The Single-Minded Movie Blog: 2012

31.12.12

Will life go on?

I always post something nostalgic on the last day of the year, usually a scene from a movie, intended to make you stop for a moment and take stock, reflect on the year, and consider the prospects for next year. I was going to do the same today, but then I got a message from my film-making friend Christian E. Christansen, informing me that good, old-fashioned film stock will no longer be available in Denmark. Oh, you can still get it if you really, really, really want to, but it dawned on me today - more than it has before - that this really is the end of film.

That makes me sad and nostalgic. I believe digital has many advantages, and that many talented cinematographers use it to great effect. But I also believe filmmakers should have every tool available to them. "Real" film is one of those tools. Or rather, it was.

To end 2012 I leave you with these images from the movie Portrait of a Projectionist by Philip Bloom - it's a 7 minute documentary, and you can see it in its entirety here.

Farewell 2012. The year we said goodbye to film.

24.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 24 of 24

Welcome to the Single-Minded Movie Blog advent calendar. Between the 1st and the 24th of December every day will bring you a short post about a classic or not so classic shot from the golden era of visual effects.

Nakatomi Plaza aftermath

- in Die Hard (1988)

Using the 20th Century Fox headquarters, Fox Plaza, to double for the fictional Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard seemed like a good, cheap solution. However, since the powers that be had famously forbidden the production to actually blow up the building, the model makers at Boss Film Studies had to be called in.

At the very end of the film we get this magnificent shot that shows the aftermath of the so-called terrorist attack. The camera starts at the top of the building, showing the burning rooftop, and then tilts down to the street to reveal the chaotic scene at the ground level.

The second part of the shot was indeed done on location, with hundreds of extras, debris everywhere and the charred remains of a helicopter. The first part of the shot, however, is a finely detailed 23 feet tall model, shot on the backlot at Boss.

The location footage was projected on a wall and tracked by computer, so the camera move could be repeated on the model. The idea was, that as some point there would be a transition from the model footage, to the "real" footage. Tissue paper was cut into tiny bits and shot separately in several layers to look like office paper tumbling down over the scene.

In the final shot all the elements come together perfectly, and the transition from the model to the real building is flawless. Yet another example of stunning movie magic. Christmas magic even.

And with that I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks to Mr. Dennis Rosenfeld for his invaluable contribution, and thanks for reading.

As is tradition there will be a final 2012 post on the last day of the year, but until then.... Yippee ki-yay!

23.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 23 of 24

The new Europa

- from 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

Peter Hyams' wonderfully straightforward 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a follow-up to the classic, frustratingly nonsensical 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), ends on a beautiful image, showing the beginning of life on Jupiter's moon Europa. The camera tracks past a primordial landscape and settles on the mystical monolith, ready to guide whatever new life will evolve.

The effects were produced by Boss Film Studios, supervised by Richard Edlund, and once again Mark Stetson and his crew delivered the models. Because that's all this is. A huge model, captured in-camera.

The tabletop miniature itself measured 40 feet by 20 feet. The plants covering the area came from many different sources: Some of them were merely bent wires, covered in foam and glue, there were some plastic aquarium plants, and a few real plants such as palms and cactus. To create the proper atmosphere, heavy smoke was used during the shooting. So heavy, in fact, that some of the plants nearly suffocated, and had to be taken outside to rest a few days, before they were ready for next take!

A real complicated element of the miniature landscape was the water, always tricky to pull off in small scale. Other materials were tested, but in the end real water was the only way to go. To break up the surface and make the scale work better, thin netting - similar to bridal veil material - was laid out in the water, only partially submerged. The sky in the background was a painted backing, with holes cut, where two light were used to simulate the dual suns.

To make the shot work properly and sell the scale, the background was mounted on a track, same as the camera, and they were moved simultaneously, to create the illusion that the sky was indeed far away, and not merely 20 feet.

Relatively speaking it's a fairly simple shot, but it works SO well, and when the classic 2001 score begins to play it becomes truly magical.

22.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 22 of 24

The Spinners

- from Blade Runner (1982)

The stunning, flawless visual effects created by Douglas Trumbull and his talented crew for Blade Runner is as much a reason for its status today as anything director Ridley Scott came up with. There's no way of doing justice to Trumbull's work on the limited space we have here, we'll save that for another day, so let's just pause and enjoy the magic of this image:

Director Ridley Scott favored a slow, moody approach to his sci-fi epic. The stunning, atmospheric images required a different approach than the hectic Star Wars space battles

This was never more obvious than in the shots featuring the so-called Spinners - the flying police cars of the future. As they slowly glide through L.A., dozens of flashing lights pierce through the heavy smoke, and lens flares - once considered flaws, now icing on the visual cake - make the whole image come alive.

Most of the close-up Spinner shots were done with the hero model, 44 inches long, with movable human figures inside, and of course covered with multiple flashing lights, perfectly matching the full-scale mock-up.

An interesting detail is the way the model Spinners were shot. Rather than using blue screen, Trumbull preferred to shoot with a fronlit/backlit technique, where the mattes are usually created by having the models in silhouette against a bright white screen. This didn't always work properly (we'll talk about why another time) so a different approach was used. When the normal motion-controlled passes where done (usually four for every shot) the model was covered in white tape, and then photographed against a black background.

How crazy is that? A hardcore, futuristic movie with state of the art effects, and it was done with white tape. Still, it's the final result that counts.

We can all take solace in the fact that the future, as dirty and desolate as it may be, is full of movie magic.

21.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 21 of 24

The TIE fighters attack aka. SB-19

- in Return of the Jedi (1983)

The incredible work done by Industrial Light & Magic for the third Star Wars film is quite possibly the high-point of the photochemical era. The team laboriously assembled roughly 900 shots for the film. Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, and Ken Ralston supervised the effort, with Ralston handling the bulk of the space battle work.

This particular shot occurs during the early moments of the final battle.

According to ILM visual effects editor Bill Kimberlin it was the largest effect shot ever done at the time. Referred to as SB-19, the shot included 63 spaceships, countless other elements, and was comprised of 170 pieces of film.

Each ship had to be shot on a blue screen stage, with a carefully programmed camera move, and each ship had its own set of mattes to isolate it and insert it into the shot. On top of that the exact timing of the flow of ships had to be calculated, so the proper mattes could be created whenever a ship was obscured by another element.

Months and months of work went into this one shot, hundreds and hundreds of man hours were spent, and as I mentioned earlier, this was just one shot among 900.

There's only one word for this kind of effect shot, and you know it by now: Magic.

20.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 20 of 24

The mine chase

- from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Once again I'm cheating a bit, because this is not a single shot, it's a whole sequence...

Indiana Jones and his companions are on the run from the evil Mola Ram. They jump into a mine car and take off, but Mola Ram's henchmen take pursuit. What follows is a perilous high speed chase through narrow tunnels, with more near-miss moments in a single scene than most films have in total. The chase cuts between live-action shots with the actors, filmed on a limited set, and miniature models shots.

Several hundred feet of miniature tunnel was created, using aluminum foil and brown paper, rigged with miniature lights and other details to sell the illusion. The tunnel was shot with a modified Nikon camera, because if a standard camera had been used, the tunnels would have to be twice as big.

The small-scale mine cars were occupied by puppets of the actors, some ten inches tall. They were moved using stop motion, or by radio control in the tunnels that were too tight for stop motion animator Tom St. Amand to access. Other details included blue screen photographed mine cars - for a shot where the bad guys go off the rails - a lava pit, created with red gels and small pieces of cork, and separately shot sparks for the wheels.

Carefully matching the lighting between the full-scale set and the miniatures, plus some very clever cutting, sell the scene. Effect cameraman Mike McAlister spent four months shooting the sequence!

I guess if I have to be honest, it's pretty obvious, looking at the scene today, that there are miniatures and puppets involved, but when the mine cars are running at full speed, and Indy is fighting for his life, I completely forget all about that...

If that isn't movie magic, I don't know what is.

19.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 19 of 24

The house sucked into oblivion

- in Poltergeist (1982)

One of my all time favorite effect shots is the climactic destruction of the Freeling house in Poltergeist. In a matter of seconds, right in front of our eyes, the house is sucked into oblivion, leaving nothing but an empty lot.

The shot started with a plate of the real house, shot on location. The house itself was then painted out with a matte painting showing the empty lot and the neighboring houses in the background.

The imploding house itself was a 6 feet wide model, built to match the real house in every detail - that alone took four months. After countless tests it was decided that the collapse should be accomplished by attaching thick wires inside the model and simply pull it into a funnel, while tearing it apart. The model was placed over this funnel, with the camera shooting directly down. An air mover was attached, to suck away any debris.

To get the right kind of motion from the collapse, the model was shot at 360 frames per second, 15 times normal speed. More speed means more light, and this setup had so much light the crew had to wear welding glasses, and if something went wrong the model would simply have melted, or perhaps burst into flames.

After the model shoot was completed, the element required a further two months of work. Hand painted mattes were created to isolate the house and every tiny bit of debris so it could be added to the plate of the empty lot.

In a film full of impressive effect shots, this is still the most impressive. It's pure magic. Black magic surely, but magic nonetheless.

18.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 18 of 24

The apparition reveals itself

- in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Industrial Light & Magic went all-out on the final effect scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are so many wonderful moments in that sequence - melting heads anyone? - but the one that freaked me most out when I was a kid was this one:

At first the ghostly apparitions seem sort of nice, but suddenly things take a turn for the worse when this beautiful creature turns into a deadly skeleton. Most of the ghosts were small figures shot in a water tank to give them that otherworldly floating look. This particular ghost, however, was a real actress (Greta Hicks). She was suspended on wires, dressed in white, and covered with white makeup. Hundreds of feet of film was shot until just the right bit of footage was captured.

Then a mummified skeleton was brought in, dressed up to look like the actress, and carefully lined up in camera. The transformation was done with a simple dissolve between the two images. Finally the footage was rear-projected in a water-tank to achieve the "blurry" effect.

The optical department then had the arduous task of putting the final shot together. They did an outstanding job, creating a truly classic, magical shot. An evil magical shot!

17.12.12

Outstanding Effect Shots, part 17 of 24

Discovering the Montana

- in The Abyss (1989)

James Cameron's ingenious underwater adventure utilized every technique under the sun (or water as it were), including traditional models and motion-controlled cameras. In this sequence a SWAT team and the crew of the underwater drilling platform Deepcore investigate the wreckage of a sunken submarine, The Montana.

The first big reveal is truly stunning on the big screen, but the subsequent shot that shows the three mini-subs crawling along the hull for the first time is the real kicker:

Dream Quest Images provided the sequence, which was shot with a large 60 foot long miniature submarine wreckage on a big motion-control stage. Literally every element of this shot was hooked up to the motion-control system. The camera move itself was carefully programmed to go as close to the model as possible, without damaging it. Each of the three mini-subs were suspended on 9 wires to provide maximum stability and repeatability.

On top of that, the lights on the models were programmed to turn off when the camera shutter was closed, to save battery power, and the heads of the tiny diver figures on top of one of the mini-subs were rigged to move too. All shots in the sequence had multiple in-camera passes, including some shot in smoke, to achieve the look of deep sea photography.

Finally bubbles were filmed separately in a tank and added optically to complete the underwater illusion.

Everything about The Abyss is fascinating, and even though the film doesn't work all the way through, it's still magical. Thanks, in no small part, to shots like this.

NOTE: The motion-control images here are taken from the DVD special edition, and do not show the final setup for the shots. Note: The divers are missing from the Flatbed mini-sub.

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