Catching Up (various CoS DVD issues)

[GulPlum]

Only the first of these will be attributed (my comment being only a 
nit-pick). The remainder are thoughts on various disparate subjects which 
I've had while browsing through the last month's-worth of posts (I don't 
have the time to read them all properly).

Phyllis wrote:

<big snip>

>Also, I wanted to note that I thought it was interesting that a
>number of the deleted scenes were in the trailer even though they
>didn't wind up in the movie (e.g., Hedwig fluttering down to sit by
>Harry at the lake; the Grey Lady sitting with Harry as he looks at
>the diary; the Anglia soaring past Big Ben).

It's not Big Ben. It's the Saint Pancras clock tower, literally next door 
to Kings Cross. (As I said many, many months ago while CoS was being 
filmed, I'm not surprised, as the Kings Cross forecourt is particularly 
boring and uninspiring at the best of times; last spring/summer - during 
filming - it was particularly bad, as there was major construction work 
going on in preparation for Saint Pancras becoming the London terminus for 
EuroStar.)

Besides, the car going past the clock tower *was* in the movie; the deleted 
scene only featured them nearly crashing into it. :-)

Re. deleted scenes in general: having acquired the DVD yesterday and made a 
bee-line for this feature, there are only two which I would have considered 
worthy of inclusion in the finished movie: the Hufflepuffs debating Harry's 
being the Heir, and the conversation at Hermione's bedside. As others have 
already said, the first put Harry's increasing popularity in some kind of 
context, and the othe second explained why he'd think of asking the Diary 
about the Chamber. The rest of the deleted scenes were little more than 
fluff (like several other scenes in the finished movie), the acting was 
execrable (same comment) and fully deserved to remain on the cutting-room 
floor.

Re. extra features, several people are going to find this strange: the one 
thing I do NOT need to see on any HP DVD is a feature on filming Quidditch, 
making Hagrid look tall, or the work on creating Dobby or other CGI 
elements. There are so many excellent features on these subjects (not least 
on the LOTR DVD) that to be perfectly honest, I find it exceptionall boring.

Seamless blue- (and green-) screen work has been with us for 25 years and 
more (anyone else remember Superman with the slogan "You'll believe a man 
can fly"?) and has become so common-place in all movies (not only SFX 
extravaganzas) that doing features on this subject is simply a waste of 
space. The same goes for the use of forced perspective/alternate 
actors/putting him on a box to make Coltrane look bigger than he is. LOTR 
has done the definitive feature on this subject (not to mention several 
documentaries about the history of cinema - apart from editing, forced 
perspective is the oldest SFX trick in the history of the medium and 
Georges Melies already blew people's minds away with it in the first decade 
of the 20th century).

Two "extras" shone out for me: one was the Kloves & JKR interview (which 
still could have been a lot better; several questions I'd like to have 
asked weren't raised) and the other was the "building of a scene" 
documentary which went through the process of starting with words on a page 
ad ending with the finished item, including set and costume design, etc.

As most people have said (including myself in the past), the "extra" I 
*really* want to see is a commentary. Ideally, I'd like three: one with 
Columbus and Heyman about the production, one with Kloves and JKR about the 
adaptation, and one with the kids full of filming anecdotes.

Re. DVD-Rom features. Having learned my lesson with the PS/SS DVD (and a 
few other titles), I refuse to install InterActual on my machine. In any 
case, all it does is to act as an interface for a load of HTML and 
ShockWave stuff, all of which can be viewed in any Internet browser. Just 
browse through the directories on the DVD disk and it's all there (although 
the latest Shockwave plugin is required which was quite a hefty download). 
I found the Timeline interesting in that it confirmed the assumptions most 
of the fandom has been making and clarified one or two of them. Nothing 
astonishing. although I did like the presentation.

Re. Widescreen -v- Fullscreen comparison. There's been a huge clamouring 
bother here and in other forums (and my email) for me to repeat the 
exercise I did with PS/SS. I'm afraid I won't be doing one without some 
help. As may have been pointed out before, no fullscreen version has been 
made available on DVD in the UK (although the VS is fullscreen). I have no 
intention of spending money and time on importing a fullscreen version from 
the USA or elsewhere as I'm unlikely ever to vierw it again. However,  if 
someone in the USA has bought the fullscreen version there and has the 
software and know-how to make screen captures, I'd be happy to do the 
comparison work.If anyone reading this want to do this, please email me.

That's enough for now. I'm sure I'll have more (un)related comments in due 
course.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who'd like to say that it's god to be home after a 
month away but would have to be lying to do so...:-)