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.

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Batman (1989)

Batman (1989) is a seminal project in the Batman timeline. The movie took more than a decade to see the light of the day, but the success it achieved was outstanding. For the first time, Batman was portrayed as a realistic in a rather dark universe of Gotham City, instead of the comedy caper (wham-bam) kind that was made popular in the previously aired TV series.

It also redefined the scale of movie making and how a tent pole movie was hoisted and marketed. In short, the movie set a benchmark for a high budget movie that appealed to a wider audience and that could be released in a zillion of theatres, to rake in the moolah and the associated merchandise and partnerships.

From the making of Batman features on Blu-Ray

1. Apparently, Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, got the inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci diagrams and quote about bat and flying.
2. After securing the rights of Batman, the duo of Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker, had to wait a few years inspite of a struck deal with Peter Guber and Jon Petersother.
3. Tim Burton was instrumental in the dark take of Batman. He and screenwriter Sam Hamm, took the inspiration from “Batman: The Killing Joke”, a novel by Alan Moore
4. Once this vision was bought, producers did everything in their capacity to make it happen. As per the producer Peter Guber, they looked at how to make it less expensive (not cheap). Hence Pinewood Studios in UK was chosen to produce the major part of the movie building huge sets on the backlots. Tim Burton liked the ideas, as he would be away from the entire buzz in the media.
5. The choice of Michal Keaton received a very bad reception in the beginning, even making it to to the front page of Wall Street Journal. There were protests by fans in the streets and even effigy of him was burnt. But the team stood by their decision. Tim Burton felt it was not normal for any person to stay behind the mask, and a comedic actor would dispel the initial exceptions of who is behind that mask, as opposed to the regular actors. And he felt that Michael Keaton had something in his eyes that could convey a lot, which was to his advantage, when most part of the movie he was covered in a costume and a mask.
6. The production design was top notch and production designer Anton Hurst, adopted the look from the vision of a dark and realistic universe. The props, toys, bat mobile…all of them were of cutting edge at that time, and added to the iconic look of the film.
7. Prince’s music album was an afterthought but it worked wonders for the marketing of the film, as it became the harbinger of the campaign and its ensuing success.
8. Fans waited days before the preview show to get a glimpse of the stars.
9. Sean Young was the selected female lead and she had an accident while riding a horse and Kim Bassinger stepped in as a replacement.
10.  Quite a few names were considered for the part of Joker including the likes of Robin Williams, but for Tim Burton it was Jack Nicholson all along, and desperately hoping he would accept the role. And he did. The makeup that was done for him made sure the actual expressions and face of the actor was intact. Jack Nicholson and Tim Burton did away with elements that interfered in the acting process.
11. There was improvisations made, and one of the famous ones, was the inclusion of pre-climax waltz based scene, which was inserted after Jack Nicholson and producer saw ‘King and I’ musical.
12. Apparently Jack Nicholson made tonnes of money (according to Peter Guber), as he the one who believed the success of the movie was phenomenal (according to Jack Nicholson).
13. Danny Elfman’s music became a rage and even a separate soundtrack album was released.
14. Initially, Robin was to be a part of the script, and a few scenes were storyboarded too, but later were dropped from the story. This according to the producer was right, as the movie was supposed to be an origin one and in the comics the character was introduced after an year from the first comic.

Robert Wuhl has some of the best lines in the movie and has the last word on the film’s blockbuster success.

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Leonardo Da Vinci and the Batman

Anton Furst dies at 47

Joker’s remuneration is not a joke

Michael Uslan Shares His Four-Decade Journey Bringing Batman to the Big Screen