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Film 101: Practical Magic

This weekend, teen-horror-film fans will be treated to more than just Jennifer's Body--they'll also get Jennifer's projectile vomiting of icky black bile. After all, she is possessed by a demon. Large amounts of puke are the number one sign of demon possession. Or bad shrimp at a summer street fest.

But there's something special about Jennifer's Body. And no, it's not just that Megan Fox has finally found the perfect role: a totally hot girl who alternates between a shallow, mean, vacant skank and a shrieking, blood-thirsty, entrails-devouring succubus. It's also special because as much as possible, Jennifer's Body's director, Karyn Kusama, wanted to shoot the gory horror flick with practical effects.

A practical effect is a type of special effect that is done right there on the set, in front of the actors and director. So when Erika talked last week about the stages of filmmaking, a practical effect would be done during the production or filming stage, while a visual effect--like CGI imagery, green-screen backgrounds, or model work--would be done during post-production. (Though for the sake of budgets and schedules, sometimes visual effects are being done simultaneously with principle photography, although most likely far away from the set in an effects shop.)

For example, when Jennifer is filled with the unholy spirit and starts blasting copious streams of demonic barf all over the place, that was done by clipping a tube to the side of Fox's face and pumping gallons of chocolate syrup out onto the set. (Mmmmmm, chocolate syrup.) Other great cinematic moments in practical projectile vomiting include, of course, The Exorcist and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

But practical effects are more than just spewing. They include stunts, artificial animal and creature puppets, and used to also include fires, bullets being fired and striking walls (or people), and wind and rain.

Today however a lot of that can be done with CGI. For a while it was hard for CGI wizards to convincingly recreate fluid materials such as fire and water, so those scenes were still done using old fashioned water tanks and big orange fireballs. But now CGI has advanced to the point where much of the fire, explosions, and giant killer waves you see on screen are computer generated.

Steven Spielberg made his name by working with one of the most famous--and infamously malfunctioning and fake-looking--practical effects: Bruce, the mechanical Great White Shark in Jaws. By comparison, when Renny Harlin made his own epic shark movie in 1999, The Deep Blue Sea (BIG PLOT SPOILER in the linked clip, but it's a riot), he almost exclusively used CGI fishies. (And which one is the better film?)

So when Spielberg returned to his "monster attacks" roots in Jurassic Park in 1993 he used both CGI dinosaurs and practical dinosaurs--life-size heads, arms, and legs that the actors could actually touch on the set.

For example, although the T-Rex was an amazing CGI creation (the best of its kind at the time), this entire, gripping scene was done with a practical T-Rex head.

Film 101: Stages of Filmmaking

In past Film 101 installments, we've talked about things that happen during pre-production (location scouting) as well as post-production (sound editing).  However, we never actually explained what pre-production and post-production are, so I'm going to remedy that today.  There are typically five major stages in the filmmaking process, so let's take a high-level look at what happens during each one.  But first I'm going to bring up the same disclaimer I've mentioned before: there are always exceptions. Generally, however, the following steps need to transpire in the following order to bring movie-lovers another title to fawn over (or despise).

Development -- In this phase, we've got everything that's necessary to turn a story idea that's nothing more than a glimmer in some producer's eye into a signed contract that says "this thing's gonna happen." 

When a lightbulb goes off in a producer's head and he's come up with the concept for what he's sure will be the next Citizen Kane, he gives his writer friends a call and they develop a plot synopsis.  Next comes a "step outline," which consists of numbered, scenes (each usually a paragraph in length) that provide much of the detail that a screenwriter will need to develop the full screenplay.  A "treatment" is also created in this stage, and this document reads like a short story that's told in the present tense. It also might include some sketches to help the reader be able to visualize what would be transpiring on-screen.  There are different kinds of treatments that are used for various purposes, but overall, both step outlines and treatments are necessary to not only help the chosen screenwriter understand the vision for the film, but also allow studio executives to easily and quickly understand what a project is all about in order for them to decide whether or not they're interested in backing it.

Development ends when a script has been finalized (which can sometimes take years) and the official green light has been given by whatever party will be financing the film. 

Film 101: Hark! From Whence Comes That Sound?(And Who is Wilhelm and Why is He Screaming?)

You know how it goes: you're at your Oscar party, filling in your picks for your pool, and you come to... Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Eep! Eeny, meeny, miny, moe time! So let's do a quick rundown of some of the terms and stages of creating non-musical sound for film.

A sound designer is a creative and conceptual artist, like a set or clothing designer. He or she works on the film early, huddling with the director to make overall aesthetic decisions about how, in general, the film will sound. Will it be loud and bombastic to pound the viewer into submission? Will some scenes be intentionally soft and muffled to create a mood? Will the film's sound effects strive for realism or will they be heightened or cartoonish? For example, I remember coming out of Die Hard in 1987 and noting that the punches sounded like gunshots and the gunshots sounded like cannon fire--that was a conscious decision on the part of the sound designer and the director to create the experience they wanted the audience to have.

Or will the film require new sounds to be created for fantasy or sci-fi worlds? The classic example of the latter would be Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt hitting steel guidewire lines with a wrench to create the now-classic sound of blasters firing. (Or giving the Old Republic spaceships in the Star Wars prequels the sounds of prop WWII planes in order to underscore their "old-school-ness.")

Not much actual sound gets recorded on a film set. Sure it's best to capture on site as much actual dialogue as possible spoken by actors on the set. But there are a lot of things--crew noise, camera noise (though most modern cameras are heavily muffled), microphone issues--that can make set audio unusable, especially when shooting outdoors on location where wind or traffic can ruin an otherwise excellent take. (Christopher Nolan wants badly to shoot the next Batman film entirely on IMAX cameras, but one obstacle is that the cameras are very loud, making shooting dialogue difficult.) When that happens, the actors then return to a sound studio months later to do looping. 

Looping is also known as dubbing or additional/automated dialogue recording (ADR). It involves having the actor(s) watch the scene in the studio and repeat their lines for recording, usually multiple times in order to get the pacing perfectly synced with their lip movements on the film. Looping is also sometimes used to change lines later to make a plot point clearer--you see it a lot in comedies where weeks or months after a scene is shot the director or writers come up with funnier or more timely lines to dub in.

Sound effects are audio elements that are added in after shooting in order to enhance or bring to life a scene. Some very basic sound effects would include things like gunfire, doors opening and closing, and car noises. Sound effects are also used to fill in things like traffic or jungle sounds in order help transport the viewer to the film's location. Watch your favorite films closely some time and notice how often impressions or ideas you have about where the scene is or what is happening are actually being created by the use of off-screen sounds. Sometimes just hearing someone get stabbed is much more disturbing than actually seeing the knife go in.

What do Foley artists, sound editors and sound mixers do? What is the Wilhelm Scream and why have you heard it more times than you realize? Over the jump!

Film 101: Location Scouting

When we asked redblog readers what they'd like us to cover in future Film 101 installments, "Nick" let us know that he was curious about the location scouting process, and specifically how certain buildings come to be in movies.  He mentioned the beach house in Weekend at Bernie's as an example.  I did manage to track down the history behind Mr. Lomax's first-rate digs, but, as with almost every aspect of the filmmaking industry, there's really not one specific way that location scouting works.  What was done for the 1989 dark comedy in question doesn't apply to all other films.  So I'll just stick with explaining the process at a high level, and then maybe in future Film 101 installments we can cover some of the details about location scouting if people are interested in learning more.

Before we go any further, however, I know you're just dying (get it?) for the story behind dearly departed Bernie's beach house, so here it is: although the antics in that movie were said to have transpired in the Hamptons, the shoot actually took place at a state park in North Carolina, and the beach house -- with all of its winding staircases for Bernie to tumble down -- was built specifically for the film.  After production wrapped, it was disassembled and the entire area was returned to its original state, as that was part of the deal made with local officials.  That may seem like quite a waste, but it's a common occurrence in the movie-making business.  All of those magnificent sets built for the Lord of the Rings films in New Zealand, such as Edoras in The Two Towers -- which took six months to construct atop the wind-ravaged Mount Sunday?  Completely gone now.  In fact, the only proof left of the trilogy's shoot is a stripped-down version of Hobbiton, which I discussed back in January in this post about the various film locations I've visited. 

Here's a more recent example for you... a Rob Reiner film called Flipped, due out at some point next year, was recently filming in my friend's neighborhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She said the film crew built a house in a nearby park and it was there for a few weeks... and then it just disappeared.  She later learned that they'd transported the entire structure to another location to possibly use again in the future.

The construction of sets and the selection of already-existing buildings comes pretty late in the location scouting process, however, so let's back up a bit and begin at the beginning.  Once a film has been funded, contracts have been signed and pre-production commences, a combination of people -- usually including the director, producer and possibly the screenwriter -- determine whether or not all filming can take place on a movie studio set or if some scenes will need to be shot "on location."  Now, "on location" is a misleading term, because it doesn't mean that a movie whose story is set in New York City was actually filmed in the Big Apple.  Rather, all "on location" means is that filming was conducted outside of a controlled sound stage. So, to use Weekend at Bernie's as an example once again: it was shot on location in Bald Head Island, North Carolina.

Film 101: Zoom, Dolly, and Zolly!

Most good filmmakers don't just wildly swing the camera around to show off (though even the best may have gone through a bit of a show-off phase at some point--yeah, I'm looking at you, Coen Brothers and David Fincher). When the camera moves, it's usually done to either draw the viewer's attention to something on screen, or to subtly create and emphasize an emotion or mood.

Now, we're not going to cover all camera movements today--it'd take forever and we've got plenty of future weeks to talk about tracking shots, crane shots, Steadicam, pans, and tilts.

Today let's just talk about when the object in the screen (let's say an actor) becomes larger in the frame (or on the screen).

Increasing (or decreasing) the size of an actor on-screen is a pretty simple way for a director or cinematographer to signal the audience that the character and/or what he/she is saying is important. Or, if the person is getting smaller on the screen, it often means the director is pointing out that they are merely a little part of a larger world or situation. An example is when a character suffers a loss and falls to his knees and yells in anguish and the camera pulls back, as Wolverine did about every 15 minutes in the recent X-Men Origins movie.

There was a time when this effect was often done by zooming the camera lens in (or out) on the actor. As you probably know from your own digital cameras, that means the camera itself doesn't move, but the lens' focal length and area of view changes, so things appear nearer or farther. You'll see this a lot in old (and sometimes cheesy) '70s movies or TV shows, when something dramatic happens and the camera zooms in on the actor's face to emphasis the intense moment. You also see it more often in documentary filmmaking, when cameramen are purely trying to get the most important actions on film, not caring how "pretty" or "smooth" it looks.

Today, zooms are rarely used in serious drama--they're more often used as a '70s-style joke, or a winking nod to filmmaking (as Quentin Tarantino often does in the Kill Bill films), or they're used in "faux documentary" films like Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and District 9 (and The Office on TV) to make it seem like you're watching actual amateur footage.

Instead, most directors today prefer to dolly the camera in for moving close-ups. While a tracking shot is when the camera moves alongside the action or follows it forward, a dolly-in or dolly-out shot is when the camera moves directly in or out on the subject (still using an actor as our example). It takes its name from the rolling platform on which the camera is mounted (though in some cases a hand-held Steadicam may be used, or tracking rails).

Dolly-in/out shots are much more common--sometimes they're done rapidly to connote an extreme emotional change, but more often you might not even notice the camera is getting closer to its subject. Those slow dolly-ins are often done very subtly in order to steadily make the speaking actor seem more important. The next time you're watching a drama, pay attention during close-ups of the actors speaking, especially during big, important speeches. Watch the relation of the actors' body and shoulders to the edge of the frame or screen and see if the camera is slowly, barely perceptibly moving in closer on them.

What happens when you zoom and dolly at the same time?! Follow me over the jump to meet the exciting, psychologically dramatic zolly!

Film 101: Producer vs. Director

(If you missed our introduction to the Film 101 series, catch up here.)

School's in! 

But since it's only mid-August, I guess that makes our first Film 101 lesson technically a part of Summer School, right?  (I really wish I was talking about the classic '80s Carl Reiner movie.)  Therefore, we're going to take it very easy on you in this first post and discuss something that many wonder but few are brave enough to ask: "What's the difference between a film producer and a director, anyway?" 

Here's the true answer: "That depends on who's producing and who's directing." 

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to divvying up responsibilities on a film project, and any definition of a specific role in the movie-making process is bound to have tons of exceptions.  But, since this is Film 101 and not Film 401, we'll focus on the high-level descriptions of what "typical" producers and directors might do.  In general, a producer takes care of the business and logistical side of things, whereas a director is usually there on the set -- day in and day out -- and is in charge of the overall artistic vision of the movie, as well as the execution of that vision.  

Let's get a little more specific.  A producer might spend a good chunk of his time flipping through scripts or looking at other possible source materials for adaptation (novels, plays, etc.), trying to find a project he deems worthy of his efforts (or that he thinks might make a mint at the box office).  If he comes across a keeper he will then get to work on securing financing or raising funds, selecting a director (and sometimes other key cast and crew members), helping to finalize the script and eventually figuring out distribution.  When all is said and done, the producer has ultimate responsibility for bringing a film in on time and on budget.  Up until this summer, Kathleen Kennedy was considered the most financially successful producer of all time with $5 billion in ticket sales grossed across 54 movies, but The Beard (aka Steven Spielberg) just knocked her out of first place thanks to his Executive Producer credit on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  He's now at $5.03 billion across the 52 movies he's had a hand in producing.

Introducing "Film 101" What Do You Want Us to Cover? Take the Poll!

My husband studied music in college and plays just about every instrument known to mankind.  It never ceases to amaze me when he hears so much more in any given song than I do.

"Don't you love that bass line?" he'll ask while plucking away at imaginary strings and treating me to an impromptu air guitar performance.  I usually shake my head -- I hardly ever pick up on the bass unless he's called it out.

"That's so cool how they switched over to 6/8 time," he'll say aloud to himself, and I'll just nod.  

But truth be told, I've learned a lot about music through him -- sometimes he'll give me formal mini-lessons about guitar picking techniques, while other times it's like I've come to realize the difference between a tight drummer and a sloppy one simply through osmosis.  And guess what?  I enjoy and appreciate certain songs and genres of music a lot more than I used to now that my ears have gone through a bit of "training" over the past decade.  

And that, dear readers, is what we here at redbox would like to do for you when it comes to watching movies.  You all know that I'm a big believer in movies as a means of entertainment and escapism, but obviously they are works of art and expression as well.  Some films can be compared to celebrated masterpieces under high security in world famous museums while others may be more like the notebook doodlings you made while zoning out in high school chemistry -- but hey, all forms of art nonetheless.

And so next week we're going to kick off "Film 101" -- a feature we'll run weekly that will cover various aspects of movie-making.  You should know us well enough by now to know that we're not going to be lecturing at you from on high -- we want to make this fun and interactive and give you examples of real things you can look for next time you head to the theater or pop in a DVD. 

While we have a few ideas lined up for topics we'll discuss in the near future, we really want to know what you would like to learn.  So please not only take our poll below, but also tell us in the comments section if there are any burning questions you have.  The poll may actually inspire some ideas -- let us hear them! 

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Thanks for your input!  Now get ready for our first "class" next week...