Binary Bonsai

Tom DeSanto, the producer of Transformers, X-Men and X2 (paradoxically) says:

“The studios are so dependent on pre-existing brands, they’re not allowing anything new into the pipeline,” he said. “They want to know what was the video game or what was the comic book. It’s shortsighted. But what’s being missed is the next generation of new stuff. Because nostalgia is creative death.” #

The success of the mediocrity-fest that is Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0 only strengthens this strategy with the studios.

According to the Indiana Jones Wiki, Indy 4 is being shot digitally! This might not mean a whole lot to you, but Spielberg is like the highcastle of shooting his films on just that; film! He has vowed many a time to never exchange his dear Moviola with an Avid system, take a look at the Spielberg documentary I linked to earlier today for an example (near the end).

They might print to 35mm, cut it old-school and do the assembly from the digital master. That seems like a round about way to do it, but for some reason, I kinda hope that’s how they’ll do it.

Not that I worry too much about Indy, it should be a homerun no matter what, but if Spielberg granted Lucas his wish on shooting digitally, what about his promise to do as many of the effects on Indy 4 in-camera as possible?… One can only hope for the best.

Including the charmingly unlikely genesis story of how Spielberg got his first gig at the Universal lot, simply by stepping off the tour bus as well as glimpses of Amblin’ and Fighter Squadron as well as lots of other great nuggest of gold.

Warning though, if you, like me, burst into tears at the first sight of E.T., keep the Kleenex’s handy.

I love Lorne Peterson, and you should too. He is after all one of the original Star Wars modelers. And there’s an interview with him, worth spending a few minutes on. Unfortunately I was now made aware of the fact that my copy is inferior in length to the limited edition. Dammit!