The Art of Editing and The Snowman | Folding Ideas
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- Опубліковано 28 лют 2020
- Clickbait Title: Only 1% Can Last All Forty Minutes!
Cut example: • Mathias House Test 2 S...
The Snowman has been a bugbear on my back for years now. I first tried to make this video January 2018, but skidded out when I got distracted by Fifty Shades Freed, which inspired me to expand my already-in-the-works Fifty Shades video into a full three-part series that took most of the rest of the year to make. Then I tried again in January 2019, but things were moving along poorly, the script just wouldn't crack, and eventually I ran out of winter when I decided to Pivot to Fortnite, a video which took a huge number of hours to make. So it feels good to finally have this off my plate, even if it doesn't feel like a video that should have taken two years to come out.
To add to all that, because The Snowman is cursed, it took ten hours of revisions, fifteen different versions, to get this video past Universal, who would flag it instantly with a total global block.
Written and performed by Dan Olson
Special thanks to Kara and Crystal and all my Patrons.
Crowdfunding: / foldablehuman
Twitter: / foldablehuman - Розваги
INSPECTER HOLE? I HARDLY KNOW HER!
Sir, this is a crime scene
🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️
I giggled audibly at that line and confused my coworkers
Sir, this is an Arby's
Fine take your like.
The movie is unwatchable because of all of the plothills.
At first my inner grammar pendant got its dander up, but then I got what u did there
Plot hoolahs
This made me LOL
This is truly masterful example of “UA-cam comment as art form”!
@@liriodendronlasianthus genuinely laughed out loud.
The idea of a serial killer operating in Bergen who always leaves a snowman as a calling card is really kind of amusing if you've ever lived there. Winters in Bergen mostly consists of rain and slush, with maybe a week or two of actual snow on the ground per year. So now I'm imagining a frustrated serial killer getting more and more impatient as weeks and months go by with no snow at all. And then he has even worse days when it starts snowing, so he hurries out to find a victim, but by the time he has found one and has the opportunity to kill them, the snow has already turned to slush and he has to go home even more frustrated once again. He must spend a lot of time wondering why he decided to go with such a counter productive calling card when he operates in Bergen of all places. No wonder he relocated to Oslo if was dead set on sticking with the snowman gimmick.
LOLOLOL I LOVE THAT 🤣🤣🤣
I dated a Norwegian and the idea of a serial killer leaving snowmen all over Oslo feels like exactly the kind of joke she loved: So insular that people in the UK and US would never get it...which makes it even funnier to a Norwegian.
This is beautiful
it really adds to the way the author of the book (and scandinavian murder mystery generally) seems to approach the genre. not as gritty thrillers, but as black comedies with mystery elements
I'm late, but people in the movie don't actually learn that the serial killer leaves the snowmen as a calling card, because by the time they show up, the snowmen parts have melted. There's only one victim where they see the snowman part, however they don't make the connection and think it's a one-off.
I started reading Nesbø’s books after The Snowman (film) came out because the trailer looked interesting, and I love me some Scandinavian noir. And what kills me is-Book!Harry speaks English fluently, guys. He knows how English speakers pronounce his name, and he knows exactly why it sounds weird and funny, and at several points in at least the first book, he expresses irritation and upset at having it mispronounced *that way*. AND YOU WANT TO TELL ME THE FILMMAKERS LET THIS CHARACTER SPEND TWO HOURS RUNNING AROUND CALLING HIMSELF HAIRY HOLE. I hate this.
wut r u serious??
in the words of hbomb: "HOW DID U FUCK IT UP THIS BAD"
Elvella Rambles I am absolutely 100% serious, and I have no clue why this was allowed.
@@elvellarambles9151 The running joke is that he prefers when they mispronounce it "Holy" instead.
Inspector Harry Hole.
@@elvellarambles9151 ask m. Night shamalan about Ahhhhhhhhng (Aang, The Last Airbender)
"hello, moe's tavern"
"is detective hole there?"
"who?"
"hole. first name: harry"
"[sigh] okay i'll check. HEY HAS ANYONE SEEN HARRY HOLE? I'M LOOKIN' FOR HARRY HOLE!"
"INSPECTER HARRY HOLE!!"
....
"Alright, listen, you little bastard...."
Hugh Jass
@@mathieuleader8601 Moe: Okay, Bart, I know that's you. Nobody in the world could possibly be named Harry Hole.
Michael Fassbender: Right here, Moe. *takes phone
"someone check the men's room for a harry hole"
7:23 "Ah. The GREAT Harry Hole".
'Harry Hole' will never stop being funny to me, but realising now that they CHOSE to name him that, despite having perfectly valid options to NOT name him 'Harry Hole', makes it about 100X funnier.
Blane “this film is gonna suck anyways, may as well have fun with it”
@@ChristieBrewster i barely know 'er!
I'm just imagining being someone in the audience who just watched a trailer and is expecting a tense, even scary thriller, and bam the hero's name is Harry Hole
"Dirty Harry (Hole)"
Blane Especially when you consider that the author was ABUNDANTLY AWARE of how ridiculous it is with an English pronunciation.
The first book is set in Australia, and has Harry CONSTANTLY correcting people about the pronunciation of his name, after they universally chuckle at the name “Harry Hole”.
The Snowman is actually brilliant if you view it through the lens of a story about a killer who dismembers bodies, so they chose to represent that with a film composed of dismembered shots.
Tomas Alfredsson: 🎵 “Do you want to build a Snowman?” 🎵
Working Title: “........eh.”
Would’ve been cool if true, but that’s giving the filmmakers too much credit
that's giving the studio way too much credit for doing a half-baked job 😭 love the idea though
This guy gets it!
That's is on a galaxy brain level rivaled only by Tommy Wisseau retroactively claiming the room was a comedy.
Netflix hyping this movie up brought me back here. I would like to add that according to wikipedia, the editors for this film were Thelma Schoonmaker and Claire Simpson. To put that in perspective, Schoonmaker has been Martin Scorcese's editor for over 40 years. Every film since Raging Bull. This is the woman who edited Goodfellas, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, so on. She's won three Oscars. Simpson is is the editor behind Platoon, which she won an Oscar for. These are editors who regardless of if you like the films they have worked on, are objectively competent, have demonstrated talent, are experienced, and know how to put together a damn film. So the fact that THEY couldn't salvage this film points to bigger problems, such as the shooting schedule, cinematography, direction, the fact that they dropped some 15% of the script, the budget...
I guess what I'm trying to say is this is REALLY bad for a commercially released film, right. If two people who are considered talented editors couldn't save this film or at least make it less nonsensical, what was going on behind the scenes was probably unfathomably awful. Like, did the DP consider how their shots would actually look? Were these the only usable takes? Was production so rushed that nobody gave a shit?
As an editor, this film is the stuff of nightmares.
Why do Dutch people have such silly names like “schoonmaker”
The two of them are just sitting there, staring at the pitiful amount of footage, saying to themselves, "How the fuck are we going to make a movie out of this?"
I think if I was a professional editor with half the career of either of these two women, I'd tender my resignation out of the belief I'd been handed an impossible task to insult me, underpay me, humiliate me, or any combination of the three.
Fun fact, the snowman is the SEVENTH part in a series of books. Wonderful place to start the story.
Well, James Bond started with the 6th.
I mean, this is nowhere near as good as even the worst Bond film, but still...
apparently they thought they could Star Wars it
It's less weird if it's like most detective stories, where the books don't have, like, an overarching plot but are instead a series of "detective shows up, solves crime, end" stories.
Which, I mean, I have no idea if that's the case, but that's how Sherlock works!
@@davidcolby167 these books are very connected tho, starting with the snowman makes no sense if you read the books, which is why the movie is very different from the book
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon starts at part 5 I believe
In a better timeline, the movie would have been the best version it could be, the Greatest Snowman.
I laughed. Kudos.
Me too😄
Ayyyyyyyyyyyy
Think of how great this movie would have been as a musical 😂
that genuinely made me laugh out loud
"Cutting things up into little pieces, that's what a child does to establish order." (Shows shot of sausage cut up.) I love this line, because it's so stupid. A child doesn't cut up their food to establish order. Their parents cut it up so the kid doesn't choke.
Also, from many moons of personal experience with nephews, kids do not value any form of order. Control, maybe, power, sure. But kids seem to desire only chaos. If anything, order angers them greatly.
Or maybe I’ve just been unlucky.
halokon I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
It’s not so much that kids crave chaos as they have a tendency to reject authority.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Yea that's not my experience with children at all. Anyway, it's not the point. Kids don't cut up their own food at all. They are much more likely to cram whatever they can in their mouths and possibly choke...which is why parents cut up their food.
It's not a rejection of authority or a craving for chaos. It's the inability to see consequences from their actions. That is learned. Anyway, none of these comments change the underlying fact that the line in the film is moronic.
Ocrilat The rejecting authority thing didn’t have anything to do with the food, but you got my point.
Actually I think taking things apart and sorting things are pretty universal styles of solo play... obviously doesn’t appeal to every kid, but unstructured space for sorting is integral to designing any play space that you actually want to be kid-driven (and of course many adults also enjoy such hobbies). Like leave a kid alone outside, and guaranteed most of them start collecting and sorting ‘cool things’
"it's not a game of cat and mouse, but a game of a plastic surgeon recklessly murdering a whole bunch of people, and the police who are too stupid to catch him because they don't bother to collect evidence" actually sounds like a very realistic depiction of serial killers
But that’s not fun to watch, is it?
If I wanted to see a bunch of incompetent idiots with guns trip on themselves trying to stop a different incompetent idiot from stabbing people because he hates women, I’d watch the news.
@@shadowwolf9955 If you know anything about Joon-Ho’s politics, you’ll know he’d tend to agree with me.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick yes? That's what the movie is about? Hence why I mentioned it? I'm not sure why you're being so confrontational or condescending.
@@shadowwolf9955 1. You started it.
2. I know it’s compelling. I’ve seen it. It’s good. Doesn’t take away from my point.
Reminds me of a meme I saw somewhere (maybe on Voice Quills). It goes like this:
"Crime TV series: the killer was only caught because of cutting edge technologies and intense investigative work.
True crime documentaries: despite the constant complaints from neighbors, it took police five months to finally investigate the rotting smell coming from the killer's apartment"
If only the killer had met his own Anastasia Steele to save him from his need to punish women that remind him of his dead mom...
Maybe E.L.James read something like this and thought:"I'll make this better by taking out the murders and putting in kinky sex instead." A lot of films could be improved.
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs It'd be like the "in bed" thing
He's not rich and hot, so it's not acceptable
This made me lol
@@dawnlandspodcast8217 damn bro y so salty did your mom fell into the ice too?
“I don’t really have a point here, but it is very funny” - me at 6am after pulling an all nighter running out of things to say in an analytical paper that’s due in two hours
I'm going to start ending my work emails and presentations with this.
edit: Actually, this is my new email signature.
sian g kim Me, at 3am, writing a perceived literary masterpiece that I will inevitably realise is actually garbage and that I wasted 5 hours writing last night
what was that, 'i'm in this picture and i don't like it'?
Wyrdangus god, this comment is such a mood.
+
The police not collecting any evidence really gives "Mister Police you could have saved her I gave you all the clues" a new meaning
The Serial Killer was not taunting the police. He was begging them to do their jobs.
@@kategrant2728 Doing some quick research about the novel, apparently in the novel the killer was dying and wanted to be caught and killed, which actually makes this oddly appropriate.
Gibus Wearing Mann It’s like how the Riddler would act in a world without the Batman.
“Like...C’MON! At least TRY to play along! Please? Is there ONE of you that won’t ruin my fun?!”
Wasn't that a Mitchell and Webb sketch?
"Mister Police I literally left my DNA at the crime scene"
- Can I keep this?
- No.
*exact same tone* - Can I keep this?
- Shit, you are really convincing. Yeah, sure.
Reloading when you fail a speech check
I think it was an acting mistake. Or they were filming options, so an editing mistake.
Jumba: "Wwwhhaaatttt? After all you've put me through, you expect me to let you go just like that? Jjjjjuuusssstttt like THAT?"
Stitch: "Ih."
Jumba: "Ok."
Pleakley: "Really? We're doing what he says?"
Jumba: "He is *very* persuasive."
@@mads_in_zero Disco Elysium be like
I implore you to reconsider
The irony of the studio that made this being called "Working Title" is just amazing.
You mean "the fucking perfection"
They also made Cats, think about that.
@@thallesregis they made a lot of really great films in the 90s, used to be a venerable production company. Not so much now.
@@jcardboard They did let Edgar Wright make Baby Driver.
Ethan Latinum That isn’t ironic. I believe the word you were referring to was “entirely expected.”
Me: Okay I'm gonna be mature, I won't laugh about any juvenile jokes about "Harry Hole"
Lady in movie: I have a message for Inspector Hole.
Me: Hehe 'inspect her hole'.
“The Great Harry Hole” got me really good too.
He is FBI... Female Body Inspector
INSPECT HER HOLE? I HARDLY KNOW HER
@@bozotheclown1142 Or a Federal Boob Inspector. Equal opportunity and all.
I hardly even know 'er!
Fun story: the entire Norwegian tax incentive foundation by the state was created because of this film since it was to be shot in Stockholm due to the tax reductions... We needed this in Oslo and the state finally got their fingers out of their asses. Every filmworker in Norway was on this film and it's such a trainwreck. Everyone smokes inside (which is illegal), towards the end Hole drives from Oslo to Telemark (in 2 minutes) and crossing the atlantic road in between (which is in a different part of the country, I guess it was a demand for tourist attraction) and they all pronouce their names in such a bizarre way. I guess it was a sign of failure when author Jo Nesbø went climbing instead of attending the premiere and saying that it was not his story to the newspapers.
+
If I were Jo Nesbø, I would’ve not attended the premiere either. And he had every right to dislike the finished film as it spits on the source material with plenty of the changes made; thankfully the main plot is kept intact and included the characters within that narrative but woefully painful to watch
@@LucyLioness100 Not that it sounds like the source material is all that great to begin with
I remember we got a mail through work where we could apply as extras. I was a freelance animator at the time working on another movie, so I didn't... even though I probably wouldn't have been picked, I'm glad my face is not shown in this movie : )
And it was directed by a Swede just as to spite Norway
„Can I keep this?“
„No“
Literally 5 seconds pass
„Can I keep this?“
„Sure“
Guess the writer wasn‘t in the mood to write any sort of scene
It's like austin powers, except you only need to ask him twice, instead of three times.
It's like Skyrim or fallout, you fail to persuade so you quick load right before so you ask again and it works.
This'll be what movies are like when AI starts making all our art for us.
I was shocked they actually filmed that as is. Those actors looked absolutely defeated with that dialogue
It's like he forgot the line and said no, and then the other actor just did the line over again to let him get it right, but they forgot to remove the first take when they were editing the final cut.
"It's actually a sad, evil snowman. BWAAH" Love it.
CACKLED at that reveal
It was one of my "had to rewind it and watch it again because I was laughing too hard and missed the rest" moments.
snowman w three layers = good, creative product of child
snowman w two layers = evil, serial killer calling card
good to know
29:46 if you need to rewatch it to death
Aw, he looks so sad with his bumpy nose and little stick arms reaching up for a hug!
the thing that kills me about kilmer is that . . . detectives get throat cancer too? if you're going to cast him, then just give the character the same backstory and let him talk at the pace that works for him. it doesn't seem that complicated, except for ableism and everything
I mean, yes, the things you say are true. But also, this is a movie, the audience needs to be able to understand what the character is saying, so I can see why they'd want to touch up the audio at least a little.
@@timothymclean i mean honestly at that point better to add subtitling than overexert an actor literally recovering from cancer. though i guess the editors for this movie were already going insane so idk how feasible it really was
As a disabled person, I get it, but also, no, that doesn't work for making a movie for non-ableist reasons and to pretend not to understand that (which I'm not... necessarily saying you're doing) is disingenuous.
@@P-nk-m-na ...okay I'm confused... you do realize that making him eke out any kind of vocal performance _is_ overexertion, right (ETA: I majored in music ed, vocal emphasis. I can _professionally_ guarantee you that yes, it is overexertion for him to speak at all.)? (ETA: yes, it seems obvious in hindsight that that is what you were saying lol) The easiest thing is to just let him lipsync. I'm not even sure why we're assuming this was a directorial decision. They could have just... not hired Val Kilmer. I'm not saying he asked for the VOs, but it would be very silly to assume he wouldn't want that and fight on his behalf when it's perfectly possible that he chose it. Don't limit the choices of disabled people to what _you_ think is appropriate (this is still aimed at the OP lol, sorry). Like why would he want to talk in the first place? I'm not sure if that's what you meant, the thesis of your comment was unclear to me haha
@@joshyoung1440 i mean yeah that is true, but going even further is still *worse,* though i do agree that at they shoulda either had him mouth dialogue and get a different voice actor to dub him over or just....not cast him at all
edit oops i only scanned your comment at first and you already covered pretty much all i said, sorry
What Dan fails to mention is that after the:
"Can I keep these?"
"No."
"Can I keep these?"
"*sigh* Yeah, sure."
scene it cuts to a scene in which *SPOILERS*
Michael Fassbender breaks into Rebecca Ferguson's house, FUCKING BODY SLAMS her to the ground, then pins her down while she cries about her murdered father.
It's the wildest, out of nowhere, 3 beat vibe switch I've ever seen in cinema.
You cannot just write a bombshell like that and not at least try to explain why Fassbender did so.
@@youtube-kit9450I have watched this movie twice and I’m still not entirely sure. It seems to be because he just found out she is Rafto’s daughter and has a personal interest in the case, but I don’t see how it warranted that reaction
@@youtube-kit9450 afterwards, he takes her gun and badge. also then she tells him he has no balls and hands him more vodka
@@youtube-kit9450 I rewatched it btw, and when he goes to her apartment to question her, she actually attacks him first
This and the Suicide Squad video are heavy in my comfort video rotation. There's something so soothing about the calm, reasoned assurance that things can and should make sense.
Yup, I think I've watched this one 10 times or more.
he has that professor cadence no matter what he's talking about, it's great
I just like watching him pretend to chug cough syrup tbh
@@RozWBrazel nobody can say "and its very funny" in reference to Harry Hole quite as seriously
This.
The only complain I have is the sudden volume change during the concert scene. Otherwise the video is so comforting that I often fall asleep with it as a background noise 😌
"On my seventh viewi-"
*W H A T?*
It was barely worth 1 viewing. I got bored so quickly I nearly quit, but forced myself to just keep watching. I can’t imagine how much the actors had to have hated sitting through it in the premiere or dailies
@@LucyLioness100 There are people in the world who drink their own piss. This is just a bit worse.
What, do you think Dan sits down in front of a movie once with a notebook in hand to ding every little "plot hole" he notices? Even a literal film professional like him has to watch a movie multiple times to produce this kind of analysis.
I still can't believe they went with the english pronunciation of Hole's name.
They should have used the original version. Which in turn would guarantee that we, over here, would get to hear the original version in the theaters))) Cause in Russian original version sounds even worse - Harry What-the-fuck (хуля) lol
The author intentionally chose a name that sounded awkward in English, the tone of the books that are darkly humorous. The problem is not so much the name but that the film plays it straight - as with the snowman thing. It’s MEANT to be ott but the film doesn’t seem to realise that...
Coupled with his first name it's hard to take the movie seriously anytime it comes up.
And it's not like Americans havent heard last names with weird ass pronunciations. Fuck, HALF of us have weird ass last names. _I_ have a weird ass last name.
If they had gone for Harry Hill that would have also been hilarious for UK release (we have a British comedian called Harry Hill)
@@kathrynmiller4240 So? It's still not meant to be pronounced in English, but Norwegian. It would have made it a little less bad
the snowman drawing makes me lose it each time i see it... it looks like the hot choclety milk spider
LMAO 😭😭
Omg that's what I was thinking of
STOP THATS WHY I RECOGNISED IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It’s a small detail, but can we talk about how hilariously buck wild the Anglicization choices in this movie are? Like, they’re not going to change Harry Hole’s name to something that doesn’t sound like an innuendo in English, but they *are* going to change tram line 18’s final stop from Rikshospitalet (which it is in real life) to Oslo Hospital because *god forbid the audience sees or hears a single Norwegian word in this movie that takes place in Norway*
This is made even worse by the fact that Oslo Hospital IS a stop on the tram, but it's not even on the Rikshospitalet line - it's on line 13 and 19.
@@Nazgyi love this. I love that this movie is the reason why i’m learning about Norway
The "Mister Police" poster gets a lot of attention, deservedly, for being dreadful, but the main poster with Fassbender walking through the snow deserves some attention too. Because it features the real tagline for the film:
Soon the first snow will fall, and the hunt for a killer begins.
The tagline for this film changes tense midway through.
Amazing.
It's so *easy* to fix, too!
Wow thats hilarious
The "Mister Police" line was poetry, don't deny it. He gave you all the clues.
wow aha, edited weird sentence was marketing by.
I know. It should say "the hunt for a killer will begin" or "The first snow falls"
Something I just noticed:
In the scene where they added the extra dialogue with the girl to explain she didn't make the snowman, they used the exact same footage of Harry twice. First time it was just slightly zoomed in.
Wow.
And his reaction to the revelation that the snowman weren't being made by the girl doesn't make any sense, making it even more noticeable that it's repeat footage.
As a sometimes cartoonist, I unironically love the snowman drawing from the poster. Its little constipated face makes me smile. A+, would use as my userpic.
As a mostly sane human, I am perplexed by the presence of an adorable little puppy in a building that is getting fumigated. And nobody in the scene seems concerned? Like?? I have questions.
I mean, apparently nobody even cares about shooting at people or being shot at at random, so in this perverse universe yeah.
It kinda reminds me of TBH.
@@goosegas2087
Autism Snowman!
As a Norwegian, I just want to comment that the color grade from the trailer is so much more realistic.
When you are out in the snow, in the norwegian woods, in the evening, it is really blue.
This seems to be a creative decision, even if its a bad one.
One of the things I loved from the American "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was the blue hue everything had.
I don't know why, but I just love that color tone.
Not a Norwegian, but this is something I've witnessed too. It's awesome and beautiful.
Yeah up north the shadows are just blue and it's weird to imagine that other places don't have that
Sounds nice!
That's surprising to hear, I always assumed it was a cheap visual shorthand for "cold place", similarly to how scenes in Mexico or Africa are often graded a harsh orange.
"every time I watch it"
Dude, why are you doing this to yourself?
It’s for the greater good.
For us. *sniffle* For us, man.
“The seventh time...”
Morbid fascination
@@lizzard3434 The Greater Good.
THE DAY LONG PROPHESIED HAS ARRIVED.
Yeah I ain’t liking keep it this way
Kinda disappointed this entire review wasn't shot from the perspective of the Folding Ideas puppet as he's listening to you talk.
That would have been amazing! So perfect
Through a window
@@emmy8526 and slowly panning the entire time
“so now I sound like Sly Stallone on quaaludes” god I love val kilmer
I wanted to like this comment but you had 123 likes and my mind can't deal with messing that up. You get a written like instead :)
In terms of cinematic language, the Snowman is wingding
I miss these "Art of Editing" videos! If Dan decided to make more of them I would EAT IT UP
I understand why he doesn't though. He wants to make sure his content isn't becoming too copy paste, and I'm confident after a bit that he'll move from grifts to something else, heck the World of Warcraft video shows that he's already deviating from strictly grift based content
As a viewer, it's understandable to miss certain kinds of content, but when you actually make content, a lot of the time it can start feeling like a copy paste process
My theory for the colors being muted is that it makes it easier to cut together unrelated scenes, because lighting discrepancies wouldn't be as noticeable. I've heard Escape from Tomorrowland was black and white so they could be more flexible in what times of day they "sneakily" shot their film inside Disney parks.
Oh my god, that shot of Harry seemingly opening a rolling door to get in the cabin still has the car’s mirror from the trailer shot
Thought the exact same thing! Weird that Dan didn't say that out loud.
I mean, are we even sure that those shots are supposed to preserve continuity? I just find it hard to believe that, no matter how much of a bind they were in, they would put those together and say “yeah, that works.”
I remember seeing a review article for The Snowman titled something like "The Main Character of *The Snowman* is named Harry Hole and Things Only Get Worse from There," and honestly? Titles don't get much stronger than that
There are like so many other issues here that you missed. The biggest problem for me is the conceptual choice to have the opening scene where it is at all. The scene clearly operates as a backstory for the young boy who loses his mother. So it stands to reason that the mystery the filmmakers intended was to give the audience the question: Who is this young boy?...
But instead, it ends with the scene ending and going straight to the introduction of Harry Hole, where the *first* shot we're introduced to is a bottle of alcohol, implying alcoholism, implying some sort of trauma or "dark backstory". Linking those scenes back-to-back creates the ambiguous idea that the boy *might* be Harry and we're learning about his tragedy as a kid. Because the movie doesn't clarify this early on, I spent the first 10 minutes not being engaged by the mystery of the identity of this kid, but instead being confused by Harry's character and trying to work out the kinks of the film.
Actually this is why I think you're right about an earlier more elaborate title sequence being scrapped: I think they added an elongated moment of black and redid a short credits sequence to try to separate the two shots(The Wide Mountain Range Shot and the Shot of Harry's hand holding the alcohol) as far away as possible to mitigate that idea that this might be a backstory that explains Harry.
Anyway, I love that the Snowman exists. It's such weird mess of a film. It *almost* gets away with being this completely broken movie that audiences sort of just dismiss as a dull and lifeless noir-story, but all the little details reveal a much more intricate failure of a production.
I came to the conclusion that the boy in the opening scene was Harry because that's what the editing told me. I'm glad someone else pointed this out.
Damn, didn't watch the film and from this video I assumed exactly what you pointed the editing made you think
Not helped by the fact that this reading is supported by his maybe biological son subplot making it look like part of his conflict is the fear that he will do the same as his abusive father and........ and we just made a better movie didn't we?
@@locuas5601 Yes. You did.
It literally took me close to a dozen viewings of this film to understand what the point of the cold open was and I only just understood that it's the killer's backstory as I was watching it now...
People look at me and they see a happy, smiling snowman :)
If they really knew me, they’d see I’m really a sad, frowny snowman :(
Inside everyone, there are two snowmen
BWHAAAAOO
Film editor here. While, like you, I do not know the story behind this production, I can tell you that there has been this weird trend of directors falling in love with ungraded footage. At least for a lot of people I know, it drives us insane (particularly the cinematographers). I think it comes from them either watching dailies without a LUT, or sometimes (although usually rare) we'll create transcodes without a LUT and edit with the flat footage, and after seeing the film that way for so long they fall in love with that look. Or maybe they think it makes their film more artistic... I don't know. I once had a director tell me he doesn't like deep color and a lot of contrast and I was like... great.
As a side note, the moving shots you pointed out in the beginning are a thorn in my side. I've been given many scenes where the camera is moving for no other reason than "just because." Like they thought the scene would be boring without it. Even worse is when it's intentional, but without regard to editing. My favorite is when, after you hear "cut," someone will say "I think that'll cut great" and you're sitting there with the footage, at a loss for what to do because hardly any of the setups cut together smoothly. Unless you have a true concept of how movement works with the eye and how things cut together (or if there is a direct intention to it like dramatizing a line/emotion/etc), don't do it. While I understand not a lot of people necessarily enjoy the editing process (it can get *very* tedious), I think more people from production need to understand what their choices look like when assembled in the edit.
Thanks for the insight!
Video/commercial director here, I had a long phase where I was intensely in love with the look of ungraded footage and would constantly get into fights with editors and DOPs over color grading. At some point, during a period of not working on anything I snapped out of it and now I have no idea what I was thinking. I know that I thought the graded footage looked garish and cartoony to me and that I didn't like how there was less visual information in the image when the contrast was higher, but I don't understand how the ungraded footage looked appealing to me.
EDIT: after rereading your comment I can confirm that for me the factor was definitely getting used to the raw look during the edit.
I wonder if the reasoning behind that is the film parallel to the reasons behind what's called the "7th gen piss filter", referring to the tendency for the 7th generation of video games to include low-saturation, brown/yellow-biased filters over the in-game graphics (like sepia, but worse.)
@@caramelldansen2204 "Weren't you aware? Real is brown." - VG Cats, on the notorious "Call of Duty Brown" look.
@@noesunyoutuber7680 Seriously. It's almost like giving the most culturally-isolated, bourgeois elements of society complete, irrevocable, dictatorial control over the vast majority of media is a bad idea, and that working people who know what they're doing should direct films, TV and games.
The UA-cam artifacts on my phone make it appear that there is a large, moving white circle looming over his right shoulder, like a malevolent, faceless, decapitated snowman.
BWAAH
"Harry Hole" isn't the hero we need. He's the one we deserve.
He has Fassbender's face so he's probably MORE than we deserve
You know a film is doomed when an editor like Thelma Schoonmaker can't save it.
I've been waiting for someone to mention her. It blows my mind :/
WHAT THE F*CKING F*CK I had no idea. How could Thelma Schoonmaker have worked on this mess ?????
For anyone not knowing she is Martin Scorsese's editor and basically his left brain.
"The Snowman" is a guilty pleasure for me. It's pieced together so bafflingly, and features such bizarre filmmaking choices, I can't help but be fascinated.
For example, there's a scene where the camera deliberately shows us that one of the murder suspects (the doctor who's involved in sex trafficking) has painted toenails. What relevance does this have to the plot? What is it meant to say about the character? Absolutely nothing. It's just there for the sake of being weird. The whole movie is like that-- littered with random WTF moments, to the point of being comically absurd.
That must have been something cut, but even then, it's sooo cheap. Oh, he has painted toe-nalis - dam, dam DAAAAM!
This is sad because Jo Nesbo is a really good writer, and now I doubt we will ever see another adaptation - Redbreast would be perfect fit for a movie, and socially relevant as it's about neo-nazi violence.
This movie is honestly an all-timer in terms of squandered potential.
Fun fact, or possible fact, if I'm not mistaken: The concert they go to is Slipknot in the book.
I think in the book Oleg also calls the band Slayer kinda lame lmao
@@angusmcanus914 Yeah they talk about Slayer, but I think the concert is Slipknot.
That is correct. I don't know what the fuck that concert was in the movie. Haha!!
Out of all the changes, that one was one of the more bothersome ones. I liked how in the book Henry has a solid relationship with Oleg while in the movie, it's the typical "Dad is out of touch with his kid and does not know how to take care of them" cliche.
The Man Who Can Climb Anything, himself?
The band who can climb anything.
This movie is one of the only extremely bad movies I’ve seen that I was completed unprepared for. I had finished a work shift around noon coincidentally near a cinema. I figured, hey, let’s not waste it. I went in to watch whatever the next movie was. It was The Snowman. Dan doesn’t talk about the scene that stayed with me the most in how indescribable and incomprehensible it is.
Katrine is spying on JK Simmons in a theatre(maybe?). Creepy doctor introduces a woman to Simmons. Simmons strips her, takes her photo and loudly insults the doctor. I had no idea why. All this happens while the film seems to imply Katrine is 10 feet away in the open, holding up her big tablet. I just found it baffling not only in how bad the editing within the scene was, but how disconnected it was from everything else.
I’m about as far from a professional editor as it is possible to be, but I’m glad my instincts were not wrong!
The use of shots through dirty windows is a metaphor for the audience's relationship to understanding the film. This is why it's needed pervasively, because the audience never knows what the heck is going on.
As someone who knows nothing of cinematography and editing beyond what it takes to make shitty videos, these types of talks are super fascinating to me, good work
Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you
Your comment as a nobody sure means a lot to someone with a lot of subscribers :) he definitely read your comment :)
@@alexradice8163 aw thanks
@@alexradice8163 huh???????? idk if you are being passive agressive or youre just genuinely rude by lack of touch but why would you reply this to someone for literally no reason
Same, im just sitting here like " I like your funny words magic man!" 😂
23:18 WHAT THE HELL I AM ON THE GROUND IN TEARS WHAT WAS THAT CUT
That singer is saying what we're all thinking
Wait is that in the movie?! I thought it was a joke!
:DDD
I honestly thought that was Dan dubbing over the shot for humor... but no, it’s even more glorious than that. It’s real.
Someone at work got me the tickets
*smash cut to*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
A film editing class's final project could be just trying to make a coherent film out of The Snowman by re-editing it an maybe adding some stock footage or title cards as placeholders. This is a film that needs to be studied by all film students. It's the perfect lesson of what not to do.
You did a great job proving your point about ADR: I was looking down at my desk and writing a note when you switched from "live" to "dubbed", and I immediately looked up at the computer screen because the change in sound quality was so obvious.
"On the seventh watch thru " You are braver than us for suffering thru the maze again and again
The number blindsided me. Then I was blindsided from the other side by a fairly important fact being whispered in one sentence one time.
Unironically braver than the troops.
It’s like the DP of the Snowman saw the Every Frame a Painting video that called out the excessive, unmotivated slider shots in The Avengers and said “oh you ain’t seen *nothing* yet”
The Invisible Man: *releases to critical acclaim*
Trailer for upcoming Candyman: *causes horror fans to shout with glee and excitement*
Dan: No guys, I REALLY don't think you've fully grasped how terrible The Snowman is yet.
oh my god I first watched this movie almost a couple years ago now, and went in knowing nothing about any of these production problems, so it was such a mindfuck. Including knowing nothing about Val Kilmer's illness, in the moment I was so baffled why I was hearing a voice that was very obviously NOT Val Kilmer supposedly coming out of his mouth.
I lived in Norway for a year, and Jo Nesbø became like a meme to myself and my friends because every time we went to the supermarket, we'd see his book called "Kniv," which literally translates to "Knife," and I don't know why but that cracked me up every time.
The video: Serious thoughts about editing.
Me, apparently a 12-year-old: "Hehe! Hairy Hole!"
Apparently Jo Nesbø picked the name to sound awkward in English on purpose, because as mentioned, they're black comedies.
"Beavis, this movie is about a guy named Hairy Hole." "Yeah? Yeah!"
His name is sort of a running joke in the books, especially in the first two, and whenever he gets smashed and wakes up in foreign countries.
To be fair, the video is like that too.
The whole movie I thought that Harry was the one who’s mother had died in the car, so the whole time I was trying to figure out what that contributed to the plot and his behaviour. I was basically slightly confused the entire
movie. Do y’all know if that was a deliberate mislead or was it just more weird editing? Like when they went from the flashback straight to Harry’s hand I was like okay this is the same person. I assume that was deliberate but it was also a really annoying choice because it made the plot not make sense in a weird way VS. A good mystery way. Did anyone else feel similarly?
You were confused by a plot point that was accidentally there due to the incompetence of Tomas Alfredson, which is even funnier since it's more or less the only plot point in the film.
It may have been an attempt to mislead in a competently done movie. But the movie is so incomplete we will probably never know.
I haven't seen the movie but the meaning I got from the clips is that the child is Harry and the prologue is the traumatic event/indicative of a difficult childhood that contributed to his alcoholism
However, his alcoholism doesn't seem to have much to do with the plot, does he ever struggle to solve the case because he's drunk/hungover/mistrusted due to his excessive drinking?
@@marias-i3333 Well, the child in the prologue wasn't Harry anyway, the child was the killer. It's not your fault you got confused there...a lot of people did, including me, at first.
@@Ocrilat Is it Tomas's fault or the studio's?
This video is a better crime thriller of gathering the clue and constructing a plausible timeline of events that explain the horrific murder and motivation of the culprit than the snowman. The only scene missing is the producer breaking down crying and confessing the last detail of the botched editing before being hauled to jail.
Two Oscar-winning editors worked on "The Snowman".
Think about that.
Even Babe Ruth missed 65.8% of the pitches he swung at.
A new Folding Ideas Video Essay?
It's been 84 years...
It's only been two months. But then again, the months are getting longer in this hell timeline.
“Can I keep this?”
‘No’
“Can I keep this?”
‘Okay sure’
I thought he said 'No' because someone was in earshot of their conversation at first but then agreed when they left and I was like ah clever. Instead the opposite happens and the woman in the background is closer to them when he agrees. Now i just think that this is just a fun game they play with each other when one of them asks the other to make a cup of tea or something and its been taken to extremes.
Honestly this reminds me of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, where it was intentionally a joke:
"There's no way we can help you now."
"I urge you to reconsider."
"Mm, OK."
In all honesty for British viewers “Harry Hill” would be a LOT more jarring as that is the name of an absurdest family friendly British comedian which would have the same tonal vibes as that snowman with the sad face
I both cannot possibly give credit to the idea that a decision of such gravity was made with the U.K. audience in mind, and yet can not imagine any better reason for why the direct translation wasn't chosen.
"which is better, 'mister police' or a crap drawing of a snowman? there's only one way to find out: FIIIGHT!!!"
I am kind of baffled by that because "Harry Hill" is such a generic-sounding name. It's not like Noel Edmonds.
Working Title, is a British company but so many other nationalities worked on this. Couldn't they find a name that didn't sound funny in any country? Harry House? Harry Hall? Harry Hale? Harry Hope?
@@soupalex I have been hunting for a FIIIIIGHT Harry Hill joke and you have provided us with one. Bless you.
"Aboot" is often the go-to signifier of a Canadian accent, but Dan's videos make a strong case for using the hard-e pronunciation of words like "bEEn".
"Bohrrow" as well
@Amber T OH, do Americans say it like "bin"? Every once in a while I see Americans point out a Canadian accent and it takes me a moment to be like "But that's just how we say that word" because a lot of "standard" U.S. American accents are close enough to many Canadian ones that I don't notice the differences most of the time.
Do you also hear him make "both" sound a little like "bolth"?
It’s the “burry” for me
@@mastermarkus5307 yep. We say it like “bin.”
Phonetically “bean” makes more sense tho.
I went to school with the guy that played Oleg and yes I did spend the whole video watching for the obligatory moment I could go 'I know that guy omg'
He's really nice btw :P
Aw, good for him! Hope he’s well :)
The fact that some names in the film (e.g. Aasen, Dahl) are NOT pronounced in an anglicised way, makes me suspect that someone looked at the name Harry Hole and recognised the enormous B movie potential in lines like "Ah, the great Harry Hole", and that pronouncing it correctly ("hoo-leh") would be a waste :v
His name seems like they randomly kept one of the black comedy elements from the novel for the hell of it
@@KeyLimeadeish Or set up a joke and forget to put in the punchline.
I think this is more incompetence in the casting of swedish, english and american actors, directed by a swedish director but controlled by an english producer - long story short, it's a complete mess.
you have to be right. in no world was any english speaking person going to accidentally publish a movie starring inspector harry hole
Michael Fassbender really needs to fire his agent. He is a phenomenal actor and it's a shame he has been wasted in so many awful films in recent years.
The “turning plate to reveal disconnected sausage” shot needs to be a gif
love how dan calls looking at the trailers "forensics" cause this video is like an autopsy of the film 🤣
Honestly, whenever I watch something that goes deep into editing or other such filmmaking topics that are in the vein of "you only notice it if something goes wrong" I'm honestly baffled that any movies can get made at all.
I've dabbled enough in filmmaking that I actually lol'd at the absolute insanity of trying to shoot a whole ass feature film in the fucking snow on a 30 day schedule, I'm 2 minutes in and I can already see where this is going haha
I've got a theory as to their colour grade issues. Often a DP will make a LUT to be used as a guide before production begins, but this was probably skipped during preproduction due to time constraints. As a result, the proxies they generated for the edit probably were also in log.
There's a pretty consistent sentiment from cinematographers that you don't provide a log image for the edit as the grade will suffer from the director's bias towards the log image that they've been staring at for hundreds of hours. The production company that cut the trailer was probably even given the footage without a LUT / grade guidelines, thus creating the disparity in grade between trailer and release.
I know the killer is the villain and all, but still, that motivation and reason for selecting victims is a GIANT woof.
If motivations for serial killers in stories like this made sense, it wouldn't be a mystery because it would be too obvious.
I mean yes, very weird the detective lady texts his son: but also it bothers me a lot that it's like "oh time to leave" and then Harry's like "oh well leave it to the morning" once they've dropped off his son.
What a mess, she texts a person she doesn't know, they didn't have to leave the concert, and he had no time to pick up his sleeping pills.
Maybe he went to the concert to pick up his meds?
I'm currently editing my first film, and this is so painful cause I'm facing all of the problems listed in this video.
I would curse the director, but that's also me.
Your FIRST movie and you allready noticed it ;)
Cringing is learning.
F
Let a "different" editor have a look. As a director, you really shouldnt expect to be good at ediring too
@@PandyBong I have! But that's not really the issue. I've always been an editor first. I came to film through editing and that's the area where I've gotten most recognition from peers and superiors. The problem is in the raw material we shot
Clicked on this video expecting a love letter to the delightful animated "The Snowman" that aired on HBO when I was a kid. Editing being the primary communication in that cartoon since there is no dialog. Was not expecting.... this.
"I need the words I'm saying to make sense"
- Dan Olson, 2020
I just realized something watching this again: if they'd followed up on the red herring, it would have undermined the plot. The girl set up a camera in his room. That means the camera would have seen the killer walk in, or at least recorded the sound of the fight. It would have clearly given them something to point them to the real killer. So, since they don't want to reveal the killer yet, they just never touch on that again.
“Pretty close!” *waves hands* “Can ya blame me?!” - This feels like an accurate re-enactment of the editor presenting the finished cut.
The double snowman just made me laugh I just... It looks like two siblings disagreed on what face to give it, how would that EVER be scary
To me, what makes the shot at 29:46 hilarious is not the snowman's face, but its tiny little arms.
It looks as if it's conducting the music, lol
Perhaps that whole ping ponging of the shots in that early scene could’ve worked if they were throwing arguments at each other I think. Like Harry has a point, the other guy does too. Then once, say Harry, loses ground in the argument, his shot now moves the same way as the previous shot, almost like the camera is mimicking him missing the ball in Ping Pong and losing the argument/metaphorical game. I feel like that would’ve been an extraordinary use of cinematography
and today's lesson in evocative phrasing: "decapitated via shotgun" has to be one of the most unassumingly gruesome phrases I've ever heard
You know, there’s at least a very simple fix for the flashback framing problem.
Give the framing moments to Katrine.
Right? It’s her dad, she was a kid/teen when he passed away. Presumably she would know enough about Rafto and the things he was doing before he died to trigger the flashbacks when SHE sees the files on Laila Aasen. You could even add in a bit of dialogue where kid Katrine calls him on the phone to talk to him while he’s working, to add another link back to her perspective. It adds depth to her character and allows us to have a more grounded parallel subplot.
This is like the 4th or 5th time I've watched this video. I keep coming back to it because I have the distinct and crystal clear memory of having it on in the background while doing errands around the house for my aunt. Now that she's gone it just feels...almost like I'm running errands for her again.
I know exactly what you mean. I’m sorry for your loss.
A story about serial murderer with a quirky calling card that left out important plot points? Are you sure we aren't talking about Heavy Rain?
This film was lacking in emotions now that you mention it.
And a finger is lost from the protag... Hmmm
you got what y- SHAUN
"I'm the origarmi killer."
24:51 "The call came in two minutes ago. The husband asked specifically to inspect her hole."
I was so angry at this movie because I was really hooked by the trailer and I love Michael Fassbender. It was such an incoherent mess. I did not see the boyfriend as the killer at all and I am usually pretty good at picking up signals. It really felt like I had only seen half the movie. There were so many things that they could have done to fix certain elements. Using Val Kilmer's real voice would have helped. They could have had a throwaway line about him struggling because of throat cancer or because of his drinking causing throat damage. He could have had a journal where he recorded all his thoughts and conversations on the investigation. That could have been used to actually see Val Kilmer's character with Harry reading his entries and trying to piece together what he knew.
The Snowman? I haven't heard that name in a long time...
When you realize this video is half the length of the film O.o
oh man this is 50 shades all over again
Even if you watch it twice, it's still more entertaining than the actual film
@@gammakay521 I've watched it like six or seven times now. It's fascinating....
I can't believe the "Mister Police" posters are real, I thought they were a shitpost or like, taken from a bad creepypasta
It's so funny to me how they chose to adapt this Harry Hole novel, since it's like seventh in the series. Probably cuz that premise is so wonderfully edgy.
Scandinavian author Jo Nesbo, whose name is spelled "Jo Nesbo", but pronounced "Yo! Nesbo! How's it hangin'?!".
Isn’t it “Jø Nesbø?”
@@andrewollmann304 You're both half-correct: Jo Nesbø.
The «o» sound in Jo is more like «cool» than «oh» (so Yo! would not be the right pronounciation). The ø in Nesbø is a little difficult to describe but «Yooh Nes-buh» would be pretty correct I think.
@@lisakristin1810 Kind of more like short, abrupt "you" I would say for Jo.
OfTinúvielsKin I wish I knew the phonetic alphabet! The o may be more abrupt, but «you» has a very «u» sound and trying to find the closest english equivalent to «Jo», I still think the o sound in «cool» is closer. Sort of if you stop before the L and replace c with a hard j. «You» Nesbø sounds very wrong to me...
17:12 "A Working Title Production". Example of form following function. Wow.
Even the snowmen in this film are missing the middle
Hello from 2023 where this is now apparently the #1 movie on Netflix!