This is my big project for the next few months. I'm going to do this by the book, and it'll hopefully be a great excercise in movie making for me. I'm going to plan it out from beginning to end with (poorly drawn) story boards, shot lists, and location scouting. So far I'm getting the mess of a script/outline into the form of a shooting script. No offense to you Mike, it's just unorganized. The plan right now is to get it organized by my friend Tim and then get it back to Mike and I might have my script writing contact (writer of such fantastic things as Ah! Real Monsters, and Catdog, as well as such Jamie Kennedy SMASH HITS Son of the Mask) give it a gander, and then back to Mike again so that we find some sort of compromise that preserves Mikes vision.
As of now, it's all just talk. I'm collecting props. Brandon and Cody made me realize that the Geiger Counter in my living room is a great place to start.
Anyway, I'm thinking either a winter or spring shoot. Obviously, a winter shoot would be miserable, so I don't know. Depending on the length of the script once completed I'd like to shoot for something between 15-45 minutes long but, again, we'll see. I guess I just want it to be challenging, so we'll see if I'm really cut out for this over the next 6 months.
I think when the first trailer of Avatar hit I realized I had been more excited about the not knowing than when I saw it on the screen. I remember thinking this looks okay on my computer and I'm sure it'll be the best CG of organics I have seen (whether anyone wants to dispute or not Transformers owns it for mechanical), but ultimately I was not freaking out, but alas, James Camerons biggest disappointment in my eyes is Titanic: The highest grossing movie of all time.
The most important thing that Avatar has to provide me at this point is a real story. Something to rise above the exercise in "look what my computer can do!" I absolutely have faith in James Cameron as a story teller and even if James Cameron has become the new George Lucas (HA as if!) we can still rely on him to tell a story and to tell it well. Who else can put Arnold Schwartzenegger in a movie and have it be arguably the best action movie ever made?
Anyway what I'm leading up to is: if you had doubts about the Avatar story, worry no more. The new trailer out has gotten me extremely excited. I honestly think that this will be a great movie despite revolving around CG, and I still believe James Cameron adds a practicality to his CG, like bringing in Stan Winstion (RIP) to do set/creature design so that the animators had something real to go off of.
I guess as long as when someone walks into a room and the furniture is real, we're in the clear.
Last summer's star trek had a few inconsitencies, i.e. Nero's ear at the beginning and lack there of 25 years later. Now, after seeing the movie the second or third time I noticed that Nero was in a prison and there were some Klingons blurred out in the background, which I figured out later was Rura Penthe- the Klingon penal colony from part 6 (the name of the prison was unknown to me until today), anyway it's a cool clip and I want to make sure everyone (who cares) sees it....
In the wake of Cody's successful photoshop posts I'd like toadd one I just made in aboot foive minutes of David chase as an old man....looks like the thumb isn't the only trick Buddha played on poor guy.
I didn't know about Steve Mcqueen. It's not that I was against finding out. It's not like people didn't tell me or I didn't hear people in life or movies say "he's the coolest mother fucker to have ever lived". I'm not sure why I bought Bullitt without having seen it. Maybe because it was cheap? Maybe because I liked Vanishing Point (though I did fall asleep for a few minutes, which is not a refelction of the movie) and I just figured hey there's a chase scene in this movie too! I can't really say for sure, but I loved it so hard, and I loved the car chase way harder. BTW, in case no one knows, he drove in that scene and the whole thing was shot guerrilla style, without telling anyone or getting permits. Steve Mcqueen got arrested the next day.
Now bullitt rocked, and it and a lot of other movies I've watched lately have shown me a lot of appreciation for some more recent movies, more specifically: Payback. I didn't realize what Robert Helgeland was attempting. I assumed it was just a noir-esque story, but from a villains point of view, but no that's his 70's crime movie. Awesome.
Anyway, I also watched The Getaway w/Mcqueen and let me tell you holy shit! Not only is McQueen cool (while he was hitting a woman I was cheering him on because even that was cool), but Peckinpah is at the absolute top of his game. I like straw dogs a lot, but the getaway is just so amazing. I guess I don't want to spoil it too much but the final shootout is amazing (and Christopher McQuarrie's way of the gun totally ripped it off) and the 94 remake doesn't hold a candle.
There's a scene where Mcqueen follows this guy who stole from him onto a train, sits next to him and beats the shit out of him like whatevah.
In other news everyone has been sick, and yours truly has been soakin' up the swine flu like whatevah. H1N1...psh! More like H1I'mDone! Anyway, Brandon, Mike and Cody have all been sick and I've been fine laughin' it up, but alas, I may too be getting swine flu which would be rad. (my sister got swine flu last week and the doctor told her to stay away from my grandma because she could kill her).
We watched Chain Reaction the other day it was pretty fun. I think the problem with a lot of action these days is (1) CG but also (2) the ability to have non-stop action (with the use of CG). Before, when movies were good, you had to keep people entertained in between the big expensive action sequences that took all week and a city block to film. Now, with computers you never have to give the viewer a chance to breath you can just skull fuck the shit out them through their eye sockets via George Lucas' CG extended kok. I think people know this whether it be conscious or not. There's a reason why Taken was so popular: it was classic, timeless, badass action, but with the heart unlike things like Transformers and anything Michael Bay has ever done. Including the Rock. Sorry.
I guess I'm curious what the next decade holds for action.
70's-The Getaway, French Connection, Taking of Pelham 123 80's- Cobra, Die Hard, First Blood,The Terminator. 90's- Demolition Man, Blade, The Matrix, Die Hard 3, T2 000's-Transformers, G.I. Joe, Matrix 2 & 3, Iron Man, whatevah. 010's-???????????????????????????????????????????????
Disclaimer: I never said I didn't like being skull fucked through my eyes I just don't think those type of movies have any real longevity.
Nothing is more promising in a movie than a movie with a Mel Gibson cry scene. Generally, thrillers that look like this, with ageing actors tend to turn out like Don't Say a Word, Perfect Stranger, Double Jeopardy, or High Crimes, but this trailer indicates enough badassery to keep it from following that trend. And this now takes the take (after The Expendables) as movie I am most excited for in 2010.
I hope someday I get the oppurtunity to violently lose a loved one so I can take matters into my own hands.
The other day some kid in my argumentation and research class tried to convince us that when the world's petroleum runs out, human kind would morph into something similar to the people in Mad Max. I think that would be cool. I mean what other oppurtunities am I realisticly ever going have where I get to be a lone bad ass? No, but seriously, that guy was stupid.
