Linked List: September 20, 2018

Thursday, 20 September 2018

Cary Joji Fukunaga to Direct the Next James Bond Movie ★

Henry Chu, reporting for Variety:

Cary Joji Fukunaga will direct the new James Bond film, the producers announced Thursday. The 25th Bond installment will begin filming in London, at Pinewood Studios, on March 4, 2019, with a worldwide release on Feb. 14, 2020, a few months after its original target date.

Fukunaga, who won acclaim for 2015 war film “Beasts of No Nation,” replaces Danny Boyle, who exited the project last month over creative differences with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson and returning star Daniel Craig. Fukunaga will be the Bond franchise’s first American director. [...]

Fukunaga won an Emmy in 2014 for helming the entire first season (eight episodes) of “True Detective” and giving the crime series a cinematic look. More recently, he directed multiple episodes of Netflix’s “Maniac,” a new half-hour comedy show starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill.

I’m usually not an OMG guy but I just used “OMG” when I texted this news to a friend. I’m just floored by this. Season 1 of True Detective is one of my very favorite cinematic achievements of the decade, right up there with Mad Men, The Tree of Life, and Django Unchained. I’ll add Inception to make it a top 5 list.

Without spoiling anything from True Detective, can you imagine a Bond scene as intense and gritty as the six-minute-long tracking shot scene from episode 4? Fukunaga is exactly what the Bond franchise needs after the all-style/no-sense Skyfall/Spectre duology from Sam Mendes.

(And I’m glad to see EON break their heretofore unwritten rule that Americans couldn’t direct Bond movies. Steven Spielberg wanted to — and because EON turned him down, he and George Lucas turned the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom into a Bond movie opening.)

Short Film by Jon M. Chu Shot Handheld With iPhone XS Max ★

Wired:

To test the new hardware, we gave an iPhone XS Max to the film director Jon M. Chu. The Crazy Rich Asians director shot a short film for Wired, and the results are truly special.

“I had literally zero equipment,” says Chu. “I see a lot of samples of iPhone videos, and sometimes they use different lenses or professional lights. I didn’t have any of that.”

Chu shot the film — a view into dancer Luigi Rosado’s rehearsal space, titled Somewhere — in 4K using the iPhone’s native camera app. It was all shot handheld using the phone’s default stabilizing system. And while he edited the video on a computer, Chu didn’t apply any color correction or any post-production tricks. What you’re seeing is the default output of the iPhone’s camera.

Chu is, of course, a masterful filmmaker. He could make a great movie with an iPhone 3GS. But it’s fascinating to see the potential of the XS camera. This is just a gorgeous film. And it doesn’t just show off the image quality and slow motion capabilities — it really shows off the stabilization. When you watch the tracking shot at the end keep in mind he wasn’t using a gimbal — it was truly handheld.

The democratization of professional quality video cameras for filmmaking is one of the great technical achievements of the last two decades. 20 years ago you’d have had to spend thousands of dollars on film to make a short movie that looks this good. Now you just need your iPhone.

Hodinkee: ‘How Apple’s Awesome Motion Watch Faces Are Made’ ★

Stephen Pulvirent, Hodinkee:

Apple isn’t exactly a company known for offering frequent peeks behind the proverbial curtain. Having just reviewed the new Apple Watch Series 4, getting to see how Apple made the incredible “motion faces” (the vapor, fire/water, etc.) feels like an extra treat. Getting this kind of perspective though shows just how dedicated the team over there is to nailing the details — Apple took something that seems relatively basic at first and pursued it to its logical conclusion, giving us something awesome in the process.

“We probably could have done this digitally, but we actually shot all of this practically in a studio” says Alan Dye, Apple Vice President of User Interface Design, of the motion faces. “What I love about the fact that we did this is that it’s just so indicative of how the design team works. It was really about bringing together some of our various talents to create these faces. There are of course art directors, and color experts, and graphic designers, but also model makers who helped build these structures that we would eventually, you know, set on fire.”

I saw some of this footage last week after the Apple event. So cool. I love that they built molds in the shape of the new Series 4 displays. I could watch an hour of this footage.

Senator Ron Wyden: U.S. Senate, Staff Targeted by State-Backed Hackers ★

Frank Bajak and Raphael Satter

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a Wednesday letter to Senate leaders that his office discovered that “at least one major technology company” has warned an unspecified number of senators and aides that their personal email accounts were “targeted by foreign government hackers.” Similar methods were employed by Russian military agents who leaked the contents of private email inboxes to influence the 2016 elections.

Wyden did not specify the timing of the notifications, but a Senate staffer said they occurred “in the last few weeks or months.” The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

But the senator said the Office of the Sergeant at Arms , which oversees Senate security, informed legislators and staffers that it has no authority to help secure personal, rather than official, accounts.

I’m going to guess the “major technology company” is Google, simply because Gmail is the leading email provider. If you ever wonder why Ron Wyden seems almost amazingly well-informed on very technical computer security matters, keep in mind that Christopher Soghoian is on his staff as a senior advisor.