Believe
it or not, 7 years after founding this site and being invited (and
covering) over 20 set visits, this was the first time that I, JoBlo
(aka Berge Garabedian) actually went on a movie set myself.
I’d prefer to let many of our more qualified personnel travel the
world and check out the many cool film sets, and since I don’t
really like to know much about movies before I see them, it had all
worked out pretty well so far.
That
said, when Warner Bros called and asked if we’d want to visit
Darren Aronofsky on the Montreal-based set of his sci-fi, epic,
romance (yeah, they’re not sure how to describe it at this point
either), entitled THE
FOUNTAIN, I couldn’t help but be swayed since:
-
I’m a huge fan of
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
-
I’m a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky, a man whom I believe will grow to become one of the greater filmmakers of his generation, if he keeps playing his cards correctly
-
The film stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, both of I appreciate and…
-
It was right around the corner from my
place
For
those who don’t know what the background on this project has been,
allow me to break it down to you in a very quick fashion by saying
that Aronofsky has essentially been working on this project for the
past 5-6 years, and actually had the film ready to start shooting
with a budget of close to $90 million a couple of years ago (with
Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett attached as the leads), with sets
already built in Australia, but “stuff” happened, Pitt
eventually dropped out and the entire project had to be re-imagined.
This
time around, the budget is closer to about $35 million, the script
has been re-written a little to cut out of some of the unnecessary
sequences that would only balloon the film’s cost and Jackman,
Weisz and Montreal are the replacements (oh, and for all who adored
her in REQUIEM and thought that she got robbed of an Oscar—me
included—Ellen Burstyn is also in the film).
SO
WHAT'S THE MOVIE ABOUT?
Officially,
the film has been kept purposely “hush-hush” so far, and not
much else was given up during our day on set, but we did manage to
finagle 2 “plot outlines” to the film below, which should give
you a good idea of what to expect. I like that! The less you know
about projects as ambitious as this one…the better, I say! The day
that we visited the set was its 56th day of filming, on a 66-day
shoot. The film will likely be released at the tail-end of 2005
(late fall-winter). Below are two basic synopses to the film:
THE
FOUNTAIN crisscrosses through three distinct time periods – in
1535, during an ancient Mayan war; the present day, following one
doctor’s desperate search for the cure for cancel, and the far
future through the vast exotic reaches of space. Interweaving these
three periods, THE FOUNTAIN follows Tommy (Jackman) – warrior,
doctor, explorer – as the feverishly tries to beat death and
prolong the life of the woman he loves.
THE
FOUNTAIN is an odyssey about one man’s thousand-year struggle to
save the woman he loves. As a 16th century Conquistador,
a modern-day scientist, and a 26th century astronaut, he
searches for the secret to eternal life.
WHAT'S
THIS ABOUT A GRAPHIC NOVEL?
That’s
right, the early screenplay, which was co-written by both Aronofsky
and friend Ari Handel (oh, he’s not just a friend, the man has a
degree in Biology from Harvard—Aronofsky’s also a Harvard
grad—as well as a PhD in Neuroscience from New York University’s
Center for Neural Science—his thesis explored the role of the
basal ganglia in the generation of eye movements and led to the
publication of 3 papers in the journal of Neurophysiology—
show-off!), was also handed over to stylized graphic artist Kent
Williams (“Wolverine: Havoc” and “Blood”), who has recently
finished painting it up (yeah, his artwork is actually a lot more
like a painter’s work, rather than a comic-book artist—check out
some of his works).
Anyway,
the graphic novel, which was being created as the film was still in
pre-production, will also be released later on this year by
Vertigo/DC Comics, before the film’s own release. Both mediums
will be essentially be covering the same story, but the visions from
each man (Aronofsky on the big screen and Williams on the page) will
definitely be unique. According to our press notes, the novel will
be “gorgeously painted, oversized and all about the timeless
truths of life, love and loss.”
WHAT
DID WE SEE ON THE SET?
To
be honest, we didn’t really get to see a whole damn much. We
basically showed up near the end of the film’s production and were
shown a set on which they were shooting part of the last section of
the movie, which takes place on a “Tree of Life space-ship”.
Yeah, you read that right. The actual tree/set was huge and covered
by a massive green-screen backdrop, on which they would obviously be
adding effects later on (see the “CGI? No thanks!!”
section below for more on that). As soon as I walked in and saw this
massively gothic tree, I thought SLEEPY HOLLOW and the tree from
which the headless horseman would keep coming out (not in size, but
in shape and feel). Anyway, the idea behind the “Tree of Life
spaceship” is that the tree would apparently turn into a spaceship
(in the third story of the movie) and be taking Jackman’s
astronaut character through space. Should make for a very
interesting chapter.
TELL
US ABOUT THE TEASER THEY SHOWED YOU!
Most
of our day on the set was spent in a room interviewing many of the
people involved in the production of the film (see “What
interviews will be forthcoming on the site?” section below for
more on that), but at some point, we were all wrangled up and taken
to another building in which they showed us an actual 2-3 minute
clip from the film’s shoot so far. It wasn’t an actual
“teaser” per se (in fact, it wasn’t…they told us that it was
basically something Aronofsky just put together to show the
cast/crew so that they can see how things were shaping up so far,
and wouldn’t really explain the narrative much), but it was
polished enough to see what we needed to see, and in my case…to
get damn excited about!
The
clip started off with Jackman leaning close into Weisz’s ear and
whispering “Don’t worry…we’re almost there.”, which
I liked. From there, it went into a variety of many very cool and
dark shots from various parts of the film, some of which featured a
Conquistador-styled Jackman with a beard that made him look like Don
Quixote, swashbuckling his way through an ancient time vis-à-vis
those damn Mayans (who carry with them…fire-swords!), a more
contemporary looking Jackman working as a physician attempting to
find the cure for cancer and a third incarnation of Jackman as a man
with a pretty bushy beard in space (remember when Brad Pitt was
growing his beard out and looked like Grizzly Adams at some point?).
By the way, it might have been a coincidence or maybe a tradition or
superstition of some sort, but Aronofsky himself had left his own
beard grow out quite a bit, and looks like Grizzly Adams’ younger
brother on the set.
But
I digress.
Anyway,
the rest of the clips were all very dark, featured lots of dark
yellows and oranges, and had an obvious emphasis on style, overhead
shots, and a couple of very cool transitional type scenes, whereby
the camera would start showing the shot coming in “upside down”
and then transitioning into “right side up” as it hit the
camera. Hard to describe, but very cool and a nifty way to
transition matters, which Aronofsky elaborated on to me in the
section entitled “My brushes with Aronofsky” below.
When
the clip finished, I attempted to start a “slow clap” and who
knew…but it stuck! We all had a little laugh, as we applauded to
ourselves in a room that featured only us, the two WB reps, producer
Eric Watson and a couple of tech dudes. That done with, we asked
Eric a few questions and he tosses us the answers, including:
-
Rachel Weisz’s character is actually writing a book called “The Fountain” (…of youth) in the film – we are shown the title of the book in the film
-
Watson said that the Spanish Mayan scene are likely to be the “most stylized” section the entire picture
-
Hugh Jackman apparently adjusted, not only, his look for the three different characters that he plays in the film, but also his demeanor, as he would be “hunched over” as one o the characters, looked gaunt as another, etc…
-
Jackman apparently lost about 15 pounds during the actual production (ultimately, to look more gaunt” as his last character in the film)
-
Watson said that many people has noted that the characters played by Jackman and Weisz certainly “look like they’re related”, but don’t necessarily look like the same person
When asked about the total number of transitions in the movie (they would be switching from one story to another), Watson couldn’t say with certainty, particularly since that process would likely be better evaluated in the editing phase of the film’s post-production. He said they would obviously be attempting to make the transitions as “seamless” as possible, but that they story was definitely more on the complex side of the tracks.
MY
BRUSHES WITH ARONOSFKY
I’m
not really a “gushing fanboy” of anyone anymore, but I do truly
appreciate many, many actors, directors and producers in the biz,
and Darren Aronofsky was one of those dudes. So as I arrived a
little later than the others on set (there was a Montreal snow-storm
and there had been a miscommunication in the time of our meet
earlier in the morning), I was whisked right onto the “Tree of
Life spaceship” set, and introduced to the man himself, Darren
Aronofsky, who was just walking around like your regular
“JoBlo”, Saints cap on his head and bushy beard on his face.
He
shook my hand and when I told him what site I was from (“JoBlo.com”),
nodded and asked if that was the one with the logo – at which
point, I put up my logo’s “thumbs up” and we both smiled (or
maybe I was just smiling by myself…who knows…the man was a
relaxed dude, is all I know). For the rest of the day (we stayed
there for about 8 hours total), we ran into Darren all over the
place, particularly on the “Tree of Life spaceship” set, and
each time, he was cool, courteous and accommodating. He even pulled
us over to a few computer screens every now and again, and showed us
some shots from the “space” shots that they’d come up with so
far.
During
the early evening, they were getting ready to shoot a complicated
camera shot from the top of the “Tree of Life spaceship”, at
which point I just happened to be standing near Aronofsky. He
approached me and started explaining the shot to me. “We’re
basically going to be shooting that camera down real fast,
etc…”. I told him that I noticed that many of the shots from the
“teaser” were overhead shots and he said that was done on
purpose, a thematic tie in the story. I also noted that the shots of
the camera starting “upside-down” and then switching over to
“right-side-up” were also very well-handled and cool-looking in
the “teaser” (that’s all I got, folks…I’m just a
movie-nerd, what can I say?) and he explained that was done to keep
in sync with the spaceship transitions, since he didn’t think
those worked on a horizontal sweep, since the spaceship was spinning
round and round, and that he wanted the other stories’
transitions, to keep that same motif. Very cool idea, my friend.
I
then looked over at him and asked how happy he was that this thing
was finally coming to a close (the project has been with him for 5-6
years and went through many trials and tribulations), and he smiled
and said that he was so very glad that it was almost done. He said
that he only had about 10 days left, after which he would be taking
about 10 days off to “relax”, and then back into the editing
room for more fun.
He
seemed genuinely happy and relieved to be so far into the project,
and I was genuinely happy for the man, who was very relaxed and
unpretentious during all of his interactions with us. And yes, as a
movie-nerd that I am, I did ask the Unit Publicist if I can take a
picture with the man right before we left (I know it’s a
“faux-pas”, but I had to try), to which she replied: “It’s
probably not something we want to do”. Pretty funny. She was
right. And when all was said and done, as we like to say in the
JoBlo.com side of things: Darren Aronofsky = one class act.
CGI?
NO THANKS!!!
One
of the very odd things that we were told during out meetings with
folks on the production of this film was that Aronofsky was very
adamant about his proclivity to use as little CGI as possible, as he
believed that using too much of it would take away from the
timeliness of the film. It’s to note that films like THE MATRIX
might be seen as riding the wave of “technology” as much as
others like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, since one film’s technology
might be seen to be outdated by future generations (can you say
bullet-time?), while the others look and feel still holds up as a
science-fiction classic (how much CGI did Kubrick use for 2001?).
That
said, they utilized a manual technique performed by a man named
Peter Parks, who used these tiny petrie dishes, chemicals and a
solution dropper, to create some really eye-catching effects that
looked damn cool on the screen (they showed us a slew of them on
their Apple computers and they were quite impressive). I’m talking
black holes, space lights, fiery skies, meteors, lots of cool
looking shit that might have been do-able as CGI, but honestly would
likely not look as cool or organic. Yeah, I said it. Anyway, I guess
we’ll all have to wait and see how it will look on the bigger
screens (the ones that count).
CONCLUSION:
For
my first ever set visit, I had a pretty good time, despite not
seeing anything being filmed or meeting either of the two stars -- I
apparently missed Hugh Jackman earlier in the morning, although he
apparently just passed by for a “meet and greet” rather than a
sit-down interview, and Rachel Weisz was simply not filming on the
day we dropped into town.
That
said, everyone who we did meet was cool as heck, the set we did see
was pretty damn impressive, the teaser we were shown was very, very
slick and made me want to see the movie like…tomorrow (!!) and
Darren Aronofsky, the master of the cinematic ceremony entitled THE
FOUNTAIN, was very outgoing and provided me with enough about the
film, to whet my appetite for a lot more and then some! Hopefully,
my report has given you a nice overview of what to expect as well,
and hopefully the upcoming interviews will further inform you on
what else the film has to offer. Thanks to everyone at Warner Bros
for the invitation, everyone on the set for being so nice and Cara
Leibovitz, the Unit Publicist, for providing us with a nice, packed
day of movie coolness.
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