12 Years of Filming

(Even though I will be talking about a film not yet released, spoiler alert just in case.)

You know, I was struggling with what to write about for the second post. The original idea actually was to talk about transformers making 100 million at the box office and what that means for the future, but then I came across this trailer.

Yep, you read that right. In 2002 filmmaker Richard Linklater cast 6 year old Ellar Coltrane (you can check out his IMDB page here) for this film, and decided to film around him growing up over the course of 12 years.

That's not only insanely brave, it possibly makes this film one of a kind. Hell the closest thing I can think of to compare this to is The Up Series of films by Paul Almond and Michael Apted. And that was multiple films done in a documentary style. This is one fictional story, with the same people, over twelve years. 

There's so much to cover here I don't really know where to start. I guess before we get into the logistics of it I'll tell you about the people involved with the film and go from there.

First up is Richard Linklater. I think I'll let his filmography speak for itself, but I just want to point out a few of his highlights:

1. Writer and director of Dazed and Confused. If you have never heard of this film, how comfortable was that rock you were under?
2. Director of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. A trilogy of Romantic dramas made over the course of eight years. Each one of them is highly regarded as the story follows a couple who fall in love, get married, and grow old together. They also starred Ethan Hawke who we'll talk about further down the page.
3. Director of School of Rock and Bernie, two Jack Black comedies both of which I really like and highly recommend (especially Bernie which is on Netflix hint hint.)

Next up, the star of Boyhood himself Ellar Coltrane. Unfortunately he hasn't done many other films, but he did appear in Fast Food Nation which Richard Linklater directed. I just thought it'd be a cool thing to mention, it's nice to know he kept him in mind while doing other stuff.

The two big stars playing the parents in Boyhood are none other than Ethan Hawke (told you we'd talk about him) and Patricia Arquette.

Ethan Hawke is probably best known for Training Day, as well as The Before Series of films discussed earlier. He recently appeared in Sinister and The Purge (which has a sequel I'll probably do a review for when it comes out)

Patricia Arquette is known for films such as True Romance (My favorite romantic movie of all time, I'll tell you why another time,) Ed Wood (The Tim Burton Johnny Depp starring film about the legendarily bad filmmaker of the same name,) and Lost Highway, which I have not seen but know about for it helping bring attention to German heavy metal band Rammstein (A favorite of mine.)

The last star is Lorelei Linklater, daughter of the director. Along with Ellar her filmography isn't that big, but also like Ellar she appeared in another one of her father films as well, 2001's Walking Life.

So that's everyone involved. That was a lot to research. I even had to take a break while writing this.

But now I want to get back to the reason I started talking about this in the first place. The twelve years involved in making the film.

Just think about it for a second. This started back in 2002. That was the year the US invaded Afghanistan, John Paul II was the pope, and The Queen Mother died.

There are so many things that could've gone wrong over twelve years that could've messed up the film. These are just off of the top of my head:

1. Anybody involved with the film could've decided they didn't want to act anymore. Did you know Sean Connery quit acting because of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman? Imagine lets say Ethan Hawke quit because of something like Getaway. They'd have to find a logical way to write him out of the film while also making sure it makes sense with everything else they had shoot up to that point. It might seem easy, but something like that could've been bad.
2. Ellar Coltrane (god forbid) could've died. As far as I know he doesn't have a major illness, but what if he had died in an accident? I admit it sounds morbid, but it has happened in film making. For example: Bruce Lee died in his home while working on Game of Death in 1973. They had to scrap the film, and rework it to include Bruce Lee's death into the new version of it that they released in 1978. But for something like this where the main character had to be seen growing up, that would've been a nightmare.
3. Shooting locations: The film isn't out yet, so this going to be me mostly assuming, in this case what they would've done for any scene in the family home. There's two ways to film people being in houses. One is to film in a real world home that someone owns, or to use a well built set. Both of those ways could run into big problems. If they used a real world house, the owners could've moved and the new owners could've said no to them continuing to use it. If it was a set, they'd have to find a place to store for twelve years or they would've had to tear down, store it, then rebuild it somewhere else every time. I've had experience building and moving sets and let me tell you it can be a royal pain in the ass.
4. Scheduling everybody involved and their availability: These are how many films that the four main stars and the director made between 2002 and 2014 (according to Wikipedia.) 

• Richard Linklater: 8
• Ethan Hawke: 21
• Patricia Arquette: 10
• Ellar Coltrane: 5
• Lorelei LinkLater: 4
• Total: 48 Films

And that's just films. Imagine all the stuff the did for Tv and other stuff. And yet, through out all of that they still committed themselves to this film. I haven't even lived in the same city for twelve years in a row. If that doesn't argue for the quality of this film I don't know what will.

I have high hopes for this movie. It's a coming of age film where you actually see the main character come of age, possibly something no other film has done in only one film (as far as I know.) And honestly, it's a brilliant idea. The emotional development you have in these characters will pay off well cause you'll be doing it along with them in real time so to speak.

Boyhood comes out in Limited Release July 11th. It might get a wide release depending on how well it does box office wise, but if it's playing near you this weekend, I suggest you check it out, I know I will if I can.

That does it for now, until the next one, have a good one.
        

The Fantastic First!........Post! (I'll get better at the titles I promise)

SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Hello all, I'd like to start my first post with one simple question.....

Anyone remember these guys?

That's right, it's the Fantastic Four, but does anyone remember the movies?

Not the fact that they exist, but what happened in them. I recall that the first one was basically the origin story and that they also had to stop doctor doom from doing.......something, most likely killing them. And then in the second one the silver surfer showed up to help stop Galactus.....I think.

I'm going to level with you here, I haven't watched these movies in forever and have no desire to watch them again (unless its 2 am and it's the only thing on Peachtree TV.) They were both pretty bad and the second one almost made Jessica Alba quit acting.

Luckily though, Fox realized this and recently announced a reboot. Everything we know about the film so far has been compiled here. I have to admit, aside from some strange casting choices (Miles Teller as Reed Richards, really? He was that good in The Spectacular Now? (Note: I reserve the right to change my opinion if I watch said film)) I actually thought this could have potential. Hell they even got the guy who directed Chronicle (which if you haven't yet watch it it's fucking awesome) to helm the film. He made not only a great superpower origin movie (yes I mean superpower instead of superhero, no it's not a spoiler it's in the freaking trailers) it was also a great found footage movie, a genre that had been getting kicked over and over again by a slew of increasingly bad horror films (We're looking at you Paranormal activity 2 onwards.) I could go on and on about Chronicle (and if they make a sequel I will indeed do just that) but I'm more to talk about the fact that Chronicle was a found footage movie and it's relation to the new Fantastic Four (hey I tied it back together!)

According to the Weekly Ketchup, the weekly news article of rottentomatoes.com, the most rotten story of the week (which is at the bottom of the page) was the fact that the Fantastic Four reboot will likely have "found footage elements."

Yep, you read that right, "found footage elements."

......Why?.....Why?!.....WHY?!!

According to the articles, it's because that's what director Josh Trank had in Chronicle. While I'll admit that both movies are about people dealing with new powers, the found footage aspect of it for Chronicle was not only unique, but fit so well into how the movie actually plays out! If you want to have the Fantastic Four be a found footage movie YOU'RE BASICALLY DOING A REMAKE OF CHRONICLE!

And it wouldn't even be a good remake because you'd be missing one of the key elements of Chronicle that made it work so well.

(Spoiler Alert) In Chronicle, the main character films everything before and after he and his two friends gain their powers, which includes telekinesis. A big problem with found footage movies is that one person is either always holding the camera, or it's on a still shot because it's on a table or a tripod or something. The main character spends a lot of time alone which would've meant just a bunch boring still shots. When he was with his friends, for some shots you'd only be able to see one of them talking the entire time, which again is boring.

But guess what? Since the main character had telekinesis, he could make the camera float, thus completely eliminating the need for him to be holding the camera at certain points, and allowing for better shots to happen during emotional scenes.

One of the best examples of it in the film is when two of them are having a serious conversation on a rooftop corner. Imagine only being able to see one half of an emotional conversation, it would completely pull all of the emotion out of the scene. Do you know how they got around it? By having him do this with the camera.
It's an awesome fucking shot that makes sense not only in the film, but also in making the film itself. I think it's pretty fucking clever myself, and even if you don't care about the technical aspects of it it's still just a cool shot and a great scene anyways.

For the superpower aspect of it, NO ONE ON THE FANTASTIC FOUR TEAM HAS TELEKINESIS (as far as I know.) And even if they did, what possible fucking reason would any of them need to be carrying around a camera at all times?! If they get someone else to do it then they're just going to be a one off character that we would be spending most of our time following. And all the battle scenes? they'd turn into Cloverfield style glimpses of the battle while the character holding the camera would have to run from place to place and the whole thing would look like shit.....also like Cloverfield (I really hate Cloverfield.) Hell Chronicle managed to show you the whole final battle (which you can watch the footage of here) while still using cameras in the film itself. There's no fucking way a whole Fantastic Four movie would work like this without either potentially messing with the lore (if you don't count who they cast as Johnny Storm which I think is an awesome choice he was great in Chronicle) or jamming in a bunch of contrived bullshit reasons for them to be surrounded by cameras constantly.

Now, I will say this. There is one silver lining.

They said found footage elements, not that the whole movie is going to be found footage. So there may only be a few found footage style scenes. I can think of only one that could potentially be really awesome.

You can read the whole story here but the short version of how the Fantastic Four gain their powers is that they get launched into space and are exposed to cosmic radiation.

A good found footage style scene of that, by a guy whose already proven he can do the style excellently, would be a (no pun intended) fantastic way to start the film and also get you emotionally involved within just the opening minutes. There is potential for true greatness in a scene like that. To carry the found footage aspect any farther than that would only lead to the kind of problems I mentioned before.

I was really hopeful for the new fantastic four movie. I love the Marvel Movies, and while I don't know Fantastic Four as well as I'd like, this could be the film that leads me to wanting me and others to want to know more about them. If it fails, even with a sequel already announced, (Its mentioned in one of the articles above) a really bad reboot film still could bring the franchise to a complete halt. And after this announcement, I'm still crossing my fingers, but I'm no longer holding my breath.

So there you go, my first post. Sorry it's mostly just text, I'll be formatting how show and tell all this stuff as I go.

Hope you enjoyed it, and I might post more soon.

Good bye, for now.