Imagine a world that exists only in your imagination, complete with its ecosystem, inhabitants, creatures, buildings — everything — and bring it to life. Easy, right? Maybe not, but it does seem so for Ryan Church, an artist extraordinaire working with a bag load of portfolios.

Tucked under his stash of hollywood concept arts, is a gallery of his personal stuffs. Unlike his commissioned work, it has no compromise nor boundaries to what he can or cannot do, simply glorious.

I’ve linked to him before, but he’s now got a new website and much more artwork added. Perfect for your coffee hour.

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“I’m not nostalgic for a technology. I’m nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren’t being made now.”

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“… the trees grew and made pattern of light and dark on the ground, and the vines swirled in to trace the pattern.” — Kallie Markle

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Being a visual dreamer that I am, most, if not all of those moments share some kind of a spectacular photographic achievement more than the actions, sound/music or the writing put together, but then again, failure to attribute them would be an artistic violation cause without them, those achievements are half done.

Over the years, I have been slowly collecting those happy moments where stationery movements on screen can bring so much joy and awe, and how these talented souls have put some dent in our heart, touching our very soul with excellence. As the hours of 2010 coming to an end, and the sunrise of 2011 approaches, it would be a thrill to visually relive these great cinematic achievements and share them with a like-minded souls like you are, and as Christopher McCandless wrote in his diary (from the movie Into the Wild): “Happiness only real when shared.”

This may not be a recipe for a great movie, and many of the films and shows found here are, in no way, perfect, but these scenes that made it to the final cut are game changers and should redefine how still & motion pictures are crafted.

Enjoy the show.

Memorable scenes and spectacular sequences from feature films or television shows as seen by yours truly.

(Appears in no particular order)

Avatar: Jake’s First Flight

Directed by James Cameron, cinematography by Mauro Fiore, original music by James Horner

It’s Jim Cameron’s favorite scene in Avatar, I still have my goosebumps every time I remember the sequence.

Inception — The Hotel Fight

Directed by Christopher Nolan, Special Effects Supervisor: Chris Corbould, original music by Hans Zimmer

Trivia: Took a month to complete, weeks of tests to get the effects right. (especially taking the five bodies afloat into an elevator)

Imagining an intense fight scene in zero gravity is one thing, but making them happen, and as real as possible with long cuts with great choreography and real action deserves an Oscar for itself. The WSJ blog talks to Chris Corbould on how they dreamed up and deliver the effects.

The Social Network — Henley Race Scene

Directed by David Fincher, cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth, music (In the Hall of the Mountain King) adapted by Trent Reznor Clip:

There’s no story here except a rowing race, but the great camera angles, and the great editing make it the most interesting rowing race I’ve seen on screen. Here’s the director, David Fincher talking about the scene.

Smallville: Reckoning — Jonathan Kent’s Funeral

Directed by Greg Beeman, cinematography by Barry Donlevy, original music (I Grieve) by Peter Gabriel

Great camera, great color, apt choice of music edited nicely into a 3-minute screen orgasm.

Up: Married Life — Carl & Ellie

Directed by Pete Docter & Bob Peterson (co-director). original music by Michael Giacchino

I see no other way to tell a story of a young boy falling in love to a young girl and live happily ever after till the day she dies, in five minutes.

CSI: Chaos Dominium — Bullet Time

Directed by Kenneth Fink, cinematography by Christian Sebaldt, original music by John M. Keane.

This two-minute sequence shows what a water drops in the air looks like, speeding bullet, exploding skin tissue and frozen mobs having a gun fight with the goods guys inside a crime lab. Rumor has it that it costs more than US$300.000 to make.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (Part 1): The Tale of the Three Brothers Animated Sequence

Directed by Ben Hibon, Supervised by Dale Newton (Framestore)

It’s a combination of shadow puppet, stop motion and graphic animation, it’s like magic. Great scoop by Cartoon Brew and FXGuide has an interview with the sequence supervisor Dale Newton.

Hero — Duel in the Forest

Directed by Zhang Yimou cinematography by Christopher Doyle original music by Tan Dun

Hand it over to Zhang Yimou and the chinese, they invented the power and the look of Kungfu on screen. Also check out the The Imaginary Chess Duel.

Ronin — Car Chase

Directed by John Frankenheimer, cinematography by Robert Fraisse original music by Elia Cmiral

Ronin practically set the new standard for car chases scenes. A must watch.

House of Flying Dagger — Duel at the Drum Room

Directed by Zhang Yimou, cinematography by Xiaoding Zhao, original music by Shigeru Umebayashi.

I’m no fan of the movie, but it’s Zhang Yimou, and this scene, among many others are just too good to be missed.

This article is always going to be a work in progress, and by no means, is this piece a year-end special, or even remotely related to what this blog regularly publishes.

Happy New Year.

He shoots almost exclusively with a Widelux, he sings, and I also heard he took home the Oscar for a brilliant movie that shares the same title with the book above.

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard about this particular photographer; he’s name is Jeff Bridges.

The man knows his style and he swears by it, instead of regular blog posts, he paints and handwrites almost his entire website, and publishes his photo gallery in a full-spread book metaphor that I grew to enjoy.

He has a photography section where he publishes his other two books in entirety, and one of them is the making Iron Man oh-so-plenty of behind-the-scenes for the director in you.

At the same time, I would like to wish you a Happy Christmas and a great holiday seasons.

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Promotional stills for 2001: A Space Odyssey that looks more like a high-end documentary rather than sci-fi.

For those who haven’t heard, Kubrick was a photojournalist, and remember, it was done in the 60s. (via DF)

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The photo above is one of the dozen showcase on the set of the Empire Strikes Back Vanity Fair is web-exclusively running, an intriguing look of creative-yet-chaotic on-set actions.

I love the title scrolling trick, where they actually filmed it.

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© Dan Chung

Even more fascinating is the fact that he did it on a limited time, budget & crew; I dare not say that he’s shooting with a limited equipment, but 20kg of luggage limitation means little for a filmmaking-shooter. Here’s his take about the wide shot on mark 00:54 —

One shot I was keen to get was of the boy and trainer walking off from a high angle. Sadly I didn’t have a Kessler Crane to hand so I had to make do. I held up in the air my 5DmkII with the 12-24mm on top of a Man­frotto video monopod, wedging the mono pod’s little feet against my body. I started with it at head height next to the trainer and as they walked off I slowly raised the camera to fake a jib effect. It’s far from perfect but I think it was worth a try. When I came to edit it I applied Final Cut Pro’s Smooth cam filter to iron out any minor bumps.

The rest of the site offers a wealth of tidbits on DSLR Filmmaking.

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A benevolent short done by our friend Chase Jarvis with the new Nikon D7000, showcasing it’s super sensitive sensor and 1080p HD movie capture capability.

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Follow focus is to Hollywood, for HD-DSLR is to filmmaking, Intuitfocus HF-IF1 is the 5D of HD-DSLR follow focusing:

The IF system can be used on all DSLR cameras with lenses from 14mm to 600mm, including shooting with Zeiss still or compact prime lenses. The IF system is easy to mount and is compatible with most lenses, and enables one to focus or to zoom precisely and quickly without any camera shake.

This thing about focusing will go away if camera makers solve the root problem. SLR cameras are designed to capture still photograph; our current focusing technology was based on a two-decade auto-focus problem, now that most DSLRs can also be used to shoot videos, a new auto-focus system is needed to solve this new problem.

Abstract: Detecting an object from the viewfinder, instead of snapping to a focused position, the system would identify movements, and from the distance, direction, speed and sets of moving patterns; calculate and predict a focusing point that would be maintained, and/or gradually shifted according to the position of the object and the camera’s film plane. Add to it, the existing image stabilizing technology, super-sensitive image sensor capable of high-ISO & wide dynamic range light capture — filmmaking will never be the same again.

Okay, that sounds like crazy sci-fi sensation, but remember a few decades ago when auto-focus, auto-exposure, hypersonic-wave focusing motor, were nothing but a dream? As many optimists would say, everything is possible as long as we can imagine it.

Postscript: Now that we’re talking sci-fi, has someone devised a non-linear digital image sensor that has “memory”? A sensor that not capture a single linear moment of image, but record a non-linear memory of the light itself? This would result in a truly RAW state so that the photography can be done entirely post-capture — think of a darkroom enlarger but with multiple negative films with infinite combinations of ƒ stops.

It would completely ruin the beauty of photography, but it’s no crime to imagine for a bit, no?

Surely any film that inspires these volumes of conversation and dialogue prior to opening for the movie-going public must possess in it some seed of greatness. The movie has planted itself in the minds of everyone who has seen it and it has grown there, equally for those who embrace the film as those who react against it. By inspiring this discourse Nolan’s film has already proven his thesis to be accurate, empirically, whether the dissenters agree or not.

Ben gets it.

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The story about a leader with a vision is not new, but idea is timeless and life-changing action is always a good story to tell. That’s how one David Christensen, decided to make a movie about a village, the crazy mayor and his little idea:

The Mirror is a documentary about bringing sunlight to a forgotten village and how this extraordinary idea affects the lives of the people in the village and the surrounding valley. Touching and whimsical, its about the light and the dark and the things in between a documentary film about some extraordinary people and their extraordinary dreams of light.

Update: The movie was screened at the Hotdocs festival in Toronto last May.

(via Roger Ebert)

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© Jasin Boland/FRONTLINE

The closing credit of Karate Kid caught my attention, instead of Jackie Chan’s signature bloopers, the credit was embedded with photographs of the cast members, the movie producers, and family members, noticably, Will & Jada Pinket Smith.

Unlike the official shots, the images were carefully curated and processed with a magazine-like approach, a subtle mix of toning, vignette, color & saturation adjustments applied, capturing and further uplifting the mood behind the scene of this authentically Filmed-in-China remake, it was friendly, personal and up-close selections that was more like a family slideshow rather than studio stills.

If anybody knows if the gallery is available somewhere, do let me know.

Update: Behind the Lens with Jasin (via Paul Cush Photography)

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Every camera has it’s place. Every camera excels in some things — and fails in others. Every end user has specific needs, quality standards, and budgets…

In the end — learn all of the tools (if you can) — and use the best tool for any given job.

Jim made a blunt comment about a certain Canon Commercial that made quite a buzz in the photographic & DSLR flimmaking. He is a technical guy and the camera he invented continues to shape the digital cinematography field, but there’s one problem, aside from a technically capable camera (on paper), his company tends to over promise and under deliver, sometime between the wait, the HD-DSLR cameras started to appear and gained a wide audience support in the mainstream filmmaking industry, I’m not surprised if Jim is pissed off for that, but calling others names and telling them to be ashamed is just a bad, bad move.

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Time is not the X factor.

In extreme cases, some of us made it earlier than others; by made it, I’m talking about one person’s ability to deeply understand one subject of activity–like a hobby, spent a great deal of time walking, running, eating, sleeping & dreaming about it, and at some point of his life the eureka moment comes and he started excelling on it. Some shall made a big material fortune off it, but that one of a true artist, one that truly excels and ‘enlightened’ on that subject matter change other people’s live… sharing the knowledge while continue breathing & living with that path.

Money is not the X factor.

Joey L–as he prefers to be called, is that extreme case of this rare talent that touches people’s life while acquiring the greatest fortune of life money can’t buy — the knowledge & his path of love.

He is in his early twenties–as of this writing, with a body of work hard to come by at such a delicate age. He discovered his true passion early, picked up the tricks along the way and the world opens up to him. The work that follows are the product of his love, one that has a common quality of divinity, with beauty so profound that will create a universal bridge that takes us to his playground during that infinite seconds of witnessing beauty.

Passion is truth.

I am truly happy to have discovered him, I hope he touches your heart like he did mine. The image below will take you to a blog post where his select images are curated by the fine folks of The Graphic Exchange Project, but more treasure should be found at his personal website JoeyL.com and his Learn-from-Joey video series.

True beauty inspires. Those who knows how to listen shall learn & prosper.

© Joey Lawrence

Canon USA’s Digital Learning Center has published their latest issue of online featurette. First up, two Shooter’s Insight multimedia for their latest cameras The EOS 7D & EOS 1D Mark IV.

While you’re there don’t miss the Tilf-Shift Lenses Special Feature and the popular Nocturne short by Vincent Laforet.

© Photograph by Sebastian Kim (flash required).

Inline with his unique vision that makes him the kind of director he is today, the kind of answer I would expect from an accomplished filmmaker:

You feel an energy…, there’s an energy to it that is not creepy or dark. It has a positive sense to it. It’s like all of that Day of the Deadimagery.

Yes, Tim! We heard you!

Read the complete interview by Danny Elfman (another hero!)here. Or head over to Sebastian’s Portrait Gallery for some more excellent portrait works.

Updated with additional info on Simulcam, James Horner’s inspiration from Indonesian music and more links.

“Walking through a dream I see you, By light and darkness breathing hope of new life, Now I live through you and you through me, enchanted, I pray in my heart that this dream never ends.“

If I shall make a movie, I will not do it any other way. Avatar, opened last week has brought a new sensation to the festive season; James Cameron’s first after he spent nearly a decade scraping the underworld and creating documentaries — is nothing sort of spectacular, an out of this world imagination with a down to earth storytelling is every directors’ and moviegoers’ dream come true. He and the (rumored) $300 million team of artists, cameras & computer engineers has closed the chapter of generation: ‘Star Wars’ & opened a new page in the cinema history book.

If the story of a man falls in love with the indigenous’ first woman sounds remotely familiar and how their love began at the battle field with a happily ever after ending might sounds like a Disney movie, but make no mistake, this is not Pocahontas. This is a story of good that will ultimately triumph greed, love overwhelms evil.

James Cameron has clearly grown, borrowing from the ancient Hindu scripture, the movie borrows the concept of the ‘borrowed-body’ to narate the often distant voice of wisdom, deep within the blue skin & the big yellow eyes of the Na’vi lies a simple fact that we as human must know; we are all connected as one.

Clearly, we have distant ourselves from nature…so far, it is impossible for most of us to recognize the truth, Pandora might be just an imagination of one creative soul, but everything that we live on earth—as real as it is, as close as we are—yet, are often gone unnoticed that we simply destroy everything that is given for us. Avatar attempts to correct that mistake, the concept of God, prophecy and religion doesn’t exist but love, courage & faith become a tradition that is nurtured throughout the Na’vi that bounds every each of them to their beautiful planet.

How does one create a realistic world?

There’s a fundamentally different concept of dimension in Avatar, it’s a unique philosophical iteration on how they represent the world of Pandora onto a virtual 3D on 2D screen.

Jon Landau, Produser, & Cameron’s partner since Titanic:

It’s not a world coming out of a window, it’s a window into a world.

I was one of the lucky souls who were at the center stage of it; for nearly 3 hours on the night of Dec 17, I was blown away by what I could only describe as an out-of-this-world sensation, I wouldn’t be surprised as I have learned prior to the opening night that almost everything that was used to make Avatar was entirely new to the filmmaking industry, the technology, the approach & the equipment was practically invented for this movie.

Another reason why this movie looks & feels different than any other is the way the computer generated imaging (CGI) are produced; instead of moving wireframe 3D models and calculating the lights & shading of its texture, Avatar uses a performance capturing technology—a common technique of injecting live in videogames—actors are rigged with motion detection equipment on a soundstage with live-size marking of the scenes they are performing for, no more dubbing or mouse generated movement; with a Cameron made digital viewfinder & the production team’s brilliant software ‘simulcam’, the director is seeing the actor’s performance with a realtime rendering of how the movie should look in post production, directors have to wait for months for what Cameron see in realtime. This solution does not only allow Cameron to create a real life looking camera movements, but also allows the actors to perform live on-stage and animate & mimic they’re own digital character as they would have done in real life.

James Cameron:

It’s immersive. It wraps the movie around you. It’s not necessarily just for kids’ films either. It works in a dramatic sense because it gives you a heightened sense of reality. Whatever you’re watching has a kind of a turbo-charged level of audience involvement. In a science fiction film like this one, you’ll be able to inhabit that world, not just watch it but be in it. I think people want that. If people are going to get out of their homes and go to the cinema, the cinema better show them something it hasn’t in the past. (Q&A with James Cameron, Jan 11, 2007 by Rebecca Winters Keegan)

It is overwhelming. The number of technical excellence and inventions is so massive, it is overwhelming to even read the data, the new PACE/CAMERON Fusion Camera System, the rich sound & melody written by James Horner and how he committed his 1.5 years inventing a new sound world exclusively for Pandora, including a sound originated from my beloved home, Indonesia:

There were a lot of vocal sounds I took from various places. These were odd vocal sounds that I would manipulate digitally and there were interesting flutes, for instance, from South America and Finland that I wanted to be more abstract. I also have instruments invented from scratch. They were programmed. There were a lot of instruments that sound like flutes of different sorts, but they were combined with gamelan-sounding instruments. The gamelan is Balinese. The word itself means ”orchestra.” The individual gamelan instruments are these bell-like sounds. A lot of the percussion for “Avatar” is gamelan-based or sounds gamelan-based. So this has this sort of quality of ringing bells, like Indonesian music. It’s a very pretty fusion of different worlds that gives the place itself a quality that is magical. Using it for percussion, rather than drums or other things, gives a sort of magical glow to everything. And as I said there were a lot of instruments that I invented and worked on with my programs. I was very particular.

Read the rest of the interview here

The immensity of the efforts also comes at the end, an endless list of talented souls appears in the credit title that scrolls with Leony Lewis’ brilliant voice singing:

“Then my heart was never open, and my spirit never free;
To the world that you have shown me;
But my eyes could not envision;
All the colors of love and of life ever more…ever more.”

Nothing has ever come so close for a story, graphics, cinematography, technology, imagination & creativity encapsulated to a 165-minute work of art, James Cameron’s Avatar is a must see, so perfect, it’s almost spiritual.

I see you, James. I see you.

A big pile of selected links (worth reading) about Avatar:

Full Credits for Avatar
http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/anorak-city/2009/12/avatar-how-many-people-does-it.html

Artists working on Avatar
http://mattejourney.blogspot.com/2009/03/artists-working-on-avatar.html

Behind the scenes from Avatar
http://www.kansascity.com/936/gallery/1632020.html

Creating the world of James Cameron’s “Avatar“
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2009/12/16/landau/index.html

Inventing Effects to Create the Avatar Universe
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_avatar_movie/2/

The technological secrets of James Cameron’s new film Avatar
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/20/3d-film-avatar-james-cameron-technology

A Brief Look at the Technological Advancements in James Cameron’s Avatar
http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/08/09/a-brief-look-at-the-technological-advancements-in-james-camerons-avatar/

‘Avatar’ 3-D experience aims to immerse viewers in distant world
http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/avata-3-dexperience-aims-immerse-viewers-distant-world-1201/

Moving Pictures: The stories behind movies
http://www.movingpicturesmagazine.com/reviews/movies/avatar

Movie stills from Yahoo! Movies
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos//gallery/1924/avatar-stills#photo0

Technology behind 3D — CNET
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6212076–1.html?tag=mncol

With “Avatar,” Technology Has Never Looked So Human in Film
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-antonio-vargas/with-avatar-technology-ha_b_399711.html

and a bonus.…

A Beautiful collection of Hi-res (Full HD Size) Wallpaper for your desktop
(Google Link, BitTorrent required)

Avatar’s latest extended HD trailer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdxXPV9GNQ[/youtube]

James has proven that we too can make great films without an army of crews & equipment, here’s what he made for his nephew (straight out of his Canon 5D Mark II):

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/5568981[/vimeo]

Check out their blog for more visual brilliance.

BlinkWorks: Film and Video Production via Stunt Software

Chad Mumm on using EOS 7D as a video camera:

Lastly, it’s almost impossible to use the camera for “run and gun,” documentary-style shooting without some sort of after-market stabilizing device, like a shoulder-mount or brace. The camera is just too difficult to balance, especially when you add accessories and big lenses, plus you have to be constantly adjusting focus.

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Out of this world.

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Gallery: A rare tour of IMAX cameras

via Gizmodo

Another take on the art of previsualization, this time from the latest installment of the hyper-successful Sci-fi franchise: Star Trek. Shifting from reality the team created an entirely new reality for the reimagined of the space, as the final frontier.

Clyne, a veteran concept artist for the 2009 Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams talks about his newly revealed Star Trek concept art:

“…he mostly had a blank page and that there was no detailed description for the ship in the script beyond calling it the ‘Battleship Narada’ and that it was from the future and not a traditional looking Romulan ship. JJ Abrams directed Clyne to create something ‘never seen before’ and said he wanted something ‘threatening looking’”

(via trekmovie.com)

Unfortunately this is untrue, talent and vision alone won’t get the work done, they only take you half way to the journey of the creation which is another form of art by itself. It is the process that define (or redefine) our art, and it is as great as the masterpiece itself.

Photographers, like filmmakers (most filmmakers are also photographers) are dreamers. We imagine things and we have a vision. But the key to a successful work is the work behind it. We often get caught up between our imagination and reality, most unable to get out but give in, those who are smart come up with brilliant solutions to make the vision come to light. This is the real skill that every photographer (including filmmakers and pretty much everyone else) must be equipped with.

The team at Pixar, known for its penchant of overdoing things, started working on their latest feature ‘Up’ in 2005, Lou Romano provided us a glimpse on their creative process:

A challenge in film is conveying how something feels, not how it exists in reality. Research trips can be a blessing and a curse: the blessing in that visiting an actual place surpasses what you can get from video and photos alone, the curse in being too much a slave to the actual place. Imagination and feeling should dictate everything, not reality.

Stanley Kubrick, the director (a photojournalist by training) said: “Sometimes the truth of a thing is not so much in the think of it, as in the feel of it.” As tricky as it is, getting the right feel to your vision with the correct manner means joy to your art and self.

Lou Romano: Art of Up via Daring Fireball.

On the IMAX¹:

IMAX is the anti-YouTube, a quality-obsessed celebration of overstimulation. The screen is too big, the speakers are too loud. Yet in 2009, it’s the quintessential antibody to all those viral videos that fill our days, rotting our taste. That’s why it survived—it had the guts to stake its turf knowing that it could continually wow an audience.

via Gizmodo

[vimeo width=“640” height=“360”]http://vimeo.com/4155700[/vimeo]

Quicktime version available from chrismilk.com