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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Which movie turned you into a film maker

there was no film. it was planet Earth -- seeing its alchemical transformation through the camera viewfinder was a great pleasure.

it wasn't until I went to a Mountainfilm festival in the mid-90s that I realized that people were making these great Earth-based films. they weren't really making much money, but they were making beauty and having a great time unearthing the planet's treasures.

then the RED came along, and the camera itself inspired me to start working on features...because it is what the camera does so well.

but at a subconscious level, it probably all started when my dad used to project Super 8 Blackhawk films on a sheet in our backyard or on a screen in our basement for the neighborhood kids - Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Little Rascals....
 
Charles Angus said:
Amélie
Click to expand...

Yes!

Most recently was "hard candy"... Made me realize that a brilliant film could be made with one camera, two actors, and a small sound stage with decent props and a fantastic script and direction.

Also... Anything that Roger deakons shoots.
 
The Longest Day

When I was about 6 years old I was reading the TV Guide looking to see if it would be on that week. I found it listed, and the synopsis blurb said something like "Daryl F. Zanuck's WWII epic, with a cast large enough to re-invade Normandy." For the first time I saw the movie (and filmmaking in general) as an amazing collaborative work of many people, and I wanted to be a part of that process someday. I felt like I almost "owed" it to the film to do something related because of the grand story and the feelings I took away from it every time I watched. I wanted to participate in something that would relay emotions that way.
 
Is it ever just one?

JAWS
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Shining
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Galipoli
Ordinary People

... to name a few.
 
1979 my brother taped 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's' on our VCR. Although I was just a wee little chap, until that point I'd been exposed to mostly talking dolphin movies. The final scene when the chief threw the faucet through the window and 'flew the coop,' that was a tremendously powerful moment for me. I had finally discovered cinema.
 
Star Wars. First movie I saw in a real theater.
I saw the "making of" on tv it seemed like a bunch of times in the late 70's /early 80's.
Seeing how they made the Death Star blow up (by filming a balloon exploding from below with glitter inside of it) made me think differently.
In sound design (my day job), I still make it a point to use unusual things for sfx - like opening a can of soda to make a meat grilling/skillet sound instead of micing the grill.
 
Star Wars - A New Hope/Empire Strikes Back got me into VFX.
I was around 14 when Empire came out. We had a big meadow where they put all the snow from the city in the winter -that made a perfect ice planet.
My mum was standing on a snow hill, swinging an X-Wing fighter that was hanging from a broom stick, over the landscape, while a friend was throwing fire crackers and I was filming the whole shebang with my dads Super 8 camera. I cut those scenes together with Viper starting sequences of Battlestar Galactica, that I filmed from the TV screen. Et voila, my first VFX shot.

Then came "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - and I was instantly interested in story telling.
Then Woody Allens Radio Days, that got me into character development.

Today I´m a writer, director, editor and DP - but those 3 films are still the most influent.

And yeah, "Das Boot" of course, which learned me that you can make a Hollywood movie in Germany, even with a German budget.

Frank
 
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i would have to say my greatest early influence into filmaking was Sergio Leone - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. THen Hardboiled (John Woo). But Jurassic Park really is the one that made me love movies in general.
 
Dr. Strangelove - made me love movies

Star Wars - made me want to make them

The Stuntman - showed me I could and why I should
 
Impossible to condense into a single movie. I'll never forget the opening scene to Patton at the Martin's Cinerama with that flag and George C. Scott walking up, life size. And also seeing Lawrence of Arabia at the Fox Theater sitting in the third row, neck craning to catch all of the scenery. That to me is how a movie still should be seen, bigger than life, not on the postage stamp screens we've become accustomed to these days. 'Course, I was smaller then, so everything seemed larger.
 
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