Gregory Charles Talks Dragonball
Gregory Charles, Chow Yun-Fat’s dialect coach, talked more about his experiences with the cast and crew of Dragonball here on his blog.
On the Dragonball set, I was surprised to find that rehearsals and interaction between the director and actors were very similar to that at TVB. I think the significant time or rather lack of it had something to do with it. Dragonball’s schedule was extremely rushed. Rehearsals were quick, and involved more acting and less blocking which did not really happen until the cameras were turned on. Furthermore, there appeared to be little discussion between the director and the actors. Most of the discussion that I heard on set seemed to be ‘I should do this’ and’ I should go there ‘, ie, strong recommendations from the cast rather than sincere suggestions and then discussions with the director thereof.
James was a remarkable director. Quiet, patient and tolerant, he was aware of the casts’ abilities and limitations, and also very aware of what the story itself could offer. If the cast neglected the chance to consult with him or learn from him, then they missed out big time! On more than one occasion, James reminded me of Henry; they share similar admirable qualities. Given the chance, I would definitely make the most of being able to work with such a director.
It is of course true that I only saw some of what happened on-set, and I did not see anything of what happened off-set. Perhaps James discussed the story with the cast behind closed doors, or over the phone. Perhaps the cast asked him for direction when they encountered difficult scenes within the story. I hope so, because nothing could be so wrong as a talented artist who ignores their director, or believes that they no longer need to improve their craft.
Read the rest here.
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The interaction between the actors and directors makes me worry.n
umm yeah this is def not what I want to hear
@yeahyeah: Maybe I picked the worst parts.
He says James Wong is a brilliant director.
hahaha his couch!!
If you read the whole article he says, “James was a remarkable director” and “Regardless, I think the movie will be very good.” I think Adam meant to type coach not couch.
@SSJ Spartan: I’m gonna blame that on Craig.
LOL. Now it’s coach. It’s okay Craig, everyone makes mistakes.
WTF!!!
LIttle interaction between the director and actors. And it was extremely rushed. Thats one of the worst things I’ve heard. I still got faith in this movie tho. It will kick ass.
hey does anyone know what happened to db movie blog?
@AlexM: Apparently it was hacked. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tries to target us next.
@AlexM: I have no idea
Instead of JP’s site you get a musical website? Awkward, but anyway, it sounds to me like this guyhas faith in the movie; and if he says it’s going to be good. Then that’s all I want to hear
damn so it sounds like the actors ran most of the show. Idk about this.
This is precisley what i was afraid of. I knew the filming time was too short, but now to see that confirmed by someone who works on the movie is depressing.
Well yeah it does worry me that the actors were in control but on the other hand I didn’t trust James Wong as a director [didn't like the acting in previous movies] so I’m kinda glad that he didn’t make some choices. BUT If Chatwin is making his decisions on most of the scenes this worries me because he doesn’t watch the show and doesn’t know much about the character so how would he know how to act like him? I’m just hoping he did his homework. On the other hand Emmy is a phenomenal actress and I trust her somewhat. And Uhh this is Joon’s first movie with a main part. ehhh.
I’m unsteady but I really hope it goes well
I find it funny how the guy who posted this article only picked the negative parts. He had a lot of good things to say. And, he said a lot of what the problems seemed to be were the fact that Hollywood actors seem to think of themselves as higher up than the actual director.
@Daveeb: That wasn’t intentional. I added more now.
SHIT. There’s no way the movie will be great now, maybe barely watchable at best. This is the same kind of directing that george lucas does and look how good his latest films have been. I’m so pissed right now. I wanted to be optimistic but now I think I’m just going to download this and consider it a sequel to Magic Begins. You can’t fucking rush the first ever dragonball live action movie with a big budget. Oh damn. And of course he’s calling the director brilliant etc. he doesn’t want to lose his job. Oh well Dragon Destination 5 coming right up! Up yours Fox!
@bucky o hare: Let’s not jump to conclusions.
i kinda gotta agree. If the actors took it upon themselves to do what they wanted with the characters and roles then this is seriously a bad thing. Forgot which one said it but one of them called the movie they were doing something based on the Dragonball/Z comic book series >.>
I have to say that this post just confirm the fact this movie is an airplane on flames doomed to crash against the hard ground.
I love Dragon Ball. I know there are ways to make a good action movie, but this people are just not fit for this task.
I would like to this movie is never gonna to be released.
I don´t want to start a flamewar, but this movie is so disgusting and wrong.
@bucky o hare: Dragonball is going to be off the hook
I think the main point he was trying to make was that James Wong let the actors bring there characters more to life. Like most Directors don’t want to here your suggestions, but James Wong was opened to the actors. He was willing to explore there character more with them. If my character is Piccolo im going to be him even off set and that’s what James Marsters did…..
Remember James Marsters said….. ” I don’t eat pie or cake, stop asking me about food. I’m in training for Dragonball. Food is bad! Water is good!”
This is to everyone who is saying this movie is in flames. You must be very new to this movie if your saying that. I’ve been hear for the longest along with others and I got to hear James Marsters, Emmy Rossum, Joon Park side of the story. If you take this post and run with it your going to be missing out on alot
Dragonball is going to be off the hook!!
and the teaser will prove that when it hits the internet soon
I think this person was just shocked to see the actors sincere interest in the characters. Just my opinion.
MmMM… Did not like reading the part about them not talking much or how everything was rushed. Not good, not good… He better be right about Mr. Wong, or I will be one disappointed fan.
Either way, the more I think about that supposed script by Ben- it makes me sick. I really hope the movie is really good or I’m going to choke on my spit.
lol
Guy your reading to much into this if read the full blog , Gregory upbeat about the film.
” Regardless, I think the movie will be very good.”
He seems to have keen sense of language and probably picked up on younger actors inexperience during early filming.
but then he says
“As his relationship with the actors became more familiar and more stable, as the trust and solidarity between them increased, so did their interaction and James’ willingness to give direction.”
The fact it was rushed is nothing out ordinary. Directors deal with this all time.He has a lot faith in Wong
I have been following this movie since early dec and I have alwas
been optimistic even thru all the changes andearly leaked pics of chatwin. This was probably the first thing that made me second think how great things are but I still think this movie will be good. I’ve already looked past this and only hope others do the same
Sounds to me as if he is explaining the developing relationship between james and the cast. Not to mention he thinks wong is wicked awesome. I think of this as positive news.
Off the hook? what is this, the 90s? Well there’s no one on this planet who’d want to enjoy this movie but all signs point to it being a soulless cash in beside James Marster’s obvious enthusiasm. It’s a real shame but I”ve been down this road many many times before with other adaptations. The good ones that hit the mark are always the exception of course.
like i said before my biggest hope for this movie is james marsters just because he knows the story and the characters so well. i watched a interveiw he did last night on youtube and he said when he was first asked to audition for piccolo he didn’t want to do it because he thought if they actually wanted to cast a skinny guy like him they obiviously didn’t know what they were doing but after he thought about it and realized they were with the old king piccolo he changed his mind because he figured he could play that and bulk by the time the next one comes out. then when they started doing the makeup the producers decided that they wanted to make piccolo look younger and he said he actually when back to the make up artist and told them to change it back saying he’d rather get fired then mess up piccolo and james wong agreed with him. i don’t know much about the mindstate of the rest of the acters of the movie but i do know both james actually seem to care about not messing this thing up. i just hope he was able to keep everybody else in character
May there be a god sent miracle now pry that actors will still be able to do things right!
This reminds me of an interview with Sam Raimi before Spiderman 3 came out . . . in which he said that he usually had a year or more to work on the script, but that this time ’round, he only had a few months or something. I remember thinking right then and there, “Oh SM3 is screwed.” Lo and behold, I didn’t like the movie much. I’m hoping that DB isn’t the same way.
@ http://www.myspace.com/coreywilson10: i totally agree with you that db will be awesome! yeah, maybe the director was giving more freedom?? we can only just wait and see
i soo cannot wait for the trailer/teaser. anyone have any idea when that will happen?
ok i would rather see dragonball in cgi simple fact the voices that we all come to know would make it all the better. and lets face it if this movie better be off the hook or like all these years of db , dbz , dbgt is like all in vain. i just hope that they do this movie right . so this whole in a rush thing man settin me up for dissapointment.
@nurv: what do u mean all those years will be in vain? i don’t know about u but it doesn’t matter if this movie ends up sucking it won’t do anything to hurt my memories of watching the show
well even if this movie sucks big hairy balls or ends up rocking the house down one thing is for sure, everyone’s lives here won’t change a bit, so stop worrying about all these intricate minor details like goku not being played by an asian, bulma’s hair color, or even how long exactly it took them to make the freakin movie. Besides, look at the first X-Men movie. Bryan Singer admitted that Fox cut the budget AND FILMING TIME while they were making that movie, and that turned out okay to spawn a couple of sequels and now a few spin offs in the works. I’m not saying Dragon Ball will do the same, but it can happen. I’m pretty sure the Execs at Fox aren’t stupid because they know they have over a 100 million dollars riding on this, and I’m sure they want to see a return on their investment, so I highly doubt they would invest that much money into something they felt would turn out to be a piece of crap. Plus, why else would they already be planning for sequels if they didn’t strongly believe in what they were doing. I know everyone here will believe what they want to believe, but I just had to put my two cents into this.
I think this movie can still succeed, Just imagine if Jackie Chan was Goku and Danny Devito was Kuririn as they were projected to be cast when the movie was first announced. If you don’t believe that look in the now defunct ” Unofficial Dragonball Magizine”. Personally I think that who was cast as the characters are as close as we can hope to get to realizing Goku and the gang on the big screen. Oh, and about the hair on Goku: I dont think people stop to think about how fucked up Chatwin would look with Goku’s anime hair. Hearing how some of you wish that his “real hair” was choosen makes me wanna laugh.
Ya’ll need to get more optimistic about this movie, if we the “fans” aren’t hopeful for the movie who wll be.8)
well…
Lets just hope this dosnt totaly kill dragonball for me.
i mean look at his eyes! Goku is known for his Active personality, and like in dragon ball the series he couldent stand still!?
Nothing against Justin but he looks nothing like Goku?!?! in the posterthing of him trying to be goku he looked like he had just woke up, on the wrong side of the bed!
and u gotta do somthing with his hair, u cant just dye it yellow and not comb it for a week then call it SuperSayin!
you ppl might as well call it DragonBalls with all the stuff that are out of place.