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| Is that a Cinerama in your pocket? |
| Posted: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 |
It's quite the rare occasion when my family takes a trip out to a movie theater. Preparations include (but are not limited to) research of movie trailers, word of mouth recommendations and several consultations with a Magic 8 Ball. We need to be reasonably sure that our investment will be met with a pleasurable theatrical experience.
The same goes for a night at home with a DVD, and when we were loaned Walt Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" we felt confident with our decision to go forward with ordering a big fat pizza and happily securing a variety of trashy snacks and drinks for a night in of movie viewing.
The film was promising to be sure: pirates, creatures, treasure, mystery, suspense and the acting talents of the pretty Keira Knightley, the prettier Orlando Bloom and of course, Johnny Depp as the world's most nervous pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow.
What we experienced was a bit less than what we had hoped for. Not that the film was completely unpleasant, but it was difficult to figure out just what the heck was going on most of the time. Not only did there seem to be an over-abundance of hyper-activity but my husband and I did a lot of this:
"What did he say?"
"I don't know. I didn't catch it."
We wondered if something had been lost in the transition from big-screen to home-screen. In addition, the gigantic orchestral soundtrack often times overtook the film, which boasted a running time of 151 minutes.
It is also mind-boggling to think of the money that is spent on these blockbusters to procure the location, crew and superstar actors. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" had a production budget of $225 million dollars. I was left thinking that the story could have been told in an hour or so, and with the surplus production budget, Disney could have provided branded pirate outfits to every child on Earth.
On the other end of the movie-making spectrum, The Sundance Film Festival is collaborating with the GSM Association to present The Global Short Film Project, wherein a hand-picked group of six independent filmmakers are presented with a budget of a few thousand bucks to produce a super-short film of 3 - 5 minutes, designed specifically to be viewed on screens of mobile phones. This innovative offshoot of the Sundance Film Festival festival runs February 12 - 15 in the beautiful city of Barcelona.
"Producing a movie to fit a 2x2 screen has been interesting, and fun. I was really into it." said Cory McAbee, a filmmaker who premiered his full-length feature "The American Astronaut" at Sundance in 2001. His offering for The Global Short Film Project is a live-action film incorporating stills, looping and collage.
With the proliferation of handheld devices, might we see a move away from 151-minute movies toward a new wave of short-shorts? I would be extremely curious to see if the creative forces at Walt Disney Studios could function within the confines of the boundaries that McAbee and the other 5 filmmakers were given to work with for the Barcelona festival. The credits alone in any given Disney film run 3 - 5 minutes.
In our modern world of daily grind, it is easy to forget just how long 5 minutes is. We are all about QuickTime, high-speed, ZIP files and Flash. Imagine an earthquake lasting 3 - 5 minutes. Now imagine whipping out your mobile phone to watch a movie from beginning to end while you ride out that quake.
Short films. Small screens. New talent. Good fun.
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