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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 26, 2020 12:14:03 GMT -5
The complicated 'oners' (I'd heard Joss Whedon coin that term for shooting)- to me is what makes the STM/SII feel so epic..... they could not have been easy to do, they're probably much slower to shoot, but the payoff is tremendous! (Can you imagine how many takes that had to have gotten blown in those lengthy oners?) To me in examining those shots that Donner did versus many Lester did showed the level of care and ambition. If you're required to shoot fast and effective, I guess you could say that Lester did his job.... but the rewriting and going off-track in the Metro battle is the biggest offense imo against his approach. Totally agreed on the epic "oners" that Donner shot. Incredibly difficult to pull off. And yes Lester did not go for that style as such. Although there is a nice one in SIII when Lana and Clark are talking in the Smallville sports hall after the party. Modern oners are mostly fakes(like in the Avengers)….as they are separate segments joined together through CG masking. Would love to see the likes of Abrahams, Snyder, Bay, Whedon or even the Russos try a real in camera one take shot like what you have in the Daily Planet in STM("Olsen get this Lockness update into compositing!"). They would fail spectacularly.  Whedon on his tv shows actually were more ambitious with one-ers when he directed them--- possibly because he'd felt more freedom and less pressure. I give the Roussos a pass because I feel like out of almost all the Marvel directors, they're the ones that have been the most artistic. (and all on-budget!) The difficulties Donner had, though, with being unable to green screen everything, no computers, and whatnot--- yeah, his challenge was FAR higher than any subsequent ones who would have to try to do superhero films. And rather than just do the 'conventional' approach as a hired gun- he made the job more difficult for himself by trying to do a masterpiece! That's why I get so huffy over Lester's downsizing of Donner's ambition. It really was like a once-in-Hollywood history type of movie that was groundbreaking. If Lester kept the original script (outside of the replacement of Lara which was sort of understandable, I would have just recast Jorel)- and tried to complete the vision- then I wouldn't be so annoyed by it. Or, if Lester had changed it for the better I might have been fine with it- but it was done a very non-epic way, barring a few shots. Though- Ilya could have insisted that the script stay the same.... He did say that he did take responsibility for not being more hands on for SII because of relationship stuff, but... |
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Mar 26, 2020 12:34:32 GMT -5
@cam I hear your pain with Lester CAM, and that is fair enough.....totally understand. In Petrou's book he mentions a trip by Donner, Spengler(back when they still talked to each other-lol) and location manager Tim Burrill, to Washington's National Air & Space Museum to view a prototype IMAX movie called "To Fly". Donner was basically toying with the idea of shooting in 70mm/15 perf(not 4 perf)......several decades before Nolan! The idea , as Petrou describes it, was quickly rescinded because of the prohibitive costs. But imagine STM in the native IMAX format. |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 26, 2020 13:04:54 GMT -5
@cam I hear your pain with Lester CAM, and that is fair enough.....totally understand. In Petrou's book he mentions a trip by Donner, Spengler(back when they still talked to each other-lol) and location manager Tim Burrill, to Washington's National Air & Space Museum to view a prototype IMAX movie called "To Fly". Donner was basically toying with the idea of shooting in 70mm/15 perf(not 4 perf)......several decades before Nolan! The idea , as Petrou describes it, was quickly rescinded because of the prohibitive costs. But imagine STM in the native IMAX format. Stray thought: in an alternate universe, the Salkinds go back to Speilberg (who wanted to direct Superman iniitally)- to finish up Superman 2.... how cool would have been? On another note- the background plates for STM during much of the flying I thought a little blurry- part of it I guess due to cinematographer's choice.... but I remember reading somewhere that they somehow shot on larger film stock for the second film (or something to that effect) so that the backgrounds would have matched better- In any case, from seeing both in the theatre, whatever they did, the flying shots did have sharper focused background plates in general for SII I thought... |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Apr 15, 2020 17:57:08 GMT -5
During this time, as a distraction, would be nice to know if work was being done still (perhaps at work from home digitally) .... definitely not the world's priority of course, but it might be nice if Hollywood apparently is still producing this or that still....
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dejan
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Post by dejan on May 10, 2020 11:49:38 GMT -5
During this time, as a distraction, would be nice to know if work was being done still (perhaps at work from home digitally) .... definitely not the world's priority of course, but it might be nice if Hollywood apparently is still producing this or that still.... Check this out(if you have not already)….original back plate footage from the helicopter crash for STM. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfabyjb_a9E&feature=emb_logoSomewhere in a vault....I am sure there is more stuff from Donner's SFX work for SII(that Thau did not get hold of back in 2004/5) |
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Post by booshman on May 10, 2020 11:55:05 GMT -5
I've no idea how you found that, nice one! I'd love to have access to all WB's footage.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on May 10, 2020 19:45:28 GMT -5
During this time, as a distraction, would be nice to know if work was being done still (perhaps at work from home digitally) .... definitely not the world's priority of course, but it might be nice if Hollywood apparently is still producing this or that still.... Check this out(if you have not already)….original back plate footage from the helicopter crash for STM. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfabyjb_a9E&feature=emb_logoSomewhere in a vault....I am sure there is more stuff from Donner's SFX work for SII(that Thau did not get hold of back in 2004/5) That is awesome Dejan! Thanks for sharing! I don't remember who/where someone shared the 'zoom-up/down' of the Metro planet background plate when Supes flies up to rescue the helicopter on this site--- but in any case, it'd be awesome to see more of where all the background plate footage from STM was/is available! |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on May 10, 2020 19:47:44 GMT -5
I've no idea how you found that, nice one! I'd love to have access to all WB's footage. I'd love that too! If I was a zillionaire, would be happy to give you a zillion to do a new Donner cut if you were able to access that WB footage, booshman! |
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Post by booshman on May 11, 2020 3:08:08 GMT -5
Cheers mate. I'm sure it would cost a fraction of that to do, look at what can be done with the available footage as is, access to the full footage would make a lot of things so much easier.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on May 13, 2020 13:56:50 GMT -5
Cheers mate. I'm sure it would cost a fraction of that to do, look at what can be done with the available footage as is, access to the full footage would make a lot of things so much easier. It would be neat to be able to 'see' the budget for the Donner Cut- I guess we really are lucky to get anything at all, but I do wonder how much was cleanup, how much was licensing Brando, etc.--- What always gets me is how other projects get multiple cuts far less popular, but I probably will never get over this.... but SUPERMAN II: WB official restored international cut in wide would help!  |
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crown
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Post by crown on May 26, 2020 21:28:57 GMT -5
You can't see 17 cents?
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Post by crazy_asian_man on May 27, 2020 1:35:29 GMT -5
Feels that way, doesn't it? I know realistically things had to cost more than other director cuts- #1: Cleanup/ restoration work on the print- #2: Brando rights #3: $5 for fx work |
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crown
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Post by crown on Jun 14, 2020 19:09:54 GMT -5
It was 17 cents total
#1: Cleanup/ restoration work on the print-5 cents too cheap to even be bothered to find blank bullets and the rest of the fortess scenes
#2: Brando rights- 2 cents to the Brando estate, he was entitled to 11% of the budget
#3: $5 for fx work-a whole dime went to this.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Jun 14, 2020 19:22:36 GMT -5
It was 17 cents total #1: Cleanup/ restoration work on the print-5 cents too cheap to even be bothered to find blank bullets and the rest of the fortess scenes #2: Brando rights- 2 cents to the Brando estate, he was entitled to 11% of the budget #3: $5 for fx work-a whole dime went to this. I would have rather that they included the whole raw screentests for blank bullet scene on a bonus disk, from how the blank bullets turned out... and/or animatics for the scenes that couldn't be shot. |
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crown
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Post by crown on Jun 15, 2020 22:04:03 GMT -5
But didn't we hear, time and time again on Superman Cinema, that the blank bullets scene WAS shot?
Not to mention that ALL the fortress scenes were filmed?
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Post by Kamdan on Jun 17, 2020 4:44:22 GMT -5
But didn't we hear, time and time again on Superman Cinema, that the blank bullets scene WAS shot? Not to mention that ALL the fortress scenes were filmed? AND a R-rated sex scene. |
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crown
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Post by crown on Jun 17, 2020 10:08:31 GMT -5
But didn't we hear, time and time again on Superman Cinema, that the blank bullets scene WAS shot? Not to mention that ALL the fortress scenes were filmed? AND a R-rated sex scene. We heard that it was an X rated sex scene! Why didn't Mr. Thau include this graphic depiction.. someone forget to say (ahem) please? |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Jun 18, 2020 2:29:23 GMT -5
But didn't we hear, time and time again on Superman Cinema, that the blank bullets scene WAS shot? Not to mention that ALL the fortress scenes were filmed? I can't blame Donner for forgetting a few scenes that weren't shot, given how he was multitasking so many scenes simultaneously... but, it was a GIANT disappointment not to be able to see the full FOS Donner scenes nor the blank bullets scenes as originally intended. If the advertising and news suggested there was very little extra shot by Donner that didn't make it, (and/or that the extra tv cut material wasn't necessarily going to be in it) I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed. As is, the tv cut feels more representative in spirit of what Donner might have done than the RDC, ironically. |
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