Monthly Archives: September 2022

1-By Laksh, ET, Movies

The Lord of Rings: The Fellowship of Ring (Making)

Leave a comment

Showing up for work in shorts, with unkempt hair, and demanding a couch in the office (an edit room in this case), would be any professional’s dream. Peter Jackson is living this dream. His immense talent and stupendous success helping his cause 🙂

Movie making is one of the fascinating processes ever, with art and craft, mixing to perfection. At one end, we have creative artists who bring their talent and eccentricities both, and at the other, people like producers, assistant directors etc, who manage or assist them to deliver the results.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of Ring, has three DVDs full of making features across all aspects of moving making.

Disc 1: From Book to Vision

Disc 2: From Vision to Reality

Disc 3:  Behind the scenes.

Here are some interesting takeaways/tidbits.

  1. The undoubted leadership of Peter Jackson and as the man who calls shots, but equally at ease in all the aspects of film making…His stamp of approval..Anyone would love to be in his shoes.
  2. The amount of details that goes into film production is amazing. All aspects are given equal importance. (Ex. Chain mail guys.)
  3. The super blend of physical sets (bigatures) and virtual sets; Special effects and Visual effects; Pre-viz; Experimentation in pre-production (scale related issues etc)
  4. Excellence in all crafts–sound design, production design, music, costume design (10 sets of same costume in various scales)
  5. Management on the set (Walkie talkie issue and extra billable days; Director demanding a couch in edit room; Props final approval by Director etc)

Tailpiece:

The making discs dwell at length as to how Peter Jackson and his team masterfully handle the scale issue, having to shoot people of different heights. Two terrific examples from Telugu films in this regard. 1) Mayabazar: Ghatokacha’s shots in the song of Vivahabhojanambu and the scenes soon after this song (his mace becoming small, empty vessels etc) 2) Sampoorna Ramayanam: Scenes of waking Khumbhakarna from his sleep.

Related Links

1-By Laksh, ET, TV

Ted Lasso Season 1

Leave a comment

It’s very difficult to do a comedy show, let alone in the sitcom mould. Ted Lasso achieves that, with effective and efficient writing.

Here are a few brilliant examples.

  1. All the main characters are set up interestingly early on and their arcs (Past problems, present dilemmas and future goals/worries) established (Ted, Rebecca, Jamie, Roy, Keeley and Nathan). The support characters are etched into these.
  2. Self-depecating/Loser type of characterisation for Ted lasso and the conflict with Rebecca is brought out very nicely, with their own reasons. The fact that Rebecca has an ambivalent relationship with Ted, helps in building the comedy, during the first phase of Joseph Campbell theory (where the hero is brought into a new world and adjusts to it).
  3. The overall plot and the individual character arcs are seamlessly blended.
  4. The entire show is peppered with lot of quotes from management and philosophy.
  5. The pub scene with the darts, though tweaked for dramatic effect, works well and delivers a knock-put punch.
  6. (Spoilers ahead) The resolutions towards the end are done well, with Ted forgiving Rebecca. There is a valid reason, which is a rarity in writing (writers hide behind the ‘to err is human, to forgive’ kind of principle) as he himself understands how painful and chaotic a divorce is. This suits Ted, as he has both a heart and brain.
  7. (Spoilers Ahead) The reason for the fish out of the water scenario, though a bit unclear at the beginning is revealed slowly (in the episodes where his wife visits him and late, he signs the divorce papers) in the subsequent episodes, and with crystal clarity, in the end when he forgives Rebecca.
  8.  Last episode ending though predictable, works as we all love the characters and want them to come back in Season 2. (I for one, thought the team wouldn’t be relegated, and it would be Ted who would move on to something else like Hoosiers)

Here are some brilliant quotes and books from the show.
Books
Quotes