Art of Cinema blog post

Jaws- 

A masterful film of suspense and sound. Thats the shortest way to sum up the movie “Jaws”. Almost 40yrs after the date of its release the score for the film is probably the most well-known within the states. When I was a kid I knew the theme for that shark before I was even allowed to see the movie. The suspense of this film is what really made it so great to begin with. As many know the shark they used in this film was mechanical, since its kind of hard to tame a real one after all, and one of the biggest problems they faced was figuring out how to make it look real and terrifying. Spielberg’s solution? Show as little of it as possible until the very end. “There is no greater fear than the fear of the unknown”. A quote that I feel is comparable to this film because for most of the film no one truly knows what they’re dealing with until its too late to escape. 

Art of Cinema blog post

The Fall-

If there is a single person who has not seen the film “The Fall” by Tarsem Singh I recommend stop reading this and go watch it! I’m not going to make any crazy references or spoil the plot here, its just that its an incredible film the requires your attention. This film took a total of four years to shoot and has locations in over 20 different countries. Why? Because the director wanted to stick to his complete vision of the film, which he privately funded, and wanted nothing but on location shooting. As a film-maker I envy Singh in being able to accomplish this. He was not only able to craft a beautiful film but I also imagine this would have a great extended four year vacation; flying around to capture some of the rarest sights in the world for the grand adventure that takes place in this feature. Not only is this a great film for its imagery but also has really moving story to go along with it making this one of my favorite  films.  

Art of Cinema blog post

Found Memories- 

This is a film I watched earlier in the semester for another class. I enjoyed it because of its’ simple yet elegant cinematography. The way the shots were constructed and organized showed that the Director of Photography took his time to plan out each shot to correlate with the entire film. The majority of the shots through-out the film followed the “theory of thirds”. Were you aline points of interest in your shot along 1/3 proportions which gave the film some beautiful composition. Another aspect of the cinematography was how the shots would tighten and shorten as the film progress. In the beginning of the film the shots were wide-angles with a longer duration that gives the audience a sense of spectatorship. The tighter the angles became, the more a viewer would feel connected with the characters within the village. Just as Rita becomes closer to the village, until in the very end of the film we see nothing but medium shots and close-ups. While this may not seem to be an exciting style of cinematography, it helps deliver the emotions and attitude of the village towards the new comer subliminally.

3/27/2013 "Singing in the Rain"

I’m glad we ended up watched “Singing in the Rain” for our weekly showing. As well-know as this film is, it was my first time being able to watch it fully and I throughly enjoyed it. I now understand why it’s regarded as one of the greatest musical of all time.

I’m one of those people who generally don’t like musicals too. Even though we watched this film for its film score and music, I found the choreography and story really notable as well. I especially liked how the larger choreographed scenes had their own little story line to them and it wasn’t just random jumping around, which is what honestly comes to mind when I think of musicals. There were parts in the film that did get pretty goofy but it kept continuity with the film in its’ light-heartedness.

Blog Post 6!!!!!!

To me the three most important things that we’ve talked about in class is Campbell’s “a hero’s journey” and Vogler’s in depth breakdown of the journey, Vogler’s “character archetypes”, and Edgri’s “bone structure”. The hero’s journey helps outline what traditionally happens in a story, almost like a loose set of guidelines you can use to make a story have a better structure to it. This was useful because it helped us think of different ways to structure our story so it would become easier to understand and more enjoyable. Vogler’s archetypes helped us define each character to know exactly where they stood and it will hopefully let us continue develop them as we work on our project more. The bone structure is just that extra step that can really help you define your character. Even if your audience doesn’t know everything you but into developing your character’s bone structure the main point is that it is something you will know so better judge how your character might react to a situation.

One of the other things we’ve talked about in class is “premise”. While I’m not saying this element is useless, it just isn’t a tool we’ve used as much. Mainly because judging the premise of your story or of your character is challenging and something that really needs to be thought out a great deal.

When doing our group project all of these references became useful because we could use them to come up with a better story and of how we should present it.

While these tools have helped us we still have a bit of a way to go, before we have developed this project to its fullest. I feel that we still need to work on some of the tone or the style of the story so it can effectively be perceived by the audience. We also need to work on more of the sub-text in the work as well so we can subtly convey what it happening in the short film instead of just being extremely blunt with our imagery. I believe that effect will be much more powerful. But I think our project is coming along really well and all of my group members are hard working and beneficial to the group. I’m glad to be a part of this one instead of one that is unorganized and not very creative. One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to present.

Egri's Bone Structure applied to TMNT: Splinter

Egri’s Bone Structure

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splinter

Physiology

1.       Male

2.       Mid to late 40’s

3.       4’6”-5’ tall

4.       He has brownish-gray fur that coats his entire body except for his long tail. His eyes are that of a humans’.

5.       He walks upright on two legs and using a walking stick to get around, although he seems he would move alright without it.

6.       Splinter was once a man who mutated into a half man half rat form. He’s clean but only as clean as a man rat can be that lives underground. He also always wears a faded red Gi jacket. A jacket that is often worn by martial artists.

Sociology

1.       He makes his home under the city in abandon tunnels and old sewers.

2.       He is a teacher and mentor to the TMNT. He teaches them ninjutsu and how to survive and stay hidden in the world.

3.       He was thrown out of the ninja school he was helping teaching at due to a rival setting him up to make it look like he was trying to kill the headmaster. He is also like a father to the TMNT and often calls them his sons.

4.       He lives in America, but was from Japan and is Japanese despite his mutation.

5.       Besides living the life as a mentor it seems he takes join in making and eating sushi as well.

6.       He also as a mortal enemy called Shredder.  

Psychology

1.       He has strict moral standards that not only he follows but that he tries to instill in his “sons” as well. Especially when it comes to their martial arts. One rule he always follows is “never start a fight yourself”.

2.       His life ambition is to raise his sons properly, teach them to master the art of ninjutsu, and how to remain hidden from the human world because he believes that if they were ever discovered by cruel humans they would hunted down until captured so they could be experimented on.

3.       He is disappointed that Shredder constantly beats him and has taken away almost everything from him. He often gets frustrated by his son’s foolish natures.

4.        He is mild tempered most often calm but defiantly not one to be messed with.

5.       He has a positive and realistic attitude towards life. He believes nothing can’t be accomplished with hard work and training.

6.       His abilities range from being a master of ninjutsu and several weapons, enjoys art, particularly from the renaissance period, and can make sushi.

7.       He is wise. As wise any teacher and mentor should be.

Premise of the film "Without"

Without is a film of that shows the raw chaotic grief and depression one may feel once they’ve experienced the death of one of most important people in your life. We see the main character in a complete state of isolation from the world; she’s not comfortable with the people she interacts with, she’s self-conscience about her body, paranoid, and out of touch with her emotions. In other words she’s a completely fucked up individual, and we see this by how she reacts to certain things and what she does.

Slowly, the story brings us up to date with her life and situation. This transforms her from just a randomly crazy person who is socially awkward, to a person who has experienced such a loss that has probably traumatized her so much she doesn’t know what to do with herself now. With this information we are able to piece together the driving force or premise behind her actions. One could say the premise driving this film is, loss of a loved one can bring about the loss of rationality.

When she misplaces her phone repeatedly, she blames an old man who is paralyzed and doesn’t have a lot of brain functions. She fakes trying to pleasure herself on a webcam chat with someone. Walks out into the middle of the woods where she knows there are wolves and could get lost. These actions along with more show just how much she struggles to continue living her life.