I met Quentin MF Tarantino

[TheVoiceOfNick]

Yep... I was at a screening last night at the DGA in Hollywood, where they screened Kill Bill V1, then had a panel discussion with QT, the editor of the film, the sound designer, and the props manager... here are some pearls I got from him during the panel discussion (some of this may already be common knowledge)...

QT was asked about the script writing process, and how he deals with that... and he made a comment about how for him, the script and the editing are the same thing... he said that the TRUE first draft of the film is the rough cut, and the final draft of the script is the final edit.  He likes changing and refining the story in the edit bay as he goes along.  He said he doesn't like watching dailies during the shoot though... he leaves it to the editor during production... the first time he talks to the editor is at the very end of the shoot, by which time she has a rough cut made already (with the exception of the last month or so of shooting)...

there were 1 million feet of raw film in this movie, and it took 155 days to shoot.  he said that originally, it was going to take 90 days... but then afterwards he heard about how crouching tiger took like 180, and some others took over 160, and he thought how stupid he was to have thought it would take so little time to shoot!

He said he originally wanted to work with multiple cinematographers... one for each character's killing... that way each part of the movie would have a unique look... it'd be like multiple movies in one... "give the audience more movies for their price of admission" was the quote, i think... he ended up settling on 2, then Robert sent him a letter telling him how he really wanted to work with him on this film... they met, and watched tons of kung fu movies... then Robert went on his own and got more, and QT was excited that Robert had selected the movies he did... they were on the same page as far as what they wanted... and the editor also watched kung fu movies with QT... and also lots of kung fu movie trailers...

anyways, so this is a little from the discussion from last night... at one point, someone in the back asked about the "allegations" of animal abuse when an animal was killed on the set of KB V2... and QT talked about how it was a chicken that got run over in mexico... it was an accident, and he handled the question very well... after the following question, i looked back to that woman who asked the animal question, and she was gone... she probably just went to try to make QT look bad, and couldn't, so left.

If I remember more, i'll post some more...

[©brad]

while the multiple cinematographer thing may sound like a cool idea, im sure glad he settled w/ richardson.

[TheVoiceOfNick]

while the multiple cinematographer thing may sound like a cool idea, im sure glad he settled w/ richardson.

Yeah... he said at one point, that the two other cinematographers were already penciled in... "like, with a number 2 pencil" he said (!), but once he met Richardson, he said after a while he couldn't see himself making this movie with anyone but him... he also said he will probably work with Richardson on and off for the rest of his life...

[NEON MERCURY]

..did he use the hip new phrase .."bling-bling" to describe his film..or the technical aspects of the processs. of making killl billlll

[TheVoiceOfNick]

..did he use the hip new phrase .."bling-bling" to describe his film..or the technical aspects of the processs. of making killl billlll

He didn't say bling bling, but he must have said "alright" about 100,000,000 times... at least that many times... he says "alright", like i say "dude"... but i usually reserve that for friends... i guess he just adopted it for his general conversation... almost like when you make fun of someone so many times for saying something, then after a while it almost becomes a part of you and you end up saying it a lot!?!? ok, well, that's happened to me anyways... .

He didn't talk too much about the technical aspects of the filmmaking process... he focused more on talking about the story and how he worked with others on the set... he was very animated and entertaining at that... but the sound designer guy DID talk a lot about how they created the different sounds for the swords, and how they mixed the sound for the restaurant scene at the end... he said they created a unique sound for each major sword in the film, but that the bride's special sword had an even more unique sound of its own... he said how he wanted the swords to come alive and be like actual characters in the film as well... the final restaurant scene was all recorded in foley (as was everything else in the movie, but this was more special...)... they did it at CBS studios in Studio City on a sound stage dedicated to 110 piece orchestras (i was actually in that room once when i had a class at CBS through my school)... they wanted a room that would aproximate the sound of the restaurant... they didn't want to mix it with fake reverb, so they used this room, which gave them about 7-8 seconds of delay for the sound effects... this gave them the sound they wanted...

Quentin was asked about the use of CG in his movies (or lack thereof), and he said that he hates CG, and especially when its something that in the past was done live... he refered (but not by name) to the Matrix Reloaded freeway scene... he talked about how it looked fake and took him out of the film, because he's seen movies where it was done live with no CG... he wasn't impressed by the Matrix... but then he said it makes sense in movies like Gladiator when they did those overhead shots of the stadium... he said he still wasn't impressed, but he was able to suspend belief because that was the only way to have ever done that... he can never suspend belief for CG that he's seen done in real life in the past... i completely agree with this.

[thedog]

he can never suspend belief for CG that he's seen done in real life in the past... i completely agree with this.

And I completely disagree.

First of all, I thought the car chase in Matrix Reloaded looked pretty incredible and I barely even thought CGI while I watched it. Second, I'd rather have CGI than endanger the actors/stuntmans' lives. Plus there's some shit that's impossible to do. Like jumping onto the front a moving car and smashing it = impossible = need for cgi. Two trucks running into eachother at an insane amount of speed with two people standing on one truck that need to be picked up by flying man while suspended in mid air = impossible = need for cgi.

cgi isn't THAT evil. people just have a stick up their asses because it's easier than live action. but isn't that the point? isn't that why we used to build miniature cities for godzilla films? Isn't that why we invented blue-screen technology? CGI is just another way to get a filmmaker's vision across. There really isn't much of a problem with it.

plus I think we are going to start seeing a lot more clever uses for cgi, like what was done in Fight Club.

But in other news, it's funny to hear Quentin talking all this shit about Matrix Reloaded, because I was at the same showing he was at for it (the mann chinese at 2:30 am or something like that). I was there man!!!

[TheVoiceOfNick]

he can never suspend belief for CG that he's seen done in real life in the past... i completely agree with this.

And I completely disagree.

First of all, I thought the car chase in Matrix Reloaded looked pretty incredible and I barely even thought CGI while I watched it. Second, I'd rather have CGI than endanger the actors/stuntmans' lives. Plus there's some shit that's impossible to do. Like jumping onto the front a moving car and smashing it = impossible = need for cgi. Two trucks running into eachother at an insane amount of speed with two people standing on one truck that need to be picked up by flying man while suspended in mid air = impossible = need for cgi.

cgi isn't THAT evil. people just have a stick up their asses because it's easier than live action. but isn't that the point? isn't that why we used to build miniature cities for godzilla films? Isn't that why we invented blue-screen technology? CGI is just another way to get a filmmaker's vision across. There really isn't much of a problem with it.

plus I think we are going to start seeing a lot more clever uses for cgi, like what was done in Fight Club.

But in other news, it's funny to hear Quentin talking all this shit about Matrix Reloaded, because I was at the same showing he was at for it (the mann chinese at 2:30 am or something like that). I was there man!!!

If you want to see GREAT use of CG, go see The Human Stain when it comes out... you'll be like, "there was CG in that?"... yes... invisible CG... that's where its at.

[mutinyco]

CG works best when used sparingly -- usually for compositing elements. I just don't think it looks good when characters or events are generated entirely with CG. The elements should have been shot live, then composited with CGI and enhanced.

It's being way too overused right now.

[©brad]

i agree w/ thedog. that is all.

[TheVoiceOfNick]

I remember the good ol' days in the late 70's and early 80's when CG was only used to create laser shots.... ah, those were the days... but back then i guess they used to actually paint it on the filmstrip... i think the "CG" term didn't really apply... but it was way cool!

[rustinglass]

the scene where the agent jumps on the front of the car could have been done with a puppet and a helicopter

the cgi on the neo vs smiths was laughable

what does cgi standfor anyway?

[Newtron]

what does cgi standfor anyway?

Discredited.

[nix]

I think it's Computer Generated Images, but I'm not for sure.

[finlayr]

why would anyone care about The Matrix?  I mean, so what????

[TheVoiceOfNick]

why would anyone care about The Matrix?  I mean, so what????

I agree... the Matrix Reloaded was one big long video game... I could have just played one the many PS2 action titles, and i would have been satisfied...