The Toronto International Film Festival, which wrapped earlier this week, is often viewed as a harbinger of things to come at the Academy Awards. Since 2007, every Best Picture Oscar winner has played at the Toronto event, from No Country For Old Men to this year’s Argo.
SHOOT too will delve into the Toronto Festival for its Oscar implications—briefly in this piece and more deeply in the weeks to come. But to focus solely on the awards season is to miss some worthwhile developments in Toronto whether or not they ultimately resonate with Motion Picture Academy members.
For example, there were many firsts at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, perhaps most prominently being director debuts. For example, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner directed his first feature, You Are Here (SHOOTonline, 9/8). So too did actor Jason Bateman showcase his first theatrical motion picture as a director, Bad Words (SHOOTonline, 9/8), as did Mike Meyers with the documentary Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.
Another first-time director branched out from a family tree of filmmakers. Gia Coppola—granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola and the niece of Sofia Coppola—directed Palo Alto, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, Telluride and then at the Toronto Fest.
Based on a book by James Franco and starring the actor as a soccer coach who makes advances on a teenager, Palo Alto centers on four high school students and their vulnerabilities.
On the other end of the continuum opposite all the firsts at the Toronto Festival were memorable lasts. Two films with the late Glee actor Corey Monteith premiered: McCanick in which he plays a felon on the lam; and All the Wrong Reasons where he plays a department store manager. The Toronto Fest’s closing film was Life of Crime directed by Daniel Schechter and starring Jennifer Aniston and John Hawkes. It’s an adaptation of the crime novel The Switch authored by Elmore Leonard who passed away in August.
And another most memorable last was one of the final performances by James Gandolfini who died of cardiac arrest in June. Premiering at Toronto—and just released by Fox Searchlight—Enough Said was directed by Nicole Holofcener and stars Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as middle-aged divorcees who start dating each other. Gandolfini portrays a sensitive father who falls for Louis-Dreyfus’ more hesitant character.
Enough Said was filmed about a year before Gandolfini’s passing. His final film, the crime movie Animal Rescue, is expected to be released next year.
SHOOT connected with the cinematographers on Enough Said and Palo Alto for their perspectives, respectively, on one of Gandolfini’s final film performances and Coppola’s first feature directorial gig.
Xavier Grobet, ASC For Xavier Grobet, ASC, being selected to lens Enough Said was a two-pronged honor—to get to again collaborate with acclaimed director Holofcener on her return to feature filmmaking after Please Give in 2010; and to work with Gandolfini.
“Jim’s passing was so sad. It was such an honor to work with him,” said Grobet. “He was such a great actor and a great guy—super charming and amazing in the way he took on more of a regular guy role. The chemistry between him and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was fantastic. I love the movie.”
As for Holofcener, Grobet first worked with the director on a first season episode of the HBO series Enlightened. They then again teamed on a 20th Century Fox TV/NBC pilot, I Hate That I Love You, followed by a return engagement on season two of Enlightened.
“When I met Nicole prior to Enlightened, we just hit it off and she invited me to do the show. I love her voice and sensibilities. I was very excited to get the opportunity to do a feature film with her.”
Grobet deployed ARRI’s Alexa on Enough Said. He said he operated the Alexa in ARRIRAW mode “to get the highest quality image possible.”
Among the challenges Grobet faced on Enough Said were a tight schedule and an original plan to capture three different moving car interior dialogue scenes in one night. The latter wasn’t feasible so rear projection was deployed, providing a controlled environment so that the acting could be fully explored. Grobet observed that for Holofcener, actors and their performances are the priority focus, particularly for Enough Said in which the chemistry between the performers is so essential to the story.
Grobet is from Mexico City where he went to film school, successfully launching his career as a cinematographer there. He moved to Los Angeles where he had “to start all over again,” the big break coming when he met director Julian Schnabel and shot his Before Night Falls, which put him on the proverbial map stateside. Grobet’s work on Before Night Falls earned him and DP Guillermo Rosas an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
Grobet’s body of work spans varied disciplines and genres, including commercials (Miller High Life, McDonald’s, Secret, X-box), television (Deadwood, Enlightened, Back In The Game) and theatrical features (I Love You Phillip Morris, Music And Lyrics, Nine Lives, The Woodsman, Cavedweller, Esmeralda Comes By Night, and Sex, Shame And Tears). He earned his ASC designation several years ago.
Grobet said that unfortunately his schedule didn’t permit him to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the special presentation screening of Enough Said. He is currently in New Orleans shooting Focus, a Warner Bros. feature directed by Glen Ficarra and John Requa. Ficarra and Requa have a track record of collaboration with Grobet, having earlier teamed on I Love You Phillip Morris as well as a 20th Century Fox TV/ABC pilot, Back In The Game.
Autumn Cheyenne Durald Cinematographer Autumn Cheyenne Durald found herself drawn to director Gia Coppola and her film Palo Alto. On the latter score, Durald related. “Gia did an amazing job of adapting James’s [Franco] novel. I loved the script when I first read it and instantly related to all of the characters and situations. I immediately wanted to get to know these characters and could already imagine them on screen. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always remember how you felt in high school, what boy or girl you liked, what sports you played, who your teachers were. This film takes you back in time, and instantly makes you feel nostalgic for those days. I love stories that do that. There is something for everyone to relate to in all of our characters. I wanted the photography to feel authentic and real, not get in the way of the story, but still very stylized and captivating. I always strive to create images that affect you emotionally, and that help you relate to the characters. After reading her script it was definitely clear that I wanted to create honest images that were authentic to the world the characters lived in.”
Durald first met Coppola through a mutual friend. “Gia was shooting some test scenes for Palo Alto early on and I ending up shooting one of them,” Durald recalled. “Funny enough it was the soccer championship scene, which is one of my favorite scenes in our film. After the test, she asked me to shoot a fashion film for Opening Ceremony. Following that project I think we realized how much we had in common visually and overall we got along really well. That ended up being a great experience working with her and her producer Sebastian [Pardo] so they asked me to shoot Palo Alto, and since then we’ve done all of our film projects together—in total, six projects including Palo Alto.“
This collaborative relationship has lasted three years and counting. Durald said of Coppola, “She’s a dear friend and in the simplest terms, we just get each other. We have similar tastes in films and photography, and I understand what she wants out of the visuals. There is definitely a trust in our filmmaking process and she gives me the freedom to take risks and find a unique visual style. We know what each other likes and dislikes, and at this point I know what she won’t like before she gets a chance to say it. Gia has an amazing eye for choosing actors. We had a large cast and a lot of great actors involved. I wanted our actors to have freedom on set, and not interfere with their process. We always tried to pre-rig our sets when possible and light the space so they could move around freely. It’s very important to Gia and I for the actors to feel comfortable on set and not have the camerawork or lighting interfere with their process. We strove to create images and scenes that we would love to watch in the cinema. We very much know what we like to watch on screen and we would look for opportunities to bring that to life. To be able to hang out with friends, work with talented actors, and create beautiful images at the same time is the best part of my job.”
Still, Palo Alto provided its share of creative challenges, perhaps the biggest being that the majority of the script takes place at night. “Doing big night exteriors on a low budget feature is difficult,” observed Durald. “I’m very happy with how we lit these scenes. Being creative and adding to/augmenting whatever existing practical lighting we had—this was key to pulling off some of our setups. We specifically chose most of our night exterior locations because they had some existing street lamps that gave us a nice base exposure to work with. Having an awareness of our limitations and coming up with creative solutions was very important on this film. We had a big cast and lots of scenes to shoot on a tight schedule. Although challenging, we made it work.
Durald shot Palo Alto with the RED Epic, Panavision Super Speeds and Angenieux HR zooms. “I mostly shoot with Panavision glass,” she shared. “I tend to use older glass when shooting with digital cameras, and this film called for this treatment. Lots of our references were derived from film, the photography of Stephen Shore, Eggleston and films like American Graffiti, so it was crucial to build that texture into our digital image. I started out shooting mostly on 35mm so it’s important for me to give digital that filmic look. The visuals feel more real to me, more authentic and cinematic on film. There are projects I shoot that call for a sharper, slicker image—this was not one of those projects. I enjoy shooting with the Epic and find that I’m able to create beautiful images that feel filmic and have a unique texture.”
The cinematographer enjoyed the experience of the Toronto Film Festival. “It’s an amazing honor to have our film be accepted into the Toronto International Film Festival and to be among some of the most noteworthy films out there right now. I’m so proud of Gia and everyone that worked on this film. Without our crew, friends and family we wouldn’t have been able to make this film happen. So far the festival run has been very successful; it played Telluride, Venice and now Toronto, which is the only festival I was able to attend. It’s been so much fun watching it here in Toronto with a big audience that is enthusiastic for cinema. This film means a lot to me, and it’s been one of the most memorable projects I’ve shot so far. Being able to share my work with this audience has been a pleasure and I hope to continue to have my work shown at this amazing festival.”
Interested in movies since she was a youngster, Durald said that when she ultimately realized that her real passion was for photography and filmmaking, she enrolled at the American Film Institute to study cinematography. “I worked on a few documentary projects prior to AFI that were very educational, and then between my first and second year at AFI was my first break, I shot a feature film called Macho. That was a great experience, we shot on 35mm and had a lot of fun exploring and experimenting. We were like a family on that project and made a very intimate film about a long distance relationship. It won the best micro budget feature award at the Raindance Film Festival and was purchased by IFC. After graduating I began working in commercials, one very important job in my career being the Levi’s “We Are All Workers” campaign [as second unit DP and the late, great Harris Savides, ASC, as DP] with director Melodie McDaniel. [Durald was DP on the Latin American Levi’s spot for the campaign.] Around that same time is when I met Gia. I’ve been very fortunate to work with some amazing directors that share similar taste in visual style and film aesthetic. I love working with directors who have a strong sense of how they want to affect the audience visually. Being a director of photography is an amazing job, telling stories and photographing people, I couldn’t imagine myself doing any other job.”
Return engagement In between the Toronto Fest’s firsts and lasts are a number of return engagements, a prime example being that of Oscar-winning (The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara) documentarian Errol Morris whose latest film, The Unknown Known, was screened. Produced by Moxie Pictures in partnership with History Films, Participant Media and RADiUS-TWC (an arm of The Weinstein Company), The Unknown Known—which debuted at Telluride followed by the Venice Film Festival and then Toronto—explores former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s career in Washington, D.C., from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to being one of the key planners and architects of the Iraq War in 2003. Rather than conduct a conventional interview, Morris has Rumsfeld discuss his “snowflakes,” which refer to the enormous archive of memos he wrote across nearly 50 years in Congress, the White House, in business, and twice at the Pentagon.
Morris had prior to this last been at the Toronto Festival in 2010 to showcase Tabloid, the first feature film out of Moxie, the production house which is also the director’s commercialmaking and branded content roost. Robert Fernandez, CEO/partner of Moxie, was an executive producer on Tabloid and a producer (along with Morris and Amanda Branson Gill) of The Unknown Known. (Fernandez was also a co-producer on The Fog of War back when he and Morris were with @radical.media.)
While there’s a sense of anticipation over Morris’ work given his Oscar pedigree and reputation, that dynamic was heightened further by the timing of the Toronto Fest’s presentation of The Unknown Known which took place the night before President Barack Obama was scheduled to go to Congress to seek approval of military action in Syria. Fernandez recalled that similarly The Fog of War was released “a day or two before we invaded Iraq.”
Such topical timing cannot be planned. “We’ve been working on The Unknown Known for the better part of two years,” said Fernandez. The festival circuit screenings were designed to drum up press coverage and public interest—with no expectation that the subject matter would turn out to have the compelling immediacy and relevance it’s attained given the events that are unfolding in the Middle East and the chain reaction globally.
Unlike many films, The Unknown Known wasn’t at Toronto in search of a distributor. As is the norm with Morris’ films (the exception being Tabloid), The Unknown Known hit the festivals having already secured distribution, this time with RADiUS-TWC handling theatrical in North America, History Films with domestic TV rights and Sky Atlantic in the U.K.
Fernandez enjoys a longstanding closeknit collaborative relationship with Morris. The Moxie CEO attributes it in part to “the beauty of advertising…With filmmakers, I’m their agent, manager and producer all in one. It’s a wide ranging relationship that stems from the nature of how you work with directors in advertising. It’s so different from the relationship between filmmakers and movie studios where directors jump from one to another. Crossing over to doing films while staying active in commercials works for Errol and I think both [disciplines] benefit.
Morris has directed more than 1,000 TV commercials over the years spanning such clients as Apple, Levi’s, ESPN, Nike, Target, Citibank, Miller High Life and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). For the latter, he helmed “Photobooth,” which won the primetime commercial Emmy Award in 2001.
Moxie has produced commercials and feature films with several of its directors, including Morris, Henry Lu and Tim Skousen. Moxie produced the documentaries University of Sing Sing for Skousen and earlier Run to the East for Lu. HBO acquired University of Sing Sing and is scheduled to air it next year.
Moxie also broke new ground with its first narrative feature film, Austenland, which marked the directorial debut of Jerusha Hess (SHOOTonline, 1/25). Austenland premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year as one of 16 movies selected for that fest’s U.S. Dramatic Competition.
Oscar derby Taking the most prominent Toronto Festival honor—this year’s Audience Award—was director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. Over the years, 11 Toronto Audience Award recipients have gone on to garner Best Picture Oscar nominations: Chariots of Fire; The Big Chill; Places in the Heart; Shine; Life is Beautiful; American Beauty; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Slumdog Millionaire; Precious; The King’s Speech; and Silver Linings Playbook. Chariots of Fire, American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech all wound up winning the Academy Award for the year’s Best Motion Picture.
The Audience Award also bodes well for McQueen and other actors and artisans on 12 Years a Slave, including Chinetel Ejcofor for Best Actor, Michael Fassbender for Supporting Actor, Lupita Nyong’o and Sarah Paulson for Supporting Actress, John Ridley for Best Adapted Screenplay, cinematographer Sean Bobbit, editor Joe Walker, production designer Adam Stockhausen, music composer Hans Zimmer and costume designer Patricia Norris.
The 2013 Toronto Festival drew some 4,700 attendees, 10 percent more than last year’s event. Industry delegates represented nearly 2,600 companies and came to Toronto from 80 countries.
All territories saw an increase in delegate numbers–most notably attendance from Africa which went up 50 percent, followed by Central America at 43 percent, Canada which rose 18 percent, and the U.S. at seven percent.
