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

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Yeah, that's me. Ask me about Trajan.

Hope the forwarded post wasn't one of my more embarrasing rants and raves on any number of different topics......

No, it was a truly informative, gentlemanly and knowledgeable post.
Is that a picture of you?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

Penton-

What's the possibility of Warner opening up their "DVD on demand" store to include (a) offerings from others and (b) Blu-ray discs?

I ask because of two reasons. First is my earlier post 8551 which referred to a couple guys looking for a distributor.

The second reason is that there are other catalogs that might avail themselves of this service. Jeff Sotzing at JohnnyCarson.com would be an ideal candidate. They have a huge catalog of Tonight Show archives. If they released SD video on Blu-ray, they would solve the pirating problem. Using disc-on-demand makes it possible to market low volume titles. Using Warner's new store avoids the need to pay to set up their own organization and hardware.

Thoughts?

-Jim

I don't know, I would have to ask.
Gotta run Jim........9:00 meeting and eyes late.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

He starts shooting Inception this summer.

My hopes for this are very high indeed, but my expectations are somewhat tempered. The Batmans are my favorite of Nolans' (yes, that's a plural possessive) works to date (bearing in mind that I'm yet to see Insomnia), and I think it's because the nature of the material works to keep some of the brothers' more over-clever tendencies in check. Memento, in my estimation, runs hot and cold, like Fincher's Fight Club. Some days, I think it's the bee's knees; other days, I want it out of my sight. Following and The Prestige were worth watching, but once each was plenty.

They've always got more going on than 95% of filmmakers (and Wally Pfister is deliciously consistent), so I'm definitely there on day one. I just have a feeling it'll be at least another three or four attempts before they really land one that satisfies me on every level. The Batmans come teasingly close.

[Grubert]

With Insomnia Nolan was only paying his dues and proving to Hollywood that he could handle a bigger project with major stars in it. It's a competent work, but the original Scandinavian film is much better. Rent the Criterion DVD before the remake.

That said, the cinematography was great when it tried to convey the effect of prolonged lack of sleep, and a pivotal fog-shrouded scene was a logistics feat.

[Jeff Kleist]

[quote[

What's the possibility of Warner opening up their "DVD on demand" store to include (a) offerings from others and (b) Blu-ray discs?[/quote]

Amazon has DVd on demand service, and there are other fufillment centers opening them as well. If people want to do it, there's people out there to take them

[Doctorossi]

Thanks for the advice on Insomnia, Grubert. Is the Scandinavian film really good enough to merit tracking down, or is it just better than the remake?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

My hopes for this are very high indeed, but my expectations are somewhat tempered. The Batmans are my favorite of Nolans' (yes, that's a plural possessive) works to date (bearing in mind that I'm yet to see Insomnia), and I think it's because the nature of the material works to keep some of the brothers' more over-clever tendencies in check. Memento, in my estimation, runs hot and cold, like Fincher's Fight Club. Some days, I think it's the bee's knees; other days, I want it out of my sight. Following and The Prestige were worth watching, but once each was plenty.

They've always got more going on than 95% of filmmakers (and Wally Pfister is deliciously consistent), so I'm definitely there on day one. I just have a feeling it'll be at least another three or four attempts before they really land one that satisfies me on every level. The Batmans come teasingly close.

Well, all I can tell you is that I think Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is now scheduled to be released on the same weekend as Inception in the summer of 2010 - quite an unenvied slot for the producers of that mouse house family adventure flick……………

and if, Chris desires to and gets the green light to shoot essentially all of Inception on large format, meaning IMAX and ‘traditional’ 65mm for the dialog driven scenes, the hype leading up to Inception will probably be as great as the 3D online hype for Avatar………making it even tougher for thee ole Sorcerer if things stay as is.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

quite an unenvied slot for the producers of that mouse house family adventure flick…

They may have to really play up the "family" angle in their promotion, to ensure a different enough audience. Or, maybe they could try a new kind of piggyback marketing: if "You haven't really seen it 'til you've seen it twice!" works, maybe they can get away with something like "You haven't really seen Inception until you've also seen The Sorcerer's Apprentice!"

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

and if, Chris desires to and gets the green light to shoot essentially all of Inception on large format, meaning IMAX and ‘traditional’ 65mm for the dialog driven scenes, the hype leading up to Inception will probably be as great as the 3D online hype for Avatar…

Hmm... color me skeptical on that one. I don't think large format is anywhere near as soundbite-able "presentation high-concept" for the public at large as 3D. Large format needs an explanatory paragraph in a local news color spot. 3D needs only those two characters. What's more, most of the Avatar hype I've heard over the years has been more about photo-realistic virtual actors than about 3D, anyway. Meanwhile, I also think Inception will already be floating on a tidal wave of hype just being Nolan's follow-up to TDK. Even if the large formatiness would matter to general audiences, it may not be able to get a bullet-point in, edgewise.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Hmm... color me skeptical on that one. I don't think large format is anywhere near as soundbite-able "presentation high-concept" for the public at large as 3D. Large format needs an explanatory paragraph in a local news color spot. 3D needs only those two characters. What's more, most of the Avatar hype I've heard over the years has been more about photo-realistic virtual actors than about 3D, anyway. Meanwhile, I also think Inception will already be floating on a tidal wave of hype just being Nolan's follow-up to TDK. Even if the large formatiness would matter to general audiences, it may not be able to get a bullet-point in, edgewise.

SEMANTICS

3D = two characters
70MM = four characters

Give me the added resolution ANY day.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

SEMANTICS

3D = two characters
70MM = four characters

Roving reporter: "3D."

Some guy on the street: "Cool!"

Roving reporter: "70MM."

Some guy on the street: "Wha?"

Not semantics.

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Give me the added resolution ANY day.

Have you seen good 3D? There's not a lot of it around (though that's about to change in a big way), but it kicks mucho ass.

[PeterTHX]

Large format didn't help Far & Away much. Cruise! Kidman! Directed by Ron Howard! 70MM!!!

The Mouse has the marketing and everyone will be curious to see how a beloved cartoon has been transformed.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Roving reporter: "3D."

Some guy on the street: "Cool!"

Roving reporter: "70MM."

Some guy on the street: "Wha?"

Not semantics.

I am just a guy on the street.... and I know the difference.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I am just a guy on the street.... and I know the difference.

Yeah, but you also know what I mean.

Large format doesn't have a lot of traction any more, as evidenced by its on-life-support condition in production (admittedly looking healthier in the last couple of years than the previous 10). If you consider the youth-oriented target market for much of Hollywood's output, there's probably a pretty damn small number of "viable" potential audience members who've ever even seen real 70mm projection.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Hmm... color me skeptical on that one. I don't think large format is anywhere near as soundbite-able "presentation high-concept" for the public at large as 3D. Large format needs an explanatory paragraph in a local news color spot. 3D needs only those two characters. What's more, most of the Avatar hype I've heard over the years has been more about photo-realistic virtual actors than about 3D, anyway. Meanwhile, I also think Inception will already be floating on a tidal wave of hype just being Nolan's follow-up to TDK. Even if the large formatiness would matter to general audiences, it may not be able to get a bullet-point in, edgewise.

Well, I believe it would probably be marketed with something like……

• First Full IMAX Sci-Fi Thriller!

as the sound bite, which although not 2 characters…..can be comfortably said in about 5 sec and read in even less time.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Roving reporter: "3D."

Some guy on the street: "Cool!"

Roving reporter: "70MM."

Some guy on the street: "Wha?"

Depending on the gender of the reporter and the sexual orientation of the guy on the street, I think the response to that sound-bite would be much more colorful.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Depending on the gender of the reporter and the sexual orientation of the guy on the street, I think the response to that sound-bite would be much more colorful.

Oh my...You went there.

[Jeff Kleist]

70mm is not something to brag about in that context

[Penton-Man]

Correcto-mundo, I was thinking about all the potential xxxx-less slurs, such as.........

“I don’t believe you’re a ‘reporter’. Stay away from me, you xxxx-less perv, or I’ll call the pole-leece”!

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I am just a guy on the street.... and I know the difference.

"What's a millimeter?"

[Penton-Man]

Grub, since I think you mentioned awhile back that you are a Real Madrid type of guy (or was that another member here?), you may not have any affinity at all for American football or even more esoteric, something along the lines of the history of college football in America and you probably can stay detached from the storyline of The Express a lot easier than some of us here could otherwise.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movie...58&show=review

In that regard, try viewing it and see if you can notice the subtle changes in the imagery of the cinematography that the Director used, in order to tell the story of Ernie Davis’s journey from childhood to Syracuse and the NFL.

If I’m not mistaken, there is also a supplement on that disc in which the Director or the DP elaborates on the nuances of the changing visual aspects of the different scenes during the evolution of the main character. It may be fun for you to see if you were able to pick-up on some of the subtle, intended differences.