Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Prince Dastan, talks about PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME in this interview provided by Disney:
QUESTION: You and Gemma Arterton have great chemistry on screen in Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. That must have helped in the scenes where your characters banter together?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: Oh definitely! Those scenes I think were the best written and the most fun to play. They came so naturally and we shot them so fast. It was unfortunate that the ended so quickly. We might spend a month on an action scene and half a day on that scene (with Gemma). We would nail it and move on. She and I had a sort of tit for that thing. The first time we met she looked at me as though she was unimpressed and I looked at her like…’You should be! Why aren’t you?’…(joked). So that was it from the beginning, there was no acting required.
QUESTION: The weather in Morocco during filming was supposed to be so hot and sandy that it was almost like having sand in your mouth all the time?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: It was not that bad. It was ok. It was hot but it was fun. The desert is really cleansing…the sand exfoliates your skin….and there is a nice warm dry sun and you are sweating.
QUESTION: You must have been conditioned by Jarhead?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: I was. I make a lot of movies about turning back time and a lot of movies in the desert. It’s a very strange thing.
QUESTION: You have been Spider Man and Batman. Now in Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time you have become a sort of super hero?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: No! I am a video game adaptation. (jokes)
QUESTION: So how does it feel to finally have your own action figure?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: That is like fulfilling the dreams that I had when I was eight years old. When he is playing with an action figure what young boy doesn’t think that maybe one day…You personify anyway as the action figure character that you are playing with, so to be one is incredible. If you were to go back to the eight year old me and say that one day you will be playing in a movie that looks a little like Indiana Jones, or The Goonies and a couple of other things and it is the video game that you are actually playing called the Prince Of Persia…I think that my head would have exploded.
QUESTION: What was your inspiration for the movie?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: My primary resource was the video game. There were also books and different paintings of that time that were real inspirations. After I read the script I had a meeting with Jerry Bruckheimer and asked him what the movie was going to look like. Was it going to look like a video game or how I might imagine a typical Disney film? For instance, I wondered if I was to be wearing the red outfit for the whole movie. Jerry handed me this book (The Orientalist) and said that was how he wanted it to look. But apart from that there was not a lot of research. There was some research into weaponry and things like that. But I looked on it more like it was based on a fantasy world that was based on reality.
QUESTION: What is it like to make a big expensive special effects film like Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: The thing about a movie like this that is interesting is that people tend to only associate it with commerce. For me it was always that it was so much fun. It is differentiating the actor with the businessman and the actor who says that he wants to be a kid again and have a good time. It was so exciting! Every day I would drive to work and it was like going to a sporting event when you are the captain of the team. There were thousands of cars lined up along the road for five miles and there was an army of film crew and then the sets were 100 feet high – all built with perfect detail. I don’t think you see that any more on a film set. So often it is green screen effects that are done later. But we could shoot anywhere because the details were extraordinary and there were thousands of extras. And some more were added in later – to make it even bigger! I would get in there and every day I did feel like a kid.
QUESTION: After working with you in this film, Sir Ben Kingsley says you have the ability to seemingly be doing very little in front of the camera and yet it’s just right?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: With this movie I always looked at it like I was reading a children’s book to a child. It was that kind of style of acting. Because of his years of theatrical work and his history of Shakespeare, Sir Ben has an attitude that there is a sense of telling a story clearly and even theatrically. At on point I told him I felt as though I was speaking to a child and he said….exactly! I always feel that if a movie is good then an actor should have to do very little.
QUESTION: What would you say was the greatest challenge, the physicality of it or speaking in a British accent?
JAKLE GYLLENHAAL: No doubt speaking in a British accent, that was the hardest part for me. It’s daunting trying to do any service as an American to such a beautiful fluid speech pattern that you all have. For me, it did help being surrounded by a primarily British cast and somewhat British crew. So I would speak every day, I would get out of the car and I’d have the accent on all day. And I would sort of journey from region to region around England with each different person I would talk to, I would mimic them and sometimes I would sound like them in takes and Mike [Newell] would say [adopts posh British accent and shouts]… ‘Dear boy! You don’t sound right! Do it again! Smashing!’. That’s my favorite line. ‘CUT!’. That’s when you know he was excited about a take. So yeah, I would say the accent was much more daunting, particularly in front of the British press.
QUESTION: How dangerous is it working with ostriches?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: The ostrich scene was where I was the most terrified in the entire shoot. They are terrifying animals. Even in their innocence, they can tear out your eyeballs and rip out your heart. They seem like they have eyes similar to mine but they really don’t. They can really do dangerous stuff to you.
QUESTION: How much of the stunt work did you do and were you in the best shape of your life for this movie?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: It depends what you mean by ‘best shape’. I cycle and I run long distances…10 or 12 miles. But I am not able to do that when I am the shape I was for the movie. I remember seeing lance Armstrong on the cover of a magazine and he was saying ‘I’m ripped!’ He was skinny and really gaunt but that was him ready for the tour. So that is being in shape in another way. But I was fit for doing almost any sport. I could avoid serious injury because I was strong and flexible enough. I am pretty athletic so I always feel pretty good and healthy.
QUESTION: What sort of injuries did you get?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: My shoulders got pretty big so I couldn’t always grab on to something and sometimes there was a little pulling and tearing of tendons. There were some little muscle things and bruises and cuts…but no big deal. I accepted that aches and pains are part of the job. I want to go after the things that I want to do or I am inspired by
QUESTION: Did you feel you were chosen for Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, not just for how you look but because you can handle deeper stuff?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: I hope so. I hope that is why people choose actors. Obviously I know they don’t always do that. But I believe that you earn your stripes. I don’t believe that there is necessarily an order and that doing a bigger movie means you have to do a smaller movie. But I do feel that when you are cast in a movie you should have earned that thing – whether it is from an audition or other work you’ve done, or whether you have behaved well in a certain way or that you also do good work. Those things are important. Jerry [Bruckheimer] said he thought I was a good actor and [director] Mike Newell too. Mike had worked with my sister and had seen and respected my work. He didn’t just pick me out of the blue. I worked to gain their confidence and I feel that is how it should be.
QUESTION: As a child was it always the case that you would become an actor?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: There is a very early entry in my diary, from when I was six years old. It says…Soccer is my life! I played AYSO soccer – school soccer. It became my obsession. Which position did I play? I played all sorts of positions. When you are playing soccer at five years old there isn’t really a position. You run after the ball, basically.
QUESTION: There are several Prince Of Persia stories. So how prepared are you to do another film as Dastan?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: With a movie of this size that is something that becomes contractual even before you start it. There have been many movies in which I have been involved when there has been the potential for something else and it hasn’t happened. Or it has happened actually. But the thing is, I am totally game. I love the character and his world. I think it is super fun.
QUESTION: You must be pleased with your English accent in Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time because it is spot on.
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: Thank you very much. I worked really hard on it. It was planned from the very beginning to use an English accent. Jerry Bruckheimer said that he thought an English accent seemed to legitimize any time period. Particularly if it is in the past but even if it is in the future. It’s sort of strange but there is something about the accent. I don’t know what it is. There is an ancient quality and the Shakespearean theatrical thing that people can unconsciously relate to. Also since Mike Newell was shooting it in Britain, he wanted primarily to cast British. So the actor who was to play the part of Dastan would have to fit in.
QUESTION: How have you coped with fame? Have you become more comfortable as you have got older?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: Up until now I have had an interesting perspective because I haven’t been so clear about all the things that I want to do or who I was. Now I think I feel much more comfortable with it because I am more comfortable with what I want to do and who I am and what I care about. A lot of this stuff is great fun, I have a good sense of humor and I enjoy laughing. I want to make movies that are like that and spend time with good people. This is our day so you should have a good time doing it. That is my perspective on it now.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME is now vailable on DVD and Blu-ray.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Review: Remembering "4 Little Girls"
4 Little Girls (1997)
Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
PRODUCERS: Spike Lee and Sam Pollard
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ellen Kuras
EDITOR: Sam Pollard
COMPOSER: Terence Blanchard
Academy Award nominee
DOCUMENTARY/HISTORY
Starring: Maxine McNair, Chris McNair, Alpha Robertson, Janie Gaines, Dianne Braddock, Shirley Wesley King, Bill Baxley, James Bevel, Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, Ossie Davis, Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, Fred Shuttlesworth, Reggie White, and Andrew Young
4 Little Girls is Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary film about the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Located in Birmingham, Alabama, this African-American church was a hub of the city’s Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.
On the Sunday morning of September 15, 1963, four members of a Ku Klux Klan group planted a box of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church near the basement. Killed in the ensuing explosion were 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, 11-year-old Denise McNair, 14-year-old Carole Robertson, and 14-year-old Cynthia Wesley – the titular 4 little girls of the film.
4 Little Girls recounts the days leading to the bombing, the state of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham at the time, and the aftermath, specifically the girls’ funerals. Lee interviewed the people who knew the girls, including surviving parents, siblings, neighbors, relatives, and friends, among others. For the film, Lee also interviewed a number of Civil Rights luminaries, social activists, and other famous figures, including Andrew Young, Bill Cosby, Ossie Davis, and Coretta Scott King. The film is filled with archival footage, most of it coming from televised news, which presents other key participants, including Dr. Martin Luther King and the bombing plot’s ringleader, Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss.
The film begins with Joan Baez singing “Birmingham Sunday” a song that chronicled the events and aftermath of the bombing. The song, written by Richard and Mimi Farina (Joan Baez’s sister), is a haunting theme throughout 4 Little Girls.
In the first hour of the film, Spike Lee does a superb job in presenting the state of affairs in Birmingham and connecting it to the overall Civil Rights movement. Lee deftly builds to the bombing like a slow train gradually building speed to the terrible event. He does this by getting the girls’ families and friends to remember details (including one woman’s prophetic dream) that are startling in their intimacy.
The scenes that recount the actual bombing are as riveting as anything found in the best movie thrillers. Using interviews and archival footage, Lee presents the shock, grief, and anger in a way that still resonates and even seems to jump off the screen and into your gut. It may be too much for some. The recollections of the girls’ family and friends and also the funeral are tear generators, although the post-mortem photos of the girls may be a bit much for some (cause they were for me).
After the scenes depicting the funerals, Lee’s film falters. The movie’s focus on the grief is morbid and obsessive. Of course, there is nothing wrong with depictions of grieving family. However, the bombing, which was clearly a racially motivated terrorist attack, was meant to halt the integration that was already occurring in Birmingham (due to negotiations between African-American leaders and moderate whites). Lee’s film only mentions that in passing. Lee also fails to present the ways in which the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing affected the move for equality in America. The deaths of those four girls gave energy to a Civil Rights movement that, at the time, apparently needed reinvigoration.
I don’t fault the film for taking such a deeply personal look at how the girls’ deaths affected those around them. Their deaths had a larger meaning; they were essentially a sacrifice, one that directly led to improving the lives of all oppressed people, not just African-Americans, in the United States. 4 Little Girls is an excellent film and a wonderful document of the lives of four innocents. It is one of Lee’s best and most powerful works, but he missed something back when he made this film – the larger context of how the bombing changed us and our country.
Seeing the sacrifice as at least equal to the focus on the victims may be a cold equation, but it was and is a reality in the fight for equality.
8 of 10
A
NOTES:
1998 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Spike Lee and Samuel D. Pollard)
1999 Image Awards: 1 win: “Outstanding News, Talk or Information Special”
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Black Cauldron Trailer; Now on DVD
The Black Cauldron is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. Here is the trailer for the "Special Edition" home release:
Detroit Metal City Film to Premiere at J-Pop Summit 2010
VIZ PICTURES PREMIERES THE ZANY HEAVY METAL HIJINKS OF DETROIT METAL CITY FOR J-POP SUMMIT FESTIVAL 2010
Live Air Guitar Performance, Special Cosplay Award and Panel Discussion Highlight The VIZ Cinema Theatrical Premiere Of Live Action Comedy That Features Appearances By Gene Simmons And Marty Friedman
VIZ Pictures brings the zany heavy metal comedy of Detroit Metal City (DMC) for an exclusive theatrical premiere at VIZ Cinema at 7:00pm during the J-Pop Summit Festival, taking place next Saturday, September 18th. Tickets for the premiere are $15.00 and are available at www.vizcinema.com or the theatre box office. A pre-show reception with snacks and beverages will be held in the cinema lobby beginning at 6:00pm.
To further celebrate the J-POP Summit Fest premiere event, at 5:00pm on the outdoor NEW PEOPLE stage, VIZ Pictures will stage a performance by San Francisco air guitar champion Matthew "Cold Steel Renegade" Feldstein and also invites fans to a “Let’s Talk DMC” panel discussion led by Patrick Macias, Editor of Otaku USA magazine, and two other special guests.
A cos-play contest hosted by San Francisco anime convention Anime On Display will award free tickets for the premiere to contestants dressed as a Detroit Metal City character.
The Top DMC cos-players will each win a free ticket to the movie premiere at 7:00pm, and the Top 2 DMC cos-players will re-appear on the NEW PEOPLE stage at 5:00pm to battle for a Grand Prize package that includes a $50 gift card to VIZ Cinema, a Death Note Collection Blu-ray and more. Fans may pre-register for contest at www.aodsf.org or simply visit the Animation On Display booth at the J-Pop Summit Festival.
Detroit Metal City takes the zany rock antics inspired by films like Spinal Tap to hilarious new extremes in this film directed by Toshio Lee and based on the popular manga comic created by Kiminori Wakasugi. It features notable appearances by Gene Simmons from the legendary band, KISS, and Marty Friedman of Megadeth, and stars Kenichi Matsuyama, one of the most adored actors in Japan today and also known widely for his role as 'L' in the Death Note films (also available from VIZ Pictures).
In the film, Soichi Negishi (played by Kenichi Matsuyama) is a sweet and shy young man who dreams of becoming a trendy singer songwriter. But for some reason, he is forced into joining the devil worshiping death metal band “Detroit Metal City” (DMC). In full stage make-up and costume, he transforms into Johannes Krauser II the vulgar-mouthed lead vocalist of the band. But he must keep this a secret from his crush, Yuri Aikawa, who despises death metal. What would she think if she found out? But against Negishi’s will, DMC rises to stardom. Things get even more complicated when the legendary king of death metal, Jack IL Dark (played by Gene Simmons), challenges DMC to a duel in the film’s climactic finale. What will be the fate of innocent Negishi as he climbs to the top of the death metal world?
Detroit Metal City will continue to play at VIZ Cinema until September 30th. Tickets are $10.
Please visit http://www.dmcthemovie.com/ or VIZ-Pictures.com for more information about the film.
About VIZ Pictures, Inc.:
Based in San Francisco, California, VIZ Pictures, Inc. licenses and distributes selective Japanese live-action films and DVDs, with focus on Japanese "kawaii (cute) and cool" pop culture. VIZ Pictures strives to offer the most entertaining motion pictures straight from the "Kingdom of Pop" for audiences of all ages, especially the manga and anime generation, in North America. Some titles include DEATH NOTE, 20TH CENTURY BOYS, and TRAIN MAN: DENSHA OTOKO. VIZ Pictures is also the producer of NEW PEOPLE, a part of the J-Pop Center Project, a unique entertainment destination bringing Japanese pop culture through film, art, fashion, and retail products. For more information please visit http://www.viz-pictures.com/ or http://www.newpeopleworld.com/.
The J-Pop Summit Festival 2010 presents a variety of fun Japanese pop-inspired attractions including fashion shows, a theatrical film premiere, live art performances, and mini-concerts by some of Japan’s hottest bands. Innovative artists and companies from the Bay area and Japan will join in with an array of products for sale in open air displays on both sides of Post Street and a food court highlighting Japanese cuisine will further complement the celebration. More details are available at: http://www.j-pop.com/.
Mike Newell on Prince of Persia
Mike Newell, director of PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME talks about the film in this interview provided by Disney:
QUESTION: Did you reference old films like Korda’s The Thief Of Bagdad as you were making Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
MIKE NEWELL: I thought about movies that I had seen as a child, though The Thief Of Bagdad wasn’t one of them. But I did think about big cowboy movies that I had seen and obviously the movies of David Lean. With a film like this you know you are doing a genre which is called Bruckheimer and that takes a big canvas to produce and I was very aware of that.
QUESTION: Why did you film in Morocco at a time of the year that everyone advised against going there?
MIKE NEWELL: I’m afraid that is simply how the movies work. If you are going to do a film about the South Pole, the chances are that you will film it in Hawaii! Whatever is most difficult, you will get to do. That is just when everything happened. It was very hot! Some days it was 135 degrees! But it is very dry and so, you lose a lot of weight, which is good. Wet heat is what is exhausting and so I was fine. Also, it must be said, sometimes up in the mountains, we had absolutely torrential rain. Really serious rain, where we had to watch out for water courses getting washed away.
QUESTION: You never used rain in the movie. So did you stop when the weather got bad?
MIKE NEWELL: Yes, we stopped. And we stopped in vast confusion and disorganization – because nobody said it was going to rain! We simply weren’t prepared for it.
QUESTION: How hard was it to adapt the movie from a video game?
MIKE NEWELL: Jordan Mechner [creator of the video game and film scriptwriter] got on very well indeed. The reason was that he was the man who wrote the game and did the first graphic novel, and he is a research freak. He absolutely loves the ancient world and he loves doing his research. So there would be stuff in the story, which would be absolutely authentic – and I enjoyed that very much. It meant that I did not feel overwhelmed by the video game. Jerry Bruckheimer and I talked a lot about what our attitude to the game should be. Were we making the game or were we making a drama? Very clearly we said that we were making a drama. Then what happened was that during the making of the film, we became aware of at least one other new version of the game, which was much more visually sophisticated. I looked at that and I took some moves from that. The other big thing that we decided was that he had to be an action hero. But what were the seeds of what the character in the game does? What we discovered was that what it was about was this thing called parkour. Parkour was developed by the kids in the French housing estates. They would run up walls! So we watched tapes of this very dramatic stuff. In certain moves they do appear to be able to defy gravity…in just the way that the character in the game does. So the parkour people advised us in all sorts of ways. Like for the big sequence where Jake attacks the gate. They choreographed some of that for us, which was very useful. So there was a kind of overlap between parkour, the game and the making of a great big romantic widescreen experience. That was how it came together.
QUESTION: One of the film’s strengths is the comic banter, which seems like The Princess Bride?
MIKE NEWELL: The Princess Bride was one of the films we watched and were aware of. One of the reasons I wanted to make this film is that it is this new genre and Jerry [Bruckheimer] is a genre now. He does what he does. He is Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Rock and Bruce Willis going to defend the world from a crashing meteor. It is always a rich, high coloured mixture. I liked that a lot about the script. I liked that it was funny. I very much enjoy doing that stuff. Fred (Alfred Molina) and I had worked together before and I knew he would be wonderful. Then you do have that uneasy Beatrice and Benedict relationship between the boy and the girl where they absolutely loathe one another and then little by little they fall in love. So what you are doing is to make this great big collage of all sorts of things. It is no one movie. It is an entertainment.
QUESTION: The casting of Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton was crucial?
MIKE NEWELL: Yes. Jerry was very generous about that. He asked who I wanted and I told him very clearly that I had always thought about Jake. I wanted him to be American because this was a huge budget movie and the Americans deserve to see their own. At the same time I was encouraged to cast English. I was thinking about going to Bollywood for the girl. I saw a lot of Bollywood actresses. I saw a couple of sensational Iranian actress, an Israeli actress or two. I wanted a kind of exotic look. Then up pops Gemma Arterton from Gravesend, England and she was the one I settled on. I felt very strongly about both leads. Jerry saw them and agreed.
QUESTION: Ben Kingsley is a great villain. Had your paths crossed early in your careers when you both worked on the Uk TV soap, Coronation Street?
MIKE NEWELL: Apparently they did. Neither of us can really remember. But it was about the time that we were both working on the Street. I thought of him for this film because of films like Sexy Beast. I wanted somebody who would be believable as a good guy and would turn out to have this appalling second existence as the bad guy. So it was Gandhi on the one hand and Sexy Beast on the other. He was terrific. He puts out his hand and pulls the kid on to the horse and everything is going to be fine from that moment on. You trust him. Then you discover you must not trust him. I said to him that there were always going to be two movies. The movie that we were making and then the movie that his character was making, which was going to be different. And the one movie would twine round the other.
QUESTION: How did you work the balance between actual filming and the CGI effects?
MIKE NEWELL: This is the second time I have done one of these great big live action versus CG movies. We were in Morocco at the wrong time of the year and people were terrified that we would start to get sick, they were terrified that the level of competence that we would find out there was not as great as we needed. It was in fact superlatively more than we needed. They are really good at what they do out there. They were also afraid that we would get behind, that Morocco would turn into a swamp out of which we could clamber. It did not do that, by virtue of us removing certain sequences out of Morocco and putting them into stages in England. The biggest of those was the attack on the Eastern Gate. Originally we were going to build that part of the city in Morocco and we would then, with CG, have grafted the rest of the city all around it. I can see the magnificent location in my head right now. But we were very worried about the wind. In summer the wind out there gets very boisterous. We were afraid that the whole thing would get blown over and then we would be in Apocalypse Now land. So we decided to shift that out of actual production into CG production. That was a tremendous shift. We made the decision quite late not to shoot for real and so it was something that we were constantly running to catch up with. We always knew that there would be huge SFGX things with the dagger. That was quite clear. But several times what we did was to come out squeaky clean from the physical production by loading on to the CG side of the production. So we were constantly sprinting to catch up.
QUESTION: What is it like making a big film like Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
MIKE NEWELL: Making a movie like this is like being the Chief Executive of the Ford Motor Corporation. They bring you stuff and say these are our plans for next summer’s SUV. You say can we have it in blue? They reply of course, whatever color you like. And so on. You can see the analogy. These films are so huge that there are two other directors – the second unit director and the visual effects supervisor. The whole thing about what happens when you press the button on the dagger came from one of the visual effects houses in London. They showed us tests and we thought it was terrific.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME Available on DVD and Blu-ray 9/14/10
QUESTION: Did you reference old films like Korda’s The Thief Of Bagdad as you were making Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
MIKE NEWELL: I thought about movies that I had seen as a child, though The Thief Of Bagdad wasn’t one of them. But I did think about big cowboy movies that I had seen and obviously the movies of David Lean. With a film like this you know you are doing a genre which is called Bruckheimer and that takes a big canvas to produce and I was very aware of that.
QUESTION: Why did you film in Morocco at a time of the year that everyone advised against going there?
MIKE NEWELL: I’m afraid that is simply how the movies work. If you are going to do a film about the South Pole, the chances are that you will film it in Hawaii! Whatever is most difficult, you will get to do. That is just when everything happened. It was very hot! Some days it was 135 degrees! But it is very dry and so, you lose a lot of weight, which is good. Wet heat is what is exhausting and so I was fine. Also, it must be said, sometimes up in the mountains, we had absolutely torrential rain. Really serious rain, where we had to watch out for water courses getting washed away.
QUESTION: You never used rain in the movie. So did you stop when the weather got bad?
MIKE NEWELL: Yes, we stopped. And we stopped in vast confusion and disorganization – because nobody said it was going to rain! We simply weren’t prepared for it.
QUESTION: How hard was it to adapt the movie from a video game?
MIKE NEWELL: Jordan Mechner [creator of the video game and film scriptwriter] got on very well indeed. The reason was that he was the man who wrote the game and did the first graphic novel, and he is a research freak. He absolutely loves the ancient world and he loves doing his research. So there would be stuff in the story, which would be absolutely authentic – and I enjoyed that very much. It meant that I did not feel overwhelmed by the video game. Jerry Bruckheimer and I talked a lot about what our attitude to the game should be. Were we making the game or were we making a drama? Very clearly we said that we were making a drama. Then what happened was that during the making of the film, we became aware of at least one other new version of the game, which was much more visually sophisticated. I looked at that and I took some moves from that. The other big thing that we decided was that he had to be an action hero. But what were the seeds of what the character in the game does? What we discovered was that what it was about was this thing called parkour. Parkour was developed by the kids in the French housing estates. They would run up walls! So we watched tapes of this very dramatic stuff. In certain moves they do appear to be able to defy gravity…in just the way that the character in the game does. So the parkour people advised us in all sorts of ways. Like for the big sequence where Jake attacks the gate. They choreographed some of that for us, which was very useful. So there was a kind of overlap between parkour, the game and the making of a great big romantic widescreen experience. That was how it came together.
QUESTION: One of the film’s strengths is the comic banter, which seems like The Princess Bride?
MIKE NEWELL: The Princess Bride was one of the films we watched and were aware of. One of the reasons I wanted to make this film is that it is this new genre and Jerry [Bruckheimer] is a genre now. He does what he does. He is Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Rock and Bruce Willis going to defend the world from a crashing meteor. It is always a rich, high coloured mixture. I liked that a lot about the script. I liked that it was funny. I very much enjoy doing that stuff. Fred (Alfred Molina) and I had worked together before and I knew he would be wonderful. Then you do have that uneasy Beatrice and Benedict relationship between the boy and the girl where they absolutely loathe one another and then little by little they fall in love. So what you are doing is to make this great big collage of all sorts of things. It is no one movie. It is an entertainment.
QUESTION: The casting of Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton was crucial?
MIKE NEWELL: Yes. Jerry was very generous about that. He asked who I wanted and I told him very clearly that I had always thought about Jake. I wanted him to be American because this was a huge budget movie and the Americans deserve to see their own. At the same time I was encouraged to cast English. I was thinking about going to Bollywood for the girl. I saw a lot of Bollywood actresses. I saw a couple of sensational Iranian actress, an Israeli actress or two. I wanted a kind of exotic look. Then up pops Gemma Arterton from Gravesend, England and she was the one I settled on. I felt very strongly about both leads. Jerry saw them and agreed.
QUESTION: Ben Kingsley is a great villain. Had your paths crossed early in your careers when you both worked on the Uk TV soap, Coronation Street?
MIKE NEWELL: Apparently they did. Neither of us can really remember. But it was about the time that we were both working on the Street. I thought of him for this film because of films like Sexy Beast. I wanted somebody who would be believable as a good guy and would turn out to have this appalling second existence as the bad guy. So it was Gandhi on the one hand and Sexy Beast on the other. He was terrific. He puts out his hand and pulls the kid on to the horse and everything is going to be fine from that moment on. You trust him. Then you discover you must not trust him. I said to him that there were always going to be two movies. The movie that we were making and then the movie that his character was making, which was going to be different. And the one movie would twine round the other.
QUESTION: How did you work the balance between actual filming and the CGI effects?
MIKE NEWELL: This is the second time I have done one of these great big live action versus CG movies. We were in Morocco at the wrong time of the year and people were terrified that we would start to get sick, they were terrified that the level of competence that we would find out there was not as great as we needed. It was in fact superlatively more than we needed. They are really good at what they do out there. They were also afraid that we would get behind, that Morocco would turn into a swamp out of which we could clamber. It did not do that, by virtue of us removing certain sequences out of Morocco and putting them into stages in England. The biggest of those was the attack on the Eastern Gate. Originally we were going to build that part of the city in Morocco and we would then, with CG, have grafted the rest of the city all around it. I can see the magnificent location in my head right now. But we were very worried about the wind. In summer the wind out there gets very boisterous. We were afraid that the whole thing would get blown over and then we would be in Apocalypse Now land. So we decided to shift that out of actual production into CG production. That was a tremendous shift. We made the decision quite late not to shoot for real and so it was something that we were constantly running to catch up with. We always knew that there would be huge SFGX things with the dagger. That was quite clear. But several times what we did was to come out squeaky clean from the physical production by loading on to the CG side of the production. So we were constantly sprinting to catch up.
QUESTION: What is it like making a big film like Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
MIKE NEWELL: Making a movie like this is like being the Chief Executive of the Ford Motor Corporation. They bring you stuff and say these are our plans for next summer’s SUV. You say can we have it in blue? They reply of course, whatever color you like. And so on. You can see the analogy. These films are so huge that there are two other directors – the second unit director and the visual effects supervisor. The whole thing about what happens when you press the button on the dagger came from one of the visual effects houses in London. They showed us tests and we thought it was terrific.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME Available on DVD and Blu-ray 9/14/10
Jones Apparel and Adopt-A-Classroom Join the "Waiting for 'Superman'" Cause
ADOPT-A-CLASSROOM AND JONES NEW YORK IN THE CLASSROOM PLEDGE TO DONATE $50,000 TO SCHOOLS IN NEED
Join WaitingforSuperman.com “Pledge Progress Meter” at the 80,000 Pledge Level
HOLLYWOOD, CA (September 13, 2010) – Paramount Pictures, Participant Media and Walden Media jointly announced today Adopt-A-Classroom and Jones New York in the Classroom have joined the WaitingforSuperman.com “Pledge Progress Meter” by committing to donate $50,000 to schools in need once 80,000 people pledge to see the award-winning documentary film WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN.”
"Teachers play a critical role in the success of our schools, our communities and our children," said James Rosenberg, Founder and Executive Director of Adopt-A-Classroom. "We, along with our national sponsor Jones New York In The Classroom, are excited and honored to be affiliated with ‘Waiting for “Superman,”’ a film that should enlighten the country about the many challenges students and teachers confront in the classroom everyday."
Adopt-A-Classroom and Jones New York in the Classroom become the fifth notch on the WaitingforSuperman.com “Pledge Progress Meter.” FirstBook, OfficeMax®, DonorsChoose.org and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have already committed to making a difference in education by taking the pledge.
WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” directed by Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) will be released under the Paramount Vantage banner and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories. Designed to start a national conversation, the movie and corresponding “Take the Pledge” campaign aim to inspire everyone to create innovative and long-term solutions to help change the course of our kids’ lives for the better. The “Pledge Progress Meter” launched in May as a way for non-profits, foundations and corporations to match individual pledge levels with powerful action items aimed at helping both students and public schools.
The film opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 24, nationwide in October.
The film is produced by Lesley Chilcott, with Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann serving as executive producers. It is written by Davis Guggenheim & Billy Kimball.
For more information about the movie, or to take the pledge go to http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/ or text “PLEDGE” to 77177.
To join the conversation visit us on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/WaitingForSuperman
What does your school need? Tell us by Tweeting #MySchoolNeeds at http://www.Twitter.com/WaitingSuperman
For more on Adopt-A-Classroom and Jones New York in the Classroom, visit:
http://www.adoptaclassroom.org/
http://www.jnyintheclassroom.org/
About Paramount Pictures Corporation
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. The company's labels include Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Digital Entertainment, Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., Paramount Studio Group, and Worldwide Television Distribution.
About Participant Media
Participant Media is a Los Angeles-based entertainment company that focuses on socially relevant, commercially viable feature films, documentaries and television, as well as publishing and digital media. Participant Media is headed by CEO Jim Berk and was founded in 2004 by philanthropist Jeff Skoll, who serves as Chairman. Ricky Strauss is President.
Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives. For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs, which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, Darfur Now, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, Standard Operating Procedure, The Visitor, The Soloist, Food, Inc., The Informant!, The Cove, The Crazies, Oceans, Furry Vengeance, CASINO JACK and the United States of Money, Countdown to Zero and Waiting for “Superman.”
About Walden Media
Walden Media specializes in entertainment for the whole family. Past award-winning films include: “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Nim’s Island” and “Charlotte’s Web.” Upcoming films include the third installment in the Narnia series “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”
About Adopt-A-Classroom
Adopt-A-Classroom is a national, award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting classroom teachers and ensuring all children have equal access to a quality education. Since 1998, the organization has raised over $15 million on behalf of classrooms across America. Donations are tax-deductible and 100% is passed through to the teacher. Teachers have the ability to purchase resources that create a more engaging learning environment and also provide valuable new means to inspire children about the wonders of learning. To support a classroom, visit www.adoptaclassroom.org.
About Jones Apparel Group
Jones Apparel Group, Inc. (www.jonesapparel.com) is a leading designer, marketer and wholesaler of branded apparel, footwear and accessories. The Company also markets directly to consumers through its chain of specialty retail and value-based stores and through its e-commerce web sites. The Company's nationally recognized brands include Jones New York, Nine West, Anne Klein, Gloria Vanderbilt, Stuart Weitzman, Robert Rodriguez, Kasper, Bandolino, Easy Spirit, Evan-Picone, l.e.i., Energie, Enzo Angiolini, Joan & David, Mootsies Tootsies, Sam & Libby, Napier, Judith Jack, Albert Nipon and Le Suit. The Company also markets costume jewelry under the Givenchy brand licensed from Givenchy Corporation, women’s footwear under the Dockers® and Dockers® Women brands and infants’, toddlers’ and boys’ footwear (excluding girls’ footwear) under the Dockers® and Dockers® Premium brands, licensed from Levi Strauss & Co., apparel and accessories under the Rachel Roy brand licensed from Rachel Roy IP Company, LLC, and Jessica Simpson jeanswear licensed from VCJS LLC. Each brand is differentiated by its own distinctive styling, pricing strategy, distribution channel and target consumer. The Company contracts for the manufacture of its products through a worldwide network of quality manufacturers. The Company has capitalized on its nationally known brand names by entering into various licenses for several of its trademarks, including Jones New York, Anne Klein New York, Nine West, Gloria Vanderbilt, l.e.i. and Evan-Picone, with select manufacturers of women's and men's products which the Company does not manufacture. For more than 35 years, the Company has built a reputation for excellence in product quality and value, and in operational execution.
Jerry Bruckheimer on Prince of Persia and Producing
Super producer Jerry Bruckheimer talks about PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME in this interview provided by Disney:
QUESTION: You must get loads of film ideas pitched to you. What was the appeal of doing Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: Ithink it’s a throwback to old movies, to Lawrence of Arabia. I love the old David Lean films and this is a fantasy version of it. Jordan [Mechner] did such a wonderful job, the game is so successful, and they gave us such a wonderful pitch that we fell in love with it.
QUESTION: Did you all play the game yourself? And will there be sequels?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I had played the game prior to Jordan [Mechner] coming in, but not the one that he talked about when he first created it. It was a much more recent version of it.
QUESTION: How do you see your role on a movie, when you’re referred to as the most powerful man in Hollywood?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: That’s fiction by the media, it’s not really true. We just try to have a set that runs smoothly, where people can have a good time even though they’re working very hard. I think that’s because Mike and our actors handled the set so well. Everybody had a good time, and that’s what it’s about.
QUESTION: Was there ever a desire to make Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time in 3D? And how do you feel about the 3D revolution?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I think we talked about it briefly, but Avatar hadn’t come out, so we couldn’t see the impact 3D would have. Plus Avatar was done all on a soundstage, pretty much, in a hangar and this picture was done in Morocco, the majority of it. So it was much more difficult, with the two cameras and the sand and the heat. But 3D is here to stay, it’s taking over cinema.
QUESTION: How do you feel looking back over your career – does it give you a sense of pride to think that you’re the man who made Top Gun?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: No, I always worry about the next one. It’s never the past. You learn from the past but I worry about this one and Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which is coming up next, and the next Pirates Of The Caribbean is about to start. So I’m always looking way beyond. I don’t look back too much. Maybe someday when I’m in a retirement home somewhere I’ll think ‘Oh wow, I did all these things?’. But not now.
QUESTION: It is said that you have 17 films in various stages of production, plus all your TV work. How do you manage to do all that you do and maintain the standard?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: It comes down to working with really talented people, this is a great example of the talent that we create. We create the same kind of talent behind the cameras, so we have a lot of people in our company who are enormously talented. And then the show owners in television run their business along with our executives. So it’s just finding great people to work with.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME Available on DVD and Blu-ray 9/14/10
QUESTION: You must get loads of film ideas pitched to you. What was the appeal of doing Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: Ithink it’s a throwback to old movies, to Lawrence of Arabia. I love the old David Lean films and this is a fantasy version of it. Jordan [Mechner] did such a wonderful job, the game is so successful, and they gave us such a wonderful pitch that we fell in love with it.
QUESTION: Did you all play the game yourself? And will there be sequels?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I had played the game prior to Jordan [Mechner] coming in, but not the one that he talked about when he first created it. It was a much more recent version of it.
QUESTION: How do you see your role on a movie, when you’re referred to as the most powerful man in Hollywood?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: That’s fiction by the media, it’s not really true. We just try to have a set that runs smoothly, where people can have a good time even though they’re working very hard. I think that’s because Mike and our actors handled the set so well. Everybody had a good time, and that’s what it’s about.
QUESTION: Was there ever a desire to make Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time in 3D? And how do you feel about the 3D revolution?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I think we talked about it briefly, but Avatar hadn’t come out, so we couldn’t see the impact 3D would have. Plus Avatar was done all on a soundstage, pretty much, in a hangar and this picture was done in Morocco, the majority of it. So it was much more difficult, with the two cameras and the sand and the heat. But 3D is here to stay, it’s taking over cinema.
QUESTION: How do you feel looking back over your career – does it give you a sense of pride to think that you’re the man who made Top Gun?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: No, I always worry about the next one. It’s never the past. You learn from the past but I worry about this one and Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which is coming up next, and the next Pirates Of The Caribbean is about to start. So I’m always looking way beyond. I don’t look back too much. Maybe someday when I’m in a retirement home somewhere I’ll think ‘Oh wow, I did all these things?’. But not now.
QUESTION: It is said that you have 17 films in various stages of production, plus all your TV work. How do you manage to do all that you do and maintain the standard?
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: It comes down to working with really talented people, this is a great example of the talent that we create. We create the same kind of talent behind the cameras, so we have a lot of people in our company who are enormously talented. And then the show owners in television run their business along with our executives. So it’s just finding great people to work with.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME Available on DVD and Blu-ray 9/14/10
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