Saving ants (two at a time)*
Sep. 24th, 2006 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bending_sickleMy brother's driving me insane. I've been agonizing over how to fill out the recomendation forms (which sometimes require signatures) so that I could email them. I finally get the whole caboodle scanned and he emails me saying, "No good, will be fugly - FedEx instead". Naturally, my response is "Gah, I hate you - you're right, but I hate you anyway".
Thinking back on the quoted comment about the future Cell movie, I just realized something: the guy totally got the wrong idea. The book is set in the first person with a very personal point of view on the chaos. Doing a global pan to malls, stadiums, homes and all totally breaks the mood the book captures, which is "you're in the thick of it". Silly gore-whore man... There's enough gore (in the first person pov, which translated from book-speak to movie-speak is "pan down, zoom in") throughout.
Besides, the whole point of the first chapter is that it's abloody normal day when suddenly instead of biting into an icecream, a middle aged executive woman bites into the vendor. Surreal is what you're going for. "This can't be happening" is another. You want to get your audience as close to the action as possible, to feel their own little bubbles of world burst as people got batshit. "Pan to everywhere" doesn't cut it. Imagining the extent of the damage is even worse than seeing it, and puts you right in the trenches with the characters.
Oh dear god. Someone stop me from listening to Whedon and Minear commentaries. They love going on about lenses and camera angles and shooting speeds**
and suddenly that's all I'm looking at. Cinematic techniques and film techniques are bloody amazingly intersting too.
I've fallen in love with something they do a lot in Pitch Black*** (i.e. pre-Chronicles of Riddick film) - which I finally watched, and wasn't terrified so therefore somewhat disapointed - and a bit in Chronicles of Riddick, which was editing an action so it moves in uneven fits, sometimes even having the second shot show action just prior to the first. Trying to find it on google... Aha! It's called "trickery", ie. variable camera speeds. Non-surprisingly, I can't find any info on it. Trust me, though, it's cool.
As is Vin Diesel, who actually can disclocate his shoulders and does lot of his own stunts, like this. Tell me, how can a man capable of this not be sexy?
...World Stunt Awards? Neat.
I also watched CoR again, the director's edition, and I don't like what the director added / changed.
1) The fantabulous trailer line, "Kill Riddick" is now "Kill the riddick", which sucks.
2) There's a whole mess of prophetic / historic bits where a woman representing the whole Furian race talks to Riddick, plus a glowy-hand thing, which was not necessary and in fact, detracted from the film.
3) The added lines in the Purifier's declaration that he, too, is Furyian, were likewise negative, because the lines "We all began as something else" and "The Necromonger in me warns you not to go back." are that much stronger without the whole, "hey, I'll show you my glowy-hand chest if you show me yours" scene. Without that, the sudden revelation, via "But the Furyan in me... hopes you won't listen," is that much stronger for it.
4) The fact that the last lines in the directors cut were "you keep what you kill" made me think that he though I was an idiot. I don't need spelling out: you've already mentioned the Necromonger code a gazillion times. Plus? He took out the scene where you see that Helion Prime isn't going to be blown up after all. Kinda important, dontcha think?
The one thing I like that he added was all the violence + tongue action between the Vaako couple. Sexy and twisted.
The best thing that I liked him adding was the utterly sexy scene of the female merc' crawling over a bound (and hopefully sleepin) Riddick, smelling him and biting her lip. Pure sex.
...have just learnt that Fry, the copilot heroine from Pitch Black, was Rose from Silent Hill. Poor lass.
It's a good thing I'm not a teen, or I'd certainly consider the mechanics of filming as a career option.
Pimpage of Darth Screencapture and Rhiana's screencaps.
It's a gorram shame www.vinstuff.com won't open... *oogles Vin Diesel gallery* I love this picture of Vin on a sofa, I don't know why. Oh my! Giggle!
ETA: The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury = omgsquee x (!!!)
* There were two ants drowning in the tiny faux-pool my uncles have on the balcony. I felt terrible just watching them so fished them out. Of course, now I have to step on two ants to balance things out...
** Angel, Season 3, "Lullaby" has the most beautiful ending.
*** Wiki says: "This movie is loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short story Nightfall." ...the fuck? I've read Nightfall, both book and short story, and apart from the "ack! Night! Happens rarely! All hell breaks loose!" vibes, there's nothing to support this.
Thinking back on the quoted comment about the future Cell movie, I just realized something: the guy totally got the wrong idea. The book is set in the first person with a very personal point of view on the chaos. Doing a global pan to malls, stadiums, homes and all totally breaks the mood the book captures, which is "you're in the thick of it". Silly gore-whore man... There's enough gore (in the first person pov, which translated from book-speak to movie-speak is "pan down, zoom in") throughout.
Besides, the whole point of the first chapter is that it's a
Oh dear god. Someone stop me from listening to Whedon and Minear commentaries. They love going on about lenses and camera angles and shooting speeds**
and suddenly that's all I'm looking at. Cinematic techniques and film techniques are bloody amazingly intersting too.
I've fallen in love with something they do a lot in Pitch Black*** (i.e. pre-Chronicles of Riddick film) - which I finally watched, and wasn't terrified so therefore somewhat disapointed - and a bit in Chronicles of Riddick, which was editing an action so it moves in uneven fits, sometimes even having the second shot show action just prior to the first. Trying to find it on google... Aha! It's called "trickery", ie. variable camera speeds. Non-surprisingly, I can't find any info on it. Trust me, though, it's cool.
As is Vin Diesel, who actually can disclocate his shoulders and does lot of his own stunts, like this. Tell me, how can a man capable of this not be sexy?
...World Stunt Awards? Neat.
I also watched CoR again, the director's edition, and I don't like what the director added / changed.
1) The fantabulous trailer line, "Kill Riddick" is now "Kill the riddick", which sucks.
2) There's a whole mess of prophetic / historic bits where a woman representing the whole Furian race talks to Riddick, plus a glowy-hand thing, which was not necessary and in fact, detracted from the film.
3) The added lines in the Purifier's declaration that he, too, is Furyian, were likewise negative, because the lines "We all began as something else" and "The Necromonger in me warns you not to go back." are that much stronger without the whole, "hey, I'll show you my glowy-hand chest if you show me yours" scene. Without that, the sudden revelation, via "But the Furyan in me... hopes you won't listen," is that much stronger for it.
4) The fact that the last lines in the directors cut were "you keep what you kill" made me think that he though I was an idiot. I don't need spelling out: you've already mentioned the Necromonger code a gazillion times. Plus? He took out the scene where you see that Helion Prime isn't going to be blown up after all. Kinda important, dontcha think?
The one thing I like that he added was all the violence + tongue action between the Vaako couple. Sexy and twisted.
The best thing that I liked him adding was the utterly sexy scene of the female merc' crawling over a bound (and hopefully sleepin) Riddick, smelling him and biting her lip. Pure sex.
...have just learnt that Fry, the copilot heroine from Pitch Black, was Rose from Silent Hill. Poor lass.
It's a good thing I'm not a teen, or I'd certainly consider the mechanics of filming as a career option.
Pimpage of Darth Screencapture and Rhiana's screencaps.
It's a gorram shame www.vinstuff.com won't open... *oogles Vin Diesel gallery* I love this picture of Vin on a sofa, I don't know why. Oh my! Giggle!
ETA: The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury = omgsquee x (!!!)
* There were two ants drowning in the tiny faux-pool my uncles have on the balcony. I felt terrible just watching them so fished them out. Of course, now I have to step on two ants to balance things out...
** Angel, Season 3, "Lullaby" has the most beautiful ending.
*** Wiki says: "This movie is loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short story Nightfall." ...the fuck? I've read Nightfall, both book and short story, and apart from the "ack! Night! Happens rarely! All hell breaks loose!" vibes, there's nothing to support this.
