Originally posted by: borisUntrue. Monty Python and the Holy Grail has
no delted scenes - every scene they shout for the movie they used in the movie (of course there'd be out-takes, though).
Sorry Boris, you are wrong, there is at least one deleted scene (the Anthrax bit) and it was deleted because it just wasn't very good (personal opinion after watching the deleted scene). Most movies have a ton of scenes that never make it. It is called editing.
Scripts, from what I hear, are about 120 pages long. That's less then 1/3rd the number of pages in a novel - and from what I've seen of scripts they contain much less words on each page than a novel does - and many of those words are wasted on describing lighting and costumes and such. I don't agree that they start out deliberately with this flexibility to remove stuff - that's just stupid.
Sorry Boris, you are wrong on a few counts here too.
All films (there may be an *extremely* small number of exceptions) have a shooting ratio. i.e. the number of scenes shot vs the number that make it into the movie. Many scenes are shot *specifically* to have the flexibility to swap scenes in or out later - it depends on the director.
An extremely efficient director may have a ratio as low as 4:1 (i.e. they shoot four times as much footage as they use). John Cassavetes is at the other end of the spectrum. For his film "Husbands" he had a shooting ratio of *over 100:1*. He shot well over 200 hours of footage for his two hour movie. For "Faces" it was around 70:1.
So what? of course they weren't intended to be obvious, but then again neither was leaving Jabba in ANH on the cutting room floor. Lucas had obviously intended to put it in if he'd shot the scene...
Not necessarily the case at all, there were plenty of scenes shot for Star Wars that never made it into the film.
When I worked on Babe Pig In The City, a *lot* of scenes were shot and never used, we even built a beautifully elaborate set for the opening sequence, had the motion control camera all set up, did a few test passes and then the director changed his mind.
He decided that as it was a sequel the opening sequence was no longer required, so it ended up not being shot, even though we had spent 3 months setting the shot up and were ready to roll camera. Had he been on another part of the set that day it would have been shot anyway, and then in edit may have ended up in the film.
Pre-vis has allowed shot ratios to be reduced in some instances, but it is a staple of film making to get as much 'coverage' as possible. Films cost big bucks, so shooting some extra scenes when you already have the set, the actors and the crew in place makes a lot of sense. Pickups and reshoots cost a fortune in comparison to grabbing an extra couple of scenes when you have the chance.
Even in post a lot of CG work was created that was never used, but was wanted so they had options when going into the final edit.
No one really know exactly how a film will turn out, so it makes sense to have more scenes available than you finally use in case the script just doesn't work when it becomes a movie.
Just on the script thing scripts are about 90 minutes long for a typical movie. 1 page = about one minute of finished picture, so a 90 minute film has roughly a 90 minute script. A 120 minute film would have roughly a 120page script. Scripts change massively throughout the course of the film, you see scripts with all sorts of colour coded pages to let you know where the (constant) revisions are. No one except really broke people (or arty guys) just shoot the V1.0 script and no scenes deviating from it.
I think preserving the matte issue is kinda ridiculous. We're not talking about something that is a result of special effects limitations of the day. You don't see similar issues popping up throughout the film (not that I'm aware of). Somebody screwed up, and the crappy mattes made it into the finished film. As sort of a side thing, I can understand the preserving of the mattes in order to keep that "opening night" feel, but as far as the finished film, no.
Boris: "Somebody screwed up"? No, that's just an unwanted by-product of the special effects of that day. It's like filming a TV... it may flicker... or filing a helicopter - depending on the camera used the helicopter blades may look fluid - or they may look uncharacteristically stilted. The mattes, on the other hand, are the result of somebody in the SFX department being asleep at the wheel.
Boris: They were a necessary by-product of the special effects. Just like the black R2 unit used in blue-screen shots, next you're going to say he should be digitally colourized?
They weren't a 'necessary' by product, just an unwanted one.
We have always said, the straight X0 captures were done and archived in the name of the purists that want all the glitches intact. It is interesting from a technology point of view, and therefore the glitches are worth preserving for that alone.
True the matte lines were somewhat visible at the cinema, (and still were when the SE's were released in cinemas!) but far less so than on the laserdisc/video and DVD releases. However, they were never intended to be an integral part of the film, they are akin to a processing error, or a scratch on the film, i.e. something that may have been unavoidable, or missed, but definately unwanted.
Boris:Besides which, if you've seen the OUT DVD you'd know they're barely visible at all, except over other spaceships (and how do you expect the X0 team to fix those ones? but levelling out the blacks... that won't do there!)
I found the Matte lines very visible on the GOUT, not sure what you were watching if you can't see them? Perhaps you need to calibrate your TV.
Fixing the garbage mattes over other spaceships is simply an application of a little roto and some colour correction. Easy.
Tedious, but easy.
I repeat - straight captures of the DC and SC are done, they are archived and finished, so purists can rest happy - we will not be 'cutting our negatives' so to speak.
The straight laserdisc captures will stay as they are in all their glitchy glory, matte lines, jump cuts, miscoloured sabres, garbage mattes totally untouched. This was always one of our goals.
i.e. The transfer is a straight calibrated capture from the X0 so it can be watched without side changes and looks better than the laserdiscs did for anyone except the X0 owners!
But for the cleaned up version we are focussing on fixing just the glitches that should never have been there and make the movie harder to watch now.
That is just fixing the problems that were *definately* not intended to be in the film when it was released. Not adding any new creatures, or changing story arcs, or throwing in rontos or messing with the story in any way.
However removing matte lines, film burns, garbage mattes etc. definately brings the movie closer to what the guys in post were trying to do, but in some way failed (but not taking it to the level of what they *might* have done, which is where I see the SEs).
The difference is we are just redoing exactly what they actually *did* do in the film with better tools (e.g. redoing an optical comp digitally).
Boris: Cleaning out matte lines/boxes is just like colourizing a film.