Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Ringkasan cerita

Film dinarasikan oleh Lemony Snicket (Jude Law). Mengisahkan tentang Violet Baudelaire (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), dan Sunny (Kara dan Shelby Hoffman) setelah orang tua mereka tewas karena kebakaran. Ketiga bersaudara adalah anak-anak yang memiliki kemampuan yang berupa kelebihan tersendiri. Violet Baudelaire sang anak sulung, memiliki kemampuan dalam menciptakan sebuah penemuan yang unik dan bermanfaat. Klaus yang merupakan satu-satunya laki-laki dari ketiga bersaudara adalah seorang kutu buku yang selalu ingat setiap apa yang telah dibacanya. Sunny adalah yang termuda, dan memiliki kemampuan dengan giginya yang kuat.

Filming

Filming was set to begin in October 2003, but it was pushed back. Principal photography for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events began on November 10, 2003, using the sound stages and backlot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Director Brad Silberling avoided using too many digital or chroma key effects because he wanted the younger actors to feel as if they were working in a realistic environment. Olaf's mansion occupied two sound stages, while the graveyard and the ruins of the Baudelaire mansion were constructed on the Paramount backlot. After 21 weeks of shooting at Paramount, production then moved to Downey Studios, a former NASA facility, for eight more weeks. Downey housed the circular railroad crossing set complete with forced perspective scenery, as well as a newly-constructed water tank complete with over one million gallons of water. The water tank was instrumental in filming scenes at Briny Beach, Lake Lachrymose, Domocles Dock and Curdled Cave. Filming for A Series of Unfortunate Events ended on May 29, 2004.

Design

Silberling, production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood all aimed for the film's setting to be ambiguous, giving it a "timeless" feel. Heinrichs also added steampunk designs to the period. To contribute to the setting, Silberling hired Emmanuel Lubezki as the cinematographer because he was impressed with the trio's work on Sleepy Hollow.
Lubezki compared the cinematic similarities to Sleepy Hollow, notably the monochromatic look of both films. He also choose a specific color palette backdrop for A Series of Unfortunate Events. "The story is very episodic, so we picked a different color scheme for each section. For example," Lubezki continued, "Count Olaf’s house has a lot of greens, blacks and grays; the house of Uncle Monty has a lot of greens and browns and a bit of yellow; and the house of Aunt Josephine has blues and blacks." The railroad crossing set was constructed on a cyclorama, which was the most ambitious setpiece for the art department on using elements of "in house" special effects and matte paintings.
Robert D. Yeoman replaced Lubezski as cinematographer when Lubezski had to leave the production to commit to The New World. Yeoman mostly worked on the expansive harbor set at Downey. The art direction was inspired by The Night of the Hunter, which also influenced Handler for the writing of his books. Atwood commented that the Mr. Poe character was based on Edward Gorey paintings.

Visual effects

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), supervised by Stefen Fangmeier, created the film's 505 visual effects-shots. The filmmakers used as few digital effects as possible, though the train and smoke for the railroad crossing scene was entirely created using computer animation. ILM also used color grading techniques for the Lake Lachrymose scene, which required complete animation for the leeches. The digital animators studied footage of the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season to accurately depict Hurricane Herman, which was ILM's most ambitious use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) for the film.
Nexus Productions designed the opening "Littlest Elf" animated sequence by modeling it after stop motion animation and completing it with computer animation. The snakes at Uncle Monty's house were a combination of real snakes and animatronics. The animatronics, primarily the Incredibly Deadly Viper, were used as reference models that ILM later enhanced using CGI.
Because working with infants was sometimes risky in producing a film, four scenes involving Sunny Baudelaire required CGI with motion capture technology. Among these are the shot of Sunny hanging on to a table by her teeth, catching a spindle with her mouth and the scene where she is entangled with the Incredibly Deadly Viper. Animation supervisor Colin Brady used his baby daughter for motion capture recording. A remote controlled animatronic of Sunny was also designed by Kevin Yagher.

Waralaba

Paramount Pictures dan Nickelodeon Movies harap film menjadi waralaba seperti seri film Harry Potter. Jim Carrey yang diatraktkan ke film kerana dia mendapati ianya menjadi karakter waralaba berulang alik yang membenarkan setiap kali untuk pemerannya baru. "I don't have a deal [for a sequel], but it's one that I wouldn't mind doing again because there are so many characters," aktor kata pada Desember 2004. "I mean, it's just so much fun. It's so much fun being a bad actor playing a character..." Pada Mei 2005, produser Laurie MacDonald kata "Lemony Snicket is still something Paramount is interested in pursuing and we're going to be talking with them more." Pada interview Oktober 2008, Daniel Handler kata bahawa "a sequel does seem to be in the works. Paramount has had quite a few corporate shakeups, widely documented in articles I find too stupefying to finish, which has led to many a delay. Of course many, many plans in Hollywood come to naught, but I'm assured that another film will be made. Someday. Perhaps." Pada June 2009, Silberling konfirmed dia masih mencakapkan proyek dengan Handler, dan cadangkan sekuel sebagai film stop motion kerana pemeran yang bertumbuh terlalu tua. "In an odd way, the best thing you could do is actually have Lemony Snicket say to the audience, 'Okay, we pawned the first film off as a mere dramatization with actors. Now I'm afraid I’m going to have to show you the real thing.'"