FMC 004: Blade Runner The Final Cut

Full Episode Transcript
In this episode, Reginald Titus Jr. dives deep into Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner: The Final Cut," offering an insightful analysis of its filmmaking techniques and production challenges, alongside a critical look at Netflix's "Bright" and the evolving landscape of media distribution.

Opening and Introduction to Blade Runner
Reginald Titus Jr.: Filmmaker Commentary episode four. Welcome to Filmmaker Commentary, where we give you insights from our favorite filmmaking commentaries. These commentaries can be heard on your DVD and Blu-rays of your favorite movies. We'll show you how you can use these commentaries and apply them to improve your video production and filmmaking techniques. All of this here on Filmmaker Commentary. I'm your host, Reginald Titus Jr.
Today on Filmmaker Commentary, we'll be reviewing the commentary for "Blade Runner: Final Cut" 1982. It's a sci-fi noir, directed by Ridley Scott. Ridley, Ridley. What is a Blade Runner? A Blade Runner is another name for a detective. Now, what's a replicant? A replicant is another name for a humanoid or Android. Because a Blade Runner is a detective, it gives, it makes sense why it's considered a science-fi noir, science fiction noir.
I kind of feel embarrassed that I haven't seen this film before. I am a fan of the sci-fi genre, but this should have been a prerequisite. This should have been on the list. My initial response to the cut, when I sat and watched this film, I thought to myself, I watched it on Blu-ray in HD, I was like, man, this looks good. Like, surprisingly good, holds up well. There are maybe a few scenes where you can tell that it was dated, but if you didn't know any of the people involved in the film, you would, you would have probably thought it was done in the mid-90s. It's dark, but the cinematography is done in a way where it feels gritty, like you can, like a place you've been to before.
The reason I, I made sure I watched this film, because remember I told you that I'm going to be doing films from first-time filmmakers and their first feature films, but I want to catch Blade Runner 2049 in the theaters. So, if I'm going to watch a film, I also want to watch the commentary when I watch a film, and I don't want to make, I don't want a film to go to waste. So, I'm like, you know what? I'm, I'm going to enjoy it, but I'm also going to study it at the same time and share what I've learned.
So, that's the reason why this week's episode isn't by a first-time filmmaker. With that being said, this was Ridley Scott's third feature film. But anyhow, back to Blade Runner 2049. I'm glad that I watched this Blade Runner because now when I see the trailer, when Ryan Gosling, when he goes to Harrison Ford and he says, "I need to ask you some questions," you see Harrison Ford like kind of, he's visually taken aback. And now that I've watched this Blade Runner, when I hear that line, I'm like, oh, I get it now. Also, I thought to myself when I watched this, I was like, man, he's real close to the actors on some of the shots, like he's really, he's in there real close. I kind of feel like it should be grander in scale, because you got like a lot of the low angles and they're kind of coming up and I, and I thought to myself, I was like, why am I, why am I looking at this in this way? But before we dive too deep into that, let's get a quick update on some news.

Netflix's "Bright" and the Shifting Media Landscape
Reginald Titus Jr.: Netflix has confirmed they will do a sequel to the movie called Bright. If you're unfamiliar, Bright was released in December, starring Will Smith. Will Smith plays an LAPD cop who partners up with a rookie police officer, who just hope, just so happens to be an orc. It was directed by David Ayer, who was a director for Suicide Squad. Bright has been dubbed the worst movie of 2017. Bright cost Netflix about 90 million dollars to produce. And as soon as it came out, it got tons of negative reviews. Let me read some of these reviews. Forbes says, "Netflix has made a visually grotesque, dreadfully dull, hopelessly convoluted, would-be franchise action movie just as well as a stereotypical Hollywood machine." IndieWire said, "Truth be told, Bright is so wretched that it invites only the most cynical of interpretations, leaving you with no choice but to assume the film was tainted by the knowledge that most of its audience would see it on their phones or laptops."
Despite the negative reviews, Bright is the highest viewed movie in the first week of release on Netflix. So, even though people are hating on this film and talking badly about it, they probably also watched it. It makes me think, I'm like, okay, why are the critics, especially from these top magazines and publications, why are they hating so much on this film? Because when I saw the trailer, I haven't seen the movie yet, I saw the trailer, but when I saw the trailer, I'm like, hmm, looks just like any other Hollywood movie. But it made me think, you know what? Maybe it's because Netflix is doing their own thing. They don't necessarily have to play ball in order to get their movie seen at theaters. They control their distribution all the way 100%. They don't, they're not forced to purchase this amount of advertising or this and play political games in order to get their movie nominated for Oscars and all this different things. They, they just promote their film and then they release it. And I think everybody appreciates that. Especially the subscriber base of Netflix, I know they really appreciate it, but it makes me think, you know, do the magazines and all these other places, do they feel threatened because of that, and that's why they're talking about it, or is it truly they just don't like the film? And it makes me think about the exhibitors, you know, are some of the exhibitors, they truly feel threatened? Do they truly feel threatened by this Netflix business model? And maybe that's an incentive for them to get other people to talk badly about things that they release. I find it very interesting. But at the end of the day, it's all subjective, so let's talk some numbers. Let's look at the stock price of Netflix. According to CNBC, Netflix starts 2018 with a bang. Now, let's dive into this video from Trading Nation on CNBC.

Stock Market Analysis: Netflix vs. Disney (with CNBC Clip)
Reginald Titus Jr.: [CNBC Clip Begins] "Some media stocks getting a big boost as the new year kicks off. Netflix and Disney stock higher following upgrades from Macquarie. That firm's analysts lifting ratings on both stocks from neutral to outperform. Let's trade Disney and Netflix with your Trading Nation team. Craig Johnson, Piper Jaffray, Mart, Chad Morganlander, Washington Crossing Advisors. Craig, all right, so forget about whether or not you agree or disagree with the upgrade. Look at the charts. Do Netflix and Disney portend more good things for investors this year?"
"Well, Brian, as you know, charts don't lie, and from our perspective here, when I look at the chart of Disney, we're just consolidating. We're just making this kind of narrowing consolidation pattern. And it's too early to for us to get long Disney at this point in time. I think this is a neutral performer at this point in time. It's not going to generate positive alpha right now. Now, on the other side, when you look at the chart of Netflix, we're still very much in an uptrend. We've corrected right back to the uptrend support line. And it looks like to us, purely based upon the charts, Brian, we can see a measured move to about 230 on Netflix, and actually is in alignment with our Piper Jaffrey analyst coverage at a price objective of 240. So, I definitely like the Netflix chart better than Disney at this point in time."
"Okay, yeah, fundamentally and on the chart there. Chad, I know that you've said in the past you got to invest in the biggest well-capitalized media companies. Does that mean that you would own Disney, but not Netflix?"
"Yeah, at this point, I would prefer Disney over Netflix. I do know it's an old media company. It's a quality company with quality assets. The real issue is that the entire industry of entertainment is now having these new competitors come in, like the Amazons of the world, as well Netflix and Google. So, the distribution channels have completely changed. So, we do like Disney. We think from a valuation perspective, it makes sense. From a credit rating perspective, it makes sense. Netflix, on the other hand, we're value investors, that's more of a momentum name. It is a platform that we believe strongly in over 10 years. We just think though that we need the earnings to fill in as well as free cash flow to fill in before we would become a little bit more optimistic about that name."
"Okay, yeah, we're getting it from both sides there, and we'll watch that 230 to 240 level on Netflix. You make some Netflix bulls happy again, Craig. Thank you very much, Chad Morganlander, thank you both very much. And as always, folks, thank you for watching. Trading Nation." [CNBC Clip Ends]
Reginald Titus Jr.: Again, numbers don't lie. People do, but numbers can be manipulated for sure. But judging by what's happening in the marketplace, this should be a tell-tale sign to what's going on with entertainment and the distribution model. And if you are in the industry, I urge you to look at these different distribution models that are now open to the independent filmmaker.

Ridley Scott's Filmmaking Philosophy and Blade Runner's Craft
Reginald Titus Jr.: When the movie opens up, you know, you have like a title sequence, sort of like Star Wars, telling you what's happening in this new world. Also, there's an opening of an eyeball, very close-up macro, and it's to visualize the ever-watching eye. It symbolizes Big Brother. In the world that we're thrown into is a world owned by three corporations, industrial imperialism. I believe the budget on this film was 20 million dollars. At the time 1982, that was still, that's a big, that's a lot of money, but there were a lot of, there were still a lot of limitations. When Ridley Scott, when he initially thought about shooting the film, he thought about Hong Kong. He thought it looked futuristic and medieval at the same time. It's aligned with New York, it's an impressive city to go when you haven't been there before. So he imagined the new population being taken over. That's why there's a huge Asian influence in the film, when you see Harrison Ford, he's talking to all these vendors and a lot of them are Asian. Because this is what Ridley Scott sees in the future in this world.
Because of the limitations of the money, a lot of the scenes had to be shot on a backlot. And if you don't know what a backlot is, a backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio, containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes and filmmaking or television productions or space for temporary set construction. Ridley Scott, it got to a point to where the budget wouldn't allow him to go to Hong Kong and do everything that he wanted to do. It got to a point, it was like, all right, you're either going to do this movie on a backlot or don't do it at all, don't do it, or you're not going to do it at all.
Ridley Scott mentioned that the scales, they're, they're useful, but a lot of time the scale is off. So, for example, if you're shooting a wide-angle lens, a wide angle is like 10, 15 millimeter lens. And if you shoot with a wide-angle lens, you're going to expose the fact that you're shooting on a set. Because a lot of times if it's a construction by two walls or four walls, a lot of times they don't have a ceiling to it when you're doing a set. And if you shoot wide, you're going to expose the fact that you don't even have a ceiling. After listening to the commentary, it made sense to me because when I initially saw the film, I was like, why is he so close on people? You know, I'm also, I'm looking at it for entertainment, but I'm also looking at it from a technical standpoint, like why is he so close to these people? And it makes sense because he had to shoot a majority of this film on a backlot.
Experience is also an important thing when you're shooting a film. Ridley Scott's background, he shot a tons of music videos, tons of commercials, and he also had a background in production design. This became helpful whenever he was given direction because he knows, even though you can put a lot of money into building up a set, as a director, you're still, you're responsible for the composition, you're responsible for that rectangle. What you're putting inside that frame. A lot of the things that you're putting money into may not end up in that rectangle. You can have a piece in your film, like, say it's like a pillar. It's painted black and it looks interesting. You can shoot that, then after you shoot that scene, you can repaint it, turn it upside down and put it in the background. Nobody would ever know. And if you look at, if you listen to one of my first podcasts with Robert Rodriguez, he implemented the same thing in the chase scene when they were running around the block. He just kept cutting to different portions of the block. And you wouldn't know. You're cutting so fast that your, your brain doesn't know where you're at. But you got to stay in close.
According to Ridley Scott, your job as a director is to dictate what you want. He learned this from shooting commercials. As a producer, it's hard to find a director who is assertive, who has an assertive quality, and has a vision and will stick with it and knows how to get it. And Ridley Scott developed that by shooting tons and tons. I think about what I've shot over the years and not necessarily like just commercials, but just shooting everyday life stuff like weddings and shooting hundreds of those. Not having the stress levels because you only have that one time to shoot this event. You know, I'm shooting a wedding, you only have that one time to shoot it. If you get it, you got it. If not, you're, you're screwed and you're going to have to figure out a creative way to cut to something to cover for that. And so, what I've discovered is when I'm shooting something that's scripted, I'm not as stressed or worried because I've prepared and then on top of that, I know it's not do or die like somebody's wedding where we got to get the shot of the bride coming down the aisle. If you don't get that shot, then you just don't have it. But if it was scripted, we can just cut and shoot it again.
Ridley Scott talks about quality. He developed this quality from again, from experience, from working with tons of advertising agencies and sitting in on tons of negotiations. And so he admits that the job of a director is, is very political. If you watch the film, you'll notice a presence of old cars. And I thought to myself, I was like, why would he, why are the old cars in there? And I like the fact that they use old cars instead of trying to predict what cars are going to look like. I know you've probably seen, you've seen science fiction movies where they predict what the cars 30 years from now are going to look like. And they're usually all the same, they're oval, drive by themselves with a monitor inside. The reason that he used old cars, keep the budget down, you can find old cars easily. But he was basically saying that in the future, people will still probably drive around old cars and make it vintage or try to up them, upgrade them. I just recently seen, I don't know if y'all are into the Black Mirror series, but I just recently watched the Black Mirror series, it was an episode called, I think it's called The Black Museum. I noticed the main, the protagonist in that particular episode, she was driving an older vehicle and it was kind of hard to determine what year is it? And then when she gets out of the car, you notice that she pulls out a battery charging device that's solar powered that charges the car. And so, it's interesting that in Black Mirror, which is produced in 2017, using that same principle that Ridley Scott did 1982 in Blade Runner.
Another tip, there's nothing wrong with taking your time to the deliver, to deliver the goods. Ridley Scott, he's a well-versed man. He, look at his career, man. He's, Ridley Scott, I mean, what a career. Born in 1937, still making movies. Like he just recently, he just recently did "All the Money in the World," he did "Alien: Covenant." There's a new movie that's in pre-production called "Battle for Britain." There's also an Alien movie called "Covenant Sequel" that's in pre-production right now, and it's going to be coming out 2019. Like this guy just, he continuously works. Who wouldn't want a career like that where you still get to rock and roll and shoot these studio movies? I think it's pretty awesome the amount of work that he puts in. So anyway, he says there's nothing wrong with taking your time to deliver the goods. And what does he mean by that?
He mentions like in the movie Alien when he's shooting, he says there's nothing going on, but all of a sudden, when that egg breaks, when it begins to break, that's when you know you are in for a ride. So take the time that leads up into that egg breaking. The part of the movie trick is not seeing the shock of the event too often. So take your time. There's also this, man. In Blade Runner, there are these replicants, which they're humanoids or Androids. And every now and then, you will see their eye flicker, it will turn red. And when I saw it, I looked at myself, I'm like, this is, this looks practical. This doesn't look like an effect because it would probably be hard to track at the time. You can definitely track it now in any in software, in computer software. But back then, it will be tricky to, to track that. You would have to do it frame by frame by frame manually, either draw it in, it will, it will be very, it will probably be very expensive and time-consuming. But what he did is he put up a light-splitting lens, which is a small mirror that's at 45 degrees to the camera, so the lens is actually shooting through it. The reflective surface is reflecting into the lens. The retina reflects back. When you hit light in the back of somebody's eye, the retina reflects back. And when it goes through this mirror, you can see like this little red film. And it's cool. I don't know how they came up with that, but that was pretty awesome. That one, I was like, man, that's cool. And that's why I really enjoy practical effects over special effects like computer effects, because it forced, it just feels like you're grounded. It feels more real.
Now, there's a scene where Harrison Ford, his character, hey, again, guys, this is spoiler alerts, you know, because we are going through the commentary, so hey, spoiler alerts all the time. So there's a scene where Harrison Ford and the replicant, replica, begin to have sex, or it's insinuated, but it's not shown. Ridley Scott says he'll, he'll do short love scenes or no love scenes. It's not going to be over the top and not very explicit, unless he can justify it. He mentions, he says it, it becomes voyeurism. Basically he can't come up with a good reason to to be explicit with love scenes unless there's a reason to do it. But he says if I can justify it, I will give you the best love scene you will ever see, and it will be better than anything that you can shoot in the valley.
He shot this film anamorphic. Anamorphic is a cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 millimeter film or other visual recording media that is not widescreen or native aspect ratio. So basically, when you see those black bars at the bottom, those horizontal black bars at the bottom of a movie and at the top, that means it's shot anamorphicly. The theory is you can see more if you were shooting with a fit, if you're, if you're shooting side by side with somebody with a 50 millimeter lens that is not anamorphic, against your 50 millimeter lens that is anamorphic, the anamorphic lens will have more information in the background, wide. You'll be able to see more. So if you had a person in front of you, you could see more to the right and left of the subject matter that's in the middle. If you were shoot that same shot with another lens that is not anamorphic, you'll have that person in the middle of the film, but the left and right sides of the frame will be closed in a little bit to the left and right, kind of closing in on the subject matter.
According to, this is a debate, filmmakers, DP, cinematographers, we can all get into debates on what's better, what's this, what's that, especially from a technical side, especially when you're dealing with dudes. We'll, we'll argue anything. But at the end of the day, according to Ridley Scott, it's just a matter of taste. And some people say, according to what he was saying, is like, it's hard to fill a frame with an anamorphic lens. Ridley Scott is saying that's bull crap, that's rubbish. You decide what goes into the frame. So if it's anamorphic, you can move things to fill that frame. So that, that's bull crap.
He also mentioned that there's so much that are at our fingertips today that budgets are very crazy. There's too much movie magic, and it, even though it's more complex, not sure if the new effects make the movies better. Ridley Scott was surprised that his own film held up, you know, a quarter of a century later, it still holds up pretty well, and he was even surprised by that. But because he did a lot of his graphics practically, and also backgrounds in the movie, you had the backlot, but in the very, very background, you had matte paintings. And then for the city, there were, for the actual city, it was a model, like three-foot, three-foot models that they shot to represent the city. So a lot of these techniques from, even from an independent, indie film standpoint, you could recreate a lot of these scenes today very cheaply.
Ridley Scott also said that, here's one of the last points. The fight scenes can be very boring. You have to think ahead of the story and you have to come up with a big idea. And sometimes it's a smaller thing, the smallest things that can be the biggest things. Action on top of action can be very boring. You have to give your character something to focus on. There's a scene where Harrison Ford is trying to shoot the humanoid and it, how reason his, his, his arm is through the wall. The humanoid grabs his arm and breaks two of his fingers. And then hands back the gun to Harrison Ford, and dares him, and he's like, hey, we're playing, you know, basically saying we're playing a game. When you're just shooting fight scenes, and you just have action on top of action, you've got to have a point. You have to have a reason. You have to give these people something to fight for, or a reason to run. In this Harrison Ford shot scene, he's running from this humanoid who has been programmed to be a killer and to hunt. Harrison Ford is running away from this guy and that humanoid, he gave him, he gave him a head start, like Roadrunner and the Coyote. He gave him a head start and he's like, you got 10 seconds that I'm going to come hunt you down. And so you see Harrison Ford running for his life with two broken fingers and a gun that he really can't shoot.

Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations
Reginald Titus Jr.: So that ends today. I would recommend this movie 100%. There are more things to be gleaned from the commentary. The commentary is filled with awesome, there's producer commentary, there's production designer commentary as well. But from a director standpoint, definitely check this out. This is the director's cut. On the theatrical cut, I think there was a voiceover, so I have not seen that, that version of the film, but I would highly recommend this version of the film. It will give you great insight on the filmmaking process and how you can make a film that stands the test of time.
Appreciate your time, thank you so much. Thanks for watching Filmmaker Commentary. Next episode, I, it will be a surprise. I think I'm going to go to Family Video, which is my local video store, and I'm going to browse around, and I'm going to pick something, and it'll be a surprise, yeah, it'll be a surprise the next one that I do. Thank you guys for your time, talk to you soon.