Film Journal 2/28

I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on the Forrest Gump II debacle. I found this about the second novel (thanks to Wikipedia):

"Gump and Co. is the 1995 sequel to Winston Groom's novel Forrest Gump.

Several years after the events of Forrest Gump, Forrest's shrimping business has gone bust. Jenny has died, leaving Forrest to provide for Forrest, Jr., his intelligent, though emotionally distant, son. Forrest's mother has also died. Jenny occasionally makes an appearance as a sort of guardian angel for Forrest and their son.

As in the first book, Gump stumbles through important U.S. events in the 1980s and early 1990s. He plays football for the New Orleans Saints, sells encyclopedias, works on a pig farm, and helps develop the infamous New Coke. He accidentally crashes the Exxon Valdez, helps destroy the Berlin Wall, and fights in Operation Desert Storm. He meets many celebrities, including Oliver North, the Ayatollah Khomeine, Jim Bakker, Ivan Boesky, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and of course, Tom Hanks."

This sounds truly awful....

Film Journal 2/27

It's official. Hollywood is insane.

Possible Forrest Gump Sequel

There's just nothing to write about this. You know how I feel about Forrest Gump from a few entries back (I believe I used the phrase "made me cry," which is no laughing matter (har har)). A sequel, despite the existence of a second book, it just sounds entirely contrived.

Film Journal 2/26

Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same is a masterpiece.
Unless anyone needed any more proof (beyond "The Battle of Evermore" and various other Lord of the Rings themed songs), these guys were serious nerds... but still they were serious rock stars.
The show itself here is brilliant, as if there were any question about that, but the vignettes are simply amazing. Wizards and magic and sword fights... I thought it was so much fun, waaaaay nerdy, but lots of fun. The 30-minute version of "Whole Lotta Lovin'" didn't hurt either ;)

Film Journal 2/25

I want to make a short film of the children's book The Man Who Was Five Minutes Late. It's basically about a guy who is 5 minutes late his entire life, and people are always waiting on him. One day he sees that the princess is getting married to a bachelor of her choosing at the castle that day. But since he is 5-minutes late, he figures he won't get the princess... but it turns out she's five minutes late too, so they get married, etc etc etc.

And in the end it turns out that they weren't actually five minutes late... everyone else was just five minutes early.

Maybe I've mentioned this before. I didn't check.

Film Journal 2/24

I wonder what it would be like if high tech video equipment weren't so expensive, and the only thing that stood between a film student and a career in film making was talent?

I guess in this idealized world you'd have to have cheap lighting solutions, as well as cheap editing software... and from there it just gets fairly ridiculous. Which is a shame... because I think given the proper equipment, many people could make beautiful, poignant, and entertaining films-- if only they were given the proper equipment.

Film Journal 2/23

I currently am drawn to the train wreck that is "Dax Flame." He's a new YouTube star, presumably only 15 years old. People watch his show because he's really kinda stupid and angsty and all those things that we all were in early high school. He tends to get angry at the people ask if he's actually retarded at all or anything of that nature, and the whole thing could be a hoax (a damn convincing hoax at that), not unlike LonelyGirl15.

But in the mean time, as the #2 most subscribed channel this month, people are obviously drawn to this train-wreck. Maybe people relate, maybe people just want to laugh, maybe people are just completely board with a water-skiing squirrel, but Dax's Flame is really hot right now. (har har)

Film Journal 2/22

HBO funded a made-for-TV movie a few years back called Cheaters which looks and sounds like a teen movie (in fact I think a teen movie called Cheaters came out a few years ago from MTV... it looked crappy), but it's really a great study in the morality of cheating.

It's the true story of the Steinmetz Academic Decathlon team who cheated-- but no one had proof of it other than that they shouldn't have done as well as they did. They have to decide whether to keep lying or tell the truth and face what's coming to them.

Jeff Daniels and Jena Malone do excellent jobs in their leading rolls (especially Daniels, but especially Malone). The cinematography is sufficient and the editing is stylish. I really think this could have done very well as a feature film rather than just a TV movie from HBO. It makes me kinda sad that a TV release was all they got on this great film but then again, maybe a TV audience isn't all that bad these days.

Film Journal 2/21

One of my favorite bands, Unified Theory is going to be releasing a new album next month and it's going to be called "Cinematic."

"Hmm," says I to myself. "Hmm, cinematic music? Like John Williams?" I know exactly what they mean by calling the music "cinematic," but I don't think there are any words to describe it.

Mostly I think it's because film is the most popular art form in our modern day, so when something speaks to true emotion we think of the other thing that's good at doing that: cinema.

So maybe they should call the story "Emotion and Humanly Relevant Story Telling." I think that's more like what they really mean.

Film Journal 2/20

All right straight-shooters, it's game time! That's right, game time! Today We're going to learn how to play hop scotch... and we're going to use real scotch!

Place the bottle on the ground, now jump over the scotch. Did you spill any? Excelent!

If you want to jump even higher, take a sip of the scotch! Isn't that fun!

Next time we're going to learn how to play "doctor"...

Film Journal 2/19

It has recently occurred to me that Nickelodeon showed a lot of experimental animation between shows back in the day. I couldn't name any for you, but I would certainly recognize them if they were being screened at any festivals. I'd stand up and say "HEY! I saw that right after an episode of Pete and Pete back in the day!" Then I'd be asked to leave by large men with flashlights.

I dunno. I may have originally seen The Big Snit on there 15 or so years ago. Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Film Journal 2/18

Perhaps any serious compositing work should be done in other programs, but I just don't think the garbage matte (4-point or 8-point) in Final Cut Pro is as effective as it could be.
Why limit the number of points? Maybe there should be a "lasso" type function a la Photoshop. Perhaps people wouldn't rotoscope and lasso every single frame over and over, but you could set points on the selected area to make motion keyframes.
That's what I'd do if I ran the world.

Film Journal 2/17

Wow. The TV show Scrubs actually has very good lighting.

I saw an episode last night, and at the end of the day soft blue light was shining through the windows with a beautiful narrow side key. I didn't think people put any effort to television shows since the X-Files ended...

Film Journal 2/16

I'm still stuck on Robert Zemeckis, so I'll let my guard down a little and reveal the softer side of TheMindtaker:

Forrest Gump is a beautiful film-- perhaps the best film of the '90s, or at least one of the most relevant-- but amid all the social consciousness and brilliant acting there's one moment that always makes me cry. When Forrest finds out that Jenny has had his child, after saying he's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen he asks, "Is he smart or is he...--" and he sort of points to himself. Throughout the who movie Forrest never truly admits to being stupid (replying only "stupid is as stupid does" much of the time), however this moment reveals to the audience that Forrest not only cares for his child, but he realizes he is not as smart as most other people, which makes his extraordinary life ever more extraordinary. He did not back down in the face of his adversity.

Now when I explain it like this it seems far less emotional or beautiful, so I suggest not over-analyzing it, but just letting Tom Hank's masterful performance (perhaps the best of his career) carry you into Gump's world.

Film Journal 2/15

But I do love the movie Contact (this is continued from yesterday)! Robert Zemeckis is my hero. The long beautifully composed master shots, a story that everyone loves and a complex philosophical/theological discussion taking place in very relatable and easy to understand conversations...


It constantly amazes me that Robert Zemeckis has Contact, Forrest Gump, the entire Back to the Future trilogy, and many episodes of Tales from the Crypt under his belt...

Truly a genius...

Film Journal 2/14

One time I had to do an oral proficiency exam in Japanese (for my Advanced Modern Japanese class), and although I do speak Japanese fairly well, things got a little rough when I mentioned the movie Contact and the professor asked me to talk about Contact in Japanese.

Long story short, I didn't know the words "interplanetary portal," or "SETI satellite dish array," or "complex discussion between theists and atheists" in Japanese.

Film Journal 2/13

The popularity of ytmnd leads me to believe that the average viewer these days really likes repetition. We see it everywhere. Perhaps this speaks to a shorter attention span of people today (or longer for that matter, able to take repetition over and over), but that's definitely something to keep in mind in the practice of filmmaking.

Film Journal 2/12

Recently, the Discovery Channel aired a documentary about finding the tomb of Jesus Christ (presumably). It seemed like a fairly well made documentary, it was certainly interesting, though I'm no religion major (I do know someone who is though... ;) ).

But one thing bothered me: when they first open the tomb, they start to climb in and the
camera cuts to inside of the tomb watching them enter it. The previous shot showed no cameraman inside of the tomb and even the scientists themselves were just in the process of entering for the first time themselves.

It's reasonable to believe they went back and reshot that to make it more cinematic, so I'm not suggesting foul play here. I'm just confused if reality TV is the culprit here, demanding we mix regular fictive films where this sort of thing could happen with on-the-fly shooting/single takes on single-camera reality shoots... or has it just always been this way, ever since the exact same thing was done in the making of Nanook of the North over 80 years ago.

Film Journal 2/11

There was a ridiculously (and hilariously) long titled game advertised on TV today ("Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2" or something of that nature... I'm not making this up!), and watching the commercial I realized video games need to stop pretending to be movies. The commercials show cinematic sequences from video games, but the special thing about them is that they're interactive.

Films are stories with set endings being told to you as you watch (and of course there's lots of gray area here), but video games are something you participate in. Video games won't come into their own until they stop trying to be films, just as the film medium came into it's own after it stopped trying to be live theatre (the previously established and respected art of the day).

Film Journal 2/10

Well, I'm fairly embarrassed about how much I enjoy horror movies, so to make up for it I'm going to run the opposite direction here and mention how much I love Cameron Crowe's early film Singles, a romantic comedy about dating in the early 90s Seattle grunge scene. It's not really just a run of the mill romantic comedy: the story is told in vignettes, and the characters seem more believable than characters in most films of this genre. Also, the soundtrack sold extremely well featuring music from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, and many other popular bands from the Seattle area.
The visual style is pretty run of the mill, as is the editing, but the characters and story take front seat in the movie making it a lot of fun to watch... especially on a date (I think there's plenty to keep men and women interested here). I've always loved Cameron Crowe, and this is certainly an important film from his early years for any Cameron Crowe fan to see.

Film Journal 2/9

I have no idea whether or not I should want to see Dead Silence when it comes out. It's the new one by James Wan and Leigh Whannel, the two kids from Australia who made a short film, and sold Lion's Gate on making it into a feature called Saw. Yes yes yes, I genuinely enjoyed Saw. It's not classic cinema by any means but it's a very interesting horror film, especially in conjunction with the second movie, written and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (who's from my hometown).Anyway, so now you know I'm a total sucker for bad horror movies... but even I'm not sure that Dead Silence looks all that good... or all that scary for that matter. Maybe I'm just not afraid of dolls or something, but it just doesn't look like it has that same raw feel that the first movie had... but then again, the third Saw movie didn't have it either...

Film Journal 2/8

FADE IN
City streets, morning.

A Clown is sitting on a curb, smoking a cigarette, looking as if shit has just hit the fan.

Next to him: a man, lying on the hard cement, face down. As he wakes up and lifts his head from the ground, we see that he has a clown's makeup smeared on his face.

The Clown looks over at him and murmurs:

Clown: Shit.

FADE OUT.

Film Journal 2/7

All hail to George Clooney!

Movies are way too fast these days. But last year's Good Night and Good Luck had beautiful pacing. More films should stop and smell the flowers these days. That's all I have to say. "Slow down!"

Film Journal 2/6

**This post may contain spoilers for Pan's Labyrinth. It's a great film, go see it before you read this.**
If anybody is an avid reader of my blog (which I highly doubt), you'll know that I do enjoy the occasional gory movie (see several posts back). But I do have to say that the gory elements of Pan's Labyrinth were excessive and almost unnecessary. First off: this is not an official review of the film. If it were I'd be talking about many other things, but for this entry, I just want to address my issue with the violent images in this "adult fairytale."
Perhaps the filmmakers didn't think adults would go see a "fairytale" if they weren't really secure in the knowledge that it wasn't just a kids movie, so they poured it on a little thick. Any person who gets shot throughout the film gets shot a minimum of two extra times after they're dead. A man gets stabbed with a knife into his open mouth. An innocent man hunting rabbits gets his face pulverized by glass bottle. I just don't feel these were anything more than gratuitous elements in an otherwise non-gratuitous film.
I will say I was positively floored by the effects wizards behind the stitches scene. I have absolutely no idea how they were able to show a man giving himself stitches in the mouth all in one unflinching take. Slightly hard to watch (the audience at Liberty Hall was squirming), but simply amazing film making.
Whether or not the events involving the Faun really took place or not will be addressed in a later post on here (when I have nothing better to talk about), but as for now I just don't see why Pan's Labyrinth needed the level of gore it contained-- not because I was offended or because I "couldn't take it," but because it just seemed unjustified and out of place with the rest of the film. Anyone who disagrees, feel free to post a response... :)

Film Journal 2/5

Walking home from class today and listening to Ben Folds Five I realized that the last 55 seconds of the song "Regrets" (off of the Reinhold Messner album) would be amazing at the end of a film. Maybe as a group of people finds something-- way too vague I know, but trust me, it looked cool in my head.
Which brings me to my next topic: if anybody could lend me a machine that took ideas from my head and displayed them to my friends to help them assist me in creating the art I long to create, that would be just great.
Or if anyone wants to give me enough money to actually go out there and make films rather than lending me the machine. Story boards and tempt tracks will do fine in the mean time...

Film Journal 2/4

Another idea for an effect:
Shoot a person against a green screen walking or something. Composite them into a scene on the street or other comparable location, and then effect just the person so they are almost liquid in form, stretching and wiggling like gelatin and they walk.

Fairly postmodern and I have no meaning implied to the effect, but maybe it could suit a music video of some sort fairly well.

Film Journal 2/3

Idea for an effect:
If you could separate colors as well as areas of a frame into their own elements, you could slowly layer them in, object by object, and create something akin to painting real life into the shot.

It could be used as perhaps a POV of an imaginative character, having fun with their surroundings. It doesn't seem too difficult of an effect. Maybe I'll give it a try...

Film Journal 2/2

It's no secret that I've been bitten by the horror bug (it's probably one crazy-looking badass bug- Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Gold Bug pops to mind), over the past several years I have been watching plenty of horror movies, to the point that it kinda scares me sometimes.

But I see some truly amazing film making in horror movies. Perhaps because inherently, horror movies have rather lack-luster plots they must make up for it with truly stunning cinematography. One writer/director currently working in the horror genre is French filmmaker Alexandre Aja, whose visual sensibilities blow Eli Roth out of the water any day of the week.Last year Aja's Haute Tension was a visual triumph. Every frame drips with style and atmosphere. And while some of the violence will certainly turn some viewers away (the R-rated version released in American theaters was cut down by several minutes from the original), the real merit of this film is not the gore, but the guts of Aja's unflinching cinematography: no crappy hand-held shots, as is the convention, but solidly composed
filmic portraits.

As I said this film is not necessarily for everyone, but those with the stomach for this kind of thing will be treated to a horror film with more (though fewer spilled brians) than your run-of-the-mill Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Film Journal 2/1

Are music videos hack work? It seems that most feature film directors these days started with a few silly music videos for alternative rock bands-- and quite frankly, that sounds like a ball to me. I feel one of my strong suits as an editor is editing to music. Here's is a sample of my work with music: it's basically a preview for my zombie Dead Reckoning, but more so it's a music video I made using the footage I shot for Dead Reckoning.

I can't see not being proud of music video work, although I can see growing tired of it as a professional film maker if I get stuck in that role. Sorry, no great film review of movie ideas today, just pondering career choices. In the mean time, I don't think I'll quit music videos...