General Movie Questions 2020

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therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Skwirl posted:

I haven't seen it since the 90s, but I saw a tweet the other day saying something like "if you were a single mother working full time and dating Pierce Brosnan, why on earth wouldn't you let your ex have the kids on weekends?"

Maybe your ex is Woody Allen.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2020 09:12

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:18

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Taear posted:

It always annoyed me that she said she was from London but was doing a really Scottish accent and that seemed fine.

Here's a thing - are there many American films where accent really matters? I specifically mean your American accent rather than an accent that shows you're foreign.
It always feels like other than southern ones nobody cares what you sound like, so you can be someone born in Oklahoma in the film but you've got a more north east voice and people don't give a poo poo.

Fargo is the only film I can really think of that shows a US accent that's outside the norm of New England, California or Texas.

There are plenty of movies where characters have Southern accents.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2020 08:09

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Leavemywife posted:

What does the director of an animated film actually do? Are they just kind of like a general oversight person to see everything coming together at all parts?

How do you want the film to look? What is the final script? How do these characters interact? What is the colour palette? How is each character dressed? What is the style of animation? Which actors will voice the roles, and what music will we use? These, among other things, are what the director decides.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2020 23:40

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Generally the AD shouts �Action!� :viggo:

Directors often give a lot of guidance to actors. Most don�t just leave them to do their thing. Same with all HODs: they will do their jobs, but based on a shared vision with the director.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 00:08

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Leavemywife posted:

Yeah, so, I pretty much learned that I had very little idea of what a director actually does on set. I feel like an idiot.

Who is considered to be the most hands on director, like who consistently kept themselves involved in every level? Kubrick? I feel like he's gotta be up there.

That�s ok! That�s what asking questions is for.

The Cameo�s post is spot-on. The role of the UPM is sometimes taken by the line producer (who would have a PM working for them), and I�d add that one other crucial role for the producer is the director�s closest creative collaborator, in certain cases. Not always but often. The physical, financial and creative aspects of filmmaking cannot be so neatly separated: financial decisions become creative ones, etc. The producer and director will jointly agree which trade offs to make.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 10:06

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Leavemywife posted:

How many rewrites and revisions does a script generally go through before it is finalized and ready for shooting? I know some scripts have rewrites and all that even well into production, but do any scripts get greenlighted in their initial form (barring the general editing and revision process done to basically any form of writing)?

Almost never. Most scripts go through at least two redrafts and accompanying revisions; most go through many more. About 4-5 full drafts plus revisions and a polish is pretty common.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2020 21:42

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

morestuff posted:

From what I understand if there's any dispute, screenwriters submit drafts and info to the Writers' Guild who convenes a panel to determine credit

If it�s WGA. But on most independent films the numerous drafts are all done by the same writer. The usual practise is to persist with the original writer unless the relationship has broken down or they just can�t do what is required. If you bring in another writer it may be clear that they have contributed enough to merit credit (in which case first writer�s contingent compensation is reduced), or it goes to arbitration with the applicable guild. Or a new writer may be brought on for an uncredited or end-roller credited polish, if they are happy to agree that.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2020 22:35

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

fenix down posted:

Short answer: Yes. Here's a newspaper ad for Ator. Didn't see one for Space Mutiny.

Longer answer is that before the era of the corporate multiplex, there were more theaters, each with a slightly more curated lineup. Here's a newspaper clipping from 1982 showing the drive-in theater offerings in the Pittsburgh area. Even from just one weekend you can sort of get an idea of which ones are more mainstream and which ones would show Ator.

Very disappointed that Porky�s wasn�t playing at Camp Horne.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2020 20:02

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Sir Kodiak posted:

L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson)

No sir. I adore Wonder Boys.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2020 10:26

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

wdarkk posted:

I don�t think those would be big factors in the eighties and nineties. My guess is that old black and white movies were super cheap when it came to paying to have them inside your movie/show.

This would be my guess too.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2020 21:54

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Timby posted:

The degree to which Iron Man was unscripted and improvised is hugely overblown to the point of being an urban legend, and it's almost entirely drawn from one line from one interview with Jeff Bridges. There was a script, it's not difficult to find online, and much of it is reflected in the finished product. Yes, there was some improvisation happening (which is normal for any Favreau movie), but the writers were on-set throughout shooting and Shane Black was regularly faxing new pages to the production, as well. People act like it was a Christopher Guest production, where the actors are told what the intended result of the scene is and are given any dialogue that absolutely has to be conveyed, and then they're just told to riff on their own, when that simply wasn't the case with Iron Man.

Any film which is that VFX-intensive is also going to be very tightly and rigidly planned. Maybe there�s some messing around with dialogue but action, blocking, camera angles and movements etc will have been thoroughly planned and locked.

PS hi Timby!

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 20:21

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Now if you haven't got music (or any other) licenses in perpetuity the buyer will not accept delivery and won't pay. Precisely because this sort of thing fucks everything up down the line.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2022 15:32

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

I find this really shocking. You cannot deliver a feature film without all music being cleared worldwide in perpetuity in all media (now known or hereafter invented), with some rare exceptions. It�s not fairly common like it seems to be in TV.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2022 19:06

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

muscles like this! posted:

A couple off the top of my head:

Men in Black 2's ending was supposed to involve the WTC in the big climax

Lilo & Stitch was going to involve a plane being hijacked and flown through a city which got changed to a spaceship and mountains

While it never actually got made there were plans to film an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Survivor but that got scrapped after 9/11 due to (once again) an ending involving a plane hijacking

TV was different because nobody really expected there to be a secondary market of home releases. Releasing a TV show on VHS was cumbersome since you couldn't fit very many episodes on each tape so it wasn't very common. So contracts pre DVD and streaming would just frequently not bother with securing music rights to a format that just wasn't relevant at the time.

MTV show music rights are complicated for a a completely different reason. In order to better facilitate their ability to make programs MTV had blanket contracts with record labels that said if they had the rights to a song they could use it on any show they wanted.

I figured out the first part of your reply, which makes sense. Had no idea about the second, which is interesting. Thanks!

# ¿ Nov 5, 2022 20:23

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Professor Shark posted:

Is there a �technical� thread that goes into the filming part of movies? I have a question

What's the question?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 16:06

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

Leave posted:

Why do they rarely film movies in chronological order?

It makes sense to film one actor�s scenes all at once if they are contracted for a limited time, or to use one location that is featured multiple times. Basically because it�s usually the most efficient way of doing it.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2024 00:41

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:18

therattle: Jul 24, 2007; Soiled Meat

a lovely king posted:

What therattle said but to elaborate a bit:

When scheduling a film initially there'll be certain constraints already in place. The First Assistant Director will place the scenes to be shot each day into an order that makes the most sense logistically.

What makes sense artistically rarely enters the picture. Sometimes actors and directors prefer to start with chronologically earlier scenes to ease into the characters, so the performance isn't wildly out of whack if it takes a few days to find the vibe and you shot the climax of the movie first.

Then they'll usually group scenes logically. Each location lumped together. Night scenes grouped together. This is because jumping from day to night hours constantly is a long and annoying and expensive process involving a gradual shifting of shooting hours, which fucks your crew and cast up.

If you've got a particularly high profile cast member in a supporting role, you'll often try to lump their scenes together to make the production cheaper, as actors are normally paid a weekly salary. Plus a whole plethora of other constraints you might have been given by the producers when coming on board.

Then once that schedule is distributed to the rest of the crew early in pre-production, you'll get a bunch more constraints applied to your shoot.

The location manager tells you oops actually the Manor will only allow us to shoot at certain times in certain rooms, so that'll necessitate a scene order change.

The Director of Photography might tell you you can't shoot a certain scene at a certain time of day because the sun won't be in the right place in the sky for what they want, so that scene's getting moved.

The makeup designer might tell you that putting X and Y scenes next to each other is a bad idea as the characters in them have been rained on way earlier in the schedule and to shoot actors wet then dry takes ages to reset. So you've got to flip the scenes.

And so on and so forth, each department or producer or actor inputting their own requirements and details to your schedule, til voila! A finished schedule that orders your entire film into a logical and efficient shooting order that keeps every department happy and working hard.

...until your actor gets covid, or falls off a bench, or food poisoning and suddenly you can't film his scenes tomorrow and uh oh time to rearrange everything! Hope it still makes sense for everyone when you're adjusting it at 9pm after a full 14 hour day on set.

Oh and did I mention that film scheduling is still done on an incredibly outdated piece of software that essentially holds the film industry at ransom now as its very much still 'the way its always been done'? A janky unintuitive mess that industry veterans still struggle with.

It's a real tough thing to do and it flies so under the radar. Yes I am an AD so I'm very protective of the skills involved (and its a department that most people don't really know what it does).

This is a terrific, informative and informed post. I have nothing else to say! Except that there are never enough days to shoot what you want how you want it, except on massive, big-budget films.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 08:07

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > General Movie Questions 2020