Movies: Dear Diary: Action!

Bryan Singer, director of the X-Men movies and the upcoming Superman Returns, is strolling through the rolling cornfields around what will soon be Clark Kent's childhood home. The corn is 12 weeks old, he says proudly, and was grown especially for the movie. "This entire house was constructed on a soundstage," Singer explains, "and then disassembled, rebuilt here in Tamworth [Australia] and then redressed." Not only are we not in Kansas anymore, but apparently we were never there in the first place.

This isn't news to anybody, or it shouldn't be, but it's still not the kind of information we're used to having delivered to our computer screens. Lately, making movies has become a strangely transparent process. Directors and studios, in their never-ending quest to build buzz for big summer releases, are opening their sets to the public via Web-based video diaries. Singer's video blog, bluetights.net joins several other real-time movie blogs, such as the text-only diary Zach Braff did for his movie Garden State gardenstate.typepad.com and the video journal of the King Kong shoot that Peter Jackson is keeping at kongisking.net These guys are releasing the making of movies as they're making the movie.

Like so many other trends, this one started with Star Wars: back in 1997 George Lucas and Co. had the bright idea of posting little video postcards online from the set of Episode I. No spoilers, of course, just a few tidbits to chum the waters for hungry fans. Flash forward to the making of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when Peter Jackson became friendly with a group of fans who ran a website called theonering.net When Jackson wrapped Rings and started King Kong, the gang from theonering.net launched kongisking.net and Jackson began sending them video-blog entries every few days--46 in all so far.

In the videos, the benevolent, ursine Jackson wanders around the set, cameraman in tow, amiably accosting stars and grips and caterers alike in his thick New Zealand accent ("conceptual artwork" turns into "con-sip-shull aht-wook") and interviewing them about whatever it is they do. We meet such unsung heroes as Tony Drawbridge, a propmaker who handcrafts fake animal poop, and Ngaire Woods, the production's plane spotter, who sits on a hill with binoculars and watches for passing aircraft that might disrupt a shot. There are some naysayers. "I can't believe they get to see me in costume and makeup," says a visibly shaken Jack Black, who plays Carl Denham. "Isn't that, like, verboten?"

The motives behind the backstage banter aren't unmixed: the directors are giving fans what they want, and they're also engaging in subtle, studio-sanctioned advance marketing. (The suits at Warner and Universal vet every entry.) "There's really no downside to having these websites. It can only help the box office," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks box-office trends. "You're building the want-to-see factor that you have to have for a good opening weekend."