Hateful Eight Experience

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm deleting my comments because they were made out of anger.

[David Mullen ASC]

All I can say is that, Tyler, you undercut all of your arguments when you cap them off with disparaging people who don't agree with you, who don't share you tastes or opinions. Calling audiences and filmmakers idiots (OK, saying that the filmmakers think audiences are idiots), or blind, or lazy, or don't care, etc. for not thinking the way that you do, well, it doesn't help make your case or promote your causes.

[David Mullen ASC]

Only reason Fury Road got a nod is because people don't care anymore. Most voters probably ask their kids or worse, go on google and see if other people liked it. I doubt most voters even see the movies, they're too busy watching pay television because in a lot of cases it's far better then what we put in theaters today.

 

The ASC and the Oscar nominations for Best Cinematography are only made by cinematographers, so saying that they nominated Fury Road because they don't care about the very profession that they work in... is hard to swallow. As a member of both, it's not true for me and it's not true for my fellow members as far as I see, even if we all don't agree on the same things. Generally my submitted list of nominations matches 4 out of 5 of the final list, but there is always one or two where I'm scratching my head a bit, but I don't think my fellow cinematographers are out in left field or anything like that.

[Bill DiPietra]

This is where 'Interstellar' worked, because they had actual scientists working on the film, developing the technology and making it hyper realistic. However, it went over people's head and people didn't like it, yet it has immense staying power. It's a film that will be looked back upon 20 years from now and maybe it will take that long to understand, like so many other films.

 

Interstellar and The Martian are two very different films even though they both fall into the same genre. I enjoyed both, each for different reasons. Interstellar is not hard to understand at all and I seriously doubt it will be remembered the way you hope it will. Yes, it deals with more scientific conundrums than The Martian, but Interstellar is no 2001.

 

I like Chris Nolan's work and I know he finds huge inspiration in Kubrick's collective works. But I've often felt that Nolan had the ability to be more of a Kubrickian film-maker - utilizing much more psychology, mystery & abstractions - but chose to go in a more commercial direction. He conveys far too much through dialogue. Just look at the scene in Interstellar when Matt Damon explains how (I'm paraphrasing, here) "We can care deeply for someone close to us, but our empathy rarely extends beyond that line of sight." That is one of the core concepts of the film and it would have been far more effective he'd found a way to convey it, visually. He's a talented enough film-maker to have done it. But I say that relating an idea through dialogue is the more commercial route go because when film-makers do that, they effectively give away much of the film's mysticism. The real trick is to find that balance where the audience is forced to interpret visual imagery which the film-maker is hiding the concepts he/she is trying to convey, behind.

 

Plus, everything is very neatly tied up at the end of each of Nolan's films, leaving very few questions for the audience to ponder. So Interstellar just isn't one of those films that one keeps going back to as a cinematic landmark of the human condition. For that, you need to reference Kubrick, Bergman, Tarkosvsky, Kurosawa, etc.

 

I like Chris Nolan's work for what it is, but it has its limitations. But at the end of the day, it's worked for him. And I think his most imaginative film to date is Inception (2010.)

[David Mullen ASC]

I liked "The Prestige" quite a bit, mainly for the disturbing ending.

 

There are plenty of scientific implausibilities in "Interstellar" if you want to get nitpicky. I mean, how does a Space Shuttle type craft dragging a centrifuge manage to not only have enough fuel to get to Saturn, but also fly through a wormhole, and end up on the outskirts of another solar system with enough fuel to fly to three planets? Why is the frozen planet in the center and the desert planet on the outer orbit? Why is the gravity near the black hole strong enough to dramatically slow down time on the first planet but not so strong that the spaceship can't be escape orbit? And ultimately, how does one enter a black hole without being stretched to pieces?

 

Anyway, all of these movies play fast and lose with science at times, only the nerd in me gets too worked up about it if the movie is enjoyable.

 

Some aspects of "Interstellar" remind me of the novels of Stephen Baxter, who wrote a couple where he had different answers to Fermi's Paradox. One of them had mankind from the far end of time, during the final heat death of the universe, sending messages to the near future, similar to the idea behind the builders of the wormhole in "Interstellar".

[Tyler Purcell]

For sure! The difference is that with "Interstellar" they didn't dwell on their obvious mistakes. The story of 'The Martian' only exists because of a sand storm that was strong enough to topple 10's of thousands of pounds worth of space ship AND NO backup communication system. Really? This is NASA... they have backups for their backups. So the whole thing is implausible from the very start. Not to mention the first shot of the film where the actors are digging in some dirt, I could tell right away the visors on the helmets and backgrounds were all fake. I know why they did it, so the crew wouldn't be reflected, but the movement of the objects reflected off the visor and the camera, didn't match well. So immediately I'm taken away from the film, looking around me wondering if anyone else saw the mistake. I know post on these films is rushed and I'm sure for the BluRay those issues will be fixed. But I tells ya, if I was watching that at home, I would have shut it off.

 

Back in the day, filmmakers would ignore so many things because they didn't have the technology to clean it up. Today, with all the tools we have, there is really no excuse. When I see technical mistakes in our modern CG movies and scenes which are so far away from reality it makes the movie look more like a Warner Brothers cartoon (tornado scene in Fury Road), it makes me think the filmmakers don't care. It makes me think they're simply pandering to those who don't care themselves. Yes, I may expect MORE from a film the most people, but I attribute that to the simple fact, popular cinema is going down the toilet at an alarming rate. The big brass are touting the most profitable year ever, not realizing the main reason for their extended profits comes from the raise of ticket prices and repeat viewer (fanboy) movies this year.

 

So I'm not trying disparaging anyone, I'm analyzing the data, I'm talking to industry professionals, I'm reading articles and watching interviews. I'm making my own opinion based on what I see and this is my opinion. It's based on data collected, not just tye throwing his hands in the air waiving them around. What I talk about is a common thread in the media and it's really disturbing. Most people don't want to talk about it and I completely understand why. However, I do think it's something that's in need of talking about because in the long run, cinema is highly influential.

[David Mullen ASC]

I just don't buy this constant refrain of yours that people like Ridley Scott or George Miller don't care. Really, you can't think up any other explanations? Scott, Miller, their crews, everyone down the line making the movie don't care? That's your explanation for a visual effect that isn't 100% convincing? Isn't it even in the realm of possibility that these people have done the best they could within the constraints of time, budget, and schedule? Even on big movies, filmmakers have to make compromises and they have to prioritize, except for the few that are allowed to go FAR beyond their budgets. If something isn't perfect in a movie, the answer isn't always "they didn't care." If that's your conclusion from reading all the trade journals and watching all the behind-the-scenes videos out there, you are reading between the lines in a way that shows your own bias.

 

Filmmakers make CHOICES, some are not always right in retrospect, and they prioritize their resources in different ways than you or I might, but as long as human beings make art, there will be some flaws that aren't always the result of not caring.

 

How can you say "I'm not disparaging anyone" and then say that you think they must not care? That's pretty disparaging!

[Justin Hayward]

I'm analyzing the data, I'm talking to industry professionals, I'm reading articles and watching interviews. I'm making my own opinion based on what I see and this is my opinion. It's based on data collected, not just tye throwing his hands in the air waiving them around.

 

 

But you have to admit that none of your opinions are based on any personal experience in filmmaking that is anything close to the level of filmmaking you're criticizing?

[Robin R Probyn]

As Ive said before.. Tyler.. rather than sitting around in coffee shops with your critic circle .. making very disparaging remarks about almost all of the best known directors and DP,s at the top of their game in the world today.. try to get on a "real" film set and see what people are up against/doing..and maybe go to Arri and learn about digital capture .. you are really not doing yourself any favors.. to the point of your posts being embarrassing to read.. as a self proclaimed expert on just about everything.. I have to wonder why your not in the big league yourself.. empty vessels as the saying goes..

[Giray Izcan]

I agree... I work on bigger budget commercial shoots where we shot on Alexa for the most part. There is a lot of that keep the camera rolling going on; nonetheless, we do care about what we do. The reason is that that's how we make a living. Speaking of which, the last job I did in 2015, which ended on on December 18, I'm still waiting on the check... I called Media Services, and was told to contact the company based in New York as they have a couple of issues I guess. Nevertheless, pretty uncool not to get paid for a month... Ideally, I would like to shoot everything on film, but I don't make the calls. I just do my job and get paid and move on to the next shoot... Man's gotta eat I guess.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Giray Izcan

[David Mullen ASC]

I just don't agree that "there's no excuse" for things not being perfect -- I'm not even sure if perfection is desirable in art, I want movies to look like they were made by human beings after all.

[David Mullen ASC]

http://www.space.com/27214-skintight-spacesuit-biosuit-photos.html

 

Thin wet-suit looking space suits? IMPOSSIBLE.

[Robin R Probyn]

Careful.. Im pretty sure Tyler is an expert in space travel.. is often begged for advise from NASA.. and has more than likely been a frequent visitor to the international space station.. and made all the models for ThunderBirds.. which was shot on film by the way..

[David Mullen ASC]

Most of Tyler's scientific objections to "The Martian" are correct -- there isn't enough atmospheric pressure for even a high wind to push anything heavy over, the spaceship interiors are too large and massive (going out into space is all about reducing mass)... I'm just pointing out that NASA is working on skin-tight spacesuits that don't require inflating the suit with air to provide pressure on the body.

 

But there's enough hard science in "The Martian" to make it enjoyable for me as an exercise in problem-solving. Plus I love almost any movie or book set on Mars, even the ones that are less scientifically accurate.

 

​BTW, Ruairi Robinson made a decent thriller on Mars called "The Last Days on Mars" (2013) that was also shot in Wadi Rum, Jordan.

[Robin R Probyn]

Im just pulling his chain a bit.. he's pretty entertaining .. but going a bit off the rails lately..

Edited January 17, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

Waste in today's production and post production is out of control. Miller asking for an extra million dollar jib for instance. I wrote a diatribe about how real post production works, but I deleted it because it was too real, too accurate. Clearly people don't want to know what actually happens. To me, that's really sad because education is the key. If we aren't educated, we will do the same mistakes over and over again. I know you guys don't care, but I do because I'm young enough and naive enough to be a professional educator, trying to make a difference. I instill new workflows in companies all around hollywood, trying to knock down the amount of time wasted in post production and keep all of post under one roof.

 

Anyway, one of my points is that nobody really cares. The industry is so propped up on money and waste, it's a huge issue. So you can say they ran out of time or money, but in reality that's rare. It's more like the creatives were too busy doing other things to approve products, so schedules were pushed and projects were rushed through. To me this makes it seem as if they don't really care. To me, caring is everything and you can see filmmakers who do care... Nolan for instance. His films look entirely different because he takes the necessary time to make it work. I think a lot of filmmakers are so stuck to the idea of this being a job, it's about turning around a product, rather then a piece of entertainment, something that will live forever.

 

It's just my opinion based on my 20 years or so in post production. I know it's a generalization again, but it's what I've observed and truth be told, if someone like me is observing that, there is absolutely something wrong.

[Robin R Probyn]

Tyler.. I dont think you actually watched the full ACS video.. Miller is renowned for being totally anal with post..Seale talks about this at length.. this random comment about the jib trucks.. both were used and there was a reason to have the two.. you are totally talking out of your rear end man.. And Ridley Scott doesnt care about his films !! of all people.. what are you basing this on ..

 

Such vitriol .. towards people and productions you know absolutely zero about... and this crush on Nolan films you also had zero to do with.. you seem very bitter with your lot in this industry.. I think I wont comment on anymore of your posts as its actually getting a bit sad now.. good luck to you..

Edited January 17, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Satsuki Murashige]

Clearly people don't want to know what actually happens. To me, that's really sad because education is the key. If we aren't educated, we will do the same mistakes over and over again.

 

I believe this is the very definition of irony.

[Robin R Probyn]

Tyler hang on.. .. what you have edited out is that you claimed Miller and Ridley Scot were purely businessmen who didnt care at all about their end product but only money.. your words .. based on what.. your Hollywood buddies in high places ..

Edited January 18, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

Tyler hang on.. .. what you have edited out is that you claimed Miller and Ridley Scot were purely businessmen who didnt care at all about their end product but only money.. your words .. based on what.. your Hollywood buddies in high places ..

No, I said if they needed more money for post to make their film better, they wouldn't give up their salaries, knowing quite well they have back-end deals. It was a hypothetical scenario, not based in reality, but interesting to think about. Now I get that Fury Road is a passion project, I'm sure Miller would have done anything to get his vision down. However most of our modern blockbuster's, the filmmakers just appear to not care. The level of mistakes and horrible effects is increasing, not decreasing. It's hard to even sit through a modern hollywood blockbuster. David gave a list of excuses and I wrote the reasons why those excuses were valid. I explained in detail the waste which goes on in post production because the filmmakers themselves, the creatives, have better things to do then watch material coming down the post pipe. In a lot of cases, they see the mistakes and just ignore them (more about that in the third paragraph). Movies like 'Focus' have adapted new workflows which allow the filmmakers to check stuff live integrated into cut sequences during the edit, so creatives don't have to stop what they're doing and watch vfx shots. It's the change we need in this industry, but it's not something that's easily adopted.

 

So yes, I do believe a lot of filmmakers just shrug off a lot of mistakes because they run out of time in post like David said. However, the reason they run out of time and money is generally their own fault. Go to effects houses with a producer who has approval authority (generally not seen on big shows), you will see a vastly different and smooth workflow with shots being delivered on time and without the same mistakes you see on other shows which were maybe rushed OR had technical issues that weren't mentioned earlier on and the creatives wanted changed last minute, which always happens.

 

My roommate worked on a bunch of big films, he was Stephan Sonnenfeld's creative assistant for years. He pre-colored, prepped the shows and did other creative finishing work. If you heard his stories, you'd not believe them. Yet I know they're true and he's the guy who got me started on the rant about nobody caring. That's actually HIS mantra because his whole business is fixing mistakes and filmmakers will literally sit in the suite and say "naa, it's fine" when in reality, it's really screwed up. It's not a time thing, it's not a money thing, it's literally them not caring. I'd gladly videotape an interview of him for you guys, so you can hear how YOUR movies are being treated in post and where all the waste comes from. :)

[Bill DiPietra]

I'd gladly videotape an interview of him for you guys, so you can hear how YOUR movies are being treated in post and where all the waste comes from. :)

 

That's quite unnecessary, thank you. Your rants are enough, Tyler.

[Robin R Probyn]

man.. you plainly stated they were just businessmen and didnt care.. those were your words mate.. anyway no point to debate with you really.. you always go back and denied whole thrusts of your argument.. and change the goal posts.. its been entertaining and thanks for the fish.. :)

[Tyler Purcell]

man.. you plainly stated they were just businessmen and didn't care..

Well, they are absolutely businessmen first. Neither one of them would have even picked up the pen to sign their names on contracts if their wasn't a decent amount of money going into their pockets up front. So do they really "care" about the product, or does their "caring" stop at their bank accounts? That is a question, just an idea, not a known fact.

 

I do firmly believe money is the only driving force in these big hollywood blockbusters. However, I can't prove it outside of my own experiences and that of my friends.

 

you always go back and denied whole thrusts of your argument.. and change the goal posts..

I do change my mind a lot, but that's because I learn from my mistakes and try to make things right.

[Robin R Probyn]

well it is their job.. and they are both well known and no doubt they are paid well.. for as long as they earn way more for the producers/studio,s who hire them anyway ... :) but as anyone on this forum knows .. there is no way they went into this industry with the idea of getting rich.. in that sense I would say they are crafts men who have done well.. in my opinion .. rather than absolutely businessman .. who,s main thoughts is to enlarge their bank accounts.. they would be shooting any tosh non stop and Ridley Scot would have just kept making commercials ... way more easy money there.. I think you do them a disservice .. without basing your accusations on any fact .. its a bit rude.. but sure its a public forum.. but I do think one needs some basis for publicly, pretty much, disparaging people.. and saying they "don't care"... sorry my rant over !

Edited January 18, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

Ohh no, I'm not saying their initial goal was only money... far from it. Lets face it, Ridley produced some quite amazing films when he was younger and was much more hands on. 'Alien' and 'Bladerunner' are both quintessential sci-fi films and 'Legend' is one of the better fantasy films. Mind you, all beautifully sculpted sets and model work that was second to none. I'd even put "Thelma and Louise" in the mix as probably his last decent really great film.

 

Have you seen his last three films? 'The Martian', "Exodus: Gods and Kings", "The Counselor"? Heck, "The Counselor" got a 48/100 on Metacritic and 5.4 on IMDB. Here is the guy who use to bang out the best films and he's been making for better or for worse, crap for nearly a decade.

 

So why do you think a prolific, high profile, extremely talented ARTIST, would knowingly make crap? He isn't stupid, he knows what he's making is crap. So why does he make it?

 

This is the best example of my point because there is no other logical reason then not caring. Ridley (like so many other big-shot blockbuster filmmakers) has turned filmmaking into a factory effort. He uses the same crew a lot of the time and keeps them very busy. To him, it's about turning out a product quick and moving onto the next project. I thought the BTS of 'The Martian' was proof in the pudding. He gave the actors one or two takes and moved on. If they messed up, he'd still move on and simply cut you out of the scene. To save what? 10 minutes a scene, maybe an hour per day? I know 'The Martian' was a "Low Budget" film for him (100M) but there is no excuse really. The actors are your connection to the audience and as a filmmaker, if you're willing to delete lines or characters from scripted scenes because you're in a hurry, that's just bad filmmaking.

 

Outside of 'The Martian' which was a critical and financial success, he hasn't made a film that's done anything but break even since 'American Gangster' in 2007! Which was probably his last decent film as well. So it took him almost a decade to make something worth watching again AND you'd argue that he truly cares about what he makes?

 

They spend so much money on post today, production becomes not so important. So instead of getting the image in camera, in production where it belongs, they have these HUGE inflated post budgets which make the production budgets really tiny. So filmmakers are stuck having to work ultra fast and make a lot of mistakes, having to fix them in post. This is part of why our modern VFX heavy films are generally pretty poor.

 

I find a lot of other big hollywood filmmakers have the same issues, Ron Howard being one of them and it's sad. If these guys truly cared, they'd figure out a way to make their films in camera the way they use to do it, back when they didn't have all these tools. However, our filmmakers feel they need to show everything and never leave anything to the audience's imagination. This "WOW" factor has become more important then telling a good story because it's what makes money. You can't tell me for a minute "Heart of the Sea" with it's horrible background plates and worse CG whale, was something Ron Howard, the guy who made the most realistic space movie ever; "Apollo 13" would have approved 20 years ago when he still cared about what he made.