io9 has an exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the Ender’s Game Blu-ray featurette “Ender’s World: The Making of Ender’s Game” that shows a little bit about how they went about creating the Formics for the film.
Ender’s Game will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 11, 2014.
Watch the video at io9.
Case Study: Ender’s Game from Light Iron on Vimeo.
Post production company Light Iron has released a video demonstrating how they organize the postproduction workflow of Hollywood movies, using Ender’s Game as an example. The video focuses on digitalization and color manipulation, but includes general info on other parts of production and post production (such as the filming venue, cameras, audio storage etc.) as well. It’s longish and you certainly need to know quite a bit about movie technology to understand it all but the vid offers a few new behind-the-scenes images, hi-res versions of some scenes only seen in the movie so far, and a good insight into the creation of the beautiful look and color scheme of the movie. The Ender’s Game part starts around the 3.10 minute mark.
Source: Light Iron on Vimeo, via PVC News
The LA Times interviewed Ender’s Game costume designer Christine Bieselin-Clark and talked to her about the construction of the flash suits and the helmets.
Bieselin Clark designed the helmets in three parts connected by strong magnets: the main helmet, the mandible that comes around the front of the chin, and the visor. “We knew that we might get into a place where that visor and the reflections would be compromising for filming,” she said. “So that visor could come away if we needed it to not be in the shot. It’s very cool. They also had to be light enough. And we had to put little fans in them so people could breathe.”
Since the film is set in the future, no present-day fabric felt quite right. “The predominant fabric in the Flash Suit is one that we made,” Bieselin Clark said. Using spandex or leather as a base fabric, she layered other fabrics on top using glue, solvents and heat-fusible webbings and overlaid these with thin laminates. “It was like a crazy science experiment to combine certain ingredients to make specific fabrics for specific places on the suit,” she said. “[We also did] screen printing with rubberized inks in different colors to create surface texture.”
To construct the helmets, Bieselin Clark and her team took a digital scan of each actor and fed it into a computer program, which overlaid the helmet design onto the scanned head shape. They then created an output of that by using a rapid prototyping machine that lays down thin layers of resin and shapes them with lasers. “So you’re basically growing with lasers a part that perfectly fits the head of the person you’ve scanned,” Bieselin Clark said. “It’s super crazy.”
They also talk to Christine about how she got into the business. You can read the full interview at the LA Times and also visit her website at www.christineclarkdesign.com.
If you’re a longtime fan of Ender’s Game like me, watching hopefully and wistfully from the sidelines as the years and decades went by, you’ve probably wondered just what in the world was going on that it took nearly 30 years for NovEnder 1st to arrive. Even with my involvement as a fansite, I’ve never known exactly how it all went down and I’ve always wanted to know.
Today, Grantland’s Matt Patches posted an incredibly insightful piece documenting the long journey Ender’s Game took through the Hollywood circuit and why all the right pieces had to fall into place in order for them to make the film that I saw (and loved) just two days ago.
Ender’s Game was published in 1985. The film adaptation Hood was told would never happen arrives in theaters this week. What happened in between makes Ender’s Game a rare Hollywood miracle. Sifting through the timeline, Card’s cynicism had merit — Hood wasn’t the first guy to try his hand at adapting the sci-fi book into a blockbuster. He wasn’t even the fifth. Producers and studios have been trying ever since Card’s book was published.
The piece then goes on to describe all the reasons why it never worked out in the end with studios, directors, producers, writers, and executives. They even had D.B. Weiss and David Benioff working on it at one point!
In May 2002, Chartoff made a deal with Warner Bros. to finance and release Ender’s Game. Almost instantly, their team found “the guy”: Wolfgang Petersen, just off his hit adaptation of The Perfect Storm. Warner Bros. hoped to combine Ender’s Game andEnder’s Shadow into one film. At first, Card was the intended screenwriter, but as time passed and Petersen took on one film (2004’s Troy) and then another (2006’s Poseidon), Petersen’s interest waned. Other writers were brought onboard to stoke that interest: Hot off X2 in 2004, Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty took a first pass at adapting the book. Then in 2005, future Game of Thrones writer-producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff (also a writer of Troy) worked with Petersen to develop another take. Two years later, Card announced he was taking over scripting duties once again.
Patches continues to document Card’s involvement and frustration over the development and writing process and just when Card had basically given up, things finally began to come together.
When Gavin Hood told Orson Scott Card that he planned to adapt Card’s science-fiction classic Ender’s Game for the big screen, the author replied with a familiar refrain: “Good luck, kid.” Card was done trying to bring his book to the screen. If someone else wanted to spend years of his life spinning in circles, so be it. But before removing himself from the development process, he left Hood with a bit of wisdom, one the director would hear over and over again throughout his journey: Ender’s Game was an utterly unfilmable book.
The second half of the article gives fans an incredible look into how OddLot founder Gigi Pritzker assembled her team of “Ender’s Game Avengers” including Bob Orci, Gavin Hood, and eventually star Asa Butterfield.
With the reset button pressed and Card all but out of the picture, Pritzker and OddLot set out to find a team that understood the treasured tome. The key was finding a writer-director who could build the movie from the ground up and carry it to the end, their very own Ender. Pritzker found him in Hood, a South African filmmaker who brought his memories of apartheid and life in the military to the project. After a turbulent experience on the ill-fated X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where multiple writers tinkered with the script on a daily basis in the middle of shooting, Hood craved the immersion required for Ender’s Game. He had a vision: a script that would allow a preteen actor to engage with challenging, emotionally raw material. That was all Pritzker needed to hear.
Still missing was Hendee’s keystone, a fan who grew up with the novel, a person who would flock to the movie if they weren’t involved. Essentially, a visible champion and guide. They found him in writer Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek), who boarded the movie as a producer after regaling Pritzker with his memories of reading Ender’s Game at 12 years old. Orci became the movie’s Card proxy — a devout fan without a preservationist instinct. When the team felt it couldn’t make changes to aspects of the book, Orci would say, “Sure we can — I’m the guy who blew up Vulcan! I know what we can do and can’t do.”
[…]
Genuine support begat money begat production on a real-life movie, the kind that needed a cast and crew and cameras and sets and lighting and props and wasn’t just a promise forwarded around in email. There were more hurdles to jump; finding an Ender was always a frightening prospect for Hood.
“We had a script, we were hoping to make it, but no one was going to green-light us until the right kid was onboard,” he said. The director auditioned hundreds of boy leads for the role, some as young as 8 years old, before landing on Hugo’s Asa Butterfield.
People say all the time that things happen for a reason and with Ender’s Game, that certainly seems to apply. Having seen the film and loved what they did while still staying ultimately loyal to the story, I’m genuinely glad that this is what it took for it to finally be in theaters.
To read the entire piece, head over to Grantland.
Ender’s Game hits theaters tomorrow at 8 PM in advance of the official release date of November 1, 2013.
Summit has posted a behind the scenes video detailing how Digital Domain and Audi collaborated to create the Fleet Quattro car in the movie. You can see Abigail Breslin in the car, presumably when Graff brings her to the lake.
Thanks to Ender’s Ansible and the soon-to-be-released making-of book for Ender’s Game (our own review to come later this week), we now know that the Giant in the mind game will be none other than director Gavin Hood!
[photo removed by request]
“Everyone who’s been here? I follow ’em religiously. I actually read everyone’s blog.”
“No pressure, guys.” quipped Kelly.
And that’s how things started with Garrett Warren, stunt coordinator for Ender’s Game. When you first see him, he’s a tad intimidating, since he sports an eyepatch, but once he starts talking you immediately realize what a warm and friendly person he is.
Warren was introduced to Ender’s Game through his daughter in about 2009. He’d been attracted by the cool cover of the book, though none of us thought to ask him which cover it was. A conscious parent, he told us he’d read The Hunger Games and even Twilight to stay in tune with her reading habits. So when it came time for Ender, he was a bit taken aback. “I was dumbfounded that I didn’t find it earlier. I took an awful lot out of it and I liked it an awful lot. I mean, I have to admit, the book is far ahead of its time if you ask me.”
With three kids of his own growing up incredibly fast, using technology such as iPads in school, Warren said he could see the future generation of children simply being that sharp just by the world they grow up in. “I think that exponentially by the time they would be growing up as they were in this book, it may just be that fast, you know?”
A former professional fighter, Warren compared the principles of Ender’s Game to that of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. “It’s a really good book as far as teaching you how to relate to other people, whether it be family members or even business contacts in this world. It’s incredibly valuable to children as well as adults, so I liked that.”
When asked about the pros and cons of working with kids under time restrictions, Warren admitted that the rules were broken, but not for lack of trying on their part. “The kids did not want to get out of the wires. They had an awful lot of fun. They would find themselves time while they were doing shots to run over to where we were with our wires and jump in for rehearsals. I’m very fortunate in saying this, because by the end of their training period, they were all very proficient at flying in these wires. They did it all themselves. So I can’t tell you how excited I am for the world to see these kids actually doing their own movements, their own choreography, their own stunts, and their own action. It’s beautiful.”
While all the kids did great in the wires, Warren singled out Moises Arias and Aramis Knight out for being particularly amazing with the wires. Aramis, described by Warren as a “showboat on a wire” was all about doing flips and bouncing off the walls. Moises was particularly good at looking flawlessly weightless and really impressed the Cirque du Soleil acrobats that were on set as stunt doubles.
They became so good that for the most part the stunt doubles ended up being there simply to teach them and help them adjust their harnesses. It was amazing to hear him talk about how what the kids went through was some of the greatest training he had ever experienced as a filmmaker. And this is the guy who was stunt coordinator for movies like Avatar and Real Steel.
“The apparatus that we have was an apparatus that hasn’t been used in this way in the movie industry before, so it’s incredibly difficult. You have to have incredible stomach muscles and lower back muscles to be able to use this piece of equipment that we developed for this movie. And so all the kids when they first got in here were just dying, you know – “Oh my gosh, this is so hard, it’s hurting my back, ahh!” And by the end of about six or seven days, they were all great. No complaints, they were all 100% ready to do whatever the stunt was that we gave them. It was awesome.”
We’ve talked to the cast in the last month and anytime the conversation shifts to either Gavin Hood or Garrett Warren, the kids immediately light up and the feeling is mutual. “I honestly believe that these are the greatest kids I’ve ever worked with, so my hat’s off to Gavin for his casting process, and my hat’s off to the producers for finding these kids because these kids are the next greats in Hollywood.”
He tried to be vague about a particular fight scene that he was especially proud of that he said he’s putting in his reel, but I quickly asked if he was referring to the shower scene, which surprised him since he wasn’t aware of what the producers were showing us. “It’s filmed so well… Gavin did such a great job, and Asa and Moises did such an amazing job, that it goes down in the annals of history as a fight sequence that many people will copy, I think, for years to come.”
The fight incorporated MMA as well as Krav maga, but Hood insisted that aikido be very prominent as well, due to it’s artistic nature. I myself studied aikido for years, so when he started talking about how aikido is all about using the momentum of the attacker against them, it brought back a lot of fond memories and I suddenly felt inspired to return. Sadly, I haven’t, but there’s still hope for me, right?
Warren had a great grasp of what could be going through Ender’s mind during this fight, so the conversation with him left me feeling really great about what he helped create in that scene. “The fight is awesome. I would like to say it’s brutal, but it’s incredibly intelligent, so it’s more than just brutal.” he said, noting that it was about striking a delicate balance of military and yet still being aware they’re children. “If a genius was to fight, and yet have a dark side inside of them that they’re battling with and having to come to grips with, this is it.”
Fight sequences and training aside, he also mentioned that the steam in the film is all real. “That was a pain in the rear end.” he joked. He also mentioned that they did one continuous take of the shower fight from beginning to end, but obviously he had no way of knowing whether it would make it into the final cut. Even if it doesn’t, something like that seems to scream “DVD extra”, especially since Warren spoke so highly of the performances of Moises and Asa.
When teaching the kids how to fight on camera, Warren says they had to go slowly in terms of intensity. There were lots of takes trying to build them up to the level that Hood was looking for, but safety always came first. “Nobody [got hurt], thank goodness. Nobody even got a sprained finger. However, it took a long time to get there, so that they didn’t get hurt.”
It was astonishing to hear just how many innovative things they developed for Ender’s Game. Warren assured us that at the time there was nothing else out there that could simulate weightlessness than the apparatus they’d developed, along with something called a lollipop. He even talked about trying to get a technical award from the Academy for their inventions.
As we were wrapping up the interview, talk shifted back to his incorporation of MMA and it turns out he had just finished a movie where he was working concurrently with the UFC and several UFC fighters. A cue they took from the sport was relentlessness. “When you get someone on the ground, you don’t let up.” he said. “You don’t just hit someone once; you hit them until they don’t stop moving.”
And that sure sounds like a familiar concept in the world of Ender Wiggin.
Ain’t It Cool News has posted their set visit report and in it they provide us with the scene where Ender is assigned Commander of Dragon Army.
“[Y]ou have a habit of upsetting your commander.”
Ender replies “I find it hard to respect someone just because he outranks me, sir.” At this, Graff leans back in his chair, giving Ender his full attention, rocking back and forth slightly.
“That puts you in a difficult position, doesn’t it? You don’t like taking orders from Bonzo… perhaps you’d prefer to give them,” says Graff slyly, kind of like a parent about to unveil a Christmas present. Ender is confused. “Sir?”
Graff: “How would you like your own army? Dragon Army.”
Ender: “Sir, I’ve never heard of Dragon Army.”
Graff: “We discontinued the name four years ago. No Dragon Army ever won a battle.”
Ender: “Why not a new name, sir?”
Graff: “Because we already have the uniforms.”
Ender: “Who will be in this army?”
Graff: “Misfits, like yourself. Outcasts who might just be brilliant with the right commander.”
It should be noted that this is his transcript of the original scene he saw and that later takes may have changed it. Still a cool look into Ender’s promotion into Dragon Army, though! He also mentions the scene that we see in the trailer that Khylin Rhambo confirmed on EnderCast was with him and Hailee Steinfeld.
I didn’t spend much time in the Battle Room set, but I did see Hailee Steinfeld film a scene with Khylin Rhambo, who plays Dink Meeker. It’s one of Ender’s gambits where one person from his army is sacrificed and used as a human shield. In this case Dink is frozen into place and Petra (Steinfeld) takes his flash gun and fires John Woo style as Dink hugs her, protecting her from enemy fire.
In order to get this shot they had to get on a weird little contraption that the wire team called the lollipop. Imagine a bar stool seat attached to a long stick with one affixed wire attached at the middle. Hailee sat on the seat, Dink on the bar, his arms over her shoulders and her legs wrapped around his waist with both her arms shot out under his shoulders firing away as they float away from the enemy gate.
Dink whispers “Did you get him?” Petra smiles and says, “Oh yeah.” He’s looking behind her and sees their momentum is taking them on a crash course with a star and they both cringe, anticipating the impact.
Read his whole report here, including an amusing interaction with Harrison Ford.
Set visit reports are pouring out today and Slashfilm’s piece had a particularly interesting tidbit of info that should relieve fans still worried about author Orson Scott Card’s comments last year about how one Battle Room scene was “one too many”.
There will be about five scenes in the Battle Room and it took about 4 weeks to shoot them all.
Whatever the cost, producers knew the zero gravity battle scenes had to be done right. Stunt coordinator Garrett Warren said he was never given any kind of restrictions in developing the zero gravity tech because everyone knew the movie hinged on it.
Hood and Warren looked at all kinds of different ways to capture the zero gravity including, but not limited to, actually filming in real zero gravity. They investigated more mundane solutions such as computer graphics and motion-capture, but eventually decided on elaborate practical effects.
They also reveal that they learned that each of the three stars built on set weighed a whopping 13,000 pounds!
To read their full list of 30 things they learned on set, click here.
Audi AG has released an EPK about the International Fleet car seen in the official trailer released yesterday. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s actually a virtual car and doesn’t actually exist.
Ingolstadt, August 7, 2013 – Futuristic, progressive and cutting edge: the Audi Design Team has developed an entirely virtual car for Summit Entertainment’s film adaptation of the award-winning, best-selling novel “Ender’s Game”. With its visionary design, the Audi fleet shuttle quattro blends easily into the world of the science fiction feature film and combines futuristic design with groundbreaking technology.
The fictional Audi fleet shuttle quattro seen in the film “Ender‟s Game” marks the first time the car company has unveiled a purely virtual Audi in a feature film.
Called the “Audi fleet shuttle quattro”, they worked with Gavin Hood and the production team on integrating it into the film. “The Audi in the movie represents progress and it appears in key scenes that have a lasting impact on the life of the protagonist,” explained Florian Zitzlsperger, responsible for Brand Partnerships at AUDI AG. “As a result, our Audi becomes part of this fictional world.”
“Designing the Audi fleet shuttle quattro was similar to customizing a tailor-made suit. We adapted it to the requirements of the world in Ender’s Game and at the same time had to take care to preserve our brand values,” said Frank Rimili, chief designer for the film project.
Read the full press kit here. Thanks to Ender News for the tip!
Former Lionsgate International president Nick Meyer and founder of Sierra/Affinity spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about bringing Ender’s Game to Cannes back in 2011. “Launching Ender’s Game to foreign buyers at Cannes in 2011 was a serious highlight.”
He also gave his thoughts on whether the film can replicate the box office success of Twilight or The Hunger Games, shedding some light on how Ender’s Game became a reality.
THR: There are high expectations for fall’s YA adaptation Ender’s Game. How did the movie come about?
Meyer: Gigi [Pritzker] was a partner in the company and we talked about how we could help with the foreign piece and arrange financing. OddLot and [director] Gavin Hood had developed an outstanding script, and we created a sizzle reel. We sold out in almost every foreign territory, while Summit struck a domestic deal.
THR: Do you think you can replicate the wild success of Twilight or The Hunger Games? Earlier this year, Beautiful Creatures failed to gain a foothold.
Meyer: Ender’s Game is a unique property with a legacy. It’s a book that’s been around for 20 years and it’s back on the New York Times best-seller list. Part of it is the fact that it is required reading in middle schools across the country.
Source: THR
As is to be expected with a movie set in space with aliens and children flying in zero gravity, a large part of Ender’s Game will feature visual effects. According to a recent China Daily article, over half the movie will feature special effects to be worked on by Galloping Horse, the company that recently acquired Digital Domain.
About 60 percent of the film, focusing on conflicts between humankind and aliens in the Earth’s future, features special visual effects, according to Ivy Zhong, vice-chairperson of Galloping Horse.
Digital Domain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September and sold off their projects, which hopefully won’t delay post-production too much, since Ender’s Game will be the first project the two companies focus on. The need for that much special effects certainly makes the delay in the movie’s release look like a very good thing.
Source: China Daily