Not only that. But a lot of Ed's movies were supposed to be shown cropped to 1.85:1, or at least 1.67:1. And I've tried it on Plan 9. It actually looks very much competent in the slightly wider aspect ratio. Lot's of b and c movies of the era looks like they were shot for that presentation. Which explains why boom mikes and tops of set dressings were not fixed on set. They were supposed to be cropped out during projection. I actually wonder if he and others of that era would have had a better or worse legacy if home video didn't opt for 4:3 open matte transfers of these nonanamorphic productions for decades until wide screen televisions took over. I mean. Better because it makes their films look better when screened as intended. But could also be worse as they loose that charming "incompetence". I mean. I love Black Dynamite for example. But seeing it in widescreen with the boom mikes included gives a false history to the occurence. Either it should be shot and framed for widescreen and presented "wrong" in full frame 4:3. Or it should be presented "right". In widescreen. But we would loose out on those jokes... It is a dilemma for the trash film cineasts for sure. Sorry. Went on a bit of a ramble there.
"What's to protect, the take was PERFECT!" While it does reflect Ed's priority of speed above all else (because equipment rental and film stock is expensive so he had to speed things along). The cameraman's insistance of shooting another take reflects another side of low grade filmmaking: the fact that cheap labs had a tendency to simply fudge up processing the negative. Ruining takes in the process. So it was a common practice to do it once more just to get another good take "for protection" just in case the only good take was mishandled in post. If you shot scenes in masters in a single take, like Ed was prone to do out of necessity, and the lab screwed up that one take. You had no backup so the editor has a great deal worse time to fix narratives. The practice of "once more for protection" went away when labs became more reliable and later on, with digital, even a c-grade feature can afford duplicating good takes on set as they dump cards to backup discs. Even repairing botched lab-work became more feasable. So shooting a single good take of a master and moving to the next scene isn't as potentially disastrous as it used to be. So. They both have valid points. Get on with the shoot versus making sure the scene shot makes it to the screen.
@@jmalmsten Yeah, that's the thing with low budget productions is you don't have the money to do it the right way. Equipment rentals cost money. Film stock (back in the day) cost a shitload of money. Actors cost money. Crew. Money. Time cost the production money, money, MONEY, and they didn't have any. No shit he wasn't getting an extra take for protection or any real coverage for that matter. ;)
Yeah, I must admit the double irony of the scene didn't hit me when I first watched it. I just laughed: "Ha, ha, colorblind cameraman". Only when I was watching the DVD feature about the production design and they showed this scene again I was like "Wait a minute. [irony 1] He can't tell the dresses apart, and neither can we! I was so completely caught up in the reality of the movie, the fact that it was in black and white didn't even consciously register. And wait another minute! The fact that a cameraman was colorblind wouldn't have made a difference back then. In fact, it was probably an advantage over normal color vision, because he wouldn't have to take test footage to see how things would look (if he were a true monochromat) [irony #2] . So, in fact, we shouldn't have laughed at that at all. So Tim Burton is making us laugh at something that should have been (ideally) a common, non-humorous, non-ironic situation. [meta-irony]"
@@ws90ninety Very true, but most of Ed wood's movies were not in color. He wasn't filming big budget productions. (But it is actually true that his cinematographer was colorblind)
Colour is immensely important when filming black and white movies. It determines how it will look at the end of the process, and is incredibly important for makeup purposes and visual effects. It was used for example for the shot at the end of Mask of Satan, showing the witch rapidly age in one shot. It is still a major element of black and white films such as the lighthouse. It doesn’t matter if a film is going to be black and white, colour and lighting are still the most important things to get the image right.
It's one of these moments when you realize that having this type of casual conversation in black & white pictures would be a bit weird. The actors were actually watching the colors at the other side at the screen, so when we are watching one of these movies we all are, in fact, color blinded :P.
What's best is, the camera man could easily have either pointed or said "The one on the right or the one on the left." But since they asked him based on a metric he couldn't measure, seemingly knowing so little about him as to not know something pretty important about him (being a very important part of production, as, you know, a color blind camera man) he gave them back a "Fuck you, y'all figure it out like I have to...."
Edith Head designed costumes for decades wearing glasses that tinted everything black & white. She's won the most single oscars of any person (or something like that)
Sorry to respond to such an old comment but it does. He's asking which of the two dresses looks the best, the green or red one. He's not asking which looks on camera because of the color, just which of the dresses looks better for the character. There's a distinction between the two dresses but it's just easier to say "which looks better , the green or red one?" compared to "Which looks better, the one with a plunge neck or the one with a tie around the waist?"
I think this was inspired by Prince's black and white film Under the Cherry Moon, where the main character's brother asks him which shirt he prefers and Prince says, "I dunno, I kinda like that blue." It was jarring because all the audience could see was grey and darker grey. Just what I think.
@cdudetheassassin Actually, it completely broke it in a very witty way just in this scene! And if one thinks on it... Tim Burton's worlds are never like ours, so this is in fact a world in black and white!
does anyone know which one was red or green? i'm guessing the light gray one is green. i was hoping they would state which was which in the commentary track, but they didn't :P
I love this movie, but this scene actually makes no sense. He was shooting on Black and White anyway, so why would he even need to ask it? It's a funny in-joke, 'cause this is a B&W film, but it makes no sense in the logic of the story. ... and Martin Landau's daughter is hot in this movie!
