Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2014 July 29

= July 29 =

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind song: la, la, la la la la la
Does anybody know if the "la, la, la la la la la la" vocalizations in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind has been used in a Studio Ghibli film? I just watched the film for the first time today, yet that sounded very familiar... I'm half-remembering it being used by spirits in a later film... maybe Mononoke Hime... but I can't quite remember. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:03, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm very interested in a response for this question. I honestly don't know the answer tbh but it sounds more like a melody which would be played on a trumpet, so Laputa is probably more likely than Mononoke (also the fact that the former came right after Nausicaa)... I've been doing some digging and it seems like the main theme, the "Requiem", as Hisaishi called it, was based off of a Sarabande by Georg Friedrich Handel, but that's only the chord structure from what I can remember of the piece, perhaps that's where you might have remembered it? idek I'm sorry i can't quite remember either eeuughh  ~Helicopter  Llama~  16:09, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's Laputa, as I haven't seen that film yet. The vocalizations and rhythm sounded so familiar (my wife noticed it too), but... from where? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * HelicopterLlama, idek = "I don't even know", perhaps? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:48, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Wujek Fido the Flying Dog -- Polish TV show
I'm trying to identify a children's cartoon series about a flying dog, possibly named Wujek Fido (Uncle Fido), which was on Polish television 30 years or so ago. It long predated the German Vipo: Adventures of the Flying Dog, and unlike Vipo who flaps his large ears like a bird, Wujek Fido spun his ears like propellers. (This wasn't Muttley who was occasionally shown flying by spinning his tail like a propeller.) -- ToE 15:22, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Tracking shot
i saw gravity (film) the other day and was rather impressed by the tracking shot at the beginning, and did some research and found that there is a film called Russian Ark which is literally one shot. Are there other artsy-style movies like this out there and is there a list of them? thank ~Helicopter  Llama~  16:57, 29 July 2014 (UTC)s
 * The most famous example is Hitchcock's Rope (film).  We have a related article that might be of interest:  Long take.    —71.20.250.51 (talk) 17:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Not mentioned in that article is The Player, which opens with a long take of almost 8 minutes during which the characters talk about long takes in past movies. --50.100.189.29 (talk) 20:50, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Russian Ark is an audacious and unprecedented film. The DVD commentary mentions that they were more worried about the camera lens fogging as they went outdoors then they were about any mistakes by the actors. The opening sequence of Touch of Evil has an extraordinary tracking shot. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 17:26, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Just to point out that this discussion is about long takes; a tracking shot is quite different. The long take article also mentions that "Timecode, PVC-1 and La casa muda are filmed in one single take." There is an impressive long take in The Number 23, but it is obvious that CGI must have been used because the camera apparently goes in and out of numerous windows, so I'm guessing that doesn't count.--Shantavira|feed me 07:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, with CGI and digital compositing, the relationship between a take and a shot - which was mostly 1:1, bar some clever fades and wipes (e.g. Citizen Kane, Serenity) - is gone. With a virtual camera, which can perform supernatural feats of motion and has complete flexibility to change its optical characteristics, one could "film" a whole movie (with the usual scene structure) and have the camera writhe around to completely remove all the "cuts". That seems to be exactly what the director of the forthcoming Birdman film will be doing. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 08:07, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I mention this because the opening "shot" of Gravity is a CGI sequence with fragments of human performance composited into it. In the final film it's a single "shot", because there aren't any "camera" jumps ("cuts"). But it wasn't really shot with a camera, and film wasn't cut with flatbed editor. So it's a "shot" in the artistic sense, but not in the production sense. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 08:13, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The Game of Thrones episode "The Watchers on the Wall" had a "...good..." one, following many characters across the huge Castle Black set during a battle. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The director of Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón, is known for his use of long tracking shots. For a longer discussion of another example by the same director, see Children of Men.  Also useful would be the Long take article (linked by Shantavira, above), which includes a list of directors who use this technique.  Note also that while films might use the technique, they are rarely actually filmed in this way, but instead rely on clever editing to give the appearence of a single shot.  Astronaut (talk) 14:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)