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Evan Guilfoyle

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About Evan Guilfoyle

  • Birthday 11/29/1978

Profile Information

  • Occupation
    Cinematographer

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  • Website URL
    http://www.chlorofilm.com
  1. Dear Wendell, Thank you for going above and beyond to address my question. I did not intend "ad nauseum" to mean nausea-inducing. It's just that your taciturn answers IMHO appear brusque. I also hope that you do not find my comments about high-mindedness to be solely about you. It is a general statement about the tone that a lot of camera pros take WHEN DEIGNING TO ANSWER A QUESTION (whether on set or on this site). Your Ladybug Mecca videos are incredibly artful and elegant, but sometimes your posts (& others, too) on this site are not. I put out an email to his agent BEFORE I posted this and did not hear back. Hence my short-fused tone to your "Vanlint Dejavu" post. In short, it's not my place to tell grown professionals how to "comport themselves public-wise", but I would post more (& others would too) if people lost the snooty tone in their responses to posts from people not "in the club". Check out how newbies apologize before they even ask a question on a lot of NEW POSTS to see what I mean....and I think you all know what I mean by "In The Club" (not the 50 cent song). THANKS TO ANY AND ALL WHO ARE GRACIOUS & COURTEOUS WITH THEIR KNOWLEDGE (especially Wendell)!
  2. Check out the book "New Cinematographers" by Alexander Ballinger. It has a lot of technical info on Khondji's techniques. Cheers.
  3. I couldn't agree more, fstop. Your comment about the sensitive nature of working professionals careers is right on the money. I just wanted a little more (Non-Sensitve) info about a guy who is clearly admired on this public forum, Tony Brown's comment was insightful but raised more questions than answers, IMHO. If drunks and sycophants can have long careers in the biz, why did Vanlint retreat to Canadian Commercials? I was hoping for any stories or info the illustrious members of Cinematography.com could provide, as there are NO BOOKS or ARTICLES about Vanlint's work after Dragonslayer and what little info I've found piques my interest further. Was the underexposure of Dragonslayer the nail in his Feautre DP coffin? I find that hard to believe as Paramount successfully put out The Godfather I & II on VHS and Gordon Willis still worked and was praised. If you have any sensitive info, not for public consumption, please send it to email@chlorofilm.com. Thanks again. P.S. You all know what I mean about the "from high on the mountain" stance that some take when posting on this site. High School Kids and everyone else deserve better than the holier than thou tone some take. P.P.S. I apologize to Wendell Greene, but after combing this site for hours his one-sentence responses seem less than friendly when you see them ad nauseum
  4. "Belly" by Hype Williams is an incredible work of craft over content. It was shot by Malik Sayeed, and it suffers from "A Clockwork Orange" syndrome: the violent first half is far more engaging than the moral second half. Depsite an uplifting message from a Louis Farrakhan (sp?) look-a-like, the movie just doesn't work. "The New World" and "Gangs of New York" are two recent movies I give an exception to. They DO NOT WORK on first viewings, but getting past their cinematic faux-pas are two flawed masterpieces. Malick especially created a unique language unforeseen in film with his latest. Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio are excellent in their roles even if the movie they are in tries to hard to be sweeping and epic. As for your remake list: "The Ladykillers" revealed every smart-allecky tendency the Coens have displayed and in some ways made me reevaluate their whole body of work. "Solaris" is deserving of reevaluation. An emotional film wrapped in Kubrickian icy overtones. "Psycho" and "Cape Fear": Nuff said. "The Island" was a very flawed film, but on another view, one can see that Michael Bay is at least trying to smarten up his work as he gets further from Bad Boys I and Armageddon. GOOD CINEMATOGRAPHY TOO! Not to retread on an old thread, but ALL POLITICS ASIDE: "Munich" fires on all cylinders until the third (or fourth, dependant on your point of view) act. Then it crumbles like a day old donut. John Boorman is getting knocked on this list, but "Beyond Rangoon" was a bad movie. "Zardoz" and "Emerald Forest" aren't as awful as some say. "Apt Pupil" should have ended Bryan Singer's career, but Stephen King was smart enough to not even address that cinematic fart-in-the-wind.
  5. You guys all assume that people with limited posts on the site don't comb through very accessible info. How did you all become so knowledgeable? Magazine articles - which are readily available, and the internet - which is how we are exchanging info! Another diatribe: Cinematography.com members stop being so condescending and assuming that people who post don't know as much as you do. Mullen is a great example of being informative without talking down to the people he posts on. No one should have to explain that they have read all the previous posted info to ask a legitimate question, just to get a one sentence response like "Vanlint Dejavu". My question still stands - does anyone know why he stopped working on features? Please stop being know-it-alls!! Your condescension ruins what could be an excellent website for people of all levels of experience. Go back through ANY previous threads with an unjaundiced eye, and you willl see exactly how condescension ruins the quest for information. Any and all info about Vanlint would be appreciated. Thank you.
  6. Your picture has you smiling, but you seem like a jerk with your one sentence know-it-all responses posted all over this site. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR AC ARTICLE Quotes(I HAVE READ THOSE) and I READ THE PREVIOUS THREADS BEFORE POSTING THE QUESTION. I am looking for any info on the man and why his feature film DP career ended so quickly after it began. I am looking for Mullenesque stories about the man and his career. Did his fortunes rise and fall with the box-office takes of the hit (ALIEN) and the dud (Dragonslayer)? Was he disillusioned, burnt out... or did he prefer commercial payoffs to long-haul feature shoots? The gent certainly had ARTISTRY to spare, but now only has directed a Z-Grade Dennis Hopper vehicle. Any info, of the longer than one sentence variety, would be appreciated (anecdotal or first-hand stories). Thank you all in advance. No Thanks to Wendell "Smiley" Greene!
  7. Besides Alien and Dragonslayer, Mr. Vanlint went from the apex of innovative low-level lighting for big budget productions (with SLOW ASA film stocks) to directing/shooting Spreading Ground with Dennis Hopper (not the nadir for pro DPs, but close). Does anyone know about Vanlint and his career, besides checking his iMDB credits, or is he totally off the radar? Evan Guilfoyle Filmmaker
  8. Both movies are Women's Stories (from acclaimed novels) starting with sisters ripped apart from their families and finally their sisters. Both have older viragos as villians and/or idols admired/feared by the Main Characters. Both should not have been directed by white men. Other than that, they are different movies, but not dissimiliar in the execution of adapting them to big screen. Evan Guilfoyle Filmmaker-www.chlorofilm.com Baltimore, MD
  9. Gallo used an Aaton A-Minima and an XTR Prod with Super-Baltar Lenses that he had retro-fitted with PL Mounts from Mitchell BNCR Mount. The DVD does an accurate job of the way it looked in the theater. The DVD even has a well-thought out, unobtrusive layer transistion. (Gallo is a perfectionist, if nothing else.) Surprisingly, I find the transfer crisp in revealing the grain of EXR 50D and the imperfections of the lenses (inspiring lens flairs, soft focus fall-off, less contrast), but the lens themselves didn't seem sharp. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he used them because they weren't crisp. He used an interesting suction cup system for the Camera Mount for the driving sequences. (I'm sure cinematography.com members will mention the brand name of this system.) Gallo tried to sell (maybe did sell?) the PRODUCTION PACKAGE for Brown Bunny on eBay. Its reserve wasn't met at 81,000 USD. If anyone has any info on the whereabouts of this package, please add it to the thread. As for your comment about the story, watch it a second time. The longing and sadness of the story comes through once you know what happened to Daisy. Plus, all the girls he encounters are named after flowers. Last side note, "Buffalo 66" was a '60's aesthetic (Ektachrome-NFL Films Look, Contrasty High Key Lighting, Ben Gazarra) whereas "The Brown Bunny" was a '70's aesthetic (Non-Directional Bounced Lighting, Use of 16mm-Porn Style, Lens Flares, the number 77 on his motorcycle, Cheryl Tiegs). Sadly, people (Professional Cinematographers) don't mention Gallo's films as Important Works of Cinematography. He might have the persona of a ranting jerk, but in my book the guy is an artist with a capital A. Evan Guilfoyle Filmmaker-www.chlorofilm.com Baltimore, MD
  10. The crosscutting between Avner and his wife having sex with the execution of the hostages was straight-up tacky. There hasn't been as egregious a use of slow-motion since Cuba Gooding hopped on the machine guns in "Pearl Harbor". If someone was pumping away on me like a robot (possible A.I. reference?!?) I WOULD TELL THEM TO GET OFF ME!! Her understanding was a tacked-on response to justify showing the murder of Israeli Olympians at the end of the movie, instead of the beginning. The beginning had great shots, yes. But, I did not find a human moment between the members of Avner's team until the bar exhange about the Dutch Honeypot. There is a lot of backward justification going on to explain a disjointed approach to A VERY IMPORTANT SUBJECT!! Why did the old man feel haunted by the Murder of the Dutch Woman? He was the one who wanted her to be found dead and nude, and went so far as to uncover her after she was covered?!? This microcosmic instance shows the extreme dialectical nature of Kushner and Spielberg's approach. You can't have it both ways, show thier barbarism and then have them explain how bad they feel afterwards. It's almost as if Kushner had a morality play but Spielberg had all these cinematic ideas he wanted to wedge in (70's Paranoia: Conversation, Parallax View, Zooms: Battle of Algiers, etc., Grainy Footage crosscut with Actual Footage). Not to go on and on, but most people born after the real events will use this movie as a compass into what Black September was all about. And for that reason alone, "Munich" is a dangerous mess of what could have been a masterpiece about the modern Palestinian/Israeli conflict. For subtlety about another on-going and related problem in the Middle East, see "Syriana". At least it has a consistent point of view, no matter how hard you have to work to find it. Evan Guilfoyle Filmmaker - Baltimore, MD
  11. ALL THE SEMANTICS ABOUT LANGUAGE IS INTERESTING, however there was a post where it was mentioned that "both sides of the sword" weren't equally addressed. I find it to be totally weighted to the Israeli perspective. The controversial scene between Avner and the Palestinian in the hallway was too unbalanced in the forcefulness of Avner's argument. The idea that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind is not a new concept, even if it is from the director of "Schindler's List". On another tangential note, having seen "Memoirs of a Geisha", I could see why Spielberg did not want to direct the Japanese version of "The Color Purple". Kaminski work on "Munich" was too mannered: retire the Dior stocking!! The use of zoom was interesting, however unneccessary it was too the story. But, Charles Fox ("Day of the Jackal") was interesting as a Frenchman (read: Anti-Semitic) with compassion toward Avner and his family. I found that detail insightful into the movie "Munich" could have been.
  12. Backlight and/or edgelight the breath and not the actor who is breathing.
  13. As my first post, I feel the need to declare "Syriana" as the most courageous storytelling of the year. Its "obliqueness", which people find nervewracking, is exactly what was good about. A friend said any movie that you need to see more than once to understand is a failure. But in this age of disposable everything, it's a joy to see a movie where people feel compelled to dissect and discuss the plethora of complexities. Elswit's cinematography was excellent in forwarding the Michael Mann style of subjective camera reportage. (Characters close to the handheld lens to reveal their isolation from one another, minus gimicky Frazier lenses) Its subtlety on all fronts is what drew me to see it THREE TIMES!! And I felt I understood it the first time I watched it. Clooney, unlike Iraq-Visiting Sean Penn, truly puts his money and time where his heart is. But he has the intelligence not to browbeat people with his politics. His collaboration with Elswit on "Good Night, and Good Luck" shows depth and versatility in what is truly his year to flex. As for cinematography, "Syriana" has a lot going for it. Unlike "Traffic", which was mostly over the shoulders and medium shots (despite its evocative color-coding), "Syriana" goes the extra length to show the scale and scope of its locations. Its rendering of the Middle East was more evocative than Kaminski's panty-hosed Israel in "Munich". As for its politics, I think that is really every viewers responsibilty to figure out. Elswit deserves nominations for both movies. As does Clooney for Best Actor. Instead of posting, see "Syriana" again. There is more to the movie than it lets on. "We're through the looking glass, people. Black is white and white is black."
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