VSDA 99 - Keynote


	VSDA ‘99 - Keynote panel DVD and the filmmaker

One of the undisputed highlights of this year’s VSDA convention in Los Angeles was without a doubt the keynote panel on Friday morning, called “DVD and the filmmaker”. Opened with Paul Culberg’s words that in the six months of this year, DVD has already sold more product than in all of 1998, the keynote panel attracted quite number of people from the press and retail.

Renown film critic Leonard Maltin hosted the actual keynote and set the right note for the discussion by pointing out that most directors nowadays, even those who haven't paid much attention to video, now are forced to. With these words he introduced legendary director Robert Altman, who brought us films like “The Player” and many more over the years, “Gods And Monsters” director Bill Condon, Eric Durnell who was responsible for Dreamworks’ “Antz”, Brett Ratner the man who brought us “Rush Hour” and finally

acclaimed German director Werner Herzog, whose masterpiece “Fitzcarraldo” is soon seeing a release on DVD. It was immediately obvious that these directors cover the whole palette of filmmakers working in and outside of Hollywood in different genres, on varying budgets, and with different levels of industry recognition. It set the stage for an interesting forum, indeed.

Moderator Leonard Maltin jumped right in, asking his assembled guests how they feel video and DVD in particular changed the way they worked. Robert Altman, the veteran of the group was quick to point out that in his case it has dramatically changed the way he works. His working patterns have become different, taking the future of his films on video into consideration at the time he shoots the material. After all, many films make more money on video sell-through than they ever made during their theatrical runs.

Brett Ratner, a relatively new face in Hollywood, who openly admitted that his work is heavily influenced by Altman’s films, pointed out that DVD is an extremely exciting medium for him, as it gives him the opportunity to present materials he cannot present during the film’s theatrical run. It almost becomes more important in that aspect than the theatrical version.

Deleted scenes, isolated music scores and commentary tracks were only a few things, he believes are important and help him to complete the vision of his films as a whole. It allows him to literally compile material during the shoot for future use on DVD. Things that don’t work in the context of the movie can be used later. To an applauding audience, Ratner also admitted that he could not sit through a pan & scan presentation of a film and added a little anecdote. For one of his future films, Ratner is currently courting actor Nicolas Cage. When he went to visit the actor on the set of one of his films he noticed a pan & scan video tape of his film “Rush Hour” in Cage’s trailer. He immediately asked Cage to stay away from it and go for the DVD instead, offering to send him both, a DVD player and the disc, in case Cage didn’t own one. A this point of the keynote it became already very obvious that Brett Ratner is clearly one of the strongest proponents the DVD industry has in Hollywood’s filmmaking community and he would indeed back this perception up at a later point during the keynote.


	Werner Herzog is almost a unicum in the filmmaking community and embodies a spirit that is very much based in the traditional movie theater days. Herzog immediately stated that he likes neither TV nor video, but knows that he can’t avoid them. As a result he uses them for business purposes to view casting and PR tapes but stays away from both formats as far as possible. He is a purist and as such tries to stay true to his original medium, the film and the movie theater experience. Herzog was in town to record a commentary track for his upcoming DVD release of “Fitzcarraldo” however and admitted that DVD can actually enhance films to an extend. Using the storm on sea sequence of “Fitzcarraldo” as an example, the director was enthusiastic about the newly re-mixed 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack of the film and how its surround capabilities actually enhance the impact of his pictures. “It is much better than before” he commented

enthusiastically. Herzog also feels that DVD in particular allows filmmakers to create more personal releases. The DVD release of “Fitazcarraldo”, just like his previous film “Nosferatu” will contain both, the original German version and the US version on one disc, thanks to Anchor Bay Entertainment’s efforts. In theatrical releases there are always studio politicking, marketing afterthoughts and PR requirements involved, which oftentimes restrict filmmakers to release what they would truly like people to see. Herzog clearly feels people should still experience films in theaters for the first time but DVD could then allow them to re-visit the experience and actually add layers of depth to that. He compared it to a concert. Most people go and see a show or theater performance and then buy a recording of it to be able to revisit the event, refreshing the memories, and he feels video can do the same things for films.

Talking about personalized versions and added materials, Eric Darnell, one of the directors of “Antz” then told the audience that the commentary track on the “Antz” DVD was actually a one-take recording. Unlike most of the commentary tracks, he and his colleague decided to jump into the recording session without preparation and only pick things up as they go along. Usually commentary tracks consist of multiple takes, mixed and edited together to create a coherent feel. Darnell however did not want to lose the initial spark of enthusiasm and the spontaneity of a ‘stand-up’ recording to make sure the viewers get the truest commentary possible. The extensive special edition DVD of “Antz” also allowed the filmmakers to fill people in on aspects and details they were not aware of by simply watching the final film. Especially in the animation field, Darnell pointed out, there’s a 100:1 ratio of materials that are created versus the material

that is finally seen by audiences. The bonus features on DVD allowed him and his team to make the process more tangible for viewers.

So what is the studios’ attitude towards releasing material like deleted scenes? Do they support it or are they trying to hinder it, Maltin next asked and Robert Altman quickly pointed out that as the director “We have control. Nothing happens without our approval”. His biggest concern towards releasing deleted material and bloopers however is that he tries to protect his actors, and it quickly became obvious that he would never release material that would make his actors look bad or that could potentially discredit them. He admitted however that with some scenes he is perfectly happy to show. Sometimes scenes are not really bad, they just don’t work within the context of the film. To that extend, Brett Ratner was almost the opposite. He loves to bring bloopers and failed attempts and correctly pointed out that Jackie Chan actually made an art out of it. People love to see the end credits of his films because they are a riot. “If the actor breaks during a take, it is one of the rare occasions where you actually get to see the person” he pointed out. Since audiences usually just get to see the actor in his role, people love to see what the actors are really like.


	When revisiting a film for release on DVD, one would think that the tempation is there to make adjustments and correct things here and there. Leonard Maltin asked his guests whether they feel the urge to go back and work on their films. “I don’t tinker with my materials”, Werner Herzog replied. He actually throws away all unused negative once the film is finished. Even if he wanted to, he could not change his films. He feels strongly that every film is a part of his life at that time and going back to re-edit it years later would not be faithful to the material and be disrespectful to the film as a whole. He is toying with the idea however to one day create a new film consisting completely out of footage from all his previous works, almost like a collage. Now that sounds like an interesting idea. Director Brett Ratner made a valid point by stating that the director’s cut of the film should always be the ultimate cut. Unfortunately studio politics do

not always allow for that, but on DVD once again, directors actually have the chance to go back and create the cut they originally envisioned. Bill Condon at this point also pointed out that DVD, through its non-linearity, allows you to do anything, including many things you cannot do in a movie, which is by nature completely linear. Studios actually use that as an argument he pointed out, soothing over politics by telling filmmakers that there will be an opportunity to do new cuts and other things for the video release, but not immediately for the theatrical release of a film. Directors can then add more of their vision to the product through additional material or deleted scenes. Leonard Maltin actually made a good point by mentioning that there’s usually a reason why the highly touted “never-before-seen footage” supplements have never been seen before, much to the amusement of the audience.

So how do these filmmakers feel exactly about DVD personally? This was Bill Condon’s moment to speak up for the entire DVD community - and as he told me after the keynote, he did so because of a long discussion the two of us had on the issue a little while ago as part of our interview for “Gods And Monsters”. “DVD is great!” he said, “Especially the capabilities of16x9 enhancement.” The audience applauded Condon as he went on, explaining that studios need to support this particular feature of DVD and should not hold back anamorphic transfers for a re-release of the films 2 or 3 years later. Even for people watching anamorphic films on regular TV sets, anamorphic transfers have a number of benefits that are clearly visible. For the DVD release of “Gods And Monsters” Condon told the audience that indeed he went back and fixed up some of the shots that were slightly out of focus. While it did not matter on a projected theater screen, they didn’t really work on a TV display.
Brett Ratner told the audience that he is a complete DVD nut and even has a DVD player in his car. Especially because movies look very different on a TV set than projected from film, he feels it is extremely important to spend time doing the transfer. Telecine allows you to correct skin tones, lighten up the image, and many other things. People spend a lot of time getting film transfers right, testing different color timings etc, but when it comes to video transfers, you have to do it all again, because it just looks so different on a TV set. He explained that he is spending a lot of time doing his transfers, pointing out how the digital master of the transfer allows you to go back and fix up deficiencies in the film. “You can literally paint out every white speckle” he said laughingly, admitting that he just wants his releases to be perfect.

It takes somewhere between 12 to 24 hours to transfer 3 minutes of film to video, according to Ratner. His colorist put in 12 hour days for weeks to get “Rush Hour” right and they went back and forth. “There are so many options, it can drive you crazy”, he explained, “and you spend a lot of time tweaking things”. Brett Ratner knows what he’s talking about. In the case of “Rush Hour” he even caused New Line substantial damages because he took so much time to get the transfer right. He missed the day & date deadline and the DVD came to market after the VHS release, which meant that New Line Home Video lost some 100.000 unit sales. On the other hand he explained, “I spend a year of my life making the movie, and I want it right!”
Converesely, “Antz” was a completely digital movie and yet, Darnell and his people decided to create the DVD from a film print. Computer images look very different on a computer monitor than they look on film and Dreamworks

spend a lot of time writing algorithms that would manipulate the images so that the film transfers would take on the look of the images on the computer monitors. They spend weeks doing that and according to Darnell it was a nightmare. In order to maintain that look of the film they decided to rather telecine the film than going for a direct digital-to-digital transfer the way Disney’s “A Bug’s Life” did.

As a filmmaker, one of the worst things must be to watch your films mutilated and in shoddy pan & scan versions, Maltin assumed, asking the directors how they deal with this situation. Bill Condon and Robert Altman prefer to shoot on Super 35 film stock that gives them more freedom. Super 35 has the advantage that the entire 1.33:1 frame can be exposed and is later matted down to whatever aspect ratio the director wants the film to be seen in. The result is a so called ‘open matte; transfer on video that actually contains more image information than the original theatrical version of the film. It is a compromise both directors seem to be quite comfortable with. “I like widescreen”, Altman mentioned. “I like seeing people moving their heads left and right when watching a film” he added amusingly. Altman actually owns a 16x9 widescreen TV set and although the pixel aspect ratio is slightly distorted on these TV sets he still finds it quite comfortable.
Brett Ratner explained that he was using Super 35 once, but didn’t like the result after it went through opticals and since prefers full anamorphic film stock, which lead Altman to add, that a big problem of that lies within movie theaters themselves. No matter what film material you use, oftentimes the film presentations in theaters is just plain bad because projectionists don’t pay attention and use wrong mattes to present the films, they simply look much worse than they had to. On video however you know what it looks like “The quality is safer on the tube”, he pointed out quite appropriately.

To finish the highly informative panel, Maltin asked the directors what their current projects were and Brett Ratner made mention of a sequel to “Rush Hour”, once again starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, as well as a remake of “Killing Of A Chinese Bookie” that he plans to do. Eric Darnell is currently working on “Schreck”, an animated movie starring Mike Myers as the voice of an ogre and Eddie Murphy as his donkey sidekick. Robert Altman is producing a film called “Trixie”, directed by Alan Rudolph, starring Nick Nolte, and he is also directing “Mr. T And The Women”, which is currently slated for November with Liv Tyler in the lead.
Bill Condon mentioned a secret anthology project - supposedly “The Books Of Blood” he mentioned in our exclusive interview - as well as a film called “Queen Of The Jews”, about the first Jewish Miss America.
Werner Herzog closed the round by explaining that he is now going back to

do a narrative feature film, instead of the documentaries he did of late. He is currently working on a project called “Invincible” for Fine Line, and is preparing “Kinski” his documentary on the late German character actor Klaus Kinski for release.

With that the keynote closed and many of the directors spend a few moments, talking to some of the attendees personally until they were ushered out to make room for the next seminar. It was great to see how directors actually pay attention to DVD as a format, involving it in their work. Especially in the case of Brett Ratner and Bill Condon, it is obvious that the industry has found two spokespeople who can help giving the format additional leverage.


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