Canadian Film Digest (Mar 1973)

The Canadian Film Digest MARCH 1973 Page 7 Agincourt Uses Video Process for Feature Film» sw:ovo cucsey At the front of the room stands a podium with the seal of the president of the United States. Chairs are packed with reporters. There are three video cameras in position. All at once a group of men enters; walks to one of the cameramen, and injects a knock-out solution into his arm. They drag him out and another man takes his place. Now, the most interesting thing abut all this isn’t that the Secret Service, as the comic books liked to call them, has saved Mr. Nixon, nor the fact that this is all taking place in CFTO’s largest studio and, with two stars in the leads, makes for one of Canada’s slickest entries into the movie market. The interesting thing is that only one of those video cameras was a prop: the other two were filming the movie. The kinescope should rightly have nipped in the bud any notion of the possibility of transfering video-tape to film. Last year’s 200 Motels was the first feature film to use the process, but its flat, washed-out image with the TV lines visible was hardly passable, let alone hopeful. But producer Howard Zucker feels he has found a process that will look as good as film when it hits the big screen. Zucker and Bob-Jacobs had long ago decided to make films on video equipment. After much research, they found that the best transfer process had been developed here in Toronto by | a company called Image Transform. Backed by Montreal investors and Agincourt productions, they chose their subject for the new process: To Kill The King. It is from a novel by Anthony McCaul, called Holocaust. The first screenplay was by Bernard Ersman and Rod Sheldon, but the final screenplay, which really kept only the structure of the original, is by Tom Cole. The stars are Patrick O’Neal and Susan Tyrrell (last seen in Fat City). The rest of the cast is mostly Canadian, including Barry Morse, Cec Linder and Robert Goodier. There are about fourteen principals in a cast of over 40, assembled by the Karen Hazard Agency. The crew is fourteen men from CFTO. There are two men in charge of the photography, Director of Photography Don Wilder and Lighting Director Barney Stewart. Once Agincourt Productions came in, George ‘(Face-Off) McCowan was assigned to direct. The entire film will be shot and edited on video tape. This will save the cost of stock and opticals. When a final cut is decided upon, the film will then be sent to Image Transform’s office in Los Angeles where prints will be struck. Much time will have been saved in editing, as well as the cost of opticals. __ To get a better image, the film is being shot with the best camera available: an RCA 44A adapted for the future transfer. Although video normally requires less light than film does, the project is using an average of 500 foot candles. “There is a lot of vigorous over-compensation to get the best image possible.”’ Shooting is now over, but as it went on editing was in progress. The last day was January 5, and an answer print is expected by March with the film in theatres by May. ‘‘This fast release will make it possible for more timely subjects. There will be less of a hazard of a subject dating when we can get films out this fast.’’ Having.a fine cut three weeks after shooting has ended may set some sort of a record. With directing aspirations and a long career of many ventures behind him, star Patrick O’Neal was very interested in the TV process. As it affected this film, he found a great deal more attention was paid to technical problems than is usual. ‘‘I’d like to see the equipment more at the service of the people,” he said. * ea eee We aag f aur “> Patrick O’Neal, appearing in To Kill the King. Subscribe now and receive untold blessings You're just in time to experience the ultimate. The Canadian Film Digest will pour forth, between these very pages, untold riches in the next year’s issues. And you can join in the receiving of the bounty. Besides our regular columns on finance, personalities, events, books, casting positions, and new releases, The Digest will continue to present in-depth feature reports. Some samples: How Canada can avoid Hollywood union fiascos. “Government and film: Interviews with Michael Spencer, Sidney Newman, and more. Exhibition showmen. Charity and showbiz. Why does Quebec support itsfilmmakers so well? and the _ small And much, much more. I Year *7.50 (Including the Yearbook!) To: Subscriptions The Canadian Film Digest 175 Bloor St. East Toronto 5 Please enter me Please Bill me [ | i aE ee eee I enclose my cheque [ | (*7.50 per year) een seenvnvreevreveewreoereen oe eeneinoveveeeaceaeaee oP ROVIMGL. «ri 2o~s-s>s.CODE....-2000-029% on your lists (*7.50 per year) eosneoecveoseeeeoee eee evevescveevecnee een ees BETO SITES cn.c cde eke ene ask (Fae epee ee eee eee The film was shot totally in Toronto, fifty per cent at the studio, fifty on location. O’Neal found the process at its best in the studio, especially for talky scenes where it was like working in live TV, which has a fame for the most spontaneous of acting. But the equipment is larger than film equipment, and he feels it is too much of a hassle for short location intercuts or even for quick cuts in scenes. “‘I’d like to see a combination of film shooting and video with transfer, applying each to where they serve best.”’ To Kill The King is an entertainment action film at its basic level. It is about an attempted assassination of a U.S. president in Christmas of 1974. Since it is the second term for the president, they hope some political implications will come across. The story basically deals with a computer that protects the president and runs the government according to some electronic Hoyle. “‘It is a frightening hero that will do anything to achieve its ends.”’ Producer Zucker feels that besides intrigue and action the film has ‘‘beautiful poetry and great pathos for the human being and the system.”’ While O’Neal plays the ruthless agent who carries out the orders of the machine, Susan Tyrrell plays an innocent victim, drawn into the plot when she finds her husband is one of the assasins. ‘‘She is caught in the wheels of the machine and devoured.”’ So as Agincourt Productions finishes up another slick entry we can all wait and wonder at how successful, aesthetically and financially, the video to film transfer process will be, and how it will shape the future of movies, if at all. PATRICK O’NEAL MAKES HIS CHOICES By LLOYD CHESLEY The biggest sound stage at CFTO is jammed with technicians, actors and extras creating the climax of To Kill The King, an attempted assassination of a president at a press conference. The work has a competent, craftsmanlike air, everyone working in an effective joblike way. But one man makes an entrance into the scene who has an air of more than craftsmanship. He is a professional with a lot of years’ experience behind him, Patrick O’Neal. O’Neal has worked in fine films like King Rat and with great directors like John Huston. He has a record that includes stage and TV as well as film. This has given him a trained talent of concentration that shines above the work of most people around him. : To Kill The King is being shot with video equipment for future transfer to 35mm film for theatrical release. Ten years ago O’Neal did a TV series in New York, Diagnosis Unknown (the director was Norman Jewison) so he is no stranger to video work. But, like all involved, he has great interest in the outcome of this film experiment and the effect it will have on the future of movies. Tall, with grey hair and a hard face, O’Neal is best known for tough-guy-roles in films like Stilleto and The Kremlin Letter. In To Kill The King, he plays a special agent of the US. government whose express job it is to protect the president no matter what has to be done. He plays it mean, as a professional bodyguard who'll use any tactic to gain his ends. He likes to play tough guys. He finds them more interesting than good guys who, unless very finely drawn, make for characters that are often dull. Playing a tough guy is a good release. He finds hostility easy to relate to and be honest with. : ‘ To Kill The King 1S an action film. lt doesn’t involve as many stunts as some action films do, but O’Neal is just as happy. He doesn’t like to do his own stunts. ‘‘At first I did. It was an ego trip to prove I could do it as good as the pros. But that’s foolish: they*re trained and schooled for it.’’ Usually a stunt man will do the stunts in the master shot of a scene and the actor will fill in for the close-up work. O’Neal has found that he usually ends up in more footage of such a scene than the stunt man does by the time it has been cut. But he shies from anything that might look dangerous and has been taught lessons that make such an attitude wise. In a western shot in Italy he was to be shot by a firing squad: He told the director he didn’t want to hazard it and to prove it was safe the director did it himself first. He was in the hospital for quite a while. Another time he was supposed to be run over by a train. As it happened he had just been in a horror film for which a model of his head had been constructed. He asked that they use the model instead of the real thing. The train knocked the nose off. He finds To Kill The King pretty basic work. Most of it is plot and action scenes with ‘‘very few personal kinds of scenes and a submerged love story.”’ He hasn’t done any theatre in eight years. Although he doesn’t always see it realized, he feels film has a “‘higher potential for quality.’’ Also, acting in a play for him is too intense. Playing in The Night of the Iguana on Broadway was ‘‘obsessive.”’ He chooses his parts from what is available as sifted by his agents, whom he trusts, ‘‘which is pretty rare.’’ He enjoys his career which keeps him very active. When he gets a part he may or may not do any preparation before filming. Usually he does little, although for his favourite role, in A Fine Madness, he did a great deal. “It depends on the part.” He doesn’t like too much imposition from a director. What he mostly wants is a clear concept of the character and the film. From other actors he takes what he can get. Again he doesn’t like to be imposed upon. He feels a good director will make the contact — between the players. _ For himself, he is interested in directing as well as acting, which is why the experiment of the video-transfer interests him. He has formed a production company that will obtain projects for him to either act in or direct, as the project warrants. O’Neal has worked pretty much all over the world now. He likes working in Italy very much where he finds filming ‘‘loose, fun and informal.” But he still gets a kick out of starting on a major project in Hollywood. This is his first time in Canada. He has found it ‘‘one of the most comfortable and relaxed places to work. Everything has a nice, easy pace.”’ He attributes a great deal of this to the fact that the film is a low budget production. ‘“‘Small money keeps it easy.” Meanwhile filming is finished, and perhaps the people working on To Kill The King learned a lot about professionalism in film-making from this seasoned visitor from the south. “GUILLOTINE” SPLICER Fast invisible film splicing without losing a frame ALEX L. CLARK LIMITED 3751 BLOOR ST. WEST. ISLINGTON (TORONTO), ONT. (416) 231-5691 BRANCHES: MONTREAL, QUE, CALGARY, ALTA. ROCHESTER, NEW YORK