[postlink]https://tubemagazine.blogspot.com/2009/12/mike-tysons-documentary-you-have-never.html[/postlink]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zasZ5eeV0scendofvid
[starttext]
Mike Tyson, a figure of staggering complexity and iconic impact on the
world stage, has been a friend since 1985 when he came by the set of THE
PICK UP ARTIST to meet Robert Downey. We spent hours talking-- about love,
madness, crime, sports, sex, boxing, money, and death. I was left with a
certainty that I would eventually want to use him in some future film. Fourteen
years later, I offered Tyson a role in BLACK AND WHITE which involved resisting
successive, aggressive sexual overtures by both Downey and Brooke Shields,
and, in another scene, the providing of advice to a Wu Tang Clan gangster
on murder and its possible consequences of a life in prison. Three years later, I
used Tyson again in a street scene with Neve Campbell and me in WHEN WILL
I BE LOVED.
For years I have been looking for a project that would allow for a new
form of presentation suggested by current radically shifting and radically
impatient responses to modern life and media. I wanted to make a movie
that would serve the thematic complexity and multiple layers of character
and behavior by splitting the screen into separate images moving in shape,
size, and rhythm, complicated by overlapping sources of dialogue and music.
A full portrait film with Mike Tyson as its subject not only allowed for the
exercise of that technique but actually demanded it. I approached Larry
McConkey, the world master of steadicam operators and asked him to try a
two-camera (both the Panasonic Genesis and Vericam) Hi-Def shoot of rapid
intensity. Tyson was free, willing, and--after years of vaguely planning such an
enterprise---eager.
The week passed with the expected, unexpected twists from both Tyson
and McConkey. I then set out on an eight month editorial journey into the
unknown with Aaron Yanes, a relative newcomer to editing. Together -- and
then later with Skip Lievsay and Byron Wilson, the best sound engineering
team in the universe, as well as the input of producer Damon Bingham, we all
forged something very close to what I had been dreaming of. It will be a
blessing indeed if others share the excitement as well.
James Toback
February 24, 2009
[endtext]
[starttext]
Mike Tyson, a figure of staggering complexity and iconic impact on the
world stage, has been a friend since 1985 when he came by the set of THE
PICK UP ARTIST to meet Robert Downey. We spent hours talking-- about love,
madness, crime, sports, sex, boxing, money, and death. I was left with a
certainty that I would eventually want to use him in some future film. Fourteen
years later, I offered Tyson a role in BLACK AND WHITE which involved resisting
successive, aggressive sexual overtures by both Downey and Brooke Shields,
and, in another scene, the providing of advice to a Wu Tang Clan gangster
on murder and its possible consequences of a life in prison. Three years later, I
used Tyson again in a street scene with Neve Campbell and me in WHEN WILL
I BE LOVED.
For years I have been looking for a project that would allow for a new
form of presentation suggested by current radically shifting and radically
impatient responses to modern life and media. I wanted to make a movie
that would serve the thematic complexity and multiple layers of character
and behavior by splitting the screen into separate images moving in shape,
size, and rhythm, complicated by overlapping sources of dialogue and music.
A full portrait film with Mike Tyson as its subject not only allowed for the
exercise of that technique but actually demanded it. I approached Larry
McConkey, the world master of steadicam operators and asked him to try a
two-camera (both the Panasonic Genesis and Vericam) Hi-Def shoot of rapid
intensity. Tyson was free, willing, and--after years of vaguely planning such an
enterprise---eager.
The week passed with the expected, unexpected twists from both Tyson
and McConkey. I then set out on an eight month editorial journey into the
unknown with Aaron Yanes, a relative newcomer to editing. Together -- and
then later with Skip Lievsay and Byron Wilson, the best sound engineering
team in the universe, as well as the input of producer Damon Bingham, we all
forged something very close to what I had been dreaming of. It will be a
blessing indeed if others share the excitement as well.
James Toback
February 24, 2009
[endtext]
