Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts

June 23, 2011

Everything is a Remix...

Kirby Ferguson has so far produced 3 x 10 minute parts to his Everything is a Remix series. Part one: The Song Remains the Same, deals with music and bands and according to Ferguson the inevitably copying or stealing from others. Part two: Remix Inc. looks at the big business of using popular pulp in Hollywood film making and Part 3: The Elements of Creativity touches on the shared general knowledge and building blocks of industrial design.

All of Ferguson's films are well written and slick in execution, they do however feel like a trailer for a more heavy weight and in depth documentary series which I fear will never manifest. I also can't help think that he sometimes takes it too far, or in some cases, misses the point of the homage or reference altogether.

In Part 2: Remix Inc. Ferguson looks at the films of Quentin Tarantino, mainly Kill Bill part 1 and 2, revealing and comparing where he suspects Tarantino has borrowed/referenced a style from other movies. In Tarantino's case this is probably done quite deliberately, not in some attempt to enhance or better his work in a cheating fashion, but as a homage, a subtle celebration of the films that he loves.

Ferguson also compares Star Wars to WW2 dogfights and a handful of old samurai films where Lucas may have borrowed some plot points. He also points out that many scenes in Star Wars take direction directly from the early the Flash Gorden TV show's, not surprising as I remember reading that Lucas embarked his Star Wars project because he wanted to make Flash Gorden but rumor had it Dino de Laurentiis had already bought rights.

Ferguson's films are engaging enough, but I do feel that he is quick to accuse creative talent of homage or borrowing, sometimes these similarity's could be down to fashions or just using the language of film to put across an idea...



Check out the others here. Here's more Tarantino references.

February 9, 2011

Geek Wars...

Check out this great fan boys unofficial re-cut of Star Wars Ep. 4 with loads of brilliant geek making of stuff tied in...

It's also been done to Empire and Jedi. Check it out...

November 29, 2010

R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen & Irvin Kershner...

The super funny leader of spoof Leslie Nielsen has passed away at 84.
Check out Ain't It Cool's heartfelt post, some great clips too. I agree Forbidden Planet, is a corner stone of Cinematic sci-fi...

*UPDATE*

I hadn't realised until just idly digging around online that Irvin Kershner has died too! Director of arguably the best Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Robocop 2 died aged 87. Dam it.

November 13, 2010

Of course it was your fault...

If you watch TV or look around when you're outside I'm sure you would have seen the Currys and PC World Star Wars ad's...

Compared to all the other stuff released by Lucas Film in the last say 10 years, this is actually quite charming, with R2 and Threepio playing to their strengths...

June 18, 2010

Kermode...

I've always admired, from afar, the film fanatic and critic Mark Kermode. I remember his glossy rockabilly hair on TV as a kid and getting confused between him and the drawn out Mark Cousins with his confusing inflection. Sorry Kermode.

However it wasn't until recently that I've started to seek Kermode's film chatter out. A director friend put me on to his BBC film blog, saying it was the only one worth looking at. He may have gone gray but there is still something spirited about his film stance, without being a hater. Plus he knows a thing or two about horror writings...

Although he's not a Star Wars fan, which he regards as 'a gross infantalisation of the dark hearted 'serious' sci-fi.' But no one is perfect. And to be fair, as ingrained as Star Wars is in my childhood, looking at the three prequels as stand alone sci-fi films, there's not much under the surface. Whatever, he was interviewing Werner Herzog when he was shot. Bad ass.


July 4, 2009

It's just another part of me...

Francis Ford Coppola directed this weird Disney movie and at a cost of about one million dollars per minute of film. When Captain EO was released in 1986, minute for minute this was the most expensive motion picture of all time. It featured as a 3-D attraction at Disney resorts. Ridiculous. Like a trip into MJ's crazy mind. Written by George Lucas based on an idea by Walt Disney Imagineering, whatever that is. Check out the Star Wars/ILM styling.


April 30, 2009

Gimme the fucking shooter...

Probably done loads of other times with loads of other films, but made me titter...

November 26, 2008

Cinematographical...


Looking around after finding this nice take on the Star Wars titles, I found this:
Slick bit of typography set to Lock stock.

November 13, 2008

LET'S GEEEET READY TO RRRRRRRUUUUUMBLE...

Howdy folks
Just a very quick heads up!!! Dreamworks animation department (bless them) are once again trying to compete with the mighty Pixar. Not only is their new project "MONSTERS VS ALIENS" high concept they have even made the ultimate animated smack down available in True3D. Something that we will all be seeing a lot more of from the likes of James Cameron's Avatar, Steven Spielberg Tintin and George Lucas (A RUMORED STAR WARS EP IV 3D RELEASE).

September 8, 2008

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit...

Just spent a muddy few days on the Isle of Wight at the brilliant Bestival. Loads of great stuff; old music, new music and of course dressing up. We were lucky enough to catch the outstanding Neon Neon - Super Furry Animals front man Gruff Rhys' electro-pop collaborative project with Boom Bip - a concept album outlining the life and times of John Z. Delorean. My love affair with Delorean's over stylized DMC 12 and it's roots in my Back to the Future childhood makes me a little bias, but the Neon Neon project is very good. I feel they have portrayed Delorean's life and sour times in a great album with some fantastic tracks.

I realize this is not a music blog, however, Neon Neon's ending performance at Bestival was a feast of fantastic visuals. Each song had a style and it's own set of Delorean archive - from images of Raquel Welch and the DMC 12 production line to Michael Douglas looking 80's and cool. They had also commissioned some slick looking GFX of the car and some bonkers shapes. I manged to find copies of some of them on YouTube.

As well as all this they have a couple of music videos to accompany the album. "I Told Her on Aldaraan/Trick for Treat" and "I Lust U". They are highly produced slick films, great visuals and some good visual narratives. "Aldaraan/Treat" features a John Delorean lookalike and some good Star Wars references where as "Lust" tells the story of a man and his pet jellyfish that dances and lights up. I am finding it difficult to find out the directors or production houses, I'm sure they will come to light soon as Neon Neon finds more followers.

The detail/pornographic shots of the DMC12 are one of the best parts of the videos for me. Impeccably lit, capturing the sleek stainless steel body and over-styled lines of a beautiful and ultimately flawed machine. Delorean's lasting legacy and reminding us of his ultimate driving dream.


June 29, 2008

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah...

Popped into my local flea pit the other day to watch Kung Fu Panda, very good, I recommend it. Good animation, good story, good cast, good gags. Anyway I noticed in one of the fight scenes there was a familiar sound effect. A scream to be exact, the sort of scream you hear when someone gets pushed off a high thing.

I looked it up when I got back to the kennel and sure enough it was a 'Wilhelm Scream'.
The Wilhelm scream is something of a sound effects tradition; in 1951 on the film 'Distant Drums' with Gary Cooper, a scream was recorded for a scene where a man gets eaten by a alligator, as with most studio post stuff, the sound was archived and became available in Warner Bros. sound library. It was used again in 1953 in 'A Charge at Feather River' where a solder named Pvt. Wilhelm gets an arrow in his leg. And the name was coined.

The sound effect was then used in many other Warner Bros. releases, until in 1977 a sound designer by the name Ben Burtt was hired to create sound effects on 'Star Wars'. He had noted the use of the Wilhelm scream and decided to use it as his 'nod' to sound designers all over the world. Sort of in-joke. Ben Burtt went on to sound design for many films including the Indiana Jones trilogy and all the Star Wars films, often for Spielberg related pictures.

It gets used all the time these days, and once you know the sound you can't fail to miss it. There are some variations, and there have been other recordings of similar screams. Check out this compilation of the original scream and some of Burtt's uses for it, when they are all put together like this it seems amazing that it's not more obvious, but with years between the releases and hours of screen time, it just becomes another scream.

There is also a metal band called 'A Wilhelm Scream' that just goes to show, all 'metallers' are really just geeks who probably work in IT.


Check this list...