George Lucas: To feel the true force of ‘Star Wars,’ he had to learn to let it go

George Lucas is a pioneering filmmaker who redefined how films are made. The Post’s Hank Stuever chronicle’s Lucas’s most prolific contribution to cinema, “Star Wars.”

George-Lucas

At the ranch, yes. Yes. Feel it flowing within you. The gate, the road, the hills, the trees, the vineyard. You, him, the house. Luminous beings are we. This was all built in the 1980s with piles of that initial “Star Wars” money, yet the main house was made to look several decades older, grander, Victorian — authentically ersatz, basking in the Marin County sun.

In a short hallway off the foyer are two discrete, glass-encased shelves containing what you thought you’d see, when and if you ever got past the guards at Skywalker Ranch: Darth Vader’s lightsaber hilt, Indiana Jones’s Holy Grail, that kind of stuff. Visitors are sometimes disappointed the place isn’t packed with it.

Snooping around anyhow (admiring all the other original art, including Norman Rockwell’s 1920 painting “Shadow Artist”), which is when the 71-year-old filmmaker George Lucas silently pads up from behind in his white tennis shoes and faded blue jeans and that casually impressive pompadour of silver hair.

Washington Post | Read the Full Article

Finally, the Perfect Use for the ALEXA Mini: Attaching It to a Selfie Stick


Sure, it may have been designed to bring ALEXA image quality to UAVs and tight spaces, but one brave pioneer of cinema has discovered the greatest use of the ALEXA Mini yet. The selfie stick.





I jest, of course. This test is pure silliness for silliness’ sake. With that said, shots like this are nothing new. In fact, various incarnations of the Snorricam (made famous by Requiem for a Dream) have been achieving these warped first person perspectives for decades. Though Snorricam shots are not technically selfies because they lack the element of self-awareness, the effect is similar.



Here’s a fantastic supercut from Jacob T. Swinney, which was commissioned for Slate, that compiles the greatest Snorricam shots in cinema history.

Read More

Happy 7th Birthday Filmmaker IQ!!!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been another year. Today marks the beginning of our seventh year at Filmmaker IQ!

In the last posting we shared a little bit of our vision moving forward with a brand new free film school. We wanted to be ready for our anniversary but forces outside of our control have slowed the progress and instead of rushing it out, we’re going to try to get as many bugs out of it before releasing it as we can but remember we’re still human.

In the mean time, let us take a moment to again thank you for your patronage. It really means a lot to us that you are watching and reading our filmmaking content. We haven’t gone anywhere, we’re just trying to put together the best filmmaking learning and sharing experience on the web and that takes a lot of time to get right. But it’ll be ready before you know it:

POSE-D

In the mean time, please check out our social networks: FacebookTwitter & Google Plus to see all the content we collect before we consolidate it into the new site.

Regardless of where you’re reading this from – have a HAPPY and SAFE Fourth of July!!!

And here’s to another great year at FilmmakerIQ.com!

Dennis Hartwig and John P. Hess