DVD commentary track 2: due before the first day of school

6/11/2013

Watch a movie on DVD while listening to the commentary track. Post a blog entry and describe something cool you've learned about how the movie was made.

9 Comments

Bernardo Sarti

7/3/2013 08:12:38 am

For this second blog, I watched a documentary on the making of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, by the great George Lucas. I don't think I can isolate one single cool thing I learned in the documentary because there were far too many. Firstly, I have to say that the amount of work that goes into a movie of Star Wars magnitude is overwhelming. Forget casting or scriptwriting, I'm talking about the sheer building of complex vehicles and physical structures from scratch, the addition of special effects to thousands of scenes and the choreography of intense fight sequences, without mentioning the epic soundtrack provided by John Williams and expansive CGI. I was truly amazed by how many people work to produce a 2 and a half hour film. I gained a whole new level of appreciation for filmmakers and their ability to cope under pressure and pay attention to detail.

However one thing that stood out to me as new and interesting was the pre-production activity of storyboards. 3500 storyboards were created for the film and George Lucas sorted through each of them one by one to determine which aspects of the scene would be real and physical and which ones would later be added through animations and CGI. Consequently, the final scene of the documentary shows Lucas alone, starting to write the script for the film's sequel. Imagine working 4 years on a project and just after it's done, do it again. Jesus!

Mr Smith

7/18/2013 04:42:57 am

I agree, the amount of work that goes into producing a film like Star Wars just boggles the mind.

Cecilia Pacheco

7/7/2013 11:30:21 am

“Sunset Boulevard” directer by Billy Wilder

Sunset Boulevard for it is considered by me to be a Meta film, because it is a movie that criticizes Hollywood inside Hollywood. After watching the commentary track and the making of the film, nothing much can be said about how the movie was made since it is movie that didn’t required special effects except by the underwater take of Joe’s death scene at the pool that was filmed in a trick with a mirror. The interesting of this movie it’s the message it sends about the heartless and inhuman side of Hollywood. Billy Wilder, the movie director tried to take the Hollywood essence by using real Hollywood locations; such as Joe’s apartment, Norma’s house, Schwab’s pharmacy, and Paramount studios. Also the movie present inside Hollywood references such as the real existence of Hog-eye an electrician in the movie that really worked at Paramount. As well another reference is at Artie’s party, where the scene begins with people singing the song “Bows and Bottoms” the real composers of the song are the people playing and singing the song at the piano.
Something else curious is how the director and the actors connect with the movie. Gloria Swanson, who interpreted Norma Desmond, was at the time of the movie a forgotten actress of the silent era movie. Erich von Stroheim, who interpreted Max, was in reality a famous Hollywood director that went into ruins; also he interpreted a failed director movie that turned himself into a servant, in the movie.

The title of the movie also connects with the character as Norma have been nearing the end of her day for some time and Joe also seemed to be near his end in Hollywood.
Sunset Boulevard is classified as a noir film, as a weird black comedy not so simple to understand. The film promotes the sellout of people in Hollywood of winning their own objectives at any price. Also the film creates a contrast between the new Hollywood and the old Hollywood, with Joe and Norma. The opportunism and its consequences also predominate in this movie. The main message for the audience is how corrupt and heartless Hollywood can be after all, even when Norma killed someone there was always someone that would try to sell her out to the public. Also Norma’s madness can be questioned as her self-defense way to protect herself from Hollywood.

To end, something that I found very amusing was how the director used close up shots in crucial scenes, adding music, therefore accomplishing a profound feeling and meaning to the movie without loosing the opportunity in key moments.

Mr Smith

7/18/2013 04:44:33 am

Great choice of films, and great insights. You are a natural for IB Film.

Amaryllis Gounin

7/30/2013 08:54:32 am

Jappeloup

This movie was released this year, and is also a French movie. It’s based on the life of a horse called Jappeloup de Luze, a medalist jumper, and his rider Pierre Durand. I was really interested on how they worked it up since it’s made with animals and they have to be careful. In the commentaries, the director, Christian Duguay explained that they had to use 6 different horses to make Jappeloup, since it pictured different stages of his life. Each of them had different personalities that were used for all the different tapes made of Jappeloup. The other aspect that really interested me were the cascades. It happens with every horse rider that they will fall the horse for a certain reason, and it was no different for Pierre. There were many scenes were they had to make the horse fall or get a wrong obstacle but they had to plan each of them in order to prevent both the actor and the horse from hurting themselves. They had to take care of the field around it and mark the places were either would fall. For other scenes they would film from different angles and not show the accident completely in order to make it real. The rider would make the horse lie down fast while he jumped off and let the horse stand up again, that way they were able to film a fall without any problems. As Christian also mentioned, all of the actors had to make their scenes with absolute calm because the horses are animals and you can’t always predict what they’ll do, so it’s best to be calm in order to not scare them. Something very cool was that some of the competitions shown were filmed on the actual place they were originally, but those who weren’t had to be reproduced in different places. They’d put so much effort on it that people that had been to the original circuits told them they felt as if they were in the actual arenas.

Samantha Cavalcanti

7/31/2013 04:39:05 am

“The Social Network” has a DVD that features a commentary track with several of the actors from the motion Picture commenting on, among other things, how they got into character. I found it great to hear commentary from actors for a change, especially because I am fond of acting, and the effort and passion that each of them put into their roles, both mentally and physically, is definitely astonishing. The movie, in a nutshell, regards the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and all of the events surrounding the creation of the greatest social networking website of today. In order to portray Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg even took fencing classes, since Mark took them, and throughout the movie, walks with the same gait and posture that Zuckerberg did, as a result of the fencing classes, that force one’s back to remain mostly straight. Another interesting fact about his character is that, with only one exception, all shirts worn by Jesse in his role as Mark are shirts that Mark has worn previously.
In the scene where several college boys are rowing these boats in a competition, they had to shoot at this small 15-minute interval at 5:42 AM, in order to get the perfect lighting and feel of dusk that David, the movie director, saw fit for the scene. There are some relatively ‘small’ details that I also think are worth mentioning, such as in a scene towards the ending, between Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake, the latter playing the character of Shawn. They are both on the phone, in different locations, and in order to keep the scene aesthetically appealing, whenever Justin is on the left side of the frame, Jesse moves to the right side, and vice versa.
Overall, although not one of my favorite movies when I first watched it in the theater, this commentary really opened my eyes to certain features regarding character development that the actors pointed out, and if I were to watch ‘The Social Network’ again after listening to this commentary, I’d definitely enjoy it more.

Heather Freeman

7/31/2013 06:21:55 am

The commentary of the film "The Goonies" by Richard Donner switches back forth between the commentaries of the actors, Ke Quan, Feldman, Astin, Green, Pilmption, Cohen, Brolin, and the director Donner, and between the scenes of the movie being talked about. It is a sequence of shots, of the actors commenting and of the scenes, which os a technique bot very common during film commentary. One of the mais adpects presentend in the commentary is the difficulties and pleasures when working with do many children. Although they where dedicated and full of excitement, when all of them together, it was a lot to handle and deal with.
Since Donner was working with children, which had just been presented o screen acting, he tried to get the experience and acting as close to reality as possible. To do so, "One Eyed Willie's" ship, used in the movie was an actual mock, full sized pirate ship. Donner forbade the children to see the ship until it was actually presented to the characters, which made the reactions even more realistic. The ship was later destroyed because there was no buyer and no place to store it. Another interesting fact is that the Walsh family's address is an actually existing house, on 386 38th street on Astoria, Oregon.

Justice Howard

7/31/2013 10:26:41 am

Watching Making The Incredibles really hightened my respect for the people involved in making animation movies. This documentary was 27 minutes long and at one poit mentioned Nemo which was another big cinematic hit and how Nemo had something like 22 units or teams and then how The Incredibles had around 180 teams which even to an amateur sounds incredible. The scale of this movie was emphsized how there were a lot of people that were working and how to manage them. The director stressed the importance of bringing out as much as possible from each scene and person. The director also talked about his employer one of which was the late Steve Jobs who brought him on board with the projects mainly to spice things up in pixar even though they were already incredibly succesful. This project was mentioned to have been concieved 10 year ago which is now probably 15 or 16 years ago considering this movie is pretty old. I learnt that this movie was a pioneer in its field being one of the first animation movies to be in 3D which I thought was pretty cool. This was definitely worth watching and I learnt a lot from it.

Matheus Portela

8/4/2013 07:58:20 am

After watching Never Back Down directed by Jeff Wadlow I could really enjoy how the actors got into its character. Its basically, a kid at his new high school, being rebellious teen, that got mixed up into an underground fight club, where he finds a mentor. In this movie his mentor, plays the roll of leading him to fight agains the antagonist, winning his girl back. It may sound a lot like cliché, but at the some scenes it goes way different from as we expect, making a the movie excellent as it is. In conclusion, Wadlow showed to its viewers how a cliché movie can be turned out as unique.

DVD commentary track 2: due before the first day of school

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