Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Today we’re going to double down and talk a bit about a particular type camera trickery that was excelled by the savvy David Fincher in this weekend’s box office topper The Social Network. What I’d like to point out here are filmmakers who go on to claim that they do not think of trying to master a certain visual effect, but they start with what works best for the storytelling — how a scene or character is motivated, what’s the driving force of the scene and arc of the film itself, rather than trying to wow an audience.

(**Beware!! Ahead there be spoilers!!**)

I’m talking, of course, about the special effects wizardry that enables two Lindsay Lohans in The Parent Trap, or two Nicolas Cage’s in Adaptation, the Winklevoss brothers in The Social Network, and two Sam Rockwells in Moon. Below are a few processes to make this happen, which will also show you how technology has been able to advance techniques and add more freedom in storytelling.

First is the Matte Process, or Matting. This was used in films from the silent era through the 70s (and still today, though much less so thanks to digital compositing). Matting at its’ most basic level involves filming a scene from a static camera position twice and combining both takes onto another, separate, undeveloped roll of film while blocking (matting) out the other half of the frame shot.

Hayley Mills (the original girl in The Parent Trap) would act out a scene standing at camera left, pretending she was talking to her twin sister. Then, she would act out the very same scene at camera right, interacting with the help of a recording of her first round of dialogue. Then, each role would be projected onto a new role of film, which was rewound between projections, with half of the frame covered up. The new role would become the master matted role. This is an oversimplification, obviously, but a helpful breakdown of an early creative process.

Of course, if you moved the camera or tried a tracking shot, your level of success with creating a flawless shot of the same actor twice would rarely be successful, so most often you would be stuck with a static shot.

In 2001, Spike Jonze directed Nicolas Cage in an Oscar nominated performance playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. It was meta. Using the skills of Gray Marshall, the director was able to avoid green screen technology for 80% of the “twins” shots in the film, thanks to the dedication of a talented actor and the creation of motion control cameras and rotoscoping.

Motion Control allows a camera movement to be recorded and run again and again, precisely and exactly the same over and over again. This leaves no room for user error if a particular movement needs the exact same timing each take, and especially if you’re using trick photography. Rotoscoping, or tracing over live action footage, was used to cover up any errors or overlapping of footage. The result is a seamless world in which Nicolas Cage has doubled, and Big Daddy is even more of a presence than he probably needs to be.

Having Charlie and Donald interact verbally is key to the story being told, highlighting the differences of each character which is also visualized in what they wear, how they stand, etc.

Advancing the techniques of split-screen and CG work in order to double the fun of your favorite actor, Sam Rockwell, Moon director certainly takes the cake for taking initiative on the set and bringing two Rockwell’s to life using split screen and body doubles. Perhaps most exciting are the scenes involving a game of ping pong and one where Sam 2 zips the pants of Sam 1, from a moving shot profiling both Sams. It’s really quite amazing to watch, and Rockwell was up to the challenge of memorizing not only dialogue but the camera’s movements and his own movements from previous takes and days in order to match shots.

This dedication shows up on screen, you can feel the presence of the work involved, but you can also see why the film needed to be made this way. As an audience, we really needed the point hammered home that there was more than one Sam in existence, and the shock that two Sams have become, essentially, self-aware is a key point in the story.

The Real Winklevi Twins.

In The Social Network, Army Hammer plays both the Winklevoss brothers, Tyler and Cameron, however, as you’ll note in the credits, Josh Pence is credited as one of the brothers. That’s because, much like Fincher’s process of overlapping Brad Pitt’s face on an old man and young baby in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hammer’s face and voice were overlapped onto Pence’s performance after the fact.

Armie Hammer and Josh Pence, with Hammer’s face painted on.

This allowed for more seamless interaction and actual presence in scenes featuring the brothers, and shots that required the back of the head to be shown only were easier with the stand-in (as they would’ve been even 50 years ago). But moving cameras, shifting angles, etc., required the necessity to reveal both brothers simultaneously. As one of the Winklevie says during the film, “I’m 6’5″ 220 and there are two of me.” There’s no better way to show that than actually show it, and it’s worth the technological difficulties as long as you can hire the proper actor for the role.

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

This week, I will continue to look at some of the most popular myths about the moon. As I was going through the paces of research, I realized that many moon myths are based on solar myths as well, so I may look at those next week. The first issue that I wish to tackle (and I am surprised that I haven’t looked at this earlier) is the assumption that the full moon produces lunacy or odd behavior in people. In fact, the term “lunacy” has lunar roots; the OED states, “The condition of being a lunatic; intermittent insanity such as was formerly supposed to be brought about by the changes of the moon; now applied gen. to any form of insanity (idiocy usually excepted). In legal use, such mental unsoundness as interferes with civil rights or transactions. Also, a fit or attack of such insanity.” The earliest mention of lunacy being used in this manner dates from around the 1550s, so the idea is not necessarily ancient, but it is old, and I feel that it is ingrained in part of our American cultural history. After all, whenever there is a full moon and odd behavior occurs, it is almost necessary to mention the connection. Modern science has debunked many of these psychological impacts of the moon on the mind; the most popular example of this kind of pseudo-science is to be found in Arnold Lieber’s best-seller “Lunar Effects: Biological Tides and Human Emotions.” This book strove to form the connection between the moon and psychological effects. In 1998, Lieber did actually predict a situation in which, as he put it, “All hell broke loose” in Miami, but that was only after two failed predictions in 1990 and 1992 (check here for source and full article).

What are the facts? Here’s a pretty good site that is sponsored by the fine people at NASA and covers many of the facts that missions to the moon have revealed. Rather than try and pick and choose which facts I think are interesting, I highly encourage you to browse through the site (particularly the section with photos) to learn about what our space program has discovered about that celestial object. Also, I think that this site is useful in looking to debunk some popular myths that get bandied about regarding the moon, which leads me to the next moon myth (though I suppose that this is really a Mars myth).

One of the myths about the moon that circulated recently throughout the internet is that Mars was going to be the closest to Earth than it had been in 50,000 years (though how that number got created is beyond me) and that it would appear to be the size of the moon. If this was actually the case, it would mean that the solar system as we know it would be falling apart. Furthermore, though the effects of gravity from the moon are negligible on human beings, they are readily felt on the ocean and land masses. The moon has a pretty significant mass (.07349x10^24kgs), and Mars is no lightweight either (6.4185x10^23kgs), and though the moon is only about half of the diameter of the moon, the impact of that much mass circling around the earth with the combined gravitational force of the moon would reek utter havoc on the Earth from its rotation to its orbit around the sun to its weather in general. (NASA) In short, life as we know it would cease to exist. Yet, this email was widely circulated and bought by the majority of people. The truth is that this myth was widely popularized because of the lack of understanding regarding celestial objects and how they function. Perhaps this is the greatest sign that we have really let our national interest in the space above us dwindle to dark shadows of ignorance.

The final myth I want to tackle in this post (because there are a lot of people that still feel this way) is the infamous faked moon landing myth. Now, rather than try to outdo the infamous Mythbusters TM episode, I thought I’d just go ahead and upload a few videos that reference their work. I think that this is probably one of the most debated issues, and I have read that the Mythbusters’ findings are still being questioned by parts of the population. Here is a link to a New York Times article that represents a group of people who are still unconvinced that the moon landing occurred.

This week, with the occurrence of the harvest moon, I thought I’d take a look at that celestial object and the different interpretations, myths, and superstitions that accompany our sun’s nocturnal counterpart. If you’re wondering what a harvest moon is, then here is a definition: The moon which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox (22 or 23 Sept.), and which rises for several nights nearly at the same hour, at points successively further north on the eastern horizon. (OED) Before I get into some of the more bizarre myths that surround the moon, I thought it would be appropriate to tackle some of the imagery and symbolism surrounding representations of the moon. For instance, we’ve all heard of the man on the moon. Typically, Americans associate the man on the moon with the face on the moon, but the origins of the man on the moon are a little more complicated than that.

In older days (the time periods fluctuate and some people today still see the archaic representation of a person on the moon) the man on the moon was a full sized man that was complete with accessories. In the case of most of Eurpoe, the man on the moon was carrying a bundle of sticks on his back, carrying a lantern in front of him, and walking a dog. In this tradition, the man is usually being sent to the moon as a form of punishment. In some way, the man has committed a crime (sometimes legislative, but oftentimes ecclesiastical) and his punishment is to spend eternity in the moon. One version of this story (from Germany, I believe) has the man banished to the moon because he is working on the Sabbath day. Another rendition (popular among certain Protestant circles) is that the man in the moon is Cain who has been punished to forever circle the Earth. In many places throughout South America, there is no man in the moon; instead, there is a rabbit. The reason for the rabbit varies, but in Aztec legend, one of their creation stories for the moon revolves around people who had to sacrifice themselves in a pyre in order to become celestial bodies. One of the two to throw themselves into the fire had moments of doubt and fear. For this, he was punished to have his light reduced; to accomplish this, a rabbit was thrown at the face of the sacrifice who became the moon. So what are the myths that dominate our ideas of the moon today?

The greatest myth revolving around the moon is the advent of the werewolf. The werewolf is a tricky mythology that seems to have ambiguous origins. Some, like to place the origin of the werewolf to an ancient Greek king, Lycaon, who was rumored to be so cruel as to be compared to a wolf. The story in that case goes something along the line that Lycaon had tempted Zeus with an offering of an infant. Zeus, being outraged by this gift, condemned Lycaon to forever travel the world as a wolf. In Europe (speaking incredibly generally) during the middle ages, there was a great amount of superstition and wolf myths. People who were thought to be able to wield dark magic (bad juju, bad voodoo, whatever you want to call it) typically were associated with animal imagery that was associated with Satan. So, wolves, bears, tigers, lions, bats, and more are all possible for people to turn into if they have Satan in their heart. The interesting addition of the regulation of the moon is a rather modern addition to the story. During Medieval ages, the concept that the full moon sparked the transformation was but one part of the story. Modern storytellers have leaped upon the idea, and our modern culture has a clear connection between the full moon and the appearance of werewolves. Ultimately, I rather enjoy the original concept of the werewolf as someone who can turn into a wolf at will; not only does it seem more practical, it also establishes the connection of having an animal inside of a human at all times, a symbol that is particularly prevalent in Christian ideology. Clearly, the moon has captivated people for years. I’ll continue this thread next week, where I’ll look at some of the more exotic stories that feature the moon.

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Voting Members:

Consider this a filmmaker spotlight, as well as an open letter For Your Eyes Only (I’m talking to you, internet!). What follows is the case for Sam Rockwell’s nomination and eventual victory at the Academy Awards ceremony to take place on March 7, 2010, for excellence in filmmaking for the year 2009.

Over the last few weeks, countless awards shows (both live and taped, both televised and non-televised) have featured one of two actors receiving the award for best actor in a motion picture: Jeff Bridges, for his incredibly subtle and heartfelt, down-and-out country singer in “Crazy Heart”; and George Clooney’s introspective, reflective, and Oscar-engineered downsizing expert in “Up in the Air”. Both are very worthy gentleman, as are “The Hurt Locker”’s Jeremy Renner, Colin Firth in “A Single Man”, and (debatable) Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela playing Morgan Freeman from “Invictus”.

And, just as any of these men are worthy, if not downright perfect, for the Oscar this year, one actor stands out above all the rest: Sam Rockwell. This guy.

straight outta your dreams.

No, I’m not talking about his stunning voiceover in G-Force. Nor do I mean to imply his Son-of-a-Deniro in “Everybody’s Fine.” I’m talking “Moon”.

I must warn you, here and now, that there may well be SPOILERS ahead, however subtle. If you have not seen MOON already (how dare you, movie fans and filmmakers alike!), then you will have some of the plot and interactions ruined by the below comments. However, I will try to refrain from revealing anything past the halfway mark of the film.

Ready?

OK.

Taking from Roger Ebert’s fine review: “At some point in the future (we can’t nail down the story’s time frame), this station on the far side is manned by a single crew member, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell). He’s working out the final days of a three-year contract and is close to cracking from loneliness. Talking to loved ones via video link doesn’t satisfy. The station is largely automated; it processes lunar rock to extract Helium-3, used to provide Earth with pollution-free power from nuclear fusion….

”The station is large and well-appointed, has entertainment resources and adequate supplies. Sam communicates frequently with the home office … and so does GERTY [the on board A.I. computer]. Sam doesn’t do any actual mining, but his human hands and brain are needed for repairs, maintenance and inspection. One day he’s outside checking up on something, and his lunar rover smashes up. He’s injured and awakens in the station’s medical facility. And that, I think, is all I need to say.”

Sgt. Angle again, here we go. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell as an exhausted, blue collar fella who is waiting for the last days of his contract to come to a close, but what he faces is a harsh wake up call, as he confronts himself in more ways than one and forces us, as film viewers and as human beings, to recognize our own faults and fears, our own desires as overshadowed pipe-dreams, and the very true, very real scenario that, however alone we might feel, we will always have to contend with ourselves.

As filmmaking is concerned, MOON is at an expert level. Made for roughly $5 Million, MOON is the debut film of director Duncan Jones (featured in last week’s Cinegasm), son of David Bowie and director of many small music videos. Jones knows how to shoot for cheap – and to shoot cheap well. He used miniatures and practical effects for the “outdoor” scenes on the moon, and intense planning and execution for the green screen / Sam-and-Sam scenes that showcase Rockwell’s ability to play off himself (aka play off of no one else). The resulting commitment of Jones to his source material and Sam Rockwell to the character, to the project as a whole, are worth the 2 hours, and worth the little Golden Man in March.

Sgt. Angle attended an early screening of MOON, at which Duncan Jones was present post-screening for a Q & A. At the time, he said that Kevin Spacey read the script and liked it, but was scared at the low-budget. Fearing cheesy effects, Spacey waited until the film was shot and edited. He then watched the film, and recorded all of his voiceover scenes in one day. The resulting voice for GERTY is cold, dry, yet somehow more touching than any of Sam’s personas.

Likewise, the film’s look and feel, from the setting to the camera angles, are reminiscent of older Science Fiction films of the 70s and 80s, most notable Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey: Modern rooms, soft, cushioned white and off-white walls, nothing shiny or spectacular. Just the way a space station should be. (*BONUS* Clint Mansell, of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, wrote the music for Moon!)

As part of the case for Sam Rockwell’s nomination for MOON, here’s a brief history of the actor:

In the 90s, Rockwell’s acting career gathered momentum with small roles on television and in movies (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, for one). He starred in a few choice indie films, even one with a young (as in TEN) Mischa Barton called “Lawn Dogs.” Many recognize him as the killer “Wild Bill” in Stephen King’s “The Green Mile”, where a particular scene will make Moonpies forever undesirable across middle America.

After a few more showy supporting parts (“Galaxy Quest”, “Charlie’s Angels”), Rockwell broke free critically with his role as The Gong Show host Chuck Barris in George Clooney’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”. He bounced from this exceptional lead role directly into another critically acclaimed film, “Matchstick Men”, directed by Ridley Scott, and held his own against “the Head” known as Nicholas Cage.

What to do when you realize you have to make Ghostrider 2.

In “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, Sam played brother to the coward himself (Casey Affleck), disturbing, dark, brooding. In the world of critics and cinephiles, Sam Rockwell could be known as the poor man’s Christopher Walken – but take away the poor man, and add “new generation”. Just before MOON, Rockwell starred in the latest daptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, CHOKE, playing a sex addict who learns about his mysterious origins while fooling people into believing he’s choking, in order to make them feel better about their own existence.

It should be noted that, according to Jon Favreau, Sam Rockwell was considered for the lead in “IRON MAN” before the studio finally caved and cast Robert Downey, Jr. Rockwell will star in the sequel as Justin Hammer, signing on for the role without reading the script or knowing anything about the character.

Surgery works wonders these days.

Sam Rockwell is a fine character actor with lead capabilities, a true independent hero who has mass appeal, is able to charm audiences with his offbeat style and wit. He’s a new form of Steve Buscemi, with a touch of Christopher Walken’s abilities, and a hint – just a hint – of Robert Downey, Jr.’s all around charm. A thrill to watch, anticipate, and observe, Sam Rockwell is truly the Best Actor of 2009.

Buy MOON here, and get thrown for a circular loop.

Until the next invasion…

Sgt. Angle