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Post by nightowl on Jan 11, 2005 16:37:36 GMT
only recently read about the two films coming out this year. the pendragon one particularly interests me as i've always wanted to see a faithful adaptation of the book. one thing i was wondering though. i could be wrong, but it seems that pendragon isn't the biggest film company in the world. will they have the budget and sfx muscle to realise what are some pretty amazing concepts in the book. the stills i've seen on their site looking pretty impressive so far but i'm just wondering if they'll have the effects to back up the actors.
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Post by Gnorn on Jan 11, 2005 16:46:04 GMT
Hi there, welcome to the forum! I think we all here want the answer to your question :-) There is a theatrical trailer coming out soon(ish) which will show some first special effect shots and action scenes. We're all hoping it delivers big. Keep an eye on their site Pendragon Pictures-Gnorn
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Post by EvilNerfherder on Jan 11, 2005 17:17:28 GMT
Welcome nightowl.. The budget is somewhere in the region of $48 million I believe... Tim Hines answered questions not unlike this in the exclusive interview he did with this site a while ago.. You can find it on the main Waroftheworldsonline.com site. We're all waiting with baited breath for this new trailer so we can see some FX shots for ourselves. Hines seems pretty confident that he'll blow us away with his movie though.
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Post by AmD on Jan 11, 2005 19:07:43 GMT
As a Special Effects student I am very keen to see what Pendragon will come up with. I still find it very hard to accept that Pendragon have a budget of $48 million though! The dawn of the Dead remake cost $28 million and included some well known and well respected actors (e.g. Sarah Polley) and a number of very well done special effects shots including hundreds of the undead. Not to mention very good direction and a great musical score. 28 Days Later had a budget of only $8 million! And they managed to create a stunning sequence of ‘Dead London’ and a number of very well done action scenes. And again they had some good actors (e.g. Cillian Murphy) and a good score…. And this film was (I think) shot on Mini DV. Pendragons ‘supposed’ budget of $48 million dwarfs these two films yet we have seen absolutely nothing that could not be replicated in a weekend with a home video camera (except perhaps some of the costumes) and the film is due for release in only a little over two months. I remember reading a loooong time ago on ain't it cool news (when they were going to do a modernised version) that the budget was around $48 million. I believe Tim Hines had said that the budget for the current film was around that of the English Patient (which was $27 million). But I find it very hard to believe they managed to get a budget anywhere near that big. If they somehow did they will probably have a very tough time breaking even (although I certainly could be wrong) They need to show something in the theatrical trailer to prove that there is money behind this film. So far they have shown nothing that we couldn't knock up in a couple of days at University. If the trailer includes only, say, one brief glimpse of a heat ray and a bunch of new close ups of actors… then I will consider it a failure and a disappointment (although that’s just me obviously ) But I am not getting my hopes up. The fact that they have told us so very little about the film does not make me optomisitic. Why won't they say who is doing the effects? Who is doing the Score? etc.
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Post by Gnorn on Jan 11, 2005 19:18:44 GMT
Hey AmD, I'm wondering about that as well, why is Pendragon not releasing any more information regarding their project?
My only thought, or hope actually, is that, when they finally release the trailer or some subseqentual information, it will reveal things in a way as to blow us all away. To catch us offguard soo to speak. Big distributor, revamped site, freaking effects, big advertisement campaign and what have you?
But all that's just idle hope. I do wish soo, but alas, I have to stay realistic. But I do believe Mr. Hines will deliver.
-Gnorn
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jan 11, 2005 20:55:26 GMT
Welcome nightowl and as evilnerfherder says we all want the answers and I think most will agree on this site that we're all quite sceptical as to whether Pendragon can pull this off. One minute I seem to have a bit of faith in them and the next minute I don't. This whole Pendragon thing is certainly a bit bizarre. I for one am getting a bit fed up with it all, especially as at this moment in time I'm not convinced that we'll all get the film we really want. And even if we do - will there be many cinemas showing it.
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Post by maniacs on Jan 11, 2005 21:18:58 GMT
if your not sure have a look at the chrome trailer. Its pretty good. Ive also looked at their bug wars and I only wished they show WOTW in the same light at least. I don't think Pendragons strength is in their PR. They did mention who was running the FX department. Heres a message from T.Hines posted a few weeks ago Pendragon Pictures is wrapping up miniature photography this week on H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, with the conclusion of filming of the fighting machines, which are being realized in both miniature and CGI. "It's an exciting time," beams director Timothy Hines, "as we are bringing to life, one of the most fantasized about creations of Wells' imagination." The nine-foot tall fighting machine miniatures were lovingly created by a team lead by miniature effects artist Michael Fransen. In the final film, the fighting machines will appear as tentacled, ten-story high, three-legged walking machines that shoot poison gas and wield a heat-ray weapon. These are the principal invading weapons of the conquering Martians as they battle turn-of-the-century human artillery. Utilizing an impressive combination of servo-driven mechanics and a large team of skilled puppeteers, the fighting machines' filming brings the last phase of photography of H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS to a close. The production now moves into the final stages of editing, compositing and scoring. Check out the second H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS teaser trailer on howstuffworks.com at stuffo.howstuffworks.com/wotw-videos.htm but this was released a few weeks before the cancellation of the new teaser trailer.
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Post by Killraven on Jan 14, 2005 22:30:40 GMT
As a Special Effects student I am very keen to see what Pendragon will come up with. I still find it very hard to accept that Pendragon have a budget of $48 million though! The dawn of the Dead remake cost $28 million and included some well known and well respected actors (e.g. Sarah Polley) and a number of very well done special effects shots including hundreds of the undead. Not to mention very good direction and a great musical score. 28 Days Later had a budget of only $8 million! And they managed to create a stunning sequence of ‘Dead London’ and a number of very well done action scenes. And again they had some good actors (e.g. Cillian Murphy) and a good score…. And this film was (I think) shot on Mini DV. Hines does state that he wanted to avoid big name actors, as he didn't want the hassle of dealing with the egos (and that's just the agents!) or the personalities overshadowing the story. Whether you believe that explanation or not is up to you! It's true 28DL was low budget, but not a lot of budget was required to shoot an empty London, other than paying film crew overtime to work in the early hours (and a horde of rubbish scatterers! ;D), I can't imagine it would have cost that much to film. Plus, the biggest names were Chris Eccleston (our new Doctor Who ) and Brendan Gleeson. The star Cillian Murphy was still a struggling little-known Irish actor when the film was made.
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Post by Ashe Raven on Jan 14, 2005 23:15:03 GMT
The thing we have to remember about most zombie films is that they are relitvly cheap to make.
They tend to invlove a few actors, countless underpaid extras or hopefuls and a boarded up house, a jungle or a closed shopping mall.
YOu can do the maths from there.
And the new Dawn of the Dead effects were only impressive to me in that they were effects not used in the orginal. Other than that, it was easy to see the matting shots, impressive as they were.
That still did not detract from 28 Days or Dawn from being rather good movies.
War of the Worlds is something different entirely, so lets bear that in mind.
And 3hrs of special effects would certainly add to the cost.
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Post by RossH on Jan 14, 2005 23:33:46 GMT
One other thing to consider is that though the budget is $48m, they have been working on this movie since before 9/11. This is their second attempt, and while principal phtotgraphy may not have started, I'm sure they swallowed up some of that money in startup costs.
Delays cost money...
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Post by Mr Death Ray on Jan 14, 2005 23:40:32 GMT
I am huge fan of the original 1978 dawn of the dead. I even made a few small no-budget movies with my friends! We had white hazard suits and gas masks!
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Post by EvilNerfherder on Jan 15, 2005 1:07:49 GMT
With the white hazard suits, sounds more like Romeros' 'The Crazies' than 'Dawn of the Dead' George Hayes!
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Post by Ashe Raven on Jan 15, 2005 1:43:09 GMT
Actually you gotta give it to Hines. He bettered indipendence day's destruction of local landmarks, by destroying not one, but of the most famous in one shot.
Kudos ;D
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Post by themotile on Jan 15, 2005 15:33:16 GMT
One other thing to consider is that though the budget is $48m, they have been working on this movie since before 9/11. This is their second attempt, and while principal phtotgraphy may not have started, I'm sure they swallowed up some of that money in startup costs. Delays cost money... If you read the Hines interview it answers your query, when they abandoned the first WOTW project they then used all the sets and props for Chrome, in essence they didn't lose much in the way of money as they then used the Chrome budget for WOTW.
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Post by the Donal on Jan 15, 2005 15:36:27 GMT
;D Regarding effects, as many comments have been posted elsewhere re how effects 'make' the movie- some opinions of mine. People keep bringing up Lord Of The Rings- yes, the special effects in these movies were stunning- as was the source material and the music - the movie scores on all counts. Some films have stunning big budget sppecial effects and are absolutely rubbish - ID4 being, to me, the perfect example. Other films have great stories but poor effects- perhaps in time context here you could look at old films - some of these had, for the time, very up to date special effects, but still didn't look stunningly realistic. The Ray Harryhausen movies are a prime example here- I'm not disrespecting his work here- it's all great and he put a lot of effort and innovation into 'Claymation'- but they are still very enjoyable to watch. Even the older Bond movies had often very iffy blue-screen compositing or obvious small scale models, but the content makes the film very enjoyable. The CGI on Alien 3 is shocking- especially for a huge budget that Fox can afford, but I still believe that it was a good story with and therefore still really enjoy the film. Or the mechanical shark in Jaws- but WHAT a movie (my favourite) Perhaps we all want the Earth in everything we are offered now, and I would be sooooo happy if the Pendragon movie had really stunning visual effects and music, but I would still be watching it as a rendering of The War Of The Worlds and everything that the story entails, so there is still promise for it to be a very enjoyable movie. I think that a good film is all about the storytelling- that's what makes it for me. I'll stop now...
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Post by Mr Death Ray on Apr 17, 2005 19:14:13 GMT
Yeah, Evilnerf, We had that in mind to! ;D
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Post by tinckelly on Apr 18, 2005 19:12:57 GMT
I agree with everything you said Donal. I'd rather see a great story than amazing special effects. Don't get me started on Independence Day...
But one tiny thing. The 'crap' CGI alien in Alien 3 is in fact a hand-operated puppet composited onto the film plate using old fashioned blue-screen optical effects. There's some great stuff on the making of discs of the guys actually doing it.
I agree is still looks crap though. Shame.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Apr 18, 2005 19:36:51 GMT
Guys we've had this discussion on numerous times, surely what matters with a film like this is that everything has to be top notch. Do you honestly think this film will be any good if the special effects aren't up to scratch.
If this film has great acting, script etc but the special effects are bad [or vice versa] - modern audiences will laugh it out of the cinema. That's if it's released in to the cinema of course.
Independence Day wasn't pretending to be anything other than an expensive B movie and at least it didn't steal WOTW as it's title unlike a certain well known director.
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Post by mctoddridesagain on Apr 18, 2005 22:22:57 GMT
Well said, Fallingstar. WotW needs at the very least a reasonably lavish treatment. I mean, how pissed off would people have been if some joker had made The Lord of the Rings with a load of sock puppets? Because that's effectively what Hines is doing at the moment. What astonishes me is that if this was any other subject than WotW that Hines was pissing on (as he is) everyone bar none would be up in arms with flaming torches marching on his lab to burn it down.
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Post by Lensman on Apr 18, 2005 23:15:03 GMT
Do you honestly think this film will be any good if the special effects aren't up to scratch. It certainly could be, yes. Given my choice between a movie with great FX, but a stupid story, lousy characters and mediocre acting, like the new version of "Planet of the Apes", versus a movie with a great story, directing, and acting, but FX that varied between passable and really bad, such as the original version of "The Thing"-- I'll most definately take the latter, every time.
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