Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I got one more little thing to talk about before I give up for the night.
I had to cut out of the first half of the Dimension panel in order to travel to and from an interview with Zack Snyder about WATCHMEN (currently being transcribed, so watch this page tomorrow for that one!).
Unfortunately, that means I missed out on the HALLOWEEN footage. I did get to hear Rob Zombie, Sheri Moon-Zombie, Tyler Mane and Scout-Taylor Compton talk a bit, but I think I missed most of the good stuff because they didn’t really go into the film itself too much. The Mist panel started off about 10 minutes after I got back.
I’m trying to get Kraken, who was there the whole time, to write up HALLOWEEN… maybe I’ll get him off his tail tomorrow and he can fill you in. I’m rather curious myself what Zombie showed and how it looked.
You guys know I’m in love with THE MIST. I don’t know if it’ll come together, but I do know the story is brilliant and the stuff I saw captured on the set was incredibly cool.
But this was the first time I saw footage.
The panel had Everett Burrell (CafeFX), Greg Nicotero (KNB and 2nd Unit director on The Mist), Drew Struzan (brilliant poster artist, contributor to the film and artist of the Comic-Con exclusive Mist poster), Laurie Holden (“Amanda”), Marcia Gay Harden (“Mrs. Carmody”), Frank Darabont (Director) and Thomas Jane (“David”).
They showed two clips and danced around plot points for the Q&A section… The biggest moment was when someone asked Jane if he’d like to further comment on his leaving PUNISHER 2. He stared straight into this dude’s eyes for about 15 seconds, leaned into the mic and said, “No…”
They talked a lot about how they shot, but if you read any of my set reports you’ll know what was discussed regarding how they shot it, etc.
They showed 2 clips. The first is from the loading dock sequence where poor Norm the bag boy gets felt up by something slimey.
CLIP 1
The camera movement is definitely like a more cinematic, restrained version of what you see in THE SHIELD. Darabont recruited the cameramen and DP from that show for this film and you can see their influence. The camera is like a character, always searching, zooming in during a take, refocusing.
It’s not as dramatic as the Shield camera work, but it is there.
Men argue in the loading dock. Jane’s character doesn’t want them to open the door. “Them” are Norm (Chris Owen), William Sadler’s character and a couple others. The meek Ollie (Toby Jones) stays neutral.
Ollie: “They’ve lost their sense of proportion. Out there in the market, they were scared, confused. In here there’s a problem they can solve…”
They open the door, Norm excitedly wants to see what’s out there, stands right by the door. Jane pleads one more time. “It’s a mistake.” Norm turns around, facing camera, and says, “Pussy…” as the generator is thrown on and the loading dock door rolls up.
A sheet of white mist hangs in front of the door, not entering at first… then little tendrils close to the floor creeps in.
Silence as they watch this… The guys start to laugh off Jane’s worry, when he sees something coming out of the mist. Pink tentacles squish on the ground, searching. It grabs Norm’s leg and pulls him to the ground, then tries to pull him under the lip of the door. He slams his free foot up to the door’s lip, stopping his quick slide into the mist.
“Get it off ! Get it off!”
Jane tries to help him, pulling at his arms. He calls out for the others who stand there, shocked. Ollie’s the only one who tries to help, but as he gets up there another half-dozen pink tentacles appear, probing for more.
Norm screams and they cut.
I liked the look of the shooting, I liked the actors (especially Toby Jones), but I have to say that the tentacles looked really CG to me. The film is still very far away, so I’m going to assume these are temp effects. The design is fine, but it needs more detail, more interaction with the mist around it, to sell it as being in the same space as the actors and the practical mist.
I've since talked to Burrell who confirms that the VFX in the clip are at an early, early stage, but they wanted to have something with the creatures at the Con, not just the drama, so they took this temp clip to give the fans an idea of what they were doing.
CLIP 2
This one played up the LORD OF THE FLIES element. For those familiar with the book, this is where David and his small group venture out in the mist, trying to find the pharmacy next door to the grocery store. This was a much longer clip, so I won’t give you every line uttered, but I will talk about the performances.
It started with little Nathan Gamble playing Thomas Jane’s son. He’s in tears, his dad has told him that he plans to go next door. The acting on the kid’s part is great. It didn’t feel like fake kid crying.
Jane comforts his son, hands him to Amanda (Laurie) along with the keys to his land cruiser. “If something happens to me I want you to take care of Billy as best as you can for as long as you can. You get out of here. Just keep driving.”
He tries to leave, but is spotted by Mrs. Carmody, a religious zealot who is screaming about the end of days… she’s got some real evil in her and it shows through here. “Are you so anxious to make your boy an orphan?”
He announces to the people in the market that he’s going to pharmacy. They need supplies and it’s possible there might be survivors.
Carmody says that they’ll bring the monsters back with them, scaring the rest of the market. She starts to get a following and starts to fire them up, preaching madly, trying to stop the group from leaving.
A pea can comes out of nowhere and hits her forehead in mid-sentence. The lovely elderly lady, Frances Sternhagen, lobbed it and tells her to shut it. Carmody launches herself at the old lady, but is dragged back.
Sternhagen: “Stoning people who piss you off is perfectly okay. They do it in the bible, don’t they? And I have lots of peas.”
The group goes to leave while Carmody is out of commission. Jane beseeches the army men in the store. All, but one say, “Fuck that!” The one that goes is Jessup (Sam Witwer).
They walk out the doors, into the eerie mist… they are swallowed almost immediately by it… solid bodies turning to shadow turning to a white wall before our eyes.
The first half of this clip was the human dynamic inside the store, the second half is a test of atmosphere and sound design.
We follow our group in the mist, barely seeing them. You hear nothing but an unearthly distant breeze and their own footsteps.
They get to the pharmacy doors. The doors are open. Sternhagen: “What do you think happened here? What do you think got in?”
The camera pulls back into the pharmacy. It’s all hazy, ominous. That’s where the footage cut.
I have no problems with this second scene. The drama is spot on, the atmosphere and cinematography are spot on. It’s what I saw on the day.
And that’s not to say that the CG work will be crappy. Not at all. I mean, these guys just did PAN’S LABYRINTH and that was an absolutely beautiful movie. I think by the time the flick hits theaters in November that we’re going to see some amazing visual treats to horrify us long into the night.
I have trust in these guys.
To end it all, here’s the Comic-Con exclusive Drew Struzan art:
See you guys tomorrow for more Con stuff!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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