ANGELINA Jolie's latest film, World of Tomorrow, is the first Hollywood film to be shot entirely without props and locations.

In a technological advance on the old back-projection system, the whole of World of Tomorrow was shot on a blue screen - that is, actors played their roles against a blank wall, leaving the background to be filled in later by computer programmers.

Filmed at Britain's Elstree Studios, all locations, scenery and even furniture were abandoned, except for a handful of props used as markers to show where Jolie and her co-stars, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, should stand during the seven-day shoot.

Jolie plays a British pilot who comes to the aid of Law, another heroic airman, and a wisecracking New York reporter played by Paltrow. They investigate mysterious flying machines that threaten the 1939 World Fair in New York and their adventure takes them to the Himalayas for a dramatic showdown with an evil genius.

Jolie said she was indebted to blue screen. "I had just finished Tomb Raider 2 and making another such film in a similar way would have taken another year to shoot on location," she said.

The film's producer, Jon Avnet, who worked on movies such as Inspector Gadget and George of the Jungle, said the breakthrough lay in the realism.

"Back projection gave us Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which was Disney fun in the 1970s, but modern blue-screen fools the eye into thinking it's all shot on location," he said. "It halved our budget."

World of Tomorrow, which will be processed in Los Angeles before being released next year, may help save Hollywood from its own excesses. Increasingly, producers are trying to clamp down on the escalating costs of "event movies" that are pushing out low and medium-cost films.

The artists themselves, however, may not always be as enthusiastic as the accountants. Director Martin Scorsese refused to use blue screen when filming Gangs of New York, preferring instead to build an "authentic" 19th-century city in Italy.

Many consider the technology to be the death knell for traditional acting. Delia Salvi, who teaches film at the University of California Los Angeles, said: "Actors cannot give their best, talking to a marker like a lampshade ... Hollywood may be richer, but the audience may end up robbed."

The Australian

Originally posted by Groucho
No props? Makes no sense. Let's say a character is smoking a cigarette. It's cheaper to have him pantomine and then CGI it in later? I don't think so.

Originally posted by Groucho
No props? Makes no sense. Let's say a character is smoking a cigarette. It's cheaper to have him pantomine and then CGI it in later? I don't think so.