Dunkirk
When I watched "Dunkirk" directed by Christopher Nolan, I was first impressed by how accurate the look of the film was. I truly felt as though I was on the beach of Dunkirk as 300 thousand soldiers waited to be saved or be killed by Nazi forces at their back.
Even though Nolan did a very good job telling the story of how England's soldiers were rescued, I had a problem with how the story was being told.
From the beginning of the film, it is established where the soldiers, boats of would be rescuers and two pilots were located. The only additional information given, was how long it would take the boats and the planes to get to Dunkirk. The two planes were an hour away and the boats were going to take a day. As the film progresses, the audience is shown different moments in the story from the point of view of the pilots, a particular boat with three people on it and the soldiers trying to escape on navy transports and survive Nazi bombs, mortar fire and Luftwafts strafing the beach.
The issue I had with this is that the continuity seemed off, until I a scene where one of the rescue boats picked up a soldier who had survived the sinking of a Navy ship. Then in the next scene the same soldier is seen in an event that apparently occurs hours before he even got on the ship.
In that moment, I realized what Nolan was attempting to do. Instead of telling the story from a single point of view--that of the soldiers--he was telling the story through three separate accounts. At first, the accounts of the soldiers, rescue boat and the pilots appear to be completely different from one another, until they began to overlap like the soldier being rescued in one scene and then being on the beach getting into the ship that sank hours earlier.
By telling the story in this fashion, Nolan solves two production problems. Fitting a story from three points of view into 120 minutes and creating tension. Had he told the story from a singular view point, either the rescuers, pilots or soldiers, the film would have felt slow and there would not have been a feeling of a ticking clock.
I can only imagine how all of this would have appeared in the script and how much attention Nolan and the producers had to pay to planning each shot and each scene. What comes to mind is the math problem where you have three subjects who are travelling in the same direction and you have to determine at which point the three will converge and that is exactly what this film does. There are three sides to the story all leading to the same end and as things progress, these three sides finally converge to a climactic end.
I enjoyed the film immensely and wondered if the pilots and the boats would get to the beach in time to rescue the soldiers. I found that putting the film together in the way Nolan did was brilliant and a testament to the process of pre-production.
Even though Nolan did a very good job telling the story of how England's soldiers were rescued, I had a problem with how the story was being told.
From the beginning of the film, it is established where the soldiers, boats of would be rescuers and two pilots were located. The only additional information given, was how long it would take the boats and the planes to get to Dunkirk. The two planes were an hour away and the boats were going to take a day. As the film progresses, the audience is shown different moments in the story from the point of view of the pilots, a particular boat with three people on it and the soldiers trying to escape on navy transports and survive Nazi bombs, mortar fire and Luftwafts strafing the beach.
The issue I had with this is that the continuity seemed off, until I a scene where one of the rescue boats picked up a soldier who had survived the sinking of a Navy ship. Then in the next scene the same soldier is seen in an event that apparently occurs hours before he even got on the ship.
In that moment, I realized what Nolan was attempting to do. Instead of telling the story from a single point of view--that of the soldiers--he was telling the story through three separate accounts. At first, the accounts of the soldiers, rescue boat and the pilots appear to be completely different from one another, until they began to overlap like the soldier being rescued in one scene and then being on the beach getting into the ship that sank hours earlier.
By telling the story in this fashion, Nolan solves two production problems. Fitting a story from three points of view into 120 minutes and creating tension. Had he told the story from a singular view point, either the rescuers, pilots or soldiers, the film would have felt slow and there would not have been a feeling of a ticking clock.
I can only imagine how all of this would have appeared in the script and how much attention Nolan and the producers had to pay to planning each shot and each scene. What comes to mind is the math problem where you have three subjects who are travelling in the same direction and you have to determine at which point the three will converge and that is exactly what this film does. There are three sides to the story all leading to the same end and as things progress, these three sides finally converge to a climactic end.
I enjoyed the film immensely and wondered if the pilots and the boats would get to the beach in time to rescue the soldiers. I found that putting the film together in the way Nolan did was brilliant and a testament to the process of pre-production.
Lost In La Mancha
If there is an example of what production hell looks like, then Lost In La Mancha documents it perfectly. The documentary follows renowned director Terry Giliam as he begins production on "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote."
It was interesting to watch the documentary because it showed how chaotic a film production can be. Here are Giliam and his producers trying to put this film together: story boarding, building sets, hiring actors, scheduling the production and everything that could go wrong does go wrong and none of them really saw it coming.
The most interesting thing about the documentary is it follows the story of the production from beginning to end. At first, we see a new film being made and it works as a kind of behind the scenes for Giliam's film. Like any other behind the scenes documentary, we see the director meeting with actors and producers and all the departments working together as production starts. We even see scenes from the film with Johnny Depp being filmed from the crews point of view.
As the documentary continues, we follow Giliam as the production begins to fall apart. First, due to scheduling issues with shooting on location with planes constantly flying overhead and then a storm, which changes the look of the location and blocks much needed sunlight. Then begins the medical problems of the man cast as Don Quixote.
The fact that the actor is unable to continue in his role begins the crumbling demise of the film itself. The film makers decide to film what they can with the actors who are able to work, but find that because of insurance and contract issues they cannot replace the actor with someone else and ultimately the entire production gets canceled.
Considering the documentary from a production point of view, they were either going to have a documentary of a film from the start of production until the day it wraps. When it appeared that they weren't going to have the documentary they had first set out to make, they had a decision to make. Continue documenting the production as things unfold, or scrap it altogether. Had they done so, we wouldn't have this shining example of how much goes into making a film, from the awesome moments to the failures.
Lost in La Mancha is not necessarily a film about a production failing, but the determination of a man with a vision and the moments of triumph he has when his vision is coming to life, and the heartbreak he experiences when the dream comes to a disappointing halt. The film showed me how much it truly takes to make a film happen and how surprisingly easy it can all come crashing down around the people involved.
It was interesting to watch the documentary because it showed how chaotic a film production can be. Here are Giliam and his producers trying to put this film together: story boarding, building sets, hiring actors, scheduling the production and everything that could go wrong does go wrong and none of them really saw it coming.
The most interesting thing about the documentary is it follows the story of the production from beginning to end. At first, we see a new film being made and it works as a kind of behind the scenes for Giliam's film. Like any other behind the scenes documentary, we see the director meeting with actors and producers and all the departments working together as production starts. We even see scenes from the film with Johnny Depp being filmed from the crews point of view.
As the documentary continues, we follow Giliam as the production begins to fall apart. First, due to scheduling issues with shooting on location with planes constantly flying overhead and then a storm, which changes the look of the location and blocks much needed sunlight. Then begins the medical problems of the man cast as Don Quixote.
The fact that the actor is unable to continue in his role begins the crumbling demise of the film itself. The film makers decide to film what they can with the actors who are able to work, but find that because of insurance and contract issues they cannot replace the actor with someone else and ultimately the entire production gets canceled.
Considering the documentary from a production point of view, they were either going to have a documentary of a film from the start of production until the day it wraps. When it appeared that they weren't going to have the documentary they had first set out to make, they had a decision to make. Continue documenting the production as things unfold, or scrap it altogether. Had they done so, we wouldn't have this shining example of how much goes into making a film, from the awesome moments to the failures.
Lost in La Mancha is not necessarily a film about a production failing, but the determination of a man with a vision and the moments of triumph he has when his vision is coming to life, and the heartbreak he experiences when the dream comes to a disappointing halt. The film showed me how much it truly takes to make a film happen and how surprisingly easy it can all come crashing down around the people involved.
Beetlejuice
I was a teenager when Tim Burton's comedy about the world of the dead came to the big screen. It wasn't long before Beetlejuice became one of the more popular films of the 1980's and even had a cartoon based on that view of the world.
Beetlejuice is the film that made Tim Burton a household name and one of my very favorite films. The reason for this is because Burton has a very unique way of seeing things and Beetlejuice excellently displays the vision Burton has.
Visually, the world of the dead has shapes that are uncommon to us. Everything appears dark and disjointed. This is evident in a scene where Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are in a hallway that is anything but straight. I hadn't realized before how much the world Burton envisioned resembles the early German art films from the 1920's and 30's. Clearly these were films Burton was influenced by.
I have always loved this film for its comedy and its visual design. Watching it more than thirty years later, it was exciting to see how well the stop motion and other visual effects hold up in today's high definition blu ray. It is really a testament to the expertise of the visual effects supervisor, whom I discovered was Alan Munro, adding a personal connection to the film for me, I had not previously had.
Seeing the film now I marvel at how the visual effects crew were able to accomplish the effects they did. From sculptures coming to life, actors seeming to fade away and Winona Ryder floating in the air at the end of the film. These effects would have been done through stop motion, optical illusion and green screen in the days when the film was made and today, they would have mostly been done digitally.
It must have taken a few months of sculpting models, painting them and then shooting them frame by frame to create the many creatures that appear in the film. Certainly something that Burton himself would have need to script out and plan so that it would look good, then it was up to the visual effects team to composite it all together with the live set and actors.
Having met one of the people who worked on this film and with one of my favorite directors makes me appreciate the artistry that is Beetlejuice even more than I already had. In my mind it is a masterpiece of production and film making, including the amazing soundtrack composed by Danny Elfman. It is one of the films from my youth that made me want to become a film maker myself.
I was a teenager when Tim Burton's comedy about the world of the dead came to the big screen. It wasn't long before Beetlejuice became one of the more popular films of the 1980's and even had a cartoon based on that view of the world.
Beetlejuice is the film that made Tim Burton a household name and one of my very favorite films. The reason for this is because Burton has a very unique way of seeing things and Beetlejuice excellently displays the vision Burton has.
Visually, the world of the dead has shapes that are uncommon to us. Everything appears dark and disjointed. This is evident in a scene where Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are in a hallway that is anything but straight. I hadn't realized before how much the world Burton envisioned resembles the early German art films from the 1920's and 30's. Clearly these were films Burton was influenced by.
I have always loved this film for its comedy and its visual design. Watching it more than thirty years later, it was exciting to see how well the stop motion and other visual effects hold up in today's high definition blu ray. It is really a testament to the expertise of the visual effects supervisor, whom I discovered was Alan Munro, adding a personal connection to the film for me, I had not previously had.
Seeing the film now I marvel at how the visual effects crew were able to accomplish the effects they did. From sculptures coming to life, actors seeming to fade away and Winona Ryder floating in the air at the end of the film. These effects would have been done through stop motion, optical illusion and green screen in the days when the film was made and today, they would have mostly been done digitally.
It must have taken a few months of sculpting models, painting them and then shooting them frame by frame to create the many creatures that appear in the film. Certainly something that Burton himself would have need to script out and plan so that it would look good, then it was up to the visual effects team to composite it all together with the live set and actors.
Having met one of the people who worked on this film and with one of my favorite directors makes me appreciate the artistry that is Beetlejuice even more than I already had. In my mind it is a masterpiece of production and film making, including the amazing soundtrack composed by Danny Elfman. It is one of the films from my youth that made me want to become a film maker myself.