Tag Archive for 'film_school'

Peter Jackson is off scuba diving…

Published by Administrator November 26th, 2005 in News bits. 0 Comments

If you follow Peter Jackson’s production diary for King Kong, you’ve probably seen the latest note:

With 3 weeks left until the film opens Peter and his crews are left with not much to do, Peter has decided to take a 2 and 1/2 week break and go scuba diving while he gives his entire crew time off to sleep and drink tequila…NOT! The crew are working DOUBLE-TIME to get the final 3 reels of film ready for mass production in facilities around the globe.

Production diary for King KongPeter Jackson may have lost 80 pounds (obvious in the King Kong movie trailer) but he definitely has some sense of humor left. I bet 7 months of shooting and 7 more for post production are tiring. Hope he finds time for scuba diving once the movie premiers (Dec 17?).

Update: I just did a review of King Kong. Enjoy!

NY Times - stay home, watch TV

Published by Administrator November 23rd, 2005 in News bits and Video Production. 0 Comments

An article at NY Times from a couple of days ago carried the following banner: “Join a Revolution. Make Movies. Go Broke.” I like that.

The way I see it, you can go broke for a variety of reasons and too often WHAT you’re doing has little bearing on that final goal: Bankruptcy. A friend of mine recently reached this through various means. He didn’t do a movie or anything. For the most part he just spent a lot of time in college getting a Master’s degree. I guess that’s another thing that could get you broke.

The article is pretty one-sided and you can’t help but notice someone definitely takes your finances to heart. What a bunch of nonsense. I better be back to reading Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player for a third time while waiting for the new Panasonic HVX200.

Ender’s Game - When, Oh God? When?

Published by Administrator October 28th, 2005 in Film School and Storytelling. 0 Comments

It’s been quite a while since the fans were alerted to the existance of a “project” to do an Ender’s Game movie. Wolfgang Petersen will be directing and David Benioff (and his writing partner Dan Weiss) are working on the script. The film is in pre-production and expected to be released in 2007. That’s a loooong wait.

David Benioff recently moved from writing fiction to the world of movies. The “start” of his career was the adaptation he did of his own novel, 25th Hour (directed by Spike Lee, starring Edward Norton). He worked with Petersen on Troy and Peterson commented that Benioff proved his ability to take an epic work of fiction and adapt it to a screenplay. Troy is not my favorite movie but I’ll let this comment slide!

If you’re interested in the script development, you can visit a fan site that’s going through some of the character and plot changes in the screenplay. The adaptation will be a difficult task since a lot of the pages in Orson Scott Card’s bestseller are inside Ender’s brain. At the same time, there’s a lot of “externalized” conflict so the challenge will be to balance the two aspects.

I hope they don’t finish up with a mindless CGI fest like Troy.

Star Wars III - Within a Minute

Published by Administrator October 24th, 2005 in Book/DVD Reviews, Film School and Video Production. 0 Comments

This is not exactly a lesson. It’s more like a reminder to get the Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith DVD. The DVD with the extras is an excellent primer for the world for corporate filmmaking. One of the documentaries on the DVD is Within a Minute, a feature-length documentary detailing the work that has gone into just one scene of Star Wars.

The scene in question is SCENE 158: Mustafar Duel. Based on the documentary, the scene required 26 shots, 1185 frames, and 910 artists. The total amount of man hours that went into that scene (I wonder how they tracked this) is 70,441!

The movie provides a step-by-step overview of the whole production process. The narration for the most part is provided by Star Wars’ Producer, Rick McCallum. He exhibits an excellent grasp of the process and leaves you with the impression he personally supervised the thousands of people who worked on the last episode. Here’s the table of contents, department by department:

Story (script), Art Department, Previz, Production Design, Construction (600 people!), Props, Make-up, Costumes, Actors, Directorial, Stunts, Cinematography, Editorial, Visual FX, Sound Design, Score.

Pay close attention to the digital cinematography department - there’s plenty of SONY CineAlta’s around. They always make me drool. A few screenshots from the scene’s progression:

Mustafar Duel: Making of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

There’s plenty of other material as well on this DVD: deleted scenes, interviews, etc. but the real money shot is the Within a Minute documentary.

An interesting note in indie filmmaking coming from Lucas - the rehersals for the stunt scenes have all been shot using a Canon XL1S and wheelchair as a dolly. When you compare them to the rest of this gigantic film production, they feel like home: low/no budget video production.

Even if you’re a low/no-budget filmmaker, this is an interesting see. If you’d like a “corporate” career, pay close attention to any occasions of white hair that appears on screen. These are few and far in between but indicate a career that you can retire on. Who wants to hire 65-year-old focus-puller?

Star Wars: Deleted Magic

Published by Administrator October 17th, 2005 in Digital Technology and Film School. 1 Comment

I recently got the chance to view this DVD. Now, before you go looking for it in Blockbuster, this is not something you’ll find anywhere but on the Internet. Hit your favorite BitTorrent site and you should be able to find it pretty easily. Check out this lightweight BitTorrent client.

Star Wars: Deleted Magic

Additional information about the movie is available here - Deleted Magic. Here’s a short summary provided by Garrett Gilchrist, the guy behind this:

  • Deleted Magic” is a feature-length documentary about the deleted scenes of the Star Wars trilogy, and about how the movies we know and love were made and edited together. It is taken from information, sources and home videos officially released by Lucasfilm.
  • This project is not an official Lucasfilm project - it is an unofficial, not-for-profit research project, done in the spirit of fun by a Star Wars fan … hopefully it will be both informative and entertaining. It will be made available for free, in high quality, via the Internet.
  • The idea is to combine all sorts of alternate, deleted and making-of footage into a full-length film that gives a better view of how the masterpiece we know as Star Wars was edited together.
  • In addition to deleted scenes like the Biggs Darklighter material, you’ll get a sense of the “Lost Cut”s of the films … the longer edits that didn’t have finished voices or effects.

This DVD is an interesting see for Star Wards fans but it’s even more interesting to filmmakers who already have their footage in the can and are moving into post-production. If Lucas had the guts to cut Biggs Darklighter’s scenes, you should be able to trim your masterpiece here and there too!

Lesson: A Love Song for Bobby Long

Published by Administrator October 10th, 2005 in Film School. 0 Comments

Lesson 1: “I’m your father” vs. “I love you”

Unless the movie is set in an alternative universe (a.k.a. Star Wars), a father-son/daughter story will always fall short of the potential that a love story has. Especially, when you consider how close Lawson and Pursy get. Pursy’s sex appeal dominates most of her scenes. She’s even caught half-naked staring at the mirror. Lawson is half-naked himself (he seemed naked but I give him the benefit of the doubt) in the Christmas Fireplace scene where he and Pursy lie together. We get the setup and the buildup but no payoff.

Back to Star Wars, I didn’t expect much from Han and Leia either but at least they didn’t promise me anything by lying naked in front of a fireplace. It’s good they get to say “I love you” even though the lines come in different episodes. (It doesn’t take a Star Wars fanatic to know when - let’s see if anybody can venture a guess. Please comment below.)

Lesson 2: (De) Fragmentation

The movie is not fluid although it’s apparent that much effort has gone during the editing to smooth it out. A good example is the English Essay scene where Pursy says she’s supposed to write an essay for her English class… cut. There’s no mention of the essay afterwards. In a house where two people have devoted their lives to literature (apparently, heavy drinking came later), this is a golden opportunity to escape the characterization clichés being thrown at us in the form of quotes from other, much more successful authors.

There’s one very plausible explanation that’s circulating around. Rumor has it that the production ran out of cash mid-way through the shoot. Extras left the set without getting paid. Locations and costumes were canceled. Apparently, some scenes were sacrificed in an effort to complete the movie with whatever additional financing they got.

The other explanation is that Shainee Gabel is a first time director. Some scenes/shots start in a way that is just begging for trouble. A great example is the Bobby Plays Chess with Lawson scene. The scene takes place by the river, a big cargo ships moves slowly into frame. What happens if an actor forgets his line? Do you radio the ship to move back into position for another take? Sure enough, come the next long shot, the ship is nowhere in sight. The editor did the right thing though - putting the sound of the ship in the background but it did bother me to hear a ship that disappeared without a trace in a matter of seconds.

Lesson 3: Excuse me, how much is this Bokeh?

This is tied to the issue of financing the movie which I mentioned earlier. If they were on a tight budget right from the start, why didn’t they reconsider their production plan? The cinematography is excellent: meticulously planned and with great attention to natural lighting. Looking at the bokeh in the Christmas Celebration scene made me cry – it probably took a bucketfull of Carl Zeiss glass! No wonder they ran out of money midway through the production. They should’ve scaled down the production and asked cinematographer Elliot Davis to get his Super 16 ARRI instead. After all, he shot “The Dukes of Hazzard” on Super 16 and it looks A-OK.

I have reviewed the movie separately as well - Review: A Love Song for Bobby Long.

Info: A Love Song for Bobby Long
United States, 2004
Running Length: 1:54
Cast: John Travolta, Scarlett Johansson, Gabriel Macht
Director: Shainee Gabel
Producers: Shainee Gabel, David Lancaster, Paul Miller, Bob Yari
Screenplay: Shainee Gabel (based on Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps)
Cinematography: Elliot Davis

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