完整的報導請至http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/
嗯...WHAT A MONEY PLAYER....,

[Bay Talks 'Pearl Harbor']
Helmer Michael Bay is talking about his upcoming Pearl Harbor project, which had to go through a number of major hoops to get made.

While talking to Hollywood Reporter columnist Martin Grove, Bay spoke of how his film compared to other recent big budgeters, saying, "It's kind of a funny term to describe a movie because when you look at movies like The Grinch, that's a higher budgeted movie. You look at Titanic (which) was green lit at $100 million or $110 million. It went to $200 million and something. We were green lit at $135 million and we had a $5 million cushion, which made it $140 million. We came in at $140 million. They also put the caveat (in the deal) that I was responsible for all the overages. So I can assure you that I would come in on budget. But we had a lot of prep time to make sure that (it could be done on budget). We had about a year of prep time."

While talking to the Wall Street Journal, Bay spoke of his fear son set regarding the budget and his own obligations, saying, "I'm thinking this movie can go $10 million over budget in a heartbeat. You can have a hiccup, and I'm going to be financing Disney's movie."

Bay notes that he had another, smaller project in mind as his next film. He says it was Disney's then studio chairman Joe Roth that got the ball rolling on the project. Bay explains, "I had a deal with Disney and I said, 'Joe, I don't really have a movie that I like that's over at your studio and I'm going to go do Phone Booth with Will Smith. It's a little teeny tiny movie. We're going to do it for $10 million.' Joe Roth wasn't too happy with that. He said, 'Come by my office and we're going to pitch you 20 things.' And, literally, the twentieth thing was a guy raising his hand, who was a friend of mine, and saying, 'Would you like to do a movie on Pearl Harbor? Something that would involve a love story.'

"My first thought was, 'Who would be crazy enough to attempt to do a movie like this of this scale and scope?' Pearl Harbor hasn't been attempted since Tora! Tora! Tora!, which was, what, 30 years ago. I said, 'The battleships don't exist anymore. There's only one original Flying Zero left in the world. But, you know what, I'll entertain it.' Actually, Jerry Bruckheimer was interested in this idea, as well, (and so was) Randall Wallace, the writer of Braveheart. Basically, they gave us a lot of reading material for Pearl Harbor. We came together about a week later totally fascinated with the idea. But my challenge was to see if I could even recreate this. So I got on a plane and flew to Ford Island, where most of the attack happened at Pearl Harbor. I was surprised to see that the base was basically left intact. The bullet holes are still left in the ground from the Zeroes when they were strafing. They leave all the bullet holes in the walls as a reminder. It's a very hallowed ground to the American military. And the bases are some of the prettiest I've ever seen. It just had a great period feel."

Bay started to believe he could actually do this film. He says, "It then came down to, 'Digitally, what could we create?' Through investigation I found a World War II aircraft carrier that I needed for the movie as well as an Arizona class battleship that was in Texas. It's in Houston and is called the U.S.S. Texas. From there I started to have meetings at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) to see what we can use real and what we can create digitally. It would only work if it was dead real. From there they showed me Saving Private Ryan. There are about 85 effects shots in the movie and they showed me how they recreated the battle and they did it so realistic. But what I was asking for was a much bigger scope of a movie because this is, basically, an air (and) battleship war where the fleet is sinking right in front of your eyes. They proved to me that they could digitally recreate some of this stuff. The technology has advanced each year so much more than like what you had in Titanic. The water's gotten better. Digitally, you're able to build a portion of the ship and extend the rest out."

Bay also wanted to shoot on the spot where it really happened, which required getting the approval of the U.S. Navy.

"The admirals there were saying, 'You know what, we're gonna have to divert nuclear subs. We have a huge exercise where different fleets from around the world come together. We don't know if we have enough time to help you with your movie.'" reveals the helmer.

Then Bay showed them animatic of a bird's eye view of a bomb dropping down on the harbor, a scene which has made its way into the film's trailer. Bay continues, "Once we showed them the cartoon -- the cartoon had some music to it, some Thin Red Line music -- there were tears in their eyes. The attack happened a hundred feet outside their office. The weight of the movie is what got them caught up (in helping with the project). I said to the admirals, 'You know, it's very easy for you to say no because it's going to take a lot of extra work. But I guarantee you that once this movie's done you will feel proud you did it.' We involved all the men and women on the base. We used them as extras. We used their kids. The Pentagon gave us amazing support with some naval historians and army historians. There was a whole camaraderie thing that came about on the base."

Still, in the midst of all this, the money issue remained hanging over the production.

According to the Wall Street Journal, and as previously reported, Joe Roth split from Disney leaving Peter Schneider to take his place. In the early development of the film, when the budget was being estimated at over $200M, Schneider suggested that Bay be given his leave in favor of a director who could craft the film on a smaller budget. Word has it that Jerry Bruckheimer threatened to walk if Bay was axed, thus ending that.

In addition, in order to save on money, Disney wanted Bay to scuttle the Doolittle raid on Japan at the film's finale. This and the studio's demand that the helmer bring in the picture with a PG-13 rating rather than an R threatened to capsize the project with word that Bay was contemplating walking. Bay eventually won on the Doolittle front, but the film will be PG-13.

Still, though Bay got Doolittle, the studio demanded and got a studio executive on the set whose daily task was to watch the film's budget, which would seem to be stepping on the toes of Bruckheimer's responsibilities.

Still, though he could have saved money by shooting the film somewhere else, Bay sizes it up with Grove, saying, "I was directing one day and sitting in my director's chair and leaning over and just seeing the bullet strafing marks right under my feet, there was (such) a magical feeling of shooting right where it happened."





------------------

I Weared The Crown.
Laugh Loudly In The Street.
I`m King Of The Freak-World.

珍珍港有使用到首部曲累積出來的技術經驗，就是那場飛行競賽，
Photo Shop創造者John Knol是Pod Race的視效監督，每一次
有人撞毀，就要依據物理特性畫出從原來的樣子撞成三四千個碎片
，這個經驗剛好用在撞飛機(不是中美海南島)上，但我想，這部片
很有可能無法在中國大陸上映了．

Hollywood Reporter talks with director Michael Bay about how ILM
became an essential part of making Pearl Harbor happen and how
Episode I effects helped:

"When we were making peace with Japan, part of the treaty was that
we were able to destroy all their Zeroes, all their planes. We
actually made Japan destroy all the documents to rebuild one of
these. I found some plane nuts, these guys who collect these planes,
at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica. These are very industrious
guys that have actually found a couple of Zeroes that were sunk under
the water. They raised them and they rebuilt these things in Russia
by getting these ancient Japanese plans in an ancient Japanese
language. There were only eight people who can transcribe this. These
plans were done in this ancient Japanese language for secrecy. So
they had to be transcribed into English and then into Russian and
then these planes were rebuilt in Russia."
These planes were photographed in detail and, Bay said. "The footage
was sent to ILM. And from there, they would digitally hand off a real
plane to a fake plane. You'd see the fake plane and go into the water,
crash, burn and rip apart. They were taking some of the software
they invented for (George) Lucas' fourth installment of 'Star Wars,'
where the pod chase breaks up. From there, they kind of perfected that.
"

While it sounds as though there's nothing that Hollywood's effects
wizards can't create now, Bay pointed out, "I really believe you need
to do a lot of it real to make it realistic because you can always
tell there's something fake about computer graphics. But it has
allowed us to do things like recreating the attack on Pearl Harbor
to make it feel like you're there. Literally you see this fleet. One
of our main things in this movie -- I don't want to give it away --
is the sinking of the Oklahoma, which took five torpedo hits and sunk,
they say, in eight minutes. So you've got this battleship with 2,000
guys on it that just rolls over and goes belly up.

"For the movie, we built the world's largest gimbal. It's about 190
feet long. It's the front end of a battleship -- like a front end of
a battleship that rolls all the way upside down and goes under. The
thing was massive. It was built down in the 'Titanic' stage. From
there, we shot that with the stuntmen on (board). ILM will add the
planes. They'll add the fleet behind (the Oklahoma). They'll have
computer guys mixed in with our real guys. That's how we got some of
these epic shots."

It's only been a few years since Bay and Bruckheimer teamed up to
make the 1998 blockbuster "Armageddon" for Disney. Has the state of
the art in visual effects advanced as enormously as it seems? "I
think so," Bay said. "Every year it's taking major jumps. Some of the
toughest things (to create digitally) have been water, fire and smoke. ILM's making great breakthroughs on 3D smoke. There was a lot of smoke at Pearl Harbor. We needed very thick black smoke. Those are the little things that get computer graphics people excited."


[這篇文章曾被 Ewan 重新修正編輯過 (時間 04-07-2001).]