The shaky-cam is overdone, it’s going to kill an otherwise fine show. Save the documentary feel shit for the field. We don’t need shots of people talking looking like they are on board an airplane stuck in turbulence. Vibrating shots is not a good style to go with.
It’s called a steady-cam for a reason, not vibrating, stomach-churning cam.
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| Originally Posted by captain_oats Fuck man, what’s it like being you? I can only sit here in awe, maybe mustering up some applause, because you’ve managed to type anything coherent at all with a sensory system that allows you to look at the ‘Friday Night Lights’ style and say, “yep, that’s a pretty real feel to me!!” The hospital scenes were shaky-ass! |
That’s Peter Berg. I expect The Kingdom will have a similar style.
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| Originally Posted by GET AIDS NOW! I’m from Odessa, Tx and in terms of the hysteria that high school football is there, its pretty damn accurate. Especially the kid who maybe paralyzed. That really happened when I went to Permian. The only difference is that the incident happened during a practice and not during a game. Joe Beene is the dude’s name and he’s even an extra in the movie. I think you can see him in the crowd when Boobie tears his ACL. I know this sounds absurd, but this kid was pretty much made a MOJO martyr. While its very tragic that he’s going to deal with this paralysis for the rest of his life, but other tragedy was going on at the same time. A kid(Brandon Edward Webster) who was shot and killed while this was going on. It seemed like no one gave two shits about him because he didn’t play football for Permian. Its that crazy |
IIRC Berg said they were shooting ‘game’ footage when he was injured, is that right?
I remember Berg saying he was very “Anti-Million Dollar Baby” when Eastwood’s film came out. It looks like Street’s recovery will parallel and intersect with the team’s voyage this year. I’m sure Berg, a student of the Michael Mann school of realism, won’t be sugarcoating Street’s paraplegia, nor having Coach Taylor knock him off with a shot of adrenalin.
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| NEW YORK (AP) – " ‘Friday Night Lights’ Doused By NBC." Is that what you want to be reading sometime soon? Of course not. It’s a trite play on words. Furthermore, who would want to face the sad news – with or without a pun – that the fall’s best new series has been overlooked into oblivion by viewers? Or is it too soon to panic about the lackluster ratings? “Friday Night Lights” (airing Tuesday at 8 p.m. EDT) has been on just twice. “We had modest expectations in that time period,” says NBC boss Kevin Reilly, anticipating growth once its tough ABC time-slot rival “Dancing with the Stars” wraps in mid-November. "We plan to stick with ‘Friday Night Lights,’ " Reilly says. “I know we’re hitting a nerve with the viewers who have found it. I just hope they start telling their friends.” Well, I’m telling you: “Friday Night Lights” isn’t just the fall’s best new series. It’s also, arguably, the most misunderstood. Yes, it’s a splendid for-all-ages, family-friendly show – which you would expect from a drama about a championship high-school football team in a rural Texas town. As such, “Friday Night Lights” is the sort of big-hearted hour of TV that plenty of viewers are regularly pleading for. But maybe you’re still unpersuaded. Maybe you just don’t give a flip about football. Viewer alert: “Friday Night Lights” isn’t really about football. It’s about the town, and the people for whom high-school football is a treasured obsession. This makes Coach Eric Taylor someone everybody knows. Impeccably portrayed by series star Kyle Chandler, he has an earnest, man-of-few-words manner that serves him well. He has a way of declaring “I expect you boys to execute, I expect you boys to play football” that can even make the viewer want to do Coach Taylor proud. But in his modest home, Taylor and his wife and daughter grapple with typical domestic concerns. Item: Their air conditioning is shot, with a replacement cost of at least $3,000. How will he afford that? Very few TV dramas recognize anyone below a comfortable economic level. (According to TV’s aspirational slant, its characters are meant to be our role models as consumers. With their lifestyles and possessions, they provide us a wish list for what to acquire.) Another thing: Very few TV dramas acknowledge fields outside of law and order, medicine and the media. (According to conventional TV wisdom, other jobs are too routine or unrelatable.) With its different mindset, “Friday Night Lights” has claimed a world far from TV’s beaten path, and depicts it with such honesty that we viewers behold its ordinary people (and, by extension, ourselves) with new eyes. In the writing, acting and on-location filming (the production is based in Austin), “Friday Night Lights” debunks the “TV version” of things, depicting real life on its own indigenous terms. This, alone, is a powerful reason to watch. Having what it takes Here’s another: It includes religious faith among the forces at work in Dillon, Texas. Viewers who complain about a spiritual void in TV drama should embrace this show for how it weaves prayer (along with Panthers football, barbecue and the Red Hot Chili Peppers) into the community’s belief system. The show can be enjoyed as the story of a wonderful marriage (Connie Britton is superb portraying Taylor’s wife, Tami). Or even a teen soap (hormones are raging in those good-looking Dillon High kids). It’s hard for me to think of any viewer who couldn’t find something to like about “Friday Night Lights” – even the fans of a series as seemingly different as “The West Wing.” I know. Aaron Sorkin, creator of that Beltway masterpiece, is back with his own new drama, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” complete with his famous trademarks: witty, rapid-fire dialogue and urbane, whip-smart characters dispensing it. But the world of “Studio 60” is a fictitious TV show, for which comedy is written and performed in hopes of pleasing unseen Nielsen households. So, instead, I think the spiritual successor to “The West Wing” is “Friday Night Lights,” whose coach bears the grass-roots equivalent of the burden once borne by President Bartlet: a constituency telling him how to do his job while he fights to stay true to his own vision. Last week’s episode found Taylor being feted at the local Applebee’s by a dozen or so civic leaders, including Dillon’s mayor and a prominent merchant. They were lobbying Taylor hard with their strategy for how to deal with the hole left by Jason Street, his star quarterback, who lay paralyzed from an injury in the season’s first game. Taylor “knows what it takes on Friday night,” one member of this pressure group summed up pointedly. “That’s right,” he responded. “I just want to say, I’m gonna keep all this in mind.” The politics of coaching isn’t something Taylor likes, but he knows it’s part of his job. He knows his job is more than football. So is “Friday Night Lights.” And, friend, if you haven’t seen it, it’s more than you know. |
It’s staggering, seeing that people want to watch “Dancing With The Stars”. Don’t these people feel their souls dying a little?
I really really really hope this show survives. After the second episode, and that scene with the Coach and Sarensen in the stadium at night barking plays at him expecting him to out shout the crowd, I knew this was a special show.
It borders on the line of sports movies cliche without coming off cliche. It retains the feeling of reality that this is life in texas high schools.
That CNN story really nails it. This show is quickly becoming my favorite of the new shows. Hopefully NBC has more guts than to cancel it early.
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| Originally Posted by Subotai IIRC Berg said they were shooting ‘game’ footage when he was injured, is that right? |
He wasn’t shooting “game” footage when Beene got injured. I think that was a bit before Berg started shooting anything for the movie. It was in 2000 when this happened.
However, Berg did use some real game footage(If I am not mistaken). I remember my ex-girlfriend said he came to a couple of the real games with a crew on hand. To be honest, I don’t know if he ever used that footage.
I did recognize exterior shots of downtown Odessa, though. Notably, a shot of Chavez’s office for his law firm. He was my ex’s divorce lawyer, too.
I dig the hell out of this. Some damn solid acting from everyone. And I have absolutely no problems with the camerawork. None at all. In fact, I’ve been watching with the camera in mind, to see what problems I could have it. I just don’t see it. It works with the type of show it is. A kinda fake docu about a smalltown texas football team. It’s the same style that the Shield uses and it works just as well here. But, to be fair, I can understand why some people would like the feel of it.
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| Originally Posted by mediumdave It’s the same style that the Shield uses and it works just as well here. But, to be fair, I can understand why some people would like the feel of it. |
It is similiar to the camera work on The Shield but it’s more obtrusive. By that I mean, The Shield has usually done well to keep a static camera during the quieter moments. Friday Night Lights, much as I dig it, does seem to be taking the shakiness a bit far. The really strange thing is that the camera doesn’t seem to be overly frenetic during the game or practice scenes, that is to say, the high energy moments. But it’s all over the place during the quieter parts, what I wouldn’t give for a nice, flat twoshot.
All that said, Lila’s breakdown and attack and drop into Rig’s arms was probably my favorite TV moment so far this season. Edging out Mac’s roommate getting raped and shorn at the end of the V Mars premiere.
I remember an interview Berg did where he slammed the sleepy filmmaking of Chicago Hope - see if I can find it.
Found it:
http://www.moviehole.net/news/5154.html
This was the interview which led me to believe there’d been another injury on the set of Friday Night Lights (the film). In any case, the interviewer might’ve made a mistake.
Another good episode tonight; that dickhead in the burger joint has some lumps coming. God, I hope we get a few more episodes.
yes…please don’t take this show away.
This was a phenomenal episode. I also love the addition of Voodoo. I really want to see what kind of dynamics his presence brings to the team. Riggs breakdown felt a little forced outside the bus, but it was developed nicely.
Please NBC, move this show to a different timeslot, but keep it alive!
A few days ago, NBC ordered 2 additional scripts so it seem’s they’re willing to give the show a chance to catch on.
I’m surprised how much i love his show, even in spite of that damn camera that shakes endlessly. At the end of this most recent episode, i got the sense that the shaky-cam was used specifically to mask the after-school special feeling that the “he’s never going to walk again” scene had. That scorching hot actress doesn’t have the breakdown in her acting arsenal, and yet, with the camera movement, it worked for me. The brooding drunk fullback walking though the halls of his school as the camera went hysterical behind him, though, was too much. i had to pause it and wait for my headache to disappear and to get my bearings before i could continue.
I hope the show continues on. its really good entertainment.
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| Originally Posted by Matt Webb Mitovich, TV Guide Versus last week, an additional 300,000 turned out for Friday Night Lights (6.6 mil). I’m actually hearing full-season pick-up buzz. Stay tuned… |
There’s optimism. Rosie was plugging FNL on the View the other day. All her minions must have followed!
The report has been downplayed…
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| Originally Posted by Matt Webb Mitovich, TV Guide UPDATE: Friday Night Lights fans, the Ausiello Report has some big news about the show’s immediate future. Mind you, this is likely the “announcement” that I heard was en route. |
To this…
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| Originally Posted by Michael Ausiello, TV Guide Studio 60 is getting sacked by Friday Night Lights. At least temporarily. Sources confirm that NBC is handing Studio 60’s Monday/10 pm time-slot over to FNL on Oct. 30 for what I’m told is a one-night experiment. But, let’s face it, if FNL performs better than Studio 60 — and that bar has been set pretty darn low — we may be looking at the birth of a Monday night football franchise on NBC. All told, this is a great vote of confidence for FNL and an ominous bit of foreshadowing for Aaron Sorkin’s struggling drama. Thoughts? |
I still ike the show and want it to succeed, but it’s getting a bit melodramatic for me.
at this point, i would not miss studio 60, but I MUST see where the full season of Friday Night Lights goes.
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| Originally Posted by Wee-Bey I still ike the show and want it to succeed, but it’s getting a bit melodramatic for me. |
What parts do you consider melodramatic? As I see it they’ve laid off the melodrama to a surprising extent, considering the possibilities.
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| Originally Posted by Subotai I remember an interview Berg did where he slammed the sleepy filmmaking of Chicago Hope - see if I can find it. Found it: http://www.moviehole.net/news/5154.html This was the interview which led me to believe there’d been another injury on the set of Friday Night Lights (the film). In any case, the interviewer might’ve made a mistake. |
“I’m very anti-Million Dollar Baby. I think it’s a rotten message. When we were filming Friday Night Lights we had a kid break his neck, a 15-year-old, who became a quadriplegic"
Sounds like Joe Beene except that Beene was a senior when his accident happened. If it was another kid, or an interview mistake, it still sucks that Beene is a quadriplegic.
Absolutely.