This blog post is in response to the final question, "So what?" Over the past few years, I have taken a few film courses and have participated in small, locally produced independent films. Before taking this class, I had already developed a sense for critiquing films, and I felt I had a pretty good understanding of elements involved in great movies. However, I found during the duration of this course that I was able to develop a healthy respect for the art of filmmaking itself. Though I was already familiar with some of the course material, this course opened my eyes to various techniques and methods used in filmmaking and allowed me to get a glimpse of the possibilities of what filmmakers can achieve.
The art of motion picture production has certainly come a long way, and with each new year more films are produced that spark the imagination to what can be done.
Producing a movie, no matter what genre or subject matter, requires the full commitment of the people involved in the production if they hope to produce a film worth watching. This class has taught me about the time and hard work neccessary to bring a film to completion. It's become evident the film industry is not a field for everyone; much sacrifice and emotional strain is required of those who wish to be successful in this field. I'm appreciative of the knowledge I have gained from this course on the subjects of pre-production, production, and post-production. This knowledge has given me a much greater understanding of these processes and I'm thoroughly confident this knowledge will benefit me throughout the rest of my studies and in my future career.
I still maintain the goal I set when I first started to study filmmaking: to one day become a casting director in the film industry, though just being able to work on a legitimate film production in any capacity would be amazing. Though casting directors aren't required to aid in the technical aspects of filmmaking, their role is critical in making sure the story gets told by the right people with the right amount of talent. I've always been a firm believer that learning new things daily is of upmost importance, and this class has definitely taught me many new things about filmmaking that I hope to be able to appy to my own work in film.

Each year as new films are released, I'm always amazed at new advances and groundbreaking achievements in CGI work. Not that I'm a huge fan of excessive CGI effects(I'm much more impressed by effects shot in camera), nevertheless I can appreciate the amount of time and work that goes into the film during post production to achieve those effects. If the effects are pulled off right, they can greatly contribute to the overall look and feel of the film. In my opinion, The Lord of the Rings trilogy boasts some of the most impressive and stylish CGI effects of any film to date. More specifically, the post production logistics of producing a film such as The Fellowship of the Ring could be enough to make you pull your hair out. However, with the right crew of capable people all coming together with the goal of making the film a reality, a masterpiece of cinema can be the product, even with a lot of CGI work at play.
An outstanding example of the capabilities of CGI can be found in the creation of the character Gollum.
In order to create Gollum for the film, it was first neccessary to decide what he was going to look like. This decision was a collaborative process between the director, the animators and the artists. They spent months mulling over various physical details of the character and outlined what look to give his face, his height, his shape, his hair, his skin color, etc. The decisions were made and the team came to a conclusion on the overall look of the creature. Over the course of the three films, Gollum's appearance actually changed slightly as the technology advanced and the animators grew more savy with the systems.
Next the team at WETA Digital, the effects team who worked on the trilogy, built a life-size sculpture of Gollum and scanned it into the computer program using lasers. This was an essential step in the process in order to create a computerized 3-D model of the character. Once they had the body created, the team created the character's skeleton, or the articulated framework for the model, in other words. The team also added muscle tone to the framework. This gave the team the ability to allow the computerized character to move with his framework the same way a human body moves in relation to its muscles and bones.
After having an established model to work with, the effects team created a way to control it, much like the way a puppeteer controls a marionette. The team developed "sliders", or a system by which to move individual bones and muscles. In regards to Gollum's face, where detail in the movement is most needed, even the creatures wrinkes and his wisps of hair had their own sliders. Using such sophisticated technology enabled the animators to bring the character to life. They were able to control how he walks, runs, interacts with other characters or objects, etc. For the more detailed and advanced movements, the team placed a series of sensors all over the body of Andy Serkis, the actor who voiced the character and provided the body movements. Using the sensors, they uploaded the movements into their model to bring the character a human-like quality and fluidity to his movements. The final touch was adding clothing and skin tone to the character, complete with pores,blemishes, little hairs, scars, wounds, etc. The genius of the creation is all in the details.
This kind of technology is continuously advancing and it is extremely expensive. The Lord of the Rings was an expensive movie to produce, and the post roduction aspects proved time consuming. Through the tedious efforts of many talented artists and animators, the CGI effects in this film proved to be mind blowing. All in all, the film makers and effects artists involved in this film successfully crafted an unforgettable work of art and managed to tell a compelling story simultaneously.

Web site used can be found at:  http://express.howstuffworks.com/gollum2.htm

Inception stunt work

Derek Ence
Comm. 2660
Paper #2
Stunt
Coordination
These days it’s hard to find a film
that does not contain some type of stunt work in some degree. Many times
audiences and critics are quick to overlook the amount of skill and talent
involved in making these stunts run smoothly for the finished product, since
the stunt performers are generally not in the spotlight. The films of
Christopher Nolan have become known not only for featuring mind-bending
storylines, but also for displaying mind-bending special effects and stunt work.
The film Inception is a prime example
of what Christopher Nolan can do with a film crew when given the right budget.
With an original script that called for some extensive action sequences, it was
necessary to hire a top of the line stunt team to pull off the dangerous feats.
To give you an idea of the amount of
work that went in to this film to pull off the incredible death defying acts,
the stunt crew was headed by two stunt coordinators. According to imdb.com, the
movie required around 90 stuntmen on the crew to make the film. Though many
actors now try to perform at least a portion of their own stunts, in order to
make them look as authentic as possible, the more dangerous and physically
taxing jobs are more often handled by trained professionals. The stunt coordinators
are the men or women who take responsibility for the safety of the stunt crew
and at times the actors. They have the most experience in the stunt field and
are specially licensed to be able to coordinate the stunts effectively. If not
for these brave men and women, great directors such as Nolan would probably
have heart attacks at an early age for fear of physically damaging the acting
talent.
The scene from Inception which stood out to me was in my opinion one of the most
incredible fight scenes from any movie ever produced. I’m talking of course
about the hallway fight scene that takes place between Arthur, played excellently
by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and one of the subconscious “projections” Hell bent on
stopping him while in the second dream layer. While sleeping, Arthur gets in a
car accident and the vehicle roles, altering his dream state. In his dream, he
is about to face off with an enemy when suddenly the hotel hallway begins to
turn over and appears to roll just as his body is doing inside the van. Arthur
and his enemy slide and roll from wall to ceiling and from ceiling to wall
while carrying out their struggle. Eventually they crash through a door into a
hotel room and continue rolling throughout the spinning room. Arthur winds up
gaining the upper hand, gets his hands on a gun, and kills his opponent just as
the rolling van comes to a stop.
Obviously pulling off such a scene
was going to require a tremendous amount of work. The fight scene was all shot
in camera with no added CGI effects. To create the scene, effects coordinators
and set designers built a vertical shaft and built the inside to look identical
to the fancy hotel hallway from the film. The camera was placed facing up to
give the shaft the appearance of being horizontal and level. Stunt coordinators
rigged up the actors on the inside of the hallway to give them the appearance of
being able to stand or slide on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the artificial
hallway and hotel room. The hallway and room were rigged to be able to spin in
place, while the actors and stunt performers were dragged by their cables
across the surfaces during the intense scuffle. Gordon-Levitt actually
performed a great deal of his own stunts for the scene for more authenticity,
but his stunt double, Andy Bradshaw, took over for the more painful shots, such
as breaking through the hotel room door and crashing into the opposite wall.
The scene turned out fantastic. Nolan, his stunt crew, the special effects
artists, and the set designers managed to take a fight scene and turn it into a
truly stunning piece of modern filmmaking.
As mentioned previously, stunt
coordinators and performers are not always given their due credit, but it seems
the industry is beginning to take more notice in their work. I’ve read rumors
from various online sources, such as rottentomatoes.com, that the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has actually been considering the creation of
a best stunt category at their annual awards show. The addition of such a
category would certainly be welcome, and it would definitely be a step in the
right direction at giving stunt performers their due recognition.

Casting Director

Derek
Ence
Comm.
2660
Pre-production Role:
Casting Director
In writing this paper, I find it
more suitable to focus on an aspect of feature pre-production, instead of
documentary. The reason for this is
casting for films is in most cases not a major portion of the pre-production
process in a documentary. It is, however, an extremely important role in the
case of a feature or narrative film. A film can be excellent in all other
aspects, but if it does not have the right cast to bring emotion and depth to
the script, the end product will be nothing but sub-par. I chose to research
the role of a casting director because I am most interested in the casting
process. I hope to someday have a career in this field of the filmmaking
process. I found some compelling sources for my research, but the most helpful
was a friend of mine who is an aspiring actor.
Brandon Pearson is an acquaintance
of mine who lives in Los Angeles. He divides his time between writing, stage
acting, and auditioning for possible roles in film or television. He has been
attempting to break into the acting business for several years, and as a result
has been involved in numerous casting calls. The majority of his film
experience relates to ads and commercials, having been casted in a few of them
himself. I contacted Brandon through email to ask him a few questions relating
to his experience in casting calls for television commercials. From what he
tells me, the process of casting is painstaking, even for something so short
and relatively simple as a commercial. On any given casting call, there can be
hundreds of actors present for roles in television commercials. Brandon finds
it funny that casting for these ads is so arduous, considering that after the
ad is over those who viewed it at home will not even know the names of the
actors or casting directors involved.
Though possibly hundreds of people
may show up for these casting calls, in most cases very few are chosen to be in
any given ad. Brandon describes the process as “whittling down the field and
finding possible prospects while eliminating the ones who show least talent or
promise.” According to Brandon, if you make it through the preliminary calls
and auditions, the casting directors give you a final call to tell you that you
clinched a role and the actor feels euphoric. Though Brandon has not yet been
cast in any major features, he is using his roles in television ads as a
stepping stone to build acting experience in order to help him collect a
portfolio of roles that future casting directors and producers may notice. He
has also been involved in many stage productions, often acting in lead roles.
About two years ago I bought Francis
Ford Coppola’s film The Outsiders on
DVD. The casting director who worked for the film was Fred Roos. On the DVD
special features there is an in depth look at the casting process Roos went
through for this film. This look into his methods is what first piqued my
interest in pursuing a career as a casting director. Roos attended film school
at UCLA, and his first job in the industry was working in the mail room at MCA.
He was persistent and worked his way up in the industry. He eventually became
one of the most sought after casting directors in the industry. Roos has worked
on many ground breaking films, such as American
Graffiti, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and of course The Outsiders to name a few.
According to Roos, he works very
closely with the director and collaborates with him/her in order to ensure
effectiveness in their casting and picking the right people for their project.
Roos says the traditional method for casting is bringing actors in one by one
and having them read for a part individually. He and Coppola noticed the young
actors auditioning for The Outsiders
were getting very nervous and not performing to the best of their ability, so
they decided to break the mold. They brought in large groups of the actors,
mostly in their late teens or early twenties, and decided to have them all read
together on a sound stage. Initially this made the actors even more nervous,
considering none of them had ever been thrown into a situation like this
before. Roos and Coppola were able to use these unconventional methods to see
the true potential in the actors and were able to assemble a terrific cast.
Many of the actors cast for the film went on to become leading men and women
and major Hollywood stars as a result of their parts in the film.
Casting is an integral part of the
filmmaking process and, as mentioned before, can either make or break a film.
The role of the casting director is obviously essential in this process, though
casting decisions can be made through various avenues. According to
filmmakernyc.com, the director is almost always present throughout the casting
process. If the director cannot work well with any member of the cast, that
lack of chemistry resonates and will be painfully obvious on screen by a bad
acting performance. These days, there are many directors who have the ability
and respect to cast most major parts in their films. Christopher Nolan, for
example, casts many of the bigger parts in his films on his own. He tends to
use the same actors for his films and is able to fully utilize an actor’s
abilities to make the best of their performance.
Studio executives also play a big
part in the casting process. Many times when a studio is using a script to
develop a film, the executives make lists of certain actors who have box office
draw that can take on the leading roles. Of course their decisions are never
set in stone, and they will work closely with the director, producers, and
casting director in order to cast the right talent for the roles. Many times
the actors who were first choices for the studio executives, directors,
producers, or casting directors have to be replaced because of the talent’s
devotion to other roles or time constraints, in which case they have to cast
someone else for the part. The casting director mostly handles the casting for
smaller roles or extras.
Filmmakernyc.com claims no matter
who is casting the roles of a film, it is very important that the directors and
casting directors develop good rapport with the talent and their agents. The
Screen Actors Guild is vital in this process as well. All of these people and
organizations must work together and communicate effectively if they are to
produce a film worth seeing. A good film is made through the collaborations of
many different people who are all working together for a common goal. When all
of these people are able to combine their efforts efficiently and perform their
work to the best of their ability, their films become works of art because of
their communication and devotion in producing a project.