Spock In Dog Eat Dog
I had an experience that gave me a fascinating view of Zachary Quinto, the new Spock, in action, – and a behind-the-scenes look at the process of making film magic. Zachary and Sian Heder, a talented writer/director and Zach’s Carnegie-Mellon classmate, created a short comedy, Dog Eat Dog, about Zachary’s first attempt to adopt a dog from a shelter.
An alternative to studio funding
They funded it via Kickstarter, an increasingly effective way for independent films to get funding – “cloud funding”. Their presentation of their project was particularly effective and they ended up raising far more than the minimum asked for. (Check out their Kickstarter site here.) I signed on as one of the three “fan” Executive Producers and went to Hollywood December 2011 to watch the shoot. You can read my report on that experience here.
Dog Eat Dog premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival – a wonderful, hilarious, beautifully put together movie. I went and was able to interview Sian before the premiere – about her experience with Zachary, Kickstarter and the dogs. Click here to see my interview with Sian.
Then into the theater and Dog Eat Dog on the screen! It was amazing to see the scenes I had watched being shot as they appeared through the camera’s eye and how effectively the different shots had been combined into a seamless whole. For example, in December, one scene I watched was an interaction between Zachary Quinto and Sharon Wilkins, who played the shelter attendant. They shot the several pieces over and over, from different angles – what he said, what she said, what they look at. After getting the main shots Sian and Cinematographer Paula Huidobro set up the camera on a short track to pan past some bobble-headed dogs on the counter. Cute, but what were they trying to do? I found out when Dog Eat Dog opened – to a view panning from one adorable bobble puppy to another – with background music perfectly mirroring the rhythm of the heads! Sharon commands “Don’t do that!”. And Zachary pulls back with a pout and a manipulative glance. Right away the whole premise of the film has been brilliantly set up!
A gem of a short comedy
Sian already has a reputation for excellent films. Her short “Mother” got awards and she’s working on a full length production. I look forward to seeing it. Zachary lives up to his reputation as one of our most versatile and talented actors. His compulsive self-centered and touchingly dog-obsessed character seemed as natural as his pointy-eared brilliant and slightly alien Spock. I have seen Zachary in a number of roles now – Sasan in So Notorious, Sylar in Heroes, Spock in Star Trek 2009, Louis in Angels in America, Chad in American Horror Story – and I’ve seen him chatting with the audience at the Las Vegas Star Trek convention. For each I think “Ah, that’s what he’s like.” Then I realize he personally can’t be all of those! I hear that’s one sign of a truly great actor. Working with Sian brought out his own comedic flare more brilliantly than I’ve seen before.
These people really make magic! To watch the process is magical in itself. I wish you could see Dog Eat Dog, but the distribution has not been decided last I heard. When I hear, I’ll let you know.
Update!!! It was bought by Petsami and is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rWEiQxvg6Jo
Home Grown Action Effects
The fight scenes in Star Trek and Star Wars intrigue me. “How’d they do that?” Especially those lightsaber battles in Star Wars. Some very enterprising young men answered some of those questions for me. They put together their own their own laser fight, using local locations and gear they created themselves. Here’s a look at how they created it: The Making of “RvB2”.
These guys are pretty awesome.
Why Isn’t Spock Green?
What kind of decisions go into designing makeup for a character? Especially an alien like Spock. Here are some interesting musings on the subject from a long time Spock observer. http://sunfell.livejournal.com/1543390.html
Vulcan Ears
Thanks to @DZQP for this lovely behind the scenes look at Star Trek makeup. I’ve been experimenting with Vulcan ears myself – great fun and still a little messy. 🙂
An Interview with Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner
I’ve written here about how actors see their role from a different point of view than the audience does. Brent Spiner (“Data” in STNG) says more about this in an interview posted on UKtheatre.net.
Lighting: Goodbye Tungsten!
The lighting most of us are used to in our homes is a soft gold – the light produced by tungsten bulbs. The lighting used on sets in the past has also been tungsten, albeit much more powerful. Contrast this with the light from fluorescent bulbs – a light that looks cool blue to our eyes. No where near as flattering to us older ladies! Honey, give me warm pink!!! But we are all in for a change. Movie lighting too!
- Tungsten vs LED
In 2014 a law goes into effect requiring energy limits that tungsten lights don’t meet. So manufacturers are phasing out production of tungsten lights and exploring options with compact fluorescents and LEDs. A look at the lighting section of your local hardware store will show you that a lot of changes are afoot. This is creating a headache for cinematographers, art directors, and makeup artists. All will have to adjust for the new lighting.
“There have been color-rendering problems,” says SciTech Council director Andrew Maltz. “The colors that appear on film or digital cameras are not what the d.p.’s expect. When they used these new devices, to their eye, it looked fine, but the recorded image was wrong.” (“Chromatic chaos reigns”, Variety, Apr. 13, 2011 http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118035372) An experiment with LED lighting showed the problem:
“A model wearing a specifically designed dress with various gradations of blue and blue-green had been filmed while she was lit by the latest addition to the cinema lighting family — the LED fixture.
The results were shocking. They didn’t represent at all what everyone present had seen on set when the dress was photographed.
“Now, it was simply a nice blue dress,” says visual effects specialist Jonathan Erland, who chairs the Solid State Light and Research subcommittees of the Academy’s Science and Technology Council. “The subtle differences in the colors were gone. And in movies, subtle is the difference between excellent and not so excellent.”
LED panel
The 2009 Star Trek movie included lighting approaches that would evoke the feel of the previous movies. Visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett “wanted to present the Enterprise in a very emotional way, so he and director of photography Dan Mindel used the lighting approach that Stanley Kubrick had used in his film 2001 as a template, with a lot of darkness hinting at the unknown.” (http://www.startrek.com/database_article/industrial-light-magic) This will be less critical for the next Star Trek movie but the lighting changes mean the film crew will have a lot of experimenting to do! LED products are being developed that don’t flicker and allow control of the color temperature but they are new and very expensive. I’m sure Industrial Light and Magic is already testing them out.
Actors Often Not Into “Mythos”
As a Trek fan, I get caught up in the story and in the characters. I loved the mythos of TOS and TNG, the world that Kirk and Spock, that Capt. Pickard and Riker lived in. Spock and Data were practically real people to me. To tell the truth, I cared more about the characters than about the actors who gave them life.
Going to ST conventions, I was surprised to realize that the actors weren’t talking about their characters or how they approached the role as much as they were talking about jokes they played on each other. They didn’t seem as fascinated with the Star Trek mythos. Brent Spiner, when asked a question about Data, admitted “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” After working on a set, I realized why. [to continue click here]
Voyage Home from a Producer’s Viewpoint
Scene from The Voyage Home
“The Voyage Home” was one of the most favorite of the Star Trek movies – San Francisco, whales, laugh-out-loud memories. Here’s an interview with producer Ralph Winter, in which he mentions some aspects that never occurred to me – Eddie Murphy?? What the headband saved Nimoy? and more!
http://www.startrek.com/article/the-voyage-home-with-producer-ralph-winter
Production Headaches We Take for Granted
Do you remember the days when if you filmed a picture of a TV screen, you saw black bars moving across it? You don’t see than anymore, right? If you’re like me, you just took the change for granted, but there is a special technique behind it: 24-frame video playback. If you’re asking “What’s that?”, click this link: http://www.btlnews.com/crafts/visual-fx/the-story-behind-the-screens/
Lucky Enough To Go On Set? Follow “Set Etiquette”!
–thanks to Katie Douthit, Make-up artist and teacher in New Mexico, for the following tips-
As a fledgling make up person, I get my experience from working freebies on small efforts. Even there you can see the magic coming together. The tone is often informal, with friends and neighbors roaming around and watching. When I took make-up classes with Katie Douthit, she emphasized that in order to be part of the magic of professional filming, you needed to know how to behave on set, to know what could kill your chances. Below are some of the tips from Katie.
The movie world is a very competitive world with lots of people lined up to get their foot in the door. Developing people in their jobs is not part of the culture. The least little thing can get you fired, without knowing what you did wrong. To get your foot in the door, when they say jump, you say “how high”. Never argue. Never get in a huff that something they want isn’t your job or they didn’t give you enough notice.
Nimoy "becoming" Spock
According to the union contract, you must be given 8 hours notice before a job, but the reality is that if you stick to that you won’t get the job. If anything happens to the person scheduled for work, there is a list of other people anxious to take their place. Whoever answers “yes!” first, gets the job. That’s why it’s important to have a cell phone at all times, preferably one with email- the way most prefer to be contacted. It’s also very important when you get a call, to acknowledge it ASAP. Never assume the caller will know you got the message.
(TO CONTINUE, click here)
