Making A Short Film

    For this week I wanted to discuss what went into making a short film, along with the role I played in the process. I was in a group with five others for our short film project in our Introduction to Film class. For our short few minute film, we chose to focus on the horror genre. Surprisingly, many other groups went down similar routes with their short films too. Having just watched Get Out and Rear Window, perhaps many groups felt inspired by that genre along with my group. 

    The first task my group completed in terms of making a short film was deciding upon a story. Originally, we had planned on making a short film about a murderous cult, as in our opinions that makes up a good horror story. Cults are pretty scary, and so is murder. Once we had our plan, next came assigning roles. I wanted to be an actor in this film project, but as the group just started assigning roles it was clear that the role of a camera person was not popular. So, I and one other took on that part. Plus, my camera has high quality videoing so it was chosen as the camera we used for filming. As for our setting, one person within our group lived in an actually haunted house. We planned on either filming at their house or in one of the campus dorm buildings Yet, as the deadline of our project grew closer, we had to change all of our plans. When it comes to citematography and making a film, you have to be open to unexpected changes. In some cases, those changes help to improve a film.

    One member of our group ended up getting sick, so planning a time outside of class to work on this project became almost impossible. As each role was filled, all of us needed to be present during the shooting of the scenes. Eventually, an opportunity came about during a free class period. Having only one week to complete this project, we decided to take the time we had and roll with it. Utilizing one of the empty conference rooms in the building, we decided upon a new plot. While trying to think of something scary in a short amount of time, one of my group members came up with the idea for a haunted room. So, we created multiple shots all focused in that space. The director and I, as the main camera person, slighly improvised as we went. I am especially proud of one particular scene in which I zoomed in on the window in the room and panned the camera down slowly as someone off camera moved the blinds down. After watched the finalized version of our film, that particular scene stood out to me. Now, I know that it stood out due to its similarities with the opening scene of Rear Window. Yet, I did not realise it in the moment because I had the blinds closing, while in Rear Window they were opening.  

   

    Watching everyone's films was such a wonderful experience. It felt as though I was at a premiere, or what I assume a movie premiere is like. I've never actually been to a movie premiere before, nor have I watched any videos on it either. Yet, a community of film makerssharing their work with one another is enjoyable and eye-opening as you get a bit of insight into their ideas, perspectives, and other aspects from the content in their film. Also, the moment when your film shows up and you get to watch your project come to life for you and others is a proud moment. Sure, we are college students who do not know much about film, so it was not a masterpiece by any means. Regardless, I am still proud of what my group put together and I am happy to have been through such an experience. 

Chapters 7 & 8

    In our Film 100 book, Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema, the topics discussed are sound and acting. Sound was discussed in Chapter 7 while acting was discussed in Chapter 8. Both accompany the process of cinematography and help to either make or break a film regardless of the quality of the shots and script. For example, one would be uncomfortable hearing happy or funny music playing during a horror movie. Another uncomfortable aspect that sometimes occurs is when one can tell an actor is clearly acting. Both can spoil a good movie plot and ruin a film's experience. Reading these chapters made me realize there is more to these aspects than I know. 

    In Chapter 7, one fact that surprised me was that in most cases film is made seperately from sound. This is also refered to as dual-system recording. Upon learning this I figured that bonuses to this may include increased control over the volume and the lack of background noises. Furthermore, I never knew that "slates" help with matching sound with film if they have been recorded seperately. When the slate is "slapped" down, this noise helps the editor to line up a scene with its specific sound track. Another aspect of sound I'd like to discuss is   "room tone". Room tone is when the actors pause at the end of the scene for at least 60 seconds to allow the boom operator to pick up any background noise. This moment is used to fill any dead space for the editor as they take out, add, and edit scenes. Part of me figured that there was a way for editors or boom operators to cut out bcakground sounds, but if they were the scene would seem less real. When it comes to sound, similar to acting, it has to be believable and realistic. Another way sound is kept realistic is through the use of digetic and non-digetic sounds. There is typically more creativity in non-digetic sounds that play outside of the character's world, as that type of sound does not directly influence the plot of the film. A ball bouncing in a film, in most cases, is paired with a digetic sound that is realistic to what the ball would actually sound like as it hits whatever surface it is shown or implied to be hitting. Although there is many more aspects of sound discussed in the chapter, these are just some important specifics regarding sound that I wanted to discuss.

    In Chapter 8, the main message of the chapter seems to be that good acting is when an actor is not acting. In other words, the actor has to become their character in the given movie to transport audiences into that film's world. When transported, audiences can truly dive into the director's vision and take in all aspects of the film. Although, considering this made me question actors such as Tom Hanks, who are classified as being "good actors" but do not truly become their characters. I've seen multiple Tom Hanks movies, but in ever single one it feels like I am just watching the actor himself in different plots. Although part of me wonders if that thought process is due to the recognizability of the actor himself as he is quite popular and most of his characters have similar personalities. To elaberate on my currect idea, I've noticed that a lot of movie stars tend to stick with characters that have similar personalities. Is it just me to realises this or is this purposeful? Perhaps it depends on the genre, or these actors are assigned to similar roles so they can become masters in those genres or personality types. Anyways, another aspect of acting that interested me was the difference between theater acting and acting in front of a camera. Actors in a theater performance are directly infront of their audiences, but there is still quite the gap between the audience and the stage. Therefore, theater actors have to be more expressive and project their voices in order to be seen and heard. As for acting in front of a camera, a camera helps to bring audiences even closer to the actor. So, to be seen and heard an actor must focus on making their expressions less exaggerated and their voices have to be understandable and clear. Even though there is so much more to this chapter than what I discussed, my purose of this sentence is to only discuss what fascinated me the most. 

Image of Tom Hanks' characters courtesy of Design World

Get Out

Image courtesy of Universal 

    A week ago in my Film 100 class we watched the film Get Out (2017) by Jordan Peele. I am not typically a fan of suspense or horror films, but the way this movie was directed, the script, and the acting really impressed me. I was entertained the entire movie as every line seemed to serve the overall plot. Plus, the mix between suspense and humor made some scenes memorable. Just a warning though, I will be discussing spoilers regarding the movie. So, for those who have not seen the movie yet and do not want spoilers I advice against reading on. 

    Anyways, the movie was basically about a man named Chris visiting his girlfriend Rose's family. Being an African-American, Chris is not sure how Rose's white family will react when they meet him. The family seems normal at first as the mother and father are somewhat welcoming of Chris, but the family has two housekeepers who are both African-American. When coming inside the house from smoking, Chris runs into Rose's mom who hypnotises Chris so he can stop smoking. Since that moment, Chris unwantingly dives deeper into the secrets behind Rose's family. All seems to start getting worse for him when he attends the family party Rose's family is hosting that weekend. During his experience, Chris stays connected with his friend, Rob, during this time as Rob watches over Chris' dog and apartment while he's staying with his girlfriend.

    One scene that really got to me was when the family decided to play bingo after Chris was attacked by Logan. All it took to get Logan off was the flash being on while Chris was taking a photo of him. Logan jumps at Chris demanding him to "Get Out!". To ease the situation, Rose and Chris went on a walk while the family plays bingo. Yet, this was not ordinary bingo. First of all, every bingo sheet had bingo on it and people were raising their sheets like they were at an auction. Secondly, Rose's dad was standing next to a large image of Chris while displaying numbers using his hands. With the camera widening to showcase the entire situation, the plot of the movie became clear to me. What the director, Peele, did further to make this scene more memorable was making the setting and clothung choices dark colors. The chairs, picture stand, and gazebo were all black. Furthermore, everyone in the scene wore at least one black article of clothing. The expressions of the people seemed professional despit them supposedly being family. As a whole, this scene opened my eyes to the fact that Chris was being raffled off. Considering the housekeepers and Logan all seemed weirds as though they had been hypnotized, it appeared that the mother hypnotizes people of color and they auction them off. The clarity within this scene is what made my jaw drop, as all of a sudden everything was coming together. But despite that, what I figured the ending would be turned out to be completely different. 

Image courtesy of Universal 

    Now, I'm not going to give away the ending. I'm just going to end off this week's blog post describing the mise-en-scène of this movie. This movie really played around with connecting themes, forshadowing, lighting, camera angles, and a specific color sceme. A lot of dark colors, mostly browns and blacks, are seen throughout the movie, especially furniture and the characters' clothing. There are a lot of closeup camera angles whith the characters too, especially during important scenes. Furthermore, either natural light or a yellowish omnious lighting is used besides from during the really important spooky scenes. During the really spooky scenes, such as when Rose's mother hypotises Chris, the lighting has a low-key affect to it. As for foreshadowing and connecting themes, I may spoil the movie too much if I start explaining those, but I found the connection between the deer and Chris to be rather interesting. The relationship is so suttle, but once understood it explains the movie well. With everything Peele put into this movie, this is a movie I will not forget for a while. I highly reccomend this film to anyone, even those who are not a fan of suspense as Rob provides great comedy during the film to help keep it light. Also, I wonder what other pieces of information I would pick up on if I rewatched the film. So, for those who have already seen this movie I reccomend you rewatch it to enjoy the setting a bit more and take in any details you might have missed prior. 

Chapter 5

    This week in our Film 100 class we watched the movie Get Out, which I will be discussing during my next blog post, and we were assigned to read Chapter 5 in our book, Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema. The topic of Chapter 5 is Cinematography, which is one of the most important parts of how cinema works. I've heard the word used before, but I never truly understood what it meant until I read the chapter. All I knew before was that cinema is an abbreviation for cinematography. 

    There is a lot of information discussed in Chapter 5 that I can go over in this blog post because there is more to cinematography than what meets the eye. The cinematographer, also knows as the director of photography since they oversee how a mise-en-scéne is captured in a film through each frame, has a whole team working for them. As a whole, the entire team, mostly the cinematographer, has to take the following into consideration: the recording medium, colors, lighting, lens type, composition, camera movement, the length of takes, and more. I could go on to discuss all of this information, but the blog post would be too long at that point. So, to keep it shorter and be able to dive deep into one particular subject I am choosing to discuss the recording medium during this blog post.

    There are two different recording mediums a cinematographer can choose from, digital and film. Honestly, I did not know a cinematographer could still choose to make a film using a physical film stock. Nor was I aware that using physical film stock has advantages compared to digital. Despite being more expensive due to strips being charged per foot, the look of a film that was produced using film stock is more organic and natural compared to digital. On the other hand, digital allows for more filming that is at a higher frame rate. Older movies used to have a motion blur inbewteen frames to help the movie flow more smoothly, but at a higher frame rate this is no longer needed which improves the resolution of the movie itself. Now, film viewer can find themselves in new and highly detailed locations, providing them with an amazing cinematic experience.

    This is just a short summary in my opinion of what I understood from the book. Personally, I cannot say exactly which I prefer as I have only worked with digital filming before. As cameras have increased in resolution over the years, even cameras on phones can take highly detailed photos and videos. In my animation class, a project we had to do with a group was creating a stop motion animation. Based on what we had decided for our project, one group member was in charge of the background, one was in charge of shooting each image and editing, and I was in charge of building a character from clay and moving them and the props around. Making my other animations digitally was a lot easier due to the tools located in the software that allowed be to edit character movement, actions, and control other factors in the app. For this stop motion animation project, each frame had to be set up individually with previous actions in mind in order to make it difficult to create. In the end, I'd say it was worth it though. 

Marie Antoinette

    

Image courtesy of 2006 Columbia Pictures Industries

    The film we viewed in my Film 100 class last week was Marie Antoinette (2006) directed by Sofia Coppola. Before I go into detail regarding my feelings about this film, I'd like to give a warning as I will be discussing spoilers. So for those who haven't seen the film and do not want spoilers then I advice you from reading on. 

    Honestly, I did not love nor hate the film's narrative. Not being much of a history person, I couldn't connect with what was going on. Part of which I'm sure was due to the fact that I approached this film unaware of who Marie Antoinette really was. All that I knew before this film was that she got her head chopped off during the French Revolution because she was greedy and said "Let them eat cake". Not having much of an interest in Marie or her life made the film not as impactful. Regardless, I believe the directing was still good and the film had its moments. 

    I'm mostly impressed on how the film was able to change my opinion on Marie Antoinette. I'm curious if that was the purpose of the film. What started off as a negative opinion on Marie as an individual changed to become feelings of pity. Marie was expected to give up her childhood, home, and the ways of her old country for the duties of being a queen in France, which made me realize why she behaved with the desire to ignore her problems and why she did not have a true grasp on money. Yet, it was not only just the knowledge of her true story that changed my opinion but the way the character was portrayed. Played by actor Kristen Dunst, Marie behaved quite similar to a young woman who is just trying to figure out life. She learned from the girls her age, liked having fine things, wanted independence, and did not want to face her responsibilities. In ways, I could relate to her character which made her more human to me.

    Another aspect of that film that I was intrigued by was the mise en scène. Sofia Coppola had her own directive touches that added to the film, such as the pop music playing throughout the movie. I did not expect to hear modern songs in a film about a girl who lives during the late 1700s. Also, most of the sets and costumes were busy and highlighted the wealth of the royals during that time. Furthermore, I noticed that the colors pink and blue contrasted a lot in the movie. Blue was used in moments of Marie fulfilling her duties while pink was used in scenes when Marie was more frivalous. Lastly, the lighting within each scene paired well with the theme and emotion Coppola was going for. In scenes where Marie was sad or trapped, the setting was dark. On the other hand, when Marie felt free the setting was bright and sometimes she was even frolicking outside. 

    One critisism I have is that there did not seem to be a climax within the film, it just ended quickly. One moment she was living her best life and the next there were people with torches standing outside the castle. I believe this was meant to reflect how quickly things can happen in life, but the balance between trying to keep some scenes realistic and others exaggerating was not executed properly. Also, I believe some scenes were too busy, such as the image above. Nonetheless, I'm glad that Coppola chose to leave out Marie loosing her head as that would of broke my heart.