TIFF results

[Eija Margit Niskanen]

Abe Markus Nornes writes:

>Also, what's Oshii's Avalon about exactly? Is it as theatrical as something
>like Talking Head? Does it integrate animation with live action?

Avalon is about a woman who plays virtual reality games for money. When she
is "inside" the game world, the film uses visual effects in order to create
the deaths - when a character dies, he/she goes from 3-D to 2-D and then
kind of disapperas in slices - they shot these characters against blue
screen. Also, Oshii told in the press conference, that the main character
Ah's face was digitally handled about 8 times for creating the right light
and shadows etc. The whole film was shot in Poland, with Polish actors, and
in Polish language (a definite plus that somebody has the courage to use
other lanuage than English in their international productions). The
"reality" level and the beginning game levels are shot in sepia tones, but
hte last game called "The Real Game" is shot in "normal" colors, which of
course complicates the question which one of the levels is reality. The
film is really interesting, but suffers somewhat from a weak story line.
What I found interesting was Oshi's idea to make films by subtracting from
the original image, not by adding, which is the normal use of digital image
in filmmaking.