Videogum: Have you watched Terra Nova yet? I haven’t. I’ve been too busy petitioning Words with Friends to make “adorkable” a legal move. (Ding dong. New Girl joke!) Anyway, Terra Nova. I guess it’s based on the classic narrative conflict of Future Man vs. Nature Dinosaur. Klassik.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Guns On Terra Nova Are Pretty Sick
Videogum: Have you watched Terra Nova yet? I haven’t. I’ve been too busy petitioning Words with Friends to make “adorkable” a legal move. (Ding dong. New Girl joke!) Anyway, Terra Nova. I guess it’s based on the classic narrative conflict of Future Man vs. Nature Dinosaur. Klassik.
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5 comments:
My first thought about this article is that the author is all over the place, I had to read it twice just to catch the point. However, once I did catch the point, I thought that it was pretty funny. I have never seen Terra Nova either, but from the picture the guns do seem incredibly realistic. If they are really nerf guns that would be fantastic. Because isnt that what we aim to do in theatre? Is to create a product from something or nothing in order to make the audience think that its all real. In which case kudos to the props person who realized that spray painting nerf guns that you can get at Target, can be used to make a really cool TV show seem more realistic.
Congratulations to the prop master and congratulations to the geek who spotted it.
As I learned more and more about the production side of theatre I found myself watching less of the performances and more of the technical aspects. I ask myself "How did they do that? What's that made of?" more and more often. Theater construction is kind of the bastard of other types of construction. We borrow, steal, and pretend whenever we can. Great to see that someone saw noticed this aspect and called it out.
I think that this shows what we really do here in theatre. We take something which was created for a totall different purpose, and change it so that it fits what we need it to do. Theatre doesn't necessarily represent reality, but rather what the audience believes to be reality. In this case, the painted nerf gun look-alike matches the audiences expectation of a possible futuristic gun. Thus, they are willing to accept it, regardless of how close to the actual reality it is.
Elements in this domain are what has always been great about theatre and film and what i miss as we have been going more and more into computer generated imagery. The ability to turn something into what its not is what makes our jobs fun... the prop master for this show and the production designer have really done great work as i am not sure we would of noticed if we weren't really looking for it. its our job to notice stuff like this but for others , ignorance is bliss.
i laugh to my self after working in construction and landscaping for a couple of years how many sci fi “guns” are actually just different parts of drainage and pluming equipment put together and painted. i totally applaud the props department an nurf for making guns that are both futuristic and believable. another bonus would be that they could shoot nurf darts on set then use them to cue the special effects in editing.
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