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November 1992

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Thu, 5 Nov 1992 11:23:43 EDT
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James Peterson is right when he says that a study of the development of a
film would have to be different from the study of the development of a
symphony.  Yet there are lessons from the study of the development of a
film project about the dynamics of the production process and influences
on what finally comes about on the screen.
 
These kinds of studies are not carried on for several reasons having to
do precisely with the dynamics of the production process.  Much material
is generated (as would be early drafts of a symphony), but they are
deemed working papers and generally discarded when the project is finished.
That is, there is not as much primary material for film as for music.
 
Some journalistic reports are available that detail the process, but not
at the level of "let's cut this shot and include this other one."  Rosenblum's
book is the closest of this kind that I can think of at the moment.
 
Kael's work is too
broad and wields the ax of her judgment that "Herman Mankiewicz had little
to do with the result."  Robert Corrigan (?) did a careful analysis of
successive scripts of >Citizen Kane<.  But scripts can't tell the whole
story since many compromises never get into the script.
 
The internal dynamics of a project never get into scripts.  One example:
Linwood Dunn was responsible for special effects on >Kane<.  He has many
stories about how when Welles learned of a new special effects possibility,
he wrote a scene that would take advantage of it.  Most of the deep focus
shots were actually special effects shots, as was the fireplace sequence
at Zanadu, and the over-the-roof traverse through a skylight that open
the Susan Alexander squence.  Dunn claims that large percentage of the
material in >Kane< one-way-or-another included special effects.
 
Lillian Ross's book >Picture< is an excellent study of the development of
John Huston's >Red Badge of Courage< at the end of the Big Studio era.
Lindsay Anderson's book >The Making of Secret People< (exact title?) does
the same kind of job on a film made in Britain in the same era.
 
The best contemporary account I know of is a lengthy series published
in the LA Times around the making of an independent project >Meteor< (1979).
It doesn't go through successive script versions, but has fascinating (to me)
material about the influences on a script; subsequent events were equally
interesting since the film was made in the interstice between older
>Earthquake< -type special effects and >Star Wars< computer-driven effects.
 
. . . and so it goes.
 
If anyone is interested in the LATimes series, I may be able
to locate an exact cite.
 
Cal Pryluck, Radio-Television-Film, Temple University, Philadelphia
<[log in to unmask]>  <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM>

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