Cool News
BNAT Footage Fest: Massawyrm on CORALINE!!
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Watching Coraline is like gazing into the future of projected cinema. For years we’ve heard rumblings coming from the James Cameron camp and the various satellites circling him about how 3-D was going to change the way we watch movies. How it was going to give people a reason to step away from their 42” Plasma TV’s, their Blu-Ray players and their $1000 Bose Stereo sound systems to once again get an experience they cannot duplicate at home. But as much as we keep seeing the occasional modern 3-D film, first with Spy Kids 3, then soon followed by Disney animated films and ultimately the lushly filmed concerts starring U2 and Miley Cyrus, nothing yet has managed to seem more than just the same old movies with a gimmick. The same gimmick that seems to rear its ugly head every 25 years or so.
But that is all about to change. Not that there won’t be room for gimmicky films like My Bloody Valentine that aim to use 3D simply as a tool to throw eyeballs and point shotguns at the audience – but soon we’re going to see a new kind of director take the field. The visual masterminds who will make 3D films that don’t walk out into the audience, but instead beckon the audience into a world they’ve never before experienced.
Coraline is like dragged headlong down the rabbit hole; it’s a fever dream that lets you, for a brief time, live within the world of Rankin-Bass models and landscapes. There aren’t simply images on top of other images – it looks like a world full of authentic depth. One image that simply melted my brain was of the heroine Coraline sitting in a theatre full of Scotty dogs, each sitting politely in its own seat, with each row in its own field of depth. Another, Coraline exploring a magnificent otherworldly garden, feels spectacularly alien with every element looking like it existed perfectly on the other side of the screen. The effect wasn’t about throwing things out at you or giving perspective on the placement of objects. It was about putting you in that theater, in that garden, to look around and explore on your own.
The images and trailers we keep posting don’t do this film justice at all. They simply look like exactly like the level of work you’ve come to expect from Henry Selick – which is of course masterful. But these peeks cannot capture a fraction of just how magical this thing looks with glasses on. It’s breathtaking, and easily one of the most visually arresting things I’ve seen in quite some time. Selick was the perfect guy to play around with this technology as his brain is already wrapped around the third dimension. He lives in this world, builds entire vistas in it and then films them to be projected upon a flat surface. Now, for the first time, he’s walking us through the world as he gets to see it. And he is proving to be the first in a new wave of directors who will think about the medium in a new and different way. If this technology progresses and continues to catch on (as many hope) then it will be guys like Selick who understand how to create these worlds, rather than simply shooting it flat and using computers bring specific items into the foreground.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough of the film to truly get a sense of how the story will play out. I certainly was wrapped up in almost every frame of what they were showing, but the scenes they brought were incongruous and it wasn’t like many of the other presentations in which we simply watched a chunk of the film. If the sections connecting these are as good as what I saw, this will be that critically acclaimed family film that finds its way towards being a modern classic. If they don’t, it will still end up a very beautiful experiment.
The footage left me excited and optimistic. I now understand why the guys have had this on their radar for so long.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
\
-
+ Expand All
-
I liked Stardust, I 'm optimistic about this as well. Thanks Gaiman.
-
Can't wait! Early footage looks smashing.
-
Dakota actually doesn't get on my nerves in the previews for this film. Btw...the film looks really good.
-
Btw....those girls modeling for BUSTED TEES (see the ad on your right), a lot of them are hot!
-
All of Kevin James' blubber jiggling in three dimensions! Box office gold, I tells ya!
-
I thought the use of 3D for "typical" shots in MBV3D was pretty restrained. While Coraline was definitely a "next-gen" sort of approach to 3D filmmaking, I gotta say in defense of MBV that it was a damn fun movie with or without the glasses.
-
I thought Coraline looked great, but not because of the 3D filming. It would play well in 2D. It's the art, the character design, the detail. Rankin Bass is one good comparison, A Nightmare Before Christmas is another. This looks like Tim Burton directing a Neil Gaiman story, not too different in story from Mirrormask, but with an entirely different look and feel.
The best 3D presentation we saw, was in my opinion Monsters vs Aliens. Dreamworks does GREAT 3D work. While some of the stuff we saw had as you mentioned 'separate fields of depth' the Dreamworks stuff I've seen has continuous depth. That is to say, you're not looking at discrete slices of depth but instead a stunning real scene where every object is fully 3D. One shot involving things falling off a bridge just blew me away with how smooth and realistic it looked, not just as a 3D still object, but in the MOTION as piles of random objects slide past the camera and fall into the distance. It was a very mature rendering as opposed to some other things I've seen in 3D that could be said to represent the infancy of the art.
So yes, I'll love the hell out of Coraline, but for a whole different reason than Monsters vs Aliens. -
I'm not saying that Coraline doesn't do a better or worse job, but Beowulf proved how wonderful 3D could be when done right ... anyone with two good eyes realized that. That proved to me that 3D was no gimmick..at least for CG films...maybe Avatar will do it for live action...we'll see.
-
... some of his matieral translated to film successfully. He's on par with Alan Moore being a great writter having his work fudged up but film makers
-
Try watching Dial M for Murder,,,, the quality of 3-D outdid any 80's 3-D film. Hardly anythin ever jumped from the screen, but the depth of field was excellent. It took over 4 decades for Hollywood to surpass the quality of the 50's.... Parasite in 3-D was also a visual quality. If a projectionidt knows how to properly set up a film and it was properly filmed. Colored lenses, polarized or shutters,,,,it doesn't matter, it should all look good! The 80's 3D sucked for many reasons besides the story. Bad shooting, single film projection, bad theater setup,,,etc,,etc,,,, The re-release of House of Wax in the 80's looked like shit!!!!!
-
From what I've seen of this so far, it looks to be pretty faithful to the book. I'd suggest picking it up...it might be one of those rare cases where knowing what you're in for will heighten the suspense instead of the other way about.
-
Anyone remember Treasure of the Four Crowns (?) A really bad but fun 3D film from the 80's. Seems like this a step up...
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 151 total posts 140 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 128 total posts 94 posts
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 92 total posts 91 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 474 total posts 70 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 64 total posts 64 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 51 total posts 51 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 116 total posts 41 posts
- Wanna smell like the Hulk? What about Cap? Consider yourself a Thunder God or a unisex God of Mischief? -- 71 total posts 40 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 35 total posts 35 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 35 total posts 34 posts