Number216 wrote:
28 Days Later was done in DV to give it the more documentary-type look, make it look like it was immediately shot. And it worked.
Danny Boyle chose miniDV because of its high portability and low expense. He did not have the budget to shut London down, not even for a second, so he knew he'd be doing a lot of early morning run-n-gun shooting. (And I don't think it worked at all. Postively lifeless film, and I am not making a pun. It was as if they were making a film to prove to Hollywood that DV looks so bad no one would ever want it on a big screen. It looked grimy and dirty. [Maybe this is an aesthetic choice. I guess London is kind of grimy and dirty.] I had to handcuff myself to the seat to keep from running up to the projection booth and wiping off the lens. You're better off watching a bad VHS copy of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.)
Studios just don't want to use anamorphics any more. They're too busy looking for ways to improve upon an extremely terrible cause, pan-and-scan.
Which explains the push toward 16x9 broadcast specs for TV. Really, you are just way off base there. The future of TV is 16x9. The industry will move away from pan and scan, as it already is. Once upon a time it would be marketing suicide to release a DVD without a "full screen" version. It happens quite often now. Of course the real shlock from Hollywood gets released on crappy flippers with a full screen side. But those are for the troglodytes, the proles, the people whose hardly-earned dollars drive the film economy which makes it possible for us to have this pointless discussion.
The consequence? Make our films grainier, by yet another terrible format, Super 35. (I find no logical reason for its existence)
There's a lot of logic behind Super35: it's called marketing. (Let me ask you this: which way do you think Kodak decided to make Super8? Did they first think, let's improve the format? Or did they first think, let's figure out a way to re-market 8mm? The answer is both: some clever engineer came up with it, and a clever marketeer realized they could make a mint. Anything with "super" in the title sells. Just ask all those Hollywood DPs who act as if Super16 is some kind of gift from the gods.)
(let's hope E3 is better)
Why, after he has made two terrible movies, do people still hold out hope for Lucas? Go back and view his earlier efforts: nothing he's been in control of has stood the test of time. The best thing he's got is American Graffitti, maybe THX-1138. Lucas is a talentless hack with a propensity for telling the same story in several versions, something which grows directly from his questionable honesty. (He had no idea Star Wars would be so big, yet praises his own foresight in anticipating the money he'd make from merchandising.) If Star Wars is great cinema, then Saved by the Bell is great comedy. Everything that is wrong with cinema today can arguably be traced to Lucas and Star Wars. He is not fit to rinse the sweat stains from Kurosawa's jock strap.
The reason why recent hand-drawn animation films flopped isn't because hand-drawn animation is outdated and all people want is CGI. It's because the films are terrible! (and Disney, I'm sure you could have made Treasure Planet for LESS than $140 million) And not all CGI films are hits. Two words: Final Fantasy.
No doubt you've heard: Disney is canning its traditional animation, sending all its 2D artists to CGI school. There will be no more traditional animation from Disney.
Audiences don't know shit. The average movie goer knows more about the quality of bathroom tissue than film. We are talking about a population (in America at least) of people who elevated a giant steaming pile of turds like MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING to the status of new religion. You could have shot that movie on dirty VHS tapes and people still would have loved it. McDonalds doesn't serve fifty billion gourmet meals of filet mignon to customer every year.
What you get when you start thinking about the audience is crap like this. You also get great stuff like the new Russel Crowe homoerotic naval bondage epic (MASTER AND COMMANDER indeed!), a movie which just has me moist in the jeans. I can't wait to not go see that one.
Elijah Muhammed famously told Malcolm a story. If you offer a thirsty man a glass of dirty water, he'll drink it due to having no choice. But if you offer him a chocie between dirty and clean water, he'll drink the clean. The American movie audience has been drinking sewage water for decades, told its sparkling soda from the fountains in Asgard, and so now they can't tell the difference.
I propose a moratorium on this endlessly myopic conversation about film quality, digital video quality, and the size of our aesthetic penii. We'd all be better off at a Tupperware party sharing stories about our most embarassing moments.
"I'm the master of low expectations. I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."â€â€George W. Bush, June 4, 2003
)
