Dive into the riveting world of cinematic evolution in this episode of Don't Encourage Us. Join your fearless hosts with their characteristic wit and insight, and explore the technological milestones that transformed cinema over 130 years. From the introduction of sound and color to the rise of CGI and AR, they unravel how each innovation reshaped storytelling. This episode is a treasure trove for film enthusiasts and tech aficionados alike, offering a rare glimpse into the past, present, and future of movie magic.
Dive into the riveting world of cinematic evolution in this episode of Don't Encourage Us. Join your fearless hosts with their characteristic wit and insight, and explore the technological milestones that transformed cinema over 130 years. From the introduction of sound and color to the rise of CGI and AR, they unravel how each innovation reshaped storytelling. This episode is a treasure trove for film enthusiasts and tech aficionados alike, offering a rare glimpse into the past, present, and future of movie magic.
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Speaker 1: It makes me think of a documentary I saw recently about the Mona Lisa. So they've been using a lot of advanced technology. I think it's, they're called spectrographs, I believe, that can see within a painting, underneath the varnish layers and like the, you know, over time paintings get worn down, the color gets more and more dull.
So then I saw the way the Mona Lisa was supposed to look originally. And how all the colors were so vibrant, the blues really stood out. It looks like a completely different painting. So there's been a lot of controversy around, you know, should the Mona Lisa be restored?
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dawning Courageous, the show where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds.
Books, movies, TV shows, video games, nothing's off limits. I'm your host Paris. I'm here with my co host Nicole. How you doing today? Doing great Paris. How are you? All right, great as always keeping things simple. So our special topic today We're gonna talk a little bit about advances in film. We're coming up on about a hundred and thirty years of cinema So we thought we'd do a little retrospective and cover it all today.
Maybe 20 minute episode. What are you thinking?
Speaker 1: I think so at this rate 20 minutes, you were supposed to start 20 minutes ago. So I think this is a good way to, uh, to keep things tight.
Speaker 2: Worst episode ever, I'm calling it now,
Speaker 1: but most downloaded.
Speaker 2: So do the math on that reason. People like train wrecks. So yeah, if you enjoy rubbernecking stick around because this one's going to get bloody, I think, uh, but before we get into that, uh, anything interesting you came across this week?
Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually this week I saw a movie called The Covenant with Jake Gyllenhaal. It was about, um, translators in Afghanistan in their relationship to U. S. Army soldiers. It was a really well done movie. It was really atmospheric. It wasn't overacted. There were some great action scenes in there, and it was a really good character study between a translator and then the actual sergeant who he's assigned to.
And how dangerous it really is in Afghanistan and how they're constantly fighting the Taliban and how like every second anything could happen, you know, an IED or an attack on the road, whatever it may be. And also like the trust and bond that they have to really create because it's so easy for the translators to get caught up in having their family, let's say, kidnapped while they're working for the Americans.
And they're giving the location of the Americans to the Taliban, and it just becomes this kind of cat and mouse game between those groups. Oh, wow. And the alliances in Afghanistan between, let's say, the regular people, whether they're, what side they're on, you never really know. So it was a really, really great movie, really well done, and really, like I said, subtle acting.
It wasn't overacted and the soundtrack was really good too. Very unexpected. So I really recommend that one. When did that come out? I think it came out earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if that was his, I did a Spider Man movie, so now I get to pick other good movies. Or if he just generally makes good movies and doesn't go for the high budget stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I think, I think with him. He always seems to choose really, really good roles where, yeah, he's at the center because he's the star, but at the same time, there was long swaths of this movie where he's, there's no spoken dialogue because he gets injured during one point and the translator has to take care of him and take him across, basically across Afghanistan and avoid the Taliban.
I
Speaker 2: can see why the soundtrack would have a chance to shine. And the
Speaker 1: cinematography. Yeah, I really like movies like that, that really tell a story very visually. And there's not so much exposition and it just kind of flows very naturally that way. Because sometimes, you know, sometimes war movies become like characters yelling at each other constantly.
They're in the middle of battles nonstop. Then any downtime, they're always getting to know each other better. But it's always so many different characters, which makes it kind of difficult to follow. But with this, since it's really centered on those two. It really worked.
1-top-advances-in-film-tech-second-pass-with-music: Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could see how that film could get boring, if it isn't edited and cut and it doesn't flow very well, but it sounds like they did a great
1-top-advances-in-film-tech-second-pass-with-music: job
Speaker 1: with that.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I was really impressed. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it. I didn't know if it would be your, your typical war film, just action packed, but it was more a character study. I think more along the lines of really something like Oniara with action, you know,
Speaker 2: mixed in. Well, speaking of technologies, should we roll into some of the major advances in cinema?
You ready for that one? So give me a quick summary of 130 years ago.
Speaker 1: 130 years in 30 seconds. I think this is going to be like an Instagram reel. Um, Technicolor, the intro of sound, widescreen, the steadicam, CGI. digital cameras, high definition, so that would include 3D and IMAX, um, motion capture technology, which was used extensively in things like the Lord of the Rings and also obviously video games, um, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Those are the, the main ones that have come along that have really made an impact.
Speaker 2: Which one's the best?
Speaker 1: I think the best one are my favorite, the introduction of sound. The modern movie. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That makes sense. You have a podcast. Right? I can
Speaker 1: see why you would like that. It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Good. So what, what about this topic, uh, jumped out to you?
Like what made you want to dive into this stuff a little bit more?
Speaker 1: Well, I think we've been talking so much about what's happening with AI technology and modern cinema. And also the writer's strike and how AI is going to affect the future that I thought maybe taking a little look at some of the technology that got us to this point would be interesting because I think it's something that we really take for granted.
Everyone expects to go see a movie. It's going to be color. The sound is going to be amazing. It's going to have all the elements in place. And there was a time when that just wasn't so where movies just weren't edited in the way that we're used to seeing them and all those things had to happen at a certain point in history.
And I'll come together to get us to this point. So I thought it would be, it would be interesting to touch on that topic since we're interested in technology and hopefully our, our audience is interested to, I don't
Speaker 2: know. I'll ask my mom later. Uh, no, that makes a lot of sense. Uh, since we're talking a lot about the future, it makes sense to pause and take a look back.
So you started with, I think, uh, Technicolor in the 1920s. Is that, or are we going to start with the invention? Uh, cinema, uh, was it 1890s? Yeah. What's a logical
Speaker 1: spot there for you? I think Edison and the Lumiere brothers and how they were able to create cameras and projectors. I thought that was, I mean, that, that type of technology is so fascinating because they weren't at 24 frames a second.
So everything was so jumpy in the beginning,
Speaker 2: you know? Yeah. Very choppy. Not, not as immersive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always wonder, you know, what it was like in that time for people going to the cinema. For the first time, right? You, you go into a movie theater and really the first, the first films were just really fast black and white images on the screen, completely choppy.
There was really no, no real acting involved beyond like exaggerated movements on the screen. And then that had to event eventually develop into some sort of modern acting like we know now, and then getting into the introduction of sound. I think that was a, a really big one.
Speaker 2: It's probably a curious process from a psychological perspective of if you could somehow figure out when and how it grabbed creative people as a technology and they thought I could tell a really cool story with it, or I could entertain people with this device with this tool.
You know, and what those people were like, like why that occurred to them, why more and more people got on board with that and it drew them in and then how it became a team process increasingly, like more and more people are involved in order to create it because that's definitively had a big impact on movie storytelling in general, not just with movies and it really, in a way, goes back to the nature of the technology and use of the time.
So anyway, I think you were jumping on board with, uh, what did you say, sound? Is that where we're at? Yeah. The
Speaker 1: introduction of sound in movies with the jazz singer in 1927. So that was synchronized sound, which was a really, a really big deal for the time because before then, like I said, it was just exaggerated movement on screen and there was really no, no flow to everything.
And I think there's one here that I think it should be on the list, but isn't, but modern editing techniques. The way we watch a film now is so different than you see real life. And there's so much, so many gaps that are getting filled by your mind between scenes. You're not following a character all the way through in real time.
You're, you're seeing parts of their lives. They're walking through the door and suddenly they're in a kitchen. And then you could cut to another scene that's in a completely different place. As long as you establish where they are, your mind just fills in the gaps in terms of time. Very interesting how that happens to us.
So second nature. I wonder what it was like when you first saw something like that during the invention of, of movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting idea. You know, at what point did an audience, a typical audience member's mind fill in those gaps and stop being surprised? You know, if somebody is in one place in one scene and then they're in a different place, maybe far away in another scene.
And the audience member wasn't like, Whoa, like at some point, you know, they were not surprised. Um, so I don't know. Yeah. That, I don't know that I've ever heard anyone address that really like the evolution of the psychology of the observer, the, the average audience member, the typical audience member for films, because a lot of these innovations.
Uh, or they are largely reliant on the psychology of the audience evolving, right? The stuff doesn't really work or make sense if audience members don't get used to it on some level. So yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know modern editing styles. Would you call it that or would you would you make it more about the equipment available or The storytelling like the culture of the storytelling.
What do you think is the key factor there?
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of trial and error in terms of in Of an editor really figuring out how can these two concepts work together and really understanding how the mind works in terms of, like we were talking about how you fill in those gaps in a non jarring way, you know, like, like, can you.
There's only a few ways that you can switch perspective before it's so jarring that the person doesn't really know where they are It's very disoriented and disorienting. Yeah, you know, yeah, but we take all of this for granted and now, you know What I've noticed a lot with you know, tik etc. It seems like people's minds are being retrained especially with vlogging The way things are edited so quickly, and it seems like audiences now really accept editing styles that are much more jarring, that shouldn't really make sense, because they're trying to piece together a story based on some type of long form content, and, you know, modern editing software, where you can edit with like a Google Doc, you know, like something like Descript, For instance, you can create a story in a way you wouldn't normally create a story and it seems to work and people get very used to it.
But if you compared it to classic editing, which is much more linear, now they're skipping all of that and just jumping from location to location and even chopping sentences together where it's obviously happening. And it's, it's not that much of a big deal. So I wonder how that's going to work moving forward.
If that's just going to become the new norm. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: that's a really interesting concept. There's a phrase that people use sometimes when they talk about older films, they talk about letting a scene breathe. Like giving it some spot, some space, some time, some silence and letting, letting the, uh, audience member absorb it a little bit more.
I think you were maybe touching on this unintentionally or indirectly when you were talking about the covenant, but I think a lot of what people think of when they are, what they mean when they talk about that is what you're talking about now. Right? So when. A scene is cut very tightly or short or choppy or whatever you want to call it, your brain has to work harder and it's a little bit tiring, a little bit stressful, I think, especially if you're not used to it, but in films from, I don't know, not to pick on any particular era, but the seventies or the sixties, right?
Some of the really Famous, really popular films have scenes that you could almost say drag by today's standards. Like they go on, there's lots and lots happening there, you know, they're much longer there. Uh, they, there's gaps between the dialogue, you know, the action develops in a way that's more consistent with real life or the, the drama does.
And I imagine psychologically, your brain doesn't have to work quite as hard. And you can be, you sort of flow along with it, which has a very different internal feel to watching like, uh, uh, an Instagram reel, you know, where it's like, boom, boom, boom, the person's trying to cover the top 10, you know, sites to see in a foreign city.
If you have one day and it's like chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, you know, they even cut off their own words at the end a little bit. And your brain has to kind of watch it a couple times to piece it together or just gets a certain percentage and moves on. And that may keep you engaged, but I suspect your brain's working harder.
So it's a very, very different feel, different expectation from the audience or different amount of work that they're doing different types of work. So, yeah, I think that's probably. really, uh, an underlying aspect of the evolution of film that's driven in part by technology, no doubt. And do you
Speaker 1: think we're going to go back to that?
That style of filmmaking more or do you think it's filmmaking based on specific regions like you might say French cinema For instance has been that type of editing where things are much more Documentary style you're observing these characters in their in their environment without a lot of you know cuts or You know effects or even music in a lot of in a lot of movies
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
I think it often depends on the content. So for some content, people will continue to lean into this choppy kind of not choppy. I hate to label it that way because it's so derisive, but like sort of quick cuts, right? Fast paced high engagement, make your brain work to fill in the blanks as quickly as possible.
Like some content is well suited for that and other content is not. And I don't think all creators, uh, you know, directors, editors, I don't know that they always understand what's best for their content and sort of building on that. A lot of what you mentioned before, a lot of these advancements in film are suited really well for.
Some types of technology or some types of, you know, approaches to editing or storytelling much more so than others. For example, like a movie like out of Africa is well suited for your really super widescreen formats and your, you know, really high produced color and your slow, your more luxurious, let's say editing.
Because it creates this immersive environment and you don't want, uh, you don't want the whole film to feel fast paced or frenetic. It just, it's inconsistent with the script and the story that you're trying to tell and the performances and things like that. But for other content, you know, that it was, that there's a sci fi show, uh, invasion on Apple.
Some of that quick cuts makes sense. Like, you know, not having Uh, as broad visuals, not having, uh, or at least some scenes. So, I don't know, you know, comedies, often you don't, you don't need that luxurious wide screen. You don't need to take as much time with scenes. You can cut things a little bit tighter.
Uh, people are stimulated by the unexpected and the novelty. So, you don't need to spend as much time in the same visual space on screen. You don't necessarily need, I don't know, all the, like, for example, CGI isn't. It doesn't always enhance comedies particularly well, like there have been some famous attempts to bring a CGI character into comedy and that is it doesn't always really work.
So yeah, I think it's based on the story you're trying to tell and the effect you're trying to have on your audience. But I just I don't know that. Film makers or people who produce films really understand that. And sometimes they just try to lean into what's popular, what they think will sell, not necessarily what's best for the story.
I don't know. What do you
Speaker 1: think? Yeah, I've been thinking about a lot about this, you know, there's sometimes there's these logic gaps in movies, especially action movies. And I kind of see this is kind of like falling into the same. Category, the editing piece and also those logic apps, like how much do you have to explain in a movie before the audience starts questioning everything else about the movie?
You know, it's that constant balance. I think with a lot of modern films, they go lighter on the story, bigger on the effects to kind of distract the audience where maybe you couldn't have that tight of a script because you would have to really fill in. All these gaps in logic in order to really make sense.
So they just do sleight of hand in a way to distract the audience. Yeah. So I don't know. I think there's a constant battle between a really tight, cohesive storyline and then an editing style that maybe if all of that doesn't make as much sense, the storyline in itself, that you cut much faster and you try to distract the audience from those.
Those parts that may not make sense in the story. Does that make
Speaker 2: sense? Yeah, totally I mean, I think that's a part of a job of an editor You know They they do a lot of that and they need to understand the style and what type of editing most enhances Not only the total story, but the individual scene. So yeah I mean, that's why a good editor is so so critical and people often do not have an appreciation for that
Speaker 1: Yeah, the the director might have a vision of what the movie would be And they try to get too involved in the editing by keeping everything, which becomes another, another issue in and of itself.
Speaker 2: A lot of people have famously said that the editors or the editor fixed Star Wars. That it really wasn't that good of a film, but they did a great job editing it. And as a result, it became a classic. So not, it's certainly something that probably happens a lot. Now I'm sure the opposite happens. And there's been a lot of, um, discussion in the last few years, again, about director's cuts.
You know, that was something that I think originally was a little bit to appease some directors, but more of just a way to cash in on a popular film. It's like, Hey, here's a slightly different version with a few more minutes or whatever. So you already paid to see it, pay to see it again or buy it again or whatever.
But I think lately it's been more of a, Hey, this movie is terrible. Release a different version of it. So yeah, definitely. I think there's a. Uh, synergy that needs to happen between editing and directing around the vision of something and both people need to be willing to set their egos aside and there and kill darlings just like writers have to do.
I
Speaker 1: had never really thought about it before, but that director's cut is just simply implying that the director knows best, right? In that, in that realm, they're a great director of scenes, but they're also a great editor of those scenes, but that's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 2: Right. No, absolutely. I mean, one of my all time favorite movies is Aliens.
And James Cameron, you know, uh, put together a version of that. I think he, he and his partner were involved together somewhat in the editing, but they, they released a, I mean, hugely popular film when it came out, but later there was a release of a, of extended cuts that added back scenes. And those scenes I think are great.
You know, they add so much to the story. They're fun. There's a famous scene in particular with automatic guns or automated guns, the turrets, uh, that's really intense and dramatic and, you know, great addition to the film. But if you look at the movie as a whole. I actually have come around to the idea that the original theatrical cut is better because even though I want more because it's such a great film, like give me more of this great film, the theatrical cut moves better.
You know, they sacrifice some really solid stuff in order to just keep that pace up and that intensity and it works. It works better. So it's an art. Editing is an art for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, um, I've read that Hitchcock was really famous for storyboarding the entire movie before it was shot. So when he would get on set, he'd know exactly how it should look on screen.
So there was just this direct, you know, you take the storyboard, he'd apply whatever he had in that storyboard to that scene and that was it. Once that was done, it was done. So it was almost like he, he created the film before shooting. The first take, which is pretty, wow,
Speaker 2: that must've been a challenge with birds, right?
You know, Hey, uh, excuse me, bird wrangler. If you look at my drawing, the seagull needs to be over there looking this way. This is randomly on the side, looking in the wrong direction. Please fix that. All right. Take 342. Let's get the seagull this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine that would have been a problem, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet his storyboards are like a really nice drawing of a person and then just the word birds written all around them, right? There's no way to predict
Speaker 1: You don't know how he's gonna be that day on set either Yeah, I heard the same thing about back to the future that it was just really really heavily storyboarded.
Yeah
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I wonder sometimes with that amount of outlining and pre work if it makes it better You know, I think sometimes when you do a lot of preparation, you get a better product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, I would agree with that, except for the fact that it doesn't leave that organic piece when, when the movie is being filmed, you know, like it's been thought through, but I'm sure if you're on set, there's going to be changes that you might want to make.
But if you're so stringent on the way a movie should be shot from the get go. Then that could be an issue unless you like to take a lot of extra shots, you know, like once you get that key shot, then you can play around with the rest. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: the thinking behind it, depending on the filmmakers ability to hold information in their mind.
Like some people have that ability to just hold so much and work with it. And maybe some directors are better at that than others, and they're able to, to assemble things and reassemble them multiple times over the course of a day in their head. No problem. So then they, maybe they have more flexibility or less as a result, um, because they're doing that.
I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Robert Rodriguez is also, you know, really famous for, for him editing, shooting the film, writing it. Doing the soundtrack and understanding how all those pieces work together. So he's able to create movies much, much faster than your typical filmmaker would. And that gets him money more often, you know, or for his passion projects, because they know that they can be profitable with his movies because he takes care of so many pieces of the puzzle.
And he can shoot so quickly because he can do faster setups because he has it all, all planned out. So he understands every part of that process, which is really rare, you know, typically directors, the director, he's now not a sound designer, the film composer, also a cameraman, also the guy doing the storyboards writing.
I mean, like, it's just really unique. You know, I don't think there are that many directors like that nowadays. Who aren't outsourcing a lot of parts of the production. It's hard. Yeah, like impossibly hard, right?
Speaker 2: It's really hard.
Speaker 1: Anything else on
Speaker 2: that? No, I think those are all excellent points. What else you got?
The
Speaker 1: Steadicam. So, this allowed people or filmmakers to create much more fluid and dynamic shots. And it was, an early use of it was the uh, the stair scene, the staircase scene in Rocky. Or he's running up the stairs. So before then, you know, there was a lot of handheld shaky camera work that was happening in films.
Which is kind of interesting because now it seems that we've gone back to that in a lot of ways. Like the documentary style film, what was that film about that alien invasion? Cloverfield? Where it was that handheld Shaky camera. Some people don't like that at all, but I was curious to, uh, what you thought of the steady cam and in general, is it something that you notice a lot in movies or does it take you out of the scene or does it really put you in a scene?
You know, is it obvious to you that it's happening or or not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an interesting one to me. I think it gives the audience member who's not super used to it as a lot of people are now, but it gives like a sensation of flying. Mm You know, that I don't think they're necessarily aware of. And it also separates movies from life.
In a way that elevates them or at least used to, right? So this, this idea that you could go out and you could film with a camcorder back in the day and like, or a super eight camera and make your own movie, right? One thing that always made low budget, let's say, or, or homemade. Film stand out and seem like a completely different animal than a cinema or high quality TV action film or any, any kind of movie, uh, movie or, or production that had action to it is that steady cam.
Right. That like smooth, sweeping motion, it draws you in as an audience member if you're not used to it. But then I guess after 20 years of that or 30 years of that, it became kind of commonplace. And then people got more interested in like this idea of, well, what if it wasn't? A steadicam. What if you weren't so unconsciously aware that you were watching a movie, right?
How would that affect things? And with like horror or, you know, action adventure, it's, it sort of gave people who were now used to the steadicam, the sensation of now running along, you know, being part of the action being maybe more vulnerable to what's happening. Like you're more in danger instead of you're just sort of like in a dream.
You know, flying along and watching these things happen. So, yeah, I think the steady cam is a big one for the impact of film. And it's, it's interesting that only after, what, 30 years or so, there was a little bit of a reversal or the reintroduction of the not so steady cam, the shaky cam.
Speaker 1: Mm-Hmm. , the steady cam is, is an interesting one.
'cause I find myself getting pulled out of the action sometimes when it's used too much. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It doesn't feel like I'm in the action anymore. It feels like I'm watching a movie and that's distracting to me. More than the steadicam for me now are drone shots where I instantly get pulled out of the action, even though what I'm being shown is really, really interesting.
Let's say like in that covenant movie. There's drone shots of like Afghanistan, the mountains, the characters within that, the, uh, the terrorists within those mountain passes, but it's so obvious that it was shot with the drone that I just think of the drone flying. In the air. And then I think, Oh, it's a
Speaker 2: movie.
I do too. I thought that was just me. No, that's so funny. You know, like in, in the beginning of horror movies, when they're driving through the woods on that, like one road, and then that you have the drone shot directly overhead of the vehicle. I always think drone drone, like every time they
1-top-advances-in-film-tech-second-pass-with-music: do
Speaker 1: stuff like that, it really takes me out of the action.
But I'd rather not have it, but I understand why they're doing it to show you, you know, in the case of that movie, the, the vast landscape and how far the characters have to travel before they
Speaker 2: get to civilization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly. Before drones or steady cams or even helicopter shots being used regularly in film, you would just do very long distance, you know, shots of, of the characters in a landscape.
Which I feel is grounds me a lot more so I'm, I'm where the, that character is, you know, I can't escape it either. So I'm just watching from a distance and I can see how long they have to travel and there's other ways to do it. But yeah, I think the drone shot is extremely distracting for me unless I'm watching a, you know, really high paced action film.
Speaker 2: It is distracting. But to my earlier point, I think there are. Types of content, or there are stories that can make use of that technology. But like a lot of other things like 3d, I think it's overused or misused, right? So it's not like drones are bad. It's that you really need to stop and think about how your audience is going to react to a drone shot or drone shots, and then decide if that's the reaction you want.
Not just think that it gets the image you want, you know, alone is only consider that or budgetary constraints or wouldn't it be cool, right? It's part of evoking a reaction from your audience. And I don't know that all filmmakers really consider that. So, yeah, that's a great one. Drone shots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I almost feel like in a lot of ways for a really creative filmmaker.
To put the camera close to the characters or tight in on the characters is a lot more challenge challenging in general because you have to have a great actor or actress in that role and you have to, you know, you get that feeling of claustrophobia, but also you get a feeling where you as the viewer are there with that character.
So even if it's, you know, in the example that I gave before, you know, characters traveling vast distances through Afghanistan, I wonder how that movie would have changed. If there were no drone shots whatsoever, and it was all just the camera was with them, and you couldn't really see over the horizon.
You couldn't really see that there were miles and miles to go. Does that make you feel more like there are many miles to go, because you have no idea how far you have to
Speaker 2: You feel what they're feeling, you know, a panning, a circular panning shot, you know, that was an old style where they would just look and the camera would look in all directions relatively slowly.
And then you would get this sense of like, as an audience member, I have no idea how long this is going to go on. Like they are going to be stuck in this desert for a very long time. They are all alone. There's nowhere for us to go. We're going to run out of water. Right. But with a drone shot. It's a very different response.
So, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Another one here is technicolor, like this idea of taking movies from black and white, moving them into color. And this was a, this is a process that was invented in the 1920s, 1930s, and it just changed cinema completely. In terms of how people reacted to movies, how people, people saw themselves interacting with movies.
Because before it was just, you know, black and white, which was completely unrealistic. And then that started the whole color film revolution, and then eventually color TVs, etc. So that was a, a big one. But it's something we take for granted now. And now we're seeing movies that have been shot in black and white intentionally.
Movies like Schindler's List comes to mind. Which makes it even more powerful. The fact that it's black and white and makes it almost timeless color film has changed so much since its invention, you know, a movie from the seventies is from the seventies. Because of the way it looks but a black and white movie can can last forever But it's kind of interesting how we always go back, right?
We go from steadicam to shaky cam we go to color film to black and white So do you think it has that effect or is it for some people? It's distracting this idea of having a modern day movie shot in black and white I think it doesn't have the same effect as a as a color movie But I think it's if it's done well, it's it works
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're, um, suggesting that it gives it a bit of a timeless quality and it makes it feel like the past to some extent.
Um, so those two pieces can be really impactful in a movie that's intended to, especially with a somber tone, like some movies that are supposed to be a little bit. Depressing, I guess, or down, then that use of black and white can be very powerful, I think, because the audience member is inherently less stimulated.
And so they are paying close attention or they sort of settle into a mode where they are paying close attention and their, their brain is willing to work a little bit harder. So I think that's true, but it, it also sets it in the past, you know, it sort of feels like, well, this is a past event. So I think that there are.
Types of stories for which black and white still makes a lot of sense. Uh, it doesn't always draw the biggest audience because it isn't the, you know, the marketing materials aren't going to be as inherently stimulating and engaging. So that's a challenge. But if word of mouth can overcome that, I think it's a great use.
You also didn't mention colorization. All right, so taking something black and white and then colorizing it, which was a, it was a Ted Turner was like pushing that was around the turn of the century. Yeah. So that was like his big thing to take, uh, what I, I guess he thought were, well, Turner classic films and.
Make them more broadly appealing, right? Modernize them instead of making them timeless. So it's almost a reverse. So I do think there is value. I think Peter Jackson did a documentary not too long ago where he colored a lot of world war one footage. Uh, what is it? They'll never grow old or something like that, but that was very well received.
Uh, and then a use of color. Or the absence of color, I think works based largely partially on the technology and also partially on or maybe even more largely on the type of content. And again, I don't know that everybody really considers the psychological impact on an audience before they make these choices about technology.
So, yeah. Good another good
Speaker 1: example. Yeah, it makes me think of a documentary. I saw recently about the Mona Lisa. So they've been using a lot of Advanced technology. I think it's they're called Spectrographs, I believe that can see within a painting underneath the varnish layers and like the over time Paintings get worn down the color gets more and more dull So then I saw the finished version or the original the way the Mona Lisa was supposed to look originally And how all the colors were so vibrant, the blues really stood out.
It looks like a completely different painting. So, so there's been a lot of controversy around, you know, should the Mona Lisa be restored? And would it really still be the Mona Lisa in the sense that people see her now? And I just was really fascinated. There is no answer. What should they do? In my opinion, I think they should leave it.
But some, you know, historians think that they should really make it look the way it originally was intended to look. You know, I don't think they're ever going to go that route. So what we have is this like, maybe like kind of rendering of what it should look like, but it's so inherently different than the, than the one that, that we know today.
So I wonder that's, you know, another good question, right? This kind of goes along the lines of colorization. Like, if it was shot in black and white, should it just stay black and white? Should old footage just stay the way it is, you know? Is that its historical value? Or is this new colorized version bringing much more emotion to, to that footage?
Speaker 2: Okay, first stupid question. Why not make both just have the original Mona Lisa and then make a version a Copy that looks like it did when it was first made and then hang them next to each other and let people decide When they want to stare at is there a reason not to do that in museums? I know
Speaker 1: that's a good question I guess we could do it for every old painting, right?
Speaker 2: I mean you could write So anytime there's a new exhibit if a museum wants to draw in a lot of visitors, why not just say well We actually have both We have a reproduction of what it looked like when it was relatively new. So you can, um, absorb it or, or view it the way audiences did, or way perhaps the original creator intended.
Uh, and you can look at the way it looks now and absorb it that way. I guess that's what inherently distasteful to art critics or people who have a love for art the way it is now. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, I think it's along the same lines of keeping buildings in their original state. You know as as landmarks how much before the building changes so much that it's not Anywhere close to the original but you call it Mona Lisa plus like Disney Plus
Speaker 2: You can only view it if you pay the subscription like it's just invisible through your glasses Uh, other question is, I feel like you're drifting into making a point potentially or dangerously close to making a point about using technology to update the look of films.
So you take a 1950s film and then you run it through some sort of AI algorithm and what spits out is a widescreen, fully, you know, proper color, 3D, whatever, you know, Smell O Vision version, right, 4DX, you know, all that kind of stuff. So. You could do that. You could take pretty much any old movie. Wizard of Oz, right?
Let's just take Wizard of Oz and you could say, all right, so the first part is black and white, but it's going to be crystal clear. It's super high def, right? So it's going to look amazing. We're going to digitally And it's going to be, uh, maybe it'll be a narrow format or some weird kind of letterbox style.
And then when they land in Oz and the color comes in, it'll be crystal clear, top of the line, you know, latest color. Style, right? It'll look crisp, high def. The screen format will change. It'll be like a different shape for the screen to, you know, whatever you want to evoke in the audience. You can throw in smells and three D, you know, sweaty dwarves or whatever you could do.
Sorry, you could do all of that. Is that bad? Is it bad to have both versions? You know, people who want to watch the original wizard of Oz can watch it at two o'clock at the 2pm showing and people who want the completely up to date version of it can watch it at the 5pm showing. Right. Is there a problem with that?
What do you, I don't really think there's a
Speaker 1: problem if, like you said, there's an audience for both. And that could be the case for art, right? You bring up an interesting point, you know, the big, the big debate is whether they should do that or not. Or if they have a computer rendering of the Mona Lisa, is that good enough?
You know, like you don't have to touch the original. The original just stands the way it is. And then we have versions. I mean, I think it would make for an interesting exhibition at museums, right? Like the new colorized version or the, you know, the updated version of a specific. Painting or a series of paintings, like let's say Renaissance era art, what it should look like now in technology allows you to do that.
So why not, why not use that? You know, it doesn't have to become part of a permanent exhibit. It could just be something that people can look at.
Speaker 2: Right. And then it's what's in the garbage can in the alley after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like a Banksy or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting debate. I'd be curious from anyone listening to this, like, what would you prefer? Would you rather they just leave old films alone? Just leave them the way they are or are just ages. Let it age. Uh, would you rather them? Recreate a, you know, the same thing, but with modern technology.
So you get to see that and then maybe shelves the old version, or do you want both, right? I don't know. I think it's a really interesting, probably says a lot about the person, you know, what they, what they want to see. And I also, again, to my sort of now point that I keep going back to is it probably also depends on the content, right?
There are certain movies that would be amazing. If they did a complete update on it, and it was super high def, you know, 4k, 8k,
Speaker 1: yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's room for these advances or using technology to have different versions of things. I don't think that hurts the original, but who knows? Maybe purists would say it really changes the game and you shouldn't be doing it, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Well, and the question then is, first of all, is there money in it? Second of all, who is making these decisions, right? Are you gonna, is this George Lucas redoing the original trilogy and adding more random special effects and screwing up the pacing of his own film? Like, is this, you know, like, or is this someone who has a true appreciation?
For a 1950s film and spending the time and energy to figure out what the director intended, what the original edit accomplished, you know, how audiences have changed since then, and then using modern technology judiciously. To create something. But again, it's, it's a, it's very much like the Mona Lisa. That was an excellent example, right?
Somebody who looked at the Mona Lisa around the time it was created, had it probably a very different experience than someone who looks at the Mona Lisa now. Uh, and which do you want to experience? What do you want to capture? How would a viewer decide that? I don't know. Yeah. It's a, it's probably a very long.
Very complicated process to take a successful film and turn it into something that is modernized, but accomplishes the same goal so that that is probably so sophisticated and so difficult that it isn't financially worth doing. It's probably better to take that level of creative energy and finance and put it into a new movie.
Speaker 1: And, you know, another point being that is, you know. If you go and colorize something or you update it, does it take you out of that time and place completely? Like now you're experiencing something completely different, something that feels modern, kind of like we were talking about with the drone shot where it's taking you out of that era.
Let's say colorizing Citizen Kane or modernizing Citizen Kane is what makes Citizen Kane. And adding drone shots. Adding drone shots and Steadicam. Is, is Citizen Kane. You know, Citizen Kane, because it's of that era, and it's had all those decades to kind of become this legend. So when you take the original and you modernize it, would it be as good?
Whereas when you're watching it, you're like, oh wow, it's, I'm in the 1940s
Speaker 2: now, you know? Right, right. Or does it need a Star Destroyer? Or Jar Jar Binks? Or a dragon
Speaker 1: of some sort, right? Who knows? Exactly.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Be curious to find out. But I think you're absolutely right. Like maybe it's, I think, well, the combination of what we're saying is there is a unique experience to watching Citizen Kane and financially and creatively, maybe it's better to just leave it and do some basic things to make sure people can continue to watch it on modern technology, but really minimal on that front.
And then if somebody has the creative energy and the vision to do something amazing, make something new.
Speaker 1: Right. I think that debate will go on for a long time, especially as technology progresses or it gets cheaper and easier to do these types of modernizations to old films or old content.
Speaker 2: You know, I've thought this for a while, and I know we're talking about the past, but just to briefly touch on the future, I think at some point, a lot of these films are going to be remade to be more immersive, right?
It's going to be, you put on your little goggles, your VR, AR, whatever you want to call it, goggles, or you walk into a, you know, a holodeck and essentially Citizen Kane, you can stand in the same room, you can look in any direction, you know, you can choose The angle that you want to view what's happening.
Right. And I do think a lot of cloud, like wizard of Oz would be great for that. You know, I mean, imagine like you're in this amazing Oz environment and yeah, Dorothy's chatting with some lion over there, but you can look all around the woods and see other details that have been added. You can follow the path a little bit on your own and move away from.
Those annoying people talking or whatever, you know? Uh, so I do think someday that will be the case. I do not know if they will bother to go back to old classics and try to integrate them, uh, instead of just creating new things or maybe, you know, but most likely
Speaker 1: they'll do both. So do you think something like AR technology, which is one of the other technological advances on the list here, do you think?
AR technology will be used in film where there's a plot going on in where you're immersed in the world of the plot, or will it be used completely differently like a Sims type of environment where you're walking around and interacting with characters and what would be more, you know, fulfilling for an audience?
You'd essentially you see what I'm getting at like you're essentially changing the nature of film where you're a spectator and now you're in that world. Do you necessarily have to follow those characters in their plot line? Or is that world a world where you're creating your own plot line? Or would you have a hybrid?
Speaker 2: It's probably better to talk about that through the, or through the lens of storytelling instead of cinema. So storytelling predates cinema and will post dated, I guess, or continue long after people do not go to a theater and sit down and watch a movie or put something on a flat screen in their home and then get up when it's done.
So as it evolves over time, storytelling, I think. Immersion will be an important key component. I mean, I think that's been, you know, a storyteller has tried to engage his audience and all their senses and immerse them into the story that that storyteller is telling. So I think the use of technology will just follow that through line, right?
And it'll enhance it. And so there's a lot of value. I think the example you use is basically, so somebody wants to, I'm just going to use my favorite movie, right? Or one of my favorites. So aliens, right? Is a, a pretty great story and there's a lot happening, uh, that you follow very closely as an audience member through essentially a camera lens, but if it was a world.
And you could walk around in that world more freely and view either the scenes from the film from whatever angle you want, or you could wander around the complex or the planet and explore other things that are happening. You would probably consume that story, so to speak, uh, multiple times because it's richer and there's more that's exciting.
If you wanted to, you could just put it on sort of auto. You know, hypothetically in the future and then it would select where you're viewing things from there would probably be a continuum between total freedom and auto and you know, somewhere along that line closer to auto would be like, yeah, you can turn your head and look around and you're not always, you might miss a closeup or you might, you know, not hear something as clearly that's important, or you may not have the same impact.
Uh, but you'd have a little bit more freedom to explore. And my guess would be that people would probably usually just consume things on auto. And if they loved something, they would get really excited about wandering and exploring other elements, right? You know, Oh, it's actually really cool. If you go to the hive and just watch the queen.
Laying drone eggs and commanding it or whatever because they've added some really cool stuff there or you can follow Newt when she gets lost instead of Ripley when she's looking for new and things like that so I think they're gonna be people who love a world or a story so much that they Revisited over and over from different perspectives and that option needs to be there for stories in the future That would be my prediction.
But most people will just watch it once on auto
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would watch it on auto. I also was thinking, what if you were pulled in as one of the characters, like one of the soldiers or the special forces soldiers there in inside of aliens, and the other characters are interacting with you, but you're still a spectator.
In a sense, so kind of like a, a hybrid model where you're in the perspective of, of them. You can wander off on your own, but they're wondering where you are. You know, there's, there's that type of interaction, you know, kind of like, um, you'd be playing a video game more as a spectator. Where you're drawn into the story as a character, but you're in the, you know, the visual field is the field of that particular character.
Speaker 2: I think you are making it a video game at that point, right? Because then the story has to adapt to your choices, which is, you know, what was that, a Bandersnooch or whatever, where it's like, there's early attempts at that. And it's okay. I wonder. So again, I love aliens. So your idea to me is appealing.
Great. You know, I'll play a video game where I'm a character in that movie and I make decisions and it affects the story. And I probably get killed real quick because I wandered away or got bored or whatever.
Speaker 1: What if you see through the eyes of that character and that's it. So you're a camera basically from the perspective of that character, but it's already pre programmed.
You know how
Speaker 2: that movie will. I think that's a, it's an option. I think it's a good option, but I think it's an artificially artificially there. It's all artificial. I think it's an unnecessarily limiting one, right? You know, being able to kind of kind of toggle like, Oh, I've got it on auto. Okay, now I'm going to switch to toggling between characters.
Like, I think that's fine. What does that really add? What does it take away? I don't know how active people want to be when they're told a story. Okay. I would suggest that historically not super active, otherwise their brain labels it as a
Speaker 1: game. It could be very charring, right?
Speaker 2: Like there's storytelling in games, but a lot of the time it's like, it's either a separate, what they call cut scene, you know, like you take your hands off the controls and the game just sort of, it becomes a short film, which is fine and people like that, but it's not, you're not playing in that moment and then there are other times where, yeah, they're trying to tell you a story, but it's like, you can move.
And you do have control and a lot of times people just skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, you know, or they just read it on the screen and move on because it's like you're either there's a, I think there's a mentality to that. You're either playing the game or you are being told a story. And I think that's part of the problem with that, you know, banter snooze.
Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of that one. Choose your own. No, I just don't think psychologically people want to work that hard and any kind of development of these technologies I think it's important to consider that at least well, I don't know maybe for all time But largely when people want to be told a story they want to be entertained.
They want it to be, you know, fairly passive Otherwise, they feel like it's a game and that's a different thing. Does that make
Speaker 1: sense escapism like pure escapism, right?
Speaker 2: Well, but I mean, video games have escapism, right? Just as much. But it's that how active versus passive do you want to be? And currently those are different lanes to some extent with overlap.
So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think that's a real question for maybe the next 130 years or 120 something years of Of storytelling is where is the line and how much of a blend can there be in a single project between active engagement or decision making versus passive, passively absorbing a story.
So when you have a, an, um, audience member who's, you know, somehow in a room or wearing a device that allows them to shift perspective between characters, they're making decisions. So how much are they absorbing a story? Yeah. That's a good point. I think that's an important question.
Speaker 1: Another one here I found interesting was the idea of motion capture in movies and it, and I think of Lord of the Rings for that with the orcs and how they were able to replicate the orcs and um, what's his name?
Gollum. Gollum. Yeah. That was, that was pretty amazing technology that they were able to use. But I think it's one of those advancements where if it hadn't have happened, you'd still have great. Cinema, I think some of these others that, that we've talked about, you know, they really, really advanced movies in a way that was revolutionary for its time.
I almost see this as an extension of a technology that even if you didn't have it, I don't think people would be screaming for it. Of course, you wouldn't be able to create something as, as epic as Lord of the Rings, but I don't think it would change the game in terms of the art of cinema. Maybe that's a controversial point.
What do you think? Do you think it's it's pivotal in the advancement or do you think it's something that You know, just made it easier for filmmakers to create more realistic fantasy type characters
Speaker 2: in film. I think you're hitting the nail on the head, like, my opinion is that it essentially fixed a problem, and if motion capture hadn't been developed, CGI would be used very differently, uh, and Because the motions of those, you know, like the Hulk, right?
They did a Hulk movie. Ang Lee, I think, did a Hulk movie. And I think it was important that somebody put on the suit and make the movements of the Hulk. Because otherwise, they just didn't, for a long time, look very realistic. Now, it could be that by now, they would have fixed that through other means. But it allowed for, to your point, you know, Lord of the Rings, to use more CGI.
And less or fewer practical effects because the motion of a completely computer generated character could be realistic, right? I think I just think otherwise it was janky. I don't know if you remember like early CGI, but you could spot it like 100 million miles away, not just because the shading in color was always different than the things around it.
But it was also because the movements just didn't look right. They just were, you know, awkward. Like they weren't, uh, the characters weren't pivoting, uh, in the right joints and things like that. So I think motion capture was, it was a way to make CGI work and have it be, you know, cost effective and not look stupid or cheap.
Um, I could be wrong about that, but that's, that's always been my impression of it. So I think if it hadn't been invented and perfected when it was, then it would be now maybe, or even later that we would get something like Lord of the Rings or, you know, Lord of the Rings would have had, uh, an actor with a very unique body type playing Gollum, maybe with another actor dubbing the voice, uh, and then they would have had to kind of squeeze that together, do a lot of editing and reshoots and things to make those two things combine well.
And there would have been a lot of, You know, interesting experiences for the actors and a lot to play off of and more visual cues of what to expect and, you know, so on. So I think motion capture opened a lot of doors and it made using CGI a much smoother process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree. And I think, you know, it's an advancement for specific genres, the fantasy sci fi.
You know, every other genre could really do without it, and you'd still be able to tell really powerful stories, you know, but it's cool. I mean, I'm glad it happened, but
Speaker 2: yeah, I don't know going forward when they start resurrecting dead actors. And using a version of an actor, which is essentially dead or no longer exists, like a young version of an actor.
I don't know how critical motion capture is to making that look realistic, but not to disagree, because I think you're like 99 percent correct at the moment or 99. 9%. But there may come a point in the future where, you know, Harrison Ford is in a dramatic film. And it's a, you know, Harrison Ford at 28 and there's another actor who may need motion capture.
To technology to play or to make sure that 28 year old Harrison Ford looks like a real, you know, actually more realistically, probably Mark Hamill, right? You know, having him pop up in star Wars projects because they're making a lot of TV star Wars projects that are set at a time where Luke Skywalker should still be around.
And significantly younger and Princess Leia and all these other characters and significantly younger than Mark Hamill is now. So he doesn't move the way he used to, but somebody who is closer to the age they're portraying him, who has a similar body type to the way he used to probably would slapping motion capture on that person and then digitally replacing them with a younger Mark Hamill is probably.
The, the most efficient way to do that. I'm not trying to say it's a good thing or a bad thing. I just wonder how much motion capture technology, you know, will play a role in resurrecting versions of actors that no longer exist. It could be a lot,
Speaker 1: especially with AI
Speaker 2: changing everything. Yeah. But I mean, that's the thing is I don't know if maybe AI can do that now, you know, maybe you can make a completely.
Uh, three dimensional, uh, CGI character, and maybe now they do move properly. Maybe you wouldn't be able to see that as clearly. I don't know. Yeah, I guess time will tell. And also deepfake, deepfake is different than motion capture. So maybe there's a technology that supplants motion capture as the preference.
Speaker 1: So out of all of these that we've talked about, what do you think is the most significant advancement?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Um, I would say if you're talking about cinema in theaters, it would probably be widescreen formats because I think the introduction of that, it became so standardized. It's not debated.
It hasn't been replaced. Like there was no point where they were like, let's make movies back into little square boxes. You know, I know that with TV that happens, uh, and with comp, you know, watching movies on your computer and things like that, but I think when they introduced this idea of a widescreen format, it became a defining element of film, you know, it, it elevated the experience and nobody fought back against it to my knowledge, right?
It wasn't something that like, it became so normal that if you see a movie and it's not widescreen, your brain's like, this isn't a movie. You know, like early stuff with iPhones and things like that. And again, maybe that technology will reverse this and I'll have to eat my words. But I think at the present time as a, you know, when an audience member sees something presented in that widescreen format or one of the widescreen formats, it's, you switch into, this is a movie mode.
This is cinema. Yeah. Right. That's where that word cinema really rings true. So I would say that was probably the biggest advancement. I mean, obviously you could make arguments like, well, the camera. Sure. Yeah, obviously. And the technology that allows for sound and color and those things are huge. But I just to me, widescreen stands out as not always appreciated.
You know, it's now it's just taken for granted, but it was a massive Advancement for screen for cinema. What do you
Speaker 1: think? I was going to go way back. I mean, I really like what you're saying in terms of widescreen and the fact that we take it for granted. You know, you go to a movie that you expect to see and be completely immersed in a film.
And that's why we keep going to the movies, right. To have that immersive experience. But I think the idea of synchronized sound, how it must've been such an incredible game changer for people of the time, you know, Now, you're watching something that's so close to reality because you obviously don't know what the future is going to bring in terms of the advances where you have movies that are completely immersive and full color and the greatest sound ever.
But I just imagine myself during that time period in what that must have been like. It must have been so revolutionary, like this idea, kind of like when the Internet. Was first invented, you know, what can we do with this? Like anything is possible now, you know, now that we have this. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, that would be the biggest one.
It changed the whole game, the whole nature of, of film in general and how people consumed
Speaker 2: it. Yeah, I wonder if they hadn't developed that if you would have actors and performers at the movie theater, right, they would restructure the environment so that you have actual stage performers there. So you watch the screen.
But depending on how good the theater is, you have different actors like performing the dialogue and the music, you know, the background music and things like that. And so then it would make sense. To travel to like a major city, like, Oh, I, I'm going to go to London and hear their production of this British film, because I hear that's the best in the world.
And I love this movie. Right. I'm going to go see Aliens in, uh, you know, Omaha, Nebraska, because I hear that, you know, their production there is the best one or it's touring and that's the only place I can catch it. Right. So that would radically alter. So, you know, I think your point is totally flawed and it would be even better if they just had traveling performances and giant theater.
We'll add that one to the
Speaker 1: list. That's
Speaker 2: the next wave. Sure. And everyone, you could, it'd be the new karaoke, right? You could go do your own with your friends. Like we're going to go perform this movie. That's so funny. It would be so much fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: To the sound point, what do you think it would have been like for actors that were in these movies for such a long time without sound and then all of a sudden, let's say they weren't very good actors outside of being able to act.
And do like physical type of acting. And now they have to act in a more traditional way. And what if they sounded terrible or they, you know, they couldn't, they really couldn't act. I wonder what that shift would have been like.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that always surprises me. I mean, first of all, it sucks because your career is ruined.
Right, so obviously that's bad. It's a classic who moved the cheese or whatever that book was. Like, you know, when everything went to Zoom, I'm sure there were quite a few people who were amazing at something and then it, you know, no longer the case. So that is terrible. But I've never really fully understand that because if someone has the, you know, ability to act physically in a scene, what are they missing?
Like how bad does your voice have to be that a dialogue, like an acting coach or a voice coach can't help you reign it in just enough that you can't capitalize off your own celebrity, you know, like what is wrong with your vocal chords that you can't speak in a normal enough voice. Now I do know some of it was like prejudice because some of these actors had accents, you know, they were immigrants and things like that.
And of course. That all this, all these changes happened at a time when people had really strong opinions about even just different countries in Europe, right? So if you grew up or even different parts of the same countries, if you came from one area, another, your, your accent might be more pronounced. And that said, quote unquote, a lot about you as a person and triggered a lot of negative reactions and major appeal like dry up overnight.
And so maybe just. The fact that people recognize that they had accents, uh, was a problem or that the actors did, I don't know, like maybe a sort of colored their perception of them forever, or maybe if you have an accent, you know, if you're from different parts of a particular country and the actors on the screen are not talking, you can just imagine it.
What they're saying in your own, you know, accent. And maybe that was part of the difficulty of the adjustment. But I would think there would be, you know, if there was, if somebody was popular, there's enough money and enough of a reason to work with them. As a production company to get their dialogue, either to the point where it's so minimal or so middle of the road accent, or to teach them to use different accents for different parts.
Right? I just, I don't understand why that was such a career ender for so many. I guess it's hard to put
Speaker 1: yourself in the position of an audience during that time, you know? Maybe they were just imagining a silent film and the characters sounding exactly like them. Or there was more leeway in their head.
Yeah. For What those characters could be and then all of a sudden it's forced upon them. This is what they are This is what they're saying. Here's what they sound like now. You have to adjust to that change I don't
Speaker 2: know and they just weren't ready for that. Yeah, maybe that's the issue Is it audiences weren't ready for sound out of movies because they had created their own version of What it sounded like in their heads.
Uh, and so it was just too jarring or maybe they just weren't used to going to the movie theater and having to listen to people talk so much. And it was kind of annoying anyway. So anything other than perfect other than that was a distraction. And if you were really
Speaker 1: physical actor, like you would have to be in a silent movie.
And now you didn't have to be as physical that you lose your allure in that
Speaker 2: respect. Oh, I see what you're saying. So yeah, the nature of films prior to that revolved around a lot more physical action. And then when you introduce more dialogue. Then you don't have to have as much of a physical performance, but again, if that's what people liked, I don't know why they didn't just make the same thing with a little bit of dialogue and then, you know, have the actor deliver it.
If, let's say you have an actor with a heavy accent or does not have good acting, like voice acting skill, then you just don't do a lot of dial. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the seventies, in the late seventies and eighties, you just don't give them a lot of lines. You know, and then you bring in other actors who can deliver lines around them and then it still
Speaker 1: works.
I just wonder if during that time They were just weren't thinking in that way like by the 70s They were so used to dealing with these types of issues that they'd figure it all out But then I think this shift was so sudden that it was now. Okay now Editing will have to change, you know, the way scripts are written will have to be changed now We have to find writers that are great at writing dialogue to build a story, etc So all the problems that we would not even think of now Of course, you need a great writer who can write great dialogue for a movie You may not need that, or you may not have thought about it as being an issue until sound happened.
And then there was all of these other issues that kind of combined into one for studios. So they just thought, you know, these actors that were doing these silent films, we'll just find new ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that might've been it the, the actors were the face of it and because they were the face of it, they bore the brunt of all the failures that the studios made to adapt.
And it was easier to just replace the face than it was to mea culpa, you know, and take, have the studio take a hit. Yeah, that might be it. I mean, maybe those actors could have made transitions, but But the narrative has always been that they couldn't, and there was nothing that anyone could do to help them, uh, simply because the alternative would have been that the studios fail, you know, or they look bad.
Like they're not adjusting. They're not using talent wisely. They have not figured out how to integrate technology into storytelling. So the movie sucks. You know, it's easier just to be like, well, we learned our lesson and we'll talk about that behind the scenes. But in the front of the scenes, we'll just say that the actor couldn't make the adjustment.
It reminds
Speaker 1: me of, um, I saw somewhere for what it was a documentary. It must have been about MTV in the early days and how people didn't understand how to make videos at all. So if you look at those very early videos, there's a performance and just cameras set up or different shots of a band playing. In one location because there was no storyline piece because no one had really thought about how to do it.
And then they threw storyline pieces that were super cheesy and ridiculous. It's like there was a whole evolution because again, it was this new thing that directors would originally been making commercials were now being called up by record companies. Hey, can you make a video for this band? That we think is going to be a big hit.
But they're used to making commercials and now you've got a band. So I remember hearing something about The Cure in their early, early videos. So they might throw them in a room and the director would say, Oh, just do whatever you want. If you want to splash paint around, we'll just take footage of you guys doing that.
And then just kind of lip sync the song and we'll cut something together. They're like, okay. So that's how they, they conceptualize a video. There wasn't really a storyline or a theme. It was more like, we're just going to throw something out there. If we can't think of a theme, we'll just shoot the band outside on the boardwalk or something.
It's kind of funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, what's interesting about that and our example is it's harder to blame the band, right? They're the face of a really lousy music video, right? And your example, but the music is good. And you can't dispute that. So it's hard to blame the band. It immediately falls upon whoever made the video.
Uh, and so I guess that's an interesting twist, whereas in the 19, what, 20s, uh, when Sound was introduced, you couldn't do that. I mean, I guess theoretically someone could have said, no, we know this person can make good movies, we know this actor is good, but it sounds like they just didn't Didn't have that, you know, they didn't have that support.
And so the narrative, it became, you just can't do it. Or, you know, maybe they really did try to work with these actors. I gotta be fair. I have not studied that up. So maybe they just made film after film and they tried. And maybe those people, those actors were used to having so much control over the narrative because they were creating it with their body.
They're creating these scenes that they just rejected this idea of having writers and other people come in and other.
There's always the narrative, but what's
Speaker 1: the reality and how many careers were killed off? Unnecessarily, not only during that time, but also in this, this MTV example, it was a great band with great songs, just horrible videos people were now getting used to this or
Speaker 2: not attractive. And that was it came over, you know, the band members weren't good looking.
So yeah, what are we going to do with that?
Speaker 1: And they just couldn't, couldn't hack it for whatever reason. Yeah. And then you've got, you know, these timeless videos that came out of that era, you know, like the Michael Jackson thriller or that aha. Yeah. Video which is still a classic classic and they would have probably been a no name band in the u.
s Right without that video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely elevated them Good stuff. Uh, I just briefly, I did want to mention, um, 3d, which was, we talked about a little bit, but it was created in the 1920s and it has an interesting history, but every 30 years, 3d becomes a thing again. Uh, so in 1920s, it died out pretty quickly.
There were, it was a, you know, there was a big buzz. It was this cool thing. Um, but it, it just. Didn't catch on people didn't really like it 1950s. It came back There were a ton of movies made in 3d in the 1950s. Some of them are still around and can be viewed 1980s came back again 3d became huge after a brief mainstream Bump in popularity.
It became the thing to do with your horror threequel right like your third Like Friday 13th part 3d jaws 3d, right? So that was really fun and they did a big TV events, uh, first time ever, they took Revenge of the Creature from the Black Lagoon from 1955. And it was this huge broadcast television event where they advertised it for weeks in advance.
You had to go to like convenience stores or fast food places and make a purchase in order to get the like paper 3D glasses and everybody stayed up to watch. There were like segments on the news, like this is how you use 3D glasses and they would have like a brief. 3D production. You had to have a color TV.
And so everybody got, you know, gathered around to watch the creature from the black lagoon. And I think it was a little bit, um, anticlimactic. It's not a great film. Uh, and I think people, it was a, it was just a gimmick. And once again, 3D died out. Until I think avatar James Cameron brought it back again, 30 years later, give or take.
So 2010s, uh, James Cameron was all about like, we've got to preserve the cinematic experience and 3d was a big part of his effort to do that. Uh, I know, um, Nolan. Doesn't really like 3d, but it's that similar idea, right? We've got to preserve this idea of, of going to the cinema as being distinct from watching movies at home.
And so 3d popped up again to try to make that happen. Um, there was a resident evil movie where they use 3d and they shot a few scenes. Uh, specifically for 3D, which I thought were pretty good as a whole, the movie's not amazing, but they did this one shot where you're looking at a sort of like Tokyo and there's a lot of, there's a big crowd, it's nighttime and there's rain, you're above them looking directly down on the top of their heads and there's rain, but the rain is falling around you down towards the people below you, which I thought was really An excellent use of 3d.
So just the droplets sort of appear in your peripheral vision and then just drop down. It was really cool. They had, they had a bunch of really good scenes for 3d in that. And I have a projector, which is 3d, like it will do 3d. Uh, you have to buy 50 3d special glasses that work with it, but those do exist.
I have literally never used the 3d feature. Uh, because again, after 2010s, it died out pretty quickly. And 3d, it still exists, right? There are still showings in 3d, but people just don't really like it that much. So I thought it's an interesting part of the development. And there was also smell o vision and smell o rama.
I don't know if you ever heard of that in the fifties, right? Yeah. 1950s. Yep. That's right. 1950s, 1960s. Uh, Smell O Vision is the one I think people talk about now or kind of make fun of. Uh, but General Electric created Smell O Rama. Once again, died out until, uh, 40X. Have you been to a movie in 40X? So again, not as popular, but a few years ago was maybe 67 years ago, eight years ago.
It's actually a Korean invention from 2009. But you know, the theaters were trying to get people into the seats. Numbers were down. And so 40 X is where you sit in this like it's a chair, but it has a foot foot rests, I guess. Yeah. So you're sort of like it's a little bit like a cockpit chair. You know, or a barbershop chair.
So you've got a little place for your feet. The seat moves around. It kind of jerks you with the action. It sprays water in your face and there are scents. Just like, uh, Smell O Rama or Smell O Vision, so they have specific scents for different scenes and, uh, when I went to go see a movie in 4DX, I hated it.
Absolutely hated it. It was, the chair was uncomfortable, I was annoyed, like having water sprayed in my face was really, really annoying. I had 3D glasses on, so the water would spray onto the 3D glasses and I'd have to clean them off repeatedly. So anyway, I, that's all the stuff that I wanted to cover.
Speaker 1: I just had a question.
Why do you think 3d never really took
Speaker 2: off? I think some of it was because it was darker, like the technology really wasn't perfected adequately. So the, the picture is darker. So when you look at things through, uh, 3d goggles, it's a little bit harder to make it out, especially in the eighties, like for horror movies, it just made it look kind of blurry.
And I think the other pieces. If 3D goggles were fitted to your face, like if everyone had custom ones that were adjusted for your vision or, uh, if you need glasses or anything like that, I think that would help a lot. Uh, but because they're not, I think that's a really. It's a, it's a big negative for the technology.
Like it's just too expensive and nobody's going to, or there, there aren't enough people are going to go buy their own, you know, and like always have your own personalized 3d glasses. So I think that's part of it. I also think that they do conversions instead of shooting specifically. For 3d a lot of the time which really makes 3d like an unnecessary add on And a distraction.
So I think just like i've been talking about it makes sense for certain content For sure, like I think there will always be movies or scenes that really do benefit or video games that really do benefit From 3d and if they can clean up the technology enough and make it Lesson of a distraction or an annoyance to the audience.
I think it could work.
Speaker 1: I don't know. What do you think? I think it's just going to be replaced by something like AR technology. Um, not replaced in the sense that it's the same exact thing or the same exact experience, but I think AR technology is going to get to the point where when you put on goggles and you're watching a movie, you can get different details about a movie that you would normally not be able to get otherwise.
Like maybe something within the scene you can see more details about or I don't know how they, they'd really use it. But I think since the world's really moving towards VR and AR, that's how I could see it developing. And the idea of 3D, maybe it's a feature, you know, within AR. Goggles where it's not something that you have to get separate.
Sure. You know, it creates that 3d environment for you natively in the goggle I don't know. I'm just speculating. Yeah. No,
Speaker 2: I mean there's definitely there's a way to make it work But I don't think it's particularly valuable for all content And I think you really need to think as a filmmaker or creator.
Is this the right project for that? So any questions for the audience? What should we leave them with the most obvious
Speaker 1: one? What do you think was the biggest technological advancement whether it's one we talked about or another one that we we may have missed? Which is more than likely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah, and are any of your favorite films, films that take advantage really well?
Like, and make use of some of these technologies, right? Do you think that the, the story or your enjoyment of it is really enhanced by that particular technology? Because that's interesting to me. And I think the other obvious question is, what do you think is coming next? Like, where is this leading? When you take a look at this, at the patterns here in the development, uh, can you, uh, guess where we're going to go next?
I mean, to some extent, technology can be hard to predict, but I think audiences maybe would be easier to predict. Like, what do they want? What do they like? So I'd be really curious to hear what people have to say about that. All right. So thank you to the listeners. Thank you. The people who invented all this awesome technology, you can find us, uh, don't encourage us.
You can find the podcast or the shows, socials everywhere, anywhere where you find that kind of stuff. We're on all the tubes. All right. Well, thanks again.