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Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, who was nominated for Oscar twice and cooperated with Czech-born director Milos Forman, died on Saturday evening at the age of 80, Martha Issova, partner of his son David, told CTK today. Ondricek is famous in the Czech Republic and abroad primarily for his cooperation with Forman in Czechoslovakia and in the United States. Both film-makers are leading personalities of the Czech New Film Wave of the 1960s.

(Note: This posting is for educational purposes only.) I’m assuming the phrase “staging” came out of the theatre world, but it’s equally at home (and useful) in the movie world, since the term (roughly defined) refers to how all the various elements of a given scene or piece are aligned, arranged, and coordinated. In movies the role of editing adds something unique: the opportunity to extend and/or expand a visual (or narrative) idea to the limits of one’s imagination—a crazy idea that works today is tomorrow’s normal... So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging,...

Gordon Willis, the acclaimed cinematographer behind the Godfather trilogy and such Woody Allen films as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose and Zelig, has died. He was 82.

A new piece of filmmaking gear was just announced that could completely re-invent the complex process of camera stabilization. It's currently being tested and endorsed by Vincent LaForet, who's given us a little taste of what it's capable of. The product is called MōVI, created by Freefly, longtime maker of crazy camera-drone equipment and stabilizers. LaForet is presenting a short film and behind-the-scenes video to illustrate its abilities, which consists of a completely custom-made gimbal and 3-axis gyroscope that digitally stabilizes the camera (a Canon 1DC in this case). It looks to be very light and portable, a far cry...

SHANGHAI (Hollywood Reporter) - Action hero Jet Li gives a respectable turn as a terminally ill father grooming his autistic son to survive on his own in "Ocean Heaven" -- a decent, if orthodox job by Xue Xiaolu. Film Xue off-sets some of the wholesome soppiness of this genre by keeping the tone light, the story simple and steered clear of grueling ordeals. Compared with another father-son story "Together," which she co-scripted and Chen Kaige directed, it is less melodramatic and artificial. Set mostly in a marine park in Qingtao province, its interpretation of autism owes less to "Rain Man"...

A monk in "Of Gods and Men" and the film's director Xavier Beauvois. Cannes, France, May 25, 2010 / 01:12 am (CNA).- At the end the prestigious 12-day Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, a film on a group of French monks who were martyred in Africa during the 1990s won the event's second highest honor.“Of Gods and Men,” a film by the French director Xavier Beauvois, centers around the true story of seven Cistercian monks who were taken hostage and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in 1996. Though the monks were told to return to their native France, the group...

Serious film directors shooting ads for fashion brands is nothing new, but Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut for Dior is worth mentioning, as it’s her first commercial ever. As it was rumored, Sofia Coppola’s ad, featuring Maryna Linchuk for Miss Dior Cherie fragrance debuted last night on American TV.

NEW YORK -- Through cinema history, audacious, lengthy tracking shots have captivated filmmakers and movie buffs who marvel at their grace and choreography. In the middle of Joe Wright's critically acclaimed ''Atonement,'' a 5½-minute shot unfolds as Robbie, a British World War II soldier (James McAvoy), comes upon France's Dunkirk beach, where the final point in the British retreat from the Germans is portrayed as a grim circus of defeat and chaos. In the Ian McEwan novel from which the movie was adapted, the scene is described in just a few pages. McEwan writes: ''It was a rout and this...