Eolake Stobblehouse thoughts: Uncut

Monday, October 29, 2007

Uncut

I get quickly bored by martial-arts movies, but this uncut sequence is impressive from a movie making viewpoint.
(By the way, what was the name of that Russian movie which was one single cut?)

Detective ttl said:

Russian Ark (2002) is said to have been shot that way. I'm sure there are others.; The tagline for it sounds impressive:

"2,000 Actors. 300 Years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot."

I am tempted to order the DVD. Thanks for the tip, Eo.
: It certainly puts into perspective that many movie directors will use a dozen takes per 20-second clip.

20 comments:

Alex said...: Uncut sequences are good. Hitchcock's Rope was only 10 shots.

Firefly has an introductory sequence where they tour the entire spaceship in one shot.

Nothing as spectacular as that fight sequence; 29 Oct 2007, 05:05:00
Anonymous said...: Eolake inquired: "By the way, what was the name of that Russian movie which was one single cut?"

Russian Ark (2002) is said to have been shot that way. I'm sure there are others.; 29 Oct 2007, 10:52:00
Anonymous said...: The tagline for Russian Ark sounds impressive:

"2,000 Actors. 300 Years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot."

I am tempted to order the DVD. Thanks for the tip, Eo.; 29 Oct 2007, 11:04:00
Eolake Stobblehouse said...: It certainly puts into perspective that many movie directors will use a dozen takes per 20-second clip.; 29 Oct 2007, 11:11:00
Anonymous said...: Russian Ark is a splendid film.It gives every time I view it.I'm grateful for the beauty of it.Beautiful films are few and rare. Thank You for mentioning it.; 30 Oct 2007, 00:01:00
Pascal [P-04referent] said...: I thought you couldn't make an action movie without many actors getting several cuts. And bruises. And a few scratches. Really impressive. ;-)

I guess it's a bit like making a movie by filming a live theater play. A bit...
And it must be immensely efficient in preventing continuity errors!

Must take a great effort, to organize it all. But it probably saves millions on the budget. LOTS of movies could be done in a single day, or just a few. We haven't seen the last of this innovation.

In parallel, today's videogame consoles are more than capable of displaying interactive CGI movies animated in real time (the PS1 could already do this). There might be a market for this. Imagine, digitizing the whole of a Harry Potter book/movie using the game's graphics engine, and the viewer at home could play with the camera, view it as he likes, even through the eyes of any character. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
It could be simply added as an extra feature in the videogame: "View the adventure on autoplay", unlockable by completing the game. Very simple, I bet.; 30 Oct 2007, 01:51:00
Eolake Stobblehouse said...: There are already amateur movies being made like that. Called "mechanimation" or something like that. (No, not that. I forget.); 30 Oct 2007, 02:27:00
Alex said...: I've seen YouTube videos that seem to be based on Worlds of Warcraft.

The thing is the ability to script the emotions in the faces of the characters (assuming the voices are recorded speech and a lipsync mechanism exists), it depends on the library of controls available, but it still sounds like a lot of hard work. Fine for action, but close up head shots?; 30 Oct 2007, 21:57:00
Anonymous said...: Uncut is always better.; 2 Nov 2007, 20:46:00
Alex said...: I wouldn't be so sure that uncut is better. You are limited to just one camera, and one point of view. Sure, it gives a nice feeling of presence, but it really narrows down what you can do.

I agree sometime there are so many cuts it is dizzying, but cutting gives so much more potential.; 2 Nov 2007, 20:51:00
Anonymous said...: Maybe my mind is perpetually in the gutter, but that may have been a penis joke! :); 3 Nov 2007, 02:24:00
Eolake Stobblehouse said...: Well, with a name like yours, you're bound to think like that, ain't ya? :)

(I know it's not your real name, I guess that only proves it from the back door. As it were.)

(Remember the song in Josy and the Pussycats: "Backdoor Lover"?); 3 Nov 2007, 02:48:00
Anonymous said...: Yep, you've got my number! :)

(FYI - yep, I said it - the name is from a Canadian movie called "Hard Core Logo," based on the book of the same name. Worth a look.); 3 Nov 2007, 03:00:00
Anonymous said...: "There are already amateur movies being made like that. Called "mechanimation" or something like that. (No, not that. I forget.)"

It's actually called machinima. The following video is one the more... perverse examples of it. With all the mention of dicks you can't blame me for letting my mind enter the gutter. (Not that it wasn't there before.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=O-77ElyvRxI

This isn't quite as well done but again, with all the mention of dicks on this page I'm practically obligated to post it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PwbBfuJDdM0

Since both of those videos were made using models from World of Warcraft, I'm going to post what has to be the best piece of WoW machinima I've ever seen.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NYwy7yhiXi8; 3 Nov 2007, 11:10:00
Pascal [P-04referent] said...: Well, this discussion is certainly getting highly cultural. :-); 7 Nov 2007, 06:05:00
Pascal [P-04referent] said...: Ideally, all wiews of a scene should be shot simultaneously, with several cameras.
I also think a movie would benefit from its scenes being shot in chronological order.
Many a continuity error would thus be avoided!; 8 Nov 2007, 01:24:00
Alex said...: "I also think a movie would benefit from its scenes being shot in chronological order.
Many a continuity error would thus be avoided!"

Define "Chronological".

There are also some factors which are beyond control, and the shot is therefore unique. The overturned car in Fargo was filmed in several locations because the snow kept melting!

There are always problems when editing, the original footage may have a problem that was not seen at the time.

In the film "Driving Lessons" the scene where Rupert Gint is talking through the letterbox got missed on the shooting list. They did not have access to the location, and the crew were filming elsewhere, so they brought a door to the location, and did the make up shot.

The Prisoner is a classic example of messed up chronology. The US mandated 3 more episodes to fill a "season", the story is an on-going saga, so make up stories had to be added. Add to this Portmerion was no longer available as a shooting location, indeed even McGoohan was not available for one episode, so they had to come up with some creative writing to do the in-fill episodes.

Ask Ed Wood about plan 9, Lugosi died before completion, so footage had to get re-used.

Sorry Pascal, film is not stage, or strolling theater.; 8 Nov 2007, 01:35:00
Eolake Stobblehouse said...: "I also think a movie would benefit from its scenes being shot in chronological order"

The director of the Pusher trilogy (which I blogged earlier) does that.; 8 Nov 2007, 06:44:00
Pascal [P-04referent] said...: Define "Chronological".

Regarding the film's story. Basically, shoot everything in the order the viewer will see it.

Many a movie is the adapted version of a theatre play. Including Leo DiCaprio or Anthony Hopkins doing Shakespeare...

Not saying it's a universal method. But it sure coud be followed more than it is.; 9 Nov 2007, 00:54:00
Alex said...: You would surely agree that if a flash back to an earlier scene were to happen, it should be filmed at time of happening, not at time of flash back.

You are filming a sequence where a character gets off the bus, crosses the street, and enters a building. They then perform a portion in an office stage set, then they are shown leaving said building and hopping in a taxi. Again, do the location shoots together, and then rush the actor unchanged to the studio, which may be on a different continent...

Hearsay has it that in cowboy films they made sure the hats were never lost in a fight so continuity errors of hatless-ness would not be spotted.

Turns out in Roger Moore's"The Saint", they re-used location footage, and sometimes the wrong vintage of Volvo was used...; 9 Nov 2007, 01:47:00