Chicago, U.S.A. – Chicago Ideas Week (CIW), the annual seven-day celebration of ideas, innovation, and community geared towards turning provocative ideas into action, announced its speakers for this year’s program, taking place October 8-14, 2012. Tickets are currently on sale and details can be found at www.chicagoideas.com.

“Chicago Ideas Week is once again bringing together some of the world’s top innovators and thinkers to share their ideas and engage with our vibrant Chicago community,” said Brad Keywell, founder and co-chairman of Chicago Ideas Week. “By doubling the size of the event this year, we are continuing to build a platform for provocative ideas, bold thinkers, and active members of our community, creating an ecosystem that will spark new initiatives and ventures.”

CIW will host over 130 thought-provoking Talks, Labs, and other events throughout the week with the goal of inspiring new perspectives and activating new relationships and initiatives. Events and speakers vary from a discussion on sustainable design by jewelry designer Monique Péan to a demonstration of the first humanoid robot by Dennis Hong. Other confirmed speakers include:

• David Gregory, moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press”
• Eva Paterson, president of Equal Justice Society
• Kohl Crecelius, CEO & Co-Founder of Krochet Kids International
• Chris Hughes, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, The New Republic
• Tim Ferriss, Best-Selling Author of  “4-Hour Work Week”
• Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Academy Award-Winning Journalist and Filmmaker
• Brandon Boyd, Artist and Lead Singer of Incubus

These speakers are some of the 200 innovators, creators and leaders presenting on themes such as social entrepreneurship, the future of food, military, explorers, the latest personal technology, philanthropy and giving, scientific breakthroughs, and more.

Chicago Ideas Week is generously supported by several integral partners, including: TIME, JPMorgan Chase, Starcom MediaVest Group, Leo Burnett Worldwide, MSLGROUP, Illinois Office of Tourism,University of Illinois, United Airlines, Hyatt, Microsoft, McCormick Foundation, Walgreens, The Joyce Foundation, Cars.com, Ernst & Young, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business, NBC 5 Chicago, WBEZ91.5, Lefkofsky Family Foundation, Grosvenor Capital Management, The Pritzker Group, Accenture, Turnstone, Boeing, CBRE, DLA Piper, and Harrington College of Design.

For more information on the CIW Member Program, interested parties may contact us at membership@chicagoideas.com.

About Chicago Ideas Week

Chicago Ideas Week is a premier annual gathering of global thought leaders created to provoke new ideas and inspire actionable results. CIW is a platform of events and interactive experiences, created for innovators, thinkers, doers and interested citizens from across Chicago, the greater Midwest, and the world. CIW’s goal is to stimulate new initiatives and ventures, create new connections and collaborations, and establish a community of people who have the desire to achieve great things. For more information, please visit www.chicagoideas.com or visit us on Twitter at @ChicagoIdeas for updates.

Image Courtesy of    TechCocktail

The article Speakers for Chicago Ideas Week Announced appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Filming ‘The Bourne Legacy’ in Manila began in the San Andres neighborhood, its ramshackle houses and dark alleyways typical of the city’s lower- and middle-class areas. The San Andres neighborhood has grown organically over the years as locals have kept constructing additions to existing buildings. The casual visitor will find many a residential area that resembles a rabbit-warren maze of alleyways that have been cobbled together.

With its tangled web of utility lines and drying laundry overhead, and pleasant cooking smells merging with other odors of the city, the labyrinthine San Andres neighborhood is where the main characters Aaron and Marta find a place to hide from their pursuers: this time, the Philippine authorities.

San Andres was also the setting for a stunt in which Aaron, to save Marta from capture after she is cornered by the police, makes a daring slide three stories down a narrow opening between two buildings. Because of very specific requirements, this set, a narrow three-story structure that the filmmakers called “the chasm,” had to be built by production designer Kevin Thompson and his team.

Explains the production designer: “We needed a stretch that was about 100 feet long, only 20 to 24 inches wide and three and one-half stories high for the drop. ‘The chasm’ was the highlight for the art department because it incorporated so many things. It had to aesthetically work for Tony [Gilroy, director]. It had to work for stunts to drop down. It had to work for the camera department to have the jib on, and the technocrane arm had to be able to fit inside. We had to manage all the dressing and the platforming around it. It was a complicated, multifaceted set to build.”

Using the wall of an existing building, Thompson’s team built another wall next to it. Rather than employing scenic artists to “weather” the wall, the crew bought old siding from locals’ homes and installed new walls on their houses in return. The designer recalls: “We would often say, ‘We’ll redo the siding on your house or corrugated rooftop if we can have your old materials.’ Some San Andres locals also received new roofs when the team prepared for the filming of a major chase sequence. Much to many neighbors’ delight, approximately 50 roofs that were found to have holes or were otherwise deemed unsafe were replaced by the ‘The Bourne Legacy’ crew.

The production’s metro Manila locales also included the Ninoy Aquino International Airport; the historic Intramuros district, known for its Spanish colonial architecture; the Manila Yacht Club; the Marikina covered market; and the Metropoint MRT train station in Pasay City. The crew also traveled approximately an hour by plane from Manila to El Nido, located on the stunning Philippine island of Palawan, for scenes that take place amidst the magnificent islands of the South China Sea. The dramatic islands, with their limestone cliffs that emerge directly from the water, are more often associated with the landscapes of Malaysia and Thailand.

In Palawan, Thompson also found a 100-foot-long wooden-hull fishing boat, the Sabrina, for a critical scene. The working fishing boat goes out for three months at a time and houses up to 20 people along with chickens, goats and pigs. Offers Thompson: “We power-washed the entire thing because it was unbelievably smelly. Then we took off all the dressing and dressed it from scratch while keeping much of the character that was there.” Despite their best efforts, the production ended up filming alongside some of the fishing boat’s original tenants: a sizeable rat population.

For several days the crew also filmed part of a chase at Navotas Fish Port, known as the fishing capital of the Philippines, situated north of the city on Manila Bay. In the evenings, the location is a working fish market—1,000 feet long and 200 feet wide—that sells more than 100,000 fish every night. Every morning during the shoot, the crew had to scrub, steam and dry the market. Thompson and his team removed hanging tarps, added skylights and supporting posts, and scrubbed the floor to lessen the overpowering fish smell. This also served a practical purpose: to make the location safe for the complex stunt work that was to be performed there.

The article ‘The Bourne Legacy’: Planning Stunts in the City of San Andres appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

No ‘Bourne’ film would be complete without its fair share of action and still rings true even for the new installment ‘The Bourne Legacy’. Still, emphasizes producer Frank Marshall: “Our rules that we have been very consistent with through all the movies is that we don’t have action for action’s sake. We don’t have a formula where every 10 minutes there has to be a fight scene or an action scene. The action has to be driven by the story. That’s what makes this series unique: These characters get into situations that lead to an action scene or a chase scene, but it all has a story point.”

The architect behind the stunt work on ‘The Bourne Legacy’ is 2nd unit director Dan Bradley, who returns after making his mark as the creator of the dazzling action sequences in ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. After the first unit wrapped its work in Palawan in the beginning of February 2012, Bradley’s unit filmed for another month in Manila, with actors Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz joining them there.

Renner is the first to admit that the stunt work wasn’t easy. He says: “This was very, very demanding. I was lucky enough because many of the fight coordinators, the stunt coordinators and Dan Bradley were on ‘The Avengers’ and the three movies I did back-to-back right before this movie. Working with them was seamless. I had learned hand-to-hand combat on ‘Avengers’, so I took that over to this and actually used patterns. I had a nice running start.”

“Having Dan Bradley involved in the ‘Bourne’ movies has been an enormous part of their success,” producer Patrick Crowley raves. “People love the locations, they love the characters, but they really love the action. Dan invented action for these movies that nobody had ever seen before, and action that people have imitated after it was done.”

Director Tony Gilroy is just as effusive in his praise: “Dan’s the Michelangelo of action. He’s an amazing guy, an imaginative nut who has found this incredible job for himself helping out directors like myself to make us look tougher than we really are. I made sure to get with him early on, and I told him, ‘Dan, if I’m going to do this, I need you there with me.’”

Of course, Bradley traveled to Manila months before shooting began in order to tailor the action sequences to the locations. “When we looked at the locations, he was with us, and then he said, ‘I’m going to stay behind for a week,’” Crowley recalls. “We waited for Dan to just sit and meditate and come up with great ideas. He’s come up with some things that have never been done before.”

Bradley’s biggest task was to choreograph a motorcycle chase that takes place on the crowded streets of Manila, much of it filmed with Renner in the rider’s seat. “When you’re doing something in which there’s somebody on a motorcycle and they’re not wearing a helmet, you have to have the principal actor do that,” says Crowley. “So we had Jeremy very much involved, and Rachel as well.”

Luckily for the production, Renner is an avid motorcyclist. “When I first met Jeremy, we were going to have some practice sessions, and he showed up on one of the fastest motorcycles in the world, which was one of 10 that he owned,” remembers Crowley. “We felt comfortable that we didn’t have to train him. He has the bones of an action hero. When I see him, I see that silent strength of Steve McQueen. When he gets on a motorcycle, then he becomes even more like him.”

Renner also put Weisz at ease as they worked with Bradley. “Being on the back of a bike with Jeremy, I felt completely safe,” she says. “He was doing wheelies, skids and slides—those kind of stunts that he’s very good at.”

The filmmakers were also impressed when Weisz displayed a previously unseen side: that of an action star. “She’s a great actress and has shown all this incredible talent playing characters who are typically not action characters,” says Crowley. But Weisz insisted on as much rehearsal on the motorcycle as possible and performed much of the stunt work herself. Laughs the producer: “Your heart still goes into your throat when you see her going 45, 50 miles an hour on the motorcycle with Jeremy.”

The article Hold Tight: ‘Bourne Legacy’ Stunt Team to Dazzle Moviegoers appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In ‘The Bourne Legacy’s opening sequence, Aaron Cross is dressed like a speed climber, posing as one of the few brave souls who might be found alone in the Alaskan wilderness. “He’s in a brilliant red-orange jacket because climbers going solo know that they may not make it and they’ve got to be visible in case a helicopter needs to find them,” explains costume designer Shay Cunliffe. “It’s the opposite of being undercover.”

However, after Cross arrives at the appointed spot, a log cabin where another agent known as #3 is based, his Alaskan mission is brought to a violent end, one which he barely survives. The tables suddenly turned, Cross is now the target of the most sophisticated technology and weaponry on Earth. He returns to the mainland U.S. to find the character Marta, one of his few contacts in the program who may not be out to kill him. Their journey of survival ultimately brings them to Southeast Asia, where the production would travel next.

Unleashed in Southeast Asia: Racing Across the Philippines

During preproduction, director Tony Gilroy and producer Patrick Crowley toured Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in Vietnam, Jakarta in Indonesia, and Manila in the Philippines. Ultimately, Manila’s history as a shooting location won over the team. Major Hollywood features, such as ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Platoon’, ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ and ‘Brokedown Palace’, were shot in the Philippines in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. “They had a 25-, 30-year run of making movies there,” says Gilroy, “and they have this huge infrastructure that was built up from all the films made about Vietnam.”

The filmmakers called upon Lope V. Juban Jr., president of Philippine Film Studios, who has worked on most of the films that have come to the Philippines over the past few decades, to give them a tour of Manila. Not only could Juban—who came on as a line producer—offer locations that Gilroy was looking for, but his contacts with government entities would also be vital for a shoot that involved major stunts on city streets. “Juban said, ‘We can talk to the president about that,’ or ‘We can talk to the minister of transportation and the police department about that.’ They’re all people that he knew,” Crowley explains. “I couldn’t have gotten that in Jakarta or in Ho Chi Minh City.”

In fact, ‘The Bourne Legacy’ would be the first Hollywood film in which Manila plays Manila. “The Philippines has played almost any country—Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Panama,” says Juban. “It is only now that we are filming Manila as Manila, which is great for us.”

It was important to the locals to show off the progress the country had made and their big new areas of development. The Philippines also offered the advantage of a mainly English-speaking local crew. English, the legacy of the American presence for 50 years before World War II, is widely spoken in the country.

The article Aaron Cross in New ‘Bourne’ Explores Modern Day Manila appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

After 12 weeks of filming in the New York area, the production of the upcoming action sequel ‘The Bourne Legacy’ decamped and left the city for an environment where the Bourne series had never before ventured: the untamed wilderness. For two weeks in December 2011, the cast and crew filmed in Kananaskis Country, a system of parks renowned for its spectacular scenery, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains west of Calgary. The dramatic Canadian landscape filled in for the Alaskan Yukon, where Cross finds himself as the story begins.

“We did a lot of scouting by helicopter,” recalls production designer Kevin Thompson, whose locations included remote mountaintops, a frozen lake and a riverbank beside which his crew could build a log cabin, a heavily wooded area and a waterfall. “We looked all over Canada and found most everything within a 30-minute radius of Kananaskis.”

One element of the Canadian shoot remained a wild card: snow. “Our location manager, who’s done a million movies there, said, ‘I can’t guarantee you that there’s going to be any snow,’” producer Patrick Crowley recalls. “So we had snow machines standing by, and we were ready to make our own.” But the Bourne crew enjoyed some luck: Plenty of snow arrived just in time for the shoot. “The day after we left, there was a warm wind called a Chinook that came through and melted all the snow,” he adds. “We didn’t hear about it until about a month afterward…and I’m kind of glad we didn’t hear about it until then.”

‘The Bourne Legacy’ opens with an echo of the image that introduced Jason Bourne to filmgoers in ‘The Bourne Identity’: seen from below, a man floats motionless in water. However, unlike Bourne, who had been left to drown in the Mediterranean Sea in the first film, Aaron Cross is uninjured. After a brief moment of stillness, Cross reveals his incredible stamina: He has deliberately submerged himself in frigid waters in order to retrieve a canister left for him at the base of a freezing waterfall.

To shoot this scene, the filmmakers did everything they could to keep their lead actor, Jeremy Renner, safe in the cold water. “We were concerned from the very first time that we saw the location,” says Crowley. “Even for just going in to his waist, we had a helicopter bring a hot tub there. We had a dry room that was heated. We had an ambulance standing by, and we had three or four people on the set whose specialty was hypothermia.”

The initial plan was to shoot only part of the scene in Canada, with Renner in a full wet suit and in the cold water only up to his waist. However, just before rolling, Renner removed the wet suit’s top. “He said, ‘Are you guys really ready?’” remembers Crowley. “And we said ‘Yup,’ and he said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’” As cameras rolled in below-freezing temperatures, a bare-chested Renner dunked himself into the icy water for a shot of Cross emerging. Fortunately, Gilroy and his DP got the shot in one take.

Renner was game for the challenge. He recalls: “Cold is cold. If it’s 39 or 29, it doesn’t matter.” He was more unnerved that there was no way to acclimate himself to the experience without simply going through it. “That’s why I was so stressed about it. How do you prepare? I can prepare for a jump or a stunt. I can work out or do whatever stretch. But with this, you just go get cold. That’s it. You have to mentally go there.” Turns out that the water’s bark was worse than its bite. “Actually it wasn’t so bad; it was so bad up to the moment.”

That scene in the frigid river was also of special concern to costume designer Shay Cunliffe, who returns to the Bourne series after having designed ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. “Shooting in this kind of extremely cold climate becomes a double job for the costume department,” she says. “The costumers who took care of the actors on the set were responsible for their well-being, quite apart from the costume being maintained.”

In freezing temperatures throughout the entire Alberta shoot, Cunliffe’s team had its work cut out. “They were carrying huge dive coats along with them, and because of the snowy locations, the costumers were actually dragging them in on sleds—extra blankets, extra coats,” she shares.

The article Exploring Wilderness in New ‘Bourne Legacy’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Director of photography on new ‘The Bourne Legacy’, Robert Elswit, and 2nd unit director Dan Bradley could shoot all the footage in the world, but if it wasn’t cut together correctly, there would be no scene. Joining the team as editor was another member of the Gilroy family, John Gilroy, the director’s fellow collaborator on his last two films. Notes John Gilroy of his working relationship with his brother Tony: “I work with Tony essentially the same way that I work with other directors.

I try to understand their vision of the film and get on that same wavelength. If I can make their vision my own, I have a real compass to navigate me through the editing process. With Tony, that sort of deep understanding between director and editor came very early on and has stayed with us and grown through all three films. We have very similar sensibilities, and most of the time we see eye to eye on things.”

Tony Gilroy, the director, returns: “John is a machine. It’s a complex movie, and we shot in a weird order. The pace is relentless, and we were shooting a great deal of film. The need to know exactly where you stand and what you owe is essential. But he’s not just cutting and reviewing material as we go; he’s building sequences and road testing scenes that are coming at us with a consistent level of detail that’s shocking sometimes. He’s a total filmmaker. I can’t imagine even trying this without him beside me.”

War Rooms and “Southern” Mansions: Filming in New York 

After two days of filming in Seoul, South Korea, principal photography began at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York, where all of the movie’s stage work—including D.C. interiors—was shot. Filming began with scenes involving the character of Byer and his team at the Virginia-based NRAG, the group that designed the government’s program of killer spies.

As Bourne’s exploits go public, Byer’s experts use every mode of technology available to minimize the damage. Here, Thompson’s crew built the crisis suite, the small amphitheater where Byer’s team holes up for days. Producer Patrick Crowley describes the film set as “like 25 people playing high-speed chess.”

At Kaufman, production designer Kevin Thompson built the lab where the character Marta engages in her pioneering work. The designer’s biggest set, however, was three stories high on Kaufman’s largest stage. Here, he created Marta’s home in the Maryland woods, which he didn’t initially plan to build. “We started by trying to find a real location that would either inspire us or lead us to what we were looking for,” Thompson recalls. “Tony wanted to have a house that was a bit of a fairy-tale fantasy: a larger-than-life decayed mini-mansion that Marta invested in when she was in a relationship, a place she hoped to someday restore.”

The kickoff to Marta and Aaron’s journey, the house is where the two realize that they must team up. “We found the magical house up in the Hudson Valley about two and a half hours north of New York City,” Thompson recounts. “It was built in 1815 and had a romantic, picturesque style. Although we looked at 150 houses, this one was by far the one that spoke most to us.”

Unfortunately, their prized location, the national historic landmark known as the Plumb-Bronson House in Hudson, New York, was in need of even more rehabilitation than Marta’s fictional home. “About six weeks from shooting, the owners association told us that it was going to be impossible to allow us to shoot there,” says Thompson. It turns out that the structure could not support the equipment and crew necessary for filming.

Thompson’s team quickly set about re-creating the interior of the house in precise matching detail. This included reimagining its parlors and vestibules, magnificent three-story elliptical staircase, peeling paint and faded wallpaper on the stage at Kaufman Astoria. While unanticipated, building Marta’s house on a stage did offer several advantages, including greater flexibility and control with lighting and camera placement for DP Elswit’s equipment. “Having the three floors on the stage provided some great sight lines for action,” says Thompson. “It was a pretty photogenic set.”

In the end, the production traveled to Hudson to film the exterior of the Plumb-Bronson House for a key scene with Aaron, but other scenes outside Marta’s home were filmed at William H. Pouch Scout Camp, a 143-acre site in Staten Island, New York. Unlike Plumb-Bronson’s surroundings in Hudson, the Staten Island location offered the thick woods that surround Marta’s home in Gilroy’s story.

Among the many other New York area locations where the film shot were JFK Airport, The New York Times printing plant in Flushing, Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, and residential areas of Syosset and Old Westbury in Long Island.

The article Setting the Scene for ‘The Bourne Legacy appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In November 2010, while writing the screenplay, Tony Gilroy journeyed around the world to visit the locations where his story for ‘The Bourne Legacy’ would be set, just as he did for the other Bourne films. From the Canadian Rockies to Southeast Asia, he tailored the action to the specific locales. He reflects: “The great ride for the past 12 years has been getting on a plane and taking these incredibly specific and unusual tours of places that no one else would ever see because you’re looking at them from a Bourne point of view.”

According to producer Patrick Crowley, who once again accompanied Gilroy on the tour, the series has been unique in the manner in which it showcases parts of the world rarely seen in cinema. He notes: “We were one of the very first big movies to shoot in Berlin, and there had only been a couple of contemporary Hollywood shows before us in Moscow.”

‘The Bourne Legacy’ would be no exception. Gilroy chose to broaden the story to a setting beyond Europe, where much of the previous three films had taken place. “Pat and I traveled all over Southeast Asia and scouted,” Gilroy continues. “And then I wrote into the specific, real locations. That’s how we’ve always done it. There isn’t an action sequence in any of these films that hasn’t been written into the place itself.”

As ‘The Bourne Legacy’ rockets from Washington, D.C. and Manhattan to Alaska and Southeast Asia, Gilroy retains the spirit of the previous Bourne films. “It wants to feel like the world we really live in,” the director says. “We go to exotic places, but we don’t glamorize them. It’s a realistic approach to action, and it will be familiar in all those ways.”

Producer Jeffrey M. Weiner appreciates the detail the writer/director gives to this story. He offers: “Some of the locations for this movie are not places people go to every day. The fact that it is real and gritty and that we are close and in-your-face gives a perspective that you don’t find in the guidebooks.”

Helping Gilroy to construct this world were key contributors to the film’s visual style: production designer Kevin Thompson, who crafted ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Duplicity’ with Gilroy, and cinematographer Robert Elswit, the Academy Award-winning DP for ‘There Will Be Blood’ whose previous work also includes ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Duplicity’, as well as ‘The Town’ and ‘Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol’, both with Jeremy Renner.

Discussing Thompson, Gilroy commends: “Kevin’s built up a very, very strong body of work, and we formed an essential collaboration over the course of Clayton and Duplicity, but I think Legacy is going to show a lot of people that there’s nothing he can’t tackle. Legacy was a huge design project that went from big-time stage work through location building and then into Manila and all of its challenges—all of that with the mandate of staying absolutely photo-real at all times. It was the highest degree of difficulty, and he crushed it.”

The director was just as pleased to join Elswit for another project. Gilroy says: “Working with Robert on these three films has been about the best collaboration I can imagine. He’s the remarkable combination of deep experience, imaginative freedom and sled-dog endurance. We’d been through the shit together so many times before this film started, and thank God, because I can’t imagine trying to do something this long and large with someone who wasn’t at your side in every way.”

The article Gritty Locations Fit for ‘The Bourne Legacy’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

As Aaron and Marta prove elusive in the new installment of ‘The Bourne Legacy’, news of a government subcommittee investigating Blackbriar adds to the tense atmosphere in the crisis suite where Byer and his staff are holed up. Likely most disturbed by the program becoming public is Terry Ward, the head of a company with intimate ties to Outcome.

Ward is played by New York theater actor Dennis Boutsikaris, the Obie Award winner for Sight Unseen. Boutsikaris describes Ward’s relationship with Byer as contentious, with Ward ultimately outgunned. “Ward wants to think that he’s Byer’s superior, and he clearly is not,” the actor shares. “Ward wants to be a leader without any leadership qualities.”

At Tony Gilroy’s suggestion, Boutsikaris had his hair cut and trademark beard shaved in order to play the corporate suit. “We talked on the phone, and Tony told me that the hair and everything had to go,” Boutsikaris remembers. “The whole feeling was how slick he wanted to make my character.”

As tension escalates in the war room, Ward also clashes with the imposing ret. Adm. Turso. The military commander who oversees Outcome is played by veteran actor Stacy Keach, who describes his character as “a patriot and a man whose authority is there.” Turso speaks to his team in an intricate language that is quite specific to the work. Reflects Keach: “Tony is an extraordinary talent because he creates his own language. The ‘Bourne’ franchise has one of its own. It’s intelligent, human and very personal. The trick with this kind of dialogue is to make it conversational and just sort of throw it away without making it too melodramatic.”

Keach acknowledges that the scenes with Turso, Byer and the NRAG team were especially engaging. “The great thing about this franchise is the amazing balance between action, adventure, intrigue and suspense,” he says. “You have two very different environments: the outside environment where you follow Cross and his exploits over the world, and then you have the crisis room or the surveillance environment. As an audience member, that combination keeps you on the edge of your seat because you are seeing something at the same time the people in the movie are watching it.”

Rounding out the cast members who are new to the ‘Bourne’ franchise are Oscar Isaac and Louis Ozawa Changchien. Isaac describes Outcome #3’s early interactions with Aaron Cross as “like a Western.” He shares: “My character has been living in a cabin for a month by himself with zero communication with the outside world…other than the occasional drop by of one of these guys.” When Cross arrives at #3’s remote base several days early, #3 is suspicious; similarly, Cross doesn’t trust his counterpart. “They’re like these dogs that are circling and sniffing each other,” suggests Isaac. They’re not necessarily posturing so much as they are uncertain. It’s dangerous.”

It turns out that #3 isn’t the only one that Cross (aka #5) should be concerned about. Byer hedged his bets that Outcome would not be the endgame. He has another program in motion, and it is known as LARX.

Changchien, who, in the role of LARX #3, an operative based in Bangkok, had to be comfortable with speed and with great heights. “I think of LARX as the decathlete of spies,” laughs Changchien, a theater actor who recently starred in Predators. In order to prepare for the role, Changchien traveled from his native New York to L.A., where he rehearsed with 2nd unit director Dan Bradley’s team for several weeks.

In this boot camp, Changchien learned the fundamentals of parkour—how to move around obstacles with speed and efficiency—practiced jumps from great heights and completed an intensive course in stunt driving. That would come in handy as his character chases Marta and Aaron through the narrow, crowded streets of Manila.

Fans will also be treated to cameos from several characters from earlier Bourne films, including series favorites Albert Finney as Dr. Albert Hirsch, Joan Allen as Pam Landy, David Strathairn as Noah Vosen and Scott Glenn as Ezra Kramer.

The article Bourne Fans: Expect Franchise Favorites, Fresh Faces appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The narrative architect behind the ‘Bourne’ film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: ‘The Bourne Legacy’. Building on the foundation of the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum, the writer/director expands the saga with an original story that reveals a larger conspiracy.

Twelve years ago, audiences were introduced to Jason Bourne when he was pulled unconscious from the Mediterranean. Over the course of three films, they followed his journey to survive and discover his identity. They watched his CIA handlers mount an increasingly desperate worldwide manhunt.

They learned about the Treadstone program and Bourne’s special skills and abilities, and at the trilogy’s conclusion, they may have even felt the story was complete. ‘The Bourne Legacy’ pulls back the curtain to expose a darker layer of intrigue, a deeper mythology, and a new hero who must battle to stay alive when his program suddenly becomes a liability.

‘The Bourne Legacy’ is exactly that—the legacy— the aftermath—of what’s come before. Bourne’s public exposure at the end of ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ sparks a bonfire that threatens to burn down decades of research and development into the building of better spies and warriors. Audiences will discover that there are actually a variety of intelligence programs, that the CIA’s Treadstone was but one of the early developments and that Bourne’s actions are creating a tremendous anxiety that other programs may be exposed.

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner of ‘The Hurt Locker’, ‘The Town’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Mission: Impossible— Ghost Protocol’) is one of six agents in a program called Outcome. Unlike the CIA’s Treadstone, Outcome agents have been developed and trained for use by the Department of Defense. More than assassins, Outcome agents are designed for use in isolated, high-risk, long-term intelligence assignments.

The behavioral science that was suggested as the underpinning of the Treadstone agents has been upgraded and advanced, but it’s the shared origins of these two programs that makes Outcome so vulnerable as Bourne’s story becomes public knowledge.

Edward Norton (‘The Illusionist’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’) plays ret. Colonel Eric Byer, the director of a black-line agency, NRAG (National Research Assay Group), at the heart of the Bourne universe. Byer is the man who’s built these programs, fought to keep them funded and shopped them to a variety of eager U.S. intelligence services in the vast, post-9/11 espionocracy. Pulling back the curtain, we realize he’s been there all the while, watching as the three previous films have played out.

It’s Byer’s world that’s being threatened as the CIA fails to contain Bourne and, with the realization that Treadstone’s fall will expose the close working relationship between two of his chief medical directors, Byer has no choice but to sacrifice Outcome. That means eliminating everyone involved, including the science and medical researchers who helped to create it. He must now bring to bear every resource possible and erase the infected program to preserve the rest of his work.

‘The Bourne Legacy’ is premiering in New York City on July 30, 2012.

The article Legacy of Bourne Continues this Summer appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

To play the role of ret. Col. Ric Byer, the ruthless head of NRAG—the organization in the new behind the secret program of agents that began with Treadstone, evolved into Blackbriar, and now operates Outcome, among several others—the filmmakers of ‘The Bourne Legacy’ cast Oscar nominee Edward Norton. When Outcome is in danger of being exposed to public scrutiny, Byer cuts his losses by deciding to shut it down and move on.

Executive producer Jennifer Fox explains how the Byer character illustrates Gilroy’s nuanced approach to characterization: “Tony explores how individuals within organizations give themselves license to behave in unscrupulous ways: Tilda Swinton in ‘Michael Clayton’, both Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti in ‘Duplicity’, and now Edward Norton and his team in ‘Legacy’. They’re powerful antagonists because they hold their conviction and rationale about the greater good they believe to be serving. The familiar movie trope of the individual against the machine is made much more complicated, messy and real because he dramatizes the reality behind individual motivations.”

Tony Gilroy expands upon why the selection of this antagonist was so important: “We were casting the mastermind of the entire franchise. We knew we’d be saying to the audience that this is the guy that’s been sitting beside you in the theater for the last 12 years watching the CIA screw everything up for him. We needed a world-class actor; we needed weight. We needed someone with the kind of intelligence that’s in the room before the scene starts, and above all I needed an actor I could collaborate with to make sure that Ric Byer’s worldview wasn’t painted entirely black. He believes he’s one of the very few people who can bear the moral weight of the darkness necessary to keep his country safe.”

Norton describes his interest in joining a film with a story rooted inside the chambers of government-funded intelligence: “I see a theme running through all of Tony’s films that I think is timely and smart. He’s been digging into the way that corporations have permeated our culture and threaten to compromise us from different angles. I liked that in this film he was exploring the way that power is exercised in the nexus between corporations and government…questioning who’s working for who.”

The performer appreciated that Gilroy colored his characters in moral gradations. Though Byer is hell-bent on erasing Outcome, his motives (in his mind) are sound ones. Shares Norton: “All of the characters in this film are painted in shades of gray. Tony hasn’t woven a web of heroes and villains. Everybody’s made certain compromises and certain rationalizations in and around what they do…my character certainly, but Rachel’s too and even Jeremy’s. He’s digging into how people have their best ideals and impulses co-opted by a system in many different ways. I like that kind of complexity.”

Producer Frank Marshall was impressed by Norton’s ability to straddle the line between a man of his country and a cold-blooded executioner who sees the emergence of Bourne as an infection that must be contained. The producer commends: “Edward kills it. He’s just a spectacular actor and is terrific at playing the ‘villain’ in the piece. But Byer is not simply a villain. He’s just the guy who’s after Aaron Cross. Though we’ve had several of these types along the way, Edward is a particularly tough one.”

To cast the roles of Byer’s staff—the scientists, intelligence and surveillance experts who hunt down Aaron and Marta from their hub in Washington, D.C.—Gilroy delved into the world of New York theater. “Tony’s a New York guy,” shares producer Patrick Crowley. “He knows both theater and New York film very well. It’s exciting to draw from that pool of people.”

Tony Award winner Donna Murphy (of Broadway’s Passion and The King and I), was cast as Byer’s dedicated second-in-command, Dita, the “nun” to Byer’s “priest.”

“She’s his wingman, or wingwoman,” Murphy explains. “She’s got a background with the CIA; she’s an extremely good scientist. The biggest part of her job is to be so tuned in on Byer that when he needs something, she’s three steps ahead.”

Image Courtesy of  cinemafestival / Shutterstock.com

The article Edward Norton: Unscrupulous Character in ‘The Bourne Legacy’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In keeping with Tony Gilroy’s previous screenplays for the Bourne series, the script for new ‘The Bourne Legacy’ diverges dramatically from the plotlines of Ludlum’s Cold War-era novels but retains the author’s themes of conspiracy and government programs run amok. According to producer Ben Smith, this film offered the chance to build upon what had been established by the series creator, who died in 2001.

“What’s special about Robert Ludlum’s work and about these movies is that they talk about the power of an individual,” says Smith. “In these times of massive corporations and governments and multinational interests, the films make us feel that we can make a difference.”

Fellow producer Jeffrey Weiner shares Smith’s belief that Gilroy was the right filmmaker to take the mantle. He says, “We were thrilled that Tony not only wanted to write ‘The Bourne Legacy’, but also wanted to direct. He’s one of the few people who’s been with the entire series since the beginning. His understanding and feel for this world is invaluable in this process, and I think he’s given the people who will go to the movie exactly what they want out of a Bourne experience.”

Joining the team as executive producers are Henry Morrison and Jennifer Fox, Gilroy’s longtime production partner. Fox reflects on their working relationship and Gilroy’s sensibilities at blending action and suspense with piercing drama. She says, “When Tony Gilroy writes, he can see the film in his mind down to the smallest detail, and his ability to focus and capture that vision is a testament to his instincts and to his creative stamina.

Also, within Tony’s work there is always the essential desire for explanation of human drama. The depth of his complicated characters stem from that search for truth from character to character and scene to scene.”

The article Tony Gilroy ‘The Right Man for Bourne’ Says Producers appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

As the filmmakers of the Bourne franchise pondered the next chapter in the series, they faced a conundrum: At the end of ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, the protagonist had been involved in a shootout in London’s Waterloo Station and then an even more high-profile car chase gunfight through the streets of New York City.

Jason Bourne had gone public in a big way. He was poised to expose the U.S. government for its litany of crimes when he vanished. Producer Frank Marshall explains the hurdle: “The challenge was ‘Where are we going to go now?’ Jason Bourne knew who he was, didn’t want to be in the same business anymore and wanted to go off on his own. We had to create a new set of circumstances for the story to go forward.”

Despite the hesitancy, Patrick Crowley, who, alongside Marshall, produced the three previous entries in the series, admits that it was the fans’ interest in additional stories that kept the franchise alive. “We touched a nerve with people who would come up to us and say, ‘I like those movies so much. I hope you’re going to be doing another one,’” offers Crowley. “If you’ve done three of them and then people want to see a fourth, you’ve done something right.”

In April 2010, several months after Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon opted not to participate in this chapter of the series, producers Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith met with the franchise’s narrative architect, Tony Gilroy, and asked him if he might spend some time thinking about how to move forward. Gilroy was intrigued and agreed to see if he could find an exciting way to continue this world that he had helped to create—one that had launched a new kind of spy thriller.

Several weeks later, Gilroy came back to the producers with a concept for how to approach the material. He notes: “The thing that separated Bourne most clearly from the action films of the moment was the depth and complexity of the character’s problem. The idea of an assassin ‘coming to’ with no recollection of his dark past and paying the price for recovering his memory by realizing that he’s not the person he wants to be was an incredibly compelling motor. In the hands of an actor like Matt Damon, there was no limit on how honest and detailed those ideas could be expressed.

“It was fun to think of ways to stage the Legacy story, but until there was a new character with a new problem that felt as powerful there wasn’t going to be a script. When that last piece fell into place—when Aaron Cross came into focus—when the thing that he needed became as clear and soulful to me as what we’d gone after with Bourne, that’s when everyone decided it made sense to move forward.”

The article Recharging the Bourne Franchise: What Now? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Tony Gilroy, creative hand behind the storyline of the ‘Bourne’ movies, then began work on a treatment for the new project ‘The Bourne Legacy’ even as he outlined a blueprint for where the story might go after ‘Legacy’. He began an in-depth research process that would serve as the underpinning for both documents.

He looked most particularly at the secretive U.S. government agency known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that is hard at work trying to figure out how to make better soldiers. DARPA and its intelligence counterpart, IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity), fund many research programs with the objective of enhancing the cognitive and physical performance of American soldiers and spies.

Gilroy notes: “There’s no drug testing in war. There’s a very real appetite to have soldiers with increased energy, higher pain thresholds and less need for sleep. The warrior who heals, learns and processes information faster is the dream of every commanding officer. We’re in a place now where the science has begun to make real that dream in a very unpredictable and terrifying way.”

Just as in ‘The Bourne Legacy’, DARPA and its counterparts are working closely with the pharmaceutical industry, medical researchers, Silicon Valley and others to find ways to make humans into better warriors. Gilroy found that there was a burgeoning post-9/11 marriage of biology and warfare: a top-secret America that has proliferated, funded by the U.S. government and staffed by scientists often working for large corporations. It has, in fact, become so large that it is impossible to fully oversee by any one branch of the U.S. government.

Offers the director: “This was an odd story to research because I was doing more confirmation than prospecting. I kept finding that my imaginative ideas for Outcome and Candent and NRAG were already there and in play. Every hint that we’d laid along the way in the trilogy about Treadstone and its science-medical background fit perfectly into the existing reality. Then it was just a matter of asking what would happen if everything went wrong.”

After finishing the treatment for ‘The Bourne Legacy’, Gilroy decided he would be interested in making this his next directorial effort. Although he began his career as a screenwriter, Gilroy has become an accomplished director with two features to his credit: 2007’s Best Motion Picture nominee ‘Michael Clayton’, starring George Clooney, for which Gilroy received Oscar nominations for both directing and writing, and ‘Duplicity’, the 2009 romantic caper starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.

The producers and the studio agreed immediately and were enthusiastic about this turn of events. Says Frank Marshall: “One of the best things about the movie was getting to work with Tony as a director. I’ve been involved with him on the other three movies as the writer, but way back on ‘The Bourne Identity’, I knew that someday he was going to direct. He was in the cutting room and making the kind of suggestions and solving the kind of problems in the way that a director would think about them. So, it’s not a surprise that he’s directing this film but it didn’t start out that way.”

To collaborate on the screenplay, Gilroy called upon his brother, fellow screenwriter Dan Gilroy, for their first professional teaming in many years and they began work. Notes Dan Gilroy of the collaboration: “Tony and I actually co-wrote several unproduced screenplays when we were first starting. It was an easy fit then and pretty effortless now.

Our process is outlining the story together and then leapfrogging scenes or sequences. When we’re working, it’s seven days a week—long hours. I’m in L.A, and he’s in New York, but these days distance doesn’t matter. There’s no ego involved. Whatever works gets used, and there were no disagreements or arguments. It was a blast. We were both on the same page and committed to tuning every element to the highest possible degree.”

The two writers expanded upon the research that Tony Gilroy had done for the treatment, while also developing the intense drama of the story. Continues Dan Gilroy: “We hope ‘Legacy’ lives up to its title by expanding the mythology in smart, imaginative and absolutely realistic directions. All technology referenced in the film is either in development or in use by the U.S. intel community.

The hardest part of the job was creating a character with a need that makes the film personal, and Tony had the core of that before I came on. Aaron Cross has a primal need that creates constant intimacy with the audience. The emotional journey is always in the foreground, which for me is the hallmark of all great action movies.”

Marshall was thrilled with the resulting script. He commends: “The genius idea was Tony and Dan’s: Expand the world that Bourne lived in and see what else was out there and who is controlling whom. This way, we could build upon the world the audience had discovered via Jason Bourne and then have an opportunity to see new characters and the bigger picture.”

Patrick Crowley agrees that the writer/director and his brother nailed it. The producer marvels at their crafting of a language specific to this series and how they connected everything in this world: “Tony’s obsessed with the intelligence community. He lives and breathes it, asking, ‘How would these people think, how would they act, and what are the relationships that you would have in the intelligence community?’ It thrilled me that we have a writer who is the soul of the whole series—who shows that he is an amazing director with two well received movies—come on board to direct this one.”

The article Tony Gilroy Helms New ‘Bourne’ Installment appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Unlike Jason Bourne, the new agent-on-the-run in the new installment of the Bourne series, Aaron Cross, is well aware of who he is and where he came from: a soldier wounded in the Middle East several years ago. Once he escapes from the Yukon, Cross journeys back to the U.S. in order to find one of his few contacts in Outcome, and the only person who can help him stay alive, Dr. Marta Shearing.

Says Patrick Crowley about an issue that has perplexed the team since the beginning of the first film: “One of the biggest challenges we’ve had is how to deal with a leading lady in the movie. With the pace and intensity of the films, it’s difficult to take the time to properly develop a relationship, plus getting hooked up with Jason Bourne is usually the kiss of death. Because we have a fresh start, we can introduce a woman into the story without it feeling contrived.”

The role of Marta required not only a talented actress, but also one who would be willing to take on the special demands that the part required. Explains Gilroy: “Marta is an accomplished research scientist with some real emotional chaos in her private life. She’s been ignoring some pretty heavy moral contradictions in her work for Outcome, and when things explode she’s launched into about as hardcore an odyssey as any character I’ve ever written. And by the end of the film she’s not just surviving, she’s kicking ass. It’s a demanding role.”

Much to the filmmakers’ delight, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, known for her powerful performances in such films as ‘The Constant Gardener’, ‘The Lovely Bones’ and ‘The Whistleblower’, was eager for the challenges that lie ahead and the results were more than they had hoped for. Gilroy recalls: “The bar for credibility is very high in this franchise, and she gave us more than we ever dreamed of. I knew how good she was, but I was still astonished by what she brought to the film. She pretty much surpassed my expectations every day.”

Marta is a workaholic, utterly devoted to her groundbreaking research as a biochemist at a top-secret lab in Maryland. Reflects Weisz: “She’s at the cutting edge of science, and she thinks she’s contributing to her country. But at the same time, she does secretly know that what she’s doing has great moral ambiguity to it.” Marta’s choice to ignore the potential consequences of her trials on patients intrigued the actress. “I would be less interested in her if she were just doing something good and saving the world. What she’s doing is a little dubious.”

Marta’s mundane life is turned upside down and she becomes a target when Outcome is rapidly shut down and she is perceived as simply residual cleanup. Aaron—a man whom she has examined multiple times in four years but doesn’t know well—appears in time to save her, and the two quickly form a relationship out of necessity. “Marta is hesitant to go with him, but she doesn’t have any other alternative,” Weisz explains. “The people who represent law and order in her country just tried to kill her. She is a regular woman who happens to be good at science, but not good at evading the police authorities of the globe.”

Weisz was intrigued by the backstories that the Gilroys had created for these two characters. “They’re incredibly driven in very different ways,” adds Weisz. “Marta and Aaron come from completely different backgrounds, and they end up relying on one another for different reasons. That’s a really fascinating way to create a story.”

While filming in New York and in Southeast Asia, Weisz discovered that she and Renner had similar approaches to their work. “We’re very different people, and we come from different backgrounds but we have a similar way of working,” the actress observes. “Jeremy’s very free and loose and pretty wild, and wonderful to work with. I’ve loved every minute opposite him.” Weisz also sees a bit of a rebel in her director: “Tony has a very rock ’n’ roll spirit, which is ‘Let’s find chaos and abandon, and let’s go,’ which is great for acting. He’s an unusual combination in a writer/director, and I’m happy to be in his band.”

The article Rachel Weisz: The Right Match for Female Lead in ‘Bourne Legacy’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Academy Award-winning actress Rachel Weisz (‘The Constant Gardener’, ‘The Mummy’) stars alongside Jeremy Renner in the new film ‘The Bourne Legacy’ as Dr. Marta Shearing, a research scientist with top-security clearance and a high-paying job in the Maryland laboratory of corporate pharma-giant Candent. It’s the groundbreaking science developed in her lab that’s responsible for Outcome, a division similar to Treadstone, and her job includes monitoring the Outcome agents on the rare occasion that they pass through the area.

She knows Aaron Cross (Renner) as she knows the rest of them: as a number, as a clinical subject, as a guinea-pig. She’s ignored the ethical conflict of her work, but when the entire program needs to be terminated and it’s her life in jeopardy, she’s forced to confront the morality of her choices as she fights to stay alive.

Colonel Byer (Edward Norton) has built his NRAG network at the Beltway nexus of the intelligence, military and corporate communities. Stacy Keach (‘W.’, ‘American History X’) plays ret. Admiral Mark Turso, Byer’s chief advisor and link to the Pentagon. Dennis Boutsikaris plays Terrence Ward, the CEO of The Candent Group, the big-pharma giant working beyond the cutting-edge of science and medical ethics under the banner of national security.

The appetite for enhanced warriors—a very real military/intel dream over the last 60 years—has finally met the moment where breakthroughs in biochemistry and genomics are making things possible. We learn very early in ‘The Bourne Legacy’ that Treadstone was but one of Byer’s early programs and, as the film progresses, we discover that even Outcome has been upgraded. But just as each of these programs carries the promise of more perfect agents, so do they each present their own unique bugs and flaws.

Aaron Cross’s physical enhancements will feel familiar to fans of Jason Bourne. His cognitive lift, however, makes for a more adaptive and provocative skillset. It also holds a great danger: The Outcome agents have proven difficult to control, and Cross, once cut free of the leash, makes for an even more dangerous threat to his creators.

Oscar Isaac (‘Drive’, ‘Robin Hood’) plays Outcome #3, and in his handful of scenes in ‘The Bourne Legacy’, Isaac has a chance to explore with Renner these tensions with the clear, raw perspective of two men who’ve signed up for more than they bargained for.

With ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ playing in the background of the first two reels, ‘The Bourne Legacy’ has the opportunity to follow through on the storylines left hanging in the previous films. The story invites several franchise veterans to reprise their roles from earlier ‘Bourne’ chapters.

They include five-time Academy Award nominee Albert Finney (‘Erin Brockovich’, ‘Big Fish’) as Dr. Albert Hirsch, the medical director behind Treadstone, and Joan Allen (‘The Notebook’, ‘Nixon’) as Pam Landy, the CIA’s internal investigator whose relationship with Bourne has erupted in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. David Strathairn (‘Good Night and Good Luck.’, ‘L.A. Confidential’) returns as Noah Vosen, head of the black-ops security program Blackbriar, and Scott Glenn (‘Training Day’, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’) appears as Ezra Kramer, the director of the CIA. They too will find their previous positions shattered as Cross defies the odds and refuses to be terminated.

The article ‘The Bourne Legacy’: Get Ready for Aaron Cross appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

For director Tony Gilroy, finding the ideal performers to give life to the screenplay was the most crucial element in putting together ‘The Bourne Legacy’. “Everything else can be pushed and fixed or wrangled in some way,” he says. “Acting is magic. I learned that a long time ago.”

To play the part of Aaron Cross, the filmmakers turned to Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner, a performer as comfortable with drama as he is with action. “The reason Jeremy’s such an amazing actor is that he is a complicated guy,” underscores Gilroy. “He’s sweet and he’s hard, and he lets himself draw on all of that, all the time.”

The director says that he’s a longtime admirer of Renner’s work: “I must’ve watched ‘The Hurt Locker’ 18 times. In every scene, he is molecularly involved with the physical aspect of what’s happening at the moment. This integrity that he has, this feet-on-the-ground awareness and this surprising, explosive intelligence, made Jeremy the perfect cousin for Bourne.”

Any concerns that the filmmakers might have had about Renner’s ability to transform into an action star were instantly assuaged. In fact, the director calls his leading man a “movie athlete.” Gilroy says: “Jeremy came to us at a really high learning curve. When they took him out to the track the first time, the reports were: ‘Oh my God. Wow. He can do this and this…and this…and this. We don’t have to double this!’ Jeremy’s so good that he actually was at the level where the insurance company got nervous.”

“Jeremy is an actor of such intensity and intelligence,” adds Smith. “We’ve seen in his performances that he comes out of the screen, grabs you by the throat and takes you on an incredible journey.”

After his Academy Award-nominated roles in both ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘The Town’, Renner went on to make his mark as an action hero in the blockbuster ‘Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol’ and this summer’s global juggernaut ‘The Avengers’. He says that he was a fan of the Bourne series and of one man’s performance in particular: “What Matt Damon did, and what the previous directors have done, was great.

For those who love the franchise, I’m not replacing Matt, nor would I want to. It would never have been interesting if I was taking over and playing the same character. Matt is always the face of Jason Bourne and always should be. I liked this script because it was a very interesting way of continuing the story while honoring what came before.”

The performer elaborates on Gilroy’s underlying premise that, although Cross travels in a world that is parallel to Bourne’s, Cross is not aware of Bourne. Renner reflects: “They don’t know each other, so this has a whole new spin on why these supersoldier spies are the way they are now. I hope I can bring a fresh perspective to it.”

Renner goes on to share that ‘The Bourne Legacy’ retains the realistic tone of the earlier films. “It doesn’t veer into the CGI world or massive explosions,” he says. “It stays authentic. It was important for me to want to find humanity within this character.” He found his filmmakers were just as interested in these concepts. “What matters is that there is believability in everything we do in the film. No matter what the stunt is or the setup, it’s all based in reality, truth and the potential of science. As an actor, that’s easy to grab onto.”

The article Meet Aaron Cross: Jeremy Renner Fills the Legacy appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Mexico City, Mexico — From November 14-17, 2012, leading filmmakers and film enthusiasts from Mexico, the U.S. and around the world will gather in the beautiful Pacific resort of Los Cabos for the first annual Baja International Film Festival. The first international film festival in Mexico to be a true collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico, the Baja International Film Festival will stand alongside world renowned events like the Cannes Film Festival,Venice Film Festival and Sundance.

The program will include screenings of Feature Films, Documentaries, Short Films, and Student Films, as well as nightly galas, award ceremonies, panel discussions and filmmaker receptions, and will feature the work of leading filmmakers from Mexico, the U.S., and around the world. The inaugural Baja International Film Festival has strong support from film industry leaders and is proud to have acclaimed actor, Academy-Award nominee, and environmental activist Edward Norton as an advisor to the festival.

Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, Chief Operating Officer of the Mexico Tourism Board, said “The Baja International Film Festival will not only raise the profile of Mexico’s film industry and filmmakers, it will also bring visitors and investment to Los Cabos, one of Mexico’s leading tourist resorts, reinforcing its reputation as a world class, luxury destination.” In addition to the Mexico Tourism Board, the festival is endorsed and supported as the Official Festival of Los Cabos by the State of Baja California Sur, and the Los Cabos Tourism Bureau.

Baja International Film Festival co-founders Scott Cross and Sean Cross also founded the Colorado Film Institute and the Vail Film Festival, named by Moviemaker magazine among the “Top Ten Destination Film Festivals in the World.” The Festival is founded and run by a bi-national team of experienced film and business managers. They share a passion to bring the two cultures together through film.

The Festival represents a true collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. and will serve as a bridge between the U.S. and Mexican film industry. The organizers’ goal is to showcase the best filmmaking from around the world and grow the Baja International Film Festival into the Cannes Film Festival of Latin America.

The Baja International Film Festival is currently accepting film entries for the inaugural event to be held from November 14-17 in Los Cabos, Mexico. The festival accepts films from all countries and will award prizes for Best Film in each category, an Audience Award, and a special prize for Best Mexican Film. For submission information, please visit the festival website at www.bajainternationalfilmfestival.com.

Just a short flight from Los Angeles, Los Cabos is well known as a favorite vacation spot for Hollywood’s A-list stars. George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio are just a few of the celebrities regularly spotted enjoying the pristine beaches, luxurious hotels and unsurpassed hospitality of one of Mexico’s premier resorts.

For more information on the Baja International Film Festival, visit www.bajainternationalfilmfestival.com.

The article First Annual Baja International Film Festival Launches appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The narrative architect behind the Bourne film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: ‘The Bourne Legacy’. The writer/director expands the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum with an original story that introduces us to a new hero (Jeremy Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films.

For ‘The Bourne Legacy’, Renner joins fellow series newcomers Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles. You can read more about the movie, coming to cinemas in August, if you visit www.thebournelegacy.com.

With Calin Farell’s ‘Total Recall’ also on the horizon this year, it may not come as a surprise that Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Judge Dredd’ will return to cinemas in the new form of Karl Urban in ‘Dredd’. The story is familiar: The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One – a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets.

The only force of order lies with the urban cops called “Judges” who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge – a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of “Slo-Mo” experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed.

During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture – a 200 story vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and her ruthless clan.

When they capture one of the clan’s inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound’s control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire. With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival.

The endlessly inventive mind of screenwriter Alex Garland and director Pete Travis bring ‘Dredd’ to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film. Filmed in 3D with stunning slow motion photography sequences, the film returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.

The article Action Fans Rejoice: Bourne Legacy, Dredd Soon in Theaters appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Both the technical name and the more meaningful one of the young lovers refuge in the film ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ represent the creative attention to detail that moviegoers have come to expect from a Wes Anderson picture. Anderson collaborated with his fellow filmmaker Roman Coppola in writing the script for ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, marking the second time that the two have scripted Anderson’s ideas into the road map of a movie, following ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ (2007). Actor Bob Balaban notes that he was struck by how “Wes makes movies according to his own particular sensibilities. His is not just a talented mind; it is an organized and kind one. He makes movies like nobody else, and he’s not trying to do it to be different; he’s doing it because that’s who he is.”

What is evident to any and all working with Anderson is how precise his directing style is; he knows exactly what he wants, and how he will proceed to get it, before arriving on set each day. This, however, only makes him relish the process even more; he exhibits a sense of pure joy through his direction. Actors and crew alike are invited to share in, and contribute to, his vision. “He has a firm hand, yet things are very relaxed on the set,” reports Balaban. “Actors love him. He’ll let you alone if things are going well; if he has something to talk to you about, he’ll be very articulate.”

“As a writer, a producer, and the director, Wes is involved in every element of the film, from clothing design to casting,” adds producer Jeremy Dawson. “All of it contributes to the world that he wants to create.”

Anderson’s enthusiasm spreads to cast and artisans, many of whom will collaborate with him on more than one project. As one such returnee, Dawson notes, “He wants the movie to be an adventure for all the people involved in making it, whether it’s getting on a train in India or traveling on a boat in the Mediterranean. Making this movie definitely lived up to that tradition. “He is always trying to evolve as a director, trying new things and learning from his experiences on previous movies.”

“Wes cares about the process,” says set decorator Kris Moran. “But he also cares about everybody around him, about the on-set environment; it brings out the best in you. When you’re making a movie, that’s a creative place you want to be in.” Even when calling for multiple takes to get a scene exactly the way he’s envisioned it, Anderson remains calm and won’t press to “make the day.” This would serve him particularly well on ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ since key members of the cast, and most of the extras, were children. “Wes deals with children so well – in much the same way that Steven Spielberg does. He’s encouraging to them,” observes Balaban. Anderson was able to relate to the youngsters in part because his films combine a grown-up seriousness with pure make-believe; ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ directly accesses children’s worlds of secrets and the convergence of magical moments one associates with youthful summers.

“Wes had this concept for some time,” reveals Coppola. “He had the world and the characters and this feeling, and we spent some time together discussing it. We discovered a banter, and a manner of inquiry, between the two of us that seemed to gel and unlock all these ideas. After we had engaged in that dialogue, the writing process happened very quickly. It’s always mysterious how that all happens. “My role in writing was to draw out some of the ideas and to help define them. When you have a sounding board, it helps unlock things. That was sort of my main function; sounding board, shaper, editor.”

Image Courtesy of  Jaguar PS / Shutterstock.com

The article Wes Anderson: An Actor’s Director appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

‘Moonrise Kingdom’ is a new movie by two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker Wes Anderson (‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’, ‘Rushmore’). Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ tells the story of two 12-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore – and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in every which way.

Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff, Captain Sharp. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader, Scout Master Ward. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Bob Balaban; and introduces Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as Sam and Suzy, the boy and girl.

It could have been a risky proposition for a film director to cast in key roles two newcomers with little or no experience. But, as ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ producer Jeremy Dawson notes, “Wes Anderson trusts his instincts, so it came down to whom he felt he could visualize in these two roles – and, once again, he’s hit it out of the park in terms of the casting.”

Youngsters Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward won Anderson over at different junctures of what was an extensive casting process. After an initial audition and three more callbacks over the course of six months, Gilman remembers, “I was getting in the car with my mom on the way home from school, and I asked her if she had any news. She didn’t answer; she called up my father instead, and he pulled a Ryan Seacrest [/American Idol results buildup] on me, before he told me I got the part. I screamed, I laughed, and I cried. It was probably the happiest day of my life.”

Hayward’s mother was more straightforward in delivering the good news. The actress recalls, “I had just come home from school, and my mother said, ‘Guess what?’ and I said, ‘What?’ and she said, ‘You got the role.’ It took me a minute to digest. It was thrilling. My little five-minute video from the open call got me the movie.

“I love my character. Suzy Bishop is misunderstood at home; she is among three little brothers, a father with issues, and a mother who is having an affair. She’s very sensitive yet also a tough girl.”

Gilman saw his character of Sam Shakusky as “a good kid with amazing scouting skills; he’s earned all these badges. But he’s mistreated by his foster brothers – Sam is an orphan – and by the other Khaki Scouts. He meets Suzy at a church pageant and, over a year, they create a plan to run away together.”

Despite being new to films, the two young stars applied themselves with aplomb and dedication. Both of them memorized the entire script as preparation before arriving on location. “People tell me I have a good memory,” states Hayward. “So that didn’t really take me long. I read it over until I finally knew it.” For Gilman, the process was by necessity a little lengthier. He explains, “I had to memorize some of the script for the callbacks. Then, before filming, I went to several rehearsals with Kara for which I memorized basically all of my part. By the time we started officially shooting, I really had the script down; it was recorded read onto a file, and I listened to that over and over again on my phone.”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article ‘Moonrise Kingdom’: Selecting the Young Lovers appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Production designer, Adam Stockhausen oversaw the entire look of ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, now playing in theaters, and would have to coordinate with every department on the look of the final production. His research was therefore multifaceted. He comments, “I researched everything from general lifestyle to very specific objects. For example, I wondered, ‘In what exact year did switches develop on night lights?’ so that we wouldn’t make a mistake.” Producer Jeremy Dawson says, “Adam did an amazing job, especially with his research into the origins of scouting and camping.” Stockhausen’s crew proved inventive and resourceful, making camp signs out of sticks and logs tied together.

The story’s requisite canoes were built to design specifics; many mornings at the local Holiday Inn Express, crew members would test out the newly built and painted canoes in the hotel pool. Since these were made out of plywood, buoyancy was not always achieved; ultimately, for many of the scenes involving canoeing, off-camera ballast of weighted keels had to be rigged underneath, helping to maintain the actors’ immersion in the moment rather than risk their immersion in the drink.

Rhode Island’s existing pool of craftsmen joined the group effort. Citing their contributions, set decorator Kris Moran enthuses, “A local artist, James Langston, carved little raccoons on the front of the canoes, and he also made some totem poles for us. Chris Wiley made corn finials [e.g., sculpted ornaments] for Scout Master Ward’s tent. Another artist made all the stick furniture inside that tent – all matching out of chicory, an entire suite! We even had a chainsaw artist make some of the totems on top of the signage for the Khaki Scouts’ camp.”

For the Bishop family home, the hope was to find a house that could immediately assume the role. The house chosen to portray the Bishop home exterior was Conanicut Light, in Jamestown, RI – a former lighthouse. For the interior, four candidates had such strong qualities that the production sought to re-create elements of each. The decision was made to build the house interiors on a soundstage in a vacant retail space at a local strip mall in Middletown, RI. On the soundstage, all the best elements – whether architecture or furnishings – of the favored locations were re-created.

Dawson notes, “At each of these homes, we picked up inspirations and reference points. There were things that we just loved and wanted to see up on-screen. Adam would run those through his brain. When he went back to Wes, a hybrid was created – one that comes fully alive in the opening sequence of the film.”

“All of them were unique houses,” marvels Stockhausen. “Together, our favorite pieces of them inform and convey the eclectic and individual family that lives within.” The four houses that went into the DNA of the Bishop home interior were Comfort Island, in Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River, at the border between New York and Canada; Stafford House, on Cumberland Island in Georgia; the Cottage at Ten Chimneys, in Wisconsin; and Clingstone in Narragansett Bay, which is visible from the shore of Newport, RI.

“The wall murals, with the trees, are replicas of the walls at Comfort Island,” reveals Moran. “The interior shingles are a defining feature of Clingstone. The kitchen set is part of Alexandria Bay. On-screen, it all coheres as the Bishop family home.”

“There is definitely that certain New England feel to it,” states art director Gerald Sullivan. “Some of that architecture you just wouldn’t see anywhere else. The sets and the environment were meant to bolster the characters – and the actors.”

As with the Spartanette trailer in its original state, the camera movements that Anderson and Yeoman envisioned for the opening sequence necessitated something of a dissection of the home’s interior. Stockhausen notes, “It all developed once Wes decided to go with his idea of moving through the house in a very specific manner – from room to room without cuts – for the opening sequence. It was broken down shot by shot for us with storyboards.

“We sat down and started to figure it out from a design point of view, and also from a budget point of view. It was like a puzzle; is this piece of research right for that shot? We took a deep breath, and we went for it. It was a lot of fun.”

Working on a soundstage allowed the filmmakers to slightly bend the rules of architecture and physics so that they weren’t constrained by congruent placement of windows, doors, and rooms. Sullivan remarks, “Wes was a constant collaborator, a total partner all the way who was always receptive to input. He would augment things a day, or an even an hour, before shooting.” Unique features that were built in to the Bishop house, such as the bead board, contribute to an eclectic interior with a hint of age. Books pervade the home, reflecting the parents’ vocations as lawyers; some are vintage books, while others were crafted by the crew. A good portion of the furniture and artwork was rented from Comfort Island, including works by painter Alson Skinner Clark.

With the home being a former lighthouse, a nautical theme also flows through the Bishops’ interior. Although the time of the story is 1965, the house itself is not meant to be from any particular time period but rather an amalgamation of period details through the mid-1960s. Moran notes, “We made room for stuff in their lives from the 1940s and 1950s; there are random objects that they might have found, reflecting a strong love of the arts.” “It’s a beautiful set, with all its handmade work,” Bill Murray says admiringly. “It’s one of the nicest ones I’ve worked in. The crew spent a lot of time making it feel authentic – how a house gets decorated by the first person who lives there, and then later you’re sort of stuck with it – so we could feel authentic when we were acting.

“There was cool stuff around, a lot they didn’t keep track of – if you wanted something you could walk right out of there with it.” Moran laughs, “Bill thinks we weren’t keeping track of the record albums, but I know exactly which ones he took.”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article Elaborate Production Design to Benefit ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The technology and the creativity of Wes Anderson’s imaginary ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ went hand-in-hand. The “pre-shoot” encompassed “a lot of unscripted stuff, and improv,” explains child actor Jared Gilman. “We spent a whole week in the forest.”

Once the main leg of the shoot got underway, “there was a feeling that we were all at camp, or maybe a well-run playground with rules,” says actor Bob Balaban. All of this was as hoped-for; director Wes Anderson wanted cast and crew to have as communal an experience as possible in filming the story. Bill Murray remembers, “My first day at work was on a camp set, and I realized that they didn’t have trailers and so forth. We had tents, pup tents.

“It was about 40 degrees outside and raining, but once you get 51 people crammed inside a tent, it gets plenty warm. We were cozy after a while.”

Another factor bringing cast and crew closer together was the collective make-believe effort; whether they were alive in 1965 or not, each member of the unit had to work together to help the actors slip into their characters and the world they inhabit. Producer Jeremy Dawson notes, “This story is Wes’ take on 1965. From my perspective, his previous movies always existed in a time that you couldn’t quite place, mixing past and present.

“Wes has always storyboarded in pre-production; something that we had done on ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’, which we also applied here, was to edit the storyboards together with voices and music, pre-testing some of the sequences.”

“Our starting point was visual research,” says costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone. “That came primarily from photography.” Art director Gerald Sullivan concurs, saying that “the biggest thing for us in the art department was researching the architecture of the time, and of the area; meaning, both interiors and exteriors. So, we looked at houses on islands, lighthouses, shingled houses – all in constant collaboration with Wes, who had collected reams of research photos for us to make use of in our designs.”

So many photos accrued that a private production website had to be set up in order for departmental staffs and crew members to have access to them all. Set decorator Kris Moran, who had first worked alongside Anderson as “on-set prop” on ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, notes, “Wes cares about every detail so much. We scoured antique shops and borrowed things from crew members and people we met. If Wes had been out walking and seen something on someone’s porch that he liked, we chased it down. When I was dressing a set, it was often with something that wasn’t necessarily iconic of the time, but tertiary and interesting so that it could get more at the characters’ history.

“This movie has a bit of a different aesthetic than Wes’ other movies; it’s a little more rough around the edges, and a little more livedin.”

Yet there often proved to be little in the way of vintage props, set dressing, or wardrobe that could be found on the scale needed for the production. One exception was the trailer home for Captain Sharp, Bruce Willis’ character; the desired 1952 Spartanette was found through a dealer in Texas. But for Robert Yeoman’s camera to be able to move around inside, Moran says, “We actually had to cut it apart and then rebuild it. The interior was intact, but we reconfigured it so there could be a 360-degree field of vision inside. We then re-dressed it in full.”

Moran recalls her team looking for tents needed to colonize the fictional Khaki Scouts of North America’s Troop 55 at their camp under the command of Scout Master Ward, played by Edward Norton. After they scoured the country to locate a stash of old stock tents, they found that even Army/Navy stores were coming up short. Only a couple of vintage tents had been found – and these mostly weren’t the right color or shape or size; Anderson had specified the Khaki Scouts tents’ piping (bright yellow) and interior lining (plaid, including a plaid wall for Ward’s own tent).

Efforts to refashion the existing tents didn’t take. Moran recounts, “We realized that every tent would have to be custom-made. That way we wouldn’t have to hide or cheat anything, and we could control the color and shape.”

A New Hampshire company, Tentsmiths, specializes in fabricating historical reenactment tents. Although geared towards replicating tents from pre-1950, Tentsmiths staff rose to the challenge of moving their aesthetic forward to 1965. Moran says, “We sent someone up there to rally them, and to convey an understanding of the visuals we were trying to achieve. Everyone at Tentsmiths really got into it, and the tents they made for us looked fantastic!”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article Life ano-1965 Recreated for New ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The young stars of the wondrous ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, now playing in cinemas around the world, would rehearse together in the production office before going to the set. But preparation entailed much more than merely learning their lines; director Wes Anderson wanted them to explore their characters, to feel comfortable in their skins, and to understand who they were and why Suzy and Sam do what they do. So, he assigned the kids some homework. Jared Gilman recounts, “I took canoeing lessons, a couple of karate lessons, and learned some cooking – there’s scenes where I have to cook over a fire.” With a nod to the movie’s 1965 setting, Gilman notes that “Wes also had me watch a [1963-set] Clint Eastwood movie, ‘Escape from Alcatraz’; it was very good. And I had my parents to rely on, since they grew up in the 1960s.” Kara Hayward reveals, “Wes had Jared and I write letters to each other. Because in the story, Sam and Suzy write letters for a year to each other after they meet. He would have us start with the beginnings of their sentences –”

“Because in the script, the letters cut off [into the next ones] midsentence,” adds Gilman. “Wes thought maybe we could finish them.” Given the world they live in and have come of age in, the two young performers began the assigned homework of their own correspondences through e-mails. But Anderson swiftly put a stop to that. “I don’t think he felt that the e-mails were authentic enough,” Hayward says. “He wanted the letters.” Once they abandoned electronic transmission for old-fashioned epistles, they embraced the task wholeheartedly. Hayward says, “I learned a lot about Jared. He’s very entertaining!” Gilman remarks, “Kara’s letters even had a little label on the top that said, ‘Suzy Bishop,’ with a fake address.” Once production began, Gilman found the most difficult part to be “the early mornings,” while Hayward was “shocked” to discover that films are typically shot out of sequence. Then again, she notes, “I had no clue what to expect because I’d never been in a movie or a commercial or anything, just school plays and plays at summer camp. From reading the script on, it was all more than I thought it was going to be. My favorite part about the production was watching the other actors work. That was inspiring.

“What helped me get into character was listening to Wes. He would say, ‘This is what’s happening. This isn’t Kara doing these things. This is Suzy.’” Picking up on those cues from his leading lady and his director, Gilman would get into character “on the set. Whenever I put on Sam’s coonskin cap and his glasses – a change from my normal glasses – it was, ‘Now I’m Sam.’”

On a weekend day off, Anderson would invite the pair to see edited dailies and would discuss screen chemistry with them. However, Gilman notes, “Wes had us rehearse scenes, but not the kissing one; he wanted that to feel natural, since it’s the first time kissing for Sam and Suzy.” Another discovery came when Frances McDormand, who portrays Suzy’s mother Mrs. Bishop, pointed out to Hayward the typewriter in her character’s office. Hayward had never seen one before “in real life,” and said so. “Fran thought that was so funny,” Hayward laughs. “She showed me how it worked, typing out our names. The props helped me feel like I was in the 1960s.”

McDormand made a strong impression on the younger actress. Hayward reflects, “Fran is amazing. My favorite scene is probably the one where Suzy is in the bathtub and talking with her mother. It’s very tender and loving, and emotional; it shows how Suzy is feeling. “Seeing Fran become a different person, and me having to do the same, was awesome. I loved being able to be so different from who I normally am.”

Gilman was also taken under the wing of accomplished costars; Bruce Willis encouraged him to review and run lines before shooting, even if the words were already committed to memory. Additionally, reveals Gilman, “Bill Murray overheard me tell one of the costumers that I didn’t know how to tie a tie, so he called me over. He basically put his hands around mine and did it, and then had me try it. That’s how I learned to tie a tie.” Murray offers, “Well, you do what you have to; once I showed a kid how to shave, and this time I showed a kid how to tie a tie.”

Hayward confides, “Bill also told Jared and me to hum in the morning to get our voices ready for filming. It really works!” Another cast member had to get his voice ready even when no other actors did; Bob Balaban is both heard and seen as the Narrator in ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. “When I first read the script, I couldn’t put it down,” says the veteran actor and filmmaker, who then spent weeks growing out his beard to meet Anderson’s conception of the character of the Narrator. “It was really entertaining, with great characters and dialogue that was shot pretty much exactly as written; the words we had to say were so good.”

He adds, “That you see the Narrator reflects the style of the movie. Suzy, the young girl, reads a lot and loves adventure books for kids. I’d say I’m kind of like the voice of the book, her own adventure, that she’s writing in her head. But my character also has an on-screen connection to the boy.”

“What’s universal and relatable about ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ is that this is a story about first love and a magical summer,” comments producer Jeremy Dawson. “It’s about a young boy and girl who run away to be together. There is a sweetness and charm to this movie, and it’s also funny.

“The title references the cove that the two kids run away to. It has the technical name of Mile 3.25 Tidal Inlet on the map – but for them it’s a secret, magical place, so they re-name it: Moonrise Kingdom.”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article Wes Anderson Brings Together Eclectic Casting Mix appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Director/write Wes Anderson and writer Roman Coppola created a rich tapestry of colorful characters in ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ with overlapping connections that draw us into the realm of the movie’s island community, New Penzance. The community is a richly realized place populated by rounded and complex denizens. Accordingly, actors were captivated by the story immediately. “It takes you into a completely new world from the first page,” says Tilda Swinton. “A world that is as beautifully designed and completely conceived as this one is always going to be a thrill in cinema.” Bill Murray, who also appeared in ‘The Darjeeling Limited’, adds, “It’s a really fine script. There is an electricity that moves through it; Roman and Wes are really wonderful together.” To film their movie about the discovery of first love and an adventure for two children, the filmmakers honed in on Rhode Island as an allpurpose location – after what producer Jeremy Dawson refers to as “Google-scouting.”

“It was an unusual scouting process,” adds production designer Adam Stockhausen. “Everyone – myself, Wes, Jeremy, [co-producer] Molly Cooper – was in New York and researching islands.” Dawson elaborates, “The story was written to take place on an island, and was envisioned as a New England coastal island. But we looked all over the world – albeit often from our living rooms – the Eastern seaboard, the West Coast, even the coast of Cornwall.”

With a modest population and few automobiles allowed, New Penzance lends itself to being a place that sparks the children’s imaginations and senses of adventure. Rhode Island’s miles and miles of beautiful coastline and its contained geography sealed the deal, finalized through the Rhode Island Film & TV Office. The state’s topography encompasses rolling fields and craggy ravines, points of elevation, forests and beaches, and rocky coves.

Among the state’s many shooting locations for ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ were Narragansett Bay; the 1,800-acre Camp Yawgoog, lensed in just ahead of the summer season; and the historic Trinity Church in Newport, where George Washington was a parishioner. Particular care was taken by the cast and crew when working at the latter location, which was redressed twice as New Penzance’s church; initially, for the pageant at which Suzy and Sam first meet one year before the main events of the story transpire, and then for the climactic sequence of the movie which brings their adventure full circle.

The filmmakers wanted the physical production to be focused, not bloated. Accordingly, there were no big trucks, and no actor or filmmaker trailers. Actors were encouraged to arrive camera-ready, requiring them to don their costumes in their hotel rooms before coming to set. Prudence Island, in Narragansett Bay, provided probably the most unique location for the production. Dawson comments, “There’s no infrastructure there; there’s one tiny little store at which to buy things. We had to get local environmental clearance to set foot on some of the pebble beaches, and charter a ferry boat to get crew members on-site. It pays off on-screen; Prudence really does look untouched.”

With Rhode Island’s geographical versatility and the unit’s leanness, it wasn’t uncommon for the production to move to and film at three or four different locations around the state on a given day – a park here, a beach there, a waterfall down the road. Anderson had prepared for this part of the process as well, with an advance shoot weeks prior to the commencement of principal photography; he recruited a skeleton crew and shot footage – much of it amidst natural foliage – that would be included in the finished film. This minimal unit enjoyed a great amount of freedom. Dawson remembers, “We drove around in a van and just went around the state and shot, including with the child actors. The cameras were light and small, so we weren’t bogged down with heavy gear.”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ Finds Suiting Scenery in New Penzance appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

For what the actors would be wearing in the new film ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, “Wes had done a lot of initial research,” comments costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone, who with Wes Anderson, the director, pored through a multitude of photography, mostly in book form, looking for inspirations “that would enrich and expand the characters,” as she notes.

From a clearly articulated vision and framework, she could enhance and execute his concepts. She says, “The next steps were to produce collages and very rough sketches. He would give me immediate feedback and we would further define what was needed.

“In the fittings, there would always be a moment of adjustment; not just, ‘Do we need to change a color or a shape?’ but, ‘Does what we created resonate?’”

Producer Jeremy Dawson remarks, “The costumes are detailed and intricate, and have little elements drawn from different reference points.

“The animal costumes in the Noah’s Ark church pageant sequences were influenced by ‘Carnival of the Animals’ as interpreted by Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten; as a kid, Wes was in a production of that, so we looked at photos from his family and from the production’s conductor.” In line with the creative track the production was taking, the majority of the costumes were handmade.

“A lot of them had starting points in real vintage pieces or research,” Walicka Maimone says. “But then we would make it our own, while always adhering to Wes’ vision.” The actors’ input was solicited, although flattering fitting results were not a given; Bill Murray sighs, “[My character of] Mr. Bishop’s pants are made out of separate squares of loud material sewn together – and they’re so short.” Even so, clarifies Walicka Maimone, “Mr. Bishop’s costumes are the most toned-down of anyone’s; his character is more conservative than the others.

“The longest search came for Suzy’s Sunday school saddle shoes, because after our research we realized we were looking for ones with leather soles, as they had in the 1960s; contemporary ones don’t have leather soles. We ultimately got a blue pair and a red pair, one in a store in New York City and one online.”

But the biggest sartorial challenge was the design for, and subsequent manufacture of, the uniforms for the Khaki Scouts. After consulting with Anderson and production designer Adam Stockhausen, Walicka Maimone and her department created every single element of the uniforms, from the socks to the activity buttons. It was a massive amount of work, completed in a short amount of time; raccoon mascot insignia patches, made out of felt, were hand-sewn onto the uniforms.

The group of Khaki Scout extras was made up largely of scout troops from Narragansett Bay, who were happy to report for extras duty and experience moviemaking firsthand; as Murray reports, “Some of them earned a merit badge in cinematography.”

But the boys did have to leave their 21st-century uniforms at home. “We had a lot of Khaki Scouts in large-scale scenes,” says Walicka Maimone. “I think the final number of uniforms we created was 350.”

She adds, “The Scout uniforms and Suzy’s outfit were my absolute favorites, but I also particularly enjoyed doing the ones for Scout Master Ward, Mr. Bishop, and Social Services.” In ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, the latter is neither a department nor a group, but rather the name of a character; Tilda Swinton was cast as Social Services. Real-life social services workers did not wear uniforms, so Walicka Maimone turned to the Salvation Army for inspiration as well as to women-in-service uniforms. She then accentuated shapes and extended capes until she came up with the final outfit – one eagerly donned by Swinton, hat-wig and all.

“Social Services’ uniform was the most structured, the most physically tailored piece we had,” says Walicka Maimone. Swinton elaborates, “Social Services represents authority, force majeure; when mayhem erupts, she is called in to impose order. Social Services wears a blue-and-white uniform, a pantsuit. Atop her head is a Salvation Army officer-style hat. Tied around her neck is a red ribbon, in a bow.

“There are several cinematic references, and actresses and actors, which inspired us; I loved playing that out with Wes.”

In contrast, the costume for Frances McDormand’s character of Mrs. Bishop reflects an amalgamation of women artists, painters, and writers from the 1960s. The back story proffered by Anderson was that, though Mrs. Bishop is a lawyer, she grew up in a house full of creative types and so her costuming is infused with more colorful elements. As Swinton notes wistfully, “My mother wore clothes like those that Fran wears. I remember all these colors from my early childhood in a very visceral way; the costumes are so accurate.

“In this story, our community of adults doesn’t really know what they’re doing and in the process find themselves to be no less childlike, and no more grown-up, than the two children. It was great fun, a real joy, to be part of this movie. There is such a playfulness in it because there is absolute structure.”

Swinton and McDormand were but two of the first-time acting collaborators with Anderson on ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. The majority of the cast, including Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, had not worked with the director before. Dawson opines, “It’s a different look and feel for both Bruce and Ed in this movie, and I think people are going to respond to them.”

Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman had first starred for Anderson in his acclaimed ‘Rushmore’ back in 1998, and have since reteamed with him multiple times apiece. Dawson notes, “Bill and Jason are always great to have around. Bill keeps us all going; he’s our pep captain.”

Whether learning about typewriters or ties, the two youngest newcomers realized that their first moviemaking experience was something special. “Moonrise Kingdom is such a sweet story,” says child actress Kara Hayward. “It’s beautiful. I love everything about the movie – how the story is told, the relationship between the characters – and I hope audiences love everything about it too.” Jared Gilman enthuses, “It’s got action. It’s got comedy. It’s got drama. It’s got romance. It really packs a punch!”

Image Courtesy of  Moonrise Kingdom

The article Costumes an Intriguing Challenge for ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.