FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. Please note that, due to sync necessities, there are a few gaps in the episode’s discuss...
Apr 19, 2022•26 min•Ep. 36
FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. We’ll be releasing one per week for the next six weeks. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. IN DOG YEARS (2019) Old dogs are...
Apr 12, 2022•15 min•Ep. 35
FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. We’ll be releasing one per week for the next six weeks. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. NORMAN NORMAN (2018) A young wom...
Apr 05, 2022•14 min•Ep. 34
FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. We’ll be releasing one per week for the next six weeks. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. PUMPKIN MOVIE (2017) Two women t...
Mar 29, 2022•16 min•Ep. 33
FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. We’ll be releasing one per week for the next six weeks. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. IT’S HIM (2016) An unexpected en...
Mar 22, 2022•16 min•Ep. 32
FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari ’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE, NORMAN NORMAN, IN DOG YEARS, and STILL PROCESSING. We’ll be releasing one per week for the next six weeks. To listen along, have the film ready to go and hit “play” when prompted within the episode after the introductions. NINE BEHIND (2016) Calling her g...
Mar 15, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 1
It’s our one-year, 43rd-episode spectacular, and we’re once again answering your questions! We go deep on the new WONG KAR-WAI restorations, our thoughts on Zach Snyder’s JUSTICE LEAGUE, the merits of handheld camera operation, film scores, not one but TWO aspect ratio rants from Devan, and more! But first, some NEWS. We’re going to be taking a bit of a hiatus, and we’re adjusting our Patreon to reflect this. In the interests of keeping the quality of this podcast high and sustainable, we’re goi...
Apr 29, 2021•59 min•Ep. 31
How an acclaimed director’s versions of a famous film be unavailable for decades — when there’s nothing stopping their release? How can a small group of fans gather the evidence and means to reconstruct those versions? How can they finally have a hand in its official release? Endless passion — and a lot of luck. It’s a subject and film as near and dear to our hearts as any, and we’ve brought on superfans Benji Heran and Jordan Krug to talk about the film prints, continuity scripts, and years of ...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Adapting literary works to the screen involves a certain amount of translation. There are certain things that are easily conveyed in writing that cannot be conveyed in a straightforward way onscreen; likewise, there are elements of cinematic language that open up new routes to expression. John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a useful case study in this regard: it has been the subject of two acclaimed adaptations that could not be more distinct in the toolkit each uses to translate book t...
Mar 23, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 30
Colour grading, the art of manipulating the colour of a film digitally in post-production, is as omnipresent as it is misunderstood. To help demystify the process, we’ve invited supervising colourist Andrea Chlebak (Mandy, An American Pickle, HBO’s The Watchmen) to discuss the art of colour grading with us. In this episode, we discuss: Where does the colour grading process begin? Pre-production? Production? Development of multiple palettes within individual films. Digital and celluloid image cap...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 29
Extreme ways are back! In pog form! This week we’ve got a wonderful little discussion about the evolution of the Jason Bourne film series. In particular, we’re here to dissect how Paul Greengrass transformed it into the 21st century’s foremost example of Chaos Cinema. Handheld camerawork, fast editing, questionable focus? It’s all here, and we’re here to sift through the wreckage.
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Geez, it’s been a while since we got spooky on the show, hasn’t it? High time we brought back Mike Thorn to talk about how Wes Craven fused meta storytelling and horror in two franchises: A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. We’ll permeate the membranes of reality, disassemble Craven’s views on horror’s social and political value, and laugh about how Matthew Lillard yells “BOO-GAH” when he imitates a gunshot. Mike has a terrific new horror novel, Shelter for the Damned, that you can check out i...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 6
An Anti-Masterpiece is, as defined by our own Will Ross, is “an astonishing, essential work of art in spite of a distinct lack of conventional competence on the part of its makers”. After Last Season by Mark Region is one such film, and we’ve invited filmmaker Bram Ruiter to discuss it with us. In what is very much not a “bad movie” episode, we attempt to grapple with the nature of outsider art. In this episode, we discuss: The value of different competent cinema. The many, many mysteries behind...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 28
For this episode our Associate Producer Paige Smith has relieved Devan and Will of hosting duties so that she can talk about Eighth Grade’s depiction and use of the Internet — and she’s brought on two friends who survived eighth grade with her, Bronwyn Henderson and Brietta Stewart. It's both a dive into how the film interweaves screens and scrolling with its characters and dramatic presentation, and a personal reflection on how strange and hard it is to grow up — and how much "growing up" has c...
Feb 09, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In part two of our Verite series we discuss truth in documentary filmmaking with returning guest Sophy Romvari . Sophy’s films have increasingly blurred the line between fact and fiction and are often classified as ‘hybrid’ documentaries. What can we learn from this type of fusion cinema? We go deep on the existential questions that inevitably ensue when one claims to be telling a ‘truth’ and explore the various ways different filmmakers have sought to build ideological frameworks for reaching t...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 27
We're doing two episodes on truth in cinema, starting with one on standards of reality in narrative films. Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco, Love & Friendship) joined us, largely to register his animosity towards the idea of making stylistic decisions based on realism, and shared his thoughts on aesthetic decline, pretension, and the meowling cat sound in Damsels in Distress.
Jan 26, 2021•55 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Welcome to season 3! To kick things off, we’ve brought Duplitech Film Services Manager Blake Blasingame in to discuss film preservation and mastering for home video. Are you ready for 88 minutes of unadulterated shop talk about grain structure, bit depth, oversampling, color grading, and vinegar syndrome? Of course you are! This is Film Formally, after all. In this episode, we discuss: The process of preserving and restoring films for Blu-Ray and DVD releases. Scan resolutions - 4k, and the valu...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 26
It’s our second SEASON BREAK SPECTACULAR! You sent us some great questions, and we answered them. Per our answer early in the pod, you can check out https://native-land.ca/ to see which indigenous territory you might live on (bear in mind it’s not comprehensive or “official”). There’s a good explanation of land acknowledgments there, too. If you’d like to support the show, here’s a link to our Patreon ....
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Film Formally is on hiatus, but that won't stop us from taking your questions! Take our quick survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y7HV6CM to submit questions that we'll answer on our podcast in an upcoming episode. Plus, Devan comes in with some HOT TAKES.
Dec 14, 2020•2 min•Ep. 25
For our season 2 finale, we keep it simple and discuss none other than the use of colour across the works of Wong Kar-Wai. In particular, we discuss the use of colour to evoke emotions, mood, and symbolism in his 21st century masterpieces In The Mood For Love and 2046. We’ll be taking a break for the holidays, but our regularly scheduled programming will continue in January 2021. And who knows, there might be some bonus episodes coming… In this episode, we discuss: The different ways in which co...
Dec 01, 2020•52 min•Ep. 24
It’s an emergency, time for a podcast! This week, we’re discussing the sordid tale of the DC comics behemoth blockbuster Justice League. Initially released in 2017 to much disappointment after extensive Joss Whedon-helmed reshoots, it’s taken on a new life after a movement around releasing original director Zack Snyder’s preferred cut formed. What has ensued is a confusing stream of contradictory information, and we’re here to sort it out! In this episode, we discuss: The mysteries surrounding t...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 23
How do we light our movies? The answer for many starts with the idea of motivation. What, within the world of our film, justifies the light illuminating our stories? In this episode we once again sit down with Paige Smith to discuss the ins and outs of lighting ideology. Most films circa the 21st century are lit in a way that prizes ‘naturalism’; we delve into the reasoning behind this as well as other ideologies, including the theatrical lighting methods that dominated early and mid 20th centur...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 22
Okay, folks, it's time for blocking! The pre-planned arrangement, movement, and posturing of characters in a frame is one of a director's most artistically demanding on-set tasks, and nobody blocked a scene better than Sidney Lumet ( whom we've already talked about once this season ). Screenwriter and Lumet mega-fan Cameron Carpenter joined us to talk about the blocking in Lumet's swan song, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke. We also found time t...
Nov 10, 2020•41 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Today we're taking a trip through a few of the wild worlds of experimental animation, to get a sense of what makes these proudly bizarre shorts — which take on or even invent processes unheard of in mainstream animated films — feel so persuasive and affecting. We're joined by animator Gil Goletski, who came with an excellent program of shorts to watch ( all of which you can see for free online ), and who was happy to indulge (or initiate) some digressions into comedy and experimentalism, the sha...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 6
There’s a new concert film out! It’s called David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by none other than Spike Lee and shot by none other than Ellen Kuras. It documents David Byrne’s most recent tour-turned Broadway show, and it’s drawn much discussion: in particular, to David Byrne’s previous high-profile concert film, Stop Making Sense. We took this release as an opportunity to delve into the entire genre of concert cinema, and the difficulties that arise when one must turn a stage-bound show in...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 2Ep. 5
How do you establish a sense of space through sound, not just as a means of describing a physical space, but the inner state of a person? Filmmakers Nisha Platzer and Nayuribe Montero Jimenez join us to discuss how they pulled that off when they sculpted the sonic shape of both the Cuban landscape and a silent, train-fixated boy within it in their short film Vaivén.
Oct 13, 2020•37 min•Season 2Ep. 4
This time around we’re using our personal experiences to shed light on one version of how post production on an independent film can play out, discussing how we helped Daniel Jeffery and Mackenzie Warner finish the short film they co-wrote, A New Leash on Life. The four of us discuss our respective roles of editor, composer, colourist, and sound designer, sharing anecdotes and our personal theories of the craft along with our fair share of silly tangents.
Oct 06, 2020•50 min•Season 2Ep. 3
In which we discuss Agnes Varda’s final film, Varda by Agnes, and the questions it poses about the nature of cinema: is it simply a piece of lecture videography? The swan song from one of the greatest artists of our time? Both? The fundamentals of what constitute “Videography” and “Filmmaking” are put on trial as we interrogate Varda's late work.
Sep 29, 2020•47 min•Season 2Ep. 2
We kick off our second season talking about one of our favourite films, Fail Safe, and its extraordinary use of contrast not just as an aesthetic, but as the guiding philosophy behind the whole film. Sidney Lumet’s nuclear thriller employs endless contrasts: between dark and light, fast and slow, loud and quiet, abstraction and realism, and the life and death contrasts of nuclear war and its ideologies. All this contrast adds up to a one-of-a-kind nail-biting experience, and we’re here to walk y...
Sep 22, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 1
As season 1 comes to a close, Devan and Will take stock, answer your questions, and look forward to the new season.
Sep 08, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 21
