Sky Captain and the Films of Tomorrow 417
professorfalcon writes "Foxnews.com has an interview with the stars of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. They talk about their experience hugging a green screen for the entire film, and how the movie is 'unlike anything most audiences have seen before. It uses no sets, only computer generated imagery.' So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?"
Poll Troll Toll (Score:2, Interesting)
Sky Captain [calcgames.org]
Star Wars [calcgames.org]
Sex with a wookie [calcgames.org]
Sex with a mare [calcgames.org]
Sky Caps does not look 'real' (Score:2, Interesting)
Star Wars had sets (Score:3, Interesting)
Sky Captain has green screen work with
This is the future of special effects movies, because of the creative freedom and reduced costs. The hardest part will be for actors to have something to act against. I think this gets solved by creating preliminary computer models as part of the concept art and using it to show the actors, in realtime, what they're interacting with.
but a few serious problems (Score:3, Interesting)
I enjoyed the look and feel of the film, and Paltrow (a lot), and the luscious close-ups, but the story was just LAME. The film treated pre-WWI Germany as if it were Nazi Germany -- totally different kettles of fish.
On the other hand the last two words of the movie were hilarious.
Re:It is NOT the future. (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the audience reaction, this film was deliberately made in a stylized form. In fact they processed it in black and white and recolorized it to give an old movie feel! (They also didn't use the state of the art capture technology, just plain old Sony HD-CAM 1440x960, 3:1:1, 8bit). It is clear from many other recent motion pictures that they could have made it appear as realistic as they wanted but chose not to.
The main reason why it IS the future is because it is thought that it cost about 1/3 what it would have been if they had shot it on "real" sets! Hate to say it but saving more than $80 million dollars (estimated cost of the film $40M-$70M) would drive any producer to making his film this way, regardless of actor preference or (most) audience reactions.
Re:So most audiences didn't see Star Wars? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've turned very cynical about Lucas, I'm thinking he probably was shooting stuff until he figured it out
Reminds me of Psycho though, all the actors had to sign strict NDAs so the secret punch wouldn't get out before the movie was released. Of course, society has done a very thourough job of spoiling that for the rest of eternity now, so the wisdom of the NDA about the shower scene was in retrospect quite undenyable.
Off-topicish rant: Planet of the apes, they released a version where the punch is ON THE FREAKING COVER. Jeez...
Re:I want the two hours of my life back. (Score:3, Interesting)
The CG wasn't even that good, in some scenes the Doom 3 engine could have rendered more convincing backgrounds.
Plus the actors didn't seem like they wanted to be there.
The biggest hole in the movie though: Where is everyone? It seems like the main actors are the only people that populate this world. Polly would run around the streets but no one else is to be seen.
I really appreciate the style that the director was aiming for, but it just didn't seem to hold up over two hours.
George Lucas and Spielberg made Indiana Jones as an homage to old serials, but at least they pushed the format forward, sky captain seems to push it backwards, yuch.
This really is the future of filmmaking... (Score:5, Interesting)
Compare the behind-the-scenes footage [themoviebox.net] to the trailer [movie-list.com] that was shown at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con [comic-con.org] (they had originally posted a 640x480 version [movie-list.net] but it's been replaced by a 480x272 version [movie-list.net]).
Check it out (there's a brief topless scene, so it's not SFW), if only for the shots of Jessica Alba dancing around seductively in leather chaps.
Re:It is NOT the future. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're forgetting technological improvement. And it won't take "decades" (well, maybe one or two.) The computer hardware and software available by another ten or twenty years will be so good any director will be able to order up any kind of character he wants, AND tweak scenes as he likes, AND generate voiceovers with any emotional content he wants.
Of course, this will result in a lot of bad movies as bad directors ignore the interplay of real actors for their own obsessive interpretation of the movie (see: Lucas, George).
However, good directors will be able to produce great movies exactly as they want them for less money.
Net effect will be like the introduction of word processing on computers: some great documents, and a lot of over-fonted crap.
Re:Sky Caps does not look 'real' (Score:3, Interesting)
Actors are the cheapest part of making a movie. It the stars that are super-expensive.
Now if the studio can 'persuade' unknown actors with great potential to sell their facial expressions and movements, human characters can be inserted into movies like hordes of digitized extras. At some savings to the studio.
Even then the cost of promotion and advertising of a new film is often approaching and sometimes even surpassing the cost of making the film itself.
Hollywood films, despite all the emotion and news coverage that they induce, are not very profitable. Individual films can be, but on the whole, film studios just barely break even on box office receipts over the entire year's worth of releases. Profit from a film comes over time through the ancilliary markets, such as TV, hotels, airlines, theme parks, and video/DVD rentals.
Variety magazine is a good place to get an overview of the film business. However, they're so specialized towards industry detail and consumate boosters that one has to read between the lines with them.
Basically, the film industry is peaking after years of annual double-digit box-office growth in the past 15 years. The audience numbers (# of butts in seats) are flat for two years now, they're no longer growing. Box office receipts rise directly according to admission price increases, but these gross receipts are eaten up by greatly rising costs in film production and advertising. Audiences over 28 years old have fallen greatly, and under-25s are being siphoned off by video games.
The film industry is on the verge of a crisis not unlike those of the early 1950s and early 1970s. But they are the most creative industry in the world, and they always bounce back.
Horray for Hollywood!
Re:The Slashdot Defect (Score:2, Interesting)
Just got back from seeing it... (Score:1, Interesting)
Putting someone as famous as Angelina Jolie in the role she played was a complete waste. She had like 10 minutes of total screen time, and any attractive actress would have done fine as that character. Having said that, she did look hot (though I could have done without the eye patch).
Gwyneth Paltrow looked stunning-- the 30s fashions and styles were very becoming.
And for once, it was nice to see Giovanni Ribisi in a role where he's not so annoying I'd like to slap the shit out of him.
Re:Chroma Key (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It is NOT the future. (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why The Lord of the Rings movies are so well-liked was the fact they used as many natural locations as possible to provide a background to "layer" in the CGI effects. A good example is the from The Fellowship of the Ring when they were travelling down the Anduin River; much of the background is CGI, but that was in addition to scenes filmed at various locations in New Zealand itself.
Star Wars References (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there are more, these are just little bits I picked up on.