|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 26, 2021 13:22:55 GMT -5
I wonder if this was changed in the reshoots. That's the craziest thing about the movie, it didn't even have any reshoots. It's production was so long and drawn out it didn't have the time. All the changes it went through came from rewrites they did on the set every single day. For example, the entire TRR sequence had to be totally rewritten because Carrey decided to completely change his costume/makeup/voice/performance as Stephano days before they were set to shoot. They actually had to incorporate his adlibs into the script because they just didn't have enough time to sit down and properly rewrite it.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 26, 2021 1:06:47 GMT -5
Very interesting insight. I'm glad he got to head the show and work with Netflix on it. I don't know if many realize that even had he not been fired from the movie...I highly doubt he would've gotten to make the movie the way he wanted to. By all indications even Brad Silberling didn't get to fully make the film he wanted. The film studios have a lot of power and I honestly think that something similar would've happened in the end with Barry''s vision as well. Places like Netflix are far more likely to take risks and make things more out there, so I think it was a perfect fit the get the truest form of the series. Yeah, both Barry Sonnenfeld and Daniel Handler mentioned multiple times during the production of the Netflix series, that it has always been their intention to use musical numbers and that influenced their decision to hire Neil Patrick Harris. In fact it was even rumoured on the old IMDB message boards, before they were deleted, that the TRR section might have been done entirely as a puppet show in song. Though this is pretty out there. I would love to read literally any draft of the movie, they changed and rewrote it so frequently (even while filming was going on) that they would all differ from each other. Even the very last draft from the last day of shooting would be valuable, because it would have a near complete list of the scenes cut out in post-production. I believe Sonnenfeld did have some trouble with Netflix too, he hasn't said it directly, but he has brought up in a couple of interviews that Netflix artificially boosted the colour and saturation of the later episodes and rejected his own personal colour grading.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 24, 2021 1:43:32 GMT -5
Here's the full length video, if anyone is interested.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 23, 2021 23:53:15 GMT -5
While watching a very long interview with Barry Sonnenfeld about his work, I noticed a small section where he talked a little bit about his work on the original version of the movie, back in 2002. I've cut it out and presented it here, along with some highlighted portions of interest. - Sonnenfeld had loved the Lemony Snicket books and especially liked their presentation of most adults being foolish and out of touch, whether wicked or noble. - He loved them so much that he lobbied very hard to direct the movie after Scott Rudin purchased the rights. - The movie was initially meant to be a much smaller venture with $40 million budget, but as has been mentioned before, Paramount still kept trying to cut it down. - The movie instantly got inflated to blockbuster status (and thus, much more expensive) when Carrey was hired. - Scott Rudin left the project because he had a lot of conflicts with the studio and also possibly Daniel Handler. - Because of Paramount's repeated attempts to cut the budget, Sonnenfeld got Sony to agree to finance half the film but the head of Paramount said it wouldn’t work. - Sonnenfeld postulates that this was because Paramount's top brass didn’t really want to take on the effort of producing such a large scale movie and were willing to cede creative control and much of the financing to another studio, so they could just sit back and let their half of the cash flow in. - Dreamworks Studios' head executive Walter Parkes did not get along with Barry Sonnenfeld, due to some bad blood that had developed during the production of Men In Black. Sonnenfeld alleges that he was very controlling, and often liked to direct his movies, from the back seat, as it were. - Dreamworks pretended that Sonnenfeld had quit the project, and only admitted that they had fired him when his lawyer confronted them. - The movie was so close to shooting that Sonnenfeld had not only already designed all the sets for his version of the film with Rick Heinrichs, but had even listed every single specific camera shot in the movie. - Sonnenfeld says he feels that the final version of the 2004 film focused too much on Jim Carrey's antics. "It's not the Count Olaf movie."
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 22, 2021 13:41:41 GMT -5
Thank you both so much for your kind words, it really means a lot to me.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 21, 2021 15:56:17 GMT -5
By the way. Small update. I got a hard copy of the American Cinematographer magazine issue about the film and can get some scans of some photos in higher quality. The article itself might be interesting too. I'll be scanning this weekend! I know I used to have it, but I don't anymore and don't recall anything that was in it. Maybe there's some more stuff in there? I'll try to track down a copy. I don't physically own it, but I do have a (pretty awful) scan of it, though it doesn't include much new information or photographs. It's basically just a run through of the movie's plot, except with 'hilarious' interjections from Count Olaf. The American Cinematographer article is available online, but the photos are in absolutely terrible condition, so I'd love to see your scans. :Edit: Here are the photos from that tie-in book that haven't been seen anywhere else. If nothing else, it's yet more proof that Olaf's escape was cut very late into post-production.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 18, 2021 16:50:45 GMT -5
These are fascinating, thanks so much for sharing! Seeing the expanded versions of some of these images really drives home the scope of the sets. And I'm always surprised by what was VFX and what was practical. I think the movie really benefited from coming out at a time when digital effects weren't always the go-to solution, so you get gorgeous tactile visuals like the prop frog and the painted streetscape behind the ruins of the Baudelaire mansion. There's a great coffee-table book about Industrial Light and Magic that talks about their work from the mid 90s to the late 2000s and they actually bring up a fascinating example of this. When Brad Silberling did Casper (300-ish VFX shots) it was the most any company had ever done for a movie, and then not even 10 years later, Lemony Snicket (600-ish VFX shots) was the least amount of CGI shots they had worked on for any movie in years. It's crazy just how much time, money, and talent was behind the 2004 film. None of the other children's book adaptations that came out in the wake of Harry Potter come anywhere close, apart from maybe The Golden Compass (and that movie was already a globetrotting action film). Hell, even the first 5 Harry Potter movies had smaller budgets.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 14, 2021 21:54:16 GMT -5
Quick update on the 35mm film International Trailer everyone! I just received the final bits of equipment I need to begin scanning some images from the reel! I will be working on going through it tonight and tomorrow and might start sharing some images from it later tomorrow. Again, I am still working on a way to fully scan it into a digital video file, but for now the images will be nice. I look forward to sharing them! That's fantastic! I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of your (very impressive) labour.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 12, 2021 14:07:05 GMT -5
And now some words from the musicians! Here's a post from Tuba master, Jim Self, discussing how the pit band cues were recorded in "LEMONY SNICKET MEMOIR": And finally, an excerpt from a brief conversation I had with "Fretless Flute" player Steve Kujala back in 2012 about his experience with Thomas Newman and the score for Snicket: I hope everyone finds these little snippets as fascinating as I did! My main takeaway is that there is likely quite a bit of score we have never heard! This is all so fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing what you've uncovered. Your research skills are impeccable.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 7, 2021 17:03:35 GMT -5
Happy (very belated) Birthday to the greatest Snicket researcher on this site! Hope you're enjoying it.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 2, 2021 16:28:03 GMT -5
JC must have asked to change that. In the excellent book on Dreamworks Studios The Men Who Would Be King Jim Carrey is revealed to have delayed the production several times before filming even started because he kept on requesting to change and alter the makeup because he disliked it and wearing it. In fact, he actually requested they halt pre-production so that he could be flown to London on a private plane to try on wigs and then when he got to the runway and was ready to take off, decided he didn't want to.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 2, 2021 16:09:01 GMT -5
This image makes me wish that we had Tim Curry as Olaf rather than Jim... Just out of curiousity, where did you find this image, GAF? I found it on Bill Corso's Instagram page. Over the years he's posted a couple of other behind the scenes pictures of his work on the movie.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 1, 2021 23:35:44 GMT -5
The film's makeup designer, Bill Corso, posted a picture of his original test design for Count Olaf which he tried to model as much on Brett Helquist's illustrations as much as possible. The result was heavily changed and toned down for the final look, possibly because of its sinister nature.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on Apr 27, 2021 18:36:13 GMT -5
At some point, I'd like to restart the rewatches as we seemed to stop after TMM.
|
|
|
Post by gothicarchiesfan on Apr 27, 2021 18:34:06 GMT -5
Terrific find the panopticountolaf ! I'd known about the DVD menus but I'd never considered that they were made up of elements from a different version of the end credits. Great work. Interestingly, Brad Silberling actually mentions on the DVD's audio commentary that the end credits sequence was actually one of the last elements of the film to be completed. and that it only came about once they had finished shooting the movie and were deep into post-production. He also mentions that without it, Thomas Newman would never have had a chance to compose "Drive Away" which was apparently the last piece of music he wrote for the film.
|
|