William Kranich

Archive for 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Oscar Predictions

Tomorrow is the best and worst day of the year. The night where some of my favorite films made it into the politically-clouded awards ceremony known as the Academy Awards. The night where big name blockbuster films take the awards from the deserving candidates.

Alright, maybe I'm being cynical, because some of this year's nominations were completely and totally unexpected. Will this unexpectedness extend into the actual awards? We can only hope. Here are my fairly conservative predictions for tomorrow night's festivities, and here's to hoping I'm proven wrong!

My Predictions:

Best Picture: Argo

Actor In A Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis

Actress In A Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence

Actor In A Supporting Role: Tommy Lee Jones (Might Win: Christoph Waltz)

Actress In A Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway

Animated Feature Film: Wreck-It Ralph (Might Win: Frankenweenie)

Cinematography: Life of Pi (Might Win: Skyfall)

Costume Design: Anna Karenina

Directing: Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man (Might Win: How To Survive a Plague)

Documentary Short: Mondays At Racine

Film Editing: Argo (Might Win: Zero Dark Thirty)

Foreign Language Film: Amour

Makeup And Hairstyling: Les Misérables

Original Score: Life of Pi

Original Song: "Skyfall" from Skyfall

Production Design: Anna Karenina

Animated Short: Paperman

Live Action Short: Curfew

Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty (Might Win: Life of Pi)

Sound Mixing: Les Misérables

Visual Effects: Life of Pi

Adapted Screenplay: Lincoln (Might Win: Argo)

Original Screenplay: Zero Dark Thirty (Might Win: Django Unchained)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

My First Short Film!

So I just finished editing my first short film for my Production I class! After many hours and many technical difficulties, I got everything together and here is the finished product. The project had to be shot in natural light and be completely silent; no music or dialogue. Some blatant continuity issues, but within the time constraints and no chance to reshoot, I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

David and Margot from William Kranich on Vimeo.

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Friday, January 11, 2013

Oscar Nominations

Luckily I was already awake early enough to catch the nominations on television, and it was totally worth it. The Academy made some pretty surprising nominations Thursday morning. Surprising for the Academy that is. But the obvious support of Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook in place of the predicted Les Miserables was the most intriguing for me: the most surprising and the most rewarding.

Beasts was probably my favorite film of year, but because of its independent status and its lack of support from studio Hollywood, I really didn't think Benh Zeitlin and his crew had much of a chance up against the crowd favorite Les Mis. Yet, both Benh Zeitlin and his star Quvenzhané Wallis made it in to their respective categories. Wallis is now the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscar history, and if you haven't seen Beasts, these nominations are completely warranted.

Silver Linings Playbook also displayed a great amount of love with its nominations in all of the Best Performance categories, as well as David O. Russell snagging a nomination. I was lucky to get the chance to see the movie in theaters the night prior to nomination morning and was completely blown away. With the perfect amount of humor mixed with substantial characterization by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, it was a greatly cohesive narrative buttressed by brilliant performances.

After the break are my personal wins of the nominees.