Archive: August 2nd, 2008

Remember what I was just saying about not going out to the movies much? Well, I decided to make an exception today for The Dark Knight for three reasons:

1. Brighton Pride is on today. Surely most people would rather go to that on a sunny afternoon than sit in cinema?
2. The film is showing at the atmospheric Duke Of York’s, the oldest continuously operating cinema in the UK, the furthest thing from a multiplex.
3. This is the quintessential water-cooler pub movie and I can’t take part in the conversation for fear of learning a spoiler. If I want to join in, I need to see the film.

So I went to the cinema and had my prejudices about the cinema-going experience confirmed. To be fair, the audience—usually the worst part about seeing a movie in public—were well-behaved (such a difference from when I lived in Germany). The problems were all technical.

For the first twenty minutes of the movie, the sound was dialled down and I was straining to hear what was going on. Once that problem was fixed, I was able to really immerse myself in the experience… until the climax of the film, at which point the projector began to strobe a blue light every couple of seconds. This lasted for a few minutes. Even once it was fixed, it was too late: the illusion was shattered. I, and no doubt everyone else in the room with me, was no longer thinking about the moral complexities of Bruce Wayne’s tortured inner soul; I was wondering whether I should go and demand a refund.

After my last movie-related post, Jeff Schiller wrote to say:

I think there are reasons to see a movie in a theatre, as long as it’s the right crowd. There is something great about sharing an experience like that with a large group of people you don’t even know.

That might be true but it’s so rarely the right crowd. The corollary also holds: it’s pretty awful to share an experience with a large group of people you don’t even know if they aren’t enjoying it to the same degree. And anyway, I’m not sure the communion of the cinema outweighs the technical compromises. When I watch a film at home, I get to decide who I see it with, how dark the room is and how loud the sound is while I enjoy the pristine perfection of a digital reproduction.

Maybe I should just treat cinema-going the same way I treat watching movies on airplanes: it’s okay for films that are so-so but don’t spoil a really good movie by watching it in a substandard environment.

Well, at least now I can finally go and read this spoiler-containing blog post and discuss The Dark Knight and game theory with James in the office on Monday morning.

Despite being a huge Pixar fan, I still haven’t seen Wall•E. That’s mostly due to my belief that a typical cinema is not necessarily the best viewing environment for any movie, but particularly for one that you want to get really engrossed in …unless the cinema is empty of humans.

I’m not sure if I can hold out much longer though, especially after reading this wonderful story about how the people at Pixar responded to one blogger’s reaction to seeing the first trailer for the movie last year. Eda Cherry describes herself as having a strong fondness for robots so Wall•E is already pushing all the right buttons. The moment when he says his own name is the moment that pushes her over the edge — it makes her cry every time. Partly it’s the robot’s droopy eyes as he looks up into space but also:

It’s the voice modulation.

That would be Ben Burtt Jr. I remember as a child receiving the quarterly Star Wars fan club newsletter, Bantha Tracks, and reading about the amazing amount of found sounds that went into the soundscape of that galaxy far, far away: animal noises, broken TV sets, tuning forks tapped against high-tension wires. And of course R2D2, voiced by Ben Burtt himself.

Now, with Wall•E, he’s voicing another lovable robot, one capable of moving humans to tears. His involvement is no coincidence. In the initial brainstorming for the project, John Lasseter repeatedly described it as R2D2: The Movie.

The journey involved in turning that initial idea into a finished film is a long one. For a closer look at the process at Pixar, be sure to read Peter Merholz’s chat with Michael B. Johnson. Their storyboarding process sounds a lot like wireframing:

We’d much rather fail with a bunch of sketches that we did (relatively) quickly and cheaply, than once we’ve modeled, rigged, shaded, animated, and lit the film. Fail fast, that’s the mantra.