"3 BACKYARDS" - Sundance-winner opens in NYC, March 11th!

[George A.]

Hi everyone!

Most of you here know already that I recently helped produce a feature film (shot on RED) called "3 BACKYARDS", directed by Eric Mendelsohn. Well, I am very happy to announce that the film will open in New York quite soon, on Friday, March 11th! It will begin its run at the IFC Theater in Manhattan (323 Avenue of the Americas). Following that, on Friday, March 18th, the film will begin its run at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, Long Island - for those of you living in that area.

The film stars well-known actors Edie Falco, Embeth Davidtz and Elias Koteas. "3 BACKYARDS" won the Best Director Award at Sundance last year, making Mr. Mendelsohn the only director in history to receive this award twice (his first feature film, "JUDY BERLIN", got the same award in 1999).

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/3-backyards/

The nice thing about attending the first weekend shows (either in Manhattan or in Long Island) is that Eric Mendelsohn will be present for Q and A's after most of the screenings, together with members of the cast. So it's a great opportunity to see a wonderful film shot on RED and join the discussion at the end!

Here is the official webpage of the film, where you can find additional info about the movie (synopsis, cast/crew info, reviews, trailer, film stills and behind the scene pics, video interviews and so on). Best viewed with the SAFARI browser:

http://www.3backyards.com

We had a wonderful director, a superb cast, a great crew, and we had the time of our life shooting this on the RED ONE camera! Come and support a very special RED film starting on March 11th at the IFC Theater in New York!

Thanks!
George



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[George A.]

Besides being a co-producer on the project (we had a great team of producers!), I was also in charge of supervising all RED-related things on this show, in addition to shooting second-unit photography. So I'm well aware of all the technical details of this project, which I thought would be nice to share with everyone here.

Here is a direct link to the trailer on the webpage, if you missed it. Please use SAFARI to view it:

http://www.3backyards.com/3Backyards/trailer.html

It's a compressed trailer for the web, yes, but hopefully you will see it on the big screen in March! The cinematographer is Kasper Tuxen who did, in my opinion, a wonderful job. Keep in mind, we shot the film in the Summer/Fall of 2008, on the regular M sensor and many, many builds behind what is currently available now. However, anyone who has seen the film (not knowing that the film was shot on RED) are invariably extremely impressed with the cinematography.

We shot the film on my RED #1516, and using my own set of Canon K35 Superspeed T1.4 lenses. For the zooming shots, we used an old (and, by now, famous) Angenieux 25-250mm T3.9 zoom lens.
The director was looking for an older look, we had many references from 1970's movies, lots of flares, lower contrast etc, so all the lenses were used completely wide-open. Basically, all the shots in the film (and in the trailer) are shot at the maximum aperture, T1.4 on the Canons, including T3.9 for the Angeniux zoom!

The RED camera worked perfectly during the shoot (by the way, we had some very high temperatures in Long Island that summer) and we never had any major issue with the camera. Everyone involved was extremely happy, and are looking forward to using RED cameras again. A second back-up body was provided by Michael Zaletel, a reduser here as well and a great guy.

The edit was done in Final Cut using the m proxies. We finished the film at Deluxe in New York, using their Efilm process for the DI. Grading was also done at Deluxe (Darrell Smith was the DI Producer and Jack Lewars did the grading).

All in all, a great experience overall with the RED ONE.
If you have other additional questions, shoot. I hope to see many of you who live in New York at the screenings!

All best,
George




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[Tim Whitcomb]

wow, what a fantastic trailer. cant wait to see the film. Im a big koteas fan!

kudos George, seriously nice work. gorgeously shot

 

[Julio Quintana]

I would really like to see the trailer, but it keeps freezing my web browser for some reason (Firefox on Mac).

 

[George A.]

kudos George, seriously nice work. gorgeously shot

Thanks Tim! I was only one out of many people who contributed to the project. Kasper Tuxen, the cinematographer, is the one to congratulate for the images.

I would really like to see the trailer, but it keeps freezing my web browser for some reason (Firefox on Mac).

Hi Julio!
I just checked, it works on Safari no problem. However, on Firefox, it stutters indeed, and the quality if very low for some reason. We will check into it. In the meantime, please use Safari to view the trailer. Thanks! Let me know if you managed to see it.

 

[Justin Paloma]

Thanks so much for sharing. And you provided the technical info, too, you're my hero!

I'm really, really excited to see this. A couple of my friends are Columbia grad film students, and they can never stop talking about how great Eric Mendelsohn is as a professor--how he's one of the preeminent film teachers in America.

Much to the delight of his students, his classes tend to run hours and hours over time (the students are free to leave at any time, but most stay because they learn so much) as he gets so excited about certain films and how they were shot. He ends up breaking them down shot-by-shot, showing the magician's/director's sleight-of-hand, so to speak. So it's additionally exciting to think he'll be doing a Q and A's the film!

 

[Medavoym]

The trailer really looks fantastic, very filmic! Congrats!

What build was the film shot on?

 

[Richard Foster]

Julio:

He said to use Safari. It works in Safari on my Mac:–)

Nice job, BTW. Film looks very good.

 

[George A.]

The trailer really looks fantastic, very filmic! Congrats!

What build was the film shot on?

I don't remember, I have to check that out. Whatever build was the latest one in August 2008. Actually it would be fun to check.



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[George A.]

What build was the film shot on?

I just checked, it was Build 16.




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[michael zaletel]

George, I think I can tell which scenes were shot with my #1667. That RED has always had a little extra "Magic Somethin-Somethin" in the sensor.

Great trailer. Can't wait to see the film!

-michael zaletel

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Thank you for posting this. Looking forward to watching it.