Got sucked into TVTropes this afternoon. One of the pages I read was the Enforced Method Acting one, where directors often won’t tell the actors what’s really going on until it happens.
I had a couple of questions. One pertained to Transformers.
Basically…do ethics or the idea of humane treatment come into filmmaking at all? I know, I know–actors are cattle and all that, but those things seem genuinely dangerous. What if someone had been seriously injured or killed? Would the director or producer be held liable?
There were also examples of directors slapping or manhandling actors (the Exorcist comes to mind)–could that be considered assault? Just how much freedom does the director have when making a film?
My other question related to Jurassic Park III:
Would the real models for Jurassic Park III have been this scary when they were actually shooting? I always assumed that everything was done in short takes to make the dinosaurs look scary when we saw them on the movie screen but that it was just a combination of models/CGI making them appear this way.
Well, I guess the wrestlers sign on for it. My question is do the actors sign on expecting that the director has carte blanche to screw with them?
ETA: Plus, with the case of Transformers, if something went wrong with the explosives, couldn’t someone get really hurt or die? I don’t think most wrestlers are put in situations that dangerous since it’s all rehearsed/choreographed ahead of time.
Alan Rickman, in Die Hard, was dropped for his “death fall” on two when he’d been told it would be on three - the surprise on his face is real. He was also very uncomfortable around guns. You can spot him flinching when he shoots, but that was not a desired effect.
I think it’s disrespectful to pull this stuff on good actors because they’re being denied their own performance; so there’s no problem with using using these tactics on the Transformers cast.
It’s not at all similar. The majority of the moves in professional wrestling require full cooperation from both participants, and most of the moves are designed to look like they hurt but actually don’t. There are legitimate injuries and deaths due to the nature of the sport, but it’s built on trust and cooperation, and people that go off script are either dealt with in the ring, with the fake fight becoming real, or backstage, by the road agents or locker room.
Holy shit on a freaking stick - the page shown on teh desk with the D got stolen and it took a year to get a replacement made?
They need to freaking talk to someone in the SCA, they crank out entire scrolls made on vellum, with hand made inks and paints, and properly done rubrication, and gold leaf work in under a months time. They would cream their jeans at being commissioned to make a page, especially if they didn’t have to spend their own money to get the materials … I actually know a couple who grind their own minerals and make their own vellum …