An Empire of Dreams, aka George Lucas is GOD!

I love Star Wars.

Well, when I say that I mean the original movie from 1977 (now referred to as "A New Hope"), I've not watched "Empire Strikes Back" that much but I think it's okay, I like "Return of the Jedi", "Phantom Menace" is mediocre and feels like a kid's film, "Attack of the Clones" is unbelievably boring, "Revenge of the Sith" was flawed but enjoyable and I really don't care about the expanded universe.

But enough of my thoughts on the movies, today I'm going to talk about the documentary made for the 2004 DVD re-release of the original trilogy (remastered) "Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy".

The Documentary is what it says on the tin, a chronicle of the making of the original Star Wars movies and how they changed film making processes, the shift in culture they inspired after their release and the various challenges Lucas had to overcome in order to bring his vision to the silver screen.

The film does a particularly good job of showing the uphill battle Lucas had to endure to get the first movie made, from studio executives saying it would never work to trouble with the pioneering technology and other production problems. It does the same for the following two films though in a more abridged fashion.

The narrator (Robert Clotworthy) does a good job adding tension to the "story" through its more tense and uncertain moments, aided by the music and while it is all music from the films' soundtracks it is used appropriately, emphasising the emotions the filmmakers want the audience to feel.

In addition to clips from the movies the documentary features interviews with not only Star Wars cast (Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher etc) and members from all areas of the production team, but also American historians who add to the historical context and filmmakers who the trilogy inspired such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson. This aids the films argument that Star Wars was "inspirational to a generation". Concept drawings and rarely seen unused posters are seen along with audition tapes from casting.

All these elements make the documentary rather fascinating to watch as it provides an interesting  account of Star Wars' creation, it's production and legacy.

Don't mention THESE!

However, since the documentary is meant as a tribute to Star Wars there's A LOT of information missing. David Prowse who was Darth Vader's body actor is only mentioned a few times, probably due to his bitterness of having his voice replaced without his consent.

Though can you blame them?

 

There is also no mention of Mark Hamill's car accident between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, which scarred him for life, nor is the behind the scenes drama surrounding Return of the Jedi covered in any great detail, the film also attempts to make Star Wars seem like a Godsend to the world and anytime something apposes Lucas he's always portrayed as the victim, in a situation which usually resolves itself in Lucas' favour. The film also emmits the less well received elements of the franchise, including the infamous Holiday Special from 1978, the lukewarm reaction to the prequels and generally it feels like the film iconises George Lucas rather than tells the entire story.

That being said the documentary is still enjoyable for a Star Wars fan and for anyone who is interested in science fiction filmmaking. I'd recommend watching it.

Green Screen Test

 

In preparation for my editing role on the drama project I've been experimenting with chroma keying effects. The following video was made in Apple Final Cut using the bare basics of plugins and effects, since the effect is far from perfect (the image is all interlaced, which I put to being a formating issue, and there is a dark outline around the head) I may resort to using Adobe After Effects for the scenes using green screen, though this may cause more problems than it solves due to the format differences from Mac to PC and just a general risk of loss of quality during rendering.

Update on Drama 25/4/2012

Since I last posted here we have a finished copy of the script and we're due to start filming this Friday through to next Wednesday, giving me about a week to edit it. In the meantime I'm contemplating coming in and trying out some of the effects that we'll be using in the project, so I'm not scratching my head when it becomes heated.

I'm also slightly concerned about not having much to write about on this blog until the editing process begins aside from reviewing some of the drama pieces we were shown.

Drama Project

Well, after dare I say a bit of a false start with a lack of information we've got ourselves organised with our drama project. We now have an idea which we think will work as a short piece (this idea may be subject to change), the story is of a man has a sort of epiphany, ending on an ambiguous note.

I've been assigned the task of editing the film, which is both exciting and daunting at the same time: the exciting part is that this will be my first time on one of these large projects where I have had this role, so it will an interesting and maybe enlightening experiance for me. On the other hand the script is quite advanced and heavy on special effects, this means it will have to be cut carefully to keep the desired feel and tone, as this type of story while done a lot is quite difficult to pull of "right" and often ends in failure or a lower standard than hoped for, the special effects side of things is also slightly concerning as I don't have a lot of experiance with special effects.

It has been suggested that we edit the footage as it's shot so we have plenty of time for the effects, the problem is that as a film is being shot the tone and feel can change, meaning a lot of reworking may need to be done.

To keep communication during the process we've set up a facebook group to suggest ideas, arrange meeting times and make sure everyone is up to date with what's going on.

GUARDS!!

"The Guard" is a film I've been wanting to see for a while now; as stated before I'm a fan of shows and movies featuring the emergency services, seeing how "Hot Fuzz" worked I was eager to watch "The Guard" and while I didn't expect the most exciting and action packed movie I still thought this would be a good laugh since everyone has been raving about it and praising it.

And I have to say...I found it pretty underwhelming.

Granted, some of the characters were enjoyable; my personal favorite was Sergeant Boyle, played by Brendan Gleeson, he was the definitive old policeman who does things the "old way", who may be an arse on the outside but deep down he's a good man.

I also found the FBI agent enjoyable, simply his reactions to this new environment were quite funny at times, him and the sergeant aren't exactly close and don't see eye to eye, this can work well but in my opinion it's one of the film's downfalls, they don't spend enough time together to get a friendship or mutual respect going, there doesn't feel like enough chemistry between the two or playing off each other for the relationship to work.
It may just be the style of comedy that I'm not a fan of, most of the jokes revolve around the FBI agent being black and American, not fitting in with his new surroundings, this joke can work and it made for some funny moments but it felt like that was the only joke they had and they overused it a bit too much for me. Then there's the swearing and there's quite a bit of it. I'm okay with swearing in films if it's necessary and here I felt it was a bit too over done, it would make sense if just one character swore a lot as it would aid their characterisation but instead most of the characters have potty mouths, it just feels unnecessary.

Now to be fair the film isn't terrible and it's not even that bad, it just didn't click with me as it did for a lot of other people, still people enjoy it and they're welcome to, again it's probably just my taste in comedy. Then again this is more of a serious black comedy than a laugh out loud flick, so maybe I just had my expectations set for the wrong sort of movie.

Eh, that's a wrap.

Well it's taken many hours of planning, discussing, travelling, filming and editing but our Liverpool project is just about finished. Jordan and Sam have spent hours if not days in the edit trying to tidy up the footage and make it look as good as we can get it, as I speak they are composing the musical score and with a bit of luck it should be burned to disc by tomorrow. Today I have been there supervising the edit, offing a bit of input and I was also able to see a rough edit of the film, which considering what we had to work with I think was very good.

However, our sound man seems illusive today and left Jordan with a good deal of work to do in his absence.

Overall, this project has been a huge learning experience: we've been in a city many of us are unfamiliar with and as such we had to face up to problems as they occurred rather than retreat from them into our comfort zone. It was a very advanced location shoot with more crew and equipment than we've used before. I do wish I wasn't ill on the first day and subsequently more of an idea of what we were going to do on the second day but I suppose it couldn't have been avoided.

Parashoot form

This is a section of the ParaShoot form I filled out in preparation for our trip to Liverpool.