BladeZone's Off World Forums

Posted: **Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:44 am**

First things first:

Thank you so much Charles for this amazing documentary!!

I'm still in shock.

And I didn't even watch it properly. Maybe I never will, because the need to slo-mo and freeze-frame is overwhelming all the time!

So I finally got my hands on the 2-disc version for starters and just wanted to skip (in 300 frame chunks via VLC-player) through the documentary.

It was impossible to do so.

Because right at the beginning there's this montage of imagery I couldn't believe my eyes:

A tracking shot from the Esper to the piano, a reflection of Holden in Leon's eye, a fly (!) on Leon's face, etc. etc.

All happened so fast (right at the beginning you're teasing us 'knowledgable' fans, Charles? ;-)

) I had to rewind and marvel with joy!!

Somewhere else (I think it was the fabulous review over at The Digital Bits) they said all these film cans had been marked for disposal since the late eighties.

Charles, thanks for saving and going through all this material and presenting it in such unique, ambitous, meticulous and beautiful ways!

If one looks at all the (revisionist) documentaries out there it is all the more obvious that you did the world of cinema history, the Blade Runner fans (and yourself ;-)

) an invaluable service!

If anybody wants to discuss things they've seen in the documentary or just for tuning in and thanking Charles for this towering achievement, this labour of love, I hope this is the thread to do so!

Have a better one,
Martin

Posted: **Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:58 am**

yes, an invaluable labour of love pretty much describes what Charles has done. my box has yet to arrive but i really can't wait to see the chapter in which Charles (according to those grat reviews from DVDTimes and DigitalBits) shows us he and Kurt Galvao at work! :shock:

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:13 pm**

So it took me two days to project it in its entirety. :shock:

Just some small thoughts (maybe later there's more, when it all has sunken in):

It's a nice touch to have it end with Deckard standing on the balcony and staring into the distance followed by 'Memories of Green' under the credits.

The thing that made me fall out of the couch (almost ;-)

):

Charles, towards the end of the documentary when you mention the Work Print, there's a Blade Runner poster behind you on the left hand side. As this shot hit the screen around here I couldn't believe my eyes, because on the left side of the screen the very same poster (albeit with Italian wording) graces my wall since I put it there to celebrate Blade Runner and your achievement!

Good to have seen you talking, I missed you by 24 hours in Venice. Thanks to modern Vid-Phon technology we can communicate and share our thoughts, pictures and moving images over the net... ;-)

One last note:

I thought it could have been longer. No, seriously. With all this amazing material it just kept on going...

Hands down, Charles: How long was your first cut of 'Dangerous Days'?

Have a better one,
Martin

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:36 pm**

Hi Martin,

That shot of me, included in the documentary at the last minute under protest (mine!), was done in my home office. If the camera had panned 180 degrees, you would have seen my Blade Runner shrine, which is probably too scary to share with the general public. Funny that we have (more or less) the same poster on our walls!

My first cut of Dangerous Days ran 4.5 hours...and even that was already running very tight. It was painful having to voluntarily cut an hour out for disc capacity reasons. I'm not kidding, it could have been much, much longer. However, I'm not sure that it would automatically be better, but this is simply one of those juicy subjects that has amazing depth and colorful background. In a way, all the featurettes on Disc 4 provide sort of a side-quel to Dangerous Days, giving you even more information and stories.

But let's not get too greedy. I never would have guessed in a million years that even the mighty Warner Bros. would so generously lavish us with five whole discs of content for this. It's been, without a doubt, the best experience I've ever had working with a studio.

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:39 pm**

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:If the camera had panned 180 degrees, you would have seen my Blade Runner shrine, which is probably too scary to share with the general public.

WE WANT .JPGS!!!!!

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:43 pm**

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:Hi Martin,
But let's not get too greedy. I never would have guessed in a million years that even the mighty Warner Bros. would so generously lavish us with five whole discs of content for this. It's been, without a doubt, the best experience I've ever had working with a studio.

It amazes me too. The situation looked very, oh so very grim that we would not see this special edition. For the longest time there were hints and guesses that this collectors version was in the works. The length of time between the first rumblings was so long that I just assumed it had been a shelved project never to see the light of day. Glad I was wrong.

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:08 am**

yes Charles, let our BIG eyes probe into your world... :lol:

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:30 am**

msgeek wrote:
Charles de Lauzirika wrote:If the camera had panned 180 degrees, you would have seen my Blade Runner shrine, which is probably too scary to share with the general public.

WE WANT .JPGS!!!!!

Yeah, you kind of have to show us now.

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:29 am**

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:Hi Martin,

Hi Charles,

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:That shot of me, included in the documentary at the last minute under protest (mine!), was done in my home office.

I see. It's cool to glimpse you on the set of the Zhora green screen re-shoot and in your home office for these brief, modest moments though, believe me.

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:If the camera had panned 180 degrees, you would have seen my Blade Runner shrine, which is probably too scary to share with the general public.

Could be, could be. ;-)

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:Funny that we have (more or less) the same poster on our walls!

"Kinship!", as Roy would've put it

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:My first cut of Dangerous Days ran 4.5 hours...and even that was already running very tight. It was painful having to voluntarily cut an hour out for disc capacity reasons.

That's what I tought....

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:In a way, all the featurettes on Disc 4 provide sort of a side-quel to Dangerous Days, giving you even more information and stories.

Exactly, can't wait to open the briefcase (on January the 3rd, they keep telling me) and continue the magical journey you put together for the world to see.

Charles de Lauzirika wrote:But let's not get too greedy. I never would have guessed in a million years that even the mighty Warner Bros. would so generously lavish us with five whole discs of content for this. It's been, without a doubt, the best experience I've ever had working with a studio.

You are so absolutely right!

Funny detail: In my 2-disc European version they included an ad for the Blade Runner Vangelis soundtrack edition from 1994.

As we all know now, for reasons beyond everybody's control, Vangelis gifted us with a 3-disc soundtrack including musical 'meditation' beyond his singular work.

So it seems that nobody - at least from the European Warner Home Video Department - knew in advance that Vangelis was preparing something along these lines, did they? Did you for that matter?

Thank you (again) for sharing so much with us!
We all have been waiting decades for this to happen (or at least kept fantasizing about it... ...'In Dreams', so to speak).

I am looking forward to meeting you at last in 20[0/1]9! ;-)

Have a better one,
Martin

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:35 pm**

Hey Charles, just a brief question... When you're producing the documentaries, do you operate the camera or do you have your own crew? I imagine you'd have a crew, but hey...operating the camera is always fun.

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:32 pm**

martinland wrote:So it seems that nobody - at least from the European Warner Home Video Department - knew in advance that Vangelis was preparing something along these lines, did they? Did you for that matter?

Yes, it was a bit of a surprise. But I've long since stopped trying to understand Vangelis. This exceptionally talented man moves in frustratingly mysterious ways.

eccentricbeing wrote:Hey Charles, just a brief question... When you're producing the documentaries, do you operate the camera or do you have your own crew? I imagine you'd have a crew, but hey...operating the camera is always fun.

I love operating the camera, and often do so when shooting on-set footage or b-roll. But I can't shoot and conduct the interview at the same time, so once I've established the lighting and look of a shot with the camera operator, I then rely on him to adjust the framing while I ask the questions. (The one exception to this rule was on "Tricks of the Trade: Making Matchstick Men" since I was going for a more raw, fly-on-the-wall approach, I operated the camera and asked the questions simultaneously so that the interviewee would look directly into the lens...at you.)

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:50 pm**

Not sure if this is the right thread, but a transcript of Monday's HTF chat with Charles can be found here.

I've seen most of Scott's films, but I haven't seen Kingdom of Heaven, so I'm very intrigued with your recommendation of the Director's Cut: "It's like an all-new experience, deeper, more emotional and powerful. I can't recommend it enough." I'm there.

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:40 pm**

deepysea wrote:Not sure if this is the right thread, but a transcript of Monday's HTF chat with Charles can be found here.

OMG...OMG....OMG....

<@Warner_Brothers> Great question, Clayton...that's true for EVERY project I've worked on. The one thing we came
close to including was a section devoted to Ralph Bakshi's developed-but-abandoned Blade Runner animated series.
We made contact with Mr. Bakshi and almost pulled it off, but he eventually bowed out. Maybe for the 2019 Edition!

Ralph. Bakshi. Blade. Runner. Animated. Series. I had NO idea. That would have been AWESOME. Provided, of course, Bakshi didn't do it all rotoscoped. I still want to see an animated series. I'd settle with just uniting great anime directors with American writers to do it at this point.

Then again, I think Bakshi would have grokked the neo-Noir nature of Blade Runner. He's working on an indie animated movie called The Last Days of Coney Island which is going to be animated neo-Noir featuring the denizens of that run-down part of New York. I've seen clips...it's great. The advances of technology (Macintosh, ToonBoom, Final Cut Pro, AfterEffects) have made it possible for an indie filmmaker and a skeleton crew of animators to do a feature.

Then again, he's kind of poison in this town after Cool World. Which isn't fair, because Bakshi didn't make that movie suck, Paramount's edits made that movie suck. Sound familiar?

Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:46 pm**

More kick-ass news from the chat...

<+JasonStreet> I hope it wasn't asked before I joined, anyway: Charles, I recall in an interview you mentioned that you wanted to do your own feature film in the near future, any news there?
<@Warner_Brothers> Thanks for asking, Jason. That's still very true. If all goes well, we start shooting May 5th. More to come...

May 5th!!! w00t, Charles!!!

You have a major cheering section here at BladeZone. I'm sure anything you'd do, we'll be there in theatres first day of release.

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:29 am**

I admit, I've never heard of Ralph Bakshi, but now, I'm interested. When did he work on this BR stuff?

And as for your film Charles...what Msgeek said.

BladeZone's Off World Forums

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (spoilersthanks*opinions)

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (spoilersthanks*opinions)

Re: Dangerous Days - The Documentary

BladeZone's Off World Forums

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (*spoilers*thanks*opinions)

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (*spoilers*thanks*opinions)

Re: Dangerous Days - The Documentary

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (spoilersthanks*opinions)

Dangerous Days - The Documentary (spoilersthanks*opinions)