Trevor Allen

Ahhh, thanks for the info!!! You wouldn't happen to know how they kept Pitt's face in the middle? Thanks! Trevor

Yes David, you are right. I've been tooling around with After Effects. Using some compositing (rotoscoping the foreground from the background...as "drew_town" noted, in the film the foreground object seems to be much more normal vs. the shakey pulsing background), a "camera shake" plugin, along with a motion blur plugin, and overlapping the same background footage multiple times (each layer shaking and pulsing in slightly different directions, each layer's exposure flaring brighter & darker as it shakes/pulses) ......with all this I can get a poor man's version of the Batman effect. For one hour's work, not that bad of a result. "fstop" that's very interesting. That Batman effect did remind me of the effect used in Fight Club, where Pitt is looking into the camera and it shakes (where you can see the film perfs on the edge of the frame). BUF seems to do/invent a lot of the best effects. I did not know they did the Fight Club or Batman effects, I only knew them as the creators of the "Matrix Bullet Time Effect" (in the Gondry video....before it was the coined as the "Matrix" effect). ...respect is building rapidly for BUF :) Thanks so much to everyone for all the great information!!! Trevor

David, thanks for the reply. I love those scenes in Lost Highway, it is very interesting to learn how they were done. Funny to think that Lynch has vowed never to use film again. It will be interesting to see his new DV feature :) Would you happen to know what digital process they used for Batman? Or a digital process I could use to recreate the same effect? Thanks so much, Trevor

I just saw Batman at my local IMAX. It was very enjoyable. I'm a very big fan of Nolan and the Batman franchise (and it was a pleasure just seeing so many great actors in the same well made film). I have a question, what process did they use to achieve the "fear effect" I'm talking about the hallucinatory POV shots from the victims of the Scarecrow's poison. The shakey blurred motion. Are there some plugins for After Effects, or the like, that can achieve a similar effect? Any help is MOST appreciated, thanks so much. -Trevor

Ah yes, Donnie Darko is great. If you like the themes/narrative technique of Donnie Darko, then check out: David Lynch films (Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart). I would say Donnie Darko is very much like Lynch films. Also, Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up" is a great choice for films presented in a surprisingly new way. Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is another one. There are a million other great films that I'm sure you would love (Memento, Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream, etc etc)--but the ones I mentioned above (Lynch, Antonioni, Weir) are the most akin to Donnie Darko (or rather DD is akin to them) Enjoy watching these great films...I envy you...getting see all these great films for the first time :) Trevor

Hi, UCLA, USC, NYU are the big three. I went to UCLA...great school....but they do not offer a minor in Film (but as a non-film major you can still take many of their film courses)...so that may factor into your decision. I'm not sure if NYU or USC offer a minor in film, I'm sure it says on their websites. Trevor