Behind the great visual effects in 'Flight'

Flight, which opened last week and started out by reeling in a hefty $25 million and great word-of-mouth, has yet another two things going for it. Not only is it a character-driven drama, it has great special effects. The harrowing plane crash scene is visceral and frightening and suspenseful. There is no way this movie will ever end up being shown as in-flight entertainment. While I was watching , I didn't pay too much attention to what was vCGI and what wasn't: It just looked so real, I wasn't even distracted by any hokey gaps in the visual effects.

This behind-the-scenes video has some great insight into how they simulated flying and a plane crash in Flight. It involved slicing up parts of a real plane and mechanically turning them upside down for the purpose of the shoot. I hope the extras playing passengers were well-compensated for having to sit in what's essentially an amusement park ride for hours, with luggage flying at them.

 

 

Another technique that the video highlights is the use of matte painting to make the weather outside look stormy. Changing the weather in the back of a shot is so commonplace, even low-budget pictures like Take Shelter can do that, though admittedly illustrating an impending storm was a necessity for that movie and was likely a priority even with limited funds. And remember the realistic "other Earth" in Another Earth? That, too, came from painting the sky differently.  When I think of visual effects, I think of things like rear projection, or its updated green screens, which help provide the views outside the plane windows in Flight. But we rarely think of weather. In the craft of filmmaking, sometimes techniques with mattes can provide shortcuts, but they also expand the power of the crew. These techniques are something of a perfectionist's dream, allowing directors to subtly re-time events and lighting, snow, and rainfall. So kudos to Flight for combining visual effects with mechanical ingenuity.

 

‘Wreck-it Ralph’ smashes through Disney Animation records

Superstorm Sandy did have an impact at the box office, but
as hoped, it turned out to mostly be a good one. Wreck-It Ralph did
especially well on the East Coast on Friday, as cooped-up families gladly
embraced the distraction. The animated feature earned $49.1 million over the weekend,
Disney Animation’s biggest
non-holiday weekend opening. Viewers, who skewed young and slightly male,
gave the video game-themed movie an “A” rating. With two more competition-free
weekends before Rise of the Guardians
begins its pre-Thanksgiving run, Wreck-It
Ralph will be able to grab the lion’s share of the family audience.

The Denzel Washington-led Flight took off with $25 million, while only releasing on
1,900 screens. The story of a pilot who is also an alcoholic is something of a
departure from Washington’s
usual casting in lighter action-thrillers, but
audiences responded, giving the movie an “A” CinemaScore rating and Washington
his fifth-highest opening ever.

Argo had yet another strong weekend, dipping just 15% to $10.2 million. That’s the fourth
weekend in a row that drama finished above $10 million, which is especially
noteworthy given that it opened at just under $20 million. The word-of-mouth hit
will likely play strongly through Thanksgiving.

In fourth place, The Man with the Iron Fists opened
to $8.2 million, in line with
expectations. The predominantly male, under-30 audience did not like the
over-the-top martial arts movie, giving it just a “C+” rating. This is one that
will likely die pretty fast, though luckily the feature only cost around $15
million.

A Late Quartet debuted on nine screens with an $8,400 per-screen average. The
Manhattan-set story of a string quartet likely suffered because theatres in
Lower Manhattan were closed for part of the weekend. The found-footage epidemic
movieThe
Bay flopped, averaging just $930
per screen in 23 location. The Details also disappointed. The
black comedy earned only $1,400 per screen in fourteen locations.

In contrast, the third week of The Sessions did better
than any of the new specialty releases. The John Hawkes/Helen Hunt movie went
up 110% as it added 49 locations for a total of 69. With a per-screen average of $6,600, it racked up nearly a half-million dollars. Searching
for Sugar Man continued to enjoy an uptick after the documentary was
featured on “60 Minutes.” The fifteen-week-old movie rose 18% to add another
$163,000 to its $2.4 million total.

This Friday, James Bond returns in Skyfall, which has already proved a smashing success overseas. Also
in the mix is Lincoln, the Steven
Spielberg-directed biopic that will begin its run in a handful of theatres.

'Wreck-It Ralph' picks up the pieces post-Sandy

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, there is some concern that the
weekend box office will be impacted. With its high ticket prices and
dense population, New York City theatres often post the highest returns
of any locationin the U.S., and are critical launching points for indie releases. In the New York metro area, twenty AMC theatres and seven Regal theatres remain out of commission,
along with other independent theatres. Number crunchers predict the
East Coast storm won't have too large of an effect on the overall box
office. In areas that were once closed and now have reopened, there may
be robust demand for the comfort of a movie.

Appealing to nostalgia-seeking adults and their video game-loving children, Wreck-It Ralph
(3,752 theatres) could open to over $40 million this weekend, making it Disney Animation's highest non-holiday opening. 2,911 of the locations will show the animated feature in 3D.  The "homage to classic
videogame culture wrapped in an adventurous road movie" should "sweep the family-friendly demo in the first few weeks of
the month before any significant challengers emerge," predicts THR's Justin Lowe. The story of a video game villain who decides he's sick of being the bad guy "bears a distinct Pixar DNA
signature," Lowe notes, a sign that post-acquisition of Pixar, Disney's team is either collaborating or picking up the animation studio's tricks.

Denzel Washington plays a drug-addled pilot who miraculously saves a malfunctioning plane in Flight (1,900 theatres). Washington just led Safe House to a $124 million total this February,
but Flight is more challenging fare, offering a complicated and well-acted portrait of an addict. That may dissuade Washington's
fans who prefer him in more breezy action diversions. Paramount hopes
it will pick up other viewers drawn in by the pedigree of director
Robert Zemeckis, who has directed emotionally stirring crowd pleasers like Forrest Gump and Cast Away. FJI critic Doris Toumarkine dubs the release "one of the strongest adult dramas to come out of Hollywood in a long time," praising Zemeckis' move from "motion capture to emotion capture," referencing the director's previous focus on works like Polar Express.

"Hardcore action fans" will probably get the biggest rise out of The Man with the Iron Fists (1,868 theatres), predicts THR's
Todd McCarthy. "This is the sort of film where the main characters are
defined first and foremost by what type of weaponry they favor," he
says, and
"very few minutes go by without some sort of combat." The
stylized martial-arts mash-up can have a "concocted, secondhand feel."
There's a certain type of audience that loves these kinds of films, but unlike, say, the work of Quentin Tarantino, it will be unlikely to expand to a broader audience, so a debut in the $7-10 million range is expected.

The black comedy The Details (12 theatres), which centers on a couple's unraveling in the wake of a household pest, will lead the specialty pack this weekend, with the support of stars Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks. Sean Penn plays an aging rocker in This Must Be the Place (2 theatres). It earned critic David Noh's endorsement. He praises the "compellingly unpredictable
entertainment, laced with wry humor and that essential,
all-too-rare element these days, surprise." Finally, the epidemic thriller The Bay (23 theatres) will scare you, assures critic Maitland McDonagh. With a don't-mess-with-nature message, it "pulls off the harder-than-it-looks feat of tucking food for thought inside a very scary wrapper."

On Monday, we'll see if Wreck-It Ralph held up to the aftereffects of Superstorm Sandy, and if Flight and The Man with the Iron Fists attracted the demographics they need to drive a strong debut.