Yahoo! Movies posted a short clip from the upcoming “X-Men: First Class.” There have been a few teaser trailers for the upcoming prequel to the popular X-Men Trilogy released in the past, but this is our first real glimpse at how the movie will really feel. The clip is only a minute long, but it gives you a fair idea of how James McAvoy is approaching Charles Xavier, played by Patrick Stewart in the original trilogy.
Apple.com’s trailer section is pushing another exclusive trailer. This week’s feature is another trailer for Disney/Pixar’s “Cars 2“. The website has amassed 23 clips, most of which feature 360˚ views of the various characters that will appear in the movie. There’s also been one short clip released that features Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) fighting his way off of what appears to be an oil derrick.
Apple's latest HD exclusive trailer
At first glance “Birdy the Mighty: Decode” seems like an average fan service anime complete with scantily clad female lead, but there’s a bit more to this story of an intergalactic police officer’s mission to Earth. The trailer claims that the titular character is stranded on Earth until she repairs the damage she’s done to Tsutomu Senkawa’s life, but there’s much more to the story than that. Continue reading
![A reel-to-reel editing table. By Andrew Lih [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Steenbeck-rollers.jpg "By Andrew Lih [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Editing can be one of the most difficult tasks in shooting a film. Sure, it’s a pain to get to a location, get your shots, get multiple takes of your shots and then get them home, but imagine choosing exactly the right take and then making sure that take works within the framework of all the other takes and shots you’ve already chosen. Do you have to go back and change those? Maybe. Those that shoot with a script in hand are usually luckier than broadcast reporters and others that shoot without a script, but there are some general tips that everyone can use to make things a little easier.
What hides behind the reflective mask?
“Desert Punk” takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future. Mankind destroyed the modern world in a cataclysm that turned Japan into the Great Kanto Desert. Life in the desert is rough and mercenaries roam wild, taking on and completing any job as long as it pays enough. The show focuses on the adventures of the Kanta Mizuno, AKA the Desert Punk, his rival Junko Asagiri, and eventual apprentice, Kosuna. The show initially focuses on the show’s aesthetic and setting while the latter half concentrates on Kanta and his place in the desert’s politics. The audience learns about the harsh living conditions and are given hints about how the Kanto Desert came to be.
Special effects have come a long way in the past 30 years. They’ve evolved from practical elements rotoscoped together to digital effects that stitched together with the power of computer editing. The increasing power and speed of computers means that computers are able to create complex worlds that take up terabytes of data like James Cameron’s “Avatar” and allow for photorealistic digital characters like the apes in the upcoming “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”
As screenPhiles, we should pay attention not only to how others make film, but how to make film ourselves. To that end, I feel that I should share some valuable lessons learned while filming the Washington, DC International Film Festival two weeks ago. While many of these lessons apply mostly to one-man-band style broadcast and multimedia journalism, the lessons can also be applied to independent filmmakers that are just starting out with a few of their closest friends.
