I haven’t said much in my Star Wars: Deconstructed series about my underlying philosophy of film or my background in film study. This is intentional. Going through over 13 hours of film 10 minutes at a time in an in depth analysis of story and human behavior is a monumental task that I am struggling to finish in under 6 months. I won’t make it, unless I start writing many of these posts every day and overwhelming my readers. My first SW:D was in October of 2010. I am ten days from beginning a fifth month and am only halfway through the second film. So, in directing my focus solely on two aspects of the film, I am hoping to make my initial task manageable.
But, I am intrigued by much more than I am currently writing about, and hope to touch on that in the future when my first run through the saga is completed. To that end I spent much of today in research, both of the Star Wars films, and of filmmaking in general, and I have decided to post, unannotated, a few quotes I came across today that I think are relevant to comments I have made about George Lucas and his filmmaking.
“In order for audiences to not get bored…tune out, in other words, not believe what is happening on the screen, because believability is what filmmaking is all about. If you believe what is happening on the screen is real and believable then you stay locked in to that film. If it’s not, then you start looking at your watch and start wondering where you are going to go to dinner that night or ‘has anybody got any popcorn?’ or ‘why am I here in the first place?’ You lose it. You wonder why the hell you even came.”
Norman Jewison, Director the Hurricane, Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler On the Roof
“Effects these days are in the hands of Everyman. You can go shoot a movie on your own, of high quality, of broadcast quality, with camcorders. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we are seeing better movies. Shakespeare didn’t have a word processor. When we got word processors, we didn’t get Shakespeares. We’ve got to separate the two out: there’s creativity and there’s technology. The two are interrelated, but technology is not necessarily creative.”
Harrison Ellenshaw, Associate Producer and Visual Effects Supervisor TRON, Superman IV Visual Effects Star Wars IV, V
“If you try to over-control the process, you limit the process. I mean, I have a pretty strong idea of what I want, but I don’t feel that I create an atmosphere where people can’t speak up and have ideas, because often times people come up with wonderful ideas that are gonna make the movie better and you would be an idiot not to take them.”
Brad Bird, Director Ratatouille, Incredibles, Iron Giant, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
“The theatrical cinema, as we know it, is storytelling. The technology is used to tell a story. And that’s the whole point. Its really the filmmaker and how well they are able to tell a story that counts in the end. The digital characters are really what I need to tell the Star Wars films, so I could tell a story that was more like the one I could think of in my head.”
“Very rarely do I not get what I want.”
George Lucas
I will come back to these quotes and discuss them, but at a later date. For now…food for thought.
a simple man 