Growing up in China, Xin Yi always had a passion for drawing, but always considered it to be a hobby rather than a career. However, when she first saw the Pixar hit Up, everything began to change. She was instantly attracted to the stunning animation, with its fresh style, characters, and colors, with a beautiful story to tell. She immediately began envisioning creating similar content one day, combining her passion for the arts with her desire to tell stories. That was when she began considering a career in animation and visual effects, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yi is now a 3D Artist, creating beautiful effects, animations, and motion graphics that have been enjoyed by millions across the globe. A 3D Generalist does a little bit of everything, whether it’s making 3D objects, texturing, shading, lighting or rigging, which is like setting up the controls to prepare them for animation. However, Yi dedicates most of her time making 3D images look as realistic as she can using those skills and techniques.
“It is really exciting for me to have the opportunity to work with some amazing artists and use my skills to bring 3D to life. I also enjoy working with and learning from the best artists in the industry. I can learn a ton just by listening to them talk,” she said. “I really want to use my skills to tell stories and becoming a 3D Artist made my dream come true.”
Yi is known for a plethora of hit projects, including trailers for the video game Rocket League, the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, NFL Redzone, Black Lightning, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and Black Ops III, and many more. Every project she takes on is different, and no two days are the same.
“I face challenges almost every single day and that’s why I love what I do. It helps me learn something new every day and improve my skills. I enjoy the process of solving problems. Sometimes, of course, it can be frustrating, but just by thinking of the things that I am going to create makes it amazing. All the tiny learning pains go away, and all of the patience comes back. No matter how difficult I feel it is, I just keep in mind that I am going to make it,” she said.
Yi encourages anyone looking to get into visual effects to learn something new every day and set small goals. She used to write down her daily goals on stickers and in notebooks. This helped her maintain focus and continue to refine her skills, which she attributes to her quick growth in the industry.
“I’ve met many artists who are afraid to show people what they are doing. They think that they are not good enough or people are not going to like what they’ve created. Many times, I personally think their art is truly amazing. In my own opinion, I’ve never felt like I am super good at one thing either, but the goal is to be good at many things eventually. Everybody has different tastes; some people will like your work and others won’t. I often try to find many useful methods to improve myself so that next time when I am making a similar thing it will be even better. Just by imagining the next time, I am already happy,” she said.
Yi made it to where she is today by putting herself out there and listening to her mentors’ opinions and advice, even if she didn’t initially believe in it. Even when she doubted herself, the guidance of others pushed her to keep going. Everybody has different ways to feel motivated and finding what works for you is key.
“I originally realized that I wanted to get into art by reading and listening to fairy tales. All of the little creatures started to form in my brain, and I would just draw the little creature out or make some 3D models of them. I like to see a lot of stunning art from others, whether in the form of films, books, or paintings, etc. So, for me, I always like to check out other artists’ work and find it important in helping me grow as my own artist. There is so much amazing art in different mediums all around us. Just by looking at them I find motivation,” she concluded.
Cinematographer Xavier Dolléans on set of “Mental” shot by Thomas Gros
Internationally lauded French cinematographer Xavier Dolléans, who earned the Jury Award for Best Cinematography at the Slum Film Festival for his work on the film “Animal,” is no stranger to the technical intricacies of top-tier filmmaking.
Dolléans, a proven master behind the lens, is the cinematographer responsible for shooting the first four seasons of “Skam France,” the largest global adaptation of the Norwegian teen drama, as well as the show’s upcoming fifth and sixth season.
As a cinematographer, versatility is one of his seasoned and sought after strengths, so it’s not at all surprising that he followed up “Skam France” by shooting two very different projects. After the first two seasons of “Skam France,” Dolléans came on board as the cinematographer behind the hit series “Red Shadows” (“Les Ombres Rouge”), which was broadcast during primetime on France’s C8, as well as the psychological youth drama “Mental,” which streams on the disruptive digital platform Slash TV owned by state broadcaster, France TV.
“Red Shadows was a primetime show with a great cast, a very experienced director and big sets,” said Dolléans, who has won numerous awards for his work as a cinematographer. “I’m particularly happy with a party sequence where we had to reconstruct a full club with all the lights and sets as the whole crew did an amazing job, rigging and programing everything the way I wanted it to be.”
While “Red Shadows” was aimed at peak-viewing French TV and “Mental” was a purely digital content production aimed at modern viewers, the seasoned cinematographer navigated the differing productions with ease. Dolléans has built a formidable cinematography repertoire. For every project he takes on, he steps into the role as the leader of the entire camera department, and as such he is the one on set responsible for the art of photography and visual storytelling, including all of the on-screen visual elements from lighting and framing to camera angles and color palette.
With over 50 credits under his belt as a renowned director of photography, the most recent accolades in Dolléans’ 15-year career include winning the Best Cinematography Prize for “Rocambolesque” and “Animal” and at the Warsaw and Slum Film Festivals, and having his high-caliber work as the cinematographer behind the film “Ames Soeurs” featured at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Dolléans’ vast skills and expansive experience in the field of cinematography allow him to be professionally ambidextrous in the projects he contributes to, allowing him to efficiently and effectively change gears from the big-budget series “Red Shadows” to more intimate productions like “Mental.”
“‘Mental’ was very different from ‘Red Shadows, as first of all, everything takes place inside the same building, the hospital,” said Dolléans. “Out of the 25 days of principal photography, 22 days were shot inside this place, with so many sets located inside it as well.”
Poster for “Red Shadows” aka “Les Ombres Rouges”
Broadcast in 2019 with all six episodes expertly shot by Dolléans, “Red Shadows” is a crime drama that tells the story of Aurore Garnier, played by French actress Nadia Farès, a policewoman who searches for the truth after she discovers new clues about the disappearance of her five-year old sister in 1993.
Dolléans was hired on the show by Alban Etienne, the CEO of Banijay Studios France, a subsidiary of the Banijay Group, the world’s largest independent content producer in the world with revenues of around USD $1 billion. Etienne had previously worked with Dolléans on the first two seasons of “Skam France.”
Despite “Red Shadows” being set in the famously vibrant region of Côte d’Azur region of France, Dolléans’ color palette for lensing the show was, in fact, decidedly absent of vibrant colors.
“The show was set in the south of France, between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence… we absolutely wanted to avoid all clichés, meaning no big sun with blue sky,” said Dolléans. “We were actually at the opposite end, with a lot of darkness, and a harsh and inhospitable sun: no red at all, but a lot of browns, dark greens and metallic blue skies.”
Despite the expansiveness of the vision of the series, and the resources and budget to match it, challenges arouse around capturing this on screen, but Dolléans’ work bears testimony to his highly-esteemed skills behind the camera.
He explains, “On this show, we had so many locations that it was very challenging to be ready in terms of the preparation time for each of them… Also, the weather was a big concern, we had a lot of rain during the first weeks and then a lot of wind that prevented us from using use butterfly and frame diffusions outside, as we originally planned.”
Despite the challenges though, Dolléans nailed his mark, endowing the series with a masterful visual language, just as the director had envisioned.
In contrast, the upcoming series “Mental,” which follows four teenagers in a psychiatric hospital and consists of 10 episodes, allowed Dolléans’ a bit more freedom to innovate and exercise his exemplary camerawork due to the fact that the consistent nature of the set.
“I like working differently on every show. On ‘Mental’ I used the camera with an extension module that allowed me to detach the sensor and to be very lightweight. This configuration gave me the ability to be with the actor, very close, to move intuitively and to improvise a lot with them and with the director. It was interesting to shoot it this way,” explained Dolléans.
Xavier Dolléans on set of “Mental” shot by Thomas Gros
Though “Mental” has yet to be released, the series has already begun garnering awards, including the 21st La Rochelle Fiction TV Festival’s Best Series Award in the 26-minute category. Dolléans was recommended to join “Mental” after a headhunt from France TV, which also saw him team up with a previous collaborator from his previous four seasons on “Skam France.”
“On ‘Mental,’ we worked very closely with the production designer Edwige Le Carquet, who I know from my past collaborations on Skam France seasons one through four, to get a very distinctive look for this show,” said Dolléans. “We worked a lot during preparation time to define the color palette, which is fundamental for me when we want to set a look.”
Dolléans, who was key in the film “Speed/Dating” winning the Best Short Award at the Alpe D’Huez Film Festival in 2017, ensured the cinematic production value of the series“Mental” by utilizing cameras on the set that are typically used for feature films.
“In terms of equipment, I used the Sony Venice camera again after ‘Skam France,’ as I like it a lot for its perfect color rendition and its ability to go very deep in low lights,” said Dolléans.
Following the highly anticipated release of the series “Mental,” Dolléans is slated to begin shooting the fifth season of the praised series “Skam France,” the first time the series, which has become a global phenomenon, will have original content separate from its Norwegian counterparts. He has also been tapped as the cinematographer for a new documentary film drama centered on the world-famous opera house in Paris, the Palais Garnier.
“It’s a very interesting project about the Opéra Garnier’s creation and all the inventiveness and tenacity of Charles Garnier, its architect, during its construction,” said Dolléans about the elegant building commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III in France’s capital from 1861 to 1875.
“I want to continue to work in the fiction world, as it is the place where I like expressing my sensitivity most,” adds Dolléans. “In my career, I hope to achieve many beautiful and important feature films… By important movies, I envision those with a universal scope that touches every person. I need to feel that my work has an impact in the everyday lives of people .”
Producer Summer Xinlei Yang appears to have the golden touch when it comes to filmmaking. There are equal portions of passion and commitment applied to her work, the results of which speak for themselves. Her films repeatedly become Official Selections of Academy Award Qualifying Festivals and are met with overwhelmingly enthusiastic responses from the audiences who view them. As with anyone in the film industry, success is met when talent chooses the stories that they are most suited to tell. These days, Hollywood is discovering more than ever that certain individuals are perfectly suited to tell a certain kind of story. For Xinlei, this often means the tales of people involved in multicultural situations. As a native of China who has experienced success in both her home country and the US, Summer always finds the connective tissue of her experiences and that of the characters in the lauded films she has worked on.
The Way Home is director Yiran Zhou’s heart wrenching tale of the modern day immigrant and an Official Selection at Academy Qualifying Film Festivals, including the 35th Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the 10th BronzeLens Film Festival, and winner of the International Vision Award at the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. The Way Home is the story of two immigrants; 18-year-old Chinese-American Jimmy who seizes the opportunity to prove himself to a Chinatown hooligan and thirty-year-old Haiyang who followed a Coyote through the US-Mexican border years ago while his younger brother [Bin] fell ill. As Jimmy and Haiyang venture toward their own goals, it becomes clear that there is a very high price to pay. The film intimately follows them on their emotional, physical, and moral journeys, providing a timely exploration of family, identity, and sacrifice. The story was inspired by the director’s acquaintance with some Chinese factory workers in a Chinese food warehouse. Most of the employees at the establishment worked ninety hours or more per week. Contrasting the misconception that they were looking for a free ride, these workers came to America for the opportunity to make money to send home and support their loved ones. The film’s producer informs, “This story is about two different generations of Chinese immigrants is relevant and meaningful for the director and I as we are both from China. From the beginning of creating this story, both of us were adamant that the film should have a retrospective and dark tone to show the gap between the reality and immigrants’ American Dreams.” The Way Home was also selected by the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival for its longest running competition, the Golden Goblet Award.
Xinlei worked with director Angela Chen on the film Our Home Here which was an Official Selection of the 22nd Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival (Past winners and attendees include Oscar nominated actress Rosie Perez; Emmy nominee JT Takagi; Sundance Film Festival nominee Terence Nance; Golden Globes and Emmy nominee Issa Rae, Ebony Jo-Ann, Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Margot Bingham). This story centers around four individuals in a Texas city; nineteen-year-old Dylan, his older sister Rose, fourty-three-year-old fast-food worker Celine, and a twenty-one-year-old addict named Sean. Unbeknownst to these four, their lives will soon come together in a violent clash at the Sunny Meals drive-thru when Sean’s drug-bender takes a sinister turn, forever changing the trajectories of their lives, their careers, and their relationships. The film explores the desires for control, identity and family, as we intimately follow these characters during the day leading up to the incident. Although the story takes place in Texas, the actual filming location was in Los Angeles.
An even darker tale is found in the film When the Shadow Falls which Summer produced for director Jeseung Woo. After witnessing the suicide of a stranger, a woman named Jane becomes overwhelmingly haunted by the question of whether she could have done anything to help. Inspired by the director’s actual witnessing of a stranger’s suicide in Seoul, the subject matter hearkens back to the idea of many of Summer’s films which asks, “What is the pain that other’s experience which I am unaware of and how would this knowledge allow me to change my view of them?”
If there is one unifying thread here, it is empathy. Film may be the most powerful tool in helping society feel what goes overlooked in the challenges of its members. To this end, filmmakers like Summer Xinlei and her peers offer the most benevolent choices for us all. The producer plans on maximizing this with her talent on an upcoming project, the documentary feature tentatively titled Frozen Fertility. She relates, “Soon after I decided to make a documentary about reproductive rights for women in China, a director friend of mine forwarded me the news of Teresa Xu, a women rights activist who hopes to freeze her eggs while she works to save money for a future family. Since China bars single women from the procedure, she decided to mount China’s first legal challenge of a law that limits fertility treatments to married couples only. I was so excited when I saw the news, and right away I reached out to her lawyer and herself about my documentary. Our shared understanding and first-hand experience with the subject immediately led her to agree to join our documentary filming. We were able to capture her story of going through the court and facing both local and international media. Her unique story appeared just as I was looking for subjects for my documentary feels like fate. I am just following my heart. The minute I saw the news I thought ‘I must take action now to film this significant moment.’ Summer is prompting all of us to take action with the incredible films she produces.
Elegant, beautiful, and meticulously crafted. These are the most common adjectives listeners use to describe Weijun Chen’s work. As an industry-leading Chinese classical composer, he combines unique harmonic and orchestration sensibilities to create stunning pieces of music. His musical persona has been influenced by many aspects of his interests, surroundings, and diverse upbringing. His music is not meant to represent any particular musical style, but he is able to speak for his own musical identity.
“On the one hand, I grew up listening to Chinese vernacular music of the 90s. On the other hand, I was trained rigorously in Western classical music idiom, during which I developed strong interests in Renaissance music, late 19th-century Romanticism, Impressionism, contemporary music, and multimedia. However, rather than aligning myself with a particular style, or forcefully combining different styles, I simply allow my intuition to take over, and express my multitude of influences in a genuine and organic manner,” said Chen.
Throughout his esteemed career, Chen has continuously demonstrated his superb musical capabilities to audiences all around the world. His compositions, such as Watercolors, Three Earlier Songs, and Canoe tell pointed stories through beautiful melodies that evoke untold emotions to their listeners, all while playing at prestigious music festivals and venues.
One such music festival was the 2016 MATA Festival of New Music. MATA is one of the most renowned new music festivals in the world, taking place annually in New York City. Chen was chosen out of 1,156 submissions that year for the chamber version of his piece Dancer. The artist director of MATA was Du Yun at the time, a Pulitzer-Prize winner. The piece was performed by Ensemble Linea, a leading new music ensemble based in France, conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz. The performance took place at the National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. Chen received a positive review from MusicalAmerica after the premiere. It then went on to the 2016 “June in Buffalo” Festival and was performed by Ensemble Dal Niente, a leading new music group based in Chicago, conducted by Michael Lewanski and the 2018 University of South Florida New-Music Festival & Symposium, performed by the USF New Music Consortium, conducted by Matthew Kennedy.
“Dancer is a difficult piece to write and even more difficult to play for the ensemble, as the detailed rhythmic notations and complex harmonic sonorities require both individual virtuosic playing as well as a high level of ensemble work. I definitely breathed a sigh of relief after the successful premiere and was grateful for Maestro JP and the musicians of Ensemble Linea,” said Chen. “It was an honor to be featured at the MATA Festival and to meet their artistic director, Du Yun. Surrounded by more than a dozen of the world’s most talented young composers and hearing everyone’s music was both humbling and eye-opening. Each one of us showcases a strong, original, and unique musical voice, that collectively shows a diverse and vibrant contemporary music scene today.”
Dancer for chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello) is written in four sections. The opening section features a series of scales that overlap on top of each other, creating slow harmonic movement. The second section features a prominent melody that resembles passionate Spanish dance, although the melodic line quickly starts to break down and the texture becomes increasingly erratic. This leads to the third section: It is fast and energetic, with a strong pulse in the background. After reaching the climactic point, the last section returns to the slow tempo of the opening section, although it features a much more somber tone. The scale returns as well, albeit in the form of one long and continuous descent that spans the entire section.
It took Chen over six months to write Dancer. It was a challenging project on a technical level, due to the intentional restrictive use of the materials (scales only) as well as the instrumentation itself. The quintet of flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello, known as the Pierrot ensemble in contemporary music, is difficult to blend and balance due to the vastly different sound quality of each instrument, according to Chen. However, these two challenges complement each other, and the distinctive color of each individual instrument crystallizes the contrapuntal development of the otherwise limited musical materials.
“This piece reflects on the moment when technique becomes art. Growing up as a child pianist, I plodded through endless scalar exercises, passing the time by imagining my fingers as dancers gliding across the keyboard. Scales, sometimes embellished, sometimes transparent, form the musical fabric of the work, which consciously tries not to evoke keyboard exercises, instead seeking an elegance beneath its technically complicated surface,” he said.
After the success of the chamber version of Dancer, Chen decided to write it for an orchestra as well. The orchestral version received great praise, and demonstrates both Chen’s vast musical knowledge, and also his versatility. Undoubtedly, he is a force to be reckoned with as a classical composer, and we can expect to hear many more beautiful compositions from him in the years to come.
“The art of composition goes beyond a pencil and pieces of paper. Live life to the fullest: go on adventures, embrace nature, and explore cultures, all of which enrich your creative life. Of course, never stop learning and perfecting your craft. Seek mentors in and out of schools, and find music communities around you. Know and love the repertoire! Listen and study the music composed by the masters of the past as well as present. Listen to music of all genres and go to concerts as often as you can,” he advised. “Concert music is meant to be experienced live, and you can also meet your fellow composers, conductors, and musicians there.”
With those wise words for those looking to follow in his footsteps, be sure to keep an eye (and ear) out for Chen’s future works.
Italian filmmakers Philip Morelli and Alice Del Corso are creating quite a buzz with news of their upcoming sci-fi feature film “Memoria,” which is slated to begin shooting in Atlanta, GA next year.
With Philip as the director and Alice as the screenwriter behind all of their joint projects, the duo, who happen to be married, have carved out a strong reputation for delivering award-winning work, such as the multi-award winning films “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1” and “Apeiron.”
Taking place 20 years in the future, “Memoria” depicts an emotionless society where drastic changes in human evolution resulting from Memoria’s technology have further compounded the ethnic and socioeconomic divide between people on earth. “Memoria” brings to the screen a relatable and foreshadowing story of the far-reaching effects of technology gone wrong, one where a new and innovative technology that could have been used to improve people’s lives and cure illnesses has instead been used to increase the money gap and further divide people.
Philip and Alice initially found their inspiration for “Memoria” after reading a 2017 article about a brain technology that could expand human intelligence and provide the possibility to upload and download data through the cloud.
“We started to think about all the implications that this technology could have in real life, and that’s where it all started,” says Alice.
The buzz the highly-anticipated film “Memoria” has been earning around the globe is due in part to the couple’s previous success in the genre. Back in 2015 Philip directed the sci-fi film “Apeiron,” which Alice wrote the screenplay for; and their joint efforts garnered extensive international praise. The brilliant sci-fi film depicts a highly cinematic post-apocalyptic story that took audiences and festival judges by storm, with “Apeiron” earning numerous awards including the Best of the Year Award from the Gold Movie Awards, Best Short Award from the Hollywood Film Competition, Best Trailer Award from the International Independent Film Awards, Best Drama Short Award from the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival, the Best Short Awards from both the 2017 and 2019 editions of Los Angeles CineFest, and more. We need not look further than “Apeiron” to see just how effectively Philip and Alice can bring a powerful sci-fi story to the screen.
“Apeiron” lead actress Beatrice Gattai (“Wedding in Rome”) says, “Alice’s writing and Filippo’s visions are something most could only wish to aim at. They are a truly inspiring artistic couple. They are a great team. She has the imagination and he has the sensitivity to understand and bring to life what she had imagined… The stories they create are mind blowing.”
Philip Morelli on set of “Apeiron” shot by Donatello Gradassi
Though their previous success has undoubtedly given Philip and Alice a strong foundation to stand upon as a filmmaking team, what they have come up with for “Memoria” is unique, relevant and appealing on its own.
“Technology has really changed lives in a better way, but every progress brings some light and some darkness with it,” says Philip. “With Memoria I want to go deep and bring all these aspects to the light, in the most real way, as it could happen tomorrow. I want to connect with the audience, give them a close look at the characters, then going close-up in the suburbs and extreme wide in the city. My characters have real issues, so I will shoot in 35 mm to bring these feelings out in the light.”
With Philip and Alice behind the film “Memoria,” the film is assured to be a flawless production and surefire hit with audiences. Last year the duo turned heads with their award-winning film “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1,” which starred Rocco Fasano (“Tender Eyes,” “SKAM Italia”), Amedeo Andreozzi (“Don Matteo”) and Sara Matteucci (“Sketch Up,” “Love 14”).
Rocco Fasano, who plays the villain in the film, says “Working with [Philip and Alice] was an absolutely beautiful, enriching experience. They work as a couple and they work as a team, and they manage to deliver an idea in a clean, rational, straight forward way, and they give so much room for you as an actor.”
Based on Alice’s novel of the same name, “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1” is a uniquely crafted romance film that follows Elise, a young woman who desperately tries to escape her traumatic past by changing her name and moving to London. Viewers are led into Alice’s life through a series of flashbacks that reveal her past and her first encounter with Colin, a man that would forever change her life; with the overall message of the story begging the question of whether the very thing one is running from is in fact, the only thing that can make them happy in the end.
Turning Alice’s engaging novel into the screenplay for the first in a series of “Magnolia” films that the couple intend to make, Philip drew upon his expansive creativity and took a unique approach with his direction for “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1.”
“Being that this a romance, I tried to do something completely different from my usual style. Longer takes in order to spend more time with the characters and catch their emotions, which also gave the audience some time to feel each shot,” Philip explains.
“I played a lot with silhouettes, making them more evocative and I used slow motion to emphasize the dramatic parts of the story. Mixing all of these techniques I tried to show the love between Elise and Colin, without hiding the sadness that sometimes we feel in the plot.”
Alice Del Corso and Philip Morelli
One of the things that makes Philip and Alice such a cutting edge team is their desire to stay ahead of the curve and infuse their work with innovative techniques. A prime example is the scene in “Magnolia: Hearts of Fire Vol 1” where they captured ink in water in motion.
“In Magnolia there’s a lot that happens on the outside, but there’s also a lot that happens on the inside, in the subconscious, and I wanted to represent this with water,” explains Philip. “I used this technique that involves a particular ink which has a density that makes it move in slow motion without the need to use a high-frame rate in the camera. I used it both for the quotes that represent Elise’s thoughts, and also for a real book copy that I submerged in a tank.”
Released in 2018, “Magnolia: Hearts of Fire Vol 1” earned astonishing praise throughout the industry with the film taking home numerous awards from festivals earlier this year, including the Crown Wood International Film Festival, Creation International Film Festival,Via dei Corti, TMFF Film Festival,Rolling Ideas,Etna Film Festival, Couch Film Festival and more. The film has also been chosen as an Official Selection of the 2020 Mabig Film Festival, where it has been nominated for several awards including Best Directing, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Editing.
“They prepare everything from the smallest details, and they always make each crew member feel comfortable,” says Lorenzo Costagliola, the cinematographer behind “Magnolia: Hearts of Fire Vol 1” and “Apeiron.”
“Philip and Alice have plenty of ideas, and they have enough experience to understand if an idea is working or not, without wasting anyone’s time. What makes them really strong is the ability to create harmony on set. They solve everything with tranquility and professionalism and no one ever complained. Is not that easy to find those qualities in other projects, that’s why I always love working with them, because it’s like having your family on set.”
Aside from their upcoming film “Memoria,” Philip and Alice are also in the process of making the follow-up film for “Magnolia,” which is expected to be released next year.
At the end of the day, Philip and Alice are a brilliant filmmaking team due to their ability to merge their individual creative talents together in service of the story. Even more importantly though is that their respect for the power of collaboration doesn’t with them, it extends to include their entire crew, so it’s no wonder why those they work with, such as cinematographer Lorenzo Costagliolaand actor Rocco Fassano, who were each involved in “Apeiron” and “Magnolia: Hearts of Fire Vol 1,” continue to work with them time and time again.
“Cinema is made by people, so the first important thing is to be surrounded by people you trust, that have good ideas and are willing to get involved in that journey with you. Teamwork is the key word, not only in cinema but in everything else,” says Philip. “A solid story is another important aspect of making movies, a story that you can feel moving inside you just by reading the script. The audience’s acceptance is always the major challenge, but if you have a really good story and a really good team, you will make good cinema for sure.”
The founders of the production company Castle View Studio, Philip Morelli and Alice Del Corso are in no shortage of powerful and inspiring stories, and having proven that they have the talent to bring them to life on screen, they’re definitely a team audience’s should get to know.
International Entertainment, and the Talents that Leave us Buzzing….
Growing up in China, Xin Yi always had a passion for drawing, but always considered it to be a hobby rather than a career. However, when she first saw the Pixar hit Up, everything began to change. She was instantly attracted to the stunning animation, with its fresh style, characters, and colors, with a beautiful story to tell. She immediately began envisioning creating similar content one day, combining her passion for the arts with her desire to tell stories. That was when she began considering a career in animation and visual effects, and the rest, as they say, is history.
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