Demons of Sherwood: Backstage Extras!
We were getting ready to put up today’s installment of Demons of Sherwood, but this is what we found on the server…
Category: News
Interview With Larry Fong, Cinematographer for ‘Watchmen’
While much of the hubbub over the movie adaptation of Watchmen has related to director Zack Snyder’s thematic and narrative choices, questions also remain over how the movie will visually reflect Dave Gibbons’ work on the seminal comic.
In answering some of those questions, Larry Fong, who is the cinematographer on the film, spoke with ComicUS (scroll down for the English version). Fong, who also worked on 300, said Watchmen will use less green screen than that film and will try to hew closely to Gibbons’ art.
There isn’t an underlying template on the movie per se. In fact one of the most exciting things about it is that it’s kind of all over the place, visually. We had so many opportunities to explore different looks and there’s even a few scenes that pay homage to other films…I won’t give anything away just yet, of course. …
In Zack’s storyboards, there are frames that are very similar to those in the graphic novel. But photographically, it was more important for me to capture the spirit of Watchmen. That’s more of an intuitive process.
Fong also hinted at Snyder’s next project:
Zack is planning to make another film next year based on an original story he’s had in his head for a long time. It’s crazier and wilder than all his films put together… hopefully I’ll be working on it too!
Happy Birthday: Uncle Marvel
Sure, everyone knows that Billy Batson, Mary Batson, and Freddy Freeman could say their magic words and transform into Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel, Jr., three of the World’s Mightiest Mortals, also known as the Shazam family.
Yet in their regular lives, they were mere children, and often needed a protector and mentor. They found him in the guise of their uncle Dudley, who was actually not related to any of them. Very little is known about Dudley before he joined the Shazam family. He may have been a failed stage magician and a confidence artist at some point, and he had been married but was since divorced.
Dudley discovered the Marvels’ secret by happening across Mary’s Good Deed Ledger and returned it to her, claiming to be her long lost uncle. He also claimed to have magic powers of his own and wore a Marvel costume he had made himself—when Mary transformed Dudley stripped off his regular clothes to reveal the costume and become Uncle Marvel. He established a business, Shazam Incorporated, to channel money from the Marvels’ deeds into charitable organizations, though he did pocket a little of the money for himself.
The Marvels quickly found out about his scheme, and that he was not related to them and didn’t actually have any powers. But they liked Dudley, who was otherwise a good person, and so they allowed him to maintain the charade. Dudley explained his lack of powers after that by saying he had lost them due to a bad case of “shazambago.”
Despite having no powers Dudley could often trick opponents into defeating themselves, and he did provide a caring paternal figure for the three young orphans.
Mekhi Phifer to Star in ‘Hunter’s Moon’ Film
Mekhi Phifer, who stars in ER, has signed on to appear in an upcoming comic movie adaptation, according to Reuters.
Phifer will take the lead role in Hunter’s Moon, which originally appeared as a five-issue series that came out last year. It features a father and son who go on a hunting trip to a rural area and become framed in a theft.
The series, which also touches on racial issues, was written by James L. White. White wrote the screenplay for Ray, the biopic of Ray Charles. No word if he’s adapting the script on Hunter’s Moon.
Hunter’s Moon was published by BOOM! Studios, which is producing the film.
Del Close Close Up, by Mike Gold
Well, it’s about time.
Author Kim Howard Johnson, former comics newsman (the late, lamented Comics Scene), occasional comic book writer (Superman: True Brit
It’s called The Funniest One In The Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close
Comics fans may be familiar with Del’s work in collaboration with John Ostrander on Munden’s Bar during its original First Comics run, and/or their work together on the even-more-over-the-top Wasteland
Students of American cultural history know Del as a Shakespearean actor who also performed on television and in movies and plays by Steve Martin, Jules Feiffer, William Saroyan, Judge Julius Hoffman, and Kaufman and Hart. But he is best known for his work as a director, teacher and mentor to – to name but a very, very few – John and Jim Belushi; Brian Doyle, Joel, and Bill Murray; Howard Hessman; Rob Reiner; Joe Flaherty; Harold Ramis; Betty Thomas; George Wendt; Tim Kazurinsky; John Candy; Chris Farley. Tim Meadows; Andy Richter; Stephen Colbert; Steve Carell; Kim Yale… and literally hundreds more. Oh, yeah… he was also rehearsal director of Saturday Night Live
ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending April 28, 2008
Last weekend’s New York Comic Con affected ComicMix columnists in different ways, with Michael, Martha and myself all musing about the con experience (and Dennis and John discussing other events of note from that same weekend). Here’s what we’ve written for you this past week:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #63: Superman Blue…Archie Orange
- Dennis O’Neill – The Four-Color Answer #62: The Holy See in NYC
- Me – It’s All Good #62: We Become What We Deserve to Be
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #63: 59
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #63: Send in the Clowns
- Andrew Wheeler – Manga Friday #26: Shoulder-a-Coffin!
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #54: Convention Queen for a Day
- Michael H. Price – Forgotten Horrors #54: Amos ‘n’ Andy ‘n’ Independents (sic)
Michael’s column totally wins for "best byline" this week.. He probably wins for "best comment thread," too.
Happy Birthday: Russell T. Davies
Born in Swansea, Wales in 1963, Russell T. Davies was immediately entered in academia—his father Vivian taught Classics and his mother Barbara taught French. Davies attended Olchfa Comprehensive School in Swansea and was a member of the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre.
He graduated Worcester College, Oxford in 1984 with a degree in English literature and turned to the theatre but soon left to work for BBC television. Davies started as a floor manager and then graduated to production assistant, but in the late 1980s he took the BBC’s directors training course. From 1988 to 1992 he produced children’s shows for BBC Manchester, and began writing for that division as well.
In 1991 Davies wrote his first television drama, Dark Season. Two years later he wrote Century Falls, technically a children’s show but dark enough that Davies realized he was better suited for adult programming. In 1992 he moved to Granada Television, producing and writing their children’s hospital drama Children’s Ward. He also began writing for several of Granada’s adult shows.
In the late ’90s Davies left Granada for Red Productions and created Queer as Folk and several other shows. He returned to the BBC in 2003 when they offered him his dream job, helming the revival of the long-running science-fiction series Doctor Who.
Since then, Davies has produced and often written not only Doctor Who but also two spin-off shows, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures—he can be reasonably credited with introducing a new generation and much of the world to the adventuring Time Lord and his companions and friends.
‘Iron Man’ Premieres Thursday at 8 PM
Hooray, hooray, the first of May; outdoor– er, Iron Man begins today!
Paramount is planning to open Iron Man at 8:00 PM on Thursday, May 1, instead of one minute past midnight on May 2nd as originally planned. The studio is apparently hoping that great word-of-mouth will help boost box-office business for the weekend.
Early buzz has been strong, let’s see how big a weekend it’s going to be, shall we? Place your bets in the comment section. I’m starting with $115 million for the first four days.
Amos ‘n’ Andy ‘n’ Independents (sic), by Michael H. Price
An earlier installment of this column had examined a 1931 gorillas-at-large movie called Ingagi as an unlikely long-term influence upon the popular culture as a class. Ingagi, a chump-change production built largely around misappropriated African-safari footage and staged mock-jungle sequences, tapped a popular fascination with apes as a class even as it fostered a generalized anti-enlightenment toward natural history and racial politics.
Strange, then, that the film should have inspired a sequel (unofficial, of course, and certainly in-name-only) from a resolutely Afrocentric sector of the motion-picture industry. The production resources behind 1940’s Son of Ingagi stem from white-capitalist niche-market corporate interests – but the screenwriter and star player, and his supporting ensemble cast, all represent a trailblazing movement in black independent cinema.
From momentum that he had developed beginning with Son of Ingagi at Alfred Sack’s Texas-based Sack Amusement Enterprises, Spencer Williams, Jr., attained recognition that would lead him to a role-of-a-lifetime breakthrough in 1950, with his casting as Andrew Brown on a CBS-Television adaptation of a long-running radio serial called Amos ’n’ Andy. Though created by white-guy talents Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, Amos ’n’ Andy needed black artists for its on-screen representation. (Gosden and Correll had gotten away with blackface portrayals in 1930’s Check and Double Check – the tactic would not have borne repeating by 1950.) The partners hired a pioneering showman of the pre-Depression Harlem Renaissance period, Flournoy E. Miller, as casting director for the CBS-teevee project, and Miller came through with such memorable presences as Williams, Tim Moore as George “Kingfish” Stevens and Alvin Childress as Amos Jones, Andy Brown’s business partner. (more…)
ComicMix Radio: Grab Your Video Camera and Live The Dream!
Thomas Edison did it, Stephen Spielberg did, too. And following in those traditions is filmmaker Shane Felux, who turned a maxed-out credit card into an Internet film phenomenon. Now, he is producing an ABC-backed, sci-fi thriller just for the web, and we have the story , plus:
— Amanda Conner returns to Power Girl
— Gears Of War hits the table top
— And just when you thought you had seen all the lists, how about “The Most Awful Songs From Geek Movie Soundtracks.” Get ready to have your head filled with stuff you won’t clear out until Monday!
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