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Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

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Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#11

Post by jonplackett »

I actually made a website called ‘The Artistifier’ at the time the artist was released (8 years ago?).

It let you import any YouTube video, it made it black and white and a bit stuttery, put the music from the artist over the top and let you add silent movie captions. That music had a way of kind of enhancing anything you put behind it.

Unfortunately it is now buried in the mass grave of internet past with all the other Flash websites.

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#12

Post by keiferski »

konsumer wrote: post #5

I get that they were trying to focus on staging, but unlike old silent films, this is very hard to follow without dialog cards, if you've never seen the original. Also, the music really doesn't fit.

I don’t know, I thought the brilliance of the staging is that you almost don’t even need dialogue to follow the plot. It is all communicated pretty clearly through cuts and body language.

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#13

Post by charliebreslau »

Hehe. I think that op is playing some game with you. Actually the whole staging in this movie was ripped of from another silent movie. Spielberg ripped of whole scenes. I think you can still find some comparisons somewhere. I will try to google it.

https://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM

http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/news/indiana-jones-was-a-rip...

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#15

Post by germinalphrase »

keiferski wrote: post #9

Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Note that the music is only intended to be filler. Otherwise, watching this in black and white really made obvious how well staged and choreographed the film is. I don’t consider myself much of a Spielberg fan, but I was impressed. If the music bothers you, try the sect…

I think Jaws holds up very well, too. It is a wonderful transitional film between classic and new Hollywood shot tempo and visual style.

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#16

Post by jacobolus »

jonplackett wrote: post #10

Positives: great idea. it really makes you notice the beats in each scene. The ups downs ups downs. Spielberg is so good at that. The negatives: music does not fit at all. No dialogue. Would love to see a more deliberate attempt at making this an old b&w movie.

The point is not to make it a complete self-contained film, but to focus the attention of visual artists trying to study the lighting and camera work. Including dialog of any kind would just be a distraction.

Just turn off the audio (optionally, play something else) if it distracts.

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#17

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

Cute! They change camera angles a lot more then they did in the old movies. Missing is the required woman in long skirt and high heels trooping through the jungle. If made in the 40s the temple would have had one giant paper mache spider at the entrance instead of all the live ones. Natives would have all been white guys in black face wearing leopard skin togas. Nazis would have spoken more then three words of German. Spirits in the ark would have been a single skull superimposed over the scene after which all the Nazis fall down and the hero has to explain what happened. Buy war bonds!

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#19

Post by ggm »

Great film made by people who had long history of making great films.

"Rushes" or rapid prints of the days shooting were b&w and I have no idea if that changed, but as high contrast pushed (speedy development) review footage maybe just mechanistically it influenced shot design?

There's another doc somebody did analysing raiders and treasure of the sierra madre shot by shot.

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark as a Black-and-White Silent Film (2014)

#20

Post by ironchief »

ggm wrote: post #19

Great film made by people who had long history of making great films. "Rushes" or rapid prints of the days shooting were b&w and I have no idea if that changed, but as high contrast pushed (speedy development) review footage maybe just mechanistically it influenced shot design? There's another doc somebody did analysing raiders and treasure of the sierra madre shot by shot.

Do you have the link to the documentary?
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