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The Village


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Edit 02 Aug 2004, 11:37pm:

NOTICE: This thread contains spoilers. If you are planning on seeing this film and do not wish to know the ending, do not read any further.

 

 

 

I saw this film opening night.

 

When walking into the theatre, I was expecting to see a film photographed by Tak Fujimoto (DP of Shyamalan's Sixth Sense and Signs) but was surprised when the opening credits listed Roger Deakins as the DP. I was unaware of this. :rolleyes:

 

I thought the film looked great. The night scenes, having only light sources coming from lanterns, torches, and moonlight, were lit in such a way that they seemed to be lit only by lanterns, torches, and moonlight. One could easily forget that just a few feet behind and around the camera were probably a maze of lights and flags, diffusion frames, etc. I was also extremely impressed at the fact that nearly every scene looked "grainless," even the night scenes. I am curious as to what film stocks were used.

 

Mainly soft sources everywhere, which I thought was appropriate. Loved that awesome backlit fog shot. Very cool. Also a lot of large backlit structures (watch tower, buildings in village, trees) only possible with huge lights like 18K HMI's. Very Deakins-esque, reminded me of some of the shots in "A Beautiful Mind." Gives the structures an attractive, "glowing" feeling.

 

Interesting use of handheld shots with dialogue scenes.

 

The credits also mentioned a DI. I do not know if the entire film was digitally graded. Perhaps it was? Maybe there was electronic grain reduction, hence the super smooth images?

 

So, anyone else catch this new Shyamalan flick yet? Being an M. Night film, it did not live up to my expectations, but not so much so to say that I was "disappointed." It's still a good movie.

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What I saw of it, I thought it was fantastic. Colors looked gorgeous. Lots of handheld. Very delicate lighting. Absolutly beautiful.

 

The theater that I went to was terrible. The focus was slightly soft... the frame lines were soft and not matted and even worse the image was biased to the left, off of the screen by two thirds of a foot.

 

That and through the entire movie people all around were beeing chatty cathys. To the point that my girlfriend attempted to ask them to be quiet,. They just laughed at her. No ushers to be found. Afterwards we were schlubbed off by a manager .

 

I remember when I went to go see another movie there the sound track was so scratched up that the sound dropped out for 10 seconds after each reel splice. The Projectioned actually yelled at my girlfriend, infront of the entire exiting crowd.

 

And this was an independant cinema!

 

It's worse at the chains. I remember going to see The Passion and 15-20 camera phones recorded the crucifixion.

 

I should have just waited for the DVD, the movie theater experience has lost its charm.

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just got home from the theater.

 

gorgeous film, i also loved the "fog" scene, and the sudden use of handheld did its job as usual.

 

i didn't find the camerawork quite as staid as i expected, could be deakin's fault could also be a change in directorial style. still, the shots were beautiful and it was a more studied film than most of what's out there.

 

i liked the story and thought it was really well put together. morons in the theater hated it of course but what else is new? even in the voice, where i usually find the best local reviews, atkinson complained about the acting. but if you've seen the endind why would you complain? it makes perfect sense.

 

i highly recommend this film.

 

jk :ph34r:

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I saw the movie on opening night.

 

Awesome work by Roger Deakins, and I also sat there perplexed at how they used "practical candles" yet I knew somewhere somehow there must have been tons of light diffused, flagged behind the camera lens because I hardly saw grain on the film other than the typical grain.

 

Also I just got my latest copy of AC and it talks about the cinematography of The Village.

 

Like you, I also liked the hand held and in the article it talks about how Shyamalan was against using steadicam for the movie since it was not appealing to the story.

 

Some points

 

1) in the fog scene they used 18 bulb maxi brutes on condors

2) ac says he used kodak vision 2 500T 5218 for most of the film and kodak vision 200T 5274 for some of the outdoors scenes.

3) lots of gold card bounce

4) looks like they shot in late autum so they used DI to get rid of the autum leaves :-)

 

I enjoyed M. Night movies (M.Night) and Deakins is a master.

 

C.-

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I was definitely impressed with Deakins abillity to maintain an environment that appears to be entirely lit by candles. There were a couple of shots that looked like they might have had a gelled mini kino tube rigged to the back of the candle sticks. It seems that the backlight foggy porch scene was by far the favorite all around.

I read the ASC article as well before seeing it, so I don't know if maybe I was already expecting this.... but it seemed that it was cut rather poorly in a few scenes throughout the movie. Deakins kind of alluded to the lack of coverage in the interview. And while I watched the movie it definitely felt like the editors hand might have been forced a little. I love Night's first two movies, but found this one entirely predictable. I kind of walked out of the theater feeling like I had just watched a very well lit, but very poorly planned indy feature. I still liked it, and will probably watch it a couple more times, but I have a feeling that the script and storyboards looked a lot better on paper.

As for the projection...did anybody see weird cleaning spots or something on the print? There were a number of places in the print where large brown stains could be seen, for what seemed like longer then one frame flash. I wouldn't have expected to see something like that on the first weekend of screening. It definitely wasn't dust or hair in the projector. They were fairly well registered stains....

 

Ryan

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I can't add much except I too like the motivated practical lighting.Who says you can't light a scene for night and have it look real.

I ran it at the drive in and it looked great,which is a rarity these days for a dark film,but then it wasn't anamorphic so there wasn't alot of light robbed from the screen with those light hungry A lenses.

As a movie,the first time I ran it,I sat in my car,tuned the radio for the sound and was expecting a movie as suspenseful as The Sixth Sense.I was dissappointed.I thought,"OK that was interesting....but".While I liked the surprise where you learn the reality that it isn't the 19th century,I couldn't feel what these people were supposed to be frightened of.By the third showing of the film,I was thinking,"This is lame".

Marty

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I have to agree, the story was kind of lame and it fell flat for me half way through the movie. And after reading the AC arcticle, it kind of answered some of the questions that were bothering me. The long scenes and slow zoom and not enough coverage.

 

I was surprised though that it was not shot anamorphically, but I guess it must have been because of the lighting. Some fo the village scenes could have been really beautiful had it been done in Anamorphic.

 

Am learning though, I knew right from the beginning it was not Anamorphic and it was 1:85:1

 

Cheers,

 

C.-

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"As for the projection...did anybody see weird cleaning spots or something on the print?"

 

Yes, I saw these... I wasn't sure if it was projection, but you just confirmed it wasn't.

I dare not think it was a dirty lens on the camera...

 

I've been looking at a lot of reference material for an upcoming shoot, an this movie comes along... it's exactly what I'm going for lighting wise, so I'll go see it again for that... I'll go to a different theatre and see if I see the spots again.

 

As for the content, I feel it's definately Night's weakest film... too bad, I really wanted to like it, but the story has some holes.

 

I know Deakens used gold reflectors, and I'm sure he used some small kinos at times, but I was curious what aren some good methods of achieveng a very soft & specific (meaning on a narrow area) illumination for wide shots emulating candle light as seen in the Village.

 

Thanks in advance to any response.

 

-felipe.

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"You may have seen the new copy protection scheme. Could it have been a trio of dots? These dots would help track which theatre showed the film if they showed up on a bootleg copy."

 

They looked a lot more like random coffey stains, then some type of high tech anti-piracy scheme.

One instance it almost covered the entire screen with individual splotches. The other time it was more like one or two big splotches completely covering the side of the frame. It was definitely the first time I have ever seen something like this in a theater. I didn't notice if it was specifically at the head or tail of a reel.

 

Maybe some sort of complex dot matrix encoding based loosely on images produced by overworked caffine addicts?

 

Ryan

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As for the projection...did anybody see weird cleaning spots or something on the print? There were a number of places in the print where large brown stains could be seen, for what seemed like longer then one frame flash. I wouldn't have expected to see something like that on the first weekend of screening. It definitely wasn't dust or hair in the projector. They were fairly well registered stains....

 

 

What you saw was either the CAP code which is a marking system invented by Eastman Kodak. Every print gets a different spot pattern in differnet places, so when the film is pirated in the theatre, it can be traced back on the video.

 

There is however a non-Kodak version which is referred to by many as the CRAP-code because it uses larger spots and is much more distracting because it intrudes into bright parts of the image. You will find a lot of data on both types of code on Film-Tech.com when you do a search there.

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I can't add much except I too like the motivated practical lighting.Who says you can't light a scene for night and have it look real.

I ran it at the drive in and it looked great,which is a rarity these days for a dark film,but then it wasn't anamorphic so there wasn't alot of light robbed from the screen with those light hungry A lenses.

As a movie,the first time I ran it,I sat in my car,tuned the radio for the sound and was expecting a movie as suspenseful as The Sixth Sense.I was dissappointed.I thought,"OK that was interesting....but".While I liked the surprise where you learn the reality that it isn't the 19th century,I couldn't feel what these people were supposed to be frightened of.By the third showing of the film,I was thinking,"This is lame".

Marty

Thanks for ruining the ending, Marty. That seems to be a trend with this movie.

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You may have seen the new copy protection scheme. Could it have been a trio of dots? These dots would help track which theatre showed the film if they showed up on a bootleg copy.

Where in the movie is this?Do you have an idea which reel?

ll look for it when I break the print down.

Marty

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They looked a lot more like random coffee stains, then some type of high tech anti-piracy scheme.

 

On the print I saw (Burlington, Vermont) these stains were there too. If that is a copy-protection scheme, it's a seriously flawed implementation. It really just looks like the print is bad. It's not really that distracting as it is there only momentarily but it seems like a more aesthetically pleasing system could be used.

 

The night scenes, having only light sources coming from lanterns, torches, and moonlight, were lit in such a way that they seemed to be lit only by lanterns, torches, and moonlight.

 

Mostly I agree with you; I thought the lighting was truly impressive. However there were a few incongruous lights in the background that were entirely un-motivated or at least weren't convincing to me. It is nit-picking to mention it considering how good the rest of it looked, but they did bug me. For a place that is supposedly lit only by candles, oil-lamps, torches, etc. to have large swatches of light in the background just looked like there was some gigantic lamp behind a bank of trees. The composition would not have suffered to not have them there.

 

Thanks for ruining the ending, Marty. That seems to be a trend with this movie.

 

There was a large warning at the head of the thread...

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>> >>The night scenes, having only light sources coming from lanterns, torches,

>> >>and moonlight, were lit in such a way that they seemed to be lit only by

>> >>lanterns, torches, and moonlight.

 

>>Mostly I agree with you; I thought the lighting was truly impressive. However

>>there were a few incongruous lights in the background that were entirely un-

>>motivated or at least weren't convincing to me. It is nit-picking to mention it

>>considering how good the rest of it looked, but they did bug me. For a place

>>that is supposedly lit only by candles, oil-lamps, torches, etc. to have large

>>swatches of light in the background just looked like there was some gigantic

>>lamp behind a bank of trees.

 

I know what you mean, but I actually liked this. These little "swatches of light" added a lot of texture to the overall frame, with some shots reminding me of paintings. Had these additional lights not been there, I probably would've found some shots to seem a little "empty" - in other words, the additional lighting rounded out the image nicely.

 

 

>> >> Thanks for ruining the ending, Marty. That seems to be a trend with this

>> >>movie.

 

>> There was a large warning at the head of the thread...

 

I added that warning after realizing Marty had posted the ending to prevent others from potentially having the ending ruined for them.

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I worked on the Kodak team that developed the original Coded Anti-Piracy (CAP) code for the MPAA. It has been used for thousands of features since it was introduced in 1982 with Disney's "Night Crossing". Very few people ever noticed the Kodak-developed CAP Code in 20 years of use, yet it allowed the MPAA to trace the sources of pirated videos.

 

Recently, additional versions of CAP Code have been introduced, usually specific and proprietary to a given laboratory. These newer CAP codes are sometimes more visible on the screen, but are still evolving to make them less visible, yet retaining the ability to be decoded from pirated copies regardless of the poor quality often seen on pirated videos.

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These little "swatches of light" added a lot of texture to the overall frame, with some shots reminding me of paintings. Had these additional lights not been there, I probably would've found some shots to seem a little "empty"...

 

Without those lights the frame may well have been empty. I'm only going on my first impression. If I had been on set, staring at the scene, I very well may have come to the same conclusion--that something was needed back there to add depth and texture. It's interesting to me because I just read the AC article about The Village and it's mentioned that Shaymalan sometimes has to talk himself into the meaning of a shot. This is akin to something I often have to do on set--rationalize a light that I know is unmotivated but is neccessary. I instinctually know it's needed but have to create some reason in my head as to what the real-world source would be before I can see it as anything than a big fixture hanging out there. In the film, my eye just went to those background lights...

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I liked the movie a lot.

I think it's a mistake to expect something going in to any film, (if that's possible), and especially to expect Shyamalan to repeat "Sixth Sense" over and over, is ridiculous.

Personally, I think he should really break out and do something as different as possible to shatter peoples expectations. Like a comedy, or even a freakin' musical (although I hate musicals).

 

Anyway, pretty good plot, and I for one am glad that simple, just plain "storytelling" films are able to get made, although unfortunately, very few are able to do this, probably because the studios themselves are expecting him to repeat Sixth Sense, at least monitarily.

 

As for finding it hard to believe that these people would be so scared of society to want to create "The Village", I must remind you that that's exactly what the Amish have done, and also, Shyamalan lives in Pennsylvania i.e.; Amish-land.

Nnot so far fetched at all, and this doesn't take into account all the nutballs who start religious communes that are isolated, or the 25% of residents of Idaho & Montana who live like paranoid recluses, & the meth-lab producing biker types that inhabit the forests on the outskirts of this fine capital of California; Sacramento.

 

I loved the look of the film.

I also could sense that there wasn't enough coverage. It just seemed strange sometimes that there wasn't a reaction shot, or a different angle, etc., like there was a lot left out.

I read that there was originally a different ending, that they did some reshooting to change the ending, etc., and that Will Hurt didn't like this one. I think all the "choppy" feeling scenes were in the last 20% of the film, so perhaps he was cutting in reshot stuff, perhaps even shooting around actors who were no longer on the picture (God, I wish I didn't have as much first hand knowledge of how THIS goes...)

I'd be interested in knowing what the original ending was like.

I'll bet you he dies in the first version, because I certainly thought he was supposed to be dead, and you never see him looking alive after "the incident".

 

And the dance scenes were great, although the pirate rampage through me a bit, and the meteor destroying the town scene, well that was terrific.

The mutant dwarf orgy I could have done without.

(That was thrown in as an "anti-spoiler" for you that haven't seen the film.)

 

Matt Pacini

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To me, when I see those, it always looks like someone up in the projection booth got shot and splattered blood on the movie.

LOL David, I had the same reaction when I saw them in this film. I almost turned around to look up at the projection window!

 

I also noticed a few unmotivated spots of light in the background but It didn't bother me. I feel sometimes you have to add light because the audience has to see something. It's really the classic conundrum of cinematography. If there is no source of practical light, what do you put on screen? Only cinematographers really notice that stuff anyway.

 

Was there a bit of the dolly-zoom thing going on in that fog scene? It didn't seem like it got tighter on them yet the fog was getting bigger.

 

I must admit to being partly fooled until late in the movie. My sister noticed the date on the gravestone and said to me "Did that say what I think it said?" to which I replied "Nah, you must've read it wrong!"

 

Shyamalan's movies are always based on very simple ideas. This one is based on a group of people trying to isolate and protect themselves from fear, yet they rule their society with fear. I think it's a mistake to exhault his movies into something more. He doesn't, which is where I think his genius shines.

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Was there a bit of the dolly-zoom thing going on in that fog scene?  It didn't seem like it got tighter on them yet the fog was getting bigger.

I noticed this too, but figured it worked like this:

 

The fog was not natural and was created by large fog machines. A heavy fog was needed so that it would stay low to the ground. After enough fog was dispensed, the opening shot was quickly captured so as to get that cool, rolling fog that we all love. As the actors made their speeches and again in additional takes, the fog had time to dissipate and eventually raised up into higher air.

 

That's my guess.

 

 

Oh, and did anyone else hear a propeller airplane fly overhead during some part mid-film? Or was I just imagining things?

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I didn't notice a plane, but that would be interesting.

If it's there, you can bet someone is going to say it was intentional, even if it wasn't.

I had an idea of what was going on fairly early on, but wasn't sure until the 3rd act.

The extremely deliberate shot of the headstone at the beginning kinda made me think "oh, this must be REALLY important" which set me to guessing right away if there was something big that had to do with the date.

 

I liked the fog thing, but I did think it was a bit overdone.

I mean, there's just absolutely nothing in nature that would light fog to anywhere near that brighness, and if there were, it wouldn't cover the entire horizon, unless it were a brush fire, and it wouldn't be "HMI white" if that were the case.

Kinda neat effect though.

I thought they should have had one of the creatures come running out of the fog bank though.

 

Matt Pacini

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>>I didn't notice a plane, but that would be interesting.

>>If it's there, you can bet someone is going to say it was intentional, even if it

>>wasn't.

 

My friend heard the airplane too, but we watched at the same time in the same theatre. I wanted to make sure this wasn't actually an airplane flying outside of our theatre. Even if it was, though, I doubt you'd be able to hear it inside, as the theatres are fairly sound insulated, no?

 

 

>>I liked the fog thing, but I did think it was a bit overdone.

>>I mean, there's just absolutely nothing in nature that would light fog to

>>anywhere near that brighness, and if there were, it wouldn't cover the entire

>>horizon, unless it were a brush fire, and it wouldn't be "HMI white" if that were

>>the case.

 

Yeah, it did not look natural, but it really was a neat effect (like you said).

 

 

>>I thought they should have had one of the creatures come running out of the

>>fog bank though.

 

Oh, that would've been cool! B)

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