FILM FORMALLY is back! This month, friend of the podcast Sophy Romvari’s films are premiering on the CRITERION CHANNEL and to mark the occasion we’ve recorded a set of commentaries for six of these films - NINE BEHIND, IT’S HIM, PUMPKIN MOVIE,

Commentary 5 - IN DOG YEARS with Sophy Romvari

Apr 12th, 2022 15m 8s

Commentary 4 - NORMAN NORMAN with Sophy Romvari

Apr 5th, 2022 13m 40s

Commentary 3 - PUMPKIN MOVIE with Sophy Romvari

Mar 29th, 2022 15m 59s

Commentary 2 - IT’S HIM with Sophy Romvari

Mar 22nd, 2022 16m 29s

Commentary 1 - NINE BEHIND with Sophy Romvari

Mar 15th, 2022 28m 26s

1-Year Anniversary Q&A [Featuring Wong Kar-wai and Snyder Cut Hot Takes]

Apr 29th, 2021 59m 6s

It’s our one-year, 43rd-episode spectacular, and we’re once again answering your questions! We go deep on the new WONG KAR-WAI restorations, our thoughts on Zach Snyder’s JUSTICE LEAGUE, the merits of handheld camera operation, film scores, not

S3E10 - Rescuing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with Benji Heran & Jordan Krug

Mar 30th, 2021 1h 8m

How an acclaimed director’s versions of a famous film be unavailable for decades — when there’s nothing stopping their release? How can a small group of fans gather the evidence and means to reconstruct those versions? How can they finally have

S3E09 - Adapting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Tim Brayton

Mar 23rd, 2021 1h 24m

Adapting literary works to the screen involves a certain amount of translation. There are certain things that are easily conveyed in writing that cannot be conveyed in a straightforward way onscreen; likewise, there are elements of cinematic la

S3E08 - Colour Grading with Andrea Chlebak

Mar 16th, 2021 1h 15m

Colour grading, the art of manipulating the colour of a film digitally in post-production, is as omnipresent as it is misunderstood. To help demystify the process, we’ve invited supervising colourist Andrea Chlebak (Mandy, An American Pickle, H

S3E07 - The Bourne Series and Chaos Cinema

Mar 10th, 2021 1h 24m

Extreme ways are back! In pog form! This week we’ve got a wonderful little discussion about the evolution of the Jason Bourne film series. In particular, we’re here to dissect how Paul Greengrass transformed it into the 21st century’s foremost

S3E06 - Wes Craven's Meta Horror with Mike Thorn

Feb 23rd, 2021 1h 25m

Geez, it’s been a while since we got spooky on the show, hasn’t it? High time we brought back Mike Thorn to talk about how Wes Craven fused meta storytelling and horror in two franchises: A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. We’ll permeate the

S3E05 - After Last Season and Outsider Art with Bram Ruiter

Feb 16th, 2021 1h 11m

An Anti-Masterpiece is, as defined by our own Will Ross, is “an astonishing, essential work of art in spite of a distinct lack of conventional competence on the part of its makers”. After Last Season by Mark Region is one such film, and we’ve i

S3E04 - Eighth Grade and the Internet with Bronwyn Henderson and Brietta Stewart

Feb 9th, 2021 50m 6s

For this episode our Associate Producer Paige Smith has relieved Devan and Will of hosting duties so that she can talk about Eighth Grade’s depiction and use of the Internet — and she’s brought on two friends who survived eighth grade with her,

S3e03 - Documentary Verite with Sophy Romvari

Feb 2nd, 2021 1h 14m

In part two of our Verite series we discuss truth in documentary filmmaking with returning guest Sophy Romvari. Sophy’s films have increasingly blurred the line between fact and fiction and are often classified as ‘hybrid’ documentaries. What c

S3E02 - Narrative Verite with Whit Stillman

Jan 26th, 2021 54m 48s

We're doing two episodes on truth in cinema, starting with one on standards of reality in narrative films. Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco, Love & Friendship) joined us, largely to register his animosity towards the idea of making stylist

S3E01 - Film Preservation and Home Video with Blake Blasingame

Jan 19th, 2021 1h 28m

Welcome to season 3! To kick things off, we’ve brought Duplitech Film Services Manager Blake Blasingame in to discuss film preservation and mastering for home video. Are you ready for 88 minutes of unadulterated shop talk about grain structure,

Inter-season Special 2 - Listener Q&A

Dec 22nd, 2020 1h 3m

It’s our second SEASON BREAK SPECTACULAR! You sent us some great questions, and we answered them.Per our answer early in the pod, you can check out https://native-land.ca/ to see which indigenous territory you might live on (bear in mind it’s

AMA Announcement - Plus HOT TAKES with Devan

Dec 14th, 2020 2m 16s

Film Formally is on hiatus, but that won't stop us from taking your questions! Take our quick survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y7HV6CM to submit questions that we'll answer on our podcast in an upcoming episode.Plus, Devan comes in wit

S2E10 - Colour in the Films of Wong Kar-Wai

Dec 1st, 2020 51m 33s

For our season 2 finale, we keep it simple and discuss none other than the use of colour across the works of Wong Kar-Wai. In particular, we discuss the use of colour to evoke emotions, mood, and symbolism in his 21st century masterpieces In Th

S2E09 - EMERGENCY PODCAST: Justice League & The Snyder Cut

Nov 24th, 2020 1h 9m

It’s an emergency, time for a podcast! This week, we’re discussing the sordid tale of the DC comics behemoth blockbuster Justice League. Initially released in 2017 to much disappointment after extensive Joss Whedon-helmed reshoots, it’s taken o

S2E08 - Lighting Motivation feat. Paige Smith

Nov 17th, 2020 1h

How do we light our movies? The answer for many starts with the idea of motivation. What, within the world of our film, justifies the light illuminating our stories? In this episode we once again sit down with Paige Smith to discuss the ins and

S2E07 - Blocking in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Nov 10th, 2020 41m 19s

Okay, folks, it's time for blocking! The pre-planned arrangement, movement, and posturing of characters in a frame is one of a director's most artistically demanding on-set tasks, and nobody blocked a scene better than Sidney Lumet (whom we've

S2E06 - Experimental Animation

Nov 3rd, 2020 1h 12m

Today we're taking a trip through a few of the wild worlds of experimental animation, to get a sense of what makes these proudly bizarre shorts — which take on or even invent processes unheard of in mainstream animated films — feel so persuasiv

S2E05 - American Utopia and Visual Structures in Concert Cinema

Oct 20th, 2020 1h 24m

There’s a new concert film out! It’s called David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by none other than Spike Lee and shot by none other than Ellen Kuras. It documents David Byrne’s most recent tour-turned Broadway show, and it’s drawn much disc