King Kong, Naomi Watts, Juggling?
Jay Enef
-Very beginning in the vaudeville show... looks real
-Naomi Watts when she tries to entertain Kong
-Naomi after Kong takes her to a high look out point
Naomi's juggling didn't look too real to me... her hands seemed to be
moving too fast for the pattern but I am not sure. So keep an eye out
and chime in. I won't be seeing it again soon... freaking loooong!
Otherwise, it was pretty good and the FX were way better than the other
version. I like the '33 and '76 version's better. There was at least 45
mins of exciting but worthless parts in the '05 version. Still a very
sad story, as expected.
--Jay
DrJerry
----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----
DrJerry
Just saw the movie - definitely special effects.
The other special effects in the movie were incredible as well.
DrJerry
adremeaux
fake. She clearly is just moving her hands up and down (not at all in
circles), and is not concentrating at all. Well done though. Would be
hard to pick out for a non-juggler.
-andy
Flop...@gmail.com
According to the interview, she did not juggle:
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/kingkongnews.php?id=12324
Bah! That's a little disappointing with Jackson's reputation for
being so meticulous with his stuff. I would have gladly taken the
weeks, months, and even years, damn it, to painstakingly train Naomi. I
know it's a sacrifice but, in the end, it's all about giving the fans
the best possible movie!
fakoriginal
So meticulous that he fires his friend, Howard Shore, six weeks before the
movie is due out......
tosser
>
> So meticulous that he fires his friend, Howard Shore, six weeks before the
> movie is due out......
>
Couldn't he juggle either?
La Fille
David Cain
at the beginning is Sosina
Wogayehu from Circus Oz. What she does is real.
David Cain
adremeaux
over completely backwards. Its mad. Here I'll draw a really bad ASCII
picture of it now:
_..____
O/ \ \
/ / | |
o o | |
o ,_ ,_
Everyone go see the movie. Highly recommended.
-andy
David Cain
David Cain
Jani Kyllönen
Yes, this was confirmed in the earlier King Kong -thread.
jani
Nerd
And that is done for real?
_daniel_
yes - for real. Sosy is a contortionist as well as a juggler, so she
combines both...
~Daniel
Rory Parle
The juggling was the most obviously fake part of the movie. It was as
bad as the stop motion of the original, without the excuse of being 72
years old. It probably would have been easier for Naomi Watts to learn a
simple three-ball cascade than to fake it digitally.
I'll save my non-juggling-related thoughts about the movie in case I
ever get around to blogging about it.
--
Rory Parle
http://www.soylentred.net/
Guy G
> The juggling was the most obviously fake part of the movie. It was as
> bad as the stop motion of the original, without the excuse of being 72
> years old. It probably would have been easier for Naomi Watts to learn a
> simple three-ball cascade than to fake it digitally.
I haven't actually seen the film yet, but does she only do a 3 ball
cascade? If that's the case, I would remove the "probably" from the
sentence above, write "much" in front of "easier" and add some
expletives about how bloody lazy it is to rely on the films digital
people to fake the juggling rather than get up off your arse and learn
it yourself. But like I said, I don't want to pass judgement since I
haven't seen it yet.
Guy
Rory Parle
See only did a cascade as far as I remember. Certainly only three balls
(actually rocks). But she wasn't paying a great deal of attention to the
rocks. She looked behind her at Kong at one point. I don't know whether
it would be better to look shakey or fakey, so to speak.
Brian Fahs
"adremeaux" <adre...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134629068.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I saw a quote where Naomi Watts admitted "I'm no juggler", that it was
computer generated.
Brian
Dashers
cascade, with the occasional under the leg through. Not very impressive
to a juggler, and very fake.
When i commented on this i reckoned i couId have taught her that in a
coupIe of hours, so now i have to teach them it in a couple of hours.
Easy!
Steve Bennett
anyone else do that?
I actually liked the rock juggling...her technique looked like someone
juggling 9. Very fast high arm movements, elbows roughly by sides. The
biggest problem was that she looked completely away from the pattern
for several seconds, which I doubt anyone can do when juggling that
high and loose.
As for learning it...well, she would have to juggle for like 30 seconds
including the under the leg trick, without dropping, while "acting" and
looking around and stuff. Not that trivial.
As a piano player, let me say, the juggling was much less jarring than
the countless times you see people faking playing the piano, swaying
their body all over the place, etc etc.
Steve
Jason Quinn
>simple three-ball cascade than to fake it digitally.
I finally got around to seeing the movie. I agree 100% that Naomi
Watts should have learned to juggle for this scene. It would have only
taken a week for her to learn to do it for real (minus the absurd
looking backwards away part). Instead it likely took a whole special
effects team a month of hard work and cost $100,000. Tsk tsk Miss
Watts.
On a tangent juggling/movie star note, I saw a Late Night with Conan
O'Brien episode on December 5th, 2005 that had Isla Fisher on as guest
(she has been in "Wedding Crashers" among others). Besides being cute
as a button and having as sweet a voice you'll ever hear, she mentioned
that she went to circus school for a while and learned some juggling,
which of course Conan teased her about. But with complete seriousness
she retorted that juggling is a very fun hobby, very under-rated, and
more people should try it. I was impressed.
Jason Quinn
Jason Quinn
"and probably cost $100,000."
Jason.
adremeaux
Jason Quinn wrote:
> I finally got around to seeing the movie. I agree 100% that Naomi
> Watts should have learned to juggle for this scene. It would have only
> taken a week for her to learn to do it for real (minus the absurd
> looking backwards away part). Instead it likely took a whole special
> effects team a month of hard work and cost $100,000. Tsk tsk Miss
> Watts.
As a computer animator myself, I can say that that sequence probably
took less than a days work for a single artist. Moving rocks from point
to point in a parabola is incredibly simple.
-andy
Jason Quinn
> As a computer animator myself, I can say that that sequence probably
> took less than a days work for a single artist.
Not by my work ethic! ;-)
I'll defer to your advice but I remain skeptical that it is as quick
and easy as this. I agree the principle is simple but I can't help but
thinking that blending the results with live action and making it look
somewhat realistic would only take a day's effort. But now that I've
considered it more, I agree with you that it's likely easier than I first
stated.
Jason
adremeaux
The sequence was shot on a greenscreen, and I saw no evidence of them
actually putting the rocks in her hands as opposed to behind them
because it'd be virtually impossible to see the difference, and no one
was looking. The live cameras are tracked with motion sensors so that
mimicking camera movement is taken care of. Thus, the cutout "juggler"
is attached to the front of the virtual camera, which is already moving
around in its (albeit empty) environment correctly (save lighting), and
once some simple timing is figured out, all that needs be done is put
the rock behind her hand at the end point, at the start point, and at
its apex halfway between. Hit the render button, put it in a layer
behind Naomi, and voila.
In fact, it is entirely possible that the entire sequence was taken
care of by a script, other than the special throws, though for that
short of a sequence I think it'd be a waste of time to write it.
-andy
Rory Parle
> The sequence was shot on a greenscreen, and I saw no evidence of them
> actually putting the rocks in her hands as opposed to behind them
> because it'd be virtually impossible to see the difference, and no one
> was looking. The live cameras are tracked with motion sensors so that
> mimicking camera movement is taken care of. Thus, the cutout "juggler"
> is attached to the front of the virtual camera, which is already moving
> around in its (albeit empty) environment correctly (save lighting), and
> once some simple timing is figured out, all that needs be done is put
> the rock behind her hand at the end point, at the start point, and at
> its apex halfway between. Hit the render button, put it in a layer
> behind Naomi, and voila.
>
> In fact, it is entirely possible that the entire sequence was taken
> care of by a script, other than the special throws, though for that
> short of a sequence I think it'd be a waste of time to write it.
Bare in mind that the effects were done by Weta Digital, the company
that did the effects for the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. According to
the DVD for The Return of the King, the collapse of Barad-dur was
animated (including creating the model of the tower) by a single artist
in two weeks. You don't need to be a professional to know that that was
a harder shot than the juggling in King Kong.
I don't think that the difficulty of the shot should be the issue
though. Part of what set The Lord of the Rings apart from other big
budget movies was that it didn't use computer animation when it wasn't
necessary. They used forced perspective to make the hobbits and dwarfs
look smaller, and they built a huge number of detailed miniatures where
other film-makers would have used computer models. Then the same people
went and animated (badly) a simple juggling sequence that the actress
could have learned in much less time than it took anyone to learn to
fight with swords or ride a horse for Rings.