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And sometimes NO editing is necessary.
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[Joseph W. Bourke] “… the early establishing shot in John Frankenheimer’s The Train”
[Herb Sevush] “… the amazing opening shot of Wells’ Touch of Evil.”
[Herb Sevush] “…the famous final 7 minute crane shot that ends Antonioni’s The Passenger.”
[Chris Harlan] “… the Copa tracking shot in Goodfellas and the mock Touch of Evil shot in The Player.”
[Aindreas Gallagher] “… that shot still feels impossible.”
Wandering down the tangent, one of the interesting recent examples of long-takes in mainstream cinema, Gravity, actually isn’t, of course.
The meaning of what a shot is has shifted: it’s an audience impression, not a physical fact. And thus a single “shot” now might contain untold amounts of editing. That’s not new with Gravity – I suppose it’s been with us for a few decades in FX – but Gravity brings it to the fore: it’s funny to see the “single, unbroken, 11min shot” talked about in terms that suggest it’s the same sort of accomplishment as a long take. (“Timecode”, “Russian Ark” and the above examples being actually and impressively accomplished as such.)
I’ve read much about the opening “shot” for Gravity (since there is much to read about it) but nowhere have I actually read about the number of elements (or at least the number of actor-originated elements, ie shots) that go into that “one shot” – they almost avoid talking about hard facts like that, as if they are afraid to break the impression that it is “one shot”… for fear of making it seem “less impossible”?
Or in other words: even one shot might need to be edited.
Franz.
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he said trying to have a go: it looks like there is maybe plexus there for the elastic line linking stuff? and a whackton of trapcode? i thought some bits could be form? the echo line repeats on two minutes going into fractal distortion was the bit tasty. feels like there was a final effects lens going on top of that after for a bit?
actually – after booting AE up – I haven’t used lens in ages. you forget how gorgeous it is. Am I mad – why is the CC lens version limited to 100+ convergence max? didn’t FE lens allow you to numerically insert past 100?also – where is my iceboard to accelerate effects on my G3?
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Phil Hoppes] “I don’t believe there is any motion tracking at all.”
[Walter Soyka] “It’s live dance with projected visuals, not recorded dance with compositing visuals. I’ve worked on few of these integrated dance/visual pieces myself, and we always pre-produced the animations. … I think the animation follows the dance, not the other way around.”
I’d agree with these assessments, and I’d say this kind of work with projection is not uncommon in contemporary dance.
There’s been lots of diverse work in terms of both documenting and interpreting dance with 3D tools (and video). Follows is one interesting example because it seems to aim to feed the visualization data back into the creative process:
https://vimeo.com/60560235
https://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/ (autoplay music)
https://motionbank.org/Createditigalmotion notes that Merce Cunningham may be the original innovator here, but I don’t know enough about it, and of course there’s a long history of dance and film.
https://createdigitalmotion.com/2014/01/dancer-to-score-to-animation-coding-decoding-and-recoding-in-a-choreography-lab/Also, as a resource for projection work, createdigitalmotion seems to be an excellent resource (though I only skim it occasionally)
https://createdigitalmotion.com/
Franz.
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saying that Franz, a thing might possibly come into your head – even just watching that touch of evil shot again – say there are around maybe two hundred odd marionettes across crew, principal actors and extras hitting every mark like a bell. over the course of roughly two hundred odd seconds across 900 odd yards.
its gorgeous the people cutting perfectly and cleanly across the frame again and again. lots of street traders to slow that car down.
although what in the hell with that elevation to building height and down again to track. I don’t care what the explanation is.
everyone has heard the – adolescent orson welles holding his wet kidney out, satan biting on it, cross roads rumour.but still – ok I liked this article – better than anything in print for me:
https://provideocoalition.com/shullfish/story/gravity-co-editor-and-oscar-nominee-mark-sanger
there’s this bit:
We had multiple takes to choose and mould performances from, but the actors would be presented with the animated cut in the morning and restricted to performing within the confines of what had been edited. This was due to the need to light the actors and their movements in the same way as the lit animation in the cut. It meant that Sandra & George were heavily restricted during the shoot and the fact that this is imperceptible onscreen is a testament to their astounding abilities.
It’s not so much any single take that is mind boggling, it the fact that the film was edited before the actors walked on the stage.
In terms of stage direction, Clooney and Bullock basically performed a Beckett stage play. Where, you know, Cuaron was Beckett. they couldn’t move their arms literally an inch past stage direction/previz.
My Ma did a few Beckett stage productions, and it’s incredibly stoney soil for the actor, gravity sounded serious stoney soil for those actors – it was an extreme expression of director intent. Cuaron had physically moved them to the inch before they arrived, they enacted his will down to fingertip.
Actors have very mixed thoughts about beckett, and you’d be surprised if the two leads didn’t have some odd internal moments in the process of making that film for cuaron.The takes were broken down by my team conventionally but also to a minute level of detail as what makes an Alfonso Cuaron for me is always the detail. I could usually access any take, line, word or breath at any given moment.
that is, to be fair, a pretty atomised actor. its maaaybe not surprising they are moving like a herd towards high level novel length narrative outside “film”.
or that complete unknowns are taking lead roles in many current blockbusters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/the-last-disposable-action-hero.html?pagewanted=all
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “It’s not so much any single take that is mind boggling, it the fact that the film was edited before the actors walked on the stage.”
Aindreas,
Yes, read that. Editing as pre-production.
It’s another good example of the compositional aspect of editing for those uninitiated (and it seems no one really understands what editing is unless they’ve done it).
Either that or pre-viz is swallowing up editing and post is now a sub-department of FX instead of the other way round.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “… they couldn’t move their arms literally an inch past stage direction/previz.”
I think in all of the exteriors, the only thing “real” is the faces, … so an inch here and there on the arms may not have mattered.
Franz.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I think in all of the exteriors, the only thing “real” is the faces, … so an inch here and there on the arms may not have mattered.”
I know.. that’s completely true, they are broadly floating faces – but I think it applied largely to the scenes where they interacted with the stations. There is stuff out there where takes were halted because of very small physical movement failures on the actor’s part. that they were sock puppetting 3D character previz interacting with rigid bodies – he did construct exact environment facsimiles of close quarter portions for key scenes – mirroring edit specific previz – even if it was only the expression of body movement, for er, I really don’t know, say their neck and head reaction to body translation? there would have to be at least body trunk and shoulder translation movement match involved at points. stretching and grabbing under close unbroken continuous camera like. bullock especially. very weird version of knowing your lines.
You’d think the deadly serious match sell to the audience was in the first 20 minutes. after that he got to go to looney tunes CG town.surely some consolation to the actor to know their spine and upper body movement was involved in the performance at points?
again – Beckett did actually put actors in soil up to their necks.aherm.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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well, if you really want to bite down on the oncoming singularity – augment/supplant the dancers in the above post with some industrial robots.
the cameraman here could maybe just conceivably have been a human, but well – it’s not.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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It’s a classic Herb.
Pretty intense shot in the drug house scene of True Detectives.
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[Bill Davis] “I keep saying that the universe of video isn’t what it used to be – and that if any of us succumb to the temptation of thinking of “video” exclusively in terms of Network TV or Hollywood Movies, or whatever the type of work WE do as individuals – we risk not noticing how others who aren’t stuck in those particular forms are finding ways to extend what video actually can be.”
You’ve been making that point for awhile now, and I agree with you. The democratization of video has it being used everywhere now… increasingly in non-traditional settings.
Nice piece… fun to watch…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “Beckett did actually put actors in soil up to their necks.”
Aindreas,
Ha! I had forgotten about Happy Days. It’s the perfect parallel.
“To be always what I am – and so changed from what I was.”
Franz.
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