Film Editing

Has anyone noticed how many cuts are used in modern films? Especially in the kind of 'action' films that are my guilty pleasure. I've just watched Die Hard 4 and while the editing speed didn't seem (thankfully) too excessive, I immediately noticed another trend that now seems to be essential in these films.... the tracking shot. These days is seems that a director just can't keep the camera still, and even in the film's quieter moments - actually especially in the quiet stuff - the viewer's POV is forever sliding across some surface, or some large unlit or depth-of-field object is moving across the screen between the viewer and whatever we are supposed to be concentrating on.

Much more of this, combined with that other modern action film cliche - the hyperactive editing - and films like this are going to be completely unwatchable. I've been really looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum, which opens in Australia at the end of the month, but after reading this post on David Bordwell's blog Observations on Film Art blog now I'm not so sure.

3200 shots in 105 minutes?

Here's more on the topic.

Out with the db's...

More thumbs now on my website. When I first began writing this script back in February, I never imagined that I’d manage to draw 20 pages, but with more pressing work now at hand, these will be the last I will be posting for the time being.

I’ve enjoyed writing this, I’ve learned a lot about comic script writing. This first book runs to 26 pages, and the script for the next episode is already well advanced. But this was never planned as more than an exercise, and unfortunately I just won’t have the spare time to either write or draw more RDDs (note the final title)....

Enjoy.... and if enough readers find this interesting, who knows, maybe in a few months I’ll have the opportunity to post more pages.

Philip K. Dick

For much of last year I was fascinated by the film A Scanner Darkly. Not so much for the plot, which I understand was closely based on the original Philip K. Dick 1977 novel, more for the wonderful rotoscope technique used by director Richard Linklater. I loved the look of the film, much more than the content, which I guess labels me as a true member of the Marshall McLuhan generation.

Anyway, back to Philip K. Dick. He wrote some fascinating and influential stuff back in the '60's and '70's (do the films “Total Recall,” “Minority Report,” “A Scanner Darkly,” “Blade Runner” ring any bells?) and last week The New Yorker site ran a terrific overview of the author and his work. I read a lot of these books in the '70's (Dick died in 1982), and I'm surprised just how much of his whole approach to science fiction genre has stuck with me over the years.

Check out The New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik article here.

KotOR #23 cover...

My Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #23 cover has appeared for the first time on the Dark Horse website. Of the six covers that I have so far drawn for KotOR, #23 is probably my favorite. And from what I've so far seen of the interior art (Dustin Weaver pencils the #22/23/24 story arc), this issue is going to be a cracker.

KotOR #23 goes on sale November 28.

And so...

No SW, and so more db's, here.

Pixar

The Pixar exhibition is in town, and last week I got in to check it out.

To paraphrase the wonderful Ian Dury... " There ain't half some clever bastards..."

Now I'm really looking forward to Ratatouille next month....

More db's...

Rather than sit and await the arrival of my next Star Wars project, I've been keeping myself busy drawing thumbnails for my script the db's.

More pages can be found here.