Sky Captain set visit

CHUD’s Smilin’ Jack Ruby has posted the first part of his report on a visit to the set of CGI-live action hybrid Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As well as an account of even more eye-popping scenes of Golden Age-style giant robots creating mayhem than we saw in the trailer, the report includes a long interview with producer John Avnet, who is clearly impressed with the possibilities offered by modern technology.

Q: I assume it’s been a huge learning curve for you as far as digital filmmaking…

Jon: Yes, enormous. My level of experience prior to this was very small, mostly at the Sundance labs where I’ve worked with young filmmakers.

Q: Do you think it’s the way forward then?

Jon: The next film I’m going to shoot is going to be on film. There will probably be elements I do digitally, but as I said, it is my belief that fairly shortly, you’re going to have enough one’s and zero’s that you’ll be able to mimic film. I don’t know how quickly you’ll be able to plug in a card and say, ‘Laszlo Kovacs’ or ‘Peter Biziou’ and shoot the way they would shoot stuff. One of the things we do here that I think we do at a high, high level - I can’t say it’s better than anywhere else - is a lot of the lighting is done here. It’s done digitally. Now, I did that in Red Corner when I shot in China for a little while and shot Richard Gere on a roof in America and had it changed from back light to front light and they just painted out the light, but never have I seen it done to this level where some of the shots of Gwyneth are stunning. They’re flat light! That’s not interesting, that’s amazing. Does it make a movie? In my opinion, no. It doesn’t make a movie, but it gives you this control that’s amazing. What’s it mean to D.P.’s? Who’s the D.P.? Is it the guy who shoots it live? Is it the guy who lights it here? Is it the guy who comps it and puts the color in? I mean, it changes so many things and that’s why I say it is either a very quiet revolution or a very noisy one. Is it Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane? Who the hell knows? I doubt it. But on a technical level, there’s stuff going on here that’s going to change the way things are done.

It’s still way too early for anyone to know whether this is going to be a hollow, SFX-laden crapfest or a Raiders of the Lost Ark-quality homage to the age of Buck Rodgers, but the trailer certainly looks the part and I like all the lead actors. Whilst it’s impossible to judge minor details like the quality of the script and the work of the first-time director this far out, I’m going to choose to be quietly optimistic for now…