FILMFACTS
PRODUCTION
“
The Ultimate Experience
And ice queen Louise Fletcher
Production
Go behind the scenes on the 1983 Sci-Fi movie starring Christopher Walken, Jordan Christopher, Natalie Wood, Donald Hotton
Louise Fletcher, Alan Fudge, Cliff Robertson, Joe Dorsey, Bill Morey, Jason Lively, Darrell Larson, Lou Walker, Stacey Kuhne-Adams, John Hugh, Ira David Wood III, Keith Colbert, Jerry Bennett, Mary Fran Lyman, Jack Harmon, Nina Axelrod Update Cast
We believe the following info is all legit. If it's bogus or you have additional info, please update us.
Rewind Archive
Natalie's untimely death during production made it very difficult to finish the movie. Stand-ins and revisions were the order of the day...Thanks to Laura Grayson
I was the Body Double for Natalie Wood in the pick-up shots for the end of the movie, sadly, after she had died. I sat across Christopher Walken as he connected with what should have been Natalie Wood. It was strange and very sad...Thanks to Skyler Shirra
The film was originally conceived by director Douglas Trumbull as a showcase for a new film technology he invented called "Showscan". It's a process that uses large-format 70mm film but records and projects film at 60 frames-per-second instead of the movie standard of 24 frames.Those who have seen Showscan for themselves have said it creates an incredibly realistic looking picture, like a window into another world. It would have been used for the "mind-recorded" segments in Brainstorm in order make those scenes have a much higher impact than the rest of the film.
Unfortunately, the plans fell through to use this new film technology; the studio thought it would be too expensive to both film the movie this way, and also to install new equipment in theaters just for it's presentation. So as a compromise, the director filmed at 24fps with the special segments filmed in 70mm and surround sound effects, while everything else was filmed in regular 35mm and mono sound.
Thanks to Adam Pingel
I saw an early premier of the film where the writer was present. He gave a talk after the film on how difficult it was to finish the project after Natalie Wood's death. They enlisted Lloyd's of London to help insure the production and the crew were so grateful they all wore Lloyd's of London t-shirts.Rewind Archive
Trubull tried to garner interest in his Showscan process with movie studios. At Paramount, president Charles Bluhdorn bought in. He advised Trumbull to make a movie that was half Showscan, half normal, so that the audience could see the difference.Trumbull then adapted a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin specifically to demonstrate it. Originally titled 'The George Dunlap Tape', Rubin’s story featured around a powerful headset that allowed people to download their experiences and memories, and allowed other people to play back those sensations on tape and feel exactly like they were living it themselves.
“The story [initially] had a very big metaphysical aspect,” Rubin says. “The idea was that we were watching a tape that was being played by the machine. The machine would be looking for its creator, and that creator would be George Dunlap; it would be trying to recreate biological life at a time when all that existed were tapes playing themselves out over and over.”
Trumbull remembered: “We got into this thing, and we were all saying, Holy sh*t, this is enough for three movies. Let’s just make a movie that deals with the turbulence of the technology, before people start going solid state.” So the experience headset became the focus, and that story became Brainstorm.
All that remained was for Paramount to pull out, so Trumbull took the idea over to MGM, who revised the plot and effectively dumbed down the Showscan so that while the movie would be standard 24 fps, the headset’s effect would be shot on 70mm film, and displayed with stereo sound, versus 35mm and mono sound for the real-world sequences. It wasn’t Showscan but it was the best compromise that Trumbull could get.
Next Section: Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes
There are often scenes cut from the final version of a movie. Sometimes these will have been seen by preview audiences, or be included in Blu-ray or DVD extras etc.
The following missing scenes from Brainstorm are believed legit. If you disagree or have additional info, please update us.Rewind Archive
Several scenes were filmed involving water and, ironically, even Natalie Wood's inability to swim. Natalie was, of course, to tragically drown towards the end of production on her husbands yacht causing script changes and re-shoots.-Wood’s and Walken’s characters jump in the pool at their North Carolina home.
-During the original reconciliation sequence, their characters went out on a pond in canoes where Walken's character rocked the boat and Natalie warns him to stop, saying that she can't swim. Trumbull has since confirmed that this scene was removed out of respect for Wood.
-The scene where Walken’s character's son tries the headset and he is pulled into a nightmarish vision of his father yelling at him. Was not the original version as scripted. Jason Lively, who played the son remembers: “The trauma and the psychotic episode I had was originally them drowning in the pool,” Lively says. “I don’t know if she was in it, too, but Christopher Walken was—I was being drowned by him. That’s how it was initially going to be, but we never got to film it.”
Next Section: Alternate Versions
Alternate Versions
Sometimes, there will be several versions of a movie floating about on cable, tv or video etc. Other times, a Director may release a special cut of the movie on Blu-ray or DVD.
Aw, man.. We don't know of any alternate versions of "Brainstorm". If you know better, please add one for others to enjoy. It's quick & easy
Jump To: Filming Locations
Or use the menu to navigate
1983 MGM/UA
1999-2020 fast-rewind.com
V4_27 Powered by Rewind C21 CMS