Scene from A Wife Alone

Before directing the noir thriller A Wife Alone, Justin Reichman had worked extensively as a script supervisor. That experience gave him insight into a wide variety of directing styles. When he was ready to direct his own feature film, he knew what he wanted. “I wanted to make my project personal,” he says. “It has a classic noir framework, with flashbacks and twists and turns. But I put my own spin on it, with some real comedy to balance the darker themes. It’s about newlyweds, and having just gotten married myself, I can understand the ethos.”

A Wife Alone is the story of a nervous, but ruthless and determined young woman whose female lover is a prostitute. The pair concocts a scheme to murder one of her clients, and rob his partners. The plot culminates in a dinner party where the weather is hot and the subtext is hotter.

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam Twenty, Cameron Crowe’s retrospective of the rock group’s first two decades, airs on PBS' American Masters series on October 21st.

The filmmaking team of cinematographer Nicola Marsh and editor Chris Perkel blended archival footage and new interviews to tell the story of the band’s genesis in the Seattle grunge scene, its rocket to stardom, and its subsequent search for wisdom and balance. A surprising amount of film existed, included Super 16 footage of the band’s second performance ever. Lead vocalist Eddie Vedder often carried a Super 8 camera on tour. And many outtakes from music video shoots over the years yielded important story beats. Read the full InCamera article 

As a follow-on to last week’s film formats for TV post, I would like to take a broader view of what people are shooting in the feature film arena these days:

Let’s start with 65mm color negative. The big, recent example of 65mm use is on The Dark Knight. It’s not an entirely 65mm production. The 65mm was cut into a number of 35mm shots, like the Bank Heist and the Batmobile chase scenes. 65mm was chosen to do this because it simplyis the best. In the opening sequences of The Dark Knight you can just see the quality that 65mm brings to the screen.

In recent months, there has been a perception that there has been a massive shift to digital, and that’s not true. In the US and Canada, between all the major networks (including HBO and the other channels) we have about 40 shows on film. 24 is still on film, and there was a thought that the original CSI: Las Vegas was going to go digital, but as they got going with the series, digital just didn’t work out for their needs. So CSI: Las Vegas is still shooting film.

At the moment, one hour dramas on US TV are still very much 3-perf 35mm. Castle; Grey’s Anatomy; Private Practice; Desperate Housewives; Brothers & Sisters; Lost; The Mentalist; Fringe; Mad Men; and Two and a Half Men are all returning shows shot on 3-perf 35mm. HBO is shooting loads of 35mm 3-perf at the moment. New series shot on the same format include: ; Hung; Boardwalk Empire; How to Make it in America; Wonderful Maladies; Treme; and others.