Author Topic: Directors' Trade Marks  (Read 2838 times)

Torslanda

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Directors' Trade Marks
« on: 22 August, 2018, 11:16:01 pm »
Watching Jaws this evening. In a night scene a couple of shooting stars pass through the background, at least one of them drawn in over clouds. I've seen them in other Steven Spielberg pictures, too and wondered if they are a kind of trade mark?

Alfred Hitchcock used to have his 'anonymous' cameo appearances and this leads me to wonder what other directors have used . . .
VELOMANCER

Well that's the more blunt way of putting it but as usual he's dead right.

Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #1 on: 22 August, 2018, 11:19:14 pm »
Doesn't Quentin Tarantino make a cameo in most of his films too?

Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #2 on: 22 August, 2018, 11:23:55 pm »
J. J. Abrams - lens flare.
Michael Bay - explosions, explosions, and yet moar splodey stuff!
M. Night Shyamalan - twist ending.
Edgar Wright - foreshadowing/brick jokes (set-up lines early on that lead to a punchline much later)
Martin Scorsese: starting the film in the middle/end of the story before jumping back in time.
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #3 on: 22 August, 2018, 11:33:49 pm »
Doesn't Quentin Tarantino make a cameo in most of his films too?

He's also had a bit of a foot fetish and a penchant for name-checking Guy Gibson's dog in the script IYKWIM.
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #4 on: 23 August, 2018, 09:14:44 am »
Spielberg / Lucas - Wilhelm Scream

Jaded

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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #5 on: 23 August, 2018, 09:28:23 am »
Films that have the same end as the beginning. I might be imagining it, but didn’t Kevin Costner do quite a few of these?
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Torslanda

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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #6 on: 23 August, 2018, 10:21:49 am »
I suppose it's a fine line between 'trade mark' and 'quirk' but I'm not talking about 'style' if you get me. More the incidental background stuff that marks a particular director's work.

I'm not a film student, you could whitter on about cyclical plots or noir all day and it wouldn't mean a thing...
VELOMANCER

Well that's the more blunt way of putting it but as usual he's dead right.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #7 on: 24 August, 2018, 01:21:24 am »
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T42

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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #8 on: 24 August, 2018, 07:17:22 am »
It's too small a sample to be telling, but at least two of Michael Cimino's films include the line "you're full of shit, Stan[ley]".  Did he have a beef with Kubrick?
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #9 on: 24 August, 2018, 09:08:53 am »
The Star Wars scripted one is "I have a bad feeling about this..." which is pretty much said by at least one character in every film.
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #10 on: 24 August, 2018, 11:08:28 am »
Stan Lee always had a cameo in the Marvel films as a street sweeper, hot dog vendor, person on train. In a couple of cases he has also had a very minor actual partor the background character.

Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #11 on: 24 August, 2018, 11:19:37 am »
The other strange one was Patrick McGooghan

After the controversial ending to the Prisoner, he fled to the US where he became a producer, director and actor, including Colombo

In each episode he appeared he used the "Be seeing you"  phrase and occasionally the salute as well from the Prisoner

Just one example....


<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-MPrQ2bLLc&amp;frags=pl%2Cwn" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-MPrQ2bLLc&amp;frags=pl%2Cwn</a>




Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #12 on: 24 August, 2018, 11:23:42 am »
how about Wes Anderson ignoring the normal 'rule of thirds' type framing (see pretty much every shot in Breaking Bad) and instead using centred subjects, symmetry and big wide angle shots.


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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #13 on: 24 August, 2018, 04:44:00 pm »
J. J. Abrams - lens flare.
Michael Bay - explosions, explosions, and yet moar splodey stuff!
M. Night Shyamalan - twist ending.
Edgar Wright - foreshadowing/brick jokes (set-up lines early on that lead to a punchline much later)
Martin Scorsese: starting the film in the middle/end of the story before jumping back in time.

When I think of Edgar Wright I think of comedically over-the top, and mostly unnecessary, fast cuts (that make even mundane tasks, like making a cuppa, seem like a Jet Li fight sequence).

I'm not sure if it's a trademark or not but David Lynch's "Eraserhead" and "Elephant Man" both had loud urban/industrial noise as a sound track.  I may have misremembered that but it felt like that.  Not sure if this was a theme in any of his other films. 
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #14 on: 25 August, 2018, 08:57:29 am »
Ridley Scott: back-lit fans turning.

citoyen

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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #15 on: 25 August, 2018, 11:12:32 am »
Edgar Wright - foreshadowing/brick jokes (set-up lines early on that lead to a punchline much later)

When I think of Edgar Wright I think of comedically over-the top, and mostly unnecessary, fast cuts (that make even mundane tasks, like making a cuppa, seem like a Jet Li fight sequence).

The obvious Edgar Wright one in the context of this thread is appearance of/references to Cornettos.
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #16 on: 06 September, 2018, 12:03:35 pm »
I'm not sure if it's a trademark or not but David Lynch's "Eraserhead" and "Elephant Man" both had loud urban/industrial noise as a sound track.  I may have misremembered that but it felt like that.  Not sure if this was a theme in any of his other films.

Partially true of "Dune" too.
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Re: Directors' Trade Marks
« Reply #17 on: 14 October, 2018, 09:00:31 am »
George Lucas - THX-1138 (it's even in American Graffiti)

John Landis - Ask For Babs! (last frame of every film after Animal House)

John Hughes - freeze the last frame before the credits (usually)
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