Chosen to be Microfilmmaker Magazine's lead camera analyst and reviewer due to his expertise in camerawork, Andy Yardy has over 10 years experience shooting documentaries in the most remote portions of the globe. Based out of LA, he creates films under his production company, New Link Media. As a filmmaker, I dreamed of the day that I could toss my standard def camera for a high Def one…

    Future Shorts, the film label behind Rock'n' Roll Cinema and Secret Cinema , as well as global distributor of short films, has released its first DVD, a bit of a greatest hits called Adventures in Short Film - Volume 1. They chose well for their inaugural compilation.   As with a short story, short films can do great things with a hint of strangen…

Given that the UK Film Council have announced that the next few months will be the 'Summer Of British Film' (appropriate given the bloody awful weather at the moment) it's good to see that Special Edition # 20 (yes, break out the champagne as we've made it to 20) has plenty of great British films for you to enjoy in the comfort of your own homes. Alongside the homegrown product, L…

  There are plenty of surprises cooking up in the Shah family's Indian restaurant in Pratibha Parmar's debut feature, Nina's Heavenly Delights. Described by one of the cast as "My Beautiful Restaurant," the film's director acknowledges that ground- breaking launderette drama's influence upon her colourful and amusing romp across some of the boundaries that c…

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner – and there are many – you may be happy that there’s a new book exploring the classic film. However, if terms such as ‘Intertextuality’, ‘Liminal Space’ and ‘Cyberethnography’ are liable to give you a sudden headache then maybe you’d better check out Laurence Boyce’s review of The Blade Runner…

It seems to me that I always talk about the weather in the introduction to these columns. I’ve vowed that I was going to stop that. Unfortunately, Danny Boyle’s latest film has kind of scuppered that. So I have to mention that, considering the general rain, it’s good that Special Edition # 21 has a new film that can bring some brightness into all our lives. Laurence Boyce also…

You remember where you were when you saw it happen. It was a normal Tuesday lunchtime in the UK, just after Neighbours in fact. Flicking through the channels, every one of them seemed to be showing a disaster movie, involving cinema’s most recognisable skyline. Like most of the western world, you watched, incredulously, as fiction and reality merged. No one knew then what was going to…

This book is the complete guide to digital filmmaking by the owner and chief engineer of DVfilm Digital Transfers. Everything from selecting a camera to promoting and marketing your finished film is covered in this comprehensive guide, written specifically for those who wish to shoot with digital cameras and project their movie on 35mm film. The author, Marcus Van Bavel, is an electrical engineer…

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited will close the London Film Festival tonight, with a sold-out screening in the West End.  The film follows three brothers - reunited for the first time in the year since their father's death - who take a train journey across northern India, in the hope of renewing their relationships, finding someone they lost and, in true gap-year style, findin…

Laurence Boyce takes time out of his busy schedule (well, takes time out of watching DVDs) to bring you the latest round of the DVDs that should either rock your world or destroy your faith in humanity in Special Edition # 12. Note that there's one film he doesn't like at all. I wonder if you'll be able to tell which one it is... Is The Da Vinci Code (Sony Pictures Releasing)…

Subtitled "The Oil Crash," this is, as co-director/producer Basil Gelpke puts it, "A film that promises to be a bit of a downer." He isn't  really joking: the documentary looks at the amount of oil likely to be left in the ground (not much) and what preparations have been made for a post-plentiful-oil society (not many). It's a wake-up call that comes without t…

  Stranded on that no-man's land between graduation and a media career? So was Engish Television and Film graduate Sabrina Ferro, but no more. Instead she's launched a high quality glossy mag aimed at people like herself and at those on the lookout for rising talent. Media Directions, as the director's chair on the front cover exclaims, is dedicated to showcasing…

Here's some picks of filmmaker owned and distributed free (as in lunch) feature films you can download or watch online that really stood out over the last year. Most of them are 'pay what you want' and as ultra-indies they are produced, distributed and promoted by the filmmaker - so anything you donate goes to help them pay off their debts and make more. Nasty Old People Hanna Sköld, Sweden, 20…

Warning: spoilers (as far as I can spoil the plot of a very famous 8-year-old book for you) Ah. "We need to talk about Kevin." The words that the eponymous Kevin (Ezra Miller/Jasper Newell/ Rocky Duer)'s mother Eva (Tilda Swinton) never manages to say to her sweet, blinkered husband Franklin (John C Reilly). Lynne Ramsay's fine adaptation of the very unloveable 2003 novel dispenses with the e…

Life is a strange thing. It keeps interfering when you want to do a DVD column. Yes, due to lots and lots of things, Special Edition has been away for a long time. But it’s never been forgotten and Laurence Boyce returns with Special Edition # 29 complete with lots and lots of discs, including an absolutely ton of British cinema, that you can get to keep you entertained whilst you absolutely igno…

Laurence Boyce brings you an eclectic selection of some of the best DVD releases available over the coming weeks. If you like Cubans, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, Anime and Francis Bacon then you’re in for a treat … and you probably also have weird things on your walls. Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba) (Mr Bongo Films) is, simply put, one of the best films ever made. Made in 1964, it’s ta…

Any book that attempts to reinforce the idea that film is, first and foremost, a visual medium has to be a good thing. 'Cinematic Storytelling' certainly does just that. Directors, writers, editors and cinematographers will all glean much of use from this book. Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions ISBN: ISBN 1-932907-05-X Published date: Current Country of origin: US Subject area: Visual Film Na…

Look out as the heavy hitters from Cannes 2006 are starting to make their way onto DVD as Special Edition # 14 contains reviews two of the very best from last year’s festival. Laurence Boyce also sees that DVD producers are suddenly suffering from outbreaks of common sense, as numerous great –and forgotten – TV shows are unleashed on the buying public. There’s even a lit…

Shane Meadows has been awarded almost iconic status as one of the pioneers of low budget filmmaking in Britain, which he certainly is, but some people find his work on screen doesn't always reach – on the audience satisfaction scale - the parts others claim it does reach. This week his latest opus Dead Man's Shoes opens Stateside in Greenwich Village, the heartland of New Yor…

I marched thru the night, looking up to the snow kissed trees, and arrived too late for Cloud Atlas. Half an hour later a film I didn’t know, beyond reading that it was about a student dropout in Berlin, and was Black and White. I dashed back across the road for a thai curry, laden with mushrooms, which I left. I returned in time to get a seat and a small bag of popcorn, hoping this would not be…

  CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD You've heard about it, Chris Morris' jihad comedy, making terrorism funny and all that. How does he do it? Well the Dad's Army influence is certainly there: the comedy is in the power play and false grandeur of some deluded blokes who want to show the world what for. Four young men with very similar accents to those of the lead characters here managed just t…

  It seems that DVD companies have decided to educate us in cinema history as they’ve gone ‘auteur crazy’ with a number of box sets and new releases containing the greatest work of some of the most famous and influential directors of the past hundred years. So if your DVD collection is mostly populated by the films of Steve Guttenberg and Pauly Shore, then you&rsq…

It’s starting to become an interesting time to be a DVD fan. With an increasing number of movies being released on the format for a second time (watch out in the next column for a review of the upcoming ‘Definitive Edition’ of Fight Club which might gall the thousands who bought the already extra laden DVD only a – comparatively - scant few years ago) and talk of B…

  by Robert Latham Brown Chalk Hill Books, L.A, March 2006, 416 pages, $29.95 Low budget film production is a chicken and egg scenario. For the production to be successful you need experience to avoid potentially costly mistakes. If you have that sort of experience already, you are unlikely to be making low budget films at all. If you want to go the low budget route, how do you get…

It’s the time again to move your eyes away from the screen and let them drift over to the printed word. In Page To Screen # 3, those books that are influenced by – and, indeed, influence - the worlds of film and television are brought to the fore as Laurence Boyce examines how someone is making a monkey out of biographies, someone else is making us nostalgic for classic Saturda…