Going Green

So a few weeks ago NBC made a big deal about going green, and there was some press release over the summer about how 24's production would be zero-emission and Jack Bauer was going to fight global warming somehow. But, I'm not Al Gore (I would just vote for him) so what's been on my mind is the ever increasing use of green screen in movies. Well okay green screens have been heavily used in movies for over 10 years, I'm talking more specifically about films that don't even bother with real sets.

Sin City and 300 are the obvious things that come to mind, but both those movies are obvious examples of style over substance. Green screen is an attractive choices for directors mainly because of the ease of making a film look stylized. However can a movie have significant character development and still use this type of filmmaking? Sin City was arguably a character movie, but with three separate chapters each with its own protagonist its hardly a model of feature lenght character arcs. I think the best argument against complete green screen is that it makes it especially diffuclt for actors. Peter Jackson had Rohan and the Shire built for a reason, and I'd say it was pretty effective. I'm thinking about all this mainly because images from Speed Racer came out today, and as I am loathe to be interested in anything related to Wychosvki, after last season's LOST i'm ready to watch anything with Jack Shepard in it. This is however another movie of style, and while I'm not expecing to be espeially moved, I am hoping like the original it'll give me a seizure 15 minutes in.

I must also must say, the sets for The Watchmen that were released a few weeks ago looked really good. I loved the saturated colors, I'm worried only that it all looked too clean. When I first heard about the Watchmen movie, obivously I was excited for another Snyder comic movie, heavily stylized with green screen. Then I read Watchmen. It is a massive character study, more dense anything in contemporary lit really. For Watchmen to succeed the special effects will still have to be amazing but it has to take a backseat to the characters. While Zack Snyder seems very passionate about Watchmen; I have no doubt he "gets it", I still have to question his ability to control material with this much heft, and dialogue that doesn't invovle Gerald Butler yelling at Persians because seriously, we can all agree he can direct the shit out of Gerald Butler yelling.

and yes i realized i started talking about one thing and ended up talking about something completely different but i'm the only one updating this blog