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Mar 13 10 7:26 PM
Mar 14 10 4:28 AM
Mar 14 10 9:02 AM
Mar 14 10 11:47 AM
Mar 14 10 3:31 PM
Mar 14 10 10:01 PM
Ted Newsom wrote: Again, as far as I understand such things, there was no such animal as a "blue backing" matte process in the silent or early sound era. The concept was the same: photographing an element in front of a limbo screen, which then creates the element and a mask-- the "matte"-- to print into another shot. This could be done with either a limbo black background (as Bert Gordon did years later) or a white background. The Dunning process is pretty similar, using (whoa. Where's Jim Aupperle when I need him?) red light to create some sort of differentiation effect between subject and neutral background.
Mar 14 10 10:21 PM
Mar 15 10 5:02 AM
Mar 16 10 4:40 AM
Wich2 wrote: No need to get prickly, Vampiro; that is not my intention at all.
No need to get prickly, Vampiro; that is not my intention at all.
EL VAMPIRO Former TV Horror Host and current Industry Insider Hollywood / Transylvania / Parts Unknown Staff Writer - www.TheHorrorDrunx.com
Mar 16 10 5:20 AM
This being a film that they were doing a lot of effects experimenting on, I mean they were breaking a lot of new ground here and doing things for the first time, it is hard to take the word of even some of the folks that worked on the film as gospel. Even in eyewitness accounts of say, only 40 years after the fact. I'm sure that many of the scenes were shot in several different ways in attempt to get the desired effect, only to be scrapped and abandoned later for something that worked better. An example being that fabled close ESB fall shot that was taken out before release because Kong was partly transparent. So sure, someone may correctly remember a particular scene being shot a certain way, then someone else correctly recall it being shot yet another way. Which one ended up in the completed film? Who knows, even if they worked on it.
I've seen the film on a big theater screen several times and recently watched just that sequence again on my big high-def home screen. Those two Empire State climbing shots are just weird. Most notably the second one, because if you watch closely, other than doing the weird streaching motion with the legs, there is that slide right up in the curve of the building cloer to the top section. It is as if they shot it with a guy in a suit, then "fixed" the placement of the character (hence the slide) by rotoscoping the footage. It makes sense, because no detail of Kong was needed there, all that was required was an almost backlit distant outline shape. Rotoscoping that and adding to the original image could have fixed the arm legnth of a suit as well.
For all we know, old Carmine Negro could actually be telling a grain of truth, having been hired to portray Kong (complete with a tiny motorizrd Fay doll in hand) just for that one quick scene, then was rotoscoped over.I don't think a full-legnth ESB model was ever built either, or we'd have seen photos of it by now. Most likely, they shot footage of the real thing and just added Kong and the planes later. Or, I wouldn't have put it past them even using a still photo enlargement sandwiched between two panes of glass, then shooting those other elements in the distance, through the glass. Today's low-tech answer was high-tech back in 1933.
Mar 16 10 12:53 PM
Mar 16 10 1:33 PM
Don Glut wrote: I think it was Ted who asked the questions, somethings to the effect of "if was an ape suit, why didn't we see it in any other movie, and why would RKO make a suit just for a couple shots?"Could be, if it were a suit, maybe it was an existing suit that was rented from a costume house.
Mar 16 10 1:47 PM
Vampiro wrote: Most notably the second one, because if you watch closely, other than doing the weird stretching motion with the legs,
Most notably the second one, because if you watch closely, other than doing the weird stretching motion with the legs,
The Catch of the Day!
Mar 16 10 1:56 PM
Mar 16 10 3:13 PM
Mar 16 10 3:17 PM
Mar 16 10 5:02 PM
Kingkongkessler wrote:I've always hated that scene and always thought it looked out of place, could be because Buzz animated it or it could be because it's a guy in a suit, either way, I still think it's the worst Kong scene in the movie
Mar 16 10 5:59 PM
Mar 16 10 9:35 PM
Mar 16 10 9:55 PM
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