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Sky Captain and the Films of Tomorrow
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?"
actually at a special presentation which I was fortunate enough to attend, Gweneth Paltrow and Jude Law said that the lack of sets "freed" them in their acting. The fact that they had an animatic of the entire film that they used as reference before every take allowed them to "hit their marks" more easily and allowed them to be more creative in their acting. It was like theater acting on a bare set.
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.
I guess this started with Return of the Jedi, when, in order to keep the story ending secret to the last minute, he shot the actors doing really ambiguous stuff, to insure they could not figure it out.
;-)
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...
You can't take the sky from me...
The upcoming Sin City (based on Frank Miller's graphic novel series, and it's directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller) uses a similar filmmaking technique as "Sky Captain," although not to the same degree. An FAQ is here.
:)
Compare the behind-the-scenes footage to the trailer that was shown at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con (they had originally posted a 640x480 version but it's been replaced by a 480x272 version).
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.