Cinema Science

A clip from Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are has shown up online but will probably be pulled soon. You can tell it is a very early in the process with sound mixing off and effects missing. It's hard to judge this without context to the rest of the film but I really love the look of the whole thing. Magic hour filming with crazy animal costumes, two things you don't see in films much these days. It's also the strangest thing I've seen all week. In case the clip is pulled before anyone sees it, here a re a few stills from it.

UPDATE: There is part of me starting to think this actually isn't from the movie. I have no idea and there is no way to know for sure something feels a little off. I don't think this is fake by any means, it looks way too good, way too professional to be that (right?) but something still felt off. Then I saw this photo again, one that was released a while back and I noticed something. The costume in this photo and the one in the video are quite a bit different. Not only the shade on the one in the photo but also notice the crown worn there. Then again, maybe this photo is from a test and not the final costume. I am probably putting too much effort into this but the NBA All Star game is a little boring and I have nothing else to do.



UPDATE 2: I have watched this about five more times now. There is no way this is from a test, it looks way too great and there are too many angles and set ups for this to be a simple test. Of course, whatever this is it is still very early.

UPDATE 3: Maybe I was right with my initial thoughts, then again this just proves more that I know absolutely nothing. Film Ick (where I originally saw the video) is now reporting that this footage is form a test. What is says on their webiste:

[EDIT: I'm now told this clip was a test shot in the summer of 2005 in Griffith Park. And that's not the final Max, but Griffin Armstorff who improvised everything you see him do here. Presumably, Benicio Del Toro was then given dialogue to match the improv lines, but it's also fairly clear that the basic scene outline was probably preplanned first of all. On top of everything else, I think we can expect the finished film to look even better than this does]

Then again, Moriarty over at AICN has actually seen the film and offers more insight on the clip and says this looks like a real clip with actual work done to it.