Realism and the Cinema - Coursework Example

Realism And The Cinema In the 20th and the 21st century, significant advances have been made in the film and entertainment industry that have pushed film making above and beyond expectations. The industry has been constantly on the rise given the technological advances which have engulfed the industry from its early days. Trends currently experienced in the world include 3D technology, use of sound and music in films among many others. Editing in particular, has made huge leaps since the 21st century with history making films such as Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”, Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” and Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” among many others. We are going to delve into a critical examination of editing in James Cameron’s “Avatar” and Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” which were some of his hallmarks in editing and use of new technology. The two films show two opposite styles of editing that are employed by the two directors in the making of the films. In James Cameron’s Avatar used computer generated images to build the virtual world. Due to the fact that the film footage is built around 70 percent Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). During the writing of the film, the stand-out factor was that technology to make the film had not yet been invented. This was in the year 1995. James Cameron had envisioned lush photorealism that would vividly depict the world of Pandora. Cameron shelved the project and waited ten more years to revive the project that would in future change the face of the film industry. Cameron, in reviving the project became the director, co-producer and co-editor. The film became a constituent of performance capture technologies as well as advanced 3-D synthesis. It became a big leap forward and set the bar high for future films. One aspect that stood out in the process of making the film was its unorthodox editorial workflow. The workflow was created completely from scratch and embodied seamless blending of live action and photo-real performance. Cameron’s objective in the making of the film was to make the audience believe that they were on Pandora experiencing the sites that they saw, which in essence is what the editorial work was based on. Initially such a movie would be made by pitting actors on a small capture stage and then later building the Computer Generated (CG) characters in a conventional manner. Cameron on the other hand, envisioned a way in which performances could be captured live, then specific readings selected from each actor to build the performance bit of the story. Once the correct performances from the actors were selected, virtual preloaded sets and backgrounds were created and brought into the picture. Camera angles were then created, scenes modified, and finally scenes edited literally in the virtual environments of Pandora. This ensured that a maximum number of options for the visual effects sequences were available. The characters were then fleshed out albeit by a separate entity to the film known as WETA digital located in New Zealand amongst other vendors. The ultimate key to the film’s highly narrative and filmic structure was the “front-loading” of the editorial process. This meant that the film crew took the editorial process and made it centered on the director. The director, Cameron, needed help with the film, which he received from John Refoua and Stephen Rivkin, who had vast experience working in cutting edge film. The film was divided into three with each editor directing their own scenes throughout the film. Having more than one option during and after editing is advantageous but can also prove daunting in that the choices can become too many to be reviewed. In editing, for example, John Cameron creates this little piece of quiet before the Na-vi tree succumbs to human fire power, where leaves are falling from the tree. The piece of editing helps in setting the mood for the scene. It gives the scene a sense of reality, enabling the audience to feel emotions which the director intended. The director and co-editor states that the bit of film was not in the script and was only added after a rough cut. Unlike conventional movies, Avatar’s editing begun the minute Cameron called action. An editing suite lay side by side with the warehouse which was used for performance capture. Instead of watching through a day’s cut, the director would go through a couple minute of raw film and in the process having a limitless options editorially. This was because of the manner in which he was shooting the film. In a traditional action film, when multiple actors are playing a scene, an editor is limited to the performances in that particular take. However, with the revolutionary Avatar invented way, editors could combine different takes in a scene. The most crucial stage in editing came in the camera moves stage. The director and co-editor, Cameron worked from a virtual box which enabled him to see everything on set in CG. It is the part where the three man editing team stitched the film together. After this stage, graphics were still very poor and had to be refined. They were then sent to third party graphic houses such as WETA digital in New Zealand where they were refined to cutting edge Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). As they awaited the complete C.G images from the graphics houses, they refined the film cutting about one hour of film from the cut. It is evident in the film that the filmmakers flexed their muscle when it came to editing. The action scenes, for example, were tip top offering the climactic battle sequence with color rush motion and pinpoint depth. Editing is used in the film to make other aspects of the film such as mise-en-scene, cinematography and recorded sound more prominent. An example is the high quality background renders that were edited accordingly to give the film the desired mise-en-scene result. The most important part of editing that brings about realism in Avatar is the use of motion capture and CGI. Suits worn by actors are used to capture movement across their bodies, enabling the C.G characters to replicate the same. Cameron, the director, also made an attempt to crank up realism by improving the way the suits picked up on actor’s facials using a skull cap, carrying a camera which closely monitored the eyes, mouth and other tiny movements. The virtual monitor which was created allowing the director of the film to see the motion captures in real time was also a breakthrough which enabled the film come to fruition. In the second film Martin Scorseses “Raging bull”, the atmosphere is brutal. It depicts Jake La Motta played by Robert De Niro who unsparingly engaged other boxers in the ring drawing fatigue from them in what is perhaps the most realistic, bloody, visceral and brutal yet stylized boxing films ever shot. Throughout the film, sweat and blood spray from the ring in devastating blow attacks and counter-attacks. The blows are exchanged in counter attacks, flashing and actually exploding camera bulbs. Stunning cinematography is called into action by Michael Chapman, who employs innovative techniques including slow motion or varying camera speeds, tilted camera angles, and 360 degree pans for various boxing segments of the film. Eight boxing scenes are seen throughout the movie lasting a total of roughly 10 minutes, though it took about six weeks to film them. Even more time was consumed in the editing of the dozens of shots that made up each individual boxing match. At the heart of all the editing work was Thelma Schoonmaker who was Scorseses long time editor in many of his films. With principal photography and filming done, and the initial footage assembly in place, Scorseses and Thelma sat in the cutting room to assess what they had already achieved and what they needed to do to make the film memorable and grand. The editor, Schoonmaker, detailed how they attempted to make the film look amateurish. They spent a great deal of time invested in making jump cuts, bad edits and cutting in flash frames from other color movies that the pair had done. This later became the footage that came in between the takes as the camera slowed down. She explained that they degraded the camera optically and desaturated the color in order to give the impression that it was fading with time. This made the film a lot more believable and realistic by putting time into perspective. They also had to hot splice the color into the release prints since before the digital filming days, there was no way to print black and white on color convincingly. So the black and white was at all times printed separately and later color sections hot splashed into the release print (Kellman, 1994). Great shot selection became the order of the film. Instances can be derived throughout the film where close shots are used of Jake smashing towards the camera as if toward the boxer. This was to depict his character as an obsessive and a person who lacked control. There was also distinct editing observed throughout the movies in terms of omission of sound or insertion of it. They were supposed to show rhythm in the film which further led to reinforcing realism in the film. For example there were moments of calm after active and quiet after noisy. The ring scenes in which Jake fought are edited in a manner to show the torment that he goes through (Kellman, 1994). It is also used to highlight the physical and psychological impact that Jake has on his opponents. Schoonmaker spoke of the use of horrific editing and impressionistic lighting which really did not reflect the reality of the ring, but the torment in La Motta’s head. They also spent lengthy periods of time deciding whether to cut to Cathy Moriarty’s horrified reaction shots in the film. A point to note is that much of the editing work done was manual. This means that unlike modern computer systems and software, a sequence that did not work, was disassembled by hand then finding or filming what was needed was done by seeking out the physical location and edge number. Miles and miles or film had to be cut and organized not leaving out the sound film which also needed the same actions. Editing was thus a very tedious process. With determination, editors did work with the raw materials that they had and made films from the editing rooms. In Scorseses “Raging Bull”, editing was done after all the filming work was complete. The actor’s role in the editing process was thus limited unless scenes needed to be redone. Ideally, the actors work was complete when raw filming was completed. This is a major difference to editing done in James Cameron’s “Avatar”. We find that in Avatar, editing was done hand in hand with filming of the movie. Rough cuts were made after which the best take was used by the director of the film. This is a more recent method of movie creation that is mostly used when graphic intensive films are in creation. This enables errors to be made progressively rather than at the end of the film where graphic work would be intensive and overwhelming. The second difference is that in the making of “Avatar”, there is heavy reliance of technology. We have encountered terms such as motion capture which ports the actor’s actions to the screens and CGI which forms the basis for the graphics viewed in the film by the audience. From the pre-production process to the screening of the film, it passes through quite a number of software applications to do incremental work on the graphics. An example of software used in the creation of Avatar is 3D max, a 3D graphics rendering software. On the other hand, in “Raging bull”, the use of software was minimal since digital systems had not encountered as much growth as we see today. The only software platform that was used in the creation of the movie was the flatbed editing machine. The third difference between the two forms of editing is the geographical disparity with which each film was edited and compiled in order for it to be completed. “Avatar” needed to be transferred halfway around the world for fleshing out of the raw graphics which the three editors were working on. On the other hand, “Raging Bull” was edited in one geographical location. This was perhaps because advances such as the internet had yet to gain widespread use. There are, therefore, several differences between the main forms of editing seen today as compared to editing that was used several decades ago. However, one thing that remains constant that was perhaps expressed by both Cameron and Scorsese is that the future of film making lies in the editing room. The two may not be quite there yet, but they remain gurus in the film with revolutionary films under their belts their times considered. Editing has also proved a significant tool in achieving film realism as described above. Its importance can, therefore, not be underwritten. References CGI. (1997). HaarbeiMünchen: SAMS. Hayes, K. (2005). Martin Scorseses Raging bull. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Johnson B. (2009). The Technological Secrets of Cameron’s new film Avatar. The guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/aug/20/3d-film-avatar-james-cameron-technology Kellman, S. (1994). Perspectives on Raging bull. New York, NY: G.K. Hall ; Kunkes. M. (2010). Dream Capturers: James Cameron’s Brave New World of Filmmaking. Editors Guild Magazine. 31(1). Read More