Digital FX Design | Production | Post

One of the great unsung heroes of independant cinema, Monte Hellman, returns to feature directing after a twenty year absence (his last feature was the unfortunate, Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!) with a film called Road to Nowhere. He also shot the picture with the Canon 5D Mark II - making this the first feature film to be shot with this camera.

Hellman, who is best known for a pair of interesting and very off-beat westerns he made with Jack Nicholson, Ride the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1967), as well as his 1971 masterpiece, Two-Lane Blacktop, starring James Taylor, Dennis Wilson and Warren Oates, seems to have picked up right where he left off and judging by the New York Times article, is still employing the guerrilla filmmaking techniques he learned under Roger Corman’s tutelage.

Elder Statesman’s New Story

Here is a really terrific commercial for Levi’s, directed by Australian filmmaker, John Hillcoat, who made the brilliant and brutal western from 2006, The Propostion, and the bleak, post-apocalyptic film, The Road.

Like his other work, the spot has a wonderful rough-around-the-edges quality yet still maintains an underlying sense of elegance and beauty.

I just got done watching one of the strangest and most surreal movies I have seen in a while…

Director William Witney’s 1975 Blaxploitation parody, Darktown Strutters (aka Get Down and Boogie!).

And after watching the trailer, which is just as wacko as the movie, I am convinced that we should try and do a spot like this. It would be a blast! Now which of our clients will be brave enough to accept the idea?