"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[horseflesh]

Apologies Penton, it was indeed Bourne Ultimatum that you mentioned....

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I received a PM in regards to “what did you mean by this ^ ^ phrase? ”.
What I meant was that Batman Begins averages 1.9 sec per cut.
I didn’t mean that the shortest edit is only 1.9 sec. in duration.

For example, with the Bourne Ultimatum there are about 3200 discrete shots in 105 minutes, which yields an average of about 2 seconds per edit.
That's a bit too fast for my taste.
Maybe I'm getting too old.

Did you ever find out if QoS beat that record?!??

[juanell]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I will say however, that there is a seamless visual blending of the film (3-perf Super 35 as well as 4-perf Super 35) with the digitally captured imagery and you just can’t beat those Master Prime lenses.

I didnt have a very good theater experience with QoS, but i will give it a rental and watch it together with Casino Royale. What do you know about The Tailor of Panama? It seems to me like Pierce Brosnan was playing his own version of James Bond in that movie.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Juanell, yeah, I hope that Directors (TV as well as feature film) get the shaky cam effect out of their systems. It sorta reminds me of rap music (Bruce Willis has a great quote from one of his movies -sharkshark) and neither do anything for me in regards to enhancing the mood of the art.

I will say however, that there is a seamless visual blending of the film (3-perf Super 35 as well as 4-perf Super 35) with the digitally captured imagery and you just can’t beat those Master Prime lenses.

Jesus...Last Boyscout, no less...

Milo: You think you are so ****ing cool, don't you? You think you are so ****ing cool. But just once, I would like to hear you scream in pain...

Joe Hallenbeck: Play some rap music.

Now, remember that question I asked above, about whether you saw -anything- objectively positive about the other format?

I'm a little disturbed to see the pitchfork mob going at it again elsewhere in this forum after Bill H's little note on his front page that stirred up some memories... It'd be nice if we were far enough away from the "win" that we could objectively look at the other format and see what, if any, contributions it can provide to the BD side to make it even better...

[Eastkhan]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Juanell, yeah, I hope that Directors (TV as well as feature film) get the shaky cam effect out of their systems. It sorta reminds me of rap music (Bruce Willis has a great quote from one of his movies -sharkshark) and neither do anything for me in regards to enhancing the mood of the art.

I will say however, that there is a seamless visual blending of the film (3-perf Super 35 as well as 4-perf Super 35) with the digitally captured imagery and you just can’t beat those Master Prime lenses.

Shaky cam & quick cut editing is something I really dont get & thats why in my mind Transporter or Bourne's chase scenes wont top a Bullitt or French Connection. And its not only chase, just about every action scene, like in Riddick; new hollywood action films.

I mean if its so good, at least let me see it.
We used to have high octane action movies from Die Hard to Point Break to Speed & they didnt need those effects.


Speaking of Bond,
Am I the only guy here who likes Timothy Dalton's Bond movies , I'd rate those two probably higher than most of Moore, Brosnan and Connery's last two.

Flame on

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by Eastkhan

Speaking of Bond,
Am I the only guy here who likes Timothy Dalton's Bond movies , I'd rate those two probably higher than most of Moore, Brosnan and Connery's last two.

Flame on

I was going to post exactly the same thing, LOL!
I thought Dalton made a great brooding Bond, especially after the almost camp late Moore output.

[ThatArtGuy]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Ah, ok. Personally, I like the new 'book-style' Bond infinitely more than the over-developed movie Bond. For my money, these last two are the only Bond movies that matter since On Her Majesty's...

The Moore and Brosnan crap was fun for a go 'round in the theatre, but then forgotten. The Connerys and Craigs are worth a second look.

Agreed. When you think of the "lesser" Bond movies, people will almost always choose the Moore and Moore Light (Brosnan) movies. I'd much rather have a serious, character-driven, realistic plot than the gadget-filled, cheesy, eye-rolling, over-the-top plot.

Should I care about a villain dropping California into the ocean with a laser beamed satellite so he can radiate all of sand in Mojave Desert to use in his nuclear arsenal?

I think I would care much more about a international crime syndicate that controls smaller countries by regulating the things they need to survive, and in turn controlling the larger countries through their weaknesses to them.

The most outrageous gadget in the books was a rose bush that had a flower with a camera in it. Hmmm...

[ThatArtGuy]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I was going to post exactly the same thing, LOL!
I thought Dalton made a great brooding Bond, especially after the almost camp late Moore output.

I loved The Living Daylights. Didn't like License to Kill so much. Exploding toothpaste? Right.

Goldeneye was intended for Dalton, but he resigned before production due to the legal hassles going on with EON at the time. That's why it was a lot darker than the rest of the Brosnan films.

[Jeff Kleist]

Dalton IMO was the best Bond period, he just had lousy scripts to work with

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I thought Dalton made a great brooding Bond, especially after the almost camp late Moore output.

I thought Dalton was pretty good, too... but the movies he was in weren't, really. I liked the general tone of License To Kill, but I thought it had way too many problems. Robert Davi's bad guy was far too small-time and pedestrian. With 'renegade' Bond, the movie felt to me more like a vice-cop action movie than Bond. And the coup-de-grace that I will never get past is Bond kicking M in the tidbits. Waaaaaaaaay out of character, IMO.

The Living Daylights was pretty fun, but kind of just another stock Moore-style entry.

[Bobby Henderson]

I thought The Living Daylights was pretty decent, but not truly great.

I did not like License to Kill. It felt like a freaking Lethal Weapon installment, right down to the damned Michael Kamen music score. The only thing missing was a producer's credit from Joel Silver!

To me, Timothy Dalton's most memorable role is "Prince Barin" from Flash Gordon (1980). Heh heh.

[Jeff Kleist]

Living Daylights is good till they get to Afghanistan, then it falls apart in the third act

[Squozen]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

It doesn't surprise me. Actually, there are some people out there who actually believe DVD looks better and more filmlike than Blu-ray.

Yup, a friend of mine used to claim this about laserdisc compared to DVD. Something about the video noise making it look 'more filmlike'.

[scott1256ca]

I also liked Timothy Dalton as Bond. I was very tired of Roger Moore. I was tired of a flippant Bond in general. Interesting to hear that Dalton was supposed to do Golden Eye. Of the Brosnan Bond's that is my favorite. Die Another Day almost made me give up on Bond altogether. Invisible car? Give me a break! Also Bond got back to the snotty remarks too much by the end of the Brosnan years.

I like Daniel Craig as well, but he does seem a little wooden in these last two. I am aware that that is his character, so it isn't a huge complaint.

The shaky cam in QoS isn't what bothers me, it is the 3 cuts/second during the action scenes. While I might understand that the director is trying to bring the viewer in to the scene, the chaos, Bond reacting to the situation with no time to think etc., it doesn't alter the fact that I AM a viewer, not a participant, and I do want to get a more complete picture of what is going on. I also find it a strain to watch those kinds of scenes. There were probably some great stunts in those action sequences (particularly the foot chase after M gets shot), but who can tell with that many edits? I nearly had a headache at the end of that foot chase, and the car chase that opened the movie was very difficult to follow.

I could understand the frequent and quick changes in "The Dark Knight" because you aren't really supposed to know Batman's "fighting technique", and they weren't all that frequent, or at least I didn't find them distracting.

For me there are also too many scene changes in general in QoS, but I can live with those. I'd just prefer longer camera sequences.

[DrXym]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

The shaky cam in QoS isn't what bothers me, it is the 3 cuts/second during the action scenes. While I might understand that the director is trying to bring the viewer in to the scene, the chaos, Bond reacting to the situation with no time to think etc., it doesn't alter the fact that I AM a viewer, not a participant, and I do want to get a more complete picture of what is going on. I also find it a strain to watch those kinds of scenes. There were probably some great stunts in those action sequences (particularly the foot chase after M gets shot), but who can tell with that many edits? I nearly had a headache at the end of that foot chase, and the car chase that opened the movie was very difficult to follow.

I agree. There appears to be a school of directors who think they have to overload the viewer's brain with fast cuts in order to generate excitement.

Michael Bay is the worst offender but there are others. Instead of making things more exciting, it just makes things harder to follow. All that money on stunts and action should be visible on the screen, not shredded into blipverts where nobody is quite sure what the heck is going on.

And if fast cutting is absolutely unavoidable then at least hire someone competent to pull it off properly such as Paul Greengrass. Otherwise don't bother.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think some of the rapid fire editing also serves to hide any short-comings with production design and scene decoration. It also hides flaws in poor quality CGI.

The thinking is if the viewer is allowed to concentrate on the shot he can also pick apart flaws in the shot. The fellows with that train of thought may forget we have a little thing called the pause button. We can also click through an edit frame by frame. It's kind of handy if you're trying to figure out the specifics of just what happened in a certain shot.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Now, remember that question I asked above, about whether you saw -anything- objectively positive about the other format?

I have a good memory, I think, if I recall correctly.

Seems to me my wife was bugging me for quite awhile to go out and buy a new pot so that she could ‘boil’ the corn-on-the-cob for dinner and such. Well, I always procrastinate with that sort of stuff, but NetFlix and hd dvd did wonders to get my butt in gear and actually purchase that pot that my wife had always desired.

So, due to a juxtaposition of needs, I appeared as a caring, contributing husband to the betterment of the household the day I purchased the new pot ………….which came in handy not just for corn-on-the-cob but also to get those hd dvd’s to actually play without hiccups.

So, I would say that the one positive objective thing was that it got me Husband points one day with my better half.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by DrXym

I agree. There appears to be a school of directors who think they have to overload the viewer's brain with fast cuts in order to generate excitement.

Michael Bay is the worst offender but there are others. Instead of making things more exciting, it just makes things harder to follow. All that money on stunts and action should be visible on the screen, not shredded into blipverts where nobody is quite sure what the heck is going on.

And if fast cutting is absolutely unavoidable then at least hire someone competent to pull it off properly such as Paul Greengrass. Otherwise don't bother.

That’s the editing ‘style of the day’ for high octane action sequences just like shaky cam is a cinematographic ‘style of the day’.
The creators/artists do this because they believe that they are pleasing modern day audiences.

Apparently you and I………and some others here, are old timers.

P.S.
As regards to "competency" I believe that the editing team(two fellows) easily achieve that qualification, esp. given the timeframe they had to work under with this production. Just check imdb for their past credits. In fact, last fall, Rick had the distinction of giving the keynote at an industry event in New York.

[Penton-Man]

Who is known to have done, and still does, cameo appearances in Bond movies (along the way from Goldfinger on up to the latest Bond adventure, QoS) and what roles/appearances were they in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace?

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I have a good memory, I think, if I recall correctly.

Yogi Berra's got nothing on you...

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Who is known to have done, and still does, cameo appearances in Bond movies (along the way from Goldfinger on up to the latest Bond adventure, QoS) and what roles/appearances were they in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace?

Google is not your friend. I consider it cheating though...

[Penton-Man]

Dang that google machine! Dang it !
Don’t tell me that if you google the phrase “cameo appearances on James Bond films”, it brings up Michael’s name at the top of the list?

I guess I have to make my queries to the club gallery more google-vague, so that people who don’t have first hand experience with the topic will receive a plethora of hits, thusly discouraging easy answers.