Film Formally

This time around we tackle the way Altman's process and worldview effected his famous use of lengthy zoom-ins and zoom-outs. We touch on a glut of films and side-topics, (hopefully) befitting the master of meandering ensemble narratives.

Filmmaker Paige Smith joins us to talk about the animated psychological horror film Perfect Blue and its copious use of self-reflexivity — when a work openly acknowledges itself, forcing the viewer to recognize the trappings and mechanics of the movie they’re watching.

Walter Murch’s sound technique worldizing defines George Lucas’s American Graffiti, emulating how a sound would be heard in the particular location of each scene. In this episode, Devan and Will discuss the technique and how Murch uses it to serve the narrative needs of American Graffiti.

In this episode we chat with Toronto-based filmmaker (and one of our favourite collaborators) Sophy Romvari about why she scales down her films’ budgets, crew sizes, and production length.

In this episode, Devan and Will discuss Steven Soderbergh’s pioneering use of digital image capture in his remarkable run of films that followed his transition away from celluloid-based filmmaking starting with Che in 2008. Focusing on his 2011 epidemic thriller Contagion, we cover his usage of the medium’s perceived ‘drawbacks’ for artistic purposes as well as wider myths and trends in modern digital cinematography, including film emulation.

In this intro episode we offer a taste of our podcast, with a quick rundown of our format and a few samples from upcoming episodes. If you're tired of movie podcasts that reach a mile wide and an inch deep, we've got just the thing for you, with focused and lively conversations that stick to specifics — one episode, one technique.