I thought perhaps THE MALTESE FALCON directed by John Huston, who had been
writing for Warners for some time, and FALCON was the " shut him up about
directing" project fro Jack Warner. They thought so little of it they didn't
even bother creating a one sheet that featured the stars as they appeared in
the film, riding the cota-tails of the success of HIGH SIERRA.
The use of PSYCHO as a comparitive to today's film makers is a little unfair.
Hitchcock wanted to make a film utilising his TV crew and TV shooting
techniques such as multi-camera set-ups and to enter the burgeoning horror
market - as cheaply as possible. A meticulous planner, it was well known that
the actual shooting of the film was simply the mechanical carrying out of all
the work that was done in pre-production by Hitch, Alma and his crew.
Spielberg is also (now, and for many years past) similarly expedient. He has
used the same key crews on something like his last 12-14 films. When you work
with the same people and you know they are good at their jobs and let them get
on with it, then a whole lot of time is saved dealing with the day-to-day ego
BS of a film crew and set.
Eastwood has similarly used the same key crew on many of his last several films
and is equally proficient.
Phil
----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick Michael Tupy
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Can a major director shoot an "epic" on a low budget?
Dave, clearly you did not read my response to John's original post. Here is
what I posted in reply:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John:
And I'd like to see Federer, Nadal, the Williams Sisters, etc. play a
tournament with wooden rackets. The problem is that there is no incentive for
highly successful filmmakers to go 'guerilla' on us to prove your point. They
could most likely do it. Spielberg made DUEL for $450,000 in 1971 which was
likely about $200,000 in 1960 dollars and Christopher Nolan made MEMENTO for
$5,000,000 40 years after PSYCHO which was likely close to $1,000,000 in 1960
dollars. Point being, we expand to our budgets personally and professionally.
These guys are filmmakers no less than Hitchcock was. All nostalgia aside,
John, I think your question is still interesting but I'd like to extend it to
the group in this fashion where a certain Director did exactly what you propose:
In the 1940's, a director sought to prove to the studios that he could
produce a film within the system on budget and on time. He not only came in on
time but was under budget:
What was the film's title? And who was the Director?
Those who know me have a built-in advantage.
Patrick
ps: I'm completely serious about wanting to see a 'wooden racket' tennis
tournament!
On Jul 22, 2008, at 2:35 PM, David Kusumoto wrote:
** Spielberg did this 15 years ago. He began shooting what was thought to
be an "unbankable" Holocaust picture in March 1993 -- that made it to theaters
by December. It took him 10 weeks, cost $22 million, a pittance by
Spielbergian standards, 33-years after "Psycho." He ended up with a three
hour, "mostly" black-and-white picture with no zooms, steadicams, cranes or
"Spielberg camera tricks," near zero post-production time. "E.T" was the only
other Spielberg release considered made on the "cheap" for $10 million, but
that was in 1982. The budget for "The Dark Knight" is said to be $180 million
plus. I doubt Spielberg himself could shoot a modest "epic" in many locations
for under $30 million today, unless it was a documentary w/less expensive
foreign production crews.
** What would be intriguing, though, which gets to your point -- is whether
Spielberg could do a "Sundance-type" film in the U.S. -- with no stars or sets,
armed only with a talky script. Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson shoots
his action films "down under" because of cost. Imagine how much they'd cost if
shot in the U.S.? This is why I'm extremely curious with what Jackson will do
with his next film, "The Lovely Bones" (now in post production), which is based
on the 2002 mega-bestselling book by Alice Sebold -- a modest "talky" story
about a small American town -- narrated throughout by a 14-year old girl who's
murdered on page one.
-kuz.
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:45:38 +1000
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: I saw THE DARK KNIGHT tonight. . .
> To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
>
> I just returned from seeing The Dark Knight this afternoon and although
it
> was reasonably entertaining I have to wonder if a really successful movie
> can be made today without throwing truckloads of money into the project
and
> relying almost totally on whiz bang special effects and mass destruction
of
> cars, buildings etc etc.
>
> I also thought that it was a little remiss of the director that in a
number
> of scenes it was very hard to hear what Gary Oldman was saying. I
actually
> have no idea what he said in the fairly key final scenes, bearing in mind
> that his were the last words of the movie, and the people I saw the movie
> with made the same comment.
>
> In 1960 Hitchcock made a movie with his TV crew for a budget of under a
> million dollars and shot the film in a matter of weeks. If it hadnt been
for
> the shower scene, he would have completed the project even quicker. I
would
> like to see one of the major directors like Spielberg, or Christopher
Nolan,
> make a film with a low budget and see what they could come up with.
>
> Regards
> John
>
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>
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>
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> JOHN REID VINTAGE MOVIE MEMORABILIA
> PO Box 92
> Palm Beach
> Qld 4221
> Australia
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