Body Double versus Natalie Portman

There has been a brewing argument over the last few weeks between ballet dancer Sarah Lane against a few key members of the production staff for the film Black Swan (2010). It is an age old cat fight in the school yard, but it does pose an interesting question about film production. Here is the entire situation in a brief summary. Director Darren Aronofsky wants to make a movie about a ballerina. He hires actress Natalie Portman to portray the dancer, Benjamin Millepied to choreograph the dance numbers, and professional ballet dancer Sarah Lane to be Natalie's body double for the extremely difficult dance numbers. After the Natalie Portman won an Oscar award for her performance in the film Sarah started complaining publicly of an unfair acknowledgement. According to Sarah's mathematical formula of physical contributions she had appeared in ninety-five percent of the full body camera shots with Natalie's face digitally inserted in the shot during post-production. If you watch the Visual Effects reel over on YouTube (click here to watch) then you will see what I am referring to here.

Visit the Matte Havoc YouTube Channel

I am looking for a nice collection of new subscribers to enlist over at the Matte Havoc channel on YouTube. If you have not visited the channel yet, then visit this link to view a few of the full length feature films and celebrity interviews that have been posted on the channel for your viewing pleasure.

The LAMBs in the Director's Chair #14

What is The Director's Chair feature, exactly? It is a collaborative effort of material that concentrates upon a single film director. The material is released on a loosely structured timetable, with the content of each installment written by a group of movie adoring blog writers. The mission statement for the series requests every participating writer to submit an article, or a collection of articles and movie reviews, containing a direct correlation to the career of a movie director. Each individual installment has a predetermined candidate as the center point for the writers to produce and submit their material. The ongoing series is referred to as The LAMBs in the Director’s Chair. The desired intention is to release a new installment of the series every six weeks. As previously stated, the timetable for the publication of every installment is loosely structured. Therefore, the gap in between the appearance of every chapter can range between three weeks and two months. The variance depends upon a wide range of influences, including the consideration of major holidays such as Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah that would slow down the submissions process. It would be a shame to have everyone work through the holidays.

The original publication of every installment is divided up into three parts and published on the website for The Large Association of Movie Blogs (the acronym would be The LAMBs) over the course of a three-day window. Upon the publication of the third and final section there will be a posting on Matte Havoc that will include the entire list of written material which has been contributed for the installment. Think of it as an Index or Table of Contents, of sorts, for each installment. For quick reference of the material that is currently available on this site just follow the keyword link: Directors Chair. Listed below is one of the recent installments of the series with all three days worth of material included in a single page.