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The Wiz's Emerald City sequence. 400 dancers. 3 costume changes each. Designs by Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Mary McFadden, Ralph Lauren, Halston & Norma Kamali. 22 playback speakers. 385 crew members. 4 nights of shooting. 1 piano-playing Quincy Jones (The Wiz was the beginning of Q and... show more
Комментарии: 10

When you wanna talk about something being ahead of this time, we can pull this scene. Lumet wanted the segment to be all about “status and style," Black opulence before we were using the phrase. It was the most expensive shoot ever at WTC.

It was considered a box office flop simply bc it was so expensive. To compare to blockbuster releases around the same time, the first Star Wars (or Star Wars IV now, I guess) cost 11M. Jaws cost 9M. Alien cost 11M. This movie cost 24M

It's def easy to believe that Universal Pictures, who would have controlled the marketing and publicity, didn't really know what to do with this. A Black fantasy blockbuster was not a thing yet.

They made 1200 outfits. 3 versions of each look. From the 1978 NY Times

Today it would probably be done digitally. Back then simple lighting changes woukdn't have worked for shoes, fur, etc.

So I saw the Bethann Hardison movie, Invisible Beauty and she talked about how she and Iman have a cameo in this scene. And I felt so stupid because I would look at them and think, why is the camera lingering on these two — because it’s These Two.

@strongblacklead They not doing productions like this no more 😭😭

@strongblacklead They weren't doing productions like this back then!

My elders in the dance and theatre community here in NY said they had all the black dancers and models for this shoot. The woman in the gold sashaying atop the piano is Mabel Robinson. She was Louis Johnson’s asst choreographer on the film. She’s retired in NC now. Amazing.

And...one of the most ICONIC trumpet cadences in Black history!

