Archive for the ‘Jurassic Park’ Category
Kota Perfileman
Oleh Suzan Ahmad
suzan@bharian.com.my
BANGKAI kapal terbang yang terdapat di Universal Studios.
Universal Studios dikomersialkan pada 1962 menjadi aset penggambaran filem hebat
PERTAMA kali ke Los Angeles, California, empat tahun lalu, penulis tidak dapat mengenali keistimewaan sebenar kota itu kerana masa yang ada terlalu singkat.
Kunjungan kali kedua pastinya tidak akan disia-siakan terutama untuk ke lokasi wajib pelancong, iaitu Universal Studios Hollywood.
Kalau hendak diikutkan jadual kerja yang ketat, pastinya penulis tidak sempat untuk ke Universal Studios. Bagaimanapun, selepas sesi temubual eksklusif bersama aktres Selma Blair (heroin Hellboy II) dibatalkan pada saat akhir, masa terluang digunakan untuk menikmati keindahan daerah perfileman itu.
Perjalanan dari tempat penginapan, Hotel The Four Seasons, Doheny Drive, Hollywood ke Universal Studios hanya mengambil masa lebih kurang 30 minit menaiki teksi, tetapi tambang yang dikenakan mencecah AS$38.00 (RM121.60)
Keluasan Universal Studios Hollywood umpama sebuah daerah, jadi adalah lebih baik penulis memulakan perjalanan seawal mungkin kerana memerlukan sehari suntuk untuk menghabiskan lawatan ke semua lokasi menarik di kawasan itu.
Oleh kerana ketika kunjungan itu Los Angeles mengalami musim panas yang juga cuti musim panas bagi orang Amerika Syarikat, penulis dapat saksikan Universal Studio dibanjiri manusia dari serata pelusuk benua Amerika dan dunia.
Universal Studios Hollywood adalah studio perfileman terletak di Universal City, California dengan Woody Woodpecker (karakter kartun terkenal) menjadi maskot rasminya. Walaupun ia adalah studio perfileman paling tua dan terkemuka, ia masih digunakan untuk penggambaran filem secara aktif.
Dengan mengenengahkan tagline rasmi The Entertainment Capital of Los Angeles, lokasi itu juga dikenali sebagai The Coolest Place in Los Angeles ketika musim panas.
Untuk menikmati kemudahan dalam taman tema di Universal Studios Hollywood, sambil mengelakkan daripada letih menunggu dan beratur panjang, penulis terpaksa tutup sebelah mata dengan melabur membeli tiket istimewa berharga AS$129 (RM412).
Yang pasti, pelaburan itu berbaloi kerana tiket yang dibeli membolehkan penulis berada di barisan hadapan semua permainan dalam taman tema berkenaan.
Pada asalnya, taman tema itu dibina untuk menawarkan lawatan bagi memberikan gambaran suasana sebenar set dan soundstages di Universal Studios, kini berkembang pesat sehingga menjadi destinasi pelancongan yang mesti dilawati.
Apa yang menarik, kejayaannya itu membolehkan beberapa lagi taman tema dibina antaranya Taman Tema Universal Studios Florida dan Taman Tema Universal Studios Jepun. Selain itu, Taman Tema Universal Studios Singapura, Taman Tema Universal Studios Dubai dan Taman Tema Universal Studios Korea Selatan akan muncul tidak lama lagi.
Penulis difahamkan semuanya bermula selepas Music Corporation of Amerika (MCA) mengambil alih Universal Pictures pada 1962 dan membuka studio itu untuk dikunjungi pelancong. Kemudian pada 1964, pakej lawatan ke sekitar studio dikembangkan termasuk lawatan ke bilik persalinan, lokasi penggambaran dan persembahan pentas.
Persembahan pentas, demonstrasi lagak ngeri dan permainan berteknologi tinggi menjadi set lawatan paling popular di kalangan pengunjung sehingga menenggelamkan set produksi filem cereka.
Selain taman tema, pengunjung juga boleh menikmati keindahan Universal Hilton & Towers, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, teater skrin berganda dan Universal CityWalk, yang menawarkan koleksi kedai dan restoran serta Gibson Amphitheatre, lokasi penganjuran konsert yang cukup popular.
Apapun pengalaman paling menarik apabila penulis dapat melihat sendiri kawasan lot belakang Universal Studios yang terbakar pada 1 Jun lalu. Dalam kejadian itu Brownstone Street, New York Street, New England Street, permainan King Kong, dan sebahagian struktur bangunan Courthouse Square, set filem War of the Worlds dan Video Vault (tempat penyimpan video salinan) musnah terbakar.
Lebih 40,000 hingga 50,000 arkib video digital dan salinan video serta filem sejak 1920-an termasuk filem Knocked Up dan Atonement, siri terbitan NBC Law & Order, The Office, dan Miami Vice, siri komedi terbitan CBS I Love Lucy, turut musnah dalam kebakaran itu.
INFO
Universal Studios Hollywood
Ditubuhkan oleh Carl Laemmle, seorang berbangsa Jerman yang menetap di Oshkosh, Wisconsin, di mana dia bermula sebagai pengurus kedai pakaian.
Viacom yang dimiliki Paramount Pictures adalah studio rakaman tertua.
Universal Studios adalah studio rakaman Amerika yang kedua paling lama beroperasi di dunia.
Taman tema menjadi tumpuan ialah “Revenge of the Mummy The Ride,” “Shrek 4-D,” “Jurassic Park΅ The Ride” dan Studio Tour.
Pembinaan semula Universal Studios membabitkan kos AS$50 juta (RM160 juta)
Berita Harian
The Famous Fedora Is Back
It has been a movie-making quest every bit as difficult as locating the lost Ark or the mythical Holy Grail.
But after a tortuous 19-year journey full of false dawns and rejected screenplays, Indiana Jones is back for a fourth adventure.
The swash-buckling, fedora-wearing, bullwhip-cracking archaeologist returns in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which premieres at Cannes this Sunday.
The film reunites three of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters director Steven Spielberg, Star Wars creator George Lucas and leading man Harrison Ford for what is comfortably the most eagerly-anticipated blockbuster of the year.
The reunion has been a long time coming: No fewer than eight different writers were reported to have attempted draft screenplays that would meet with the approval of all three principals.
Most famously, Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) delivered a script which Ford and Spielberg loved, but Lucas rejected, before David Koepp (Jurassic Park) eventually provided the finished article.
“Every once in a while, a script would show up but for one or another of us, it wouldn’t be exactly what we hoped for,” Ford told Empire magazine in a recent interview. “It took us all a long time to get on the same page.”
The origins of Indiana Jones can be traced to a beach in Hawaii in 1977, where, while on holiday, Lucas told Spielberg of his idea for an adventure film that paid homage to the rip-roaring serials of the 1930s and 1940s.
The result was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which spawned two money-spinning sequels and countless pale imitations.
Originally, Lucas and Spielberg had envisaged a three-film series, concluding with 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which featured Sean Connery as Jones’ father.
But Indy fans simply refused to let their hero fade away, says Spielberg.
“In 1989, I thought the curtain was lowering on the series, which is why I had all the characters literally ride off into the sunset at the end,” Spielberg told the New York Times.
“But ever since then, the most common question I get asked all over the world is ‘When are you going to make another Indiana Jones?’”
That would be early last year, when it was confirmed that Spielberg, Lucas and Ford were joining forces again.
Plot details have been kept under wraps, although it is known that it will take place during the Cold War, with an older Jones attempting to track down an ancient skull with mystical powers from an Amazonian temple.
One of the perceived stumbling blocks was Ford’s relatively advanced years: He was well into his 60s when filming began.
Yet Ford, who continues to film as many of his own stunts as possible, said that shooting on the new epic was straightforward.
“I think there’s some good fun to be had with his age and doing the things he does at the age he might be, would be, could be,” Ford told the Los Angeles Times. “For me, it actually wasn’t so hard. I was in better shape probably than I have been in the others.”
For the film crew, the appearance of Ford on set in his trademark leather jacket and fedora was awe-inspiring, according to Lucas.
As Spielberg put it: “Harrison became Indiana Jones in a millisecond. He came on set, he donned the hat and everything came with it … he brought all this back to life as if no time had elapsed since the third movie.”
Some of Ford’s co-stars which include Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf and Ray Winstone were equally bedazzled.
“On the first day of shooting, it was extremely surreal,” Blanchett told reporters last year. “I was watching the monitor as Steven set up the frame and I knew the iconography of the frame. It was instantly recognisable to me and then I had to step into it.” - AFP
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in Singapore on May 22. -
Channel News Asia