Pictojam
#filmmaking
How Accurate are Recent Historical Films?
They say that truth is stranger than fiction, which is often the case because fiction must be at least somewhat plausible. That's why historical events are ripe for filmmaking, with plenty of ready-made tales that no fiction writer would ever dream of. But while movies based on real events are great for getting people interested, they are often changed to make them fit into two hours, and jazzed up to grab the audience's heartstrings. Some movies, such as 300 and Braveheart, changed the historical account so much they may as well be pure fiction. If all you know about history is what you see in the movies, it will pay you to find out how accurate a film really is. More recent films have done a better job of sticking to the facts. Check out a ranking of 17 movies from the past 12 years that rate between 42% and 100% historical accuracy. Buzzfeed culled the rankings from Data is Beautiful and added video clips and details about what was altered for the movie version. You can see their analysis here.#basedonatruestory #historicalfilm #historicalaccuracy #filmmaking
15 Things You Didn't Know About the Making of Rogue One
Now that the new Star Wars series Andor is streaming on Disney+, it's whetted our appetites for the movie that spawned it, Rogue One: A Star wars Story. The 2016 movie was an immediate prequel to Star Wars IV: A New Hope, and told the story of how Princess Leia came into possession of the Death Star schematics. Rogue One veered from the standard Star Wars formula, in that it involved members of the Rebellion that were not Jedi, Sith, royalty, or politicians. They were just rebels willing to die to save the galaxy. It was a dark, tragic, and altogether satisfying chapter in the story. But how much do you know about what went into the movie? There are always more fun facts to learn. For example, the droid K-2SO was played by Alan Tudyk in a motion capture suit.Said Diego Luna: “The first month, we just couldn’t look at him because he did look ridiculous. It was the tightest pajamas ever, and on stilts, you were always the height of his balls, here (gestures to face). It was quite intimidating!”
The Symbolism of Food in Movies
Food may seem like just a slice of life in movies, but more often than not it's symbolic, although that symbolism could be so subtle that you don't even see it. When a certain food is used over and over, cinephiles notice it and carry that idea on from movie to movie. Here, Du Cinema looks at the symbolism of oranges, apples, and other particular foods, as well as full meals and what they mean. It's often a foreshadowing of violence, but that depends on the director. The title of this video is about villains drinking milk, which happens more than you ever noticed, but it isn't addressed until almost eight minutes in. The video contains NSFW language. If you want to skip the embedded ad, start at 1:40. -via Digg#filmmaking #food #symbolism #milk
13 Movies That are Famous for Their On-Set Drama
There are movies that you've never seen, but you know something about them from the news coverage. Or maybe you saw them and vaguely recall what they're about, but you remember the story of how they were filmed. Movie productions can generate a lot of drama that has nothing to do with the plot or what goes on the silver screen. The brouhaha about the conflicting personalities surrounding the film Don't Worry Darling is an example. If you don't recognize the title, that's because the movie hasn't hit theaters yet. But you've read about the conflicts between Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, and Shia LaBeouf. Or at least you've seen the headlines. There have been plenty of movies like that. If you know anything at all about What Happened to Baby Jane? you know that it starred Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, who hated each other. The story behind their conflict is long and involved, and led to injuries on the set. You may or may not have seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but you know that's where Brad Pitt met Angelina Jolie. Read the stories behind 13 such films at Buzzfeed.#Hollywood #filmmaking #conflict #drama #behindthescenes
The Brilliance of Bringing Back Khan in The Wrath of Khan
In 1967, Ricardo Montalban played a villain named Khan in an episode of Star Trek called "Space Seed." I remember seeing that episode, because Montalban was a well-known movie star and that didn't happen on Star Trek. My parents thought it was a cool bit of casting. Years later, I couldn't tell you much about the character. But then Khan reappeared in the 1982 Star Trek movie The Wrath of Khan with a very updated 1980s look, and I wasn't the only one who vaguely recalled his role from 15 years earlier. However, Star Trek fans who didn't recall "Space Seed" at all saw The Wrath of Khan and became convinced that the bad blood between Khan and Kirk had been a festering wound for years, and that he had been the most important villain in the original series. Den of Geek takes a deep dive into how the movie arranged that, glossed over a few continuity errors, and introduced a method of bringing back a villain that the audience felt they knew even when they didn't. The same technique worked for Palpatine in Star Wars and with Thanos in The Avengers. You'll be glad you read it.-via Digg #StarTrek #Khan #TheWrathofKhan #filmmaking
Five Scenes We Are Glad Were Cut from Classic Movies
The best movies are made in the editing room. Of the reels and reels of film shot for any movie, a large part is cut to bring the story down to two hours or so. What's not used can be released later as a bonus on home video media, or as a viral boost when viewership starts to flag. But sometimes a scene, a character, or a whole subplot is cut because it was just a bad idea all around. Some of the best movies have such scenes, and it is only a long time later that we learn about them. But when we do, we understand why. Some of them will make you say, "What were they thinking?" Imagine nudity in The Breakfast Club. Imagine an on-screen murder in Back to the Future III. A sex scene with a ghost in Ghostbusters. Yes, it was a good idea that those were rethought and cut from the movies. How about a sex doll in The Thing? Or cute little Elliot getting a lecture on drunkenness in E.T.: The Extraterrestrial? Those are things that might have been, and would have hurt the movies overall. Read about those scenes, with video evidence for some at Cracked.#deletedscene #filmmaking
Inside the First 10 Minutes of Pixar’s Up
Pixar's 2009 movie Up is about an old man who ties balloons to his house and sails off for adventure. That was the basic premise, but the team behind the film knew they had to justify it with a backstory. Why would a grumpy old man decide to just take off? Where did he think he was going? And why use balloons? The answers to all those questions are in Ellie, who wasn't there but gave us all the reasons Carl did what he did. So they devised his life story, jammed into the first ten minutes of the movie. First there was the beginning, when he and Ellie met as children.
The Stunt That Almost Killed Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan is famous for doing his own stunts, in real time, without much in the way of safety devices that would need to be digitally excised from the film. He has been injured countless times, which has affected his health over the decades. Was it worth the risk? Only Chan can answer that, but that's because he's still alive. One tiny misstep in any of those movie stunts could have spelled his end, but whether it's skill or luck doesn't change the fact that these stunts are incredibly dangerous, and we are thankful that most movie stars don't take such chances. Half of this video is an overview of Chan's rise to stardom, which is worth the price of admission in itself. Then we get a close look at the closest Chan ever came to dying in making a film. There is also a minute-long ad in the middle. -via Digg#JackieChan #filmmaking #stunt #moviestunt
How Helicopters Are Used to Film Action Movies
One thing that is absolutely crucial in making an action movie is movement. Filming with a helicopter give you amazing angles and points of view, plus movement that doesn't interfere with the actual stuff going on in the plot. Getting these shots is anything but simple. Camera pilot and aerial coordinator Fred North has flown around to film war, explosions, car chases, and more. Sometimes his camera-copter is a character in the movie at the same time he shoots it! Otherwise, he has to film while staying out of frame for the ground cameras. So he's just as much a stunt pilot as he is a cameraman. North explains what goes into filmmaking with a helicopter, which is as exciting to see as any movie as far as I'm concerned. I was watching this and waiting for the helicopter to collide with something at any moment, but skill wins out. -via Digg#filmmaking #helicopter #cinematography #actionmovie
Scenes in the Trailer that Weren't in the Movie
You see a movie trailer, and it gets you excited for the full film. Then a month or maybe six months later, you get to see the movie. If you're impressed, you may even see it more than once. But even people who watch a movie multiple times hardly ever go back to see the trailer again. And by "hardly ever," I mean normal people. Super dedicated fans and entertainment journalists will, and sometimes they uncover the phenomena of scenes that grabbed us in the trailer but were never seen in the finished film. How does that happen?
Creating the Thermians from Galaxy Quest
The 1999 science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest is a classic in both genres. Aliens from a faraway galaxy come to earth and approach the cast of a science fiction television series, believing them to be the earth's real heroes. These aliens are Thermians, whose true form is like that of an octopus. They were really funny, but their very existence brings up questions of how intelligent life on other planets may present themselves. The Thermians made themselves look and sound like Earthlings, but as they come from a different culture, they don't quite get it right. All their research on our planet was done through television signals. The result was a group of alien space travelers who spanned the uncanny valley.
Everyone Involved Thought Titanic Would Be a Flop
Twenty-five years ago, James Cameron made the most expensive movie ever at the time. The very size of the project made investors extremely nervous. Cameron was making a movie about the sinking of the Titanic. It had been done many times before, but that was just the beginning of the reasons that Titanic was expected to be a box office flop. Let me count the reasons.1. Based on a true event, everyone already knew what happened: the boat sank.2. Cameron's last film, The Abyss, wasn't a hit. 3. The budget started out at $110 million, but doubled during production. Even if the movie made $300 million, it would be a financial loss.4. The main characters were played by actors who weren't all that bankable at the time.5. The six-month shooting schedule dragged on for eight months.6. Most of the cast and crew hated working for Cameron because of his temper. 7. The release was delayed from July to December, hinting that there were problems with the finished product.8. The production was beset with calamities, including someone putting PCP in the chowder, which sent 50 people to a hospital. But we know that Titanic became a huge hit, remaining the #1 movie for 17 weeks in a row. Mental Floss explains the many reasons that the cast, crew, and investors expected Titanic to sink ...again.#Titanic #filmmaking #movieproduction #flop
120 Years of Cinema in 120 Seconds
On December 28, 1895, exactly 126 years ago, the first professional cinema show was presented to the public. Auguste and Louis Lumière showed ten of their short films at Paris’s Grand Café. Moon Film made a compilation of the history of cinema in a a very short form. This two-minute video begins with a still picture, the very first photograph, taken in 1826. It quickly moves to early movies, and then gives us a glimpse of 75 films you already know that chronicle the history of filmmaking.
How the "Dutch Angle" Changes a Movie's Mood
Filmmakers have plenty of tricks to manipulate a viewer's emotions or mood. Action and dialogue are fine, but they are enhanced by lighting, color, music, sound effects, ands even camera angles. The "Dutch Angle, or a tilted camera, is one of those tricks. People are pretty good at compensating for the angle of our heads, and therefore our line of sight. Most folks have no trouble laying on their side on the couch and watching TV. Our brains know where our heads are. But in a movie, we aren't able to compensate so well, because if our heads are straight up and the vision on the screen is tilted, well, it makes everything appear somewhat wrong. We have lost control of our point of view. And that's naturally unsettling.
The Little Boy Who Was Almost Anakin Skywalker
In the late 1990s, the whole world was excited about the return of the Star Wars franchise. Three thousand young actors tried out for a part in the upcoming Star Wars prequel trilogy. Devon Michael was one of three finalists for the coveted role of little Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. Michael tells us about what led him to that adventure, and about the process of auditioning for the part.
5 Ways The Rise of Skywalker Screwed Up Exciting And Emotional Scenes
There is one particular movie that we've all seen in which the ending should be tension-filled, exciting, triumphant, and cathartic... but it turned out not to be any of those things in the places it was designed to be. The formula was there, lifted from several other movies, but the payoff didn't make enough sense to the audience. And since the audience was for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, these multiple failures were a true disappointment. Cracked breaks down the failures scene by scene, and compares them to other films in which the same device was handled better.
Privacy & Cookie Policy
DMCA Policy
Website Accessibility Statement