Wrath of the Titans

Dear Steven Denyer, Visual Effects Artist #143

I’m sorry for assigning you a number – it’s the only way I could identify you among the CGI craftsmen who lost a year of their life to Jonathan Liebesman’s Wrath of the Titans. It’s also fitting because, well, that crowded, never-ending credit crawl looked more like a holocaust memorial than a professional title listing.

So let’s take a minute to mourn your loss. If you’re one of the lucky ones, you got away with animating part of the opening village attack by a two-headed chimera. You know, that fleeting seven-second-long take where the audience could temporarily follow the action. Was that you?

No, chances are yours was among the fallen efforts that built the overly complicated labyrinth, of which we only ever experience a few corridors. Maybe you were on thankless dust and smoke detail, clouding over everyone else’s designs. If not, perhaps you spent sleepless nights bringing the Minotaur to life, only to have it completely obscured by shadows and incompetent editing. Worst of all, could it be that your tireless effort was put to the service of animating Kronos, duped into believing that working on the ultimate villain would offer the biggest payoff? If so, you must be painfully disappointed.

Here’s a good rule of thumb next time you pick a project: in superhero/sci-fi/fantasy films, the dramatic impact of a climax is inversely proportional to the physical size difference between the hero and the villain. In other words, the bigger the bad guy, the harder it is to care. Think of Spider-Man 3, The Green Lantern, Matrix: Reloaded – the more outmatched the battle, the less interesting the fight. When a ridiculous strategy is all that can stop a ridiculous monster, nobody wins. The formula works both ways (which is why they can’t seem to make a good Superman film). For the perfect balance, please refer to Rocky IV.

In the end, it must be heartbreaking to know that all the hours you put in could barely motivate a shrug from the audience, who rightfully require emotional engagement to care about what’s happening. The strained dialogue and brainless story weren’t going to get it, so it was all up to Sam Worthington’s acting.

Yikes. Maybe you needed a few more animators after all.

Ones and zeros,

Christopher

Status: Return to Sender (2/5)

Friends with Kids

Dear Tiffany Little Canfield, Casting Director,

OMG, I loved Bridesmaids! We totally have the same sense of humour. Such great casting too, didn’t you think? Maybe this Friends With Kids movie you were hired to cast will finally showcase your own sharp eye for talent. Your big break is coming, I just know it…

Hey, so, I just realized I never finished this postcard from, like, nine months ago. And I just saw Friends With Kids, with Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Chris O’Dowd… look, we need to talk. I understand your first job on the Sex and the City movie might have confused you about your responsibilities as a casting director. And no one blames you for cutting and pasting the stage actors for the Rent film. But I’m starting to think you’re just plain lazy.

Did you actually do any casting here, or did you just get this big group of friends to choose roles out of a hat? Don’t tell me you “let” the adorable and talented Jennifer Westfeldt star in another film she wrote and directed. Wait! Maybe it was your out-of-the-box thinking that got Megan Fox to play the self-absorbed sex pot! Do you see a pattern here? Let me do my own bit of recycling and quote Roland Emmerich to his science advisor: who’s the idiot that keeps hiring you?

I mean, the film is decent: the premise is far-fetched but funny, and the phrase “fuck the shit out of me” has never sounded so sweet. I just don’t want to know what you’re really using that couch in your office for.

Casting you aside,

Christopher

Status: Standard Delivery (3/5)

The Hunger Games

Dear Kelly Doty, Post-Production Intern,

As your first big gig in Hollywood, you really landed the jackpot. First, you got to be the envy of your jealous friends, who undoubtedly tried to claw out every detail of how the filmmakers would adapt Suzanne Collin’s wildly popular novel The Hunger Games. More importantly though, while you were busy running around getting coffee for the editors, colourists, and data managers, I hope you picked up a little something for yourself: like a lesson in how the pressures of catering to a rabid fan-base doesn’t have to result in pandering to a common denominator.

But that doesn’t mean the producers didn’t fight hard to sell this is a family-friendly adventure flick. Luckily, a story about teenagers forced into a battle royale death match can only be sanitized so much. And you can’t alienate your core audience, who, like the citizens of Panem, want their blood, but can be won over by an unlikely love story. To pull this off, the film would need a sparkle of Twilight’s romance, a world as vivid as Harry Potter’s, and moments of moral cynicism that could have come straight from the back alleys of Gotham city.

These are all decisions that are laboured over during scriptwriting and shooting, but the last word always rests in post-production. You’re like the film’s own sinister Gamemakers, who have the ability to twist and amend events in whatever way suits the studio’s final agenda. And you won.

 The film earns its PG-13 rating by respecting our imagination. Shaky camera work, in the popular Paul Greengrass mode, provides an aura of violence without ever being explicit. In fact, the post-production treatment often abstains altogether from sound and gore, to maximum effect. If you grew up attending the Michael Bay school of action, I’m sure you thought the speakers in the editing room were broken when you first saw the Cornucopia slaughter that opens the games. Saving the visual theatrics for the story’s climax is one of the smartest decisions in the film.

I’m sure nobody worried about cutting around Jennifer Lawrence’s performance as Katniss. Beautiful, soulful, intense; she has a face that seems to transform from scene to scene, depending on lighting and angles; we never feel like we know what to expect from her.  From her shattered scream of volunteering for the Games, to her strained expressions as she tries to figure out how to play to the crowd during her pre-Game interviews, Lawrence is the anchor we need to sustain our interest. Unlike the book’s first-person narrative (ever spelling out her motivations) her performance only requires a simple glance of uncertainty, or mistrust, or determination to draw us in. Voiceovers be damned.

I do imagine, however, that there were some lengthy debates made in post-production about the use of Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith. Only a couple times did the narrative resort to their play-by-play in order to elaborate on diegetic specifics (like the deadly tracker jackers). For a concept that is essentially about a reality show, it would seem a natural fit to shift the narrative focus to the television viewer’s perspective to help us fill in the blanks. Woody Harrelson certainly manages to do a lot with his minimum time on screen, but his Haymitch character, who mentors the kids and sweet talks sponsors into getting them gifts, felt like a natural place to expand the storytelling circle. Instead, a quick dialogue-free shot informs us he’s working behind-the-scenes on our hero’s behalf. Less, again, proves to be more.

So there you have it, a killer résume credit and hopefully a window into what works in post-production. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

With sugar,

Christopher

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

Salmon Fishing in Yemen

Dear Paula Jack, Dialect Coach,

As a Canadian, I’m always delighted to hear witty dialogue roll effortlessly off a British tongue. The polished and mannered delivery makes smart seem positively brilliant. I can tell you fussed over the finer points of Kristen Scott Thomas’s uptight take on the cutthroat political class. I could hear it in Amr Wakes’ soft spoken Western-Arab sermons. It was there in Ewan McGregor’s layman interpretation of scientific-speak. And Emily Blunt’s pitch-perfect overall charm is just beyond reproach. Altogether, Salmon Fishing in Yemen is such a light and airy affair that the whole thing floats along on personality alone. Still, I hoped the story would at least try to swim against the current of a standard romantic comedy. The film unfortunately confuses exotic locations with originality, evidenced by the matter-of-fact title itself. Although I do admit, it all sounds more poetic in the Queen’s English. Thanks to you.

Hearing You Loud and Clear,

Christopher

P.S. I hope you saved your A-game for The Dark Knight Rises. That gig could prove to be the ‘Bane’ of your existence.

Status: Standard Delivery

Safe House

Dear Tyron Matthee, Head Ager and Dyer,

Sorry you weren’t able to convince Denzel to get over Tony Scott. You did what you could, encouraging him to grow out his hair, brave a little grey—basically, to act his age. But it hardly makes a difference. Denzel still surrounds himself with epileptic cameramen and handsome whitebread co-stars., hoping to recreate that old Man on Fire magic. Safe House is a perfectly passable action thriller, but, in the end, it’s a shame your modest makeover didn’t last. At least you got to ruffle through Ryan Reynolds’ dreamy locks.

Dyeing to See Something New,

Christopher

Status: Standard Deliver (3/5)

SXSW Postcard: Under African Skies

Dear Joshua L. Pearson, Editor

Screw you man.

No, seriously.

Editing a documentary—especially one with so much musical performance—is a truly difficult task. And you made it look easy. Those scenes of Paul Simon reuniting with the South African musicians from Graceland? Masterful—they perfectly captured the joy of these artists playing together

Was structuring the film around the sit-down between Simon and Dali Trambo, the founder of Artists Against Apartheid your idea as well? It reminds me of one of director Joe Berlinger’s earlier collaborations with co-director Bruce Sinofsky, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Either way, it was a nice way to represent both sides of the controversy that sprung up around Simon’s 1985 seminal album. Maybe in the end, Simon’s side gets a little more attention (the film clearly sides with that), but the depiction was much more even handed than I expected.

Sadly, editing this seamless and effective often goes unnoticed, so take it as a compliment when no one mentions how well this film is put together. Well, no one except for me.

So in summary: screw you.

Yours in annoyance,

Casey the Bitter  

4/5 – Air Mail

SXSW Postcard: Shut Up and Play the Hits

Dear Spike Jonze, camera operator,

Are times tough? No, don’t think so. But I think I know why you took this seemingly beneath you gig for the concert film Shut Up and Play the Hits—to have a first-class view of a concert destined to go down as a classic.

Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Being LCD Soundsystem’s last performance ever, it sure seemed—and sounded—pretty great. And the footage you and your co-cameramen got was surprisingly intimate, considering the huge crowd filling out Madison Square Gardens. Or so I assume; shots conveying the full scale of the show, both on stage and off, were strangely lacking.

Were you involved in the footage shot the next day, following frontman James Murphy around New York as he tried to decide on the next chapter of his life? I’m guessing no – these had a staginess and pretension that even your craziest fictional films avoid.

But man, that show rocked.

Yours in disco infiltration,

Casey

 

Status: 3.5/5 – Air Mail

SXSW Postcard: 21 Jump Street

Dear Victoria St. Pierre, Moldmaker,

I’m assuming, from your job title, that you make molds. Of faces, say. Or genitalia, perhaps. And from these molds (I’m further assuming) came the prosthetics that contribute to two of the biggest surprises in 21 Jump Street. And this perfectly absurd reimagining of the 80s cop show turns out to be full of surprises. How well Channing Tatum’s knucklehead charm translates into comedy; how cleverly the conceit of two narcotics cops going undercover at high school is both embraced and subverted; the unexpected affection it has for its source material. But truly, that nose and that penis—excellent mold work, Victoria. The latter elicited the loudest laugh, and the former provided me the most genuine and pleasant shock I can remember having in a movie theatre. I’d congratulate you further, but I think the pleasure you had while making those molds was probably more rewarding that any praise I can give you.

Sincerely,

Jared Young

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

 

SXSW Postcard: Brooklyn Castle

Dear Nelson Dellamaggiore, Producer and Editor,

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say, sarcastically, thanks a lot.

You had a lot of material to work with when you began assembling Brooklyn Castle, the documentary about P.S. 318’s after school chess program that was co-produced and directed by your wife, Katherine. So many stories to tell about so many unlikely chess prodigies: the hyper-charismatic Pobo, the unsettlingly intense Justus, the ambitious Rochelle and the quiet, neurotic Alexis. And though you had to splice in a couple of awkward (and obviously staged) expositional conversations to keep the narrative moving, you’re editing gives every character – the kids, the parents, the teachers – a chance to live fully on the screen.

But, really, it’s the character of Patrick, who appears late into the film as a foil to the chess team’s top guns, that makes Brooklyn Castle something more than just a story about future grandmasters and their quests to escape poverty. His minor struggles, threaded beneath the larger movements of the plot, are the humanizing element of the film. He’s the kid ranked second-to-last, who just wants to get better, who, with ADHD, struggles just to concentrate on the board, and he’s our way into the story. Late in the film, when he has his chance to finally help his team, his small moment of triumph overshadows all the climactic trophy ceremonies and celebrations.

And made me cry in front of a hundred strangers. So, yeah, thanks, Nelson.

Thanks a lot.

Looks away, rubs eyes with T-shirt,

Jared Young

Status: Priority Post

John Carter

Dear Anthony Drewett, Costume Fitter,

Anyone can draw slutty costumes. Apparently, even Disney. The trick is to be able to pull them off – and maybe put them back on. Loin cloths. Breast plates. Chest plates. Butt flaps. Dude, your job sounds like the bisexual dream!

But where do you draw the line? I mean that literally – Disney must have a mathematical formula for the percentage of buttocks that can be flashed in a family film. I’m guessing that, like a naughty catholic schoolgirl, you had your actors tense up their shoulders and stretch out their fingertips to show every extra skin cell the rulebook would allow. Maybe that’s why amid the hundreds of millions of dollars put into this production, my eyes were still pathetically drawn to the most carnal of human pleasures. How much of Lynn Collin’s leg are they going to show? How’s that old woman going to pull off that gown? Did they just digitally erase Taylor Kitch’s buttcrack? That’s when I knew there was a problem.

To his credit, director Andrew Stanton does not leave much to the imagination anywhere. But like you, he too often just seems to be doing what’s fitting. We’ve literally and figuratively seen so many cowboy vs. aliens stories lately that simply using ancient material (by sci-fi standards) isn’t enough. You need to still create something bold and new, even if there are only so many ways to drape a story. Genre geeks will find plenty to enjoy, but for the rest of us, most of what we’re experiencing feels over-worn. Sign me up for attending the Cosplay parties though.

Hang in there,

Christopher

Status: Standard Delivery (2.5/5)