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@Juda said:
However, moving the camera because the stand was to expensive can be as killing as georgian films where you see five minutes somebodie black coffe in the coffe cup, it's like the mic above the picture, where I'm tempted to bring a disney lotus pipe.
That's fascinating, but I didn't understand a single word.
Following scene is from an georgian film (the country, not the state):
hero looks in his coffe cup, camera shows him with his cup cup andhis spoon spoon 2 min. cut)
New screen in perspective of the hero:
coffe cup (the camera shows the cup from above, spoon is turning the coffe and the black coffee turns around, 2 min. cut)
New screen:
hero, still with his coffe looks in his coffe ( 2 min. cut)
This was a film where I remember this sceen and lots others, but not the title.By the way it was fom the 90th, no music, hero didn't talk or think anything, he had only a sad boring life - no reason before or after.Maybe it makes sense in a kind of a common dilemma. However, the camera was not great.
I red the comment about the powel core.I have to admit that I like his colors.Even in contemporary music we try to compllicate a structure, that color and linear structure become one.Why not (in a more easy way) in the film?
In the end the film is served by music, thats why even programming for music, that stays by itself is much more complicated, it has no visual support and must talk by itself.
Filmmusic must simply work with the film.And bad character - bad character music.Why not ?The question is, how ( some bubblesonds in deep brass or 15 cotrabassons is a little too easy, except you want to do 30 min per day.But therefore buy symphobia and glue the mini compositions together.
Cluster is not cluster.E.g. the microlinear structure in Athmosphere of Ligeti (the famous 2000 orchestra piece) mixes the three worlds, linear and harmonic and orchestration, so virtuos together, that the impression is undivideable.Linear music becomes Orchestration.Orchestration becomes harmonic.And full 12 to 24 harmonic only like a layer, so far the harmonic, that resulted from vertical structureforms Instruments. Phantastic !!
Or the score of magnolia.No cuts in the music but still a kind of synchron.The "dull" ostinato becomes an impression instead of a pattern.No specials for e.g. the histeric scream scene in the pharmcie, and I really didn't get at the start that the talkmaster show in the TV ( I mean that quizz) uses exactly the material that tortures you the whole film, and well chosen, I became more open to the story, because the cuts are easier to follow by the comon music, that only goes its own way.
Total other extrem is starwars with the Leitmotiv for evryone.Also great!
It's like Max Bruch.Who cares the d minor concerto for violin is boring if there is the g minor ?
One other thing about Barry Lyndon. It's generally believed that the lenses were specially designed for the film during the lowlight sequences. Actually, the lenses were specially designed for NASA during the Lunar projects. The lens mounts to the camera housing were specially designed for the film because they were not compatible to any standard motion picture camera at the time. This proved to be quite a challenge for the filmmakers because they had a hard time trying to find film stock that would accommodate the lightning fast lenses and somewhat match the rest of the movie. Yeah, Kubrick will be missed. He's the quintessential auteur.
One of the things I find great about Barry Lyndon is the pace of the film. Possibly the slowest paced film that's great ever made. Pace is hugely important in film because you are dealing with ridiculous timing events that are completely divorced from real life. Therefore if you are making a film that is going to be action packed and for the first 30 minutes of a 2 hour film, the director gets it wrong, then you're in trouble because you lost the audience. You can keep the audience interested through devices other than editing, such as storyline, scripting and photography - and maybe even the music score: But that won't save a film in the long run if the pace is too fast or too slow. Very difficult to make a good film I would imagine.
Orson Welles was as brilliant and original a director as Hitchcock, but far less disciplined and not at all commercial-minded, and so his films were a disaster financially whereas Hitchcock was hugely successful. If Hitchcock ever had a money problem on one film, he would immediately make another more surefire bet and recover. Like right after Vertigo made no money, he made North by Northwest. Also, he would never make a film like The Trial which is a masterpiece by Welles but everyone hated it.
@William said:
And what is worse, film schools are churning out goofball directors whose sole purpose in existence is to prove how HOT they are by using 1) Maximum number of cuts in smallest possible amount of time and 2) Maximum number of cinematic techniques in the equivalent space.
As a film student at Florida State University, nearly 15 years ago, the emphasis then was on writing and story manipulation. Only the technical geeks were concerned with developing the newest and coolest camera techniques and they had a hard time with writing anyway. The younger professors worshipped Quinten Tarantino. Actually, worshipped is an understatement, these professors would pay a lot of money to just watch Quinten sip tea if they could. The older professors acknowledged Quinten's contributions to the art but pretty much regarded him as a flash in the pan. They emphasized the more established directors like Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Scorsese. It was generally believed at the time that the quickest way to the Director's chair was through writing. I guess in the end, however, the geeks won out and writing has taken a backseat to camera pizzazz. Speaking of education, I wonder if any of those young professors back then knew that Tarantino was a high school drop out. Not that there's anything wrong with that I'm just saying...
Classes in CGI were also encouraged. At first I was reluctant but I'm actually glad I took those classes because I probably wouldn't be as computer savvy as I am today if I hadn't.
Writing used to be the hardest part of making a movie. For instance, writing Apocalypse Now, along with making the film, nearly drove Coppola to the funny farm. A famous French director, it may have even been Truffaut, said "it takes two years to write a movie, two months to film a movie, two weeks to edit a movie, two days to re-shoot re-edit and touch up a movie, two hours to watch the movie and just two minutes for the audience to forget it."
Well, that was Truffaut in a rather negative mood. His films, such as Jules and Jim, are certainly remembered longer than that!
The one other thing on this original topic I had was in Mysterious Island, Herrmann's extremely sizeable score for that film. Someone stated that if Debussy was the composer of nature in a beautiful state, Herrrmann was the composer of nature in a terrifying state. This score is definitely that mood, and another example of how the music is far better than the film (like in the Brian de Palma potboiler "Obession" - a lame film but one of the greatest film scores ever written). In this score he had a huge brass and wind section, 8 horns, four tubas, massive woodwind ensemble, etc. But the most interesting section is a bizarre piece he did for the Giant Bird sequence, in which a ridiculous-looking prehistoric bird menaces people. In this scene he actually orchestrated an organ fugue by a baroque composer, J.L. Krebs (whose name meant "crab" which also is another giant beast seen in the film) but he did it with a wild combo of brass/winds and percussion that never existed in Krebs time. Another example of the pure, unadulaterated experimentation that Herrmann was always doing in the oddest places.
The Trial is a very interesting film and Anthony Perkins was perfectly cast as he was in Psycho. And also in a western as a nervy sheriff that I forget the name of. Very edgy actor. Yes - I put that giant bird scene up a while ago on a fucking asshole website I forget the name of and no one understood what was going on at all.
Some of the music Herrmann wrote just for throwaway scenes are ridiculous in their complexity but more importantly their effect. When you watch a concert performance of a Herrmann score, it's just as impressive if not more so.
At that same page for the On Dangerous Ground cue there is now the Scene d'amor Vertigo cue played by L.A. Philharmonic that is a fantastic performance. Tremendous strings! Essa Pekonnen put out a great compilation of Herrmann a while back that incidentally included the unused music from Torn Curtain with full orchestration of twelve flutes, nine trombones, 8 horns, massive percussion.
Duell is a nice example for what´s needed to make an interesting movie :
1. Good story
2. Good actors
Everything beyond that is optionally.
That doesn´t mean, there would be no need for special effects. Terminator or Matrix brought fantastic, new ,mindblowing effects to the cinema, perfectly supporting the action and the actors.
But still, the main task is to tell a nice story. So many movies today just focus on the latest technology, but miss out on the plot.
Take Avatar. O.K. 3d was nice, but the story - I can´t even remember.
Sigourney Weaver and some blue puppets running around...nothing to be worth talking about in 10 years.
Compare that with Sigourney in Alien I or II and get ready to freak out.
"We are on the express elevator to hell - going down"
Yes, I was also wondering, for 8mm the quality appears to be too good.
According to Wikipedia the original version was filmed on 16mm for TV. For the cinema they reshot a few scenes and copied the material to 35mm standard.
@knievel said:
a whole feature film of tension made out of, what is essentially, a cast of just two.
Not strictly true, as we never seen the truck driver, so kind of a solo performance !
They spent weeks scouring southern California looking for just the right truck. Speilberg wanted a truck that not only looked intimidating and ominous but had a personality all it's own, or his own. Aside from a beefy arm protruding out of the cab every once in a while you never see the driver. In other words the truck was a character. In a way, Kneivel is correct the truck was casted as a character.
I don't believe anything on wikipedia which is an amateurish bullshit replacement for what SHOULD be a professional peer-reviewed encyclopedia, but yes, you're right I noticed elsewhere it was shot on 16mm, which was extremely unusual for a network movie at that time. It's funny how I truly feel without trying to be obnoxious that it is the only Spielberg movie I like. With all the gobs of money and infinite resources and production values thrown at those films he has made since, I still like that gritty little thing much more than any of his later ones.
Speaking of 8mm, there was no professional film stock at the time, just reversal Kodachrome, Ektachrome and black and white reversal. (though Kodachrome was a beautiful film stock unfortunately no longer made.) Also, no really professional cameras. Nowadays they make some color negative film for super 8 but it is so expensive and the quality is so much lower than 16mm due to the smaller size why would you use it? I do like super8 though, especially black and white. I guess this is major OT but I love talking about small film gauges. Do you know that 9.5 mm is still made? Now that would be super cool to use.
Yes - I think I stand corrected. It was almost def shot on 16mm.
I think I'm so used to watching Duel on 8mm through my Elmo projector I got it into my head somehow that is was shot on Super8!
You view it over 2 reels! So me and my wee audience get an 'ice cream break' when we have Super 8 film nights!
Why can't they have ice cream breaks nowadays??! I know it completely spoils the film, but hey, when I was little I used to look forward to the ice cream break soooooo much! [pi][~][:D]
Did Dennis Hopper initially want to release a 12 hour version of Easy Rider though??!! With just hours of driving shots with cool music played over the top??! hehehe
You'd need lots of ice cream for that!
(And lots of [ahem!] 'special cigarettes')
"Why can't they have ice cream breaks nowadays??! "
The break was the best part of Titanic [:D]
In some older films they still offer the traditional interruption even on DVD, e.g. Metropolis or 2001.