Odds & Ends
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Reverting to Period
Spotted over at MaryAnn Johanson's site, and too clever not to share - Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1950s style. It's not quite as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark as made by a bunch of kids, but it's still pretty cool. And certainly better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Labels: humour, indiana jones Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The Other JonesBecause obviously I'm now officially part of the hype machine, here is the new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. {placeholder text - if you can see this, ignore it!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!! !!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!
I'm psyched, even if the trailer looks disturbingly CGI-ish. Updated: ... and here's the almost identical third trailer. Labels: indiana jones, spielberg, trailers Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Friday, February 15, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Quicktime TrailerHow very, very strange is it to actually see new Indiana Jones footage? But here it is, in the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer. High quality download links (which gave Quicktime error messages for me - hopefully you have more luck) here, or YouTube below.
A couple of the effects look overly computerised (that ravine-side car chase looks like the awful brontosaurus chase in King Kong, and some of the temple stuff looks like it belongs in one of the Stephen Sommers Mummy movies). But I really like the feel of the warehouse stuff: it has a good, classic Indiana Jones-ish feel to it. Incidentally, this film isn't far away: it comes out in May. So this is a pretty late teaser trailer. By comparison, The J.J. Abrams Star Trek re-launch has been pushed back to May 2009, but already has a trailer. Paramount and Lucasfilm really seem to be soft-pedalling Indiana Jones so far; it really seems that the bitter lessons of the overhyping of The Phantom Menace back in 1999 really struck with Lucas. For an interesting comparison, if you got the Yahoo movies link (the first link in this post) you can also see the trailers for the original three Indiana Jones films. Labels: indiana jones, spielberg, star trek, trailers Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Saturday, January 26, 2008
Franchising
This year is shaping up as a particularly big year for what you might call the "mega-franchises": the really big, big franchises that are particularly prestigious and long-running: there are new installments scheduled in the Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Trek and James Bond series. The last few days have seen interesting developments on all of these properties, so I thought I'd do a quick run down on all of them. The Dark Knight Heath Ledger's tragic death death was immensely sad, obviously on its own terms but also for film fans: to take just a single example, Brokeback Mountain is one of the best films I've seen in recent years, and Ledger was vital to that success. But nerds (not to mention Hollywood execs) are a ruthless bunch, and the attention of the online film sites very quickly turned to what this meant for the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight. (The Digital Bits also had a thought for Terry Gilliam, who was making The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with Ledger: "Man, Terry Gilliam just can't catch a break.") The answer is it won't appreciably affect the movie: Ledger's role was complete. But it creates some trickiness in the marketing. In one sense, its a plus... there was already a lot of buzz about Ledger's performance, and if it is indeed a good one, the fact that they are releasing it posthumously just makes it more iconic. I don't think the trailer we've seen so far will be seen as in poor taste; it shows the Joker but it doesn't seem "wrong" in any way. If you haven't seen it already, it's in YouTube form below (and in much better quality here). But as some have noted, it's going to seem in poor taste if we start having Ledger's face grinning down from bus stops. My hunch is that the solution will be to run with the more oblique approach of the early posters, which still highlight the Joker (the film's main drawcard, after all) but don't hit us over the head with Ledger's presence.   Indiana Jones The trailer's coming on the 15th of February, and Ain't It Cool have a totally unverified but fairly convincing description of it here. Spoiler alerts apply. I'm excited about this... but I don't know. The pulp science fiction elements (to put it delicately for the spoiler shy) of the plot sort of make sense given the 50s setting, but still don't feel right for Indiana Jones. But we'll see. Star Trek Here's the trailer for the re-launched Star Trek: (Clearer and in the correct proportions here). For those who haven't been following this, this is a re-launch by J.J. Abrams that gives us young Kirk and Spock - hence the Enterprise being built in the trailer (why are they building it on Earth, not in orbit?). I could be wrong, but that doesn't quite look like the original series' version of the ship in the trailer; perhaps the venerable design has again been given a subtle reworking? (The lines generally seem a little closer to the first re-jigged version from the movies, but then the warp nacelles look like more like the TV series version). James Bond The new Bond film has been confirmed to be called Quantum of Solace. Along with Risico and The Property of a Lady (both popular rumoured titles for the new movie) it's one of the few unused Fleming titles left. You can see why they kept away from it - you don;t want a three word title where many people will struggle with two of the words - but it has grown on me and certainly seems thematically apt given it will apparently centre on the fall out from the events of the last film. (Semi-serialized Bond films, just like the 60s. Awesome). The reaction to it has generally been pretty ignorant, largely ignoring the fact that the title has its roots in Fleming and misrepresenting the generally positive fan reaction. For a spirited defense of the title, see CommanderBond.Net here. Here's the official plot summary, also courtesy CommanderBond.Net: QUANTUM OF SOLACE continues the high octane adventures of James Bond (DANIEL CRAIG) in CASINO ROYALE. Sounds good to me. Labels: batman, indiana jones, rumours, spielberg, star trek, superheroes, trailers Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sweet
I had this theory that I'd try to leave the Indiana Jones stuff alone - I've covered Spielberg more than enough over the years on this site, and I don't actually expect the movie to be any good. (I hope, fervently, but don't actually expect.) But I'm going to be tested by images such as this, the official poster for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  It's by Drew Struszan, the artist responsible for many iconic movie posters (particularly from the 1980s), including the previous Indiana Jones posters. It's very obviously based upon his own poster for Temple of Doom, which might be my favourite movie poster ever:  Labels: indiana jones, spielberg Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Monday, October 29, 2007
Close and Choppy
One of the best people writing about film is David Bordwell, author of the textbook Film Art, a staple of university film courses. I've just started reading his book The Way Hollywood Tells It (and should talk about it on the site when I'm done), and have finally added his site to Cinephobia's link page. It's great to be able to read his writing for free, on a regular basis, and I've plugged one of his articles here before. Slightly belatedly, I thought it was also worth pointing out his article on shaky camera / fast cut filmmaking, which focuses on Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Ultimatum. The Bourne flick is long gone from cinemas, but the discussion of this style of direction should be with us for years: how many reviews of modern action films have you seen that complain about this way of shooting? (Certainly all mine do). What's notable about Bordwell's article is that he pushes the discussion well beyond the usual grizzling about this style of shooting and analyses in detail what is going on. As he points out, it's more than just the length of shots and the shakiness of the camera at work: it's also about how shots are framed, the proximity of the camera to its subject, the way the camera focusses (and pulls focus), and the placement of cuts (as opposed to simply the length of the shots between the cuts). All this is done in some detail with very clear frame captures from the Bourne film as examples. Bordwell also expands upon the usual discussion of this style in his discussion of why these things are done. Usually critics lapse into grumpy complaints about ever-shortening post-MTV attention spans at this point, but Bordwell talks about the narrative purposes such a style serves; it raises energy levels, yes, but it also helps conceal mistakes and downplay the over-the-top-ness of some of the action. I think Bordwell's spot on, but would point out one other thing that is sort of implicit in his article, but isn't spelt out: it's also cheaper to mount an action sequence this way. Pushing the camera back for distant and long-held master shots is expensive. In a car chase sequence, for example, if you pull the camera back for a master shot that shows all the cars speeding down the road, you have a massive logistical exercise in closing off huge sections of road, communicating with all your stunt-drivers, co-ordinating foreground and background action, and so on. All other things being equal, it is likely to become drastically more expensive both the further out the shot is from the action (because there's a greater area in view that needs to be cordoned off and under the control of the production) and the longer the shot (because the shot is open to more scrutiny, and because moving vehicles will cover a greater area). This is best illustrated with a couple of examples, which I'll take from two of my favorite 1980s action sequences: the final chase in George Miller's Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior) and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Despite Miller, in particular, having a reputation as a highly kinetic filmmaker, both have very similar approaches that emphasise long master shots. This is one of the opening shots from the Mad Max 2 chase:  That frame is near the start of the shot: the camera actually flies over the whole convoy of vehicles. Just to underline the point, here's a really extreme example, with another dramatic re-establishing shot mid-sequence:  Spielberg doesn't use a helicopter for his establishing shot, but adds the complication of foreground action in this pan that sets up his big action sequence:    All three shots are very effective in laying out the challenge before the hero (the hordes chasing Max, and the number of Nazis Indiana Jones will have to overwhelm). But they would have taken a long time to set up, and shots of that sort of complexity would have been all but impossible in a built-up city environment, where they would require the filmmakers to commandeer whole sections of city for extended periods. (Computer effects change the equation somewhat, by allowing these wide master shots to be done in a computer, but the fundamental point is the same. They just then become very expensive CG shots rather than very expensive "real" shots. Really ambitious computerised master shots also struggle to hold up to audience scrutiny: think of some of the cartoony CG in the freeway sequence of Live Free and Die Hard / Die Hard 4.0). So while I don't suggest this is a primary reason that Greengrass shoots the Bourne movies this way, it would be a factor: it is simply much more feasible to set an action sequence in urban locations if you shoot it close and choppy. This was always the case, of course, so I don't suggest that's the only or even the main reason people employ this style. But it's another to add to those Bordwell cites. As is probably obvious, I've got a fondness for directors that shoot in this manner: I think action sequences are vastly more exciting when the audience is clearly oriented, and there's a real beauty to the way directors like Miller and Spielberg cut their sequences together. (I've made this point about Spielberg before, here). Fortunately, it would be wrong to suggest that this style is dying out. Spielberg recently affirmed his commitment to this way of shooting for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull, with Ain't It Cool reporting as follows from a set visit: On the style: It hasn't been shot and it won't be edited like a modern action film. "I'm not going to change my style." [Spielberg] said he likes to give audiences a master shot and let them become the editors and decide which of the 8 characters on the screen they're going to look at. He jabbed at MTV type editing and said this will feel completely within the established INDIANA JONES world.But it's not just the old guard like Spielberg who fight the good fight against the shaky-cam brigade; there are still other directors around who shoot and edit for clarity. If you look at the freeway chase in Matrix Reloaded, you'll see that the Wachowski brothers favour a lot of wide master-shots that clearly orient the different parties in their chase in a manner very similar to the style of Miller and Spielberg. The shots below aren't the same kind of sequence-establishing shots that I've picked out above, but they still show the preference for pulling the camera back (sometimes to extreme locations, such as directly above the action) and clearly arranging the protagonists within the frame:    The Wachowskis even employ a shot I always associate with Miller, to the point I have previously nicknamed it the "Miller pan:" a low reverse-tracking shot in which a car sweeps across the frame to reveal the pursuing car behind. This one's better illustrated with an image: Miller's original Mad Max is at left, and the Wachowski's Matrix Reloaded is at right:  The Wachowski sequence is interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the Wachowski brothers were able to shoot this way because they built, at incredible expense, their own freeway to shoot on. By getting off real urban roads they bought themselves the freedom to shoot the sequence in this way (which Miller and Spielberg got from filming in remote desert locations). This reinforces some of what I have said about the cost of shooting such a sequence: it takes a mega-budget Matrix sequel to afford it. The other point is that the Wachowski's liking for these wide mastershots dovetails with their fondness for what might be called key shots: really striking, carefully composed shots in which the action is often (though not always) dramatically slowed to "hold" the shot for a few moments. This shifting from the ceaseless flow of images to the picking out of particular key compositions doubtless reflects the Wachowski's interest in comic books, which are basically a procession of such frames. These shots serve all sorts of other artistic purposes, but in this context it is of note that these key shots are almost always master shots that allow us to reposition all the players in space. That the comic book influence actually helps restore some clarity and order to the way films are shot is faintly ironic; the comic-book influence on cinema is probably even more derided than that of MTV editing. And perhaps both are blights on the art; but in this case at least, the two scourges are actually working against each other. Labels: close analysis, commentary, indiana jones, miller, snobbery, spielberg Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Monday, September 17, 2007
Indiana Jones and the Endless Jokes About Harrison Ford's AgeThe title and logo for the new Indiana Jones movie are out. Wait for it:
 It's pretty hard to get excited about this. It's a very cumbersome title, for a start (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Skull would be better). And according to a quick Wikipedia search - surely the definitive source for information about bullshit mythology - the Crystal Skull ties into folklore about both Atlantis and the Knights Templar. Atlantis is not a promising concept (all films involving scenes set underwater suck) and the Knights Templar link raises too many other links to both Last Crusade and The Da Vinci Code. The rumour is we'll see the first trailer in front of Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf in November. Labels: indiana jones, rumours, spielberg Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Triumph of Hope Over Sense
Sorry for the paucity of posts lately. I've taken on a role as co-editor of a magazine related to my day job, and it's been keeping me occupied a little more than I'd like. Hopefully once I settle into the role it won't take too much away from my time for film related things, but for the moment - as we try to get out our first issue - I'm afraid Cinephobia has had to take a backseat. Hopefully there'll be something substantial up during the week. In the meantime, though, I did just want to post this. Indiana Jones.com has posted our first image of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones from the set of the fourth movie in the series. Every rational part of me knows this movie probably won't be much good, but I have to say, it feels pretty special to see Ford back in the Jones gear:  Labels: indiana jones, rumours, spielberg Comments Comments can be made on the individual post's page. |
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