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There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
- Robert Henri
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May 3rd, 2008
Clint Eastwood’s “White Hunter, Black Heart” (1990) – in which director Eastwood plays director John Huston on the shoot of Huston’s “The African Queen” – is one of the great unsung movies about filmmaking and filmmakers.
Before Eastwood/Huston shoots his movie, he feels compelled to hunt down and shoot an African elephant. This obsessive desire to bag the biggest of game animals endangers the life of the motion picture he’s been hired to make.
In what I would call the film’s key scene, screenwriter, Pete Verrill (a fictionalized Peter Viertel - who died last fall a few days shy of age 87), confronts director, John Wilson (Eastwood doing an unapologetic John Huston impression) on his reprehensible quest to hunt down and make a trophy of an African bull elephant.
VERRILL: You’re either crazy, or the most egocentric, irresponsible son-of-a-bitch that I have ever met. You’re about to blow this whole picture out of your nose, John. And for what? To commit a crime. To kill one of the rarest, most noble creatures that roams the face of this crummy earth. And in order to commit this crime, you’re willing to forget about all of us and let this whole god damn thing go down the drain.
WILSON: You’re wrong, kid. It’s not a crime to kill an elephant. It’s bigger than all that. It’s a sin to kill an elephant. Do you understand? It’s a sin. The only sin that you can buy a license and go out to commit. That’s why I want to do it before I do anything else in this world. Do you understand me? Of course you don’t. How could you? I don’t understand it myself.
April 25th, 2008
Clint Eastwood’s “White Hunter, Black Heart” (1990), based on the book by Peter Viertel, is the thinly fictionalized account of the production of John Huston’s “The African Queen” (1951), with Eastwood playing John Huston in the character of “John Wilson” and Jeff Fahey as “Pete Verrill”. Below is an exchange between Pete and a British Bush Pilot, Hodkins, played by Timothy Spall:
PETE: (looking at elephants through binoculars) Oh. I’ve never seen one before, outside the circus or the zoo. They’re so majestic. So indestructible. They’re part of the earth. They make us feel like perverse little creatures from another planet. Without any dignity. Makes one believe in God. In the miracle of creation. Fantastic. They’re part of a world that no longer exists, Hod. Feeling of unconquerable time.
HODKINS: You certainly have a way with words, Pete. No wonder you’re a writer.
April 24th, 2008
Clint Eastwood’s “White Hunter, Black Heart” (1990), a fictionalized account of John Huston’s making of “The African Queen” (1951) – with Eastwood playing Huston – is a superb and underrated film about moviemaking and moviemakers.
WILSON: You know something, Pete? You’re never gonna be a good screenwriter, and you know why?
VERRILL: No, John. Why don’t you tell me why?
WILSON: ‘Cause you let eighty-five million popcorn eaters pull you this way and that way. To write a movie, you must forget that anyone’s ever gonna see it.
March 2nd, 2008
“Stereoscopic” Is The New “3D”:
Axis Films’ 3D Technology Showcase at Shepperton
by Neal Romanek
(as printed in March 2008 TVBEurope)
Last year, Axis Films co-sponsored a set of HD camera tests, in which a battery of digital cameras, from the Viper FilmStream to prosumer HD camcorders were meticulously run through their paces and tested against each other and workhorse film cameras. The last weekend in January, Axis hosted another illuminating symposium, this time on the 3D production and exhibition technology.
Axis was joined by The 3D Firm, Can Communicate, Inition and Quantel. Over 200 guests attended the two-day event, which offered a demo and ongoing workshop on the latest in 3D capture, post-production, and exhibition technologies, with particular emphasis on broadcast application.
It is difficult to open any publication about the media industry without reading or hearing someone extolling, or damning, the economic and aesthetic attributes of 3D exhibition. The showcase at Shepperton gave industry technicians and producers an opportunity to look beyond the hype and get some real facts.
First of all, if you want to sound like you know your stuff – and who does not in our industry? – avoid saying “3D”. Say instead, “stereoscopic”. The terms are interchangeable, but “stereoscopic” video is the accurate description of the medium. As with stereophonic audio, the effect relies on only two sources of information – left eye and right eye. The stereoscopic effect encourages the brain into believing it is observing objects existing in a 3D space, in the same way that a two-speaker audio system encourages the brain to believe it is hearing sounds from a multitude of sources – when it fact there are only two. The “3D” name is better suited to marketing and advertising, “stereoscopic” for the real production process.
Stereoscopic post-production has been revolutionized in the digital age. Quantel’s Pablo was on show at the Axis demo, dazzling attendees with its deftness in handling 3D editing and post. The Quantel system, used extensively in many phases of post-production, requires very little reconfiguring to manipulate stereoscopic data. Given the saturation of visual effects and compositing content throughout the industry, most post-production workstations are ready to handle stereoscopic moving images. In fact, most of 3D production and post-production is fairly unremarkable. To say it is the same as conventional production, but with one more camera, would not be too far afield.
A downside to 3D film production in past decades has been the simple mechanical challenge of getting film elements to register cleanly. Not only did negative in the camera have to register properly in order to produce the elements for a clean 3D image, but then diverse film projectors in diverse theatres had to project the two film elements in sync with precise calibration of the overlap of the two images. Digital technology now allows perfect synchronization and overlap of stereoscopic elements, which can be exhibited perpetually with the zero degradation in quality. This advance in production, and the greater standardization of exhibition parameters necessitated by digital technologies, have further opened up the opportunities for stereoscopic broadcast.
Many projection facilities have projection equipment that can accommodate 3D content, though the number of stereoscopic theatrical releases is relatively few. If 3D is to become a widely distributed feature of broadcast, wide-screen 3D releases will not provide any great percentage of the content. Sp where would a regular supply of 3D content come from?
There is a surprisingly large amount of 3D content hidden in plain sight. Shown at the Axis demonstration were 3D colour newsreels of young Elizabeth I – an example of the unique treasures hidden away in archives, some of which have remained virtually unviewed for decades. As Turner leveraged its MGM archive into one of the great cable movie channels, TCM, there are vast 3D libraries ready to be digitized for broadcast. Digital post technologies allow easy, on-the-fly cleanup of these film originals. The Quantel at the Axis presentation showed off the ease with which negative dust and scratches were erased from the digital elements of the Queen Elizabeth footage.
Today’s effects-rich media, in which even the most humble productions feature some 3D graphics or compositing work – in title sequences, at least – is another untapped gold-mine of stereoscopic content. The great open secret of 3D programming is that every frame that comes out of a 3D graphics program is ready for immediate adaptation to stereoscopic motion pictures. It already exists as a 3D image within the computer and with the term “rendering time” becoming an anachronism, outputting the POV of a second virtual camera can be done, almost literally, at no extra cost.
Also, the conversion of 2D productions to 3D is a rapidly developing specialty. At its most basic, the process uses simple, familiar compositing technologies. From the 2D footage, a background plate, and other elements of characters or foreground are created. Multiple layers of these can be manipulated along the z-axis like cardboard cut-outs in a diorama. On the other end of the spectrum are more sophisticated technologies which calculate entire, detailed 3D spaces out of existing 2D footage, which are beyond the scope of this article – for the time being.
As with most broadcast technologies which showcase visual spectacle – HD programming springs to mind – new 3D content tends to be confined to sporting events, stage performances, and nature programs. The 3D family melodrama has yet to be made. These spectacle types of entertainments are designed to directly engage a viewer on a visceral level, and the stereoscopic experience – like the HD, 5.1 surround experience – has the potential to augment that. Another, more subtle element is that these types of content emphasize the documentation of a real event – generally one in which the audience maintains a static point of view. 3D presentations can often mimic the experience of watching something from a single point of view, the illusion sometimes being interrupted when the camera begins to move. If stereoscopic production and post are not handled skillfully, a moving camera can irritate the viewer rather than enhance the 3D effect.
The elephant in the room regarding the new revolution in 3D push is: “Is it really a new revolution? Or is it the same old thing one more time?” The truth is, at least one journalist – though fascinated and inspired by the technology – left the Axis 3D presentation with stinging eyes and a headache.
Stereoscopic photography was developed in the 1840′s, on the heels of the photographic technique itself, and its basic principle has remained virtually unchanged. Much press has stated that we are poised on the edge of a paradigm shift in which 3D presentation will be ubiquitous or, some would even argue, the norm. But stereoscopic theatrical exhibition was vigorously promoted in the 1950′s and despite continuing improvements in the technology, did not take hold as many hoped it would. Is this the old saw of repeatedly performing the same actions, but expecting them to produce different results?
Despite IMAX and other big screen 3D venues, the new outlet for 3D content might well be HD broadcast. 3D LCD monitors, including the Planar StereoMirror professional display were exhibited at the Axis demo, but for consumers to trade in their HD monitors – which themselves required months of nervous window shopping and saving – for 3D monitors will require a saturation level of 3D content which, at this juncture, would seem decades away. Time-tested technologies using conventional monitors, which can be viewed with special glasses will be the standard 3D exhibition for the foreseeable future. The 3D Holy Grail of “no special glasses” – beyond a few specialty venues – will not be adopted by home viewers.
The Beijing Olympics may well be the trial by fire for 3D broadcast. The games will feature a channel dedicated to stereoscopic coverage of events. East Asia has remained at the forefront of 3D broadcast content, and it will be vital for European producers to study the behaviour of East Asian audiences and the strategies of their broadcasters. The Beijing “3D Olympics” will also be a laboratory for a dedicated 3D production workflow and 3D troubleshooting and problem solving in multiple settings.
One shocking fact presented at the Axis Films workshop might be enough to rock the foundation of every 3D business plan in the works. Roughly 8% of the population cannot see stereoscopic video. This is due to a range of factors, including partial blindness or amblyopia (“lazy eye”), focus difficulties. Whether or not a broadcast revolution can be built on a technology which immediately excludes 8% of its audience remains to be seen.
Neal Romanek is a screenwriter and journalist living in London. He attended USC’s Cinema-TV Production program and writes for a diverse collection of entertainment media publications in Europe and the USA. His official website is: http://www.nealromanek.com
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December 30th, 2007
THE SOUNDS OF NATURE, PART II:
Sound Editing in Nature Docs: The Second Narrator
by
Neal Romanek
(as printed in the October 2007
edition of TVBEurope)
If the nature documentary is one of the most important genres in British broadcasting, could Kate Hopkins and her colleague, Tim Owens, be among British broadcasting’s most important figures?
Hopkins and Owens have been sound designers on many groundbreaking wildlife documentaries, including the recent “Planet Earth” (2006), the BAFTA-winning “Blue Planet” (2001), and Sir David Attenborough’s “The Life Of Mammals” (2002). Should anyone dare suggest that documentary is a less “creative” genre than narrative programming, a conversation with Kate Hopkins will set them straight.
 Kate Hopkins and Tim Owens work out of their Bristol-based company, Wounded Buffalo. It takes them roughly three weeks to cut a 50-minute segment. Cutting sound on 50 minutes of “reality” TV would take a bare fraction of that time. In the case of the nature documentary, as much work – or more – must be done as on any narrative film of that length.
One of the great secrets of the nature doc, is that virtually all sound design is created in post. Sync sound, excepting commentary by Sir David Attenborough as he crouches next to a Bower Bird, is virtually never available. Wild tracks and atmospheres may be recorded at the location, but in most cases it falls to the sound editor to create the entire soundtrack from scratch.
The irony of designing sound for a high-quality nature documentary is that although the sound editor may be manufacturing the entire soundtrack herself, the final result must pass the kinds of rigorous tests of authenticity and accuracy that no other sound track must undergo. If a humpback whale song is cut into an underwater scene shot in Hawaiian waters, it must be the humpback’s traditional Hawaiian Islands song, which is utterly distinct from the song the animal sings, say, off the coast of Alaska. Few would notice such a difference, or even care, but this is what distinguishes a film that entertains from one that educates, enlightens and captures the quintessence of life on earth.
The other invisible artists of the nature doc sound design are foley artists. All non-specific sound – rustles, footfalls on leaves, snow crunching under paws, crabs clattering over rocks – are done in foley sessions.
The stunning aerial shots of “Planet Earth” were shot using the Cineflex helicopter mount, which allowed stable close-ups to be shot from thousands of meters away. The real sound captured at the scene is merely the roar of the helicopter. But once the foley artists have had their crack at it, and those effects have been edited and mixed, an entire new level of information is brought to the fore. Even seemingly innocuous sound cues, a crunch here, a splash there, are profoundly powerful storytelling tools.
The core of the sound designers job is understanding the peculiar twist of the human brain when an action is accompanied by a simultaneous sound, the human brain makes the assumption that the action itself was the cause of the sound, and an action that creates a sound takes on greater importance than one that does not. Thus a simple bit of foley accentuating one movement or another, or subtly emphasizing the rustling of a stalking lion, literally leads our eye to very specific places on the screen at very specific moments. Watching the real scene unfold in nature, we would be very likely to miss little details of action, intent, cause, effect that are integral to the sound design. BBC nature docs have two narrators – Sir David Attenborough, and the sound effects themselves.
“Planet Earth” is a milestone in broadcasting, not only for being a start-to-finish HD production, but for its 5.1 surround sound. “We knew it was going to be that right from the beginning, which helps a lot. Within a 5.1 mix, you tend to hear more. You can spread things around much more. It’s nice for atmospheres because you can have even more atmosphere in the surround, but still not lose the voice over in the middle. Most of the sound I’ve done has had the capability to be in 5.1. There were always enough layers there. But it’s whether there’s time in the mixing.”
Bird songs represent a textbook instance where a lack of sync sound recorded while shooting presents a potential nightmare. A bird’s song may be distinct not only to a particular species in a particular location, but to a particular bird performing one particular step in a mating ritual.
Hopkins notes, “The birds of paradise, for example, have calls which are very complicated. Even experts don’t always know exactly which call is which. Sometimes if a producer likes something, sometimes the accuracy can drift a little bit because dramatically it works better.” But more often than not, a researcher is called in with expertise in the appropriate area. “Tim did a scene with the capercaille, which is a bird notoriously difficult to lay sound for because it has such a complicated call. We had various people come in to check that it was right, and in the end it was absolutely fine. Bird calls are always the most difficult. One of the worst we had was trying to get a Mandarin duck calling her chicks. We put in the only recording that we had. It was the most awful recording. It was full of hiss, and at one point I thought, We just cannot put this in because it is so horrible. But it was accurate. And within the mix, between us and the mixer, we EQ’d it and put it through a lot of software. In the end it worked.”
One of Hopkins most challenging shows – and perhaps most rewarding – was “Blue Planet”.
Her ongoing collaboration with Tim Owens allows for a thematic unity throughout the series she works on. In the case of “Blue Planet” where whole sets of effects were being created, the clear and ongoing communication characteristic of their collaboration was essential to stay on course. To some degree, the creating of sound for “Blue Planet” was like building a sound track for a science fiction movie. Creating the effects in Earth’s most unexplored regions yielded some daring choices.
 “Obviously, most of ‘Blue Planet’ is underwater. It could have been just music and a general underwater track. But we decided, between the producers and the sound editors, that we were going to go for something different, because no one knows what you could actually hear underwater. There are some very natural sounds that you hear – humpback whales and shrimp clicking. But I added some much bigger noises – the fish going past – because it just adds to the strength of the images. And then there were some very tiny creatures too that I added some very strange, very designed noises. Whether it was real or not, I’m not sure that that mattered. It worked with the picture.”
Those who have seen “Blue Planet” will understand how much certain sequences hinge on their sound effects. The truly frightening scene of tuna tearing into a bait ball, for example, gains extraordinary impact from the “sound” made by the attacking tuna as they rocket past. We don’t for a moment forget the tuna is one of the fastest fish in the sea.
“If you have a huge bait ball swirling round and round and round, you just feel like you need to hear something. And I think that is what sound editing is all about – adding strength to the images. And you don’t always want to have music going through it. You need to hear what you think you might hear if you really there.”
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December 7th, 2007
THE SOUNDS OF NATURE, PART I:
How BBC Natural History Producers Use Sound Design To Make
The Real World Sound Real
(as printed in the September 2007
edition of TVBEurope)
The BBC nature documentaries, most recently “Planet Earth” (2006), have invariably offered stunning image upon stunning image, showing us scenes few people in world have ever glimpsed before.
“Planet Earth” featured spectacular helicopter shots using the Cineflex camera mount that allowed an unparalleled intimacy. We raced along with wolves chasing down caribou – the terrified caribou huffing, the desperate footfalls trying to outrace each other. “The Blue Planet” (2001) showed us stunning scenes of hunting dolphins whooshing through the water like rockets. “The Private Life Of Plants” (1995) showed a scraping, crunching bramble in time lapse as it crept its ruthless way to dominance.
In each of these sequences we were treated not only to visual wonders, but to the intimate soundscapes that accompanied them. Via the sounds it made, we could tell whether a subject was wet or dry, angry or tired, close or far, cautious or hell-bent.
So fans may be shocked to learn:
When the heart-pounding footage of the caribou chase was actually shot, the only sounds that could be heard were the roar of the helicopter and shouted communications among the camera crew, producer and pilot. And those mesmerizing sounds of the growing bramble? Of course, no one has ever heard the sound of a bramble growing, much less recorded it.
The truth is that, with the exception of those shots in which Sir David Attenborough addresses the camera crouched behind a bush, the great mass of a nature documentary soundtrack is deliberately and meticulously constructed in post-production. Atmospheres and sound effects may be gathered on location, but these are virtually never captured simultaneously with picture.
Some might find this disappointing, but upon closer study what is revealed is the incredible creative machinery that makes for a first-rate nature documentary, the apex of which is “Planet Earth”, featuring a 5.1 surround mix as sophisticated, as that of any science fiction movie.
I spoke with veteran nature producer Huw Cordey about his approach to the sound design of the landmark shows he’s worked ono, including “The Life Of Mammals” (2003), “Planet Earth”, and most recently the BBC documentary, “South Pacific”. Cordey’s work as a producer covers as wide a spectrum as any in the industry, going from spending days beneath the surface of the earth in one of the most spectacular caves in the world to making creative – at times purely artistic – decisions in the post-production process. In fact, it could be said that the sound editing stage is the most creative of the entire natural history cinematic process.
“You ignore sound at your peril,” Cordey began, “It tends not to be noticed – unless it’s bad, then everybody notices it. Often when I start talking about sound there’s this huge sense of disappointment. Until they understand it, there’s an initial feeling that you’ve broken the rules of documentary.”
Of course, this exposes the nature of all documentaries, and raises again the eternal discussison of whether objectivity is ever possible once the camera starts running. It is the job of the nature documentary producer to make these aesthetic decisions virtually invisible, so that as little as possible comes between the viewer and the experience of really being there in the wild.
One of Cordey’s great adventures on “Planet Earth” was the filming of the exceedingly rare wild Bactrian Camel in the icy wastes of the Gobi Desert. The extremely long lenses and camera stabilization equipment allowed intimate glimpses into the lives of these animals. Months of waiting produced only a few minutes of footage, but those few minutes were precious. Simultaneously recording the animals’ sound was not even on the table.
Watch the “Making Of” short documenting Planet Earth shoot in the Gobi Desert at Discovery.com
But the final sequence is filled with the subtle grunts, snorts, and rumbles of the camels, which make a memorable sequence verge on the magical. These camel effects were recorded by the crew on a Mongolian breeding preserve. Their domesticated status allowed recordings up close and personal. Such sound effects can describe the visceral shape and flavour of a subject in a way that the image cannot quite match.
On “The Life Of Mammals”, Cordey’s crew was very lucky to capture footage of a babirusa, a wild pig of Indonesia armed with spectacular tusks. They were not able, However, to record sound of the animal. The BBC’s massive sound libraries came to the rescue and the grunts and squeals of a real babirusa were located and employed in the final sequence. These babirusa effects had been originally been recorded in London Zoo in 1932.
It is a matter of pride on the BBC docs that the natural sounds, though not recorded in the same time and place as the images – or even in the same century –maintain impeccable scientific accuracy. Atmospheric tracks are collected at the location whenever possible, or – as is increasingly the case – existing library sound of the actual location is used. A jungle is never simply a jungle. If the original shoot took place in the Amazon, only atmospheric ambience and effects from the Amazon are employed.
This points out the superior longevity an audio library can have. It would be virtually impossible to cut in stock video or film footage into “Planet Earth”, for example. Sound effects, on the other hand, in part because they contain less data are far more forgiving of post-production equalization or digital clean-up and can lend themselves to a wider variety of uses. In addition, they are not always inextricably bound to a specific time, place, or action.
Until about 2001, the BBC deployed dedicated sound recordists to the locations with the camera crews. They recorded atmospheres, effects, and the location narratives of Sir David Attenborough, and others, either boomed or fitted with a lavalier radio mic. The library of past sound recordings has become so vast, that sending a dedicated sound recordist on a shoot is not a priority, in the absence of an on-location presenter. Producers have sometimes taken up the slack and, in a pinch, acted as the shoot’s location sound recordists. DAT’s advent as the sound equipment of choice, replacing larger, heavier analog recorders, made it all the easier for a limited crew to manage the recording.
But the animal you are most likely to hear in any nature documentary is a human being. All the non-essential sounds, the creeping footsteps of a lion, the rustle and crunch of a lizard devouring a spider, are all done in foley sessions.
“In a project I worked on a long time ago, we had a shot where a monkey was tearing the husk off a a coconut. The foley artist used gaffer tape peeling off a camera case.” The foley done on tentpole projects like “Planet Earth” is among the most sophisticated that foley artists can do. It requires skill and experience, and competent editing and mixing, to convincingly create the sound of a polar bear’s feet in the snow with no other sounds available in the Arctic waste to mask any problem spots.
“We delivered ‘Planet Earth’ on 5.1 surround. I think one of the great developments for TV is better sound. Look at our television sets – fantastic picture, but usually with just a tinny little speaker next to it. It’s always the weakest part. Why do people enjoy going out to see things on the big screen? Very often I think it’s the sound that has you on the edge of your seat. ‘Planet Earth’ is all about a cinema-style experience and sound is used to enhance that experience.”
September 29th, 2007
 Burbank, September 28, 2007 – Two classic films, John Ford’s DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939) and the film noir LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945) were recently restored by DTS Digital Images utilizing the company’s proprietary Lowry Process (PDF). The films will premiere at the 45th New York Film Festival on October 12. The facility, a division of DTS Digital Cinema, provided full, 2K restoration services on both films. The movies are part of the festival’s retrospective program “In Glorious Technicolor: Martin Scorsese Presents,” sponsored by American Express and The Film Foundation. Scorsese will introduce the films and discuss the importance of preservation prior to the screenings.
“These classic films are an important part of our motion picture history and culture,” says Schawn Belston, vice president of film preservation at 20th Century Fox. “The restoration and preservation of these films was a collaborative effort by Fox, the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation. DTS Digital Images restored these and other classic films in our library using the most advanced image processing technology available today. We’re very pleased and excited to see these Hollywood classics projected at the festival.”
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN were both produced in three-strip Technicolor format. DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK was directed by John Ford with Bert Glennon, ASC and Ray Rennahan, ASC sharing the cinematography credit. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN was directed by John Stahl. Leon Shamroy, ASC earned an Oscar for Best Color Cinematography for his work on the film.
“DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK presented some of the most difficult types of restoration challenges,” says Mike Inchalik, vice president, Strategy and Marketing, DTS Digital Images. “We were dealing with film elements that were several generations removed from the original. Because of significant fading of the CRIs (color reversal intermediates) in particular, most of the color information from the blue layer of the original camera negative was gone. There were also tricky issues to resolve, including misregistration, flicker, color breathing and grain build-up and image softening that results from the creation of second and third generation film preservation elements.”
Since the original three-strip negatives were no longer available, DTS Digital Images worked from color reversal protection copies and black-and-white YCM separations to reconstruct the films. Those elements were scanned and converted to digital files using IMAGICA film scanners that are specially designed to gently handle older, shrunken films. The images were then restored using the Lowry Process embedded in proprietary DTS software.
“The Lowry Process incorporates some very powerful imaging algorithms that have been fine-tuned over the course of more than 200 major feature film restorations performed over the past eight years,” explains Inchalik. “We’ve put a great deal of energy into inventing the right tools and putting enough computing power behind them.”
Inchalik notes that the original three-strip negatives had shrunk at different rates. As a result, there was significant misregistration photographed into the color reversal copies.
“There’s quite a science to digitally recombining those records and adjusting for the various rates of shrinkage to create a perfectly recombined registered image,” adds Inchalik.
 In both restorations, DTS delivered a new negative, a digital archive, and a new HD master for serving home video markets that are all true to the restored films. The prints that will screen at the New York Film Festival were made from these new negatives.
“Restoring classics like DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is a tremendous responsibility that we take very seriously,” says Inchalik. “The breathtaking rate of technological change helps us recover and recreate the amazing experience of seeing these cinematic treasures as they were originally meant to be seen, and that’s exciting. Using the Lowry Process, we have also prepared the films for today’s high-definition home viewing environments, and for whatever formats the future brings as well.”
The Preservation Screening Program was created by American Express and The Film Foundation to screen motion pictures that have been preserved/ restored with funding from the Foundation. The goals are to connect today’s moviegoers with film art and culture from the past, and to highlight the importance of film preservation.
The 45th New York Film Festival runs September 28 through October 14 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and sponsored by Sardinia Region Tourism and The New York Times, features showcases, music documentaries and retrospective films. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com/nyff.
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September 20th, 2007
 On this day, in 1946, the first Cannes Film Festival opened.
Back then they didn’t have color, or black and white even. No, back then they had to enact the script on a large stage with a silver screen backdrop (hence the expression, “stars of the silver screen”). This is one reason many of the small-scale, post-war “Italian Realist” films were received so well at the early Cannes Festivals – much easier to put on. During the staging of the big-budget American movies, something inevitably went wrong (witness the death of 8 flying monkeys by fire during a special Cannes presentation of “Wizard Of Oz” (1939, two weeks before Hitler invaded Poland), which detracted from the production value. In that first year of the Cannes Film Festival, the top prize was shared among 11 films – which is surprising since only 7 films were entered. And back then they weren’t presented with today’s well-coveted “Pomme d’Or”, but with an award called the “Grande Prik”.
FUN FACT: Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman are not brother and sister! They are parent and child!
After 1950, things changed. What with the new technologies, movies were at last able to be made in both back and white and could be watched without having real-live actors get near anyone. Throughout the 1950′s, Doris Day films inevitably won every award the Festival had to offer. That all changed with Doris Day’s mysterious suicide by a lone gunman in 1962.
In 1990, the Pawm d’Orr was given to the David Lynch film “Wild At Heart” (1990). Meanwhile, that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture went to “Driving Miss Daisy” (1990). These were known as “The Dark Times” (A.D. 1990).
FUN FACT: Billy Crystal has never hosted the Cannes Film Festival! But never say never!
It is rumored – and also rumoured – that next year’s Cannes Film Festival, now traditionally held in the spring because of those fascist bastards over in Venice, will feature a retrospective of the films of the late Michelangelo Antoniononinoi in new, digitally-restored 3D versions!
June 8th, 2007
Alright, I apologize for saying that Britain has no film industry. I realize that must have been very hurtful to Britain. And, let’s face it, it’s my own arrogance and intolerance of Others that brought me to my mispokenness and unrashness of mispeechisms.
Britain has a lot going for it movie industry-wise! I mean, it’s got Madonna barefoot and pregnant. What more could a film industry ask for?
Truthfully, many – if not most – of my favorite (or favourite) directors have been British. In fact, this may have contributed to my lack of A-List Superstardom in the L.A.-based industry. It’s not that they don’t revere British talent in the US, it’s just that they would prefer you say in your pitch “It’s going to be like a Tony Scott movie”, rather than “It’s going to be like a Tony Richardson movie”. One simple reason being that most studio employees have never heard of Tony Richardson, and regard Tony Scott as one of the old masters.
So, yeah, sorry ’bout all that, mate.
Let’s just do a Top 10 List and sing “Kum Bay Yah” …
Neal’s Top 10 Favorite (or Favourite) British Directors
- John Boorman
- Kenneth Branagh
- Alfred Hitchcock
- David Lean
- Lawrence Olivier
- Michael Powell
- Richard Lester
- Mike Leigh
- Carol Reed
- Ridley Scott
Apologies too to Tony Richardson, who did not make the list.
April 25th, 2007
When you watch BBC-produced “Planet Earth” – an 11-part wildlife series making its US premiere March 25 on Discovery – you probably become very angry at the increasing use of CGI in nature documentaries.
Should someone somehow convince you that, in fact, no CGI was used in “Planet Earth”, it’s still going to be hard to swallow the absurd assertion that the series was shot in HD.
 In the studio, the transition from film to video has been relatively smooth. Monitored soundstage conditions have helped HD along in its progress toward become the standard motion picture recording medium. But the wild unpredictable world of documentary filmmaking, where the authenticity and transparency of the image are of paramount importance gives HD technology the chance to really show its colors – or its flaws.
“Planet Earth” is another product of what must be one of the consistently great filmmaking entities of the last 30 years – the BBC documentary department, often in collaboration with Sir David Attenborough. From the beginning of Attenborough’s tenure at the BBC in the 1970′s, the BBC pushed the envelope of what the nature documentary could be. He demanded the best technology and technicians, providing the best footage and the best science available. In a sense, every documentary series the BBC has produced has been an attempt to outdo the last one.
Alastair Fothergill, executive producer of “Planet Earth”, had been producing groundbreaking wildlife series with Attenborough since “The Trials of Life” in 1990. It was Fothergill who brought nature documentaries fully into the 21st century, by deciding to invest in equipment and techniques normally out of the budget range of nature films.
As a result, “Planet Earth” features extraordinary images of a type and quality previously only visible in the realm of big-budget commercials and features.
 The workhorse camera of the series was the Panasonic VariCam HD, chosen because of its distinctly clean image and variable frame rate. The Sony HD Cam was also used in several instances. In a couple instances, where the loss of an HD camera would prove too great a risk for the continuation of the shoot – in the remote jungles of Guyana, for instance, and also a year-long Antarctic shoot – 35mm and Super 16mm cameras were used, because they were known quantities and parts could be easily replaced in the event of a breakdown. However the Panasonic VariCam endured enough environmental adversity in deserts, mountains, caves, oceans, and forests to prove itself to be admirably rugged and reliable.
Another advantage of shooting in HD was the simple, but priceless, ability to look at footage on a daily basis. Nature documentaries, relying heavily on shooting film, are also in the precarious position of never being certain of the footage quality until it returns from the lab. A great deal of time, money, and effort might be spent capturing a natural phenomenon likely to last only a couple days, only to discover a week later that it was all for naught. Looking at real “dailies” also aided in planning the next day’s shoot.
The dilation and compression of time is a tour-de-force element of “Planet Earth”. The series used, for the first time on a major wildlife program, digital cameras for time-lapse sequences. Digital still cameras captured images which were turned into QuickTime movies, and these were then rendered out to high definition images. The same benefit conferred by shooting real time HD footage was enjoyed in the time-lapse sequences. Progress on the time-lapse could easily be checked on a laptop, again reducing the chance of potential surprises when the footage was finally replayed at speed. Producer Huw Cordey, veteran of David Attenborough’s “The Life of Mammals” series, shot jungle, desert and cave sequences on “Planet Earth” and used digital time-lapse extensively: “One of the biggest problems with doing a time-lapse, because you’re not actually watching it in the time-scale that you’re filming it, is you can’t tell if it’s any good or not until you’ve seen it. Shooting film, so many of these time-lapses would be N.G. The ability to look at it saves you a lot of time, and in the end you get better sequences and better shots.”
 Super 16 Arri SR2 cameras were used for high-speed shooting up to 150 fps, but “Planet Earth’s” staggering super-slow motion scenes – including shots of the unique and terrifying great white attacks on seals off the coast of South Africa – used digital technology. These slow motion scenes were shot at up to 400 fps using a Photron camera. Photron has made cameras for a variety of high speed purposes, including industrial crash-testing, since the 1970′s. The Photron camera used on “Planet Earth” is continuously running, recording to a hard drive, always maintaining a 2.5 second cache, so when the camera was activated, two-and-a-half seconds of footage previous to the “start” point has already been recorded. This allowed capture of the entirety of sudden and unpredictable moments which would have been a monumental challenge to shoot on film. “Planet Earth” was the first production to use the Photron system in the field, let alone out on the open ocean shooting great whites, or the deep jungle shooting flying frogs.
Another “Planet Earth” highlight is the series’ stunning aerial footage, which employed the Cineflex camera stabilization system. Helicopter shots can defeat their own purpose on wildlife shoots, because the noise and motion of the helicopter frighten any wildlife the helicopter approaches. The Cineflex allowed the helicopter to shoot from a long way off with animals unaware they were being observed. The Cineflex has been used widely on feature films, commercials, and news. This is the first time it has been used in a documentary. Operated by via joystick, the system consists of a gyro stabilized camera system that sits in a 14.5 inch diameter ball turret in the nose of a helicopter. It is comprised of five rotating axes, three of which are gyro-stabilized. Its stability allows use of very long lenses which be impossible to keep stable in a standard mount. A 40x zoom lens was used for “Planet Earth”.
The shooting of HD using the Cineflex brought other benefits too. Compared to bulky 35mm film camera systems, the Cineflex is fairly lightweight at about 85 lbs. In helicopter flight, even a slight weight difference can affect fuel consumption. The savings in weight allowed the aerial crew to stay up in longer, sometimes forthree hours at a time, changing tapes as necessary. A film camera system might necessitate landing after only 11 1/2 minutes – and that’s shooting a thousand foot magazine. As is often case, the simplest solutions prove the most valuable. The convenience factor of HD – not having to land to change film and the lighter system and the savings on time and fuel with the lighter system and not having to land to change film proved invaluable to the crew in terms of time, money, and ability to capture footage.
In addition to springing for technology, Fothergill went for the best crew. Michael Kelem has been the aerial D.P. on dozens of feature films including “Mission: Impossible” and “Black Hawk Down” as well as countless commercials. With over 40 years in the industry, “Planet Earth” was the first documentary he ever shot – as well as being the first production on which he had to please eight different director/producers.
The aerial photography crews consisted of three people: the segment director/producer, a helicopter pilot who was sourced at each location, and Michael Kelem. Working on a documentary brought its own set of creative challenges and also great rewards:
“For me, the shot reveals itself as I’m working. The idea comes to me in the moment and I have to be able to communicate that to the pilot on the spur of the moment and hope that he is able to see what I’m seeing and act upon it because you may only have one chance at it … We might use the topography to create a reveal or use something like a tree to give some foreground motion. Or with a really long zoom lens you can have the background spin wildly as you circle around a central point of focus. In essence, you create the shot as you see the action unfolding in front of you given the circumstances which you’ve just discovered. It’s a challenging way to work but it teaches you to go with your instincts and to be open to all possibilities.”
The series episodes, as presented by the Discovery Channel in the US, are slightly shorter than those that originally aired in the U.K. The original voiceover narration by Sir David Attenborough has been replaced in the US release with a voiceover by Oscar-nominated actress, Sigourney Weaver.
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