Blade Runner White Dragon Cut > Blade Runner > Scene 6 “The Noodle Bar” : Part 3 When did Deckard break the disposable wooden chopsticks?

    Scene 6 “The Noodle Bar” : Part 3 When did Deckard break the disposable wooden chopsticks?

    This article is the third in a four-part series about Scene 6 “The Noodle Bar”.

    Syd Mead’s Los Angeles 2019

    You can see the entire noodle bar in an unused cut of “Blade Runner”.

    You can see the entire noodle bar in an unused cut of “Blade Runner”.

    In this scene, you can see part of the “TOSHIBA” sign on the wall of the building in the back. However, in Syd Mead’s production sketch, what you see on the wall of the building are two glowing objects.

    Futuristic glowing objects on the wall drawn by Syd Mead
    A view of the glowing object from another angle. This object is slimmer than previous one.

    In the White Dragon Cut, which aims to fully recreate the Los Angeles drawn by Syd Mead, I placed two glowing objects instead of the TOSHIBA sign.

    The two glowing objects made with CGI
    CGI composited and color adjusted

    When did Deckard break the disposable wooden chopsticks?

    There was one thing that bothered me when I was editing this time. That is.

    “When did Deckard break the disposable wooden chopsticks?”

    Well, the timing of breaking the chopsticks is not important in the whole story, but when I’m editing WDC5, this very little thing starts to bother me. Because, there is a scene in the unused cut where Deckard breaks the chopsticks, but the cut is inconsistent with the cut of the movie.

    First up is the noodle bar scene from “Final Cut”.

    The Noodle Bar scene(From “Final Cut”)

    After Deckard takes his seat and the Sushi Master serves the food, Deckard’s disposable chopsticks have already been broken.
    Next is the scene where the Sushi Master serves the food, which is only included in “Work Print”.

    The scene of the sushi master serving food (From “Workprint”)

    Deckard have already broken the disposable chopsticks when the sushi master serves the food. . This means that Deckard broke the disposable chopsticks before the food was served.
    Next is the scene in the unused cut where Deckard breaks the disposable chopsticks.

    Deckard breaking disposable chopsticks (From unused cut)

    When Deckard breaks the chopsticks, the food has already been served. This means that Deckard broke the chopsticks after the food was served.
    To sum up.

    <Workprint>Deckard broke the disposable chopsticks before the food was served.

    <Unused cut>Deckard broke the disposable chopsticks after the food was served.

    Probably after many takes, such a contradiction arose. So, which one is right?
    Actually, it was the cut that followed that caught my attention.

    Deckard deburring chopsticks (From unused cut)

    In this scene, Deckard rubs his split chopsticks against each other. This is something you rarely see in Japan these days, but when I was a student, it was a common sight when I went to a diner. They rub the split chopsticks against each other to remove burrs. I remember that many people would deburr their chopsticks just before the food was served because the fine burrs would fall down.

    Now, here’s another unused cut showing Deckard’s hand breaking chopsticks.

    Deckard’s hand breaking disposable chopsticks (From unused cut)

    You can see Deckard broke his chopsticks just before the food was served.
    Looking at all these cuts, I think the correct answer is that Deckard saw the sushi master bringing the food and broke his chopsticks just before the food was served. After all, the burr removal was done on the dish lol.

    So, in “White Dragon Cut”, I decided that Deckard breaks disposable chopsticks just before the food is served. The inserted cut is a cut of Deckard from the front.

    However, in this shot, the food has already been served, so I trimmed it to make the food part invisible. Also, the left hand is moving the plate of food, so only the left hand is in slow motion to reduce the movement.

    Deckard breaking disposable chopsticks (White Dragon Cut)

    Well, that’s it for this time. See you next time!

    <Scene 6 : The Noodle Bar>

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