Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 7/16/99 DVD and the Filmmaker (transcript - Page 3) back to page 2 Maltin: Tell us - give us an idea how much time that does take. I don't think most of us understand that. How much time does a director spend preparing a film for video? Ratner: Well, I mean aside from the commentary...? Maltin: Just the technical time - the transfer. Ratner: The technical transfer... well, I come from a different world on that. I come from music videos. So, for instance, just as an example, it would take me 12 to 24 hours, just to do a 3-minute video. And on my film, I would spend weeks, you know - not just sitting there - I'd be in and out of the room. But I'd spend time with the colorist, and he would spend weeks, 12 hours a day working on it. And I'd try to get my cinematographer in there to look at it. And I would want him to be there looking at it, because at the turn of a knob, you can change the sky from blue to grey. There are just so many options - unlimited really - and it can drive someone like myself crazy. But it was important to see what it looked like projected as we did it, and so we spent weeks on it. Altman: [smiles] How do you afford that? Ratner: [also smiling] Well, by the time we were doing the transfer, my movie had already come out, and it had already made a lot of money, so... [audience laughs] Let's just say that no one was kicking me out of the transfer room. Probably if it had bombed, they'd probably say, "You've got to be out of here by 6." [more laughs] But the movie did well, so I was able to spend the time on the transfer. And I have to give credit to New Line Cinema, because the way they like to release the video and the DVD is at the same time - day and date. But I took so much time on the transfer of the DVD, that they weren't able to make that date. And because of it, they probably could have sold like another 100,000 DVDs. And I'm sorry that they lost that. But I'm such a perfectionist, because I know that most of the people will see this movie first on DVD. And I want to make sure that it's seen correctly, and not half-assed. I spent a year of my life on this movie, and that's very important to me. [audience applause] Maltin: Eric, you and I were talking about that process backstage... Darnell: Yeah, well... thinking about the process, you can get to a point where you're fixing and tweaking stuff that no one will ever care about but yourself. But we found that with computer graphics and animation, your initial medium is a TV screen - a high resolution monitor. And you just photograph those frames right off the TV screen, onto 35mm film. For the first 9 months of production or so, our medium was that TV screen, until we got up and running and were ready to start shooting film. And then, for the next two years, we were adjusting our shooting process, trying to achieve that look that we were getting on TV, that we had been color correcting for. But, of course, film responds much differently to light than a TV screen puts light out. So it was a nightmare. There was a huge technical team that came in to try and find the algorithm that would give us what we were seeing on TV on film. And we never quite got it. So finally what we were doing, was getting it to film, which we should have done right from the beginning, as quickly as we could. But since we spent so much time dealing with that problem, pretty much the whole 3 years of production, by the time that we were ready to do the transfer, we knew exactly what we were trying to get on video. We were coming from film, back to the digital medium, and it was very easy. It took only a couple of weeks to do the film transfer - you tweak it a little bit, you process it - but we got it done quickly. Maltin: There is a film look. There is a look to film, a feel to film, that is not the same as video. And not everybody recognizes that difference. I'm a film guy - that's what is in my head. I may watch the film on video, but it was originated on film. And that's still the look I'm hoping to see. Darnell: Exactly. We made our decision to go from film to create the videos and DVDs for that very reason. There's something - a certain warmth the chemical process gives you - that you have to design into computer animation if you're going to get that. And we do do that. Sometimes we'll actually add grain to an image, to try to get it close to what film would look like. Or that sort of blooming between light and dark areas, to duplicate what happens chemically on film between significant areas of contrast. Maltin: [to Condon] Now your film - you were making a film about a man who lived in the 30s, but now this was the 50s - toward the end of his life. How did you shoot your film - were you trying to make it look like that period? And did you consciously make decisions because of that? Condon: Yeah. I decided to shoot in the style of when the film took place - the 50s kind of very Technicolor, widescreen, Douglas Sirk-style. And again, being very low budget, with financiers who were concerned about foreign sales, I had the discussion about video. And we shot in Super 35, so that when you got to video, you can open it up... Maltin: All right, that's a good point - Super 35. I know some people are aware of it and some are not. To drop a name that everyone will recognize, James Cameron is a big proponent of Super 35. And he's the guy who caused ripples in the video world, when he put out The Abyss on laser, and he wrote a letter saying, "Don't buy the letterboxed version of The Abyss. Buy the full frame version, because I created it out of my Super 35 negative, and it's better, and it fills the screen." On Super 35, you shoot a big image that then you can crop for theaters... Condon: Right. The full image you shoot is close to TV - it's the old 1.33 ratio, and then you compose for film. In our case, we had a common top, so you're really adding information to the bottom of the screen for TV. And then when you go into video, and you've got to make that painful television shape, you do have the full image to play with. Often you go in a little bit tighter here and there, but there's no pan & scan involved. On Gods and Monsters, I was so intent on creating that dynamic widescreen image. For one thing, because it's such an intimate movie, I felt that it would give it some visual depth. On video, when you see it full screen, it becomes a different thing - it becomes sort of talkier. Maltin: Some people would say that, since it's such an intimate subject, without all sorts of special effects, that it would play better on TV - on the small screen. Condon: Yeah, that's a fallacy early on, that people thought that widescreen was only good for epic things, and action and special effects. But I don't think that's true. I really prefer widescreen. Maltin: [to Altman] Do you like doing widescreen? Altman: I shoot everything in widescreen. Maltin: Super 35 also? Altman: Yeah, everything. And then we can have all the options when we go to video. Maltin: And do you like the widescreen look in the theater? Altman: Yeah, I do. Of course, I started in that era of film, so that's my view. [he makes a widescreen, rectangle shape with his fingers] I look at things through that shape. And I like people to move right to the edge. It's an active thing. Ratner: Do you think about video composition when you're shooting? Altman: Oh yeah. I mean, you compromise with both. Neither is ideal, and you're kind of in the middle. But I have one of these new televisions - that's widescreen - and I feel very comfortable with that. Ratner: I shot my first film in Super 35, and Rush Hour in anamorphic, and I actually worked with both of Jim Cameron's DPs. I used the guy who shot Titanic to shoot my first film, and Adam Greenberg, who shot Terminator 2, on Rush Hour. Actually, that's not why I worked with him - it was because he also shot The Big Red One with Samuel Fuller, which is one of my favorite films. But when I shot Super 35, and we were timing it, and when I saw the next step, which was the optical, there was all this grain. And I said, "What is this?" That's why I went over to anamorphic on Rush Hour - because of the generation quality. Of course, most people don't notice this, but I was watching from the original timing, and when we went down a generation, I was taken aback. With anamorphic, you don't have to go to that second optical, and color timing... Altman: I think that those things, technically... so many internegatives and positives, and what happens when these films get into the cinema... really you're safer on the tube. Ratner: Well, and these are things that - of course, people now want to start shooting on video itself... Maltin: And we don't even have time to get into video now. Which is another whole subject. I just like to see that new digital projection of Ideal Husband, which Miramax has been showing digitally at one theater in Los Angeles, and Star Wars in a handful of theaters... Ratner: Oh, how was that? Maltin: I was amazed at how good it looked, and I went in very skeptical at first. Of course, if you split the screen and compared directly to film, you might see something off. But then these films were generated on film, and only projected digitally. They weren't made digitally, which is what George Lucas is going to try and achieve on his next film. So who knows what's in the future. But we're gonna get the hook in a few minutes, so let me just wrap this up by asking what each of you is working on now - what we can look forward to from each of you. Brett? Ratner: Well, I'm hoping to do a sequel to Rush Hour - we already have a script that we're working on - and I'm trying to do a remake of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the John Cassavetes film, which Nick Cassavetes - his son - has written for me. So I'm working right now to try and get that off the ground. Maltin: [to Darnell] Are you and DreamWorks working on another project? Darnell: Yeah, well... what's going on at PDI right now, in northern California, which is a DreamWorks partner, is something called Shreck, which has Mike Meyers as the voice of this ogre - it's kind of like a fractured fairy tale - and Eddie Murphy as his donkey sidekick. [big laughs from the audience] And then there's a film called Tuskers lined up after that, which is about elephants. And I'm developing another film, but it's way too early to talk about. I'm like a week pregnant on that, so I can't say too much. But I'm pretty excited about it. Maltin: [to Altman] Robert, I know you have Cookie's Fortune to look forward to on video very soon - what else have you got going? Altman: Well, I hope that gets a good look by the Academy - there are some pretty good performances by Charles Dutton and Patricia Neal, and I think the writing is first rate. But I'm producing a film right now that Alan Rudolph wrote and is directing in Canada. In fact, I just came back from there - we're on our third day - called Trixie. And I start a film in Texas in November, called Dr. T and the Women, with Richard Gere and seven women: Kate Blanchet, Liv Tyler... Ratner: Can I come visit the set? [audience laughs] Altman: [smiles] It's about a pussy-whipped gynecologist. [huge audience laughs] Maltin: We'll be there. Bill? Condon: Well... I can't top that. [Altman and the rest laugh] I'm trying to do a movie now, which also takes place in the 50s, called Queen of the Jews - although I don't think they'll let us keep that title - about the first Jewish Miss America, Bess Myerson. Maltin: Sounds great. Werner? Herzog: Well, I have done quite a few documentaries in recent years, strangely enough and - I don't know why it happens like this - I'm getting a very strong urge to go back to narrative feature filmmaking. The borderline for me between documentary films and fiction films is very blurred. Some people have said that Fitzcarraldo is my best documentary. But I'm into a couple of projects, and there's one which I will probably do next with Fine Line, which is about a strong man. And a couple of other projects - the order of which remains to be seen - but I'm definitely moving back to feature films. Maltin: And I know the New Yorker has just acquired your documentary on Klaus Kinski... Herzog: Yes. My Best "Fiend"... Mein liebster Feind. Maltin: It's a wonderful documentary, which is coming out on video. [to panel] Thank you all for coming today. [applause] --END--- (back to main VSDA '99 menu)
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