Category Archives: Sci-Fi and Horror Flix

Comprehensive Melies Box Set Released

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Cover of Flicker Alley's 'Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema' box set.Flicker Alley has just released Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913), a monumental five DVD box set that gathers 173 of the puckish master’s 500-plus films, from his very first to his very last — dang near every one known to survive today. In all, more than 13 hours of beautiful pioneering cinema.

Needless to say, I consider this a must-have for all cinephiles, and especially for sci-fi and fantasy fans; every bit as important as the massive Edison box set released a couple years ago. I recommend ordering directly from Flicker Alley (scroll down for the commerce buttons) — shipping is included in the price, there’s no sales tax, and the money will go directly to the folks responsible with no cut plucked by a middleman. (And anyway, Amazon isn’t offering its customary discount.)

By the way: we at The Sprocket Society are presenting an upcoming screening of Melies’ greatest epics with film prints accompanied by unconventional musical selections, and even the original live narration for one of the films. Georges Melies: Impossible Voyager shows on Thurs. May 15 at 8 PM at the Northwest Film Forum. (The screening is not affiliated with Flicker Alley, and the timing is purely coincidental, albeit fortuitous — I’d heard this set was in the works but had no idea when it would be released.)

Producing the set are Eric Lange of Lobster Films in France and David Shepard of Film Preservation Associates (FPA). You could not have asked for better stewards of such a project: FPA owns the old Blackhawk Films catalog, which released many Melies films to the pre-VHS home film market on Super 8 and 16mm. It’s pretty much thanks to Blackhawk that you and I have been able to see any of this stuff for the last 30 or 40 years. And Lobster is justly lauded for their preservation work in general, and is more’s to the point is responsible for the recovery in recent years not only of hitherto lost Melies films, but treasures such as elongated and long-lost hand-colored prints of well-known classics like A Trip to the Moon and Conquest of the Pole.

The collection was compiled from archives in eight countries (among them the Academy Archives, the British Film Institute, and various private collections) and includes many spectacular new restorations, some reportedly newly pieced together from fragmentary prints for this project. The set includes examples not only of Méliès’ countless trick films and fantasy spectaculars, but also his actualities, recreations of historic events (foreshadowing future newsreels), and even some of his erotic films (or at least erotic for the time). Also included, since it’s pretty much required of such a thing, is Georges Franju’s loving 1953 tribute, Le Grand Méliès, starring André Méliès as his father. A booklet is also included, with writings by the great animator Norman McLaren and scholar John Frazer, author of the excellent (and best) Melies study, Artificially Arranged Scenes (1979) — which is sadly long out of print and, worse, rare as hen’s teeth.

An especially wonderful aspect of this set is the fact that thirteen of the films are presented with English renditions of Melies’ original narrations, which he usually performed personally. (This is particularly welcome for some films which otherwise make little or no sense, such as The Good Sheperdess And The Evil Princess from 1908.) These narrative texts have been the Grail for Melies fans and scholars — their inclusion here is a major contribution to cinema history in itself.

Here in Seattle, Scarecrow Video already has a copy for rent (though you’ll have to wait until I return it in a few days). Today, I’m a kid in a candy store and my dream has come true. “Thanks, Santa!! Now about that lottery thing I keep mentioning…”

Some Early Reviews

Rare Screening of 1929′s The Mysterious Island on Tues. March 4

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This Tuesday night, March 4, at 8 PM the Northwest Film Forum and The Sprocket Society join forces to bring an ultra-rare screening of The Mysterious Island (1929), the nearly-lost science fiction epic from the dawn of the sound era. Also playing is a rare early sound cartoon by the Fleischer brothers, Noah’s Lark, released the same year. The screening is part of NWFF’s quarterly Search and Rescue series, devoted to showing rare film prints from educational and private archives. The prints come from my personal collection, and I will be introducing the screening.

As extra temptation, libations will be served after the films and if you’re a member of NWFF (and you should be), admission is free.

The Mysterious Island is one of the great rarities of early science fiction film. For decades, serious fans have suffered taunting glimpses by way of jaw-dropping stills published in fan magazines like the late, great Famous Monsters of Filmland. These tantalizing images evinced art direction and effects so wondrous for their time that one nearly ached to see it. Well, now you can be one of the lucky few to see the whole shebang.

No sci-fi film fan should miss this show.

The 1929 version of The Mysterious Island was never released to home video, has never restored by the studio, and only a single reel of its original tinted and Technicolor glory is known survive (in the UCLA film archives, where it languishes in their fire-proof nitrate film vaults, not far from possibly the only surviving set of its Vitaphone discs). Today, only a small handful of black-and-white prints are known to survive, probably only on 16mm and mainly in the hands of private collectors. Every couple years or so, TCM airs it for a single showing at inconvenient times, like Sunday at 11:30 PM. Bootleg copies of these cablecasts now circulate on BitTorrent and DVD-Rs from grey-market video dealers…but it is almost never actually projected in anything resembling a theater.

The Mysterious Island was intended to be MGM’s high-budget answer to First National’s hit The Lost World (1925) and UFA’s Metropolis (1926). It was originally budgeted at a million dollars, shot in the early two-strip Technicolor process that debuted with Douglas Fairbanks’ The Black Pirate (1925), and was to feature extended sequences of cutting-edge undersea cinematography by J. Ernest Williamson, who provided such astonishing work for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1919). But the production was seemingly cursed — churning through countless rewrites that led it ever further from its source material, three different directors, and no less than three hurricanes that thoroughly destroyed the expensive underwater sets in the Bahamas. As it limped to completion, the advent of sound changed everything and necessitated a cast change and still more rewrites and reshooting.

It finally premiered as a part-talkie in October 1929 — three years late, a reported $3 million over budget (what is it with the threes?), and minus much of Williamson’s artistry — just a few weeks before the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. Despite positive reviews in the popular and industry press (including the NY Times and Variety), The Mysterious Island bombed at the box office and earned back only a tiny fraction of its production costs. The whole affair was so notorious that no major studio would touch science fiction again for years and film itself, in a kind of punishment, vanished into the vaults to rot.

As a result, film fans and scholars were largely denied the opportunity to see The Mysterious Island. 16mm prints were reportedly struck sometime during the 1950s for TV distribution; tonight’s print is said to have been struck ca. 1977, but almost certainly came from the same master elements used 30 years earlier.

In recent years, the 1929 Mysterious Island has garnered a reputation as MST3K fodder but, while hardly the acme of filmmaking art and suffering from a somewhat tortured plot betraying its tenure in rewrite hell, the film is much better than the wags would have it. It is elevated by no small measure by the still-amazing art direction of Cedric Gibbons (who later helped realize the classic The Wizard of Oz), which reaches its peak in the final reels of the film. Picture if you will: retro-futurist brass diving suits like something out of Alien, armies of diminutive mer-men looking like undersea Martians, giant sea monster, and other visual wonderments hard to describe.

The accompanying cartoon, Noah’s Lark, was released by competing studio Paramount the very same month. It is the first Paramount “Talkartoon” ever released by the Fleischer brothers, but it is hardly their first foray into sound animation. Indeed, by that late date they were already veterans in the emergent technology. Beginning in 1924 (three years before The Jazz Singer), the already-successful Fleischers produced more than 30 sound animated shorts for Lee DeForests’ Phonofilm company. Most of those were sing-along films that originated the famous “bouncing ball.” Noah’s Lark followed the Fleischer tradition of unscripted visual improvisation, with animation by Al Eugster.

This is a screening not to be missed by fans of science fiction, and/or early sound film.

Original poster art for 'The Mysterious Island' (1929)

Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls!

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Courtesy of Mike (with the famous airship fetish) comes an immensely entertaining post from John Coulthart’s Feuilleton blog (which is via Boingboing via Jess Nevins via Airminded via The Fortean Times and via Gargoyle’s Landing) about Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls already — a proposed (but never made) Hammer Films production intended to horn in on the success of British rival Amicus Productions’ rather shabby but popular summer popcorn muncher, The Land That Time Forgot (1975). John’s post includes this obviously very preliminary comp of a demo poster:

Very early proposal poster for the abortive Hammer Films production, 'Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls'.

In the above piece, there’s a pointer to this YouTube piece that reimagines Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls as a Republic movie serial from 1936.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/f2PkY3zSuw4" height="350" width="425" /]

That video was created by EvilDayJob, who published it on July 30, 2007. He says:

Actually it’s a mashup I made from old serials and a few feature movies, all public domain.
Dick Tracy (1937)
Ace Drummond (1936)
The Lost World (1925)
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
Three Musketeers (1933)
The Hurricane Express
Shadow of Chinatown
The Phantom Creeps (1939)
Undersea Kingdom (1936)
Thief of Baghdad (1978 TV movie)
Newsreels: Akron Disaster (1933), Giant Dirigible Sets Record (1936), Zeppelin Explodes (1937 Hindenberg)

The main theme song is taken from Captain Scarface (1953) which is supposed to be public domain, so I hope the music is too.

See if you can spot John Wayne firing a machine gun from a biplane and later bailing out of a burning ship. Sitting behind him in the biplane is Noah Beery, who played James Garner’s father on Rockford Files.

The song with which Ace Drummond (John “Dusty” King) delights his fellow passengers is “Give Me A Ship and A Song” by Kay Kellogg.

For extra credit, find the two Wilhelm screams, one actor who wasn’t even born until 1939, and explain to me why that kid exclaims “Mammy” as he listens to the song. Was that what Cartman would have exclaimed back in the day instead of “sweet”?

A few other inside jokes:
1. Nat Levine really did produce a string of serials in that era.
2. “Potrzebie” is a Polish word that was repeated in Mad magazine for some reason.
3. The recap title card says they’re attacked by a “Muranian” Flying Wing. Murania is the name of the underground kingdom in The Phantom Empire.
4. “The Fur Pirates” is the third chapter of Dick Tracy (1937).

Backyard Movie Party IV: Voyages (May 25, 2007)

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This past Friday — Memorial Day weekend — was our first backyard movie party of the season, we being the usual suspects of Brian, Gary, and myself. The location, once again, was Brian and Gary’s duplex in Ballard, which I’ve come to start calling The Ballard CineYard — tho KinoHortus also crossed the mind. (“Kino” from kinoscope and “hortus” being the Latin for garden or park.) Attendance was a little sparse, probably owing to the double whammy of it being a holiday weekend and a Friday, but everyone seemed to have a good time all the same.

This was the first event we did under the moniker of The Sprocket Society, an idea me and Brian have been toying with which may or may not turn into something more. I was also able to use my new Elmo 16-CL, which meant matching projectors and no need to borrow the second one. Both were equipped with 38mm lenses, which meant an image about 50 percent larger than the standard 50mm lens — very nice.

Anyway, here’s the film list. As always, everything was shown from 16mm prints from my collection.

A still from 'Betty in Blunderland' (1934)Betty in Blunderland (1934, USA, cartoon, b/w)
Directed by Dave Fleischer. Animated by Roland Crandall and Thomas Johnson.

Betty Boop falls asleep while working on a jigsaw puzzle of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” characters. The White Rabbit in the puzzle comes to life, and Betty follows him through a mirror into Blunderland, which is just like Wonderland, except that it has subway stations and a beverage called Shrink-Ola. Songs and wackiness ensue until the Jaberwock runs off with Betty. (Watch the film at Archive.org. Read an essay about this film by Paul Verhoeven.)

Take One (1970, USA, b/w & color)
An anthology of mostly obscure late-’60s period cartoons and short films by various artists, including student filmmakers.

  • Ashes of Doom (1970, CA, live action, color) — Directed by Grant Munro & Don Arioli; Munro also appears as a vampire. A comedic anti-smoking PSA produced for the National Film Board of Canada.
  • Pollution (1969, USA, animated, color) — Directed by James Conrad and other students of the Univ. of Southern California’s Animation Workshop Project. An animated treatment of the song (live version) by the great Tom Lehrer, which was also once shown on The Carol Burnett Show. (This is a different film from the 1966/1967 versions produced by Astrafilms for the US Communicable Disease Center.)
  • Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967, USA, live action, color) — Directed and written by George Lucas. An impressionistic depiction Still from 'Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB' (1967) by George Lucas of a dystopian future in a surveillance state, and a man escaping from an underground city. Lucas’ famous but rarely-shown student film that helped launch his career and would later be the basis for his feature film, THX-1138. Showing this was only appropriate, since this night was the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars. (Watch the film via Google Video.)
  • Eat to the Beat (n.d, animated, b/w) — A film by Ernie Schmidt. A parody of game shows and consumer culture.
  • Lullaby (n.d., live action, b/w) — A bored married couple in bed, and the wife’s fantasy. Sorry, but I don’t have filmmaker info logged.
  • Bananas (n.d., stop-motion animated, color) — Some fruit get it on. Sorry, again I’ve not logged the filmmaker credit.

A famous still from Georges Melies' 'A Trip to the Moon' (1902)A Trip to the Moon (orig. Le Voyage dans la Lune) (1902, FR)
Directed by Georges Méliès.
Shown with “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” by Pink Floyd, from Live at Pompeii.

The original science fiction epic (costing an astonishing 10,000 francs), borrowing liberally from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and thus a fitting prelude to the evening’s feature. This print includes the extremely rare concluding scene in which, after the travelers’ return to Earth, the citizens of the port town fete the heroes with medals and marching band, and a captured Selenite is paraded for public view. (Watch the film at Archive.org.)

The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1961, USA dubbed theatrical version)
Originally: Vynález zkázy (1958, Czechoslovakia)
Aka A Deadly Invention (Britain) and Les Aventures Fantastiques (France)
Direction and Production Design by Karel Zeman. Screenplay by Frantisek Hrubín. Set Decoration by Zdenek Rozkopal.

“A magical world of baroque submarines and sailing ships, killer octopus and undersea bicycles dazzles audiences as human actors, puppetry, animation and fanciful scenic design interact to create a cinematic experience that is unique by any standards. Mixing slapstick comedy, action adventure pacing and Méliès style film magic, this little known Czechoslovakian gem transcends the juvenile literature at its source to create cinematic art of the highest order.” (Quoted from RottenTomatoes.com)

Based on the Jules Verne short story The Deadly Invention with additional elements from the novels Face the Flag, The Mysterious Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Master of the World.

The story concerns the machinations of evil millionaire Artigas, who plans to use a super-explosive device to conquer the world. Artigas operates from a pirate submarine, wherein he has imprisoned the explosive’s inventor, Professor Roche, Roche’s assistant Simon Hart, and Roche’s daughter Jana. All are spirited away to Artigas’ secret base inside a huge island volcano, where the professor — foolishly believing that Artigas is a humanitarian — designs and builds the enormous, fantastic machines required to make the super-explosive. The uncooperative Hart sees the truth of the situation and tries to stop Artigas’ mad plan. In the end, Hart and Jana escape in an observation balloon as Professor Roche, now stripped of his illusions about Artigas, detonates the explosive himself and destroys the entire island in a mammoth atomic explosion.

The real star of the show is Karel Zeman’s gorgeous production design, which makes everything on screen look like an 19th century engraving come to life. Indeed, Zeman drew extensively (sometimes verbatim) on the original illustrations created by Alphonse de Neuville and others for the French editions of Verne’s novels. Zeman’s effects work is spectacular, using nearly every trick available at the time: miniatures, forced perspective, stop-motion and flat animation, marvelously detailed sets, matte work, and more. The American distributer dubbed the approach “Mysti-Mation,” though Zeman himself never gave his techniques such an overarching name. If you can find it, the Wade Williams DVD of this film includes a bonus “making of” short showing Zeman and his crew creating the effects for this and other Zeman films. (Scarecrow in Seattle has it for rent.)

Some related links:

US poster for 'The Fabulous World of Jules Verne' (1961)

Backyard Movie Party 2005

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Whilst picking nits in old posts, I discovered I never posted a film list from the 2005 backyard movie party. So here it is for the sake of the archives.

It was held Labor Day Sunday (Sept. 4), 2005, and was the first of the series held at Brian and Gary’s duplex in Ballard.

In this case, we had to scramble and relocate into the basement of Brian’s half due to rain. Unfortunately, the rain also meant a bunch of folks didn’t show up as they didn’t realize we had the basement option. On the other hand, it was already kinda cozy down there just with the folks who did show up, so maybe it was just as well.

The observant may note that some of the films shown were repeated for later backyard movie parties. This was largely because attendance for this one was sparse (plus they’re awfully good films). Now, however, effort is made not to have repeats…which is also easier now that my collection is larger. Then again, all rules were made to be broken, n’est ce pas?

Wabbit Twouble (1941, Warner Bros., USA)
Color, Sound.
Directed by Robert Clampett. Animation by Sid Sutheland, w/ Rod Scribner & Robert McKimson (uncredited).

Elmer seeks some west and wewaxation by going camping at Jellostone National Park. Unfortunately for him, he sets up atop Bugs’ rabbit hole. The first Bugs cartoon directed by Clampett, and the first of only four appearances of the “fat Elmer” character design (based on the real-life appearance of Arthur Q. Bryan, who provided his voice). The credits are written in Fudd-ese: “Diwected by Wobert Cwampett” and so on.

Betty Boop’s Ups and Downs (1932, USA)
B/W, Sound. An NTA television print ca. late 1950s or early ’60s.
Animated by Willard G. Bowsky and Ugo D’Orsi.
Directed by Dave Fleischer. Produced by Max Fleischer.

Earth goes bankrupt and is auctioned off. Saturn buys it and removes the magnet at the center, taking away gravity. Hilarity ensues. Includes some funny live action shots. One of the best Boop cartoons. (Repeated for Backyard Movie Party 2006, Part II – The Sequel.)

The Red Spectre (1907, Pathé Frères, FR)
(aka El Espectro Rojo and Satan de Divierte; orig. Le Spectre Rouge)
Tinting and stencil color, Added sound
Directed by Segundo de Chomón. Produced by Ferdinand Zecca.

A demonic magician attempts to perform his act in a strange grotto, but is confronted by a Good Spirit who opposes him. A delightful trick film that is only further enhanced by the added soundtrack of unidentified electronic and electro-acoustic music (portions of which were also used on my Blackhawk print of Nosferatu). Although the color has faded somewhat, it is still a lovely example of the Pathé Color stencil process.

The Merry Frolics of Satan(1905, Star Films, FR)
(orig. Les Quatre Cents Farces du Diable)
B/W with multi-colored tinting. Silent. Music: “Hal on Earth” and “Calling All Mothers” by the Hal Russell NRG Ensemble from Hal on Earth (Abduction CD, 1989)
Produced and directed by Georges Méliés.

A pair of British dolts visit an old wizard to obtain magic “pills” (more like “bombs” really) that explode and create whatever the thrower wants. Naturally, the wizard is actually Satan himself, who pursues and, well, bedevils the hedonistic fools with an army of acrobatic imps. The more the dolts use the magic bombs, the worse things go. In the end, a demonic carriage carries them into Hell, where they are roasted on a spit. One of Melies’ very best and most riotous films. (Repeated for Backyard Movie Party 2006, Part II – The Sequel.

A Chairy Tale (1957, Nat’l Film Board of Canada, CA)
(aka Il était une chaise)
B/W, Sound
Norman McLaren, with music by Ravi Shankar

The amusing, surrealistic fable of a young man (Claude Jutra) who struggles to sit on a chair (animated by Evelyn Lambart) that refuses to cooperate. The film used McLaren’s pixilation technique of stop-motion animating people and objects. A superb film that was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Canadian Film Award and a BAFTA Special Award.

Night on Bald Mountain (1933, FR)
(orig. Une nuit sur le Mont Chauve)
Alexandre Alexeïeff and Clare Parker

An animated interpretation of the orchestral “musical picture” by Mussorgsky with additional inspiration from a short story by Gogol based on a Slavic fairy tale. It was the first film to use Alexeieff and Parker’s creation, the pinscreen — an obliquely-lit board with thousands of movable pins which create varying shades of white-to-black depending on how far they extend out from the surface of the board. The result is a gorgeous mezzotint-like effect. Alexeieff was also an illustrator and engraver whose works graced a number of books and anthologies.

Third Dimensional Murder (1941, MGM, USA)
(aka Murder in Three Dimensions)
A Pete Smith Novelty. Directed by George Sidney.
B/W 3D (red/blue anaglyphic), Sound
An early 3D release made to show off the effect. Seven minutes of non-stop throwing of shit at you! And the Frankenstein monster!! (Repeated for Backyard Movie Party 2006.)

Frankenstein (1931, USA)
B/W, Sound
Directed by James Whale. Art Director: Charles D. Hall. Set design: Herman Rosse.
With Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Dwight Frye.

The original horror masterpiece, with legendary sets and stunning expressionistic photography. This print includes the famous “Well…we warned you!” prologue, but does not have the complete scene of the monster with the little girl, cutting away just before he throws her into the water. That scene was censored after the initial release and was not restored to the film until after 16mm prints were no longer being made of the film. Still, a fantastic film that still holds up 75 years later.

It Came From Outer Space [digest] (1953, USA)
B/W 3D (red/blue anaglyphic), Sound
Directed by Jack Arnold

A well-made 18 min. digest that preserves the narrative of the classic sci-fi feature. The print has turned a little red with age but still has effective 3D. (Repeated for Backyard Movie Party 2006.)

Frankenstein and his monster.

More on James Cameron’s 3D Sci-Fi Epic, Avatar

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The following article recently appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, covering the official announcement of James (Titanic, Terminator) Cameron’s next directorial project, Avatar — a $200 million science-fiction epic feature to be shot in 3D. I know sites like Ain’t It Cool News are all atwitter with more info and rumors of varying veracity, but you’ll have to troll those yourself (for now at least — tho it won’t help that AICN’s search is completely broken). For some additional dish on Cameron’s abiding love affair with 3D, see also my previous related post.

Meanwhile, there’s already a fan site devoted to Avatar. And see the end of the article for some a related links.

Cameron sets live-action, CG epic for 2009

By Anne Thompson
The Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 9, 2007

James Cameron is set to direct “Avatar,” his first dramatic feature since the Oscar-winning blockbuster “Titanic” in 1997.

Fox Filmed Entertainment chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman said Monday [Jan. 8, 2007] that Cameron will start virtual photography on the sci-fi epic in April, with live-action photography commencing in August, for a summer 2009 release. It will be filmed in a new digital 3D format for release in 3D.

The director already has spent years in R&D on the multiple processes needed to create a $190 million hybrid of live action and animation, which he vowed will never pass the $200 million mark. “I’ve been the busiest unemployed director in Hollywood,” he said. “We’re going to blow you to the back wall of the theater in a way you haven’t seen for a long time. My goal is to rekindle those amazing mystical moments my generation felt when we first saw ’2001: A Space Odyssey,’ or the next generation’s ‘Star Wars.’ It took me 10 years to find something hard enough to be interesting.”

Said Rothman: “Jim has taken the time to get it right, and we’re taking the time to do it right. It’s worth the wait.”

Neither Cameron nor Fox want to repeat the budget overruns that plagued the $200 million “Titanic,” the director said. “We are shooting only 31 days of live action, all onstage. It’s controllable. No weather conditions. No water on this one,” he said. “When you come back to the table years later to make a movie of a certain scale, you want to make sure you cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. We’re 2 1/2 years out, and we’ve already shot 10 minutes of the film. The FX guys are working, the characters are designed, animators are already working.”

Partly through its work on six documentary features including “Ghosts of the Abyss,” Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment team has researched a potentially groundbreaking mix of live-action cinematography and virtual photorealistic production techniques for “Avatar,” which will feature virtual characters.

“Avatar,” with a screenplay by Cameron, will mark the director’s return to the sci-fi action-adventure genre. He first wrote an 80-page treatment 11 years ago. The film centers on a wounded ex-Marine who is unwillingly sent to settle and exploit the faraway planet Pandora. He gets caught up in a battle for survival by the planet’s inhabitants, called Na’vis, and falls in love with one of them. “Not only is this groundbreaking technologically, but it’s an intimate story set against an epic canvas,” Rothman said. “That’s what Jim does. You can’t compare it to anything out there. Its biggest upside, besides its revolutionary technology, is its newness. It’s not a sequel to anything.”

Cameron had been developing another sci-fi adventure, the comic book adaptation “Battle Angel Alita,” but when Laeta Kalogridis’ script for that project didn’t come together after many drafts, he dusted off “Avatar,” which he hadn’t touched for five years. He started designing the movie in May 2005, he said.

During the next year and a half, Cameron continued to develop “Battle Angel” alongside “Avatar.” Said producer Jon Landau: “We needed to prove to ourselves that we could make ‘Avatar’ and make it at the level of quality that Jim wanted. So throughout that early fall we went through a series of tests where we actually shot a scene from the movie to prove the process to ourselves.” After finalizing 45 photo-real seconds of a five-minute performance-capture test, Cameron and the studio were convinced that “Avatar” could proceed.

For the film’s lead role, the 22-year-old planetary adventurer Jack Sully, Cameron sought a new face. After global screen tests to satisfy the studio, he selected his first choice, Australian actor Sam Worthington, who has starred in “Somersault” and “Dirty Deeds” and had been considered to play James Bond. “He’s got the weight, he’s a tough guy — a young Russell Crowe. They grow them differently over there,” Cameron said.

Zoe Saldana, who appeared in “The Terminal” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” will portray Sully’s love interest, one of the planet’s primitive aliens. She will be a CG character, while Sully will exist in human (live action) and biological “avatar” (CG) form. As an avatar, the human Sully is able to project his consciousness into an alien body.

Both actors have signed on for possible future installments as well because Cameron and Fox see “Avatar” as a potential franchise. “If we make money, I guarantee there will be more,” Cameron said. “If we don’t, we’ll pretend it never happened.” Other casting will be announced shortly.

For “Avatar,” Cameron will use performance-capture techniques similar to those used by such films as “Superman Returns” and “King Kong” as well as a real-time virtual camera system, which will blend the actors’ performances and CG performances with real sets, miniatures and CG environments. With the virtual camera, the director will be able to look through an eyepiece and see his characters in their virtual world.

Saying the production process is similar to creating an animated film, Cameron estimated that the finished film will be 60% CG elements and 40% live action. He is aiming for the sort of photo-realism achieved by the CG sequences in “Kong” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“We had a number of processes we wanted to bring to maturation,” he said. “We wanted to kick up to the next level of cinematographic precision the 3D live-action photography we had been using on the documentary films. We refined the second generation of the Fusion camera.” The proprietary Fusion digital 3D camera system [by PACE Technologies] was developed by Cameron and Vince Pace.

The performance-capture side took longer, Cameron said, “because as mature as performance capture is for gross body motion, facial performance capture is still a nascent art.”

The competitive race among four VFX houses for the assignment to supervise the film’s visual effects was won by Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning Weta Digital, which worked on “Rings.”

“Any one of them could have handled the volume of shots, the scale of the project, and handled the technology,” Cameron said. “Joe Lettieri and his team had a history of translating facial performance capture to really good photo-real characters. The culture there is imbued from the head down with a passion for fantasy filmmaking. And they met us halfway on the price.”

“Avatar” will be produced by Cameron and Landau for Lightstorm. Principal photography will take place in and around Los Angeles and in New Zealand. Production designer Rick Carter, visual effects designer Rob Stromberg and visual effects producer Brooke Breton already have begun work. No director of photography has been hired [as of the Jan. 9, 2007 publication date of this article].

Being a little behind the curve, I’m still digging re: the aforementioned “proprietary Fusion digital 3D camera system,” but here’s some preliminary linkage:

  • NBA Goes 3D HD for 2007 NBA All-Star (NBA.com, Feb. 12, 2007) — a 5-camera PACE (Fusion) system will be used for live 3D HD “close-casts” of the 2007 All-Star games limited to invitation-only viewing parties in Vegas.

NY Times on James Cameron’s 3D Fetish

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Powerhouse director James “I’m king of the world!” Cameron is well-known to be a big fan of 3D film — he’s produced two 3D IMAX films (Ghosts of the Abyss in 2003 and Aliens of the Deep in 2005), and flogged the tech at industry events like the 2006 Digital Cinema Summit.

He is now in the final days of pre-production for a $200 million 3D science fiction epic titled Avatar (about which more later), which is slated for a 2009 release and will feature effects by Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital. And it turns out he’s also pushing 3D for music videos.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article about Cameron qua 3D in its arts section. I’m reposting the article here for those who are interested.

“A Comeback in 3D, but Without Those Flimsy Glasses”

By Jeff Leeds
NY Times, March 1, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 28 — A little past the two-minute mark, the music video for Gwen Stefani’s recent single, “Wind It Up,” finds her chained to a fence while a flurry of bubbles and snowflakes float by. Viewed from a certain perspective — that is, through 3D glasses — it is a dreamlike moment in which the flurry seems close enough to touch.

The video begins with Ms. Stefani yodeling, a homage to “The Sound of Music,” one of the her favorite films. But the idea of adding the bubbles and snow came from an unlikely source: James Cameron, the director behind effects-laden hits like “The Terminator” and “Titanic,” who visited Ms. Stefani’s set last October and shot a separate version of the video with 3D equipment.

“I had mentioned to the director that any kind of atmospheric effects like snow or rain usually play in 3D,” Mr. Cameron recalled.

While “Wind It Up” was not initially planned as a 3D video, Ms. Stefani probably won’t be the last recording artist to follow Mr. Cameron’s lead.

As part of a newly created venture, Mr. Cameron is working with Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of the Interscope Geffen A&M record label, to produce music films, concerts and other content in 3D to show in specially equipped theaters. Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron hope to deliver their first production by summer.

The two acknowledge that they have yet to work out many details: they say they don’t know how many productions will be created or which artists will be featured, but the idea has been discussed with Interscope artists including Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. Many music fans may be too young to recall the last time 3D was in vogue: the 1980s, when hordes donned flimsy multihued glasses to watch “Jaws 3″ and other attractions. [sic: all those '80s 3D films were released as polarized not anaglyphic 3D.]

But the latest version of the technology has Hollywood buzzing again, particularly since 3D showings of animated fare like “Chicken Little” have racked up impressive sales. Mr. Cameron is at work on a $200 million 3D feature titled “Avatar.”

Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron are aware of the odds of changing consumer behavior. They are wagering that fans will be willing to trek to a movie theater and pay perhaps a few dollars more than the price of a regular ticket to see their favorite stars on the big screen and in 3D. The glasses now resemble standard sunglasses, and musicians may be able to make their own designs.

The venture, led by the film producer Gene Kirkwood, also represents a distinctive take on what both the music-video and the concert can be. If it works, the partners said, fans could experience a concert as if they were on stage next to U2′s guitarist, the Edge, or see the members of Kiss in full makeup perform a pyrotechnic show seemingly right in front of them, all for a fraction of the price of seeing a headline act on tour.

“What it does is put you, the audience, right there with the performer onstage, in their creative reality,” Mr. Cameron said recently during a break in production from “Avatar.” “The whole idea of a concert may change.”

Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron have discussed with executives at Harrah’s Entertainment setting up a night club in Las Vegas where visitors would be surrounded by 3D images and watch 3D performances, though no deal has been struck.

Mr. Iovine also said that 3D performances could become a new way for artists to build ties to their fans and generate much-needed revenue for the ailing music business.

“The record industry has to have lots of different revenue streams, and this just looks like one that’s creatively cool,” Mr. Iovine said. “And you can’t download it. You can’t get it anyplace else.”

Godzilla Flicks Forthcoming on DVD

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Last year was a great one for classic Japanese monster flicks on coming out on home video.

Classic Media released very fine DVD versions of three early Godzilla flicks that have been unavailable State-side for many years, and even those were never widescreen and generally were crappy transfers besides. All of their releases are in nifty hard-back cases, and feature both the Japanese (with newly translated subtitles) and US versions in widescreen. Gojira (1954) and Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) came in a 2-disc set with various extras, while Godzilla Raids Again (1955) / Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959) and Mothra vs. Godzilla / Godzilla vs. the Thing (1964) came as single-disc packages with fewer extras. (Tip: the latter two are, strangely, only available directly from Classic Media’s tie-in site, GodzillaOnDVD.com, and have recently been marked down. Also interlacing issues on some early copies of Godzilla Raids Again have been resolved.)

Anyway, the point is Classic Media has the US rights for four more original-series Godzilla films, including many of the very best, and will be giving all of them the same quality treatment. All of these are scheduled to be released this year both individually and as part of a huge multidisc set comprising the whole lot. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) and Invasion of Astro Monster / Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965) are both scheduled to be released in June — so definitely keep an eye out for those.

Street dates have not yet been announced for All Monsters Attack / Godzilla’s Revenge (1969) — an absolutely awful kid-flick comprised mainly of stock footage and really not worth your time — and the long-awaited US release of Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), the superior sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and the last of the Godzilla films to be directed by originator Ishiro Honda (who went on to, among other things, assistant direct on Akira Kurosawa’s Ran).

Also noteworthy is that Classic Media will be following those with releases of Rodan (1956) — which suffered a truly horrible DVD fate at the hands of the notorious Scimitar in the ’90s — and the unjustly negelected War of the Gargantuas (1966), a sort-of sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World which was last released here on pan-and-scan VHS prolly 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, the Tokyo Shock imprint of Media Blasters are no slouches either — au contraire! — with recent high-quality releases of excellent Toho films like Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People), The Mysterians and Atragon. They’re playing it close with street dates, but sometime this year they will offer a Region 1 release of Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), an intriguing and mostly-successful effort that I don’t believe has ever been released on Stateside home video of any kind…at least, not legally.  Will it include the famous lost giant octopus sequence??  Stay tuned to find out.  Also in their queue for 2007 is another fine obscurity beloved of serious Toho fans, Latitude Zero (1969) — which stars Joseph Cotton and Cesar Romero. I shit thee not.

If you’re so inclined, you can keep up with announced street dates for these and other Toho flicks at the Toho Kingdom site.

Backyard Movie Party 2006

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On Labor Day Sunday 2006 (Sept. 3), my pal Brian Alter and his duplex-neighbor Gary hosted their second annual backyard movie party, with me once again providing the films. Last year we were forced to retreat to Brian’s fortuitously-empty basement, but this year we were blessed with beautiful weather, complete with spectacular clouds shlooping across the Ballard moon and sky.

Brian has posted a Flickr album of photos from the night — some very nice low-light shots.

It was fairly last-minute and invitations were kept intimate, but even still there were a good 20 people or so lounging about Brian and Gary’s perfectly bowl-shaped backyard.

For me it was an extra special occasion as it was the 10th anniversary of having moved to Seattle, with the backyard movie party tradition being carried on, intermittently and mostly thanks to Scott Colburn, to now. I’ve been doing movie parties in backyards and garages since I was 10 or 11, so it was especially fun for me to celebrate this way.

This was also only three days before I left for the 10-day World 3D Film Expo II, about which I’ve been posting copiously. All the more reason, then, to show a couple 16mm anaglyphic 3D films.
Here’s the playlist of films we showed (all 16mm):

Superman: The Bulleteers (1942)
Fleischer bros.
8 min, color, sound
The 5th in the Fleichers’ legendary Superman series, and one of the very best of the lot.

Koko’s Earth Control (1928)
Fleischer bros. — prod. Alfred Weiss; director & animator(s) unknown
8 min, b/w, silent
Music: Integrales by Edgar Varese, cond. Pierre Boulez
One of the very last Koko the Clown films. In it, the world ends because the clown’s dog flips the wrong switch on the Earth Control machine. Features probably the bleakest ending of any mainstream cartoon ever. I thought the Varese hyper-doom worked very well with it.

[Maurice Sendak] (ca. 1964)
opening title & credits missing; provenance unknown
15 min, color, sound
Hanging out w/ Maurice in his studio, talking toys, books, and illustration. Awesome film.

The Palace of the Arabian Nights (1904)
prod. & dir. Georges Melies
15 min, b/w, silent
Music: tracks 6, 7, & 8 from Master Musicians of Jajouka, Apocalypse Across the Sky (Axiom/Island, 1992)
Hallucinatory “adaptation” of the Arabian Nights stories, featuring some of Melies’ most elaborate stagings ever. Rare.

Third Dimensional Murder (1941, aka Murder in Three Dimensions)
A Pete Smith Novelty, dir. George Sidney
7 min, red/blue anaglyphic 3D, sound
Early 3D release made to show off the effect. Seven minutes of non-stop throwing of shit at you! And the Frankenstein monster!!

It Came From Outer Space [digest] (1953)
dir. Jack Arnold
18 min, red/blue anaglyphic 3D, sound
A well made digest that has turned a little red with age but is still effective.

Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster (1974)
(aka Godzilla vs. the Bionic Monster, orig. Gojira tai MekaGojira)
dir. Jun Fukuda
80 min, color, sound
The special feature presentation was more-or-less kept secret. The cheer that erupted when the title card flashed (after a nonsequitur intro) was one of the best moments of my summer. Not to be maudlin or anything.

Bimbo’s Initiation (1931)
Fleischer bros., animation by Myron “Grim” Natwick (uncredited)
7 min, b/w, sound
Great and weird early Bimbo / Betty Boop cartoon, complete with gleeful ass-slapping. “Wanna be a member? Wanna be a member? ……….Nyo.”

Godzilla in IMAX 3D

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Speaking of classic monsters in 3D, according to a report on Kensforce.com, early September 2007 should see the release of what is currently (poorly) titled Godzilla: 3D to the Max (though the slightly less stupid Godzilla vs. Deathla is listed as a possible alternate title). The 40 minute epic will be filmed in the truly spectacular and lucious IMAX 3D process, with production currently slated to begin in March 2006.

The film will reportedly resurrect Hedorrah, aka The Smog Monster, who is apparently being renamed “Deathla” (!?) and will do battle against Godzilla in a brawl that will begin in the Brazillian rainforest and wind up, somehow, in Las Vegas of all places.

Fwiw, Columbia recently released a great widescreen DVD edition of Godzilla vs. Hedorrah (neé Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster) in the original Japanese language version with English subtitles. Complete with cutesy cartoon segments, it is one of the stranger of the Godzilla series — and also one of the most fondly remembered.

Update, Nov. 25, 2006: there is a Wikipedia article about this film which provides a few more some more accurate info.  Most importantly, Godzilla: 3D to the Max is reportedly “currently in development hell and it remains to be seen if it will ever be made.”  This is supported by the fact that the Godzilla3D.com site, active as recently as July 2006 (when it was linked to by a detailed Henshin!Online news post about the film) is now nothing but a worthless cybersquatter’s link page.