About special effects

Hi Lucas #12! After several weeks I finally understood that you are my only readership. As you definitely seemed to enjoy my last posts, I hope that you'll enjoy this one too. So, today, let's talk about special effects! I have chosen that subject specially for you because I made my own investigation about it and I think there are one or two interesting things to say about it. To be clear, I will talk here about handmade special effects, that means not computer generated special effects. This implies that I'll probably have to take older movies as examples in my topic.

Let's begin. You certainly know that before the democratisation of computers, that means before the early 80's, movie makers had to use tricks to create special effects. I will give you some examples of such special effects which have been made in an eccentric way.

The first example I wanted to give you is this one. Look at the picture on the left. It represents spectators in a shot of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). I think that summarizing the Star Wars saga is unnecessary, if you really want to know more about those movies, I recommend you this blog, which incidentally belongs to #13. Anyway, the shot comes from the well known podracing scene. Anyway, this shot is a special effect. Guess how the crowd has been made!

This has been made by Industrial Light & Magic. Eventually the "crowd" is an amount of painted cotton swabs which have been stuck into chicken wire on a miniature set of the arena. Moreover, some figurines have been placed on the stairs. Amazing, isn't it? I find it great! There's a little close-up of the crowd on the right side.

The next special effect I wanted to talk about comes from the movie The Ten Commandments (1956). It talks about Moses' life. I think that summarizing Moses' story is unnecessary, if you really want to know more about him, I recommend you this site. Anyway, there is a scene where Moses splits the sea. You can watch the scene here:

 

If you haven't watched the scene because you were to lazy, here is a GIF:

You may have noticed that the movie has been made in the 50's. That has probably been an ambitious project in 1956 to make the splitting of a sea on a screen. So, how is it made? Common and let your brain work a little bit to find a plausible explanation for this special effect. As strange as it can sound, all you need to do it is a camera and two garbage trucks filled with water. Cecil B. DeMille, the director, filmed the carbage trucks spilling the water on the ground. Then she turned the pictures upside down and placed them on top of the scene whith Moses. I find that it was well done for a sixty year old movie! Unfortunately, I will probably never ever watch this scene without thinking about garbage trucks...

These were my last words for today, I hope you enjoyed it!

After the one who died the most, let's move to the one who killed the most

Today I'll talk about a funny subject. After the guy who died the most, I logically have to talk about the guy who killed the most characters in cinema. I think you got a chance to find who it is. So, common and make a list of all the muscular, strong-armed and testosterone-fuelled actors you know and try to find who I want to talk about. No, I'm not talking about Silvester Stallone or Steven Seagal. The one who I'm talking about is Arnold Schwarzenegger!
 
Schwarzenneger's story is fascinating, it's close to the American dream. Arnold was born in 1947 in a small European village called Thal, Austria. He emigrated pennilessly to the United States at the age of 21. That's when all started for him: he got some prestigious bodybuilding titles, some roles in action movies, married to J.F. Kennedy's niece and finally became governor of California. He's actually known in cinema for playing in Terminator (1984), Predator (1987) and Total Recall (1990).

Anyway, let's talk about serious stuff. At January 2. 2014, Schwarzy's - that's his surname, slightly unpronounceable for English speaking people - killcount reached 509 (source: http://kotaku.com). That means the characters he played has killed at least 509 other characters in movies. I said "at least" because according to the article, Arnold Schwarzenegger played aside in B-movies which have not been taken into account. He's followed by Chow Yun-Fat with 295 kills and Sylvester Stallone with 267 kills. However, if you don't trust me, here's the video to make yourself sure that it's the truth:

Personally, Schwarzy makes me laugh. Even if I'm not a big fan of action movies, I sometimes enjoy watching some movies in which he plays, but it's above all to hear his ridiculous punchlines and his Austrian accent!

Sean Bean: the guy who always dies

Today I will talk about an actor who is known for a special reason. Now, you will probably ask me which is it. This reason is that he dies always before the end. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad to introduce you today's subject: Sean Bean!

Let's stop kidding ourselves, I will set the tone: this guy died more than 25 times in his movies. Of course, he's not really dying, I'm talking about the characters he plays. In fact, he dies so often that it became hard to find articles up to date about the number of times he died. For those who don't know Sean, it is the guy who played Boromir in The Lord of the Rings (2002) or Eddard Stark in Game of Thrones.

Sean Bean

I will spare you the whole wikipedia crap, all you have to know is that he died too much times in his movies. No, seriously, Sean Bean is a guy who was born in 1959 in Sheffield, England. He's career is classic: Sean starred in some low ambitious movies in his beginnings till he got some bigger roles in blockbusters. Now, he's known as a good actor who plays different types of roles.

 

 

He is popularly known for playing characters dying during the movie. Since few years, it became funny to talk about him as the guy who gets killed every time. So he became a sort of mascot in the cinematic culture. As example, you can find many sorts of jokes about him on the web.

Sean Bean wearing a t-shirt on which stands "#DontKillSeanBean

On top of that, a web site has been created (http://dontkillseanbean.com) which is dedicated to the ending of Sean's character on television and movies. Nowadays, he's called the "two legged spoiler" because he's appearance on the screen means almost officially that he will die. I personnaly love Sean Bean.

Let's laugh a bit, the best things for the end. Here's for you a video which shows the scenes shot till 2012 where he dies.

Some urban legends about cinema

Hi everybody!

Today I will talk about some urban legends about cinema you already may have heared. As you certainly know, some controversial anecdotes have become so popular that it became hard to make the difference between what's true and what's false. I will talk about two well-knowned urban legends on movies.

Urban Legend n°1: The Poltergeist Curse

The rumour says that all the actors of the saga Poltergeist died in mysterious circumstances while making the movie. Poltergeist is a horror saga and some people say that those movies are cursed. True or false? I have been investigating for you.

First of all you need a little overview of the situation. Poltergeist is made of three movies: Poltergeist 1 (1982), Poltergeist 2 (1986) and Poltergeist 3 (1988). I personnaly remember that heared about that "curse" when I was a child. Anyway, whats the truth about it? Eventually, four actors who starred in Poltergeist died between the first movie and the last one: Dominique Dunne, Julian Beck, Will Sampson and the twelve year old Heather O’Rourke. Anyway, is it a curse? The answer is no. Will Sampson, Julian Beck and the young Heather O'Rourke died because of serious health diseases they already had. Dominique Dunne has been found strangled by her boyfriend. So there is an explanation for all these facts and Poltergeist is not mysteriously cursed as many say it.

Urban Legend n°2: Sexy Disney

There is a popular rumour which says that some Disney movies contain pornographic pictures. The biggest thing someone told me: The porn industrie would have payed Walt Disney Pictures in the late 80's to put subliminal images in their pictures. The goal: to incite children to watch porn later. That sounds amazing, but what's the truth about it? Once again, I have been investigating for you and I found that there are two different urban legends about Disney's.

The first one is that there is a picture of a topless woman in The Rescuers (1977, known in France as Bernard et Bianca for you french reader). That's definitely not a rumor. You can see it in the following video.

 

                              

The topless woman has been noticed twenty two years after the movie release. Untill now, nobody knows who has made it. Disney pleads not guilty. However, Walt Disney Pictures swapped all the concerned versions with a corrected one without the topless girl.

The second rumour about Disney is that The Lion King (1994) contains a scene where a cloud in the sky presents the word "SEX" in capital letters. Look:

                              

I see you look sceptical. Don't worry, the word you are seeing isn't "SEX" but the abbreviation "SFX" which stands for special effects. Used by those who make cartoons, "SFX" is like a signature which you can find in most of the anime movies.