Film Studies - "we expect slickly produced images, a rich and complex soundtrack and we want films to feed our insatiable appetite for story and sensation" p3
“Jackson has admitted that he could not have made the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the epic scale that he did without the help of the computer-generated imagery” p328
“Photography, film, and sound recording taken together shifted dramatically our historical perspective.”
“The development of recording media… was as significant historically as the invention of writing seven thousand years earlier.”
p.42 “But these days, there’s no need to hire real people, and the biggest line item budgets is CGI. This is especially true of comic- book and fantasy-based projects which don’t need high-priced stars to succeed. The combined budgets for Sam Raimi’s three Spider- Man films exceeded $500 million.”
p42
“There are two ways to spend exorbiant amounts of money on making movies. For apocalypse Now Francis FordCoppola reinvented the Vietnam War with the proverbial cast of thousands. The film cost upwards of $30 million in the mid seventies…”
“There was just so much love poured into it and so much care. The thing is, when you rely on the latest technology to tell your story- and that’s it- that dates. It can date badly. Whereas, when you actually make the stuff, I think there’s something about that that is a little bit more ageless.” - Isaac
p9. “...cinema has given up the purpose and the thinking behind individual shots (and narrative), in favour of images- rootless, textureless images- designed to violently impress by constantly inflating their spectacular qualities.”
“Special effects… often draw attention to themselves, asking the viewer to share the joke, pretend s/he is fooled or simply marvel at what technology and imagination are capable of.”
“In all instances the spectacular use of CGI tends to slow down the narrative and distract from the story.”
“With numbers like that Hollywood will never stop making these films.” (talking about profits)
“... in the age of Spilberg, shortcomings of story, character and dialogue are often compensated by special effects.
“an agumented public appetite for the experience of speed itself, as visceral commodity, and for thrills without threat to personal danger. Arguably this appetite has been the common driving force behind a diversity of entertainments over the last century, including theme park rides and the movies.”
“He has consistently aimed to transport the cinema viewer into imaginary landscapes and infinite space, devising techniques and film formats that harness the sense of sight to the sensation of speed.”
p77. “Without editing, the expressive and narrative capabilities of the moving image would not be anything like as rich as they are.”
p.42 “But these days, there’s no need to hire real people, and the biggest line item budgets is CGI. This is especially true of comic- book and fantasy-based projects which don’t need high-priced stars to succeed. The combined budgets for Sam Raimi’s three Spider- Man films exceeded $500 million.”
“There are two ways to spend exorbiant amounts of money on making movies. For apocalypse Now Francis FordCoppola reinvented the Vietnam War with the proverbial cast of thousands. The film cost upwards of $30 million in the mid seventies…”
“The production staged the majority of ruin
Case study: Gladiator
“It was decided that location shooting would bring down the cost of the production, rather than trying to construct everything in Hollywood. However, filming on the site of historical monuments was impossible because of the likely damage incurred during filming, and because of the often poor condition of the sites to begin with.” p 45
“The biggest set, that of ‘ancient Rome’, was built at Port Mifisalfi, Malta, over nineteen weeks in the winter of 1998-99, immediately prior to filming. The set included a full-scale section of the Roman Colosseum (the rest would be filled in using computer graphics)...” p45
“From the beginning, the shoot was a very complex affair. The scale of the production - with a mammoth budget of over US$100 million, scenes involving thousands of extras and a four- month shoot in four countries - necessitated the use of four different crews.”
“... incorporating replicas of Roman war machines and an army if 1000 extras.”p46
“Preparation of the sets had begun long before shooting:because of the scale of the set…”p46
“The year 1946 marked the peak in cinema-going in the USA, unsurpassed to this day. In that year, the average weekly attendance in the US was 95 million.”
p77. “Without editing, the expressive and narrative capabilities of the moving image would not be anything like as rich as they are.”
“Photography, film, and sound recording taken together shifted dramatically our historical perspective.”
“Whatever can be told in print in a novel can be roughly pictured or told in film (although the wildest fantasies… might require a lot of special effects.)”
“... the new technical capacity to record and reproduce sounds and images presents us with an exciting new set of choices.”
“Previously we were limited by our own physical abilities.”
“In the analog world there were strict limits:you could only make a piece of wood or a violin do what it was capable of doing. In the digital world, there are no physical limits: it’s only a question of storage capacity, processor speed....”
“the live action sequences were scheduled to begin filming in august 1932”
“Achieving a seamless joint between live-action and painting was quite difficult and involved a great deal of aligning and testing” p184 “It was not unusual for a shot to be redone twenty or thirty times before it was done right
“Filmmakers no longer need to build elaborate sets or amass hoards of extras in order to create crowd scenes.”
“Jackson has admitted that he could not have made the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the epic scale that he did without the help of the computer-generated imagery”
“Digital compositing: The digitally manipulated combination of at least two source images to produce an integrated result.”
“... the new technical capacity to record and reproduce sounds and images presents us with an exciting new set of choices.”
“Previously we were limited by our own physical abilities.”
“Photography, film, and sound recording taken together shifted dramatically our historical perspective.”
“The development of recording media… was as significant historically as the invention of writing seven thousand years earlier.”
“There are cinics today that believe modern film is too reliant on CGI and that we should return to a simpler form of real filmmaking…. But, that era never existed - filmmakers from the very beginning have sought to push the medium with special effects.”
“The undeniable truth about filmmaking is the only thing that matters is what’s on that screen.”
“... it’s all about creating a window onto another world. A world where each of us can find our dreams our fears and ourselves. All these effects we have are just tools to help us get there… And we have some fantastic tools, so use them, and make something great.”
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