Recent content by ahennessey

I agree with everything that has been said about natural talent. Some people, yes, are naturally talented, but sometimes stories about people just being plucked up into major motion pictures are a little exagerrated. While not an actor per se, as a model Cameron Diaz spent years in front of a...

The best James Bond film this year was Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Seriously, Tom Cruise was great, and Rebecca Ferguson was leagues ahead of Lea Seydoux in Spectre. Not just in acting chops and presence. But the character of Ilsya Faust was sooooo much more interesting. In fact, I...

Thanks for the added info on the audio AudioPostExpert. Sorry about the quality of the audio, just found those clips on YouTube. I went back and watched, and I can see what you mean with foley. Also, I noticed the way the opening clip of the long walk is very carefully worked from audio...

THIS! I feel pacing in long two shots is one of the more common mistakes inexperienced directors make. You simply cannot make the dialogue snappier or have the actors pick up their cues in post production. Long, dialogue heavy scenes can be made interesting with long two shots though. They...

Gone Girl has an opening VO and closing VO for Ben Affleck's character. I'm pretty sure we don't hear VO for him through the rest of the film. The opening and closing VO's are very closely related, but we know so much more by the end that we have a very different understanding of it.

I disagree with you in one respect. While it is pretty clear they went with the guy that provides the most drama, I think they established through their discussions, and the clips, that without a doubt he was the best and most interesting fillmmaker out of the 13 finalists. It think Damon and...

Honestly, when I started watching it, in that hospital scene, I thought that it was voiceover narration - and very poor sound quality of voiceover narration at that. Then, as the camera got closer, I realized - oh, he's actually supposed to be speaking these lines. At this point, I am...

I agree with others here. There is really an endless string of movies with the setup you are laying out here. Sea of Love, Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct, etc. Detective noir's are full of this type of thing. And, as you mention, MANY of the Bond movies, and indeed the spy genre in general...

It's interesting. I never thought about it until your post here. I've been to a lot of film festivals , both as an attendee and as an artist. Feature narrative films have nudity pretty regularly. There is also no shortage of erotic or controversial content in feature programs. However, when I...

If you go online, many of the top makeup tutorial YouTuber's have videos detailing their lighting and camera setups, some of them right down to the lens and ISO. To be perfectly honest, I watched your video you have linked and I don't find the focus issue to be as distracting as you might...

Here is quote from one of the makers of the The Blair Witch:

The P&A is pretty much always on top of the reported production budget. Here is a relatively recent article breaking it down. And here is an older article about P&A costs. I just read the thread you linked to and it seems to more be about trying to reconcile different reported budgets when...

A typical reported film budget usually does not include marketing and distribution costs (P&A - Prints and Advertising.) It is very easy for an effects laden film to soar into those budget numbers. A common saying about effects houses is this: Good, Cheap, Fast: You are only allowed two of...

You probably already have done this, but I would contact your payroll company. They will have information for you. W-2 actors can, depending on eligibility, file for unemployment.

You may possibly run into a little irritation if you had an agreement that you would pay them on the day and now you are not going to be able to. But that's to be expected from anybody on any type of job, right? But as long as you explain it and tell them when you are going to pay them...