Teaser: An Interview with Ryan Coogler

/

by Michele Turnure-Salleo, Director, Filmmaker360

It's clear when you meet Ryan Coogler that he is something special.

I met Ryan in January 2012 at Sundance Film Festival. Soon after the festival, we met again back in San Francisco and began talking about living in the Bay Area, filmmaking and his film, Fruitvale, which follows the true story of Oscar Grant, who was killed in a police shooting in Oakland on New Year’s Eve 2008.

He shared his script with me and it was clear that he was a natural fit for our recently launched Off the Page program, where we bring actors to the Bay Area to workshop scripts with writer/directors involved with us in various ways. Ryan had actors Melonie Diaz and Michael B. Jordan attached and it looked likely that they were going to start shooting in July. We thought it would be an incredible experience for them all to get to know one another in the Bay Area where the film would be shot, and to meet Oscar Grant’s family prior to beginning production.

Ryan was already a finalist for the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant, but it was during the months leading up to and during Off the Page that we really got to know him, his producing team (Nina Yang, Sev Ohanian and Gerard McMurray) and his project. He had recently graduated from USC and had returned to the Bay Area determined to make films here. We introduced him to Bay Area crew and then in late spring 2012 awarded him a $100,000 SFFS/KRF grant for production. The grant review panel was incredibly moved by this very timely and poignant story of Oscar Grant, and its exploration of the contemporary issue of the police shooting and killing of young unarmed African American men. And while we are committed to working with filmmakers from all over the country, finding someone local who so perfectly fit our mandate to support filmmakers and films that uplift the Bay Area professionally and economically . . . was like hitting the jackpot.  

But to be honest, a big reason the film was funded is because we were so taken by Ryan as an individual. He is talented, passionate, creative, collaborative and yet very humble . . . Every interaction with Ryan has been a pleasure. He is the heart and soul of his film and that really came out in the way we’ve worked together this past year.  Hard to believe it’s only been a year.

I wonder who I’ll meet next year . . .

Ryan Coogler is currently a finalist for the Fall 2012 SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant. Winners will be announced in early December.

"Welcome to the Digital World, Movie Version"

/
“[Sony] told me that they can’t print [Martin Scorcese’s 1993 film The Age of Innocence] anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film. Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints.”
— Theresa Schoonmaker, editor

Daniel Eagan writes about the historical, archival and aesthetic ramifications of the move away from 35mm film projection, and why it's not so easy (or cost effective) to make a new print at a different lab.

80s Movie Rap Revival: Amigos!

/

Remember when movies recapped their entire plots with a rap song over the end credits? San Diego-based writer Ryan Bradford does. He and his cohorts were inspired to write and record their own alternate credits song for the Steve Martin/Chevy Chase/Martin Short classic ¡Three Amigos! (because of course that's the movie they chose). Listen above, and check out the lyrics below.

In Defense of Final Cut Pro X

/
“Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was what became FCP 7 . . . Concision, after all, is the soul of editing, and the film-editing project begun a century ago with scissors and glue may yet reclaim its own simplicity. What we really want, if we’re unashamedly honest, is facility of editing with the ease of dreaming. To say, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and see instant results on the screen.”
— David Leitner, Filmmaker Magazine

David Leitner raises some interesting arguments in favor of Final Cut Pro X being the next step in non-linear editing's evolution. Have you made the switch over to FCPX or are you abandoning Final Cut Pro? Those of you who use FCPX, has your opinion changed since its initial release?

Keep your friends close...

/
Peter Greenaway at the 40th San Francisco International Film Festival, 1997. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Peter Greenaway at the 40th San Francisco International Film Festival, 1997. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

“I am now making a 3D movie in Portugal. I think there is no future whatsoever in 3D, it does nothing to the grammar and syntax or vocabulary of cinema... but I think it’s important for me to learn as much as possible about cinema and optics.”
— 4-time SFIFF featured filmmaker Peter Greenaway