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.