Alright, so officially Sony seems to be being rather open right now with their sets and set visitors, and look... Regular folks being given the opportunity to see recreations of historic events albiet in small tidbits and repeated over and over and over again. But think about this real quick... How cool is it that on the same day, Spider-Man was fighting Bone Saw McGraw and Ali was fighting Liston. That Bruce Campbell was hamming it up doing Ring Announcing and Jon Voight was on the side of a ring doing Cosell.... Folks, this is just a pretty cool day to be a geek! P.S. Thanks goes to GRANT for the above image!!!
Hey Harry,
I love your site. I just got my master's from USC cinema school and will
premiere my
first feature in the spring. But the reason that I am writing you is
because I thought you
might want some first hand info/scoop on the next Michael Mann pic ALI.
A
fellow
filmmaker buddy and I snuck into the ALI shoot at this huge convention
center in North
Hollywood. After much prowling and infultration we worked our way passed
security
to ring side. We saw everyone and everything. And the best part is we got
to see them
film part of the fight sequences - ALI vs. Sonny Liston. AWESOME! Will
Smith
totally transformed himself into ALI. Not only is he well over 230 lbs(all
muscle) he
even has the boxing skills. The make-up people even pinned Will's ears
back!!! But
the most freaky and mesmerizing part was....THE VOICE!!!!! in between takes
Will
was speaking in the voice of ALI and it was like an exact duplication of
Ali's voice. I
felt like I was hearing a ghostly voice from the past. Will has perfected
the style, tone
and nuances of the champ. I couldn't believe my ears. It was very surreal.
I can give
you a complete report if you want, including the visual info on the other
characters --
Jamie Foxx, Mario Van Peebles, the villain in SHAFT, Giancarlo Esposito and
many
more. I can also give you some stuff on Mann. I saw the master at work
with my own
eyes. He donned the camera gear and shoot some of the sequence himself.
OK Harry I hope some of this info can help out the site.
Call meeee..........The ONE