the movie screen.
On the musical front, aside from the zippy Pokemon theme song, which conjures up memories of the old "Solid Gold" theme sans the gold spandex, the Ralph Schuckett-John Loeffler score has been augmented with a CD's worth of kid-pleasing pop by the likes of Christina Aguilera, Blessid Union of Souls and erstwhile Spice Girl Emma Bunton, who knows a thing or two about the fleeting nature of pop-culture phenomena.
POKEMON THE FIRST MOVIE
Warner Bros.
Kids' WB! presents
a 4Kids Entertainment production
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Producer: Norman J. Grossfeld
Producers: Choji Yoshikawa, Tomoyuki Igarashi, Takemoto Mori
English adaptation directed by: Michael Haigney
Screenwriter: Takeshi Shudo
English adaptation written by: Norman J. Grossfeld, Michael Haigney, John Touhey
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Art director: Katsuyoshi Kanemura
Editor: Toshio Henmi
Music: Ralph Schuckett, John Loeffler
Color/stereo
Voices:
Veronica Taylor, Philip Bartlett, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein, Ikue Otani.
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
Most big-screen attempts at cashing in on a craze seem to arrive on the scene a year too late. And while this picture may have the look and feel of a rush job, that won't matter to the legions of card-trading, game-playing youngsters who have made Pokemon the sixth most-searched-for word on the Internet.
The Japanese production, which could have just as easily been called "Nintendo the Motion Picture", has been rescripted and rescored for American consumption and is packaged with a 20-minute short that serves as something of a primer for those who don't know Pikachu from peekaboo.
But while the sweetly benign "Pikachu's Vacation" seems to be targeted to "Pokemon"'s younger fans, the tone abruptly becomes much darker for the main event.
It begins with a confusing prologue in which strands of DNA from the legendary Mew have been bioengineered by scientists into a more powerful clone known as Mewtwo. Annoyed that he has been turned into a Pokemon equivalent of Frankenstein's monster, Mewtwo swears vengeance on mankind.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ash Ketchum and his fellow Pokemon trainers Misty and Brock are summoned, by mysterious invitation, along with their pocket monsters to New Island, where Mewtwo has orchestrated a fight-to-the-finish showdown against his newly cloned versions in his bid to become the World's Greatest Pokemon Master on his way to total global domination.
Adults may cringe at the preachy heavy-handedness and the extremely limited motion animation that sets the art form back a couple of generations, but youngsters will no doubt delight in seeing their beloved collectibles and Game Boy characters come to life (well, sort of) up on the movie screen.
On the musical front, aside from the zippy Pokemon theme song, which conjures up memories of the old "Solid Gold" theme sans the gold spandex, the Ralph Schuckett-John Loeffler score has been augmented with a CD's worth of kid-pleasing pop by the likes of Christina Aguilera, Blessid Union of Souls and erstwhile Spice Girl Emma Bunton, who knows a thing or two about the fleeting nature of pop-culture phenomena.
POKEMON THE FIRST MOVIE
Warner Bros.
Kids' WB! presents
a 4Kids Entertainment production
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Producer: Norman J. Grossfeld
Producers: Choji Yoshikawa, Tomoyuki Igarashi, Takemoto Mori
English adaptation directed by: Michael Haigney
Screenwriter: Takeshi Shudo
English adaptation written by: Norman J. Grossfeld, Michael Haigney, John Touhey
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Art director: Katsuyoshi Kanemura
Editor: Toshio Henmi
Music: Ralph Schuckett, John Loeffler
Color/stereo
Voices:
Veronica Taylor, Philip Bartlett, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein, Ikue Otani.
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 11/10/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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