i stayed up last night to watch the space channel air "the making of inception", which i'm sure will be included in the dvd release later this year. but it was great to see it now. cuz i'm all about the instant gratification.
one of my favourite scene is the zero gravity scene with joseph gordon levitt. sidebar: no matter how old he gets and the mature roles he tackles onscreen, i've always had a hard time looking at him beyond the kid from third rock from the sun. but in this movie, the little scene stealer won me over.
the hotel fight scene had joseph gordon levitt both floating gracefully as well as being bounced and battered against the walls. the trick to this scene was filming in a cage that rolled like a barrel.
here's the shortened version of the 15 minutes featurette i watched last night. (the youtube video pulled out all the cast interviews, director insights and production details. gotta wait for that dvd!) fast forward to 4:49 for the filming of the hotel hallway.
course, this special effect is not new. it had been used in the exercise scene in stanley kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey.
but take it back further, like 50+ years, and it was dancer extraordinaire fred astaire who first boggled movie-goers with this effect in the classic royal wedding.
fred astaire was an utter original and an innovator. him and gene kelley. both dancers are mesmerizing to watch. even til this day, if i had to choose, i can't decide who was the finer dancer. i feel like re-watching some technicolour musicals now. but i digress.
music videos employed this technique too. here's the frenetic fatboy slim's slash dot dash.
now if i had to pick between team moby or team fatboy slim, fatboy all the way. i never got the appeal of moby. except for his extreme ways song in the bourne identity, i don't like any of his other schtuff. and hello! fatboy slim got christopher walken to dance in his weapon of choice video.
a couple of other cage filmed sets with mounted camera include sugar ray's fly and lionel richie's dancing on the ceiling. but you will find neither vanilla nor cheese embedded on this blog post.
alright, perhaps i shouldn't bash lionel richie too hard as this music was a part of my formative years in the 80s. and he was a member of the commodores.
2 comments:
Inception was great and would have been amazing to work on. That Fred Astaire routine is quite something too. All one take.
there'll never be anyone like fred astaire and gene kelly again. multi-talented individuals: actors, singers, dancers and choreographers. quite something indeed.
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