#also the bit where gunn said the live action actors will also do the animation

[oifaaa]

Oh no. James Gunn called Damian Batman's "actual son". That bodes poorly.

He also said the series is gonna be based off of grant morrisons batman run you know the one that's meant to have dick as batman not Bruce yeah no I've got absolutely no hope for any of that

[aion-rsa]

The Losers: Chris Evans, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana’s Forgotten Superhero Movie

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Even The Losers get lucky sometimes. Before the DCEU was formed to compete against the ever-expanding, cash cow that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the approach at Warner Bros. was far looser. With the booming business of comic book adaptations in full swing, the studio was throwing money at several eclectic comic book titles like Watchmen and Jonah Hex, trying to stay competitive and seemingly more adult than their rivals. Hence before leaving to create his own superhero project, Hancock, wrier-director Peter Berg started penning an adaptation of DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, bringing in French director Sylvain White to helm the picture.

Produced by Joel Silver, The Losers centered on a team of elite, black-ops Special Forces operatives betrayed by their handler. Director White connected with the material immediately. 

“What appealed to me about The Losers was that it wasn’t the typical superhero-with-superpowers thing,” White told MTV. “It was based on real characters—realistic characters—and based in reality, like a lot of the European graphic novels that I had grown up reading.” The director worked with creators Jock and Andy Diggle to refine the script and lend their expertise with design to give the film a distinct visual palette that changes with new locations.

Frequent Silver collaborator Idris Elba was cast as Captain William Roque, with the cast being rounded out by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, coming off his turn as The Comedian in the studio’s adaptation of Watchmen, Zoe Saldana, fresh off of starring in the highest-grossing film of all-time, Avatar, Chris Evans, still mainly known for playing the Human Torch in Fox’s early Fantastic Four films, and rising actor Columbus Short. While current audiences would go on to become intimately familiar with most of this cast, their names didn’t generate enough buzz in 2010 to get folks into the theater. The Losers only made about $30 million on a $25 million budget.

Of course a tepid response at the box office does not mean that a movie is destined for obscurity. Just recently hitting Netflix and ready to capitalize off its now A-list cast, The Losers is currently the most popular film on the streaming service. Besides the even greater interest in comic book properties, the cast of The Losers have gone on to such success that they revitalized interest in one of DC’s almost-forgotten adaptations. Let’s look at where the cast of The Losers have been since the film’s release in 2010 to explain the sudden spike in love.

Idris Elba

While Elba, a star of British television via Luther, had already made an impression with American audiences by 2010 thanks to 28 Weeks Later, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, and a guest stint on The Office, Elba’s star would rise considerably after his appearance in The Losers. In 2011, Elba would join the MCU as Heimdall in Thor, who’s role in the Thor films would expand as the franchise progressed. Elba would also pop up in prominent roles in blockbusters like Prometheus, Pacific Rim, The Jungle Book, and Star Trek Beyond. Away from blockbusters though he really broke out with a SAG-winning performance in Beasts of No Nations, and starring in fare like Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game.

More recently, Elba stole scenes away from Jason Statham and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the villain in Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. Finally, things have come a bit full circle for Elba, as he’s set to appear in another DC adaptation over 10 years after The Losers, portraying Bloodsport in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

In 2010, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was probably most well-known for his roles on television in series like Supernatural and Grey’s Anatomy. That all changed after Morgan was cast in an adaptation of the “unfilmable” graphic novel Watchmen as The Comedian. While his time onscreen in the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons adaptation was minimal, bringing such an iconic comic book character to life earned Morgan a deeper cachet with the Comic-Con crowd. Morgan would work steadily in films like The Possession and the Red Dawn remake, but he arguably made a bigger impact on television portraying yet another iconic comic book character on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Negan.

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Morgan received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the villainous Negan upon his debut, earning the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series, MTV Movie and TV Award for Best Villain, and Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television. He’s been going steady as Negan since while doing other occasional comic-con friendly projects like Rampage.

Zoe Saldana

Zoe Saldana was on top of the world in 2010, and in the time since, she’s only become more successful. After appearing in the buzzy Star Trek reboot in 2009 and a little film called Avatar, the former Center Stage star would go on to headline her own action film Colombiana. However, that would seem like small potatoes compared to what would come in 2014. Saldana was cast as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s riskiest adaptation to date. Would audiences get onboard with an off-beat space opera featuring C-tier Marvel characters? Turns out, yes. Gamora not only became the heart of the Guardians, but the character would feature prominently in the grand Phase 3 finales Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

In the shadow of that, Saldana has starred in more Star Trek sequels, an ill-advised TV remake of Rosemary’s Baby, and as Nina Simone in in Nina, a performance did come under fire for due to the lightness of her skin. Still, Saldana now has leading roles in the two highest grossing films of all-time, and is still expected to star in Guardians and Avatar sequels. Not too shabby.

Chris Evans

Speaking of the MCU, Chris Evans wasn’t floundering in 2010, but he did seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut, typecast as handsome smart alecks prior to The Losers. In fact, his big mainstream break is probably the less than classic spoof comedy, Not Another Teen Movie (2001); afterward he played Johnny Storm in Tim Story’s lukewarm Fantastic Four movies in the mid-2000s; in fact, arguably his most amusing role up to 2010 was when he appeared as a douchebag movie star in Edgar Wright’s genre-bending comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).

Read more

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By David Crow

That said, The Losers found him playing against type as an awkward tech expert. Perhaps his chance to show a different side of himself led to his life-changing role as Steve Rogers in the MCU’s Captain America. Anchoring the Avengers franchise for eight years, Chris Evans rose to the top of the A-list, and used that newfound celebrity to help get passion projects like Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out made. Evans is one of the most popular celebrities on social media right now and looks to continue his profitable relationship with Disney by voicing Buzz Lightyear in the animated origin film, Lightyear. 

Columbus Short

Perhaps the only member of the cast not to launch into the stratosphere after The Losers, Columbus Short has had a few issues that have prevented his rise. Short booked a role on the popular ABC series Scandal, but personal issues derailed his involvement in the show. In 2014, as part of a no-jail plea agreement, Short pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence and performed 30 hours of community service. Short also avoided jail by pleading no contest to a felony assault charge after throwing “a running punch” at his in-law during a family gathering at a bar.

In an interview with Access Hollywood Live, Short shared that substance abuse due to the stress of family issues and personal loss had led to his departure from Scandal. However, Short has appeared to move past his personal struggles and can next been seen portraying Martin Luther King Jr. in Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Storyand returning as Quadir Richards in True to the Game 3. 

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[televisor-reviews]

Everything Of Note I Have To Say About “Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil” Season 4!

As I’m sure you’re aware, the great animated series Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil has recently concluded and I have a ton to say about it... So I made a list!

1. Spoilers...

2. Duh...

3. Before anything, I absolutely loved it! This was the finale this great show really deserved.

4. Let’s start from the beginning: I’ve been watching Star Vs. for a few years now when a good friend of mine recommended it to me. At first I was resistant because the advertising for it at the time was god awful, but luckily I was convinced otherwise and been loving it ever since.

5. The show premiered when I was a teenager, going through all the cliche teen shit. So seeing a show that portrayed the overly dramatic life of a teenager without being one of those stock teen dramas was a good change of pace.

6. In particular, I remember being amazed that it could be so relatable while still being able to have it’s upbeat and fast-paced fantasy/sci-fi action sequences and world while also having a good mixture of mature and juvenile humor. I mean, all of that would seem to work against each other and yet this show made it work in spades.

7. Actually, the way Star Vs. uses it’s fictitious setting to complement its down-to-earth characters while juggling great humor reminds me a lot of a different Disney property: Guardians Of The Galaxy. GOTG, I think, is the perfect film to study if you want to ever write for sci-fi or fantasy because director James Gunn understood that you can have as wild and crazy of a world as you want but you still need to write your characters as genuine as possible. If you don’t, you’ll get something like Avatar (the movie); a film that everyone remembers liking because of the incredible world and even better effects, but no one can name a single character or plot-point. The universe still needs to be grounded by the characters or else it’ll become forgettable and un-relatable. Star Vs., thankfully, does not have this problem. I love the characters, their trials, their tribulations, all because they feel real despite the world in which it takes place.

8. That isn’t to say there isn’t a reason to set a story in a fantastical world or that there isn’t an issue with being too relatable. If anything, the world of the show helps to make it more entertaining, less monotonous, and more unique. Without it, Star Vs. would be another Pretty Little Liars or Zoey 101 or Dawson’s Creek or any other boring teen drama out there. They’re practically identical because they start off too similarly! They all follow around relatively normal teenagers in a relatively normal world with their relatively normal life and god do none of them stand out. So Star Vs. separates itself by still keeping its characters pretty wacky and the universe as crazy as Daron Nefcy’s imagination!

9. Even by a storytelling perspective, this makes more sense because there is objectively more that can be done! By the end of Zoey 101, Zoey and her lame crew basically did everything they could do without jumping the shark too much. In comparison, there are countless adventures Marco and Star could go on even past the series finale.

10. And because the number of future adventures are countless, part of the tragedy of the show ending is that we (the audience) don’t get to experience them alongside these characters we’ve learned to love so much. Keeping that door open leaves a much longer lasting impression on the audience, as apposed to the ending of Zoey 101 in which... wait, what happened again? I don’t remember. Anyways!

11. I love the comedy in this show! From the very beginning, the humor was very lighthearted and yet mature because it had to be. It had to have a tinge of maturity to it because the target audience isn’t little kids like it would be for a show like My Little Pony or SpongeBob. Star Vs., with it’s doomsday atmosphere and constant teen drama, was definitely geared more towards older children/preteens. The ones more likely to watch a show like Gravity Falls or Rick And Morty and this audience will not tolerate childish humor. They can appreciate it sprinkled in here and there but if used too much, they’re taste will sour. This is because as they are maturing to to start maturing into adulthood, there is the natural need to separate from childish things with the added childishness of wanting to totally separate from it. That’s why on The Loud House, a punchline could literally be poop and why that is not something you’d see very often on Star Vs.

12. With that said, the show still needed the humor to be incredibly lighthearted because otherwise this show would be so depressing! The worlds in which these characters live in and know are constantly changing, evolving, and almost blowing up. For Christ sake, many important characters die in this finale! The only one who died in Gravity Falls was the villain and in this, the villain isn’t even one of them! Seeing Marco and Star still be able to crack jokes to one another and making each other laugh keeps spirits high. God knows Hekapoo can’t do that now!

13. Speaking of Marco and Star, I have been a hardcore Starco defender from the very beginning despite the show constantly trying to convince me otherwise! There are so many perfect pairings in this cast that any one of them could’ve worked if Nefcy were top change her mind. If it ended with Star x Tom or Marco x Janna or Star x Janna or Marco x Hekapoo or Marco x Tom or Marco x Kelly it would’ve worked perfectly well.

14. But lets not kid ourselves, it was always going to end with Marco x Star. Their relationship and chemistry is unmatched, they might be the only couple in existence to say a joint line like “With or without magic, we were always meant to be together,” work and come off as not only sincere but true. I don’t even believe in the whole “soul mate” mumbo-jumbo, but I’d be damned if they are not that!

15. I audibly squealed in delight when they finally got together. It was like the build-up of four season culminated in one scene.

16. Though it wouldn’t really surprise me if I was alone in this assessment because I am a sucker for a good romantic movie. I saw La La Land in theaters, I cried at Love, Simon, I actually really love Love Actually. And though I do think Star Vs. pulled off relationships better than most, take my opinion with a grain of salt because the build-up itself was a little grating.

17. I have a huge issue with “will-they, won’t-they” stories! It’s the same issue I had with The Office and Friends and The Big Bang Theory and Sailor Moon and That ‘70s Show and every other show that has this dumb trope! Of course they’ll get together because otherwise I wasted several hours of my life wondering about it! Star Vs. isn’t as bad about this as most others but it’s still there and it’s still annoying.

18. It does this better than most because of three main components: it’s relatively short, we get plenty of Star and Marco being all lovey-dovey with each other once they do get together, and they do have genuine chemistry together. They have so much chemistry that Star’s ex literally told Marco that they were clearly into each other. If only they could’ve avoided the trope.

19. Okay, this next point is a little personal but it did effect my feelings towards this show’s finale so I think it’s kind of important that I mention it. Around the time the Star Vs. was ending, I was just entering my first real relationship and around the time I watched this finale, we lasted long enough that we could start taking the relationship a little bit more seriously. Now before anyone says anything: everything’s going great (she actually made me my header) and I am absolutely still in a honeymoon phase with her. But I think you could imagine how a lovesick teen just entering a serious relationship would be effected by this show that ended with lovesick teens so in love that they’d happily sacrifice themselves for the other.

20. I may or may not have also been high while watching this and that may or may not have effected my viewing experience. Don’t be a narc!

21. I love what this last season did with Ludo. Push away the fact that they somehow keep talking Alan Tudyk into these rolls he clearly does need to do and yet still does a great job at it (did you know he was King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph? Why? Why did he do that? Why is he so good in it? This guy’s casting decisions are so weird). The character of Ludo was a generic comic relief villain (see Doofenshmirtz) but was usually fine if only because he made for a good contrast and was way more interesting compared to Toffee (played by Michael C. Hall, another actor who does not need this job). But season four made Ludo a million times more interesting by showing his obsession with the wand exactly what it is: and unhealthy obsession that he needs to get over. And I like where he’s left by the end, clearly still not doing too great but is making strides to get better. As someone who has known many addicts in my life, this hit home a little.

22. Actually, I think a large part of season four was specifically meant to fix the first two mediocre seasons. Just look at my new favorite episode of the series: Britta’s Tacos. In this episode, Star and Marco find themselves back on Earth after a year of being on Mewni and catching up with all of their friends and seeing what’s changed. Watching this episode, I was reminded that as good as the first couple of seasons were, the latter half of the series was a ton better! The characters, character arcs, stories, everything, everything was better once they went up to Mewni. So seeing them go back to Earth and challenging the writers with rewriting their past characters to be more interesting showed just how much the series has improved. Could you imagine characters as uninteresting as those nerds I don’t even remember the names of being introduced in the much more interesting latter seasons? I couldn’t! So I appreciate that they went back and made sure every character in this show was interesting... except for Toffee, he still sucks.

23. And of course, the character that improved the most, hands down was absolutely Jackie Lynn Thomas! She was as bland and boring as a love interest got and that bothered me from the very beginning. How is it that in a show this imaginative and unique they still felt it necessary to use this tired cliche. So bringing her back, the writers had to do something to make her more interesting and it was apparently really easy. All they had to do was keep the character herself basically the same but now she’s a lesbian. And somehow, just adding that one extra layer made her feel so different, so interesting, so complete. I think that’s what it was, she just felt like an incomplete plot point and giving her a girlfriend completely separates herself from being important to the plot and adds that extra layer to make her seem more finished as a character.

24. I’m actually really surprised by this recent trend of LGBTQ+ characters in kids cartoons. You’d think that of all mediums, kids cartoons would be the last to fully integrate a controversial minority but they’ve been some of the first. Steven Universe really started this trend but I feel like The Loud House was the first to show and say it outright. Star Vs. doesn’t do it that well (and I’m willing to bet that was because of higher-ups over at Disney) but I appreciate the sentiment anyways. They never call Jackie and her girlfriend a couple or show them kissing, the most they do is have them hold hands and though I guess that’s enough, I wish they were able to go further. Whatever, I already wrote about why this representation in kids media is important, go read that.

25. For a while, Star was my favorite character in this show. I just have a real soft-spot for upbeat female badasses (and I am very happy this has become more of a trope recently), I think Janna might’ve taken the throne. It’s not that Star stopped being interesting or anything like that, I just really love Janna and her “Jannanigans”. Plus, I do really like the “cute girl who’s into weird shit” trope too. She’s not my favorite version of this trope (see Raven from 2003′s Teen Titans), but she was always a delight whenever she was on screen.

26. Tom is probably the most obvious example of “boring character was made interesting” that the show has. In the beginning, he was the standard bad boy archetype but, over time, was given more personality and started working off the other characters much better. Sure, he and Star worked great with each other as to be expected, but I think the real standout relationship he had was with Marco. I have never seen bromance as strong as what those two have. Their little musical number at Queen Moon’s cornonation turned talent contest might have been the greatest piece of animation ever made (change my mind). And this I know people agree with me, I cannot exaggerate just how much literally everyone I have ever spoken to loves Marco and Tom. It just works so strangely, it has to come off as genuine.

27. I think the series was supposed to go on for another season. I say this because Kelly was too good of a character to waste like they did! She was a great character with tons of personality and amazing chemistry with Marco that was seemingly building up to something... only to drop the ball at the end. She isn’t given much to do, she doesn’t have a final scene with Marco, she isn’t even given a good ending. The most we got was Ponyhead theorizing what her life would be like just to cheer up Star. If that was all they were going to do with Kelly, that’s just a waste of perfectly good build-up.

28. It’s very strange how on the nose these metaphors in the show got at times while still seeming perfect. I guess it had to be on the nose so that the younger audience could catch on to them but I’m not sure what the’ll do with the knowledge that magic=nuclear power. Also, the monsters kind of changed metaphors, originally they were clearly meant to be Native American stand-ins but later on they kind of changed into African American stand-ins. Not that they’re histories (in America) are all that different but it was a noticeable switch. It’s not like Zootopia where any given animal could represent any number of races depending on the scene in question, this was definitely what Star Vs. was going for and I’m not sure if it totally worked. It didn’t NOT work, I guess.

29. I actually don’t like the whole “blowing up the magic” thing. It was something Star made up in a temper tantrum and goes totally against the theme. The whole time, the show was going on about how important integration is and how “separate but equal” doesn’t work and whatnot. So destroying the only way they know how to travel through different dimensions seems contrary to that point. I get that drastic times need drastic measures but I get the feeling that in a theoretical season five, Star and Marco would work to bring back the magic. Or maybe find a more scientific way to travel through dimensions... like some kind of portal gun. We already know this takes place in the same multiverse as Rick And Morty, it’s not that crazy an idea.

30. Another reason I think there was originally going to be another season is because the whole “Mewmans are humans” thing that came right out of nowhere! I mean, it makes total sense and I’m totally down with this plot point but it seems like that would be a much bigger deal than the characters make it out to be. My god, they don’t even let Marco finish explaining this. How the hell did that cave painting get to Earth if they didn’t run into Glossaryck until they got to Mewni! Explanation please!

31. I wish destroying the magic didn’t also mean killing off Glossaryck and Hekapoo. I don’t really care about any of the other characters literally made out of magic, but those two are just so likable and such fan favorites, it’s just a shame to see them go. Though I do really like that they’re reaction to the whole thing seems to just be a mild shrug. I get the idea that since they’ve lived for millennia which would make them more okay with dying. It’s easier to live a full life if you can’t die.

32. I like how Mina’s story ends: defeated and yet still refusing it. Her whole speech about having good ideas really says something, like these issues will never be fully defeated because everyone thinks that they’re right. It’s a bit more of a bittersweet moral than “bad always loses because they’re bad” but is an important lesson that I think kids need to learn. Especially in this political climate. Good god, just end me!

33. Holy shit, I’m up to 33! My Wakfu one only made it up to 25 and I am nowhere close to done yet!

34. A psychotic part of me really wishes the finale had Star and Marco die in each other’s arms in the Magic Dimension. It’d be the ultimate show of love as they’re sacrificing each other for one another and be the ultimate ending. I mean, what more is there to care about after the main two characters are dead? It’d be very bittersweet and much more emotionally taxing on the audience but it’d also be more classic. Like Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde, they’re love was just too strong for this world.

35. With that said, that part of me is absolutely wrong! Having their dimensions merge was clearly what the series was building up to with it’s hopeful tone, the power of love being a big theme, the message of integration, and (of course) the promise they made to Meteora and Hispanic Meteora. It seems so obvious in hindsight and yet I still didn’t see it coming, I guess that’s a sign of a really good plot twist.

36. My god, everyone is such a dick to Queen Moon. Like let her be in love you jackasses. I had such a hard time liking anyone who worked against her (which is why I really like that Hekapoo had reservations on both sides the whole time) and this includes Ex-Queen Moon. I really can’t grasp my mind as to why she thought this was a good idea, it clearly wasn’t from the very beginning. Maybe if the show gave her time to explain herself I’d be singing a different tune but she never really does and I have a hard time forgiving her even after her apology.

37. This is just a reminder that Starco is best ship. Repeat, Starco is still best ship.

38. The ending reminds me of Titanic. I mean, two young lovebirds meeting each other, growing closer, and falling in love all the while a looming threat of destruction and death is above them. The epic scale of their problem being brought down to earth by the almost normal love story happening in the midst of it all. Their ever ready willingness to sacrifice everything for each other. Their world forcing them to cling to each other for protection. The grand scale of everything around them making their love seem grander than it would be without it. Yeah, there are more and probably better examples I could turn to for comparison (Romeo And Juliet, Les Miserables, Spartacus) but Titanic was the first one to come to mind and I’m sure my subconsciousness has a good reason for that.

39. I continue to have problems with this finale but I get the sense that I’m nitpicking because this was still an amazing end to a great show. When I think about this ending, the first word that comes to mind is deserves. This is the ending that the story deserves, that the characters (minus Kelly) deserves, that the show itself deserves. It really is a fantastic finale and I’m so grateful that I got to experience it.

40.

[canaryatlaw]

okay. so. today was pretty fun. I had set my alarm for 10:30 as we’d agreed Jess would pick me up at 11. Well, I woke up to said alarm at 10:30 to a series of messages from Jess telling me to get up already because she wanted nuggets before we went to the con. I told her I’d be ready in 15 minutes, because I was being good and woke up half an hour beforehand when I knew it only really took me 15 minutes to get ready when I’m not doing my make up (doing it in the car here). So I got ready, doing Peter Pan today because I gotta take advantage of my short haired red headed cosplay options because I hate wigs and will be wearing them both Saturday and Sunday. Got picked up, went to Mcdonalds, drove to con, didn’t get stuck in ridiculous traffic like we did yesterday, so that’s a win. I’m trying to remember the details of how everything went down, when you’re there all day and you’re doing different things within a small space it can be hard to remember exactly what you did when. But I think we got there and went to find some people and talked with them for a while, then found Jess’ two friends (”friends”) who were running around doing different things, after waiting for them for a little bit. And I mean, for most of the day we just did different versions of walking around and finding people and looking at things? we’d hang out with a certain group of people for a while and then they’d go off and do a photo shoot or something and we’d migrate to a different group of people. At some point during the afternoon we decided to go through the whole show floor aisle by aisle to assess options before buying anything. I knew I wanted to get a t-shirt of some sort, and sadly there were very few legends-related items out there (I think the only places we really saw them were in the sections where you have the IDs from different shows) so I figured I’d either want something Wonder Woman or Superman related, since those are my other two faves. I was also potentially looking for a cool backpack that’s somewhat bigger than the one I have now because in two weekends we’re doing HVFF New Jersey/Rose City CC in Portland over two days and are just bringing backpacks, and since I decided tonight that I am going to cosplay both days (and the NJ one I am SO excited about!!) I’m gonna need something that can fit a lot of things. What’s annoying about the t-shirt thing is pretty much all of them at cons are only in unisex sizing, not women’s sizes, and I don’t really like how they fit me so I don’t end up wearing them as much as I do the Wonder Woman or Superman shirts I have in woman’s sizes. The other thing I might potentially buy is an Elektra from Daredevil funko pop because back when I was still looking for Katniss but was getting convinced I wouldn’t be able to find her (before I found her online) I was considering making Elektra my next one, and she would fit nicely on my stack of funkos in their boxes (that are literally in a stack on my dresser right now that consists of dark haired women who totally kick ass because apparently I am predictable like that (right now it’s Wonder Woman, Jessica Jones, and Katniss) (I do have three other funkos that are out of their boxes and placed elsewhere, which are my White Canary and Captain Cold, placed in conjunction of course, and Smallville Green Arrow played by Justin Hartley love of my life and the only actor to portray Green Arrow in live action as far as I’m concerned). So we set off to do that. A number of good Wonder Woman options I took note of, a few ones that are old comics styled, a few featuring other Justice League members like Superman and such (though I’m really not a Wonder Woman/Superman shipper like, at all, so not those because Clois is the only valid ship for Clark Kent, though I am open to WonderBat possibilities). There is also a very cool Wonder Woman backpack we were looking for that I’ll probably go back and get because it had a lot of places to put stuff and looked like it could fit everything nicely, it was just 60 bucks so I wanted to make sure it was definitely the best one before actually buying it. The Elektra pop has shown up a few places, cheapest so far for $10, so I’ll keep looking at those since there are of course a ton of places with pops. We kept getting stopped by random men that wanted to talk to us because Jess was being a fucking furry (she got asked to take a picture with two people in full on fur suits and I was dying laughing while also taking a picture of it). By the time it was like 5:30 or so we were pretty much done with everything, so we ended up meeting up with some people and heading to one of the restaurants over by the parking garage, because if you eat at one of the restaurants there they’ll validate your parking so you don’t have to fork over like $15 just for parking. So we ended up going to the German restaurant, which is always a bit of an adventure lol. The first time my family went to DisneyWorld when I was like 12 our restaurant reservations got messed up for one of the days and the only other place we could get in was the German restaurant in Epcot, and all I remember is there menu being like, essentially like three different types of hot dogs, so whenever I think of German food now that’s what I think of, and how I somehow managed to not barf it all up when my brothers and I ran (literally) from Epcot over to Animal Kingdom to get to our fast pass for Expedition Everest, which we made with like 4 minutes left on it and then went on the crazy roller coaster where I was sure I was gonna puke it all up (our restaurant reservation was for like, 4:40, and the fast pass was between 6 and 7, so we thought we’d be fine, but the restaurant got super backed up and didn’t seat us till like 6:15, so we basically ate like half a meal and then ran from the middle of the Epcot circle of nations through the rest of the park, onto the tram and then all the way through Animal Kingdom to Expedition Everest, making it at 6:56). But we got some super cute pictures of my darling baby sister who was 3 at the time and like at peak cuteness dancing to the polka in the German restaurant so that was definitely worth it. ANYWAY. this restaurant seemed somewhat similar in that there was a polka band and everything but thankfully had a larger menu selection. Jess and I ended up splitting some potato pancakes (sorry Germans, they weren’t as good as latkes) and a jumbo pretzel because she doesn’t eat red meat and I’ve been getting Meat Fatigue™ (which we’re still pretending is a real thing okay). We had an interesting conversation going on around us as the guy sitting next to me was trying to say it was bs that people were making excuses for James Gunn in that situation when strongly condemning Trump for making obscene comments, except he was not explaining it well at all and it was totally being lost in translation for everybody else until I was like okay, this is what you mean and explained it and he was like “yes, exactly! I like her” to which I was like 😂😂😂 understanding what people are saying pretty much all the time and explaining things happen to be two random talents of mine that come in handy a lot. So the meal was pretty good, one of the ladies we were with graciously picked up the tab so we were very thankful to her for that. At that point we were pretty beat so we walked back to the parking garage (after getting our parking validated) and drove home. I got dropped off and we planned to pick me up at 10 am tomorrow. I fumbled in the dark with my keys for a few minutes because somehow all the outdoor lights and the lights in the hallway of my building have gone out and not been replaced (yes I could’ve turned my flashlight on on my phone but I was being stubborn and wanted to do it myself) but eventually got it figured out. NICKZANO was very happy to see me, though I told her she’s gonna have to get used to being alone more once I get a job (at some point, anyway). I think I may actually be allergic to cats though, because my legs where I’d been letting her sit on are like hella itchy, but it’s obviously not a major issue at all and I’ll just like, put pants or longer shorts on from now on and that won't be a problem. I showered and changed into my pajamas, then watched a few episodes of 30 Rock, keeping it nice and light. I’m in their 5th season now out of 7 (which is kinda funny because I’m also on the 5th season out of 7 on GoT right now) so sooner or later I’m gonna have to find something else for funny filler episodes when I just want funny tv. And yeah, I did that for a while and then finished getting ready for bed and here we be now. So yeah, lots of fun, hopefully tomorrow will as well, I will be debuting my Ava Sharpe cosplay (who I was never really planning to cosplay but ended up needing to do so for our photo op with Matt Ryan which is gonna be fucking hilarious, just wait) and seeing Matt Ryan so that will be fun. I’ll probably wait till Sunday when I’m doing my also new (and pulled together exclusively of stuff I already owned because business wear) Lois Lane cosplay to see Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum. I was considering doing a photo op with them, but their joint one was $150 which is a tad excessive, and like, Tom alone was still $90 and I wouldn't even know what to do in a single one with him because I’d rather like, have one with both of them so Tom and I could look like we were fighting Michael, but also Michael has hair now so he doesn't even really look like Lex Luthor anymore, so given all of those factors I decided meeting them and getting selfies with them in my cosplay would be good enough. Okay, that’s all I got, it’s 1 am and I’m waking up at 9:30 and I like sleeping so I’m going to go to bed now. Goodnight peeps. Have a lovely weekend.

[totalconway]

The Right Kinda Fat Shit

A bit of water went under the bridge between acting in ‘The Unsung Docker’ and my next acting job. In that time I got to open for some big name comedians including Steve-O from Jackass, Doug Stanhope, and Donell Rawlings from Chapelle show.

In that same time I was awarded the ‘Fuck off to Melbourne Award’ at the annual Doustie Awards (The Perth Comedy Scene Awards) but I had already set my sights on a move to Sydney to pursue my comedy dream a little less then 2 years into starting stand up.

So after I packed my things and left my job I headed for the big city lights of Sydney. I had only been to Sydney a handful of times prior to moving there, once to see Danny Green vs Anthony Mundine, the second was to see Jay and Silent Bob Live after their Perth show sold out and the third time was to perform at the Sydney Comedy Store to perform at their Christmas show. It was a huge honour for me so early in my comedy career to be invited to perform at the Sydney Comedy Store as it is arguably the best comedy club in Australia. It felt like I was being presented with a black belt for an art form I was still wrapping my head around. My decision to move to Sydney was made easier by the fact that one of my best mates was heading over as well and we agreed to rent together in the inner west suburb of Petersham.

After working for 10 years on the Docks, manual labor jobs was something I was trying to avoid at all costs so I applied for some weird jobs. Some jobs I didn’t even realise were a thing including a job making sales commission on selling Paralympic Pins. After sitting in the interview and listening to the lady explain in a thousand different ways but never actually saying “You will sell Pins for a commission” I politely declined and hauled my unemployed ass back to Petersham.

After the success of ‘The Unsung Docker’ I was keen to dip my toe in the acting pool again, if only to fill in my days of unemployment creatively. I went searching through the website ‘StarNow’, which is essentially the Craiglists of media work and applied for numerous gigs. Along with the short films and University projects I applied for I also applied to be represented by an acting agent so they could make the job search easier for me. After a few days I received a call about my application and they were super keen to have me on their books which was weird because the only film credit I had was ‘The Unsung Docker’. I’ve always been skeptical of people who are too excited to offer me something because 99.9% of the time its something you don’t want.

I reluctantly agreed to sign with them, I figured if this was a scam they wouldn’t be able to get any money out of me because I’m fucking broke but sure enough a week later true to their word they sent me out for my first audition. The gig was paying $2000 for a days work playing a delivery man for a Tatts Lotto commercial. Being $2000 for a days work I wasn’t exactly confident because I felt you needed to have some serious acting chops to make $2000 a day. In my mind that’s like ‘Home and Away’ money. But sure enough, I went to the audition and for the first of many times in my acting career I was the right kinda fat shit.

I don’t remember much of the commercial, it never made it to air. All I remember was pushing an empty refrigerator box and pretending it was full. My experience in manual labour had given me the skills to be able to look like I work harder than I do so I was able to nail the performance. The only other thing I remember from the shoot was that the little girl in the scene was a spoilt little rich kid and was as annoying as fuck for the whole day. She kinda reminded me of Veruca from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory only she didn’t die chasing golden duck eggs.

When the shoot was done I had to wait a few weeks to get paid and after union fees and my agents cut I ended up only making about $1100 which is less Home and Away money and more regular Delivery Man money.

In between acting jobs I was still hitting up ‘StarNow’ to find independent projects to cut my teeth on. Only two stood out, one was playing a a security guard ( I think my character died in it but I don’t remember) the other was me in a suit watching a chick dance in front of me with a red light filling the room. The scene felt like a cross between a David Lynch film and a soft core porno. I have yet to see either of these films but I’m sure I nailed the fat guy character they were looking for.

During this time, I finally buckled on avoiding manual labour work and got a job at the Airport working for REX Airline which is a small regional airline. One of the most brain numbing jobs I ever experienced, so much so I started regretting not taking that sweet sweet Paralympic Pin money. The REX job was to purely help me pay the bills and it barely did that. My excitement for living in the big city lights of Sydney was starting to dimmer.

During one particular shift I got a call from my agent saying that I had been offered another gig. I didn’t even have to audition I just had to meet the director and see if we “vibed”. I asked my agent why I didn’t have to audition for this film and she blew so much smoke up my ass I felt like I was sitting on top of a volcano. She said “I was the best actor on their books”, “how incredibly talented I was”, and “how I have a big future in acting”. Pretty much saying I was the next Heath Ledger and for a millisecond I actually believed it until I read the character description “Fat, Balding, pale, poor skin etc etc”. The gig was for an anti obesity health campaign and I was like, Fuck that! two seconds ago you were describing me as the next Heath Ledger and now you want me to do a role that is me just being a fatty fat boombardy FUCK THAT. Then she said it was paying $5000 so I agreed to do it. 

We didn’t really need an excuse to party in Petersham so being offered $5000 for an acting job is as good as any. We also had friends over from Perth and what better way to celebrate my thriving acting career than getting drunk with the Perth crew. Partying was not the best decision because I ended sleeping in and had to race to the meet and greet with the director stinking of piss (alcohol and my own) looking super haggard and feeling paranoid I may have flushed $5000 down the toilet. I managed to get to the meeting in time by spending my last few bucks on an Uber, walked into the meeting looking disgusting and smelling like an alley way. I walked in to meet the Director gingerly and feeling a bit embarrassed about the state I was in. Too my surprise though, my night on the piss had helped me become the living embodiment of their ‘Fat piece of shit character’ they wanted for the commercial. So I left the meeting on a high but with no more money, I ended up spending the next 3 hours getting home for round 2 of Partying Perth style.

It actually paid about $10,000 because every year it aired I would get paid another $5000 in roll over cost.

The shoot ended up being 3 days and it was pretty chilled, I literally had one scene with no dialogue. I pretty much just had to sit there and be fat and sad which was surprisingly hard considering the guy directing the commercial was mostly known for working on comedies so we had a lot of banter in those 3 days. The third day of the shoot was my time to shine, I had to sit there and be told how my fat is killing me etc etc. It was the most important shot of the commercial because this is where they drive home the point that Fat is Bad.

There was some tension on this day because the big honchos of NSW Health who were paying for the commercial wanted to sit in and watch and make sure the scene was delivering their Fat is Bad message. So my first thought was what better way to show off my comedy skills in front of the director than to crack a joke during this pivotal scene. When the Doctor said to me “All that toxic fat can lead to blah blah... its not looking good” I turned to my wife in the scene and said in the saddest voice I could “I better lay off the meat pies then”, This popped the tension in the room and got the whole crew laughing. Its not the best joke but it was good enough to send the crew into a giggle fit after a hard couple of days. Everyone was laughing except the producer who came marching down yelling and screaming about having a bit of respect for NSW Health who were there and are taking this very seriously (Fuck off cunt). NSW Health have been paying to fat shame me for 3 fucking days, they can go fuck themselves if they can’t handle one Meat Pie joke. Getting told off made the crew laugh even harder. They struggled like school children being told off at an assembly but once everyone got their composure back we shot the scene and it was a wrap. 

After the fat commercial I felt I was done with acting. Don’t get me wrong acting is a lot of fun but it kinda loses its magic when you’re whole role is sitting their looking fat. 

One of the ways I tried reigniting the spark to do acting was when I came across a ‘Kickstarter’ campaign for Troma’s new film Return to Nuke em High Vol 2. Troma was a big part of my childhood with the toy line Toxic Crusaders which was inspired by the animated series and not the incredibly gory live action movies. With ‘Kickstarter’ campaigns they have rewards depending on the amount of money you donate and for $3500 you could have the legendary Lloyd Kauffman direct a 5 minute short film that I would write. I jumped at the opportunity to buy this reward not only would I be following in the same steps as actors like Kevin Costner, Samuel L Jackson, James Gunn who got their start doing Troma films, but it was a great excuse to head over to New York. 

I purchased this reward which was $3500USD, it was not only all the money I made working on the fat commercial but it was also all of my pay from REX Airline for that fortnight after.( I didn’t take into consideration the exchange rate). I made my investment in 2015 and I finally received the DVD copy and posters at the end of 2019. It was a slow process but definitely looking forward to heading over once this COVID-19 shit is over and done with. I don’t think I’ll use the original script I wrote in 2015 called Love/Life about a guy who develops a relationship with the girl who catfished him, she also happens to be a Banshee.

A few months later I got sent for another audition this time it was a paid short film called The Spa. What was the role? Well Fat delivery man of course! but this one was different, it was an amazing script and I actually had dialogue which is always great. 

I ended up scoring the role of Moose and part of the job requirement was having to do table reads with the other cast members. Still being naive I thought this was a bit of over kill for a short film but if I’m getting paid and it gets me out of a days work so I’m happy to do all the table reads you want. I’m glad they did the table reads because when I went in for the rehearsal I was star struck by the cast. 

After the Fat Commercial I had bitch and moaned to the universe to give me a role that would show I could hold my own against the best of the best and not just a guy whose there for being the right kinda fat. In return the universe slapped me into check when I walked in for the first table read and saw the cast that included Chris Haywood, Jay Laga'aia who have pretty much starred in every great piece of Australian cinema and  Peter Moalaeua who I had seen on a bunch of TV commercials. They say be careful what you wish for and I was definitely worried I had bitten off more than I could chew. It was a dream come true to work with the likes of these actors and also a huge motivator to make sure I could hold my own against these acting beast.

The shoot for The Spa was absolutely amazing, working with some of the most talented actors and crew in the country. Watching Chris Haywood and Jay Laga’aia on set was one of the greatest experiences. Observing them walk around just nailing every take and then joking and laughing with the rest of the crew and doing so with absolutely zero ego.

This reminds me, after the shoot Jay Laga’aia drove me as close as he could to my flat in Petersham and then gave me his $50 Taxi gift voucher to help me get the rest of the way home. It was a crazy experience driving home with Jay because we’re talking about comedy and what not and I’m sitting there like Jay Laga’aia is giving me a lift home, this dude was in fucking Star Wars.  

Working on The Spa was an amazing experience and it is incredibly humbling to sit back and watch the success it has had. Being showcased at film festivals all around the world and picking up numerous awards. 

Acting is a weird industry. I’ve loved all the opportunities I’ve gotten, even the shit ones because sometimes you have to work through the Fat Shit Roles to get the skills to be the Fat Shit you’ve always dreamed of. The right kinda fat shit.

[lorrainecparker]

ART OF THE CUT: cutting “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2”

Fred Raskin, ACE has edited numerous films including Django Unchained, Hateful Eight (for which I interviewed him previously), and several of the Fast and Furious franchise. Craig Wood, ACE has dozens of films to his credit, including the first three of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Tomorrowland, and Gore Verbinski’s very funny, Mousehunt.

Craig Wood and Fred Raskin worked together on the original Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and that collaboration earned them (and co-editor Hughes Winborne) numerous editing nominations, including an ACE Eddie. They reunited for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.

HULLFISH: What was the schedule like on Guardians?

RASKIN: I started on the second of February 2016, I believe, which was a week before shooting began. I came on to cut some previz. We were cutting previz up until probably three quarters of the way through the shoot. (they both laugh) Production began mid February and went until the end of June. When production began, Craig was working on another picture, so during production, my friend Kathryn Himoff was assembling the material with me, as there was way too much work for me to handle on my own.

WOOD: And I came on just before the end of June, so I picked up whatever scenes hadn’t yet been gotten to and we moved on from there.

HULLFISH: And you guys went until a month ago? A couple weeks ago?

WOOD: Yeah, the first week of April (2017) was our last.

HULLFISH: What were you working on, Craig?

WOOD: Well, I was slated to finish The Great Wall and I ended up being replaced on The Great Wall and went on and helped Gore Verbinski on his horror film A Cure For Wellness for several months before starting on Guardians.

HULLFISH: I did an interview on A Cure For Wellness. That was very interesting. I talked to the trailer editor on that, too.

WOOD: The trailers for that film were beautiful.

HULLFISH: I was going to ask what editors thought of the trailer cuts of their films…I was really struck by the transitions that must’ve difficult to go from the comedy of it to these really nice moments of personal revelation and emotion, so that you understand who the characters are and you care about them. Can you address some of those scenes where one moment it’s funny and the next moment…?

WOOD: I have to mostly give our credit to James Gunn for that one I think.

RASKIN: It’s all really in the script. Not to say that we didn’t make it sing but for the most part the transitions were really all in there at the writing stage.  We enhanced them with the use of temp music and, of course, the source cues.

WOOD: And precise performance choices. We’ll give ourselves some credit for that.

HULLFISH: So a performance choice is a great point. In the scene when Rocket’s having the discussion and going back and forth with Yondu and he says, “We’re brothers! We’re the same!” And there’s that big moment of revelation. It’s an animated character but there’s also a human being in there. What was it like to cut those scenes with those big personal revelations in them?

RASKIN: From a technical standpoint, all the scenes with Rocket are shot with Sean Gunn standing in for Rocket for the first take of every set up so the camera operator knows how to frame the shot and the actors know where their eyelines are and we have something we can cut with, because all of the remaining takes are done without Sean in there.  It’s an invaluable resource for us.  Most actors usually get multiple takes to nail down their performances, but Sean really only got one or occasionally two, so he had to nail it.  That would become the performance we were using to cut with, the performance that the animators were using as reference, and it was also the performance that the other actors were responding to.

WOOD: For the first cut of this scene, Rocket was performed by Sean, but Sean was also playing Kraglin. It was particularly confusing because he was playing both characters in the same scene. 

RASKIN: Typically, we were cutting from Sean in his Kraglin outfit to Sean in his Rocket sweatshirt. Sometimes comping them into the same shot.

HULLFISH: Did he really wear a Rocket sweatshirt?

RASKIN: Yeah, he had a sweatshirt that had a little Rocket face on it. Spoiler alert: at the end of the movie, Sean played Adolescent Groot and he had a sweatshirt with a Groot face on it.

HULLFISH: When you’re cutting those scenes, did you cut them with him in the scene to have some sense of a person being in there or did you just go straight to previz or empty plate with the audio of him speaking?

RASKIN: For the dramatic stuff, we would use Sean. For the action stuff, it was a lot of cutting between previz and the live action footage of the shot, sometimes comping the previz with the live action footage of the shot.

WOOD: Sometimes the preferred take would be that first take anyway and we would have to paint Sean out before putting Rocket in, because we liked the performance of whoever he was talking to in that particular take.  Sean would get down on his haunches to be the same height as Rocket and that presented a good eye line for the actors. When they got an actual pair of eyes to perform to it’s better for the performance and a much stronger eye line than imagining the space where Rockets eyes will be.

RASKIN: And I should also clarify that when I say they only did one or two takes, James was very aware of how reliant the animators were going to be on Sean’s performance. The camera rolled only once or twice but James frequently had Sean giving variations on his performance, saying, “Ok try it again like this” in that one take, so sometimes we ended up with twenty reads of a particular line.

WOOD: There are a lot of series performances rather than new slates to keep it rolling and not brake the actor’s concentration.

RASKIN: So we were finding the Rocket performances in what Sean was doing originally, which would then get tweaked by Bradley Cooper giving his vocal performance and by the animators, who would do a combo of Sean and Bradley. And James frequently asked the animators to reference what Sean did, so that was always in our cut. But they would also get the video of Bradley Cooper from his ADR sessions so that if they needed to use anything from that, they had that option as well.

HULLFISH: Did you have to deliver those performances to the animators from editorial just like VFX turnovers?

WOOD: Yeah, they were given all that related video in the turnovers.

HULLFISH: Music’s a huge part of the franchise and of the movie. Was a lot of that scripted or did you come up with that with the director? A little bit of a combination?

WOOD: The source cues were pretty much all stipulated in the script, so James had figured it out. There are notable exceptions to that including the opening track, “Mr Blue Sky,” which for a long time was a totally different cue and a lot of animation and stuff had been done with a different cue with Baby Groot dancing to a different beat. Halfway through the process we decided we wanted a different cue. We went through a whole bunch of different alternatives because it was such an important decision to make.

RASKIN: It was well over a dozen different options.

HULLFISH: I do these interviews mostly for fellow editors but for fans as well. Can you tell me any of the other choices for cues for that piece?

RASKIN: The original song choice is still in the movie. It’s in the end credits. “Flashlight” by Parliament.

WOOD: It was that cue for a very long time.

HULLFISH: That dancing scene is pretty much supposed to be one take but obviously you guys edited that. Tell me a little bit trying to cut that scene that looks like it’s uncut.

WOOD: Extensive previz was done for it where even the Guardians characters were animated characters as well. So all the timing was figured out and they used that so they knew what to shoot for the live action elements.

RASKIN: We started with the previs of the entire shot and there were, obviously, a bunch of live action elements that were shot like when Quill enters and gets knocked off-screen and Drax is getting battered and Gamora is waving at Groot. Those were all shot as individual elements that we basically cut into the previs to get the timing right and that went to our postviz department who incorporated the live action elements and adjusted what they had done in previs accordingly to get it all to fit – and then we changed the song and everything had to be re-animated.

WOOD: Which hurt us in the long run because the fight going on in the background  came in so late. It was while we were still mixing, there would be new laser blasts and explosions and they’d be missing in the soundtrack and we would have to go back and re-do that and re-sync them all. It was an endless, endless thing.

HULLFISH: When you guys were on the mixing stage, did you have access to your Avids? Or did you have to go back to a post suite to make those changes?

WOOD: Well, the changes aren’t made in the Avid. The updated picture is delivered to the sound stage on an almost daily basis.

HULLFISH: I just talked to somebody who was at Skywalker Ranch recently…and she said that she had her Avid right there so if she wanted to make changes in anything that she could either find audio cuts or find different performances or tweak stuff right there.

RASKIN: Throughout the visual effects process there would be changes happening in the picture. James would see something that he either liked or didn’t like quite as much and wanted to make adjustments to the length of those shots so we would do that in our editing room and then the sound department would update all of their tracks.

HULLFISH: I’m assuming that that opening crazy dance one-take thing was one of those things that you probably spend time doing in the previs for a couple of weeks?

RASKIN: Well, actually from an editorial standpoint, there wasn’t much to be done for that previs. It was completed before I even started on the movie.  In terms of visual effects shots I think there were eleven different segments that comprised that shot.

Craig’s Guardians edit suite

WOOD: Because it’s a music video, it’s a little bit easier to adjust previs because the length doesn’t change. So it’s just about deciding where all your sync hits are happening and that’s animation and James would’ve guided the animation.

HULLFISH: I was wondering during that previs section: was that a very technical thing for you to be doing or were you trying to make suggestions like “Oh, it would really be great to have a close up at this point” or “I feel like we’ve got three shots and I need to change the rhythm. Can I get something else to go here”? What was that like artistically?

RASKIN: At the time I came on, there were a few previs sequences that James felt were a little long; mostly stuff relating to the final battle. He just asked me to take a pass and see what I could pull out. Sometimes there would be things where it was like “Yeah I could really use this shot.” In the forest sequence we made a few changes to it. But it was pretty well prevised when I came on. It was mostly the final battle. That previs sequence ran well over a half an hour. And that one was the one that continued to be worked on throughout production. We had to alternate our time between cutting the new footage and cutting the previs. So it was definitely a busy production schedule.

HULLFISH: Most of the time, the editors I talk to don’t cut to music. You cut your scene, usually without music and add it at the end, if at all. But, you guys had to have been in a different boat with a lot of this movie. Large chunks had to have been cut after laying down a source cue first. Craig, you’ve cut a lot of music videos in addition to your film work.

WOOD: When it’s a source cue it’s a little bit more like a music video. Obviously there are actors, action that determines its own rhythm. But then there are specific moments you want to hit like a chorus hit or some big melodic thing in the source cue. And you make all these minor adjustments so that hits correctly with the music.

RASKIN: For a number of the cues, James knew he wanted to go to something specific at certain points in the song, some of which he shared with us beforehand. Sometimes we found out after we showed it to him when he said, “No no no this is all wrong.” [laughs]

HULLFISH: On those source cues that needed to change minutely, did you open them up, tighten them or speed-change them? Was there a music editor doing that kind of stuff? Or when you were editing did you find, “Hey, let’s turn off the source cue and just watch the visuals to see what the pace of that is?”

WOOD: Well you do a little bit of both of those things. There are a few internal edits in a couple of the source cues. We had a whole choir-driven version of this song that was created by the composer to give it this whole different vibe and elevate it. All of those things were explored.

RASKIN: Most of the source cues in the movie have music edits. I think “Mr. Blue Sky” doesn’t and “Father and Son” doesn’t.

WOOD: Father and Son didn’t initially, but it was changed when we incorporated the reshoots.

HULLFISH: That’s interesting that a reshoot would cause the music to need to open up to some extent.

WOOD: Because things hit in a really specific way on both sides of where this piece was added and we got the music edit just to do a little repeat. But most people wouldn’t even notice.

HULLFISH: I’m interested in that choir extension that the composer did. Did you find that you needed a visual recut when that emotional change to the choir happened in that song?

WOOD: Well, it was done to actually adjust a problem that the scene felt a little long. It came when they’re escaping from the attack.

RASKIN: Yeah, Yondu, Rocket and Groot’s big escape sequence. Yondu’s shooting everyone with his arrow and Rocket’s shooting everyone with his guns.

WOOD: So we created this great pause that Yondu whistles in, and it launches into this big choir version of the song we’ve just been hearing.

RASKIN: But as I recall, I think the picture was fairly locked at the time when Tyler did that. He wrote that to picture.

WOOD: There were some microscopic changes after that, but it was small.

HULLFISH: In Beauty and The Beast, the editor was saying those performances, sometimes, had to change in editing because they were recorded to the music, which at the time was just a synthesizer version that they edited to, but then when they got the orchestral version, there were minute changes in the speed and the tempo and the timing with each one of those hits and so she had to go back in and change timings of the visuals.

You mentioned you did do some temping with real score and everything’s not just a music cue. Do you recall some of the things you temped with or how you chose some of those things?

WOOD: Well we had the Guardians of the Galaxy I soundtrack to draw from.

RASKIN: Tyler Bates, the composer, requested that we use his music as much as possible, which is interesting because some composers want you to do exactly the opposite. Plus, he’d written maybe four pieces before we even began, pieces that James would play on set while he was shooting certain sequences, like the “celestial catch.” But the Guardians I soundtrack was our primary go-to, along with the sample pieces that Tyler had written specifically for this movie.

WOOD: There was one scene where we were quite happy to go without music. In the scene where Nebula chases Gamora through the desert and they have the hand-to-hand battle – we called that the North by Northwest scene. (If you see the film, you’ll know what scene this is) That whole scene plays without any score or source cue. Right from the beginning, James was very happy to do that and it gives you a nice break from constant music.

HULLFISH: Tell me a little bit about cutting that scene without music. Sound effects had to be a big part of the rhythm of it.

WOOD: Absolutely, it’s a sound effects driven scene. That’s actually the first thing that I got to cut in the film. Because it’s purely action, it could initially be cut silently. Then I’d place all the key sound effects in. It’s interesting what happens then, ‘cause you adjust the rhythm of the picture based on sound hits because that does become your music.

HULLFISH: You need to account for the rhythms, and add space to put the sound effects in your picture cut.

WOOD: It’s most interesting in fights where you’ve got punches. I did the first three Pirates movies and it’s all sword clanks… endless sword clanks… but they’ve got a musical rhythm to them, so you adjust the picture to make the sound rhythm work.

HULLFISH: I love that you called it North By Northwest. That’s great.

RASKIN: Well, to be fair, the visual effects department was calling it that long before we even came onto the movie.

HULLFISH: I never thought about the parallels to the famous bi-plane/Cary Grant scene in North by Northwest until you mentioned it.

WOOD: Because it’s missing the wheat.

HULLFISH: Let’s talk about how you approach a scene.

RASKIN: At the end of every shoot day we would watch the dailies with James. It was a long shoot day and his desire to watch two hours worth of footage every night was not so great so it would be more like the last one or two takes of every setup and frequently he would high speed through some of it, but he would point out the things that he really liked. So we had a place to start from in terms of what he liked. Obviously, as you’re putting the scene together, sometimes a specific thing that he pointed out – there’ll be another angle where that moment works better and you’ll end up using that. But it’s a good guide at least to start with. After that dailies screening, I would go back to my avid and put markers on anything in that footage that James had responded to. Then I would just watch everything, and mark specific moments that I liked. As I got midway through watching all of the coverage, I’d kind of find myself figuring out how I was going to at least initially structure it and usually by the time I’d watched all of the dailies, I had a pretty good sense as to the overall structure of the scene and where I wanted to be when. And then I’d start putting it together and using either the performances that James specifically mentioned or a similar performance or if I saw something really different and interesting like, “Oh that could be cool”, I’d try something like that.  Once I had it all structured, I would go back and watch those same moments from all the other takes to make sure that I’d found the best ones because frequently you get asked the question, “Is that the best one?” and you respond, “Oh, you wanted me to use the best one?” [laughs] With a movie like this, there are other challenges when you have CG characters, like what do you cut to? With Rocket, as we just discussed, we had Sean to cut to, but with Groot frequently there was just a maquette of Groot that production had shot for a lighting reference. Sometimes there was just a stick in the floor and you would type on the screen, “Groot does this action.” And sometimes you wanted Rocket to do something more quickly than Sean did it, or you just wanted him to do something different, so you’d type that action on the screen.  The first pass of the movie had lots of titles.

HULLFISH: That’s a huge blessing to be able to have the director sit down during the shoot to watch dailies. There’s not a lot of people that get that opportunity.

WOOD: It can go both ways. I actually like to just react first myself and then get the directors reaction, sometimes “Nope, I had this moment in mind.” And sometimes “I never thought of that.”  So there’s a plus on both sides. They are often tired when they’re watching dailies, they fast forward, they’re looking at their footage for different reasons to make sure they got what they needed. They’re checking camera angles and they’re not really thinking so much about the editorial but the occasional, “I love that! That’s useful.”

HULLFISH: Their assessment of the performances and of the shots and the value of various takes is very different watching dailies than watching later, right?

WOOD: Absolutely. And I love to have my own reaction to the footage that’s removed from any residual reaction to being on the set. I think of it as what the footage is worth, removed from how hard it was to film. You’re guided by camera moves sometimes. You can see they’ve done a particular camera move twenty times – well, they want that in the scene. You get those sort of markers in the scene and that gives you a shape to begin with.

HULLFISH: Do you want to expound anymore on that or would you say that’s what your approach is?

WOOD: I do approach looking at the dailies slightly differently to Fred. I create what I call a select sequence. It’s not really a select sequence though. I’m sort of putting every single line of every single performance next to each other. Some editors would have their assistant do it and it’s called a string out. But I like to do it myself because it’s how I look at footage and consider how it might be constructed. So I’m putting all the performances next to each other and I can always play them all back.

HULLFISH: When you’re doing that, do you have a strategy for remembering or marking which ones you’re saying yes and no to? Some people put them on different levels of tracks, like the decent ones are on track one, the good ones are on track two and the great ones are on track three? Are you using markers?

WOOD: Occasionally we use locators, but I’d rather build this thing and become familiar with all the footage, which takes me the most time in doing a scene and then I just start cutting from that. It becomes a resource to link back to the full take because obviously I’m not putting every reaction in so it’s just a tool I use.

HULLFISH: I do the same exact thing. That’s my approach as well. Do you find that also helps you when the director comes in and says, “Did you use the best take?” Because they’re already assembled. You don’t have to go track them down in a bin.

WOOD: When we’re dealing with comedy, there’s a lot of ad libbing that goes on so there are different versions of jokes that can be tried. And often we can start this scene with a couple of different options for a particular joke line. One of my favorite changes Fred made was the bit where Quill says “if what I’ve got between my legs had a hand on it” because it wasn’t cut that way initially at all. It was a bit straighter in the script and Fred tried this one and I laughed for five or ten minutes.

RASKIN: It’s funny. That was one that I’d seen when I was assembling the scene and thought, “No, this is too much.” Then Kevin Feige mentioned it in an exec meeting and I tracked it down and realized it was far better than the scripted line. One other thing to mention about the process on this movie that made it a bit more challenging is that we had to have 60% of the VFX turned over to their vendors by the end of production. This meant “locking scenes” long before we were done shooting so it could all be turned over.

WOOD: That’s with the knowledge that there’s a percentage of changes to happen later. And there were quite a few.

RASKIN: But James was actually incredibly generous with his time not only in actually bothering to watch dailies but also during production he would come in on the weekends to look at what we had done and help us refine the scenes to his taste so that we could feel at least somewhat confident that what we were giving to the vendor was close.

WOOD: And James was really good with being consistent. He stays on his path that he had in his head from I imagine when he wrote the screenplay to the very end.

HULLFISH: Usually, the editor gets to the end credits and they’re done, but you guys really had to do some work once the credits started rolling.

WOOD: Marvel love having these end tags on their films. They found it highly amusing that this film has the most credit tag scenes of any Marvel film.

HULLFISH: A lot of people have talked to me about the fact that no action movie works unless you care about the characters.

RASKIN: I hate to keep falling back on this, but in terms of how much you care about the characters, it’s really all in the script. I also want to give James credit for starting as early as he did. It was something in the realm of sixteen months before shooting began that he started writing. He really had an idea in his head as to what he wanted to do and didn’t want to waste any time getting there. He’d didn’t want to be one of those guys who shows up on set with a screenplay that’s not one hundred percent where he wanted it to be. I think your caring about the characters reflects on that.

WOOD: We have parallel story lines going with our primary characters in this one, unlike in the first Guardians. We have Peter/Ego, Gamora/Nebula, Mantis/Drax and Rocket/Yondu, as well as some recombinations of all of them.  I think of it as character pairs that continue throughout the film and it was important to create a rhythm of revisiting those character pairs. We’re always going back to them when we most want to go back to a particular character pair to advance the story and the emotional arcs.

HULLFISH: Let’s talk about precisely when do you cut back and forth between an A and a B story line? I’m guessing some of those changed from the script.

WOOD: Yeah there were a few of those but not many. But just moving some of those cutbacks that got shuffled a couple of times until we were happy with them.

HULLFISH: And do you remember what those discussions were about or why, in general, those shuffles happened?

WOOD: Well, it was rhythm and if we had a long section of dialogue, we needed to get to an action scene: the Drax-Mantis scene on the stairs there was a lot of discussion about where that should go.

RASKIN: With Drax telling Mantis how hideous she is.

WOOD: And Drax starts thinking about his wife and daughter from the past and gets quite emotional. That’s one of those things that’s hilariously funny and then becomes quite moving and shifts back into comedy. But you couldn’t just cut straight from our Ravagers storyline to that, which was suggested at one point but felt weird when we did that. So there was shuffling around until that felt right.

HULLFISH:  What was the solution with that?

WOOD: The solution was that we had to first go to Ego and Quill and then to Mantis and Drax. The big story was the Ego-Quill story, the smaller story was Drax-Mantis.

RASKIN: We experimented to see if it was going to be more engaging if we did more cutting between the characters or if we stayed in one place for longer. I think we tried a version where we did more intercutting between what was happening on the Ravager ship and what was happening on Ego’s planet.

WOOD: There’s often a sense that if you’re cutting multiple stories more often it’s going to be more exciting, but it really takes you out most of the time. The audience wants to be grounded in a scene rather than chopping them up all over the place.

HULLFISH: A lot of times the script is cutty like that, much more fast cuts between one storyline and the other because when you’re reading it, you kind of need that visual energy on the page, but when you’re watching a film, you’ve got this deeper emotional attachment that needs to stay continuous. So many people think pacing is this shot-to-shot pacing, but there’s also the overall pacing of the story itself and how it plays out.

WOOD: I always have to watch whole reels down, just to feel the rhythm. I watch from the beginning of a reel then stop when somethng takes me out , adjust it then go back to the beginning again. It’s just feeling moments of the movie in their context.

HULLFISH: And did screening or previews have an effect on, “Oh the end needed to be sped up?”

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2..L to R: Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Drax (Dave Bautista), Star-Lord/Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Ego (Kurt Russell) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana)..Ph: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2017

WOOD: We certainly learned things mostly about how long things should play but also about some character arcs. The way Quill and Gamora react to Ego was changed with reshoots after a very early screening.

RASKIN: There were some jokes that just didn’t get reactions.

HULLFISH: Did you play scenes for each other?

WOOD: We both play each other’s scenes and have minor notes usually and then you go, “Oh yeah I can see that.” That’s the beauty of having a partner. Sitting with someone else you’re feeling it in a different way instead of just watching it by yourself because you’re in the mechanics of cutting it when you’re cutting by yourself and then you’re just watching it as an audience but through someone else’s eyes.

HULLFISH: One editor said that he’ll play a scene for anyone – even the janitor.

RASKIN: I should also mention that the janitorial staff at Disney gave phenomenal notes.

HULLFISH: Any thoughts on the editorial decisions or challenges of editing these scenes:

RASKIN: This was one of my favorite scenes to cut.  I really enjoy cutting action, and my favorite stuff to cut with the Guardians is when the whole team is bantering together.  This sequence, maybe more than any other in the movie, is the perfect fusion of that.  The challenge here was to maintain the proper balance between the dialogue sections and the exterior shots of the aerial battle so that you didn’t lose the tension of the battle.  As a result, we ended up removing a number of very funny lines, because they were throwing off the pace of the sequence.

RASKIN: Craig put this one together, and I have to give him a lot of credit, not only with regard to the comic timing of the cuts, but also the off-camera sound effects.  He figured out just how much to keep the battle alive, and, as we were cutting in 7.1, he had those sounds moving all around the left side of the room.  (This comes into play more in the section of the scene that follows this clip, with Quill asking everyone for tape, but you get a sense of it here as well.)

WOOD: I love that we were able to stop in the middle of the 3rd act action climax and have this intimate funny scene.  It was cut first as a radio play to decide vocal performance choices and the rhythm for the scene, only going to live action for the Quill interjections.  Then I laid over some very basic previz to depict the cuts and camera angles.

RASKIN: This is a good example of a lot of stuff I spoke about earlier.   In this scene, I see a lot of Sean Gunn in Rocket’s physicality but also Bradley Cooper in some of his angrier facial expressions.  And when he turns to Quill and says “Don’t call me a raccoon!” that was one the animators had to do without reference, as we sped it up significantly from how it was performed on set.  The animators were working off of text on the screen.

RASKIN: This was the first scene shot in the movie.  I actually went down to set to watch some of the shooting (I wasn’t getting dailies until the next day), and I was blown away by how effortlessly all of the actors had slipped back into their roles.  The set was literally just the floor and a giant blue screen, so this one had to be heavily postvizzed before we could tell if it was working.  There was nothing even representing the creature on set.

WOOD:  This scene ends just before an interesting change that occurred with reshooting in post production.  As scripted Quill was enthusiastic and trusting at meeting his father, and Gamora was the suspicious one.  The reshoots reversed that. Quill was made suspicious and angry that his father abandoned his mother and him. This made for a much more interesting character arc for Quill, giving him a less passive roll through the middle act of the movie, and at the same time softened Gamora.

RASKIN: This scene is an interesting one, as it might be the only one I cut in the movie that James approved immediately upon watching, with no notes.  But as we were going through the movie as a whole, we felt we needed to strengthen the connection between Ego and Quill throughout, and so we hunted for little moments that might accomplish that.  The most significant one here is when Quill smiles proudly after Ego refers to him as Star-Lord – it gets one of the best laughs in the movie, and I hadn’t even used it in my first pass.  Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the bit with Rocket touching his snout here is pure Sean Gunn.

HULLFISH: One last question just about working together… two editors or more on a single picture.

WOOD: On these big movies you just can’t do them alone. I’ve tried it a couple of times and it’s just so hard. The editors are pretty focused on everything involved in finishing the film. It’s not just the picture cut. It’s the sound, music, color-timing, visual effects, everything we have a little bit of control over. You’ve got to divide and conquer on these big movies.

HULLFISH: Of course the other advantage is just having another person to bounce these ideas off of.

WOOD: It’s incredibly valuable. If the guy’s the right person. And this guy is the right person.

RASKIN: What he said.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 Art of the Cut interviews have been curated into a book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV editors.” The book is not merely a collection of interviews, but was edited into topics that read like a massive, virtual roundtable discussion of some of the most important topics to editors everywhere: storytelling, pacing, rhythm, collaboration with directors, approach to a scene and more. Oscar nominee, Dody Dorn, ACE, said of the book: “Congratulations on putting together such a wonderful book.  I can see why so many editors enjoy talking with you.  The depth and insightfulness of your questions makes the answers so much more interesting than the garden variety interview.  It is truly a wonderful resource for anyone who is in love with or fascinated by the alchemy of editing.”

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