I recently found a fascinating article about a movie effect. No, not about how they can simulate __________ with a computer, but how a bit of good ol’ fashion creativity that helped create an audience for scenes in the movie Sea Biscuit. You see, a clever man who works at DreamWorks studios, came up with an idea to fill the stands: inflatable people. Now, none of the articles show one of these inflatable people, but its very intriguing. I like to see people using their creativity instead of relying on technology to solve their problems.
Like so many interesting innovations in movie history, the inflatable dolls were born out of filmmaking necessity. A monumental Sea biscuit challenge was its sheer numbers of background bodies — 7,000 seat fillers were needed for scenes filmed at Santa Anita track, and 4,500 were required at Keeneland, Ky., where other racing scenes were filmed. ”It had to feel like there were 100,000 people in these stands,” producer Frank Marshall says.
A producer can hire thousands of real extras to cheer on the champion boxer in Ali, or use ”free” extras by filming at real sporting events like Los Angeles Lakers’ games (the opening sequence in Grand Canyon), or fill one section of an otherwise empty stadium with live extras and digitally duplicate them to fill the rest of the venue (the football throngs applauding the title character in Forrest Gump). The producer can use cardboard cutouts (the hundreds of baseball spectators in The Fan). Or, simply stick real extras in a few rows and hide all the empty seats with blinding lights pointed straight into the camera (any number of movies). All of these solutions have drawbacks.
check out the whole article HERE and a diffrent article HERE
what do you guys think?
