Digital Media & Branding

Another cartoon review? Really?

Absolutely yes!

I’m not posting this review about a newly released film. I’m also not posting this review because the film was a smash hit like Avatar.

I’m writing this review because this movie is a roller coaster of creative genius; it’s heartwarming for adults, hilarious for adults and children alike, and will leave you wishing you had 10,000 minions at your disposal every day.

This film received 11 award nominations including Best Animated Feature from the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and Teen Choice Awards. The creative cast includes the venerable Julie Andrews, the hilarious Russell Brand, Steve Carrell, and Jason Segal, as well as the lovely Miranda Cosgrove.

The story centers around a villain named Gru who has a dream to steal the moon out of the sky. As the film moves along you learn about Gru’s insecurities, watch as he grows to love three adorable orphans, and see how he approaches learning from his mistakes. The message is perfect for spurring parent-children conversations about orphans and how much it means for them to find their forever home. Chris Renaud does a superb job as director. Impeccable story telling is the distinct marker of this film.

Impeccable story telling amidst subtle yet genius humor.

If you have not already seen this movie, do it! Your funny bone and your kids will thank you.

Keep it real friends.

This week we had the cool opportunity to shoot some portraits for Shauntavia. The weather was a little chilly for a Texas spring day but the wind gave us some cool inspiration.
We kept the editing to a minimum, giving the photos some cool light-bleeding effects along with a flat, old 1970s photo feel. Let us know what you think and keep us in mind the next time you need some portraits or head shots!

CRAZY short post today! I just wanted to help promote The 2011 Thin Line Film Fest right here in my home town Denton, TX.

Last year was really great and this year’s line up is expected to be even better! This festival is an international documentary showcase that accepts all forms of documentaries including “mocumentaries”. You may remember the famous “This is Spinal Tap” from 1984. Although they aren’t showing that particular one, they will be showing modern day movies from all kinds of filmmakers.

The tickets have gone on sale and you don’t want to miss it!!

http://2011.thinlinefilmfest.com/
http://texasfilmmakers.com/

Kanye West has written and directed his own short film! It’s goal is to wet your appetite for his latest album that is appropriately titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I would not suggest anyone under 18 to watch this video and honestly most people in the world will not appreciate this film. The art direction was fantastic but certainly doesn’t make up for the lack of story telling and the low caliber acting. Kanye and his counter part Selita Ebanks, who plays a Phoenix come to Earth, are more aesthetically valuable than they are emotionally convincing. The lines are forced and meant to be more meaningful than they felt….classic artsy-fartsy fail!!

You may have seen Kanye perform “Runnaway” [AKA "Toast to the Douchebags(Scumbags)"] on SNL alongside team of ballerina dancers. These dancers are seen quite a lot in the short film and are honestly the best part of the 30+ minute film. Kanye’s direction for this song’s occurrence in “Runaway” is brilliant! Methodically calculated and music driven it is easily the most entertaining portion of the film.

The three considerations that lead me to 3 out of 5 stars are 1) The bad acting, 2) the incredible art direction, and 3) the mediocre production quality. They have moments of cinematography that only someone with Kanye’s means can pull off independently and other moments that my 13 year old sister could do with $50 and a handi-cam. I’m also lumping the lack of story development into the poor “production quality”. I could see that Kanye’s character was contemplating things about the Phoenix and I could tell that the Phoenix was learning about our culture.…and that’s about it…. suddenly they have sex and the Phoenix is out the door! Silly Phoenix! Kanye is suddenly running down the road and the Phoenix seems to be leaving Earth. At the end I’m left wanting more closure.

Watch it and see for yourself. Maybe I’ve missed something clever and you can chime in with a brilliant retort! If you’re 18+ and you enjoy artistic style short films then watch the video on vevo.com. RUNAWAY

PS. I love Kanye’s album!!! That could be a factor in my opinion of 3 out of 5 stars. He melded some great music with some awesome art direction. He failed at telling a compelling story

The first thing that must said about The Chronicles of Narnia is that they are in fact made for children. This is an epic series for young imaginative minds and I believe the author, C.S. Lewis did this with purpose. In my opinion Lewis had set out to present deep and timeless truths by using allegory that may or may not be timeless itself.
That being said, I will now do my best to review this movie as a movie….not a retelling of the book, but a retelling of the timeless truths that C.S. Lewis intended to convey. I will also briefly say, that I believe the voyages in the book were much richer and more meaningful than the movie portrayed. I think that the writers who transcript the novel to a screen play made some silly changes that didn’t need to be made. So if this were a review of how well the story was told, it would not get the same ratio of stars.

But this is a movie review, and alas, it is time to review the movie!!

The director was Michael Apted who’s other movies include Coal Minor’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, The World is Not Enough, and a few other films that give him credibility. Apted and his team did a great job setting up the shots that included a slew of complicated CGi characters. The actors reacted well to those characters and you very quickly forgot that they were CGi.
Reepicheep is one of Narnia’s most noble characters who fervently seeks after adventure and honor. He has the heart of a lion and the stature of a mouse. As a matter of fact, he is a mouse! To truly fall in love with Reepicheep I would suggest reading the book or finding a radio drama of the chronicled stories. I was impressed that this fully CGi character wasn’t EVER distractingly CGi. Even in the Lord of the Rings, the amazingly constructed Gollum was many times obviously a CGi character. I have great respect for the 3D artists that made these characters come to life.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT IN 3D???? No! Spend that extra money on a soda or candy! I’m not an anti-3D person. I think there is a time and a place. This movie did not benefit from 3D.

The acting was done well and you will either love to hate our new character Eustace Scrubb or you will just hate him! This was a GREAT cast! This little guy has a face that drips with bitterness and pride yet has the acting chops to make you feel like he’s “work in progress”. And you better get used to that face, because his character is the lead role in the next Chronicle.

This story is more about Lucy and Edmund making that transformation from children to young adults. Lucy gets most of the plot line in the movie and it is quite skewed from the true story from C.S. Lewis. However, these modern storytellers kept the same over all idea of our characters who are charged with making the right decisions under great temptations.

In short I believe that this movie was VERY well done and as a stand alone movie it is a great night at the cinema that your kids will enjoy as well as you adults! Just look past the subtle changes in the story line and quick moments of bad acting and you’ve got your self a 4 star movie!! Hope you go out and enjoy it. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about the movie below. Agree with me! Disagree with me!! As long as we’re still talking!

October 1st was a great day to get married. We shot a Korean/Christian wedding and it was a blast. This was our first wedding that an actual catastrophe occurred! No worries, it wasn’t on our end….but somehow the bouquets went missing! Not just the bride’s, but all of the bride’s maid’s bouquets too! While many brides would have lost their cool, turned a bright angry red color, and strangled anyone within a 20ft radius, Hye Young handled it like a pro! She never lost her smile and even though the ceremony started almost an hour late, it was still a beautiful wedding.

The big day was held at Global Harvest Church ( A New Song Church) in Plano, TX and the pastor translated his English to Korean. This obviously made the ceremony twice as long but 3 times as meaningful. It’s easy for us American’s to forget the beauty of another language and the rich culture that can be attached to it. We saw a few Korean traditions that we were not aware of before this day and we left with a sense of enrichment. We were also reminded that the things we see in our traditional weddings here in the states have deep meaning behind them each of them and it would be a terrible thing to forget that. The reception was held at III Forks in Dallas, TX and that’s where many of the traditions took place. All in all this wedding reminded us of the beauty behind tradition, family, and culture. Thank you to this wonderful family and we at Memories Films wish you guys a life filled with laughter and love!

9 Things I Would Change About “Unstoppable“

1. Spend more of that $100 million budget on A List Writers rather than A List Actors. This script didn’t require great acting skills, although I think that Chris Pine and Denzel Washington did a great job. As a matter of fact, I think all of the actors did a great job! However, with a script like this, Twentieth Century Fox wasted money by paying for something and not using it to it’s full potential. It’s like they bought a the fastest car on the market, like the Bugatti Veyron and only driving it to church on Sundays. What a waste!! :/

2. Ex-nay the media and their crude exposition! The script writers take an easy approach to tell the audience what they need to know. The media comes in full blast with it’s “educating” the public about the train. If we look back on movies like Speed or Twister we can see how to effectively use the media to communicate to the audience without the story line suffering. The news became just as important of a character as any of the individuals in this extraordinary circumstance. In short, every time this form of exposition was implemented I was reminded one way or another, that I was in a movie made in 1991.

3. Character Development. This is my #1 pet peeve of all time regarding story telling. If the story teller wants me to invest in a character, they MUST give me something of substance to invest into! In Unstoppable we are very quickly thrown into many characters with cliche back stories (which frankly doesn’t bother me), ordinary work place circumstances, and one very big extraordinary dilemma. There are people dying and getting hurt and I realized……I could care less about these people. The News Media told me why I should care….but I didn’t FEEL it. Just because the News Media outlet informs us of his patriotism doesn’t mean that it will summon up strong emotions to our audience. In fact, it’s a MAJOR clue that in a few minutes this new character in the movie will get seriously injured or maybe even die. Telling the audience facts about a person is not what makes us relate to the individual. Watch the movie Brothers to see how to make a war vet relate-able.

4. More creativity when telling a cliche back story. I mentioned before that I don’t really mind a cliche back story. There is no story that hasn’t been told already in some form or fashion. I have a problem with cliche when you approach it without even trying to be creative and unique. Our Co-star Will, played by Chris Pine from Star Trek (2009), has some very shady past that has separated him from his family and he obviously wants things to get back to the way they were. He also seems to have some rich uncle that is…..somebody important?? I don’t really know, they dropped the ball on that one.

5. No pay off to some potentially great sub-story lines. Here at Storied we’ve been discussing how this movie got the green light. It must have been the combination of a proven Director, Tony Scott, two blockbuster actors like Denzel and Chris Pine, and finally the writer Mark Bomback from a few successful scripts we’ve seen over the past 12 years. I’m sure that Twentieth Century Fox is saying to themselves, “Why didn’t we at least read the script?” “I thought you read it?” “No, I thought you read it.” And Tony Scott says, “None of you read it? Because I didn’t read it either!!” And Mark Bomback is at home scrambling for that rough draft of a script he jotted down on paper called “Unstoppable”. This movie felt like a first stage writing that needed another six months of solid work.

6. Comic relief character was run over by the inertia of the movie. We had this really great character with yellow glasses and a fantastic yellow beard and an all denim attire! He was great!!! At least he could have been. his part got ran over…not by that train….but the interrupting news media who had the incessant need to stop everything and “inform” us of something stupid, like how many oil tankers are dangerously close to the bridge that is expected to derail the train full of explosives.

7. Develop the Random Know-It-All Character to be an actual Character. Kevin Corrigan does a great job playing a federal inspector who happens to be at the station’s head quarters to talk to a class of children. His character, Inspector Werner, had just about any answer the were looking for and was always right. The script didn’t allow this character to become the hero that he actually was. We wanted to see a chracter a little more like Jeff Goldbloom in Independence Day (1996) or even like Gary Sinise in Mission to Mars (2000) I believe they could have done a little more with this character than just a random happen-stance that ended up saving a lot of lives.

8. Music is a score not a soundtrack. This is a small comment that may not be shared by my fellow film critics. In an artsy movie like The Last Kiss (2006) or 500 Days of Summer (2009) it is totally ok to have a soundtrack. Songs by various artist that fit the mood and circumstances to help portray the Story Teller’s vision…Sound Track. In a hopeful “blockbuster” like Unstoppable was supposed to be, they should have stuck with a score. I’m defining a score as delicately placed music just under recognition of the audience that helps move the story emotionally. Again…I’m being a little over critical here, but I was distracted by the use of music especially when we were introduced to Frank’s daughters.

9. Don’t use the same camera dolly and sweeping motion every 3 seconds. My final point that will make you think I’m a film snob…I got really bored with the cinematography. There’s only so many ways you can shoot something like a train. I admit the cinematographers had a more difficult job than you may realize. The script called for a train to be traveling at a fast distance, and by the nature of trains they cannot veer off course or have too many variables that can add a new element to the situation. The cockpit, where the engineers sit was a small space with little room for interesting camera angles. They did a great job at first making this tight spot an energetic piece of cinema. Then it quickly became apparent that they ran out of ideas and just recycled shot after shot. I assume their was no story board.

Well there you have it! Those are the 9 things we would like to change about “Unstoppable”. Do you agree or disagree?? Discussion is welcome and you will be heard! Leave your thoughts below.

It is now the second day of the last month in this year! As I think back on 2010 I can recall some of the toughest days in my life swirled with some of the most exciting times. Storied Productions has seen major growth with the launch of Memories Films . We will total around 18 weddings in 2010 and we have higher hopes for 2011.

Just as any new company we have had some growing pains and hard lessons to learn. I believe that 2011 will be the year that Storied has a chance to get comfortable in the rhythms that have been set by the enormous work load we experienced these past several months. This will be the year that we really implement that old cliche, “Work smarter not harder.” So what can you expect to see from us in the next 12 months?
Lets be honest. In this industry things can change without warning. Our goal is to create a company that will stand the test of time and we can’t do that without big dreams and hard workers! We’ve been blessed with both! You will see us make quiet strides to streamline our internal efficiencies and produce a greater volume of shows, weddings, commercials, and websites. You will see a modest attempt to get our business known by our beloved Dentonites (Denton, TX). It is important to us to develop long lasting relationships with local business owners as well as residents. If you watch carefully, you will see Storied Productions rise to the next level of professionalism as we take what we’ve learned and apply it to each client, story, website, or communications set before us.

Mark Twain once said, “If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.“Well we’ve been holding this cat by the tail since August 2008 and we don’t plan on letting it go! The continuation of education is something highly regarded around here and we aren’t really talking about degree programs and certificates. Those things have their place in the world, but I’m talking about learning from life experiences. We take each production and learn something new. You will see us become even more knowledgeable this next year and if 2010 has taught us anything, we know that 2011′s education will come with a large dose of humility!
We would be honored if you chose to follow us as we take on 2011 with a healthy dose of confidence merged with a healthy dose of fear and humility. On that note, feel free to leave your comments on our blog and visit our facebook page!
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We’d also like to make a quick shout-out to our new friends at A Different Perspective Photography. What a great crew of photographers to work with! We recommend them to anyone looking for photography work! Tell them Storied Productions or Memories Films

Let’s all welcome Disney back to “par”! I must say that after The Princess & the Frog I was worried that Disney would be done with making fairy tale’s that would be cherished for years to come without the help of their counterpart Pixar. Tangled was everything I remember the great Disney classics to be with an even bigger scale.
I remember when Disney’s Beauty & the Beast was so highly revered for the CGi they used in the dance sequence in that ball room scene. It was a breathtaking “crane shot” that started high above Bell & Beast dance and the camera swooped down and around them making for a dynamic shot that hadn’t ever been done so well in a cartoon feature. Tangled was of course entirely CGi and the grand scale was fantastic!
As you may have noticed the more recent feature cartoons have strayed away from the musical style that I grew up with. I’m glad to report that Disney has really impressed us with another soundtrack that is sure to win awards!
In short, I recommend this movie to families who want to introduce their kids to a new Disney movie that will join the ranks of a classic in the years to come. While the movie isn’t perfect in all areas of the writing, it is truly a good modern adaptation that captures the essence of a timeless tale.

P.S. No need to pay the extra money for 3D. I went to the 3D viewing and determined that 2D would have been just as effective, if not better. Let me know if you agree.

September 25th was a busy busy day for Memories Films! Xavier and Tiffany’s wedding started at 10 am and we arrived at the groom’s house by 7am and it was a rainy Saturday morning. Even though it was rainy and early the groom and his guys greeted us and we quickly got to work. One of our videographers stood out in the rain while protecting the camera just to get that great shot of the car in the garage. That sort of shot would have been too intimidating for some videographers…but he is fearless and it shows in his work! We’re lucky to have him… Thanks Jorge!!

We were also lucky enough to have the ceremony at a familiar chapel called The Marty Leonard Chapel in Ft. Worth. We were concerned because the clouds and rain were really taking away our light, and that chapel is made of mostly windows. It turned out to be some really nice footage despite the lack of direct sunlight.