Quote:
Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric:
I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say the walk-out had to be filmed in two takes. I can't imagine Heston actually coming back for a second take after Moore insistent requests for an apology. When Heston got up, he walks towards the cameraman. He approaches the cameraman, then the film cuts to a scene of Heston walking away from the cameraman. To me, it just looked like Heston got up and walked out, going right by the cameraman in the process. The footage of him going by the cameraman may have been too "close-up" to use. Then we see Heston walking away.
To my admittedly untrained eye, it looks like Heston just got up and walked out and the camera followed him all the way. The part where he actually passes the camera may have been cut because he was too close for a clear shot, or the camera may have actually had to be moved for him to pass, which would have given us footage of the floor, ceiling or wall.
I also have no idea what you are talking about in regards to the optical sound tracks. I would really like better explanations of these points so that I can understand them better.
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That's the thing of it: It had to be filmed in two takes, because there's a series of cuts. Dry cuts. Not fades, tracks or pans, but dry cuts. Goddardian Jump Cuts, for those familiar with cinematography. A film reference is the closing moments of the shoot-out in Taxi Driver, or many conversational dialogues.
Well, you can't see another camera. There's only one camera filming. All in one take, Heston walking away was filmed by a camera. If a second camera had been filming Moore standing out and badgering the old man with the photo, we'd see the camera. So, the footage we see of Moore standing there and badgering Heston is second-take. In short, there's no footage that positively identifies Moore calling out to him like that, visually. The multi-take thing is mainly relative to the walking out itself. The interview itself was filmed with two cameras (remember though, the walk-out couldn't have been filmed with two, we'd have seen the other) and that's evident from the numerous what appear to be axial cuts (though far less masterful than the original axial cut, Michael Moore is no Akira Kurosawa, not by any stretch) throughout. Through those cuts we're given view of a clock, and given that the interview is presumed filmed in one take (most likely, considering everything) we can safely assume then, that 3/4 of that interview is not in the film. It's all interview, by what we can see of the clock. So, what did Heston say? Considering what Moore has seen fit to omit from Heston's speeches in the past, I'm willing to wager a whole hell of a lot. Enough to make Moore look like a complete asshole, moron, or some combination thereof. That's conjecture though. What we do know is that there's 20+minutes of interview, and less than 4:30 of it is in the film. A good question is: Why?
Even better, why use two cameras in an interview where a single camera filming in 16:9 HD will be able to capture the whole interview and all participants? Why have multiple cameras? There's no need.
Anyway, back to the multi-take. So Moore is calling out to Heston. Or is he? Well, this is where the OS (Optical Soundtrack) comes in. Optical Sountracks are magnetic recordings burned right onto the edges of a film strip. The film is in itself a complete unit, sound and video. Videotape works this way too. All sound film and tape has worked this way since sound was workable on the camera (Bless you, Greg Tolland, for making it worth while). Well, the soundtrack fits the second-take. Since at this point it's obvious and proven that two takes were used on the walk-out, the fact is, a staged scene will never be the exact same as the original, and so we can conclude that the second optical sound track is used. So, all sound of Moore calling out, yelling to Heston, pleading the whole picture thing, that's all from a staged scene. If we drop staged scenes, and only go with the first OS (which may be used to one degree or another, giving Moore the excuse that it was lost on the cutting room floor) the scene would in all likelyhood lose all, or nearly all, of its impact. That too is conjecture, about how it would affect it, but that it would be changed in some way is fact.
What does this whole mess do? It shows how anti-documentarian Moore is.
Opinionated or not. I wouldn't care if he was plugging Michael Badnarik, awbansunset.com, and the Libertarians, if he was doing this...Hell, if he was doing it in the name of those things, which I am aligned with, I'd probably be even more pissed. Not that these causes need the help of creative editing or hoodwinking, either. Though their absolute opponents seem to need it quite a bit.
Also, if Moore was repeatedly being a jack-ass to Heston, pestering him about questions he'd answered properly, it wouldn't be behavior he hasn't repeated, namely with Bill O'Reilly, whom he wasn't satisfied with "I would sacrifice
myself to secure Fallujah" enough to drop the issue.