Saturday, August 05, 2000 - Filmmaking

I woke up on the couch this morning, lights on, TV on, with new-found motivation to complete the Green script and figure out how to film it. What else makes sense?

Saw Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate" the other evening. I'm finally fully appreciating the higher quality of DVDs over video. Not only is the image quality superior, the ratio a blessing and the sound so much better by leaps and bounds, but some of the bonus material is truly remarkable. After watching the film, I just had to turn on the director's commentary and watch it again. Here's a chance to listen to a first rate director talk about the making of his movie. Almost like sitting at home watching the film with him.

I found the movie to be well worthwhile. Though not his best work, I found The Ninth Gate to be far better than 99% of the movies I've seen recently. One nit: "De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis," what's that supposed to mean? "Concerning the nine gates of darkness of the kingdom"? They probably wanted to say "Concerning the Nine Gates of the Dark Kingdom," which would be "De Novem Portis Umbri Regni," assuming you can turn umbra into a neuter adjective. Wait, that's not right. It probably means, "Concerning the Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows," in flawless Latin. Now I can sleep at night.

A few observations Polanski made about filmmaking I found to be very interesting:

• Rarely does he use storyboards. He doesn't block out a scene until after rehearsal. From the actors' body language, et cetera, the way a film is shot naturally flows.
  
• Unlike a director such as Hitchcock, Roman Polanski really likes the process of production, the shooting of a film.
  
• He rarely changes a scene from the way it's written in the script. Rarely, but not never. (A few celebrated instances in Chinatown.)
• His average number of takes is about eight. If he can't get it in ten, he assumes that something must be wrong with his approach.
  
• Is quite impressed with Avid editing. It's incredibly useful. He understands the disdain that some directors might have for online editing, though. Waiting for the cement to dry is time used for thinking. If you can change things in a few keystrokes, well, sometimes that doesn't give you much time to think.

Well, enough about Ninth Gate. Time to work some more on my endeavors. -George