Steven Spielberg: "I thought Ridley [Scott, director of Blade Runner] painted a very bleak but brilliant vision of life on earth in a few years. It's kind of acid rain and sushi. In fact, it's coming true faster than most science fiction films come true. Blade Runner is almost upon us. It was ultranoir."
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/spielberg_pr.html
Alex
How did you decide to go into film and, specifically, visual effects? Were there any particular films, people or events that inspired you?
Aaron McBride (VFX Art Director, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides): I was a big fan of effects films growing up. Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner. I was a big fan of Ridley Scott and how he used so much atmosphere in his films. All the same aesthetics that he used in filming the sets and the actors were the same as the effects shots. There were areas of the frame that would fall to just a rim-light silhouette. Nowadays, with visual effects being digital, there is sometimes a tendency in the work to over light and show off all the detail, and we're always conscious of that.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7406
Alex
Are there DJs that you're still looking to for inspiration?
Surgeon (musician, DJ, Techno producer): Sure, of course. Quite recently I realized it had been a long time since I'd really connected with a lot of music that Jeff Mills had been releasing. But then I heard him play a set on this Japanese streaming site, and it really clicked. I was in Japan at the beginning of May, and I pretty much listened to the soundtrack to Blade Runner non-stop. I was really, really jetlagged and I was walking around in this kind of haze and it was really amazing. I've kind of got a bit obsessed with the soundtrack now.
I remember a long time ago Jeff saying how big an influence Blade Runner was for him. So the whole thing kind of made sense when I heard his set on that site. I saw one of his records that he was playing, and it said "Blade Runner" on it, and the whole thing came together. It's really exciting to feel connected again to Jeff's music. There's really been a lack of sci-fi in techno for a long time I think.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1215
Dennys Ilic (cinematographer and photographer Battlestar Galactica): So I did these photographs and Eddie Olmos comes up to me -- again another jaw dropping situation for me, because Blade Runner is my one if my favorite films of all time and I'm a big fan of Eddie's and all the other work he's done as well.
Curtis Harrington (director): The character, yes. The same thing here. All through the history of film, directors who are commercially viable, do a lot of stuff for commercial reasons. So for instance, one of my favorite films of the last 20 years or so is "Blade Runner." "Blade Runner" is just magnificent in its own way. But the director has directed a lot of guff too. So I can't say Ridley Scott is one of my favorite directors because he goes from directing a masterpiece like that to "G. I. Jane." So there's no consistency. I think there is consistency in my work, except for "Mata Hari" which goes into totally different area.
http://rustywhitesfilmworldobituaries.blogspot.com/2010/04/curtis-harr ington-2001-interview.html
Alex
finally crawled through this whole thread
good stuff
"I wish someone would remake Hollywood"
Michael Fassbender on playing an android in the upcoming film, 'Prometheus':
"I kind of went my own way, really. I didn't watch the ['Alien'] films. When I found out I was doing it, I didn't revisit them. I watched 'Blade Runner', but I didn't watch the 'Alien' films. Of course, they're in there. I can remember them from when I've seen the films before, but I sort of went a different way."
What films back then had an impact on you?
Richard Prince (photographer and painter): The Road Warrior. First Blood. Alien. Drugstore Cowboy. The Terminator. Did Blade Runner come out in the '80s? If it did, I liked that one--the original, not the director's cut.
Hideki Arichi (art director): I met Duncan (Jones) when he was a student at the film school and met Gavin and Barrett over the years through Duncan. The first short I was involved with was actually a commercial entry for Kodak(1) where a small noodle stand was constructed and placed in London’s Chinatown. It was a short but sweet tribute to ‘Blade Runner’ and I designed the physical and built the physical elements.
Are there any artists you look up to?
Jack Moik(Nydenion): Douglas Trumbull. I envy him for all those unforgettable moments he created, starting from 2001-Odyssey to my most favourite movie which is Blade Runner.
Q. Your personal matte painting, "The Decline Of Babel Myth" has won several awards, & has been featured in the world's best Computer Graphics magazines. Can you briefly take us through the journey, from the initial concept to the final matte painting?
Frederic St-Arnaud (Senior Digital Matte-painter at Rodeo FX): This matte painting came from a discussion with my friend Kami, who did a wonderful 3D spaceship in 3D Studio Max. He sent me a converted 3D model for Softimage XSI in order to do a futuristic matte painting. It was also an opportunity to create something inspired by the movie "Blade Runner" which I have a lot of admiration for this amazing film. I did not do sketches or concepts. I started with some photos I did from a summer trip in New York City. Once my photos were well blended together, I did some 2D extensions to the foreground buildings with the Photoshop tool call Clone Stamp (or rubber stamp). Then, I created 3D geometry like bridges, antennas, landing boards. Because of the perspective and complexity of these elements, it was easier to do them in 3D. I finished with the background cities, the sky and the spaceships.
See matte painting here: http://www.cgtantra.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view& ;id=261&Itemid=35
Alex
Interviewer: Ridley Scott broke the news to us a few months ago that he’s working on a sequel to “Blade Runner.” Do you welcome this news, or does it sound a little risky?
William Gibson (author): "If anyone could pull it off, it would be Ridley Scott. But the idea of franchise, rather than one-off films, becoming the actual form, strikes me as decadent. Blade Runner is a classic, on the order of Citizen Kane. What would a sequel to Citizen Kane have done to the original?"
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/17/william-gibson-calls-sopa-dr aconian/?mod=WSJBlog
Alex
Timo Vuorensola (director of the upcoming science fiction comedy Iron Sky): "We’re hoping to create something like Vangelis did for Blade Runner – not just a soundtrack, but a whole new world that echoes through the music."
Trailer Iron Sky:
http://ironsky.net/
Alex
Jay Shuster (art director at Pixar): ''I saw Star Wars at age six and it pretty much entirely informed my design brain,'' he says. ''I thought: 'That's it - nothing else matters' … apart from Blade Runner … nothing else really mattered to me.''
http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/pixels-axles-and-a-galaxy-far-away- 20120202-1qtvf.html
Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention.
Oscar nominee, Jeff Cronenweth (cinematographer, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Fight Club), interviewed by CNN:
CNN: What are some of your favorite movies?
Cronenweth: "Blade Runner," of course, my dad's signature movie. "Shawshank Redemption"; (cinematographer) Roger Deakins is one of my favorites. "Apocalypse Now"; I can't imagine the struggle and endurance to pull that movie off and have it look as breathtaking as it does. (And) the "Godfathers" are unbelievable accomplishments.
It looks like Prometheus is much more idea-driven than other movies in this genre, and that there are some enormous ideas coming. Was it a challenge to weave that into an existing mythos?
Damon Lindeloff: "Look, Ridley Scott birthed this universe over two decades ago. My job was to sit and listen and to channel, in the same way that a medium does. This was about the ideas that he wanted to convey, and he did not want to come back and do science fiction again unless there was some kind of a philosophical construct to it. That's why Blade Runner, which didn't really enjoy commercial success when it first came out, is viewed as a classic, and is still being discussed and dissected: there are these fundamental ideas about humanity, our relationship with technology, the presence of a soul — those are all the things that drive Blade Runner. Ridley was reaching for the fruit on the tree of knowledge in the ideas that he was having about this movie.
At the same time, there is a line where a movie becomes overtly pretentious. We wanted to stay on the right side of it, because once you cross it, there's no going back. There had to be a version of this movie that presented big ideas, but didn't really wallow around and spend all it’s time basking in the glory of it's own intelligence. We wanted to make an entertaining movie at the same time. Hopefully, it's a hybrid in tone between the original Alien and Blade Runner. I mean, Inception is a wonderful movie and I love it, but I also love that people are shooting guns at each other and buildings are exploding."
http://blog.ted.com/2012/02/28/writing-a-tedtalk-from-the-future-q-a-w ith-damon-lindelof/
Alex
Rian Johnson, in an interview about his new sci-fi film Looper:
Rian, was science fiction something you had always wanted to do?
JOHNSON: Yeah, I love sci-fi, and I’ve always wanted to do a sci-fi film. Sci-fi is fun because it always goes with another genre. I don’t know what a straight sci-fi film would be. Blade Runner was a sci-fi noir. Alien was a sci-fi monster movie. I love the genre so much. In terms of switching it up, it’s because I write these things too and I’m a very slow writer. By the time I’m done, I’ve spent three or four years on each of these movies and I just want to do something totally different because I’m so sick of that previous one.
How would you describe the universe of this film?
JOHNSON: Well, it’s the near future and it’s very, very grounded. It is 30 years in the future. It’s kind of dystopian. Everything has fallen apart a little bit. But, it’s not as completely conceptualized as something like Blade Runner. It is a little more grounded and a little more down-to-earth. The truth is that, even though we had some fun with the futuristic elements, the movie is very action and character driven. The world that it takes place in was less about making a very distinct future world and more about these characters really driving us through this thing. It was more about, “What’s a world that we can pull off on our budget that looks real and makes sense, as a future?”
I don’t know what a straight sci-fi film would be.
Why, 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course!
And Blade Runner proves that Film Noir isn't a genre but a style.
Alex
Gerard Way (founder and frontman of the band My Chemical Romance and he's also a comic book artist): 'Blade Runner' was really huge. 'Blade Runner' was huge during Parade as well. 'Blade Runner' was always on, but this time [while] I watched them, I felt like I was - I felt we were on a bit of an artistic crisis at a certain point. We had done this recording, we [had] just gotten back from Japan and I had about, we had a week to ourselves maybe, to kind of contemplate what we're in the midst of in what we're doing. And I watched the 'Blade Runner' documentary, and that's actually called 'Dangerous Days', because that was the original title of 'Blade Runner'. And there's, just from watching that, I gained so much insight about art and what it took to not back down. And there's this thing where he's, in the very opening when the credits are happening, there's a shadow of Ridley Scott and he says: you see this in my hands, this is my camera, this is my weapon. He goes: I'm not gonna stop until I get what I want. And I was like: oh, God, you got to really dig deep like this guy, like he, we're gonna have to really do what he just said. Had a huge impact on me just that documentary. 'Cause obviously, I've seen the film so much and there's a little bit of influence in there. There's a lot of Tokyo in there. There's a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo. And there's a lot of the director of 'Visitor Q'.
Alex
Nicolas Winding Refn (Director of Drive): I will not be controlled. Well, you know, I've always wanted to do a Western ... in Asia. So I thought, I'll do Only God Forgives there. Shoot in Bangkok. Moving to Bangkok in four weeks (*) It's *beep* awesome. Been there five years in a row. We go on vacations -my family- there each year. Bangkok reminds me very much of Blade Runner. It's gigantic, beautiful, lights, buildings…everything is lit up. Like a sci-fi world"
Shooting in Thailand has invigorated the Refn, who is clearly in awe of Bangkok. "I love this city. Sometimes it feels like the sets of 'Blade Runner,' " he said. "I could eat Thai every day, buy lots of toys, robots, movie posters. Yesterday I found two original posters for...'Godzilla.' Sublime."
Artist, animator, Khang Le interviewd by IGN on his most recent collaboration, the mech combat game Hawken:
IGN: What are some of the inspirations for the visuals?http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1158817p1.html
Khang Le: Some obvious elements we pull from are classic sci-fi movies such as Blade Runner, Alien, etc. From anime: Tekkon Kinkreet, Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor. From video games it's MechWarrior and Phantom Crash. Shadow of Colossus is a favorite of mine for its atmosphere and lighting.
The overall visual [style] of the game is also heavily influenced by our limited resources. I design the environment style around kitbashing like the old Star Wars. It works well for us since the game isn't grounded in reality, we can jam random things together and make it visually pleasing. I also like the look of old broken down machines. Not so much the cool and shiny humanoid robots. I want it to look as if our mechs were built in WW1, Frankensteined together, on the verge of breaking apart.
Fashion designer, Brenda Harvey when asked what inspired her new clothing line:
All of my themes and ideas come from a philosophical place so I am always looking at the big picture. Ideas of destiny, fate, the future and the human condition are reoccurring through out all my work. Phillip K Dick and Blade Runner were a big influences for the ‘Limits’ collection. The idea of an apocalyptic end is quite present in the futuristic prints and gritty textures running through the collection. The scarf prints are very digital in nature but use a classic houndstooth print to give it a timeless feel. They are actually named after each of Phillip K Dick’s five ex-wives. I’m not sure if the world will truly end in December, but the idea of how and when does fascinate me. The human hand or mother nature? Which one will lead us to our demise is truly scary.http://oystermag.com/exclusive-benah-aw12-campaign-interview-2
Grrr, you stole the 300th post from me, wing! ;)
share6 more months and we've kept it going for 4 years!
Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention.
Not necessarily on topic but I saw Snide and Prejudice the other day and noticed that they'd borrowed Deckard's gaff for the filming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennis_House
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120833/
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Does one particular film stand out for you?
Nancy Schreiber (cinematographer): Definitely The Conformist. Storaro is such a master of so many different styles all found in that one movie. The lighting and the framing were exquisite and probably influenced me to become a cinematographer. Later, I was also quite influenced by Blade Runner, photographed by Jordon Cronenweth. Early on, when I was in college, running a film society theater, Sven Nyquist had a profound influence on me...
https://www.cameraguild.com/AboutUs/memberspotlightcustom/member-spotl ight-nancy-schreiber.aspx
Alex
“Can't go wrong with taupe."- Wynn Duffy
Berton Pierce (model maker, director): I MADE TANK AND AIRPLANE MODELS AS A KID, THEN AFTER "STAR WARS" I STARTED MAKING MY OWN DESIGNS.AND I FILMED THEM BLOWING UP WITH MY SUPER-8 CAMERA! AFTER SEEING "BLADE RUNNER" I TRIED HARDER TO MAKE MORE REALISTIC MODELS FOR MY LITTLE FILMS. THAT FILM CHANGED MY LIFE.
A LOT OF THE "STAR WARS" MAKING-OF DOCUMENTARIES WERE FUN TO WATCH.THEY ARE ON THE DVD'S, OR YOUTUBE NOW. I STILL WATCH THEM FOR FUN AND INSPIRATION SINCE WATCHING CGI IS BORING. THE "BLADE RUNNER" CINEFEX ISSUE WAS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME.
You say that Blade Runner change your life, in what sense ?
AFTER SEEING BLADE RUNNER I WANTED TO BE A DIRECTOR INSTEAD OF A MODEL MAKER. ALL THE MODELS I MADE AFTER THAT FILM WERE MORE REALISTIC. STORY AND DESIGN BECAME MORE IMPORTANT TO ME. THE INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND WALL MODEL THAT I MADE FOR "SENSE OF SCALE" IS INFLUENCED BY BLADE RUNNER, AND ALSO "ALIEN!"
http://cinesfx.blogspot.com/2012/04/berton-pierce-interview-english-version.html
Darren Lynn Bousman (Director Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Repo, The Genetic Opera): "If you look at BRAZIL or BLADE RUNNER, those movies hold up. There’s things that are amazing about them that you can’t possibly make any better."
shareChristopher Nolan : “It really spoke to me in terms of what I wanted to do as a filmmaker. Blade Runner has this sort of density to it visually. You come back to it and see something else in it every time. I try to do that in a different way, sort of more narratively than visually.”
Alex
Q: You’ve often said that your favorite film is Blade Runner. What special significance does it hold for you?
Christopher Nolan: As a kid watching films, you go through a gradual realization of what’s behind them. You start off like everyone else, thinking that actors make up the words and create the film themselves. So when I was young and looking at Alien and Blade Runner, I was going, OK, they’re different stories, different settings, really different actors, everything’s different—but there’s a very strong connection between those two films, and that is the director, Ridley Scott. I remember being struck by that, and thinking that’s the job I want.
The atmosphere of Blade Runner was also important, that feeling that there was this whole world outside the frame of the scene. You really felt there were things going on outside of those rooms where you’ve seen the film take place. That’s something I’ve always tried to carry with me. Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.
http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1202-Spring-2012/DGA-Interv iew-Christopher-Nolan.aspx
Alex