Entertainment Research

There are many repeated arguments and innovations that are happening in the entertainment industry, in general. People blog and bicker about film-reliant equipment switching over to digital to get rid of the dark age of cinema completely. This is happening everywhere along with copyright and piracy, but there a lot more interesting things going on with the new age of film.

There is a small revolution of style coming from directors like Wes Anderson and Jonathan Dayton. The Indie era is upon us, and its baggage is more psychological horror than before. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), directed by Jonathan Dayton only showed the beginning signs of this detached style. The article that talks about this movie – 10 Wes Anderson-Like Movies Not by Wes Anderson – points out certain aspects of the film like the charming, dysfunctional family with a turn-table moral to the story after a touching journey. There is a new hybrid that is a blend of horror and indie that have a very special relationship. A 2004 Issue of DGA Magazine published an article that talks about the directors – some being Guillermo de Toro, Wes Craven and John Carpenter – that broke through the stereotype to give it a different feel. According to Guillermo, “horror and surprise are very different”. For him, he is evolving the modern horror scene by introducing terror that goes beyond “dread and menace” as Guillermo describes it. This change gives the audience the element of surprise and absolute fright without limitations. Having started the process of working on a show that is being worked on personally, the differentiation between horror and terror would play a big part in the suspense theme that my director and I have chosen.

Innovation has always been within any industry to help people think outside the box and be semi-original. There are many different methods to go about doing this, one example of how to pull off a beach set indoors is truly amazing. Anyone can dump sand into a room, let’s be honest, but you have to think about the big picture. A Swedish director by the name of Roy Andersson built a fairly convincing and realistic beach scene within a soundstage. Not to mention that this method could also be the cheapest or at least save you a good amount of money. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, is a piece with the particular beach setting and there is even a video provided that shows the grueling process that was totally worth it in the end. Batman Begins had one of the largest indoor sets that anyone could create. The monastery where Bruce Wayne has a battle with Henri Ducard and his ninjas, possesses elements that would definitely convince viewers who have not seen an actual monastery, and those who have, that it could be an actual location. The reason why these beach and monastery settings were so believable ties into a different subject – detail. Having said that, when you are in possession of some very complex characters, the spaces they occupy like their rooms or places of study will take a huge amount of thought in how you would like your audience to perceive them without a line being spoken by the actor.

The little things matter, is what we learn from npr.org that features an article emphasizing on ‘Tiny Details Count’. The indoor beach set that was previously mentioned had small elements that not just anyone would think to include. There were fans that were set up inside to give the illusion of a breeze passing over during a normal day, and if you look real closely, those buildings off in the distance are really miniatures. Miniatures are very fun to work with, especially if you are playing with your camera placement and angles. There is only one more thing, the sky is fake as well. Without having to fight for location permits, and racing against the sun to get the perfect shot, your lighting will remain consistent if that is what you desire for this method. Not to mention that going along with miniatures and fabricated backgrounds helps directors and production designers to encase their audience in a world of their own; it’s something that the viewer can take home with them that nobody has ever showed them before. Getting the Design Details Just Right, is an article that discusses the production design for various shows that were popular in 2015. The meticulous details for the show Gotham are intriguing, taking into account that Gotham is a place of fiction and crime. Like many other movies and shows, elements are taken from actually locations and altered to help fit in to their new space during filming to separate the story from the real world. Certain situations call for different design elements and tactics as displayed in one episode of Gotham where the Penguin took a bath in his mothers’ eccentric tub. The tub is what made the room one of its own as it stood proud in the middle of a bedroom, which is what you don’t normally see but it showed you just how messed up Penguin is ‘upstairs’.

One set that will continue to amaze for generations among many other famous ones would have to be Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from Harry Potter. To be able to capture that amount of magic that the brilliant book series held required an immense amount of work to go alone with it. Miniatures have been used for movies like Alien, Lord of the Rings and Ghostbusters but as time goes on, the amount of detail and thought that goes into each square inch of the miniature is meticulous. This isn’t elementary school anymore; 40 people over the expanse of seven months worked day and night on the Hogwarts miniature that will show up 60 x 50 x 30 ft high on a 1:24 scale. Masterful Miniatures, published in 2012 by Big Picture Magazine, is an article that talks about the epic film Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang that utilized miniatures to achieve the futuristic world that doesn’t exist yet. The design team of Metropolis used models, matte paintings and miniatures to strike the audience across the face with a futuristic take on canyon-like streets between towers.

Having understood and researched the impact that miniatures and locations have on successful movies has given a new perspective, especially on the budget. Not every movie calls for a real location to be turned into something else to fit a crew’s needs that costs thousands a day to work there. Being resourceful and innovative in today’s day and age seems to pay off more and more with the degree of thought that is put into it.