An audience with Jon Landau - Film Producer

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Alan
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:10 am

An audience with Jon Landau - Film Producer

Post by Alan »

Not sure where to put this as there are limited topic areas, but hope this is the best place.

The video below is one that I took during a meet up of Avatar fans (of which I am one!) over in Seattle. Just to give a bit of background to it: This was a four day meet up of Avatar fans from around the world. One of the events that took place was a talk by Jon Landau the Producer of Avatar and Titanic - the two biggest grossing films in history...so far!

Anyway, I thought it might be worth sharing this video with everyone here as it gives you a bit of 'behind the scenes' story to Avatar and film making in general. You'll probably find yourself nodding in agreement at a lot of what he says and hopefully get a lot from it. ;)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfZYXAN8rY[/youtube]

Just for a bit of background to the filming of the above.

When we were planning the event, it never entered our head to get someone from the film Avatar to attend the event. Anyway, one of the planning team was in touch with the film company and mentioned that we were having the meet up. Their reply back was that they would send DVD to be shown at the meet up before the showing of Avatar. So we were beside oursleves with excitement!

A couple of weeks before the event we got a message through that they could not send a DVD.... Instead Jon Landau was going to come in person! When we managed to pick our bottom jaws off the floor, it turned out that besides a talk from Jon Landau, they was going to provide a copy of Avatar Collectors Edition to be screened as well as provide popcorn and drinks for everyone. Just how amazing was that!

We got permission to film the event. There were two of us filming: I was at the back using a Canon XF105 and a guy at the front on a DSLR. A chappy brought along his Miller tripod, which was worth $1600!! - but boy was it a good tripod, steady as a rock at full zoom.

For the sound recording I had an line input from the facility sound system into one channel of the camcorder as well as an onboard Rode mic. We also had a Tascam hand held sound recorder pluged into the sound system, a Zoom H4n sound recorder at the front and the sound from DSRL. So in total 5 sound channels in all and they were all mixed in the final cut!

After the event we had to send our footage to the film company (over the internet) in LA to approve the content. They only requested about 30 seconds to be taken out! Once the editing was done, it was sent through again for final approval before release.

The editing was done on Sony Vegas Pro 12. The animation and title sequence at the front was done in Cinema 4D. There was a fair bit of colour correcting that went on to match the footage from the XF105 and the DSLR.

As for Jon Landau, I was kinda bit nervous about meeting him. You build up an image in your mind of 'Hollywood' types from the media etc. But believe me, you could not meet a more friendly and approachable people person! It was an honour to meet him.

I hope you got as much from the video as we did.

Alan
john ingham
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

Re: An audience with Jon Landau - Film Producer

Post by john ingham »

wow..looks like you guys had a great time, I actually enjoyed the interview ..well done that must of been an awesome experience to of met such an experienced producer
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
Alan
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:10 am

Re: An audience with Jon Landau - Film Producer

Post by Alan »

Yeah, it was an amazing experience. Jon is a very approachable person. He had time for everyone - even me pointing the camera at him! You can tell he's the kinda guy who smooths all the bump along they way between the film makers and studios. That's what a producer does! :)

Alan
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