When looking back on the class, one of my favorite events was seeing The Godfather played on the big screen at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. It’s funny when looking back on it, because when I first saw this film when I was younger, I hated it, and thought it was just a very long and  boring film, while now it is by far my favorite movie. It IS an extremely long film at roughly three hours, yet the film is so well put together that for me, it now goes by in the blink of an eye. After looking further into this film, I was pretty shocked at some of my findings, both about Marlon Brando and the film in general. To start, Brando was only 50 when this film was being produced. It is insane to see pictures of him before and after his makeup. Even crazier is the fact that Brando had a custom mouthpiece during filming to give his jaw its puffy appearance!

Not only this, but Brando was almost not even allowed to play the role. Like the big studio head in the film not letting Johnny Fontaine play the star role, Paramount President Stanley Jaffe said strongly, “As long as I’m president of the studio, Marlon Brando will not be in this picture, and I will no longer allow you to discuss it,” then went on to add, “If Marlon Brando is in this picture, it will gross $5 million less than if no one is in it.” However, Jaffe then offered the role to Brando on three conditions, which he felt would persuade Brando to not want the role. 1) Brando would appear in the movie for a salary far below the actor’s usual minimum.  2)  Brando would take personal financial responsibility for any production delays he caused (he was known for this, hence the difficulty Jaffe had with hiring him). 3) Brando would consent to a screen test. (All this info comes from from Harlan Lebo’s The Godfather Legacy: The Untold Story of the Making of the Classic Godfather Trilogy.) It is crazy to contrast this pre-production attitude towards Brando with how well his role was received: he went all the way to receiving the Oscar for best actor in a leading role.

When considering Brando almost didn’t receive the role, as well as director Coppola’s comments in an interview with the Academy of Achievement (http://www.achievement.org/) , it is remarkable that the film was finished. “The Godfather was a very unappreciated movie when we were making it,” Coppola said. “They were very unhappy with it. They didn’t like the way I was shooting it. I was always on the verge of getting fired, so it was an extremely nightmarish experience.” Coppola went on to say that he wasn’t even sure that he would ever get another job directing, which is extremely surprising to me.  The actors agreed with the experience being nightmarish and almost walked out of the production at various points. Knowing this, I connected it with my own struggles I’ve had in the production process, which made me appreciate the film even more, as there were so many instances of it almost being nixed.

“We’re blown away by what Michael Bay has been able to do with our new digital 3D cameras. With Transformers: Age of Extinction, he takes IMAX® 3D to the next level – putting moviegoers smack in the middle of the action with the Autobots and  Mark Wahlberg as audiences have never seen before.” –Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment

This week, our class had the privilege of exploring the new IMAX headquarters building in   Playa Vista. We were told that we were in literally the best private screening room in the world, with a dual projector, 6.0 sound system and a 65 foot screen. The trembling bass had adrenaline coursing through my veins which, combined with the crystal clear images, put this theater leagues above any other theater I had ever been in. The theater did not yet have their latest dual laser projector, which was very surprising, as the images were still crystal clear on the large, 65 foot screen. This made me really want to go see Fast 7 at the TCL Chinese IMAX on their IMAX laser projector, to see how the image differed from that in this private theater.

Greg Foster brought up how IMAX has developed a smaller, digital 3D camera that is capable of producing 4K images in three dimensions. We were discussing how viewing 3D films is much more expensive than 2D films, which seems to be a large contributor to why many people prefer to see films at standard cinemas. It is exciting to contemplate the future of cinema, as many point to virtual reality as the next big innovation in cinema. While this would be revolutionary, I still fail to see how virtual reality in cinema would be feasible, as there are so many dimensions that would need to be altered in the production process. For example, how would the lighting and cameras be set up, yet not shown to audiences, if virtual reality allows viewers to see all that is around them?

Also interesting to me on the subject of 3D films it how almost all films (or at least the ones for which we viewed trailers) seem to be action movies, or superhero movies. I have never been a particular fan of 3D films as I have grown accustomed to seeing films in 24 frames-per-second on two dimensional screens, and for me, 3D is just bizarre and hard to watch. The experience seeing these action packed films is definitely a fun and amusing time, but I have never been very inclined to re-watch films such as Transformers, or The Avengers. These action packed 3D films do extremely well in the box office. However, I would be much more likely to rewatch a film that focuses less on special effects, and more on expressing a compelling story, such as The Godfather (1972) or Some Like it Hot (1959).

With advances in camera technology, as well as computer processing power to handle these increasingly large and complex images, it is very interesting to see where the future of the movie viewing experience will end up. My prediction is that 3D films will become outdated and eventually no longer produced, because the industry was built on 2D, and 2D films continue to dominate the market today.