Books-by-the-Foot for Dr. Jones
25/09/07, 4:15pm EST
The New Yorker published a very interesting article about the Strand Bookstore which provides ready-made libraries for private homes, stores, and movie sets such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Here follows a few excerpts from the article:
Although prop books are meant to be seen and not read, they have to evoke a mise en scène, inside and out. For Indiana Jones, the filmmakers specified that the books cover such topics as paleontology, marine biology, and pre-Columbian society. They had to be in muted colors and predate 1957. “People have gotten so character-specific nowadays,” Jenny McKibben, a manager at the store, said. “It can’t just be color anymore. With high-def, they can just freeze the film and say, ‘Oh, that’s so inappropriate.’ ”...
Downstairs on the shopping floor, Bibbi Taylor, a Strand manager, perused the Africa aisle for Indiana Jones material ...
Taylor weaved around some undergraduates and shifted two bookcases to the left. “Indy’s a philosopher of sorts, so I’d want some ancient-Greek stuff,” she said. She leaned down to a lower shelf and pulled out a green book with a faded spine. “Oh, yes! A ’39 ‘Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture,’ ” she said. “This could be something that he’s read many times.”
I thought this was a funny read, considering one of the most obvious revealing mistakes in the first three Indy films is from The Last Crusade. Right when Indy sys "X marks the spot" on the second floor of the library, you can clearly see a shelf of very plastic/fake books to his left. I can't find a picture of it but give it a look sometime.
After all the lousy props and anachronisms they left in plain sight while making the original trilogy, having so much detail with this 50's setting feels almost an overkill. In a way, NOT having goofs could actually give the new installment some unwanted distance from the original three.
What's the point in stretching a 720x576 anamorphic image to 1279 pixels wide? You just lose picture quality and gain nothing in details.
Didn't stretch. None of my DVD players have a screengrab feature in them. I just took a straight screen grab via Print Screen from Windows Media while it was in full screen.
Does it not please you? I can go back and re-grab it in windowed mode if it would please you.
"After all the lousy props and anachronisms they left in plain sight while making the original trilogy, having so much detail with this 50's setting feels almost an overkill."
Not having any 'soul', it strikes me as the filmmakers attempting to save their faces instead.
Worry less about the background props and more about the story quality....
Yeah, except now you're downsizing it for no apparent reason.
Yeah... again... I just pulled a straight-screen grab from Print Screen... it's not like I'm directly grabbing the frame from the VOB--I don't have that feature in any of my DVD programs. I used to have Power DVD which did that...
...but I don't any longer. So no matter what I do I'm not gonna get a perfect 750whatever x whatever image... just won't happen.
After all the lousy props and anachronisms they left in plain sight while making the original trilogy, having so much detail with this 50's setting feels almost an overkill. In a way, NOT having goofs could actually give the new installment some unwanted distance from the original three.
haha. Well I suppose another fear is that they are spending money in the wrong places. But I have just as much faith in Frank and Kathleen with that department as I do Spielberg with telling the story.
