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Making The Shining


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In 1980, Stanley Kubrick shot The Shining, the classic horror film based on Stephen Kings novel. During production, the director allowed his daughter Vivian, then 17 years old, to shoot a documentary called Making The Shining, which lets you spend 33 minutes being a fly on the wall. The film originally aired on the BBC and gave British audiences the chance to see Jack Nicholson revving himself up to act, and Shelley Duvall collapsing in the hallway from stress and fatigue. Minutes later, we watch Mr. Kubrick exert some directorial force on the actress, and we understand her predicament all the more.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkq12a_the-making-of-the-shining_shortfilms

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Holy cow, the Winter Maze was a set? Totally fooled me. There is no fog coming out of the actors mouths as they breathe, I guess I didn't really key into that the first time.

 

If this movie was shot in Canada, the producer would of said.....you want to build a set on a sound stage with fake snow? In Canada?

 

R,

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Fake snow that then caught fire and burnt down the biggest stage at Elstree ! George Lucas was was waiting to move in to start " The Empire Strikes Back " To be fair it was rebuilt quickly then 10 years down the line where it stood is a Tesco Supermarket {Shame }

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Really? Fascinating. I wonder what material the snow was made of then? You'd think they'd use a material that could not burn?

 

R,

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There was a lot of polystyrene on the stage which caught fire and yes salt was also used .

 

Ah that explains it!

I think salt is also quite electrically conductive especially if there is any damp around so it may have been an especially bad combination! What do people use for safe snow these days?

 

You weren't actually there were you John? Just wondering! ;)

 

Freya

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I was on some exterior fake snow sets in the late 80's and the snow was a paper product.

 

http://www.excelfibre.com/products/snowcel/

 

"This paper SnowCel snow is very stable and weatherproof and used for more than a week. It is good for work on location in its chemical free form and for studio work in its class 1 fire resistant version."

 

I wonder what material the snow was made of then?

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So the documentary by Vivian shows a piece of equipment that looks like 2 vinten pedestals welded togther with a tiny crane on the front. What is this thing? It looks very practical... no need to lay track presumably. Are there any obvious disadvantages to it? I've never seen one of these being used before. Is it something that went out of fashion?

 

Freya

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Also check out this contraption on the side of the stairs. It appears to have wheels on the bottom and to support 2 cameras at once? It looks like the guy at the bottom might push it up the stairs! Is this something recognisable or something they cobbled together on set?

 

elite-daily-the-shining-behind-the-scene

 

 

Freya

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Maybe Garret had gone home by then? Seems an elaborate compromise when you have a steadicam on the set!

I'm guessing he wanted two focal lengths in one pass.

 

Maybe but steadicam does look quite different to track. I know that Stanley was disappointed that they couldn't get the steadicam shot working to follow the go-cart around the hotel. They solved the problem by using steadicam in a wheelchair but I imagine it wouldn't look quite the same. In fact I would imagine it would look better in a way as the go-cart runs on wheels too but I'm not sure what Stanley had in mind.

 

This strange contraption looks like it might even use the hand rail as track. I'm not sure what the wheel on the stairs does however, as obviously stairs aren't a flat surface but maybe they had some kind of surface on the stairs at the side for the wheels to run on too.

 

Looks like they must have spent some time working it all out and making it.

 

Freya

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It looks rather like a multi camera set up on the stairs using a special rig because of the lack of space..

 

Yes but I'm convinced this thing tracks up the staircase on account of the 2 wheels and the triangle that sticks out for the guy to push it up. I would also assume that a fixed rig would actually be clamped to the handrail or something.

 

Freya

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Lost ending to Stanley Kubricks "The Shining":

 

http://cinephilearchive.tumblr.com/post/41481142433/screenplay-for-the-deleted-original-ending-of-the

 

Somehow I managed to not hear about this but it would appear that Kubrick has a different ending to the movie originally but removed it from all the prints AFTER it had been released to the cinemas.

 

Kind of glad I wasn't around to see it because I just know I would have ended up having a conversation and mentioning the bit in the hospital and then have people tell me there was no bit in the hospital and looking at me oddly. This always happens to me when they change around movies like this.

 

Freya

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Yes but I'm convinced this thing tracks up the staircase on account of the 2 wheels and the triangle that sticks out for the guy to push it up. I would also assume that a fixed rig would actually be clamped to the handrail or something.

 

Freya

 

The wheels look a bit like they're more than moving the rig around rather than being used for tracking, especially on a stair case, where you'd also need tracks of some sort . You'd need a broad base for it to be stable. The Steadicam would've been ideal for following Jack Nicholson up the stairs.

 

I know Ray Andrew did a some Steadicam when Garrett wasn't around.

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The wheels look a bit like they're more than moving the rig around rather than being used for tracking, especially on a stair case, where you'd also need tracks of some sort . You'd need a broad base for it to be stable. The Steadicam would've been ideal for following Jack Nicholson up the stairs.

 

I know Ray Andrew did a some Steadicam when Garrett wasn't around.

 

I just watched a bit of the staircase scene that looked kind of handheld. It did have a slight floaty effect so could have been shaky steadicam. I'm going to watch the whole sequence later tonight and see if the movement changes a lot between cuts. As David suggests tho, he could have shot the scene in more than one way.

 

Perhaps the contraption didn't actually work. As you suggest it does look kind of far fetched but hey what do I know! ;) I don't think we can write the wheels off as being for just moving it around too easily tho, as one wheel is perpendicular to the other. Unless you mean it was designed to move it about the staircase but it's a lot of work to go to build such a setup just to move the cameras about on the staircase.

 

I guess it's going to be a mystery!

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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