The Shining

[Michael P Clark]

Glad everyone enjoyed it!

[Marc Wielage]

BTW, this has been mentioned in past discussions, but check out this UK Channel 4 promo for a run of Stanley Kubrick films in England. It's an extraordinarily well-made 60-second P.O.V. of "Stanley" walking through an exact replica of the set for The Shining:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/jul/03/channel4.television

Watch it a couple of times, and you'll start to see all kinds of cool little bits going on in the background.

--Marc W.

[Jeff Wexler]

BTW, this has been mentioned in past discussions, but check out this UK Channel 4 promo for a run of Stanley Kubrick films in England. It's an extraordinarily well-made 60-second P.O.V. of "Stanley" walking through an exact replica of the set for The Shining:

--Marc W.

That is a wonderful 60 seconds of moviemaking! Truly worthy and up to the same level of creativity of its subject, Stanley Kubrick. Thank you Marc.

[Chris R]

About a month ago I saw a fantastic documentary on Vimeo called

"Stanley Kubrick Boxes"

Trailer:

The full length film has been removed since but if any of you find it some where online or get get a hold

of it, its fascinating. Kubrick had thousands of boxes on his estate when he died full of

his preparation for his films (photos, ideas, scripts, etc)

The estate let this person explore through the boxes for years for this doc.

Amazing the detail the guy put into a simple part of a film that would be on screen for moments,

or completely quirky type requests he would have his assistant do for him.

Worth watching in my opinion.

Small clip showing behind the scenes of FMJ also shot by his daughter

Small clip showing "memos" found in the boxes of slightly odd requests

[Rich Van Dyke]

This is the topic that just keeps on giving, great links Chris. From your link I found Kubrick's first film, "Fear and Desire." Filmed in seven days in the Angeles Forrest above Los Angeles. The first line of dialogue is given by the young actor and good friend of Kubrick's, Paul Mazursky. Paul told me about making this film, Kubrick was working as a still photographer and had been published in Life and Look magazines. Kubrick is credited with Producing, Directing, Editing and Sound work on the film. Interesting to look back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbokkV1Roj4&feature=related

Search for "Fear and Desire" and look for the one without the Italian subtitles and there's a complete version of the film, it runs for about an hour.

Cheers,

RVD

[Mirror]

[Rich Van Dyke]

I spoke with Paul Mazursky this last week to tell him I had found and watched, "Fear and Desire." He was telling me some stories about working on it, he said that he thought the film had been financed by Stanley's Uncle, a pharmacist for some $25,000.00. He said that Stanley operated the camera and did the lighting and had, four Mexican guys, who would do wantever Stanley needed doing. He then told me that I would probably have been interested in the type of sound recorder that was used, Mazursky said that the sound person had a wire recorder, this was 1951.

After they got back to New York and Stanley had an assembly ready he asked Paul if he would like to see it, and of course Mazursky wanted to see it, it was his first acting job ever. Apparently the sound was so bad they had to loop every line of dialogue in the film, which Stanley's Father paid for, around $20,000.00, almost doubling the cost of the film.

I'm sure the lesson of getting quality sound was not lost on Kubrick, but I find it interesting in many of the previously posted video images that there are frequently unblimped cameras being used on set, interesting.

Cheers,

Rich Van Dyke

[studiomprd]

I'm sure on his pictures after that, the looping cost as a percentage of the total budget went way down. Mr. Kubrick always preferred a smaller crew, and a correspondingly much slower pace of movie-making.

[Michael P Clark]

Here's a letter to Stanley about the Stedicam. Jeff, is Jan referring to your father in this letter?

[Jeff Wexler]

This is priceless, Michael! I will have to show this to my father. Jan Harlan (Stanley's brother in law) did lots of research for Stanley and did much of the pre-production work for the movies. The roll of film he is referring to is the first shot we did with the Steadicam on "Bound For Glory". Garrett Brown came up to Stockton where we had been shooting and brought the first and only Steadicam prototype for us to try out. Hal Ashby, Michael Haller (Production Designer), Haskell and I (and of course Garrett), all worked on designing a shot that would showcase the amazing possibilities with this device. For me, the challenge was doing usable sync sound with this rig --- the first Steadicam was a highly modified Arri 2-C (unblimped) and very noisy (though probably not as noisy as the current RED cameras). We did the shot, sound and all, and it is now history how that began the use of Steadicam in our industry. I am personally so pleased that I was able to participate in that first ever experience with Garrett's amazing invention, and that I was able to do production sound that worked for the shot and made it into the movie.

[taylormadeaudio]

Absolutely AMAZING!

I'm a huge Kubrick fan. I've seen 'A Life in Pictures' several times, and have read Alexander Walker's 'Stanley Kubrick Directs' (one of my all-time favorite photos is the chess game on pg. 6)... but to read this thread with all these intimate accounts and first-hand details is really awesome. This entire thread is priceless. Thank you all so much for posting. Who needs film school? This is rich beyond words.

~tt

[neverwaitingonsound]

I watched some of this film she did and I thought it was amazing. I had the same thought you did, what else has she done? I just watched a DVD documentary that Omar Milano did for his thesis project going for his Masters Degree, the subject being Production Sound (I think it is the first ever documentary that focuses specifically on production sound). In it he interviews several sound mixers including Ivan Sharrock who mixed "The Shinning". Ivan explained that he really couldn't boom most scenes because of the lighting --- no movie lights, everything was from practical light fixtures, overhead chandeliers and such, requiring that for almost every scene the actors had to be wired.

Do you now the name of the doc? I'd like to find it and watch it.

[Jeff Wexler]

Omar's documentary was completed for his thesis project but it has yet to be released in any form to the public (as far as I know). Thr last time I spoke with Omar he said he was going to do some more work on it before any general release or distribution.

[osa]

Sorry to revive this ancient discussion but i found myself this late evening watching THE SHINING for the 100+ time and suddenly obsessed with wanting to know how the production sound was done, knowing Kubrick was well known for not wanting booms interfering with actors etc. WOW what great info lightly touching the tip of the iceberg. Thanks guys for this and the many other historical archive discussions past present and future!

 

-Ken

[Malcolm Davies Amps CAS]

Sorry to revive this ancient discussion but i found myself this late evening watching THE SHINING for the 100+ time and suddenly obsessed with wanting to know how the production sound was done, knowing Kubrick was well known for not wanting booms interfering with actors etc. WOW what great info lightly touching the tip of the iceberg. Thanks guys for this and the many other historical archive discussions past present and future!

 

-Ken

Ken,

One of the mixers on The Shining was Ivan Sharrock. He is a member of A.m.p.s. But he is not a member on here. You could do a search on the Amps site which wil reveal his email address. He is a very laid back guy and I'm sure he would be happy to answer any questions you may have about the production sound on the movie.