minor muppetz
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2005
- Messages
- 16,071
- Reaction score
- 2,655
I have noticed something about crowd scenes, between the time when Jim Henson and alive and then afterwards. It seems like when Jim Henson was alive, there have often been really impressive crowd scenes, which required more performers than usual, and in most cases no editing was invovled with gettign all of the characters together (though there are exceptions, like the audienc eshots from The Muppet Show). The finales of The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan, and various scenes from The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years and A Muppet Family Christmas have probably scores of characters in various shots. But then after Jim Henson died it seems like ther ehaven't been any crowd scenes that were a simpressive as these. There have been big crowd scenes, but not as impressive.
I was surprised when I read about several performers being needed for the beach scene in Muppets From Space, as there didn't seem to be many big crowd shots. There was really only one wide crowd shot, when the spaceship lands, but then there were too many humans in that shot. I feel like the humans actually took attention away from the Muppets in that sequence. I think I've also read that in the big group shot at the end of the "Brick House" sequence, there was actually a shortage of performers, so some sections were matted. While that is a grea tshot, I don't think it's that big.
And in Steve Whitmire's interview at Muppet Central, he mentioned that in The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson that the ending scene had either 25 or 50 performers, but I've only counted 26 characters in the finale (of course, every time I've counted them, it's when I'm not looking at a still or video clip, and when I'm not lookign at the Mupet Wiki listing of who appears there). Of course, that set is a bit smaller than the other sets that used hundreads of characters, but I think that if Jim Henson had been in charge of that scene it would have included a lot more characters.
I was surprised when I read about several performers being needed for the beach scene in Muppets From Space, as there didn't seem to be many big crowd shots. There was really only one wide crowd shot, when the spaceship lands, but then there were too many humans in that shot. I feel like the humans actually took attention away from the Muppets in that sequence. I think I've also read that in the big group shot at the end of the "Brick House" sequence, there was actually a shortage of performers, so some sections were matted. While that is a grea tshot, I don't think it's that big.
And in Steve Whitmire's interview at Muppet Central, he mentioned that in The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson that the ending scene had either 25 or 50 performers, but I've only counted 26 characters in the finale (of course, every time I've counted them, it's when I'm not looking at a still or video clip, and when I'm not lookign at the Mupet Wiki listing of who appears there). Of course, that set is a bit smaller than the other sets that used hundreads of characters, but I think that if Jim Henson had been in charge of that scene it would have included a lot more characters.