Timur Bekmambetov is a pioneer in the genre of screenlife, i.e. films, which takes place on the computer screen. His paintings in this format, such as “Remove from friends”, “Profile”, “Search” was highly awarded at international festivals. During the online broadcast Timur Bekmambetov announced the launch of a new project devoted to the pandemic and isolation.
Bekmambetov will shoot a film about the heroism of the pilot devyataeva remotely
the Almanac “the History of quarantine” (Tales from the Quarantine) will be a national: to participate everyone can. The main thing – it’s an interesting story about life in the quarantine, told through the screen. Send it to the contest in any form, from text and video to a professional script in Russian or English on the project website, where also the available tutorials and software to make movies with screenlife. “History of quarantine” will consist of separate short films, the geography of the project – international. The best stories are published every week. As Director Timur Bekmambetov takes now the film “the FAA. Escape from hell” – about the heroism of the pilot Mikhail devyataeva during the war. Part of the shooting conducted by the Director remotely. For the first time in film history a scene of aerial combat was removed in the course of real video games. Timur Bekmambetov spoke about both projects and many more useful and interesting.
the Film about the heroism of the pilot Mikhail devyataeva removed both in horizontal and in vertical format. Moreover, the film was shot remotely. Photo: Courtesy of Bazelevs About the format screenlife
I will Not hide, I imagined that this will happen: people will watch your life on the computer screens in the movie. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon and radically fast. We have started to do this in 2012 – to make films with screenlife, where the characters are on the screens of their devices: writing letters, wandering the site, chatting on Skype with friends. This is life today. I said back then that we spend five to six hours a day buried in their phones or computers. It’s time to talk about how we live there, what they do, like fall in love, quarrel, find themselves or lose face, save loved ones, or spoil the life of others. And we began to make movies about it. We shot seven, three of them came out in America on the wide screen, each was an event.
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I thought and convinced everyone that it will be not three, but 33 films. It seemed to me that it will be in three years. But what happened over the last few weeks have sformirovali the reality which we call ScanRealty – screen reality. What’s more – made her the only reality outside of the house in which we live today. I just a week or two ago I noticed that the first screenlife film, oddly enough, was the one that came out in 2004. Remember the episode when Anton Gorodetsky was looking for Svetlana – a Different Light – on the Internet, in your computer? It was the whole computer world, I thought. And it was a long episode, not even one, had several. We created the interface. That is the desire to share how we live on the screens appeared fifteen years ago. The first was a story about a guy and the girl who had been in contact with each other. He pretended that he was in Cuba and she’s in Courchevel. And they talked on Skype. And then it turned out that in one of the hostels live in Kazan. It was a Novella, which all happened on Skype.
About the pandemic and creativity
Limitation creates form. For example, there is a large block of marble, she has no form. Extra from her chips – and there will be a sculpture. Constraints define the style. Picasso once gave the blue paint. He had a blue period. And then wondering: how? What an amazing literary discovery! When you’re trying to find a way of existing material to tell a story, to Express yourself, it defines creativity. For example, if I have one mobile phone, I can already tell the story. If you laughed, then it was a success: emotions. The less resources you use, the less opportunities you have, and you thus achieve an emotional response from the viewer, the more elegant and this work, and the arts.
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Now we’ve all been in a situation when we have many elections, but there is the Internet. There is the ability to record our screens. And on the screens we will all confess in love, to earn money to Troll each other or confess to a close. My very simple suggestion: write down your screens. We have the recorder, go to the website https://screenlifer.com look there, read. There are a lot of lessons about how to do it. If you are materialistic, you want to earn a lot of money, again, read what we write and what we teach. Because two of the seven movies that we produced, got in the twenty of the most profitable investments in the history of the world kinemaautografa.
About remote shooting
a Remote film production – that’s another topic. Slightly overlaps with screenlife. She is a story-screenlife film. I was shooting now, his new film about the pilot devyataeva, being in Kazan, and the shooting was in St. Petersburg. Because of the quarantine I was not able to be. Therefore, remotely guided the process. I have all the cameras that were pointed at the main character played by Paul Priluchnogo pilot in 1945, steal a plane from a concentration camp. I saw all the Webcams, the team gave on Skype to communicate. I’ve got a text, some message that I have to give interviews (laughs), I answered them. That was my life. The life of a Director making a film was on the screen. On our website https://screenlifer.com we did a stream with the process of remote shooting. And during the filming we were doing and showed everyone how to do it, how to remotely’re shooting a movie.
films where the action takes place on a computer screen, Timur Bekmambetov started shooting first. Photo: courtesy of Bazelevs About the war on the screen
Yes, I chose the military theme. And you know why. First, we’re shooting two films. One of a pilot and at the same time as we filmed the movie about the pilot. The second – in screenlife format. It records the diaries of the protagonist, who assumes the role devyataeva. The film itself is about devyataeva we shoot and shoot in a vertical format. We try to tell a story that would be in tune with modern forms of content consumption. People watching movies on phones. When riding the subway or, say, sitting at home for dinner, he looks at one, she the other. And it is a reality. Why so is another question. We wanted to tell the traditional classic story of adventure films about the Second world war, to escape from the concentration camp, fighting in the sky on the aircraft so that it could look on mobile phones. It brand new task. I do not know of examples where someone would solve.
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Accordingly, it is able suddenly to realize many things in the history of cinema – how to tell a story. For example, the format in which you see me now, it’s horizontal. This format is called landscape-landscape. There is a vertical format. It’s called a portrait. And you have on your phone is landscape or portrait. And that’s when I turned the frame upright, suddenly I got the movie isn’t about war, but about man in the war. About the portrait. The format of the frame turned a look at the history. Once you do the film horizontally, he talks about the war, about the Great Victory, a battle, and so on. And when you turn the camera suddenly changes at all the whole point of the story. All in another context. All the same – the same struggle, just the right blow, and on the left is not visible. And see a man who is at the center of these events and experiencing great tragedy. Suddenly I realized that simply turning the camera, I automatically make a film about people, not about events. This is an important thing. This is the first.
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Second. It is connected with the character of the hero. Michael devyatayev, hero of the Soviet Union – a man who in many things was the same as you and me. But was distinguished by one quality – he never gave up, he was radically unbroken. Roly-poly! As don put it, he still gets up. But the movement, when he gets up, this is the conversion of horizontal to vertical. About him not to make a movie horizontally. He is a monument! It is vertical! He – man, he is the life! Horizontally is the symbol of death. Vertically the symbol of life. Devyatayev – such. It is their whole life proved that we can survive and not fall. Not in the physical sense and in the moral – not to opuscapita, not to be offended by a country that did not believe that he committed the deed. He lived in the basement in his house in Kazan with the family, 12 years of waiting, being sure that someday the time will come and it will recognize and find. He did not resent, did not tear his shirt, just waiting. It is a sign of resistance. But the word is a synonym for verticality. Therefore, the vertical format is the only terms of the form, which is suitable for this story. In another way, this film was not. Here coincided and technology, and the needs of the audience and the plot.
About vertical videos
Now many people say of action media that no one will ever get used to the vertical format, because the eyes we have located horizontally. It’s such a popular phrase. I have the answer to this question. If he who says so will be with a girl in the cinema, and she put her head on your shoulder, then watch the movie vertically. For single men, it’s probably best to look horizontally. And for a romantic relationship – better vertical movie. I’m kidding. However, according to our research, 80 percent of people look vertically horizontal content. Because nobody makes vertical! We tried to look at vertically. When you come to an art gallery, nobody says: Oh, Serov, why have you painted the portrait vertical? It was necessary, horizontally. In museums paintings of different formats. So maybe in the movie.
*This is an extended version of the text published in the “RG”
