Film Theory

[Hot Heart]

Not really a fan of Kuchera, but this is a good, little article I stumbled across http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/20/9769302/star-wars-the-force-awakens-trailers-daisy-ridley

[Thursday Next]

 

I think some things are a bit off and maybe not the references the video implies(e.g Wall-E/Blade Runner), but for most part a good luck at some of the film elements Pixar snuck into their films.

 

Some are obviously legit, like the t-rex in the rearview but a lot of these are just reaching. I mean, the group of people walking slowly toward camera has been in everything from Top Gun, to Armageddon, to Reservoir Dogs. To attribute it to a single film is pointless. This is basically "TV Tropes the 5 minute Pixar Edition".

[deanb]

Someone's has done an analysis of 2,000 film screenplays to break down the male-female ratio of dialogue. Also had a look at the ages of the cast too.

 

http://polygraph.cool/films/index.html

 

It has its flaws, and they acknowledge them but it's a pretty decent showing that there's quite the imbalance.

[deanb]

 

Short little video on overview of puppet making for stop motion.

 

On a related topic the animation software used by Ghibli is now available as FOSS 

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html

 

Not used it, but looks pretty professional grade.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

To tap into the psyche of The Joker, Leto terrorized his castmates, gifting the whole cast with a pig's corpse before shooting even began. “The Joker is somebody who doesn’t really respect things like personal space or boundaries," Leto said. He also sent his castmates such goodies as used condoms, anal beads, and live rats.

There's a lot of method acting annoying a lot of people to varying degrees, and you often hear about this sort of stuff from directors too (Hitchcock and Kubrick?). To me it seems very selfish from an actor and from a director, if they can't get a good performance out of their actors without abusing them they're not good enough at their job. I don't think filmed entertainment is important enough for the 'end justifying the means' platitude which to be honest I'm not a fan of anyway.

 

here's the link the quote's from it's a list of different actors getting into role, not just about Leto.

Edited April 23, 2016 by TheFlyingGerbil

[deanb]

Well there's the tale of Dustin Hoffman not sleeping for a role and his acting partner turns to him and say "Have you tried acting, it's easier?".

 

I'd say it's a bit of a silly route to go down, I guess there's say the likes of Christian Bale where he really fucks over his body for a role, but other than that he's not exactly going out during the day beating people up or throwing chainsaws down stairs. Leto is being particular stupid about it and tbh in this case it feels more like PR stunt than much else. There's the tale of Private Ryan where Matt Damon wasn't put through the same drill camp the other actors were put through in order to create some resentment. Which is sort of cruel I guess, though tbh I can't really see Tom Hanks being like "fuck you Matt Damon".

[Mister Jack]

 

To tap into the psyche of The Joker, Leto terrorized his castmates, gifting the whole cast with a pig's corpse before shooting even began. “The Joker is somebody who doesn’t really respect things like personal space or boundaries," Leto said. He also sent his castmates such goodies as used condoms, anal beads, and live rats.

There's a lot of method acting annoying a lot of people to varying degrees, and you often hear about this sort of stuff from directors too (Hitchcock and Kubrick?). To me it seems very selfish from an actor and from a director, if they can't get a good performance out of their actors without abusing them they're not good enough at their job. I don't think filmed entertainment is important enough for the 'end justifying the means' platitude which to be honest I'm not a fan of anyway.

 

here's the link the quote's from it's a list of different actors getting into role, not just about Leto.

 

 

That's just dumb.  Even if it wasn't completely obnoxious, does Joker really seem like the type of person who sends condoms and anal beads to people?  It just shows a total lack of understanding of the character and makes me even more skeptical of Leto in the role.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, method acting stuff aside all this news is doing is reinforcing my belief that his Joker will suck.

[deanb]

 

Foley is great, a shame this video is so short.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Posting it twice doesn't make it longer

[deanb]

Goddamit, I knew it double posted, but I thought I'd removed the extra.

[deanb]

 

This is interesting, Paramounts map of world locations.

 

Reminds me of the bit in Austin Powers where they're driving through "England" n Austin remarks: "You know what’s remarkable? That England looks in no way like Southern California!"

[deanb]

So I've been binging through back issues of "Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project" podcast lately and given Adams background a lot of discussion is about film; the process of making through to the watching and some interesting things have cropped up a few times. So Adam quite likes suggesting watching films in French (with or without subtitles, that's your choice), mainly cos a lot of films are kinda crap dialogue but the visuals are great. His most recent example being the new Total Recall (this from a 2013 podcast). Will Smith (not that will smith) likes to suggest putting films you know sort of inside out, on in the background while playing boardgames but with the twist of having the commentary running. So you don't mind not watching the film due to taking your turn and you know what's going on but you learn about it without having to sit down specifically for the commentary (incidentally two RDJ films are meant to have great commentary: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Tropic Thunder. Also they mentioned Arnie does commentary for one of his films and it's more him narrating what's going on.)

 

Also Adam n I have a similar taste in films, and I think due to the VFX background a habit of rating films favourably because they look good. Including Brazil (which he likes n has seen once a day for 6 months straight cos of working as a projectionist) which I like to recommend to folks mainly cos it looks so good but also cos it's Gilliam and he's great. I'd say "Twelve Monkeys" is likely the more accessible of his films though. Even more so to recommend cos Americans got a different cut to the rest cos it needed a "happy ending" according to the studios. (You were robbed, it's one of the greatest endings ever).

(this is why he's called the "High Sparrow" btw:

 

I want to watch Zero Theorem but it films like it slipped into the cracks of time. Like the trailers came out then nothing. I don't even remember it turning up at cinemas.

 

I guess while I'm here RED got added to NEtflix recently and is a good watch.

[deanb]

 

Blind Film Critic is returning. Its been a fair few years since he did a review, mainly focusing on his "Tommy Edison Experience" channel, (which is also great). Worth giving some of his stuff a watch, they're pretty short reviews and they're quite neat in that he's obviously not able to see the film so he's got an interesting spin on it.

 

(my favourite of his)

 

In other news I threw together a bit of a post, been writing a few half-articles lately n outlining some others so slowly putting stuff out.

http://deanbowes.com/favourite-lesser-known-films/

 

edit: and apologies for veering from our currently scheduled E3 programming.

Edited June 13, 2016 by deanb

[Mr. GOH!]

Brazil is a great movie for more than its effects, as long as you're not watching the 'love conquers all' American cut.

[Mister Jack]

I don't think we have a general movie discussion thread so I'll post here.

 

Apparently Warner Brothers announced that they're working on a movie for Pepe Le Pew.  This is after they had previously announced a movie for Speedy Gonzales so I'm getting the feeling that they're trying to start some kind of Looney Tunes cinematic universe like what they're trying (and failing) to do with DC comics.  It's a very bizarre idea for a film franchise but I have to admit I don't immediately hate it.  The movies, assuming they actually get made, have a high chance of not being very good.  I hold no delusions about that.  I'm just glad that the Looney Tunes are even being acknowledged at this point.  I have a real fondness for those characters, having watched the classic shorts every day before school as a kid, and I really wish they were being used more than they currently are.  Warner Bros is just so caught up with DC lately that it sometimes feels like they don't even remember their other franchises.

 

There's a high probability that these films won't pan out, of course.  I'm not naive, I know stuff like this ends up in development hell pretty often.  It's just nice to know that someone is even trying.

[TheMightyEthan]

I've always had a stronger attachment to Looney Toons that I have to Disney's characters.

[Mister Jack]

I think I share your opinion, if only slightly.  I love reading about the history of both sides, though, because there's just so many fascinating stories there.

[Mr. GOH!]

Looney Tunes cartoons were waaaay better than Disney mostly due to the genius voice actors and the brilliant Chuck Jones. 

 

That said, it does not surprise WB has announced movies featuring a racist caricature and a rapist caricature for their first Looney Tunes movies because WB is run by a bunch of raving lunatic morons. See: WB's handling of the DCU.

[Mister Jack]

To be fair, they did try to retire Speedy once before but he turned out to be unexpectedly popular with the Hispanic community, which is why they brought him back.  I think they might like him in the same way Americans get a kick out of the American stereotypes you see in anime.  It helps that Speedy is a highly competent character, stereotypes aside.

 

As for Pepe, his shtick about chasing Penelope around has definitely worn out its welcome but I feel like you could still make a funny and entertaining movie about a character who is obsessed with romance but also really bad at it, especially if he grows out of it by the end of the movie.  WB has been trying to tone him down, though, and I don't recall seeing him actually harass Penelope in anything he's been in since 1995's Carrotblanca.  I could be mistaken, though.

[deanb]

There's also the err...Kaiju Universe. Or the Kong-verse, or whatever the hell they're wanting to call the cinematic universe that's got Godzilla 2014 in, with Kong: Skull Island out soon then I think Godzilla 2 then they're gonna have a clash movie. (I've googled and it's "Godzilla-Kong" for their cinematic universe name).

 

There was a fair chunk of Looney Tunes crossover already I believe so a cinematic universe of that nature might work, main thought being it'd be surely better as some kind of digital-only release? Apart from Space Jam I'm not really sure of any successful looney tunes movie. They work a lot better as frequent shorts with recurring jokes than anything with a major development arc like you'd have with a Disney film.

[deanb]

This is pretty good, unfortunately can't embed

http://www.topgear.com/car-news/top-gear-magazine/exclusive-video-meet-blackbird-rig-transforms-any-car

 

It's a VFX car. I've known for a while that in most action films of the past 5+ years the cars usually aren't there at all, gone are the days of even sticking a carbon fibre shell of a ferrari over a ford focus body. But this one is pretty cool. Likely damn expensive but you'd only need a couple of them and you'd get some good realism out of it too (which'd increase as your VFX increases). 

 

wait I lie on embeds, decided to look up to find out what the alternative would be from a VFX viewpoint than a car mag take on it (this is different to what the Top Gear site has).

Seems The Mill has it more in mind for advertising than film use.

[MetalCaveman]

That's fucking awesome \m/ \m/

[deanb]

 

In time for Halloween some special effects for horror films and such. (I like the thumbnail is for the first Terminator and it's clearly a dummy )

[deanb]

 

Another Rocketjump video. This time looking at making food for film. I was already aware on the issues of heat in both that your set is usually hot from the lighting, as well as issues of putting hot food with colder items such as salads, so usually most food on camera is stone cold.

 

Figure I'd add this video in too