Michael Heagle

Even if you don’t like what the Star Wars series has become, it is hard to deny the value of the new Blu-Ray box set. While hardly definitive, it boasts a lot of talk and images about some of the behind the scenes stories that are essential to historians, filmmakers and visual effects enthusiasts. Having just consumed a good portion of “Bonus Disc 2,” which contains featurettes about the original trilogy, I give you this review as an old-school fan.

I immediately navigated to the material on Episode IV, for me the definitive film and the only one I would take with me to a desert island. What we’ve heard about the original cut, and how most of Lucas’ friends thought he was crazy and the film a complete mess, seems to be readily believable. All it takes is a look at the rough cuts of the Cantina and the excised Tosche Station scene. Absent of sound effects, score, and the extended bunch of aliens provided after an initial shoot in England, the Cantina is a perfect example of what the film must have felt like to that group of Lucas confidants, including Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola. Only Steven Spielberg saw through the rough exterior to what would become a great film, but it was the relentless editing of the second tier of editors on the film that would bring the picture up to the pace it is known for today. All filmmakers should be required to see this scene in its rough cut state to learn a lesson about being brutal with your cutting. And it is a testimony to the sound work of Ben Burtt and John Williams that this film made it to a theatrical release. Without the editing, sound, and score, we would not be talking about this film today.

The Tosche station sequence is very interesting: having seen stills of it as a kid, I often thought it would be mysterious and full of details about the universe, but it is really a simple character development bit. However the location that they used is a really spectacularly cool but simple building that really should have informed the design of Tattooine in the re-releases. It’s just a neat and exotic building but very understated (and almost abandoned-feeling, which gives the place a neater, apocalyptic feeling).

In another bit, Lucas states that “editing is what filmmaking is about,” likening the process of shooting to buying lumber and the process of editing to actually building the house. He also said that most VFX action scenes consisted of shots that were 15, 25, and 35 frames long, making the preparatory process that much more important. This was unlike the way FX films were made prior to Star Wars, and it marks a turning point in FX-driven cinema.

Another key reason to look at the Bonus disc is a glance into the “Archives,” where mostly the model makers like Lorne Petersen and Paul Huston, and FX photographers like Dennis Muren discuss individual ships, creatures, and sequences. Being able to hear about the design of the Falcon, X-Wings, and landspeeders from the craftspeople behind it is exciting, but many of these are merely cursory descriptions we’ve seen before or read about in more detail in other sources. At no more than a couple of minutes apiece, these left me frustratedly wanting more. Compounded with the load times on my player, I would say I did more navigating than watching.

The Archives feature 360 degree rotations of ships and costumes, as well as some nice detail shots that you can’t get in print. Likewise, the costumes are shown in extreme closeup, many of which reveal their simple and even shoddy construction. Highlights include:

• Loving details of the Ralph McQuarrie paintings, that show how truly impressionistic these matte paintings were
• Phil Tippett on the stop-motion photography for the films, who says that stop motion is “sculpting in time and space…”
• The model makers admitting the influence of Jean “Moebius” Girard on designs for ships like the Rebel cruiser and Cloud City cars, and the use (apparently sanctioned) of Syd Mead’s work for the AT-AT walkers.
• Dennis Muren discusses how Hoth VFX were caught almost entirely “in camera” with a minimum of the unreliable optical work that plagued other pictures of the day
• Phil Tippett operating the Rancor hand puppet — in action!
• Dennis Muren on the preproduction aspects of the asteroid and Endor-speeder bike sequence (both of which were primarily designed by Muren and Joe Johnston).

The other Bonus Disc makes short work of the archival making-of features from a wide variety of sources, which I am off to watch now. If this kind of thing is interesting to you, then it appears as if this box set is worth the money. Now let’s see if I can get through the films themselves.

I’ve grown to dislike store-bought salsa, especially when they overdo it with vinegar, so I came up with a quick solution that’s about as fast as opening a jar of the junky stuff.

1 Can, Fire Roasted diced tomatoes
Chipotle Peppers, canned in adobo sauce
1 Bulb, Garlic
About a quarter of a Medium White Onion
Handful of fresh Cilantro

Put onion, garlic, and cilantro in a food processor and zap it for a moment until they’re broken up nicely. Add 1-2 peppers (one is “zowie,” two is “owie”) and the entire can of tomatoes. Don’t bother draining the liquid. Zap it until everything is just mixed and you’ll have a nice chunky salsa. A moment more and the pieces are smaller but still has a nice presentation. Freeze the remaining chipotle peppers like I do and you’ll get about six batches from one can. Lasts in the fridge for two weeks, if you can keep it that long.

I have my students in History and Trends get their hands dirty with some model building. It’s their only chance to do it, so I try to instill the value of good old-fashioned in-camera trickery. These aren’t perfect but have a clunky charm.

Thought I should include this on the list of things I did… Was called in to provide costumes and props, and possessing one of the premier post-apocalyptic costume collections in town made me a shoo-in for the job. We won Best Production Design on this one in 2009. Written and Directed by Thomas Troupe, and produced by my buddy Jason Almendinger and starring longtime Heagle-collaborator Bill Borea.

In the course of updating my portfolio I came across this picture, taken at the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2000. Mark Borchardt is a classmate from UW-Milwaukee’s film program, but notably the subject of a great documentary called American Movie. From left to right are his friend Mike Schank, I think Ken Keen, Me and Ray Whalen (co-writer and star of our film “Go to Hell”), and Mark’s brother Chris.

This footage does not come close to how unreal an experience it is flying directly over Minneapolis with no door on the side of the helicopter and only a flimsy seat belt holding me from plummeting with a $4000 camera to my (and its) doom! A couple of my students at the time, Andy George and Ryan Purnell, also came along, each shooting various HD cameras. The soundtrack, Vangelis’ work on Blade Runner, is a nod to Ridley Scott, whose own helicopter and city experience flying into New York City inspired the visuals of the classic film. Interstingly, Fritz Lang was inspired the same way by NYC as he sailed in prior to his 1925 film Metropolis, which also informs Blade Runner.

Work is almost complete on the TV series Transylvania Television. If you’ve been following for a long time you know that the series started with a TV pilot in 2007, and moved onto the web ever since. Several years later, the pile of sketches and scripts looked like it could be made into something bigger, so in 2011 we started compiling them into a 5-episode 22-minute series, bound for television. Our hope is that in conjunction with the Halloween special the week-long package becomes a holiday perennial, and thanks to the gang at Splice Here, it looks like it’s going to be a reality before too long. Stay tuned here for updates and air dates as they arrive!

Barry Anderson, a Twin Cities-based filmmaker and his co-producer wife Janie Geyen are in the last stages of crafting their book for Sybex publishing on the ins and outs of shooting DSLR movies. Their experience as some of the first people to put the Canon 5D through it’s production paces in the service of a low-budget pic in Italy has produced a wealth of information and advice for people hoping to do the same.

I have contributed a chapter that features some post-production trickery aimed at the beginner wanting to get more juice out of their picture. Topics to be covered include: primary and secondary color correction and “looks” for video, relighting tricks, and faking diffusion, vignetting and color filters in post without the use of plug-ins. I figured these were the tricks any filmmaker would need, despite the urge to go deeper into matte painting and more. Got to save some for the follow up!

Barry’s pulling all sorts of favors for this one, so expect lots of other pro-advice packed between the covers.

I tell my students that there are lots of reasons to watch films, and somewhere on the bottom of the list is because they’re “good.” When a picture is put together, it is a convergence of numerous departments and creatives and motivations ranging from “entertain” to “make money” to “move people.” The UK comedy Wild Target is a great example of how most things can fail and there’s still a stellar reason to watch it. It’s a remake of a French property, it’s direction is simple, the editing has a couple of misfires, the director can’t stage action, and the score is pretty terrible and poorly mixed. I recommend you see it immediately. How is this possible?

I’m a huge fan of Bill Nighy, American audiences know him as Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean, or the head old vampire from Underworld, or, on the outside chance, “Philip” from Shaun of the Dead and Slartibartfast (hillariously done) from Hitchhikers Guide. The guy has acting chops, and they are all on display here as the lead in the film, assassin Victor Maynard. Nighy has impeccable comic chops, well deserves his own showcase picture like this, and I was reminded of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films on more than one occasion. To top it off, he has restraint of a kind that only a classically trained British actor could have. What he doesn’t do, and how he nearly does it when others might have done it… That’s what it’s all about here.

Rupert Grint pays his dues and illustrates the kind of klutsy charm he works in the Harry Potter series (where Nighy also has done a stint). Emily Blunt is impossible to take your eyes off of, and also holds her own in a cast that includes Martin Freeman as a scary, always-smiling-with-fake-teeth rival assassin and Rupert Everett as a rich criminal. In the end, very fun. The scene where Nighy teaches Grint how to shoot (“If you have time, relaaaax.”) is my single favorite line reading in ages. Miniscule facial tics have never been so much fun to watch or brilliantly choreographed.

(Caution: Contains Many Plot Spoilers!) Most people will see director Daniel Stamm’s film THE LAST EXORCISM as another entry in the long line of “found on tape” horror films in the vein of BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. And it’s true, they share the formula, from the “doubting documentors” to the “interviewing the locals” to the “did you hear that?” to the “running scared with camera pointed at ground till the cameraman dies” conclusion. But what many will fail to notice is how the film is possibly the best non-Lovecraft Lovecraft adaptation in recent memory. What follows is only my first hurried reading of the film. Careful HPL fans may find even more nods to the horror master’s work.

1. The POV format is the modern updating to HPL’s first person narration. The horror tradition of recounting the tale through the protagonists’ diary dates back at least to Bram Stoker, but HPL made a career out of “found documents.” The cinematic equivalent today is the “found footage” genre popularized by BLAIR WITCH and repeatedly tapped in hits like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.
2. The main character starts as a non-believer. In the tale, we must have an exorcist, but here he discards the William Blatty priest for a guy who knows it’s a sham. Great way to start, and all of HPL’s heroes think they’re world is just peachy when they set out, too.
3. New Orleans is a hotbed of supernatural activity. HPL set his landmark Call of Cthulhu in the bayou, and for good effect. As the main character points out, it’s been here for hundreds of years, under multiple nation’s flags, and numerous religions reside there. A hotbed breeding ground for a jambalaya of evil cult activity.
4. Backwater hicks are not to be trusted. HPL had a disdain for the lower classes and non-white ethnicities, we get the PC equivalent here as the “city folk” with their cameras and Doc Martens boots invade the sanctity of the dirt road-dwellers.
5. The supernatural threat is exposed in an ancient book. In the film, the book was in the family for many years and illustrates a wide range of demons. The ancient “Old One” in this tale is called Abalam. One wonders if HPL would have given it to Shub Niggurath.
6. A rural church is actually the front for a cult. HPL hits upon this idea in Innsmouth at least, maybe more.
7. The good guys don’t win. Unlike the William Friedkin film THE EXORCIST, Jesus isn’t going to save you. There’s no escape here. If HPL was a religious man, he didn’t have a lot of faith that someone was going to rescue him when the baddies showed up.

If you haven’t seen the film, give it a whirl. If you have, maybe watching it again under this new Lovecraft-ified banner may gain it a new appreciation.