I might even go beyond that and add that "research and writing" forms the cornerstone of the types of films made in the Bottega. None the less all things depart from a written concept, an idea, a thought, a wonder committed to the page, scribbled in a notebook, the scraps of paper we keep and the doodles I make to create a film.
Life is to be lived and experienced On my quest for understanding, one thing I feel deep within my soul is that the artists of that period lived life. They experienced life abundantly and with total awareness and persistence. You have to work hard to get the color you want Back in the day, […]
Many may have heard the phrase ‘A writer writes,’ and I have the same philosophy about making films. While writing is a big part of my filmmaking, I literally have a burning need to hold a camera in my hands or to sit at an edit console and create a film. It doesn’t matter what […]
Fillipo Brunelleschi was a genius. There is no doubt about it. Very little is written about him, so it’s hard to get beyond the ‘stories’ and find out what the man was really like. So many interesting threads need to be examined and, strand by strand, he appears and disappears, a ghost that is left […]
We don’t always know why we do something. Sometimes, we know only that we have to do it. That is why I am in Florence. Twenty months ago, I was sitting in a sauna at a health club in downtown Toronto. That’s where I met an 85-year-old structural engineer named Morty who loved Italy […]
Iconic would be the one word I would use to describe the look, feel, tone and texture of Carrara marble. It’s a unique substance harvested with great attention and care from mines and caves on in the mountains near the west coast of Tuscany. By car it’s a couple of hours from Florence. On […]
Just about everywhere you see a great work, if you look deep enough you will see great collaboration and you will see great talent that backed an idea. I think this is true of the Cupola. While Brunelleschi is considered a genius (and I happen to agree) there were many pieces to the Cupola puzzle. […]
Films are not easy to make. They are laborious detailed tasks that demand a lot of the people who make them. There are so many processes to contend with from capturing the film, editing the film, finding the correct music, making sure the dialog and image is just right. The list goes on and on. […]
It’s a big number and it means a lot of things. When I was growing up a million dollars seemed like a lot of money (it still very much is). A million people at an event seemed unbelievable. I heard a lot about very wealthy people that sold a million of this or a million […]