September 07, 2007

• This is fun, and timely. Last night I viewed the very first episode of "Lost in Space"; my favorite part was where weightlessness was simulated by attaching an actress' ponytail to a wire and waving it around. Talk about pre-digital...
• Fantastic article. Great find, kit! "We cut in a full-frame flash from one of the Death Star’s laser cannon to cover the transition from model to painting. It was kind of funky, but it worked." - So that's why it seems like lightning and thunder when they dive into the trench! I'll be pausing the DVD tonight...alone...on a Friday night... I love this kind of stuff. I always used to tape the "Making of..." stuff off the telly. Harryhausen, Dykstra, these guys are gods.
• May 25, 1977 My birthday is the same as Star Wars' birthday. You'd think some people would REMEMBER but they DON'T. I saw the Star Wars exhibit when it went through San Francisco. The models all had singe-marks on them. I think a lot of today's action/sci-fi/horror/etc. movies would benefit from a judicious balance between high-tech and low-tech effects. Often the use of models works where CGI fails. Episode I was released on my birthday as well. I saw it with people who CARE.
• Did anyone else hear something then? Like a distant, wingeing sort of drone? No? Must have been the wind... But yes, models and miniatures, when done right are fantastic and can look better than CGI. Model-making tip - when making an X-wing etc, achieve that blast-mark effect by striking a match and holding it to your painted model as it flares. Remove quickly.
• I'll give you the wind.
• Sorry wrong thread.
• You know how when you hear a song from the 80's and it has those big ol' gated-reverb Phil Collins drums and crappy handclap noises and boopy synths etc? And how all the songs from the 1980's suck specifically because they sound like that? CGI, people. That's all I'm sayin'. Bad news. Although I just watched a documentary on the making of the first one and George was actually hospitalized for just-about-to-have-a-freakin-stress-heart-attack, so I can see how he'd prefer to do it all digitally these days. It's still a mistake though. Models and gunfire. That's the ticket.
• I tried that match trick to give my Panzer model a battle-singed look. It ended up looking like it had been hit by a 30-inch armour-piercing round. MMM burning plastic. People pay big money for the authentic crappy handclap sounds of old kit, petebest. Some would say too much.
• Monkeyfilter: the authentic crappy handclap sounds of old kit
• Bravo, Pleg! Now go and update your blog.
• Just paint scorch marks on using dry brush technique. None of those models were actually burned, I'd be willing to bet. The models that experienced pyro were destroyed in said effects. The others were simply painted to look battle-damaged. They didn't shoot the models going thru sparks or anything, they used dykstraflex & blue screen to composite them. Explosions appearing on surfaces of ships were also composited (painstakingly by hand, using matte techniques, many of which cannot be recreated today because nobody is left who remembers how, or the equipment doesn't exist. They even had to research how the original films achieved the text roll-ups at the beginning of each episode, which everyone had almost forgotten how to do). That said, I agree with models vs CGI, but I think a judicious use of both is good. Some of the original fx for SW were pretty shitty, like the sparks going off on the death star surface/ping pong table covered with tchotchkes. They drove a jeep past it with a camera onboard in the ILM parking lot & threw crackers at it, IIRC. Also, everyone who was a kid in the 70s/80s (god I'm old) remembers the horrendous matte-boxes around ships which could clearly be seen in space shots. We just used our imaginations to imagine they weren't there. Remember The Emperor's 'slugs'? Weird hand-painted black areas on the Emperor's hood & face during his close ups in the original release of Return of the Jedi. These were put there to cover up areas of his makeup & costume that were revealed by the pin-spot lighting on his face. There was lots of other shit like that. I was particularly glad they redid the spaceship hangar matte paintings from Jedi, since even as a kid I cringed at them. Of the remaining FX, the Super Star Destroyer ploughing into the Deathstar surface from Jedi was awesome in its day, but sadly looks woefully shit now. Another egregious example were the awful matte-lines around Luke as he runs around the Rancor's legs. Most of the spaceship fx in the Prequels *were* in fact models, but they digitally scanned the surfaces to use for animation. E.g., the Trade Federation ships were real, old-style practical models. They were just manipulated digitally, which I think worked well. What I really liked about the original SW movies were the props. They were mostly made out of old bits of camera equipment, like the lightsabre Luke has is an old Graflex flash battery unit, the kind of tube-shaped camera flash units you see stuck on the side of those old 1950s press cameras. The guns were old WW1 & WW2 weapons with various bits of junk stuck to 'em, with a chunky gunsight & flash retarder bolted on. bits of Volkswagon windsreen wiper blade & faucet filters stuck to stormtrooper helmets. Ironically, these props were far more believable-looking as space items than the lovingly hand-built props for the prequels. The lightsabre hilts used in the Phantom Menace were particularly pissy-looking, IMHO, although of course the designs were supposed to reflect a 'golden age' in the galaxy, whereas the original movies show a galaxy that has suffered thru a dictatorship and a decades old civil war. As for TR-808 etc synth sounds from the 80s, most people I know in the biz swear by 'em.
• I'm still looking for an old Graflex flash unit on Ebay, but every time one comes up, some retard SW fan bids up the fucking price too early. I saw one for twenty bucks (!) a few weeks ago, then after a day, 7 days before the end of the auction, it ended up like 300 bucks. Spewing.
• . . . of course the designs were supposed to reflect a 'golden age' in the galaxy, whereas the original movies show a galaxy that has suffered thru a dictatorship and a decades old civil war. I wonder if that's because the first movie's props were created in large part from "actual" gear, and if so if that says something about the latter movies' quagmire of imagination, or if it more refers to the way we recognize and process the images of those bits & parts as "real" items. As for TR-808 etc synth sounds from the 80s, most people I know in the biz swear by 'em. Bah! Feh! It's a scourge I tells ya! Analog drum synths are cool, but as a framework for pop songs, Linndrum and DX7 are a disaster. There's no humanity in those tracks and time has not been kind to those songs. IMMO, obv., ymmv.
• petebest, you're obviously listening to the wrong 80's music.
• I don't think the latter movies had a quagmire of imagination, mainly due to the fact they stick pretty closely to the very first drafts Lucas wrote back in around 1973. They just had more money to lavish on custom stuff, and didn't face the kind of budgetary concerns that resulted in some pretty creative responses to practical limitations the first movies did. I think pressure can make creative people bloom under some circumstances, and I think the old SW movies are good examples of this. The thing is, the first movies weren't really all that great, in actual reality, they just seemed so in our imaginations. Lucas lucked-out in having a cast that had some pretty nice chemistry, great production design, and nobody had ever seen a movie like that before. I well remember the astonishment that greeted the first release. There had literally been nothing like it, and people went fucking apeshit (of course, this was the tail end of the 70s, so adults were pretty flipped out already). Nowadays we are used to big special fx extravaganzas, spaceships, whatnot, so it was a big hurdle. There was no way anyone could compete with somebody's expectations. Trying to recreate the chemistry between Hamill, Fisher & Ford with a new bunch would be like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Nobody could do it. I watched the first prequel with a few kids (not mine) sitting nearby. They were all in the 7-9 age range. They absolutely loved it. It was similar to my reactions at 7 seeing ANH on first release. That's when I concluded Lucas pretty much knew what he was doing. The movies were for kids, not for 30-something cynics. The dialog in the first movies was shit. The acting wasn't that great. Yoda was a fucking muppet (I hated Yoda in 1980, I thought it was an outrage). It was the visuals that grabbed me, I think Lucas has a great eye for composition. The prequels largely suffered for not having people like Ralph McQuarrie to design stuff, & makeup geniuses like Stuart Freeborn, all these people that learned their craft back in the old days. Still, they were head and shoulders above current CGI suck-fests. Also, there was some pretty surprisingly brutal shit in Clones & Sith. Anakin without arms and legs burning by the lava was pretty fucking harsh! It was worth it, the whole thing, for that scene alone. God damn, that Kenobi is one cold motherfucker!
• That scene was great -- for all of the stuff Anakin had gone through, in the end he was defeated by a slight incline...
• I also hated Yoda back in the day. I remember deliberately blurring my eyes to aid in my suspension of disbelief. The Prequels were visually beautiful; the one complaint I had with the look was that at times there was just too much going on to take in. But to Playstation-generation eyes it probably looked just right. And to ears unaccustomed to weekly doses of Fozzie the Bear, the voice probably isn't as giggle-inducing. The Anakin-to-Vader sequence was gut-wrneching, until they did that big theatrical "Noooooooooooooo!" a la Homer Simpson.
• Tritto the anti-Yoda thing. Frank Oz is a genius though. that big theatrical "Noooooooooooooo!" a la Homer Simpson. I definitely was thinking Simpsons, but more of a "McBAAaaaaaiin!" It's so painfully trite, but as noted George isn't all that good with dialogue. The first movie is that great (I'd argue) almost in spite of itself. The way the sound effects and the music constantly rescue the clunky, if engaging, scenes time after time. Frankly, I didn't like Empire or Jedi that much. I was disappointed the characters didn't look the same. The hairstyling on Empire was way too much, everyone looked freshly washed all the time. ("WRONG!") Plus the Joe Campbell influence was sorely lacking. least.joseph.campbell.influenced.evar!
• Frankly, I didn't like Empire [...] that much... Oh, pete, pete, pete. I used to have such respect for you...
• Um.. dry brush takes time and skill, just flash a burning match against he mo-fo for 0.5 of a second, gets the result every time...
• When the first movie came out I was twelve, and I saw it 2 or 3 times in the theatres. By the time Empire and Jedi came along, I was too cool for Star Wars and never saw them (for at least 10 more years!). I've seen 2 of the prequels now and don't much care for them at all. It was magical back then because nobody else had done it - at least not on such a grand scale. Nowadays it's just another CGI movie.
• I remember waiting in line for Empire as a kid. It was something unlike what we'd seen before. I really could have gotten behind the prequels more with a different actor cast as Anakin. I mean, he was the lynchpin to the entire plot, and the weakest link, acting wise. I did get a fair bit of enjoyment out of all six, though. The last one appealed to the kid in me that was glad to finally see the full circle closed. And awesome effects, although you guys are all neeeerds and I'm not!
• You are Queen of the Nerds. And you know it. By the way, anyone seen the new Leatherman Skeletool coming out in November? WANT!
• Louis, for what it's worth Empire is second on my list of SW movies. I just liked the first one that much more. Casting a 9 year old instead of a 13 year old was fatally wrong. It's possible, however unlikely, that the right actor in that role could have saved it from Jar Jar and its own plodding. IV, V, III, VI, II, I
• Skeletool: Lots of places to pinch your fingers
• Drumpants That's what I think of as an 80's sound, partially. suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
• Leatherman Skeletool: New! Improved! Now with more places to pinch your fingers! Do not want. MonkeyFilter: you guys are all nerds and I am not
• Drum. Pants. DRUMPANTS! You got your rhythm in my trousers! You got your trousers in my rhythm! Casting a 9 year old instead of a 13 year old was fatally wrong. It's possible, however unlikely, that the right actor in that role could have saved it from Jar Jar and its own plodding. I didn't mind the little-boy Anakin so much as the older-boy Anakin. I spent two nights in the cinema wondering exactly what kind of wood he was carved out of. Teak? Mahogany? At least little-boy Anakin was present in the scene.
• Look, I like getting my fingers pinched, m'kay?
• Star Wars Celebrity Photoshops at worth1000.com
• Reality vs CGI / Playstation generation: is it me, or does this new Beowulf film look like a very bad videogame cutscene? Plus don't cast Ray Winstone ever, please.
• I dunno. I kinda enjoyed it.
• I enjoyed it a lot. But I'm a Winstone fangirl from way back, so I might be biased. Visually, it struck me as neither cartoon nor reality, but a sort of hyperreality. I've had dreams that look a lot like that.
• Actually, I think the first Star Wars was for those of us who grew up with Saturday afternoon matinees at the movie theater. There were so many motifs that harked back to serials that played then that it sucked me right in when I was in my mid-thirties. (My daughter also loved it, but she was about the age I was way back then.) Kind of like Lucas's American Grafitti for those who had dragged Main/cruised 20 or more years, before, there was a suspension of disbelief that didn't attach to his later movies for me.
• My Skeletool arrived today. It's all kinds of awesome.
• Does it make you feel like Edward Scissorhands?
• It makes me feel like a MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!
• Have you pinched your fingers in all the dangerous parts of it yet?
• No pinching yet, despite playing with it while drunkimafied last night. It's obviously safe.
• You opened beer bottles with it, didn't you?