DP Jonathan Furmanski–who’s repped for features, TV and commercials by Zero Gravity Management–returns behind the camera for season 3 of Search Party, on HBO Max June 25. The cult hit show created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter, follows a group of self-absorbed friends who find themselves in ever-deeper water trying to find an acquaintance from college who’s disappeared. With the third season bringing both a change in genre and distributor, Furmanski had to adapt the look of Search Party to suit. To do this, he needed to cleverly light a courtroom drama on the sixth floor of a working courthouse. His solution was to use LED blankets in the windows, dressed with mullions, transoms and curtains to replicate blown out windows. This gave him the freedom to maximize camera coverage and keep the courtroom drama tense….
London-headquartered Ncam Technologies, a developer of real-time augmented reality technology for the media and entertainment industries, has signed a deal with Lisbon-based reseller Pantalha for the distribution of Ncam products throughout Portugal. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Pantalha represents a number of leading broadcast technology companies covering every stage of the content creation process. It deals with all the major Portuguese broadcasters, production houses and telcos, as well as the education and live events sectors….
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More