Fri Aug 26, 2005 3:32 pm by Jason
I read the newish Ridley Scott biography, I think it was Director's Series:Ridley Scott from my library, and in a section on Blade Runner, Ridley mentioned that when he had trouble from the studio over the initial audience reaction of his rough cut ending, he figured that Kubrick had shot lots of helicopter location footage for (then recent) The Shining, so called Kubrick up as just an acquaintance, a fellow director. He stated that Kubrick was very accomodating, quickly sending piles and piles of footage, with the only restriction being not to use any footage that had been in The Shining. It was used for the ending of the initial version of Blade Runner to imply that Deckard and Rachel were escaping into the countryside (which I initially assumed was there kind of like the world in Logan's Run: Cities where most of the remnants of humanity lived while the countryside was unoccupied).
I was also very surprised to learn how large and successful RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) was as a company, employing both his sons and his brother as director/producers. He has bought the studio that he made Alien in (Pinetree Studios, I think), has offices in England, Los Angeles, and New York, and is partial owner in a new studio starting up in Canada, as well as there being divisions of RSA that handle other media. He also mentioned that while he had some interest in a BR sequel, right now he was more interested in creating a whole new Science Fiction world in a film.
Like a musician who keeps his chops up by playing with different musicians, he says he thinks that by moving to commercials when there are no movies that interest him, he keeps up with the new techniques (or invents them), and keeps from getting bored.
