134
votes
Accepted
Why did filmmakers need permission to film in black and white?
Why did Mel Brooks need to get permission to film in black and white?
Because it would, in most studio executive's minds, make the movie less commercially viable.
Who did he need to get ...
- 141k
132
votes
Accepted
Why was there a robot in Rocky IV?
Some interesting info can be found here.
Basically, to summarize the article, Stallone discovered the company that produced the robot was using it as a tool to help autistic children. One of ...
- 60.5k
124
votes
Accepted
How is color determined when colorizing black and white movies?
They don't know. They don't care.
It doesn't matter what were the original colors. As the movie was filmed in black and white, the set, the costumes, even the makeup was designed to look good in ...
- 1,652
115
votes
Accepted
Why does Firefly include a scene with a missing yoke?
This is covered in the Firefly DVD commentary track.
To get the wide shot they had to pull Alan Tudyk's chair back from the console/yoke and Alan Tudyk mimed as though he was still holding the yoke.
...
- 141k
107
votes
Accepted
Why did Warner Bros spend $25 million to CGI out Henry Cavill's mustache?
They shoot Justice League without Henry Cavil's mustache, and after the shooting he signed in for MI6, which required his mustache so he grew a mustache.
And that's when tragedy happened. Zack Snyder,...
- 10.2k
105
votes
Why does "No-one ever get it in the first take"?
So… why can't the actors just get it right the first time?
Well, quite often they can. They are professionals, they do this all day, every day. They have learned how to learn lines, follow direction, ...
- 53.5k
93
votes
Accepted
How do film makers record the President of the United States?
Does the White House schedule a day where film makers submit texts they want the acting president to say and possibly pay for it?
Absolutely not
Pretty much anything the President says in public is ...
- 141k
91
votes
Accepted
Why plan a movie in space instead of using CGI technology (visual effects)?
Everyone and their dog will go see the publicity stunt that is the first movie made in real space by a famous actor, headed by the world's foremost space agency and the world's richest egomaniac... ...
- 5,039
87
votes
Accepted
Why the highlighted outline in animated cartoons?
This is due to how hand-drawn animation used to be made. A static background was drawn only once, and the moving objects were drawn for each frame on a transparent cel. Then it was placed on the ...
- 5,389
86
votes
Accepted
Why do mouse cursors never align with actors' hand movements (or always move perfectly straight)?
The reality is that these images are nearly universally added in post production.
Creating a computer environment for a film that the actors can actually interact with is much more time intensive and ...
- 26.6k
86
votes
Accepted
Why were movies shot on film shot at 24 frames per second?
According to this site:
In the early days of film cameras were hand cranked, which caused inconsistencies from movie to movie. Even further still, projection houses would speed up frame rates of ...
- 49.6k
85
votes
Accepted
Did silent film actors actually say their lines or did they simply improvise “dialogue” while being filmed?
It seems they did use scripted dialogue.
From the article Silent Movie Revisited with an emphasis of mine,
Third, one should also stress the important contribution of this book to the critical ...
A J♦
- 58k
84
votes
Why does snow appear to go up in movies?
The premise of the question is false for a couple reasons:
That's not snow in the Gladiator clip, it's ash from the acres upon acres of forest that has been set on fire to kick off the battle.
As ...
- 698
80
votes
Accepted
Why do low production studios intentionally release similar films shortly after a big banner?
To capitalize on the success of its predecessor. Even IMDb said the same in their trivia section:
The movie is being released on November 13th, 2018 to capitalize on the release of 'Overlord', which ...
- 119k
78
votes
Accepted
Why do old gun fight scenes sound so weird and cartoonish?
To answer this, let's take a quick look at Merriam-Webster's definition of "art", specifically the section on synonyms:
ART, SKILL, CUNNING, ARTIFICE, CRAFT mean the faculty of executing well what ...
- 2,508
70
votes
Accepted
How is secrecy maintained in movie production?
There's a very simple structure that works very well.
It's called a career.
If you want a career in the film/TV business, it is not in your best interests to leak information.
Sure, the further down ...
- 53.5k
69
votes
Accepted
How do productions like Stranger Things or other similarly "not modern but still within recent memory" productions acquire period props?
Wired actually has an article about this:
...
To get the amazing '80s stuff, Reiss scoured eBay, flea markets, prop rentals, and estate sales in Georgia. (The series is set in suburban Indiana ...
- 33.7k
69
votes
Accepted
Why is the swordfight in The Princess Bride so good?
Cary Elwes's As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride gives a lot of detail about why the sword fight turned out so well. Neither Elwes nor Mandy Patinkin had a sword-...
- 1,626
64
votes
Why is the swordfight in The Princess Bride so good?
Other answers have focused on the technical side of the fencing. As you'll no doubt find on YouTube breakdowns, a number of elements of this are clearly not pure combat. Most obviously, if they ...
- 2,886
59
votes
Accepted
Why do movie teams shoot alternate endings?
There is a wide variety of reasons as to why a movie might have alternate endings.
The original ending tested poorly during screen tests:
In this case the director had a specific ending that made it ...
- 5,083
58
votes
Accepted
Why does snow appear to go up in movies?
'Movie snow' is made of several different things, each having a different weight & different purpose.
If they'd really wanted it to fall straight downwards, they'd have used something heavier.
I'...
- 53.5k
58
votes
Accepted
Is Scrubs truly a one-camera show?
This is actually fairly common in close-up dialogue scenes and interviews. Even if more than one camera is available it may not be possible to get the angle you want without the second camera being in ...
- 3,100
58
votes
Accepted
How do live studio audiences work when sitcoms can have multiple takes?
There will be separate microphones capturing the audience laughter. This means that during editing, laughter from one take can be used for a different take.
- 661
57
votes
Why did Warner Bros spend $25 million to CGI out Henry Cavill's mustache?
Because of his commitment for Mission: Impossible 6, he was not allowed to do so, from screenrant.com
Mission: Impossible 6 director Christopher McQuarrie reveals why Henry Cavill can’t shave his ...
- 119k
54
votes
Accepted
Why did they pick World War I over World War II in Wonder Woman?
Producer Charles Roven felt that WW I held special meaning for Diana. Amazons are skilled in hand to hand combats. They are also used to the fact that fight is an honorable thing. But all of this was ...
A J♦
- 58k
53
votes
Accepted
What if a head shaving scene gets messed up?
It takes a couple of minutes to shave a head, so assuming nothing gets messed up when the initial cut with the shaver is made, any mistakes can just be edited around.
If there is a significant ...
- 2,485
53
votes
Why does Firefly include a scene with a missing yoke?
Late edit: While I was figuring this out the hard way, Paulie_D got the same info from the DVD commentary... I'll call it parallel thinking ;-)
Between the first and second pic the camera has moved ...
- 53.5k
49
votes
Why was there a 14 year gap between The Incredibles and The Incredibles 2?
The ending of The Incredibles was never meant as a pointer to a sequel. As Brad Bird — who wrote and directed the movie — told CinemaBlend:
How did that Pixar adventure end? The family was leaving ...
- 49.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible