Weekend Open Thread → Re: Lousy films, is this what the fight is about?

I can't pretend though to understand why it is so many films cost so much. Maybe the film industry has simply gotten too full of crap, refuse, and just plain wasteful clutter.

Occasionally I will watch the credits and try to fathom who does what and why is it they were even needed.

Job 01, assistant to job 01, assistant to the assistant to job 01. Catering for job 01. And on and on, and you realize, shit the first person wasn't needed in the first place, let alone all the trail of employees latched on to them.

I think a film is about a guy with a camera, and the guy instructing the guy with the camera, and a handful of actors, and the people needed to manage those actors outfits. Some guys to make props and after that your importance becomes rapidly superfluous.

Maybe if films were not so utterly full of such utter shit jobs deperate for a pay cheque, they wouldn't need to make so much money just to pay for all the pay cheques. I hear of a film costing 10s of millions or hundreds of millions, and frankly I think it is hillarious.

I've seen films made by people with barely any staff, and occasionally they are not too bad. That's a reflection of talent.
Too many films today are dependent on a mile long train of technicians and special effects that are simply not that special either.

I have no capacity to sympathize with the Hollywood industry and it's need for mega bucks. The films simply are not worth it.

In the last decade, 90 percent of my dowloads were digital copies of films I had in VHS that I simply wanted in digital form. They were old movies and old documentaries. Of films made in the last 20 years, I find 90% of them were never worth my time let alone my cash. That they cost millions to make is simply not my problem.

Heard an interview with Harold Ramis, who mostly directs these days. He was asked that very question and had an interesting answer. The answer was 'special effects'. According to Ramis, every single scene in a movie is gone over with a fine tooth effects comb these days. He gave an example of a scene where a guy leaves a store, walks to his car in the street, and drives away. Something like that could be filmed in thirty seconds with a single hand held camera. In today's Hollywood, though, they'll shoot the scene thirty times with ten different camera crews shooting different angles, then they'll mix the film together to get the best mix of shots. Then, they'll go after it with the special effects computer, where they will alter pretty much everything on the film. He said they'll make sure the color of the grass is just right in every frame, there are just the right amount of birds in the trees above, there is just the right amount of traffic driving by, everyone walking on the sidewalks will have their faces and wardrobe touched up, etc. He said it's gotten to the point where 90% of what you see on screen is computer generated, even in non-action films.

That is pretty obvious if you watch extras. The avengers extras had them in a small room jumping around with special effects guys for the new York scene...