Here are some notes I've made while thinking and researching about how art and film are connected. I believe it is useful for me to understand as my film is about the sublime.
The Big Combo, 1955, Director - Joseph H. Lewis; Cinematographer - John Alton
Film Noir is not so much a genre as a film style with many of its roots in Art.
The Denial of St Peter, 1610, Caravaggio
While looking at the connection between art and film I have found out that a lot of directors have taken inspiration from artist. A couple of examples that I found are below.
Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau, 1922 > Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914
Edward Hopper – House on a hill 1920 > Still from 'Psycho' – Alfred Hitchcock
24 hour psycho (1993) - Douglas Gordon > Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock
“It takes about five minutes to even get an idea of what scene you are watching, yet even at that point it isn’t clear what’s actually going on. When viewers first walk in, they look at the screen, then at the viewers, then move toward the viewers and then join them, looking around to see if they understand what is happening. There’s a definite moment when you can tell if a viewer can understand what they’re looking at — it’s in their faces. There’s an instantaneous moment of recognition, which can be interpreted as the point of the video.” – SaraPalmer
Other artists and video-artists I have looked at:
Measures of Distance (1988) - Mona Hatoum
Reading aloud from letters sent by her mother in Beirut, Hatoum creates a visual montage reflecting her feelings of separation and isolation from her Palestinian family. The personal and political are inextricably bound in a narrative that explores personal and family identity against a backdrop of traumatic social rupture, exile and displacement. The film is of her mother taking a shower.
Soliloquy (1998) Sam Taylor-Wood > The Rokeby Venus (1647 - 51) - Valezquez
Tony Oursler
Doing this research has helped me link the two subjects. I will know try and find more films has have links to other paintings and art works as well as trying my hands at my own video art.
Repas de Bebe shows an affectionate family Auguste and his wife and baby, Lumiere and his wife are feeding their baby son. It's a shot that's been constantly re done a ton of times. It is the type of thing that is so simple but leaves a lasting impressing. It captures a brief moment in time so that It is never forgotten. I hope to some thing similar in my FMP film in real time but for their not to be much action happening on screen maybe like a free blowing in the wind. I hope this to create a feeling of time and place.
I have decided to a different type of artist reference as this will be my last project. I normal would pick one part of a film or a still photo and talk about how it was filmed but this time I though it would be more helpful if I talked about a director as a whole and not how the films were shot but what was shot as that is some area I have neglected a bit in my study. I hope to find out what makes Kubrick his own style so I can find out my own style and work on that. I also spent a lot longer thinking about the 'feel' of the film for my FMP, then have done previously so will focus on style and context and cinematography rather the narrative for this film. Even though Kubrick is known for his great films he has very rearlly come up with the idea himself, He is more about the way the film looks and feels
For this essay on my all time fav director I want to look at how his films are similar but still all having different genres
Kubricks films often go off in another dimension from the one before it and after it. The films are all so dissimilar that it's easier said than done to think of a fundamental theme, but there are elements that run throughout his films. In simple terms Kubrick films use narrative and symbolism to give his films a similar feel despite their differences in genre. I have tried to do a similar thing in all of my films in my two years.
One of the genius things that Kubrick is a master at is giving us narrative clues to the ending or events yet to come by use of colour, sound and editing style for example The Shining 1980 the long and winding road at the beginning seems parallel to the long and winding maze at the end. He does this so that you get that feeling from the start of an uneasy displacement and this carries on until the film does a loop so your starting place in Kubrick films is the same as the ending place, narrative mirroring. The same equilibrium bookending can be seen in A Clockwork Orange 1971 with Alex starting off as an ultra-violent thug who goes on a journey but ends up back where he started. Also in The Shining the blood red floor that Danny is riding his trike on is just like the floor of blood Wendy sees at the end of the film.
Kubrick has recurring themes like having the bathroom as a focus. Another things that Kubrick keeps the same was that all the protagonists are always male (Alex, Jack, Pvt. Joker, Dr. Dave etc.) and seem to be always difficult to like! They lead you to believe they are nice at the start and they turn out to be unlikable due to their actions. Putting it simply, the bulk of Kubrick films all have a character that starts off as the good guy then turns into an unlikeable character, this is talked about in the documentary A life in Pictures by Jan Harlan. Prime cases where this can be seen is in A Clockwork Orangewhere Alex starts off on the outside looking an unassuming/ normal person in the milk bar, then we see him in a different light when we see him beat, rape and even kill people. By making the bad guy the protagonist character the audience finds it hard to relate to him. This was one of Kubrick’s main criticisms. To further my point, HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) seems to be a polite, pleasant and efficient computer but then later goes insane and kills people. This raises the question; can a computer have a soul? In 2001 this makes it hard to trust and bond with the characters in the film. Kubrick makes it so our trust is misplaced and therefore makes us feel uneasy, just like how the central character is feeling. This statement can also be seen to apply to The Shining (novel by Stephen King) where at the start of the film Jack Torrance played by Jack Nicholson is a lovely family man but then goes crazy later on and tries to kill his wife and child. Kubrick tends to shift the role of the “good guy” in his films but always keeping them as the main character. Doing this confuses the audience and makes them distant in knowing what is right and what is wrong and what side you would be routing for, again putting you in the mind of the character even if you believe their actions are wrong and immoral like raping/ killing people, or fighting in a war.
Typically the males have some sort of mental struggle to deal with like flash backs of the past and how they deal with them. Alex in A Clock Work Orange for instance is emotionally unstable with distraught paranoia after his treatment and Bill after hearing about his wife’s encounter with another man in Eyes Wide Shut (1999) can’t stop thinking of his wife in bed with another man and then finds him dealing with his fear and paranormal by going on a walk which leads him to find more than he expected, again like A clockwork Orange, sex is the main theme.
When researching about Kubrick and his films in general one word came about more than would be expected and that was dehumanizing. With regard to this the story of A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket are best suited but can be used in all his films and professions. Both Alex and the soldiers get turned un-humanly from their normal selves to their polar opposites in ways that would be disapproved of or banned in today’s society. In both cases the individuals agree to what they are undertaking but are not fully informed to what they will be going through.
The only way I can come up with a conclusion to the magnificent Stanley Kubrick is to say that a film was an art form with meaning and feeling in despite always being criticised for not being able to connect with his characters. His narratives all focused around one central plot, the theme of entrapment and escape which leads me think he had a traumatic experience as a child. One of the things that is different from a good film to a great film is the depth of it, Kubrick used the art of all film elements like cinematography, narrative, theme, lighting etc., and using his own special touches with the use of meaning and symbolism to create films that surprise and amaze you every time.
As Kubrick is a great inspiration to to I want to continue my research on him my looking how how his films like 2001 have a sublimness about them.
To help me with the way my film is put together I have been looking at types of editing and montage all day. I have watched clips from rocky, Battleship and Kill Bill.
Montage
Kill Bill vol.1
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography by: Robert Richardson
Made in: 2003
The part of the film I have chosen is chapter 5: Show down at the House of Blue Leaves. After the Bride (Uma Thurman) wearing a yellow motorcycle jump suit has tracked down O-Ren (Lucy liu) after killing dozens of the crazy 88, the two have a spectacular swordfight in a snowy garden. After crossing swords numerous times, O-Ren is scalped by the bride with her Hanzo sword.
I would say the method of montage used in this scene was metric, as the shot keeps being cut no matter what is happening within the image. By doing this it elicits the most basal and emotional of reactions from the audience. It does also have rhythmic montage in it as well though as when they are fighting the cutting is based on time using the visual composition of the shot. The pace of the scene is really fast going as each shot is not normally more then a seconds this makes it feel like a more of a fight like you are there as in when you are in a real live fight it all happens so fast so this is what I think they were trying to active here.
My opinion of the use of montage and the overall affect and styles is that it works really well from the start of building up the tension to the fast flowing action of the fight that gets your blood moving. I think if it did not of have as many shots in it the effect they were trying to portray would not have worked.
I would describe the links from one shot to another focusing on composition, viewpoint, colouring and narrative as a job well done, it s nicely flowing and it keeps you there. You always know what is going on but at the same time it keeps it interesting, and unpredictable.
I have selected this particular montage scenes as I think it is the best one of its kind, and more importantly it keeps this up al the way throw out the film so you never loss interest and it keeps you wanting more so you are upset that it has ended as it keeps you griped so well.
After looking at the the battleship potemkin I started to think of all the diffrent ways of editing footage to show a large amount of time passing. In media they call this 'montage'. I found lots of diffrent types. belowe are some of the methods that I think i could use in my FMP film. A montage can also me a group of realted images. I have been out taking some photos to make my own mini narative.
Methods of montage
Metric this is where cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basal and emotional of reactions in the audience. Example: Eisenstein's October.
Rhythmic this is cutting based on time using the visual composition of the shots. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements, such as music, dialogue & sounds. Example: The Battleship Potemkin's "Odessa steps" sequence.
Tonal a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation. Example: Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin, This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.
Overtonal. The overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect.
Intellectual Uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.
It was filmed on the 42nd floor of the Time Life Building.
What makes this film contemporary is that it is not like a normal film, as with normal films you watch the entire film, but Empire is a challenge for the viewer to watch as it just features the same image of the tower. I think it is to be viewed more of a painting than a film. In short, Empire is an extremely weird and wonderful experimentation that Andy Warhol did. Empire is exactly a single uninterrupted shot of the Empire State Building in New York.
My overall opinion of the piece is that Empire is one of the most unexpectedly gripping movies I have seen to date, as not much happens but you expect it to. I could not wait to see what was going to happen and as I watched it I began to believe that nothing ever would, but as soon as the lights go on I sprang out of a chair like I would on an action film. Just like in life, sometimes the most simple things are the most beautiful. If all films were a huge 485 minutes long I would most likely be bored out of my skull, but if I was listen to music that was that long I probably would not get bored as there is something relaxing in hearing and letting your other senses go to rest, just like with watching Empire which keeps my eyes busy but relaxes all the rest of me.
I would say that the overall technique of Empire is mesmerizing. It used only one shot that would be boring and dull for most films but it uses it as a plus point by making it a film that is one of a kind film that has not be done before or after with any great success. I believe the techniques in Empire were done in a style that Warhol wanted us to relax and to be interpreted in our own way as we are not mentally stimulated enough to keep full concentration on the film itself. Also when I look at this documentary I don’t see a film but more of history that has been frozen in time and I believe this is what Warhol wanted to achieve as the film appears to be in slow motion.
I would describe the medium of the film as gritty as you can see a lot of grain in the film which is most likely due to it being night during most of it and the time the film was made. The fact that the film is black and white makes it feel more like a contemporary piece. What most films are made of include a visual and sound combined to make a pleasant experience for the audience. Even though this film is a silent movie it still relies on sound to give the whole effect of the film, as when I was watching it I found I was getting easily distracted by sounds around me bringing me out of the trance of the film and then bringing me back into it once I started watching again.
The reason I selected this particular piece and Warhol is that I found this motion picture so captivating and it made me want to write about it. It makes me think while watching it and most films do the thinking for you. It is for this reason that this is one of Warhol’s best films in my opinion and what makes him such a mastermind.
Historical references I can link with this film and the artist is that it was made in the 60’s which was a time for change and trying new things that had not been done before Examples include pop music from the Beatles or sex becoming a subject people talked about, so artists were becoming more daring in what they did. I believe if Empire was made in any other decade it would be a lot different from what we see today.
I want this film to be like any other film I have ever made. I want it to show Eastleigh as part of history, In history we always remember the epic fights and wars but not normally do we remember the mundane. I believe I can show that even in a mundane town in Hampshire like Eastleigh it is possible to show the sublime beauty of it. I plan to use no dialogue whats so ever.
In a way I am wanting to make a documentary of how I live and see the world I live in now. I was born in Eastleigh, I went to school in Eastleigh, i got my first girlfriend in Easteleigh so for me Eastleigh is my world. I want to film my video in as much of a cinematic way as possible so I can create the sublime feeling. There is a unbelievable amount of beauty around in the most un-likely of places and that is one of things that i want to uncover and show.
I have a feeling that the end result of my film will feel very slow moving even though a lot of the footage will be speed up as It is hard to keep peoples attention if you do not have spoken words. I hope to keep people interested by the visual look of the end film as I will be showing everyday live in a very un-everyday way.
When it comes to the way I shot my film the movement will play a very big hard in it as I will film most of it with a tripod that keeps movement still but I will be showing movement in a fast way. I hope to play around more with still movment my maybe just showing still images I'm my film or my showing very slowed down footage as to keep the viewing in that place of time.
One of the other things that drew me to making the film have no spoken works was that a lot of people that would find the film most interesting would be people that do not know what everyday life is like in the UK as they are not English. So a film with out words is free to be enjoyed my all dialogues and country's.
This is one of my Colour experiments that i made while thinking out how to make a diffrent type of film by filming in a diffrent way. To create this effect i mainly useddiffrent layering methods. I may use thsi in my title or credits of my FMP
To research documentaries I started watching all sorts of documentarys from ones on YouTube and 4OD to renting out ones at Blockbusters. One on the main sites I used to help me think of an idea was http://www.4docs.com . I also looked at the documentary film network. From looking at these sites I found out what makes a good documentary which is to inform, educate and entertain the viewer and also what makes a bad documentary. The type of documentaries that I really liked was the more personal ones that let you connect with the subject. One thing that makes this film different to my past films technically is that I used a higher end camera that i borrowed from college. It had far better sound and image quality then a normal DV camera. If i was to remake the film how ever I would film in less noisy areas. I used Final cut Pro to edit my film. I would say that I know my way around Final Cut pretty well but the way I edited was i different to other non-documentary films in terms of the way i cut and edited the clips together. For my next documentary film I would like to experiment more with lighting and audio reading. For my subject I wanted to pick something that really interested me but was easy to do as this was just a short one day experiment. Choosing 'laughter' as a subject really worked for me and it is a fun and light hearted subject that is fun to watch. I focused on using my fellow students as i would not need permission forms and would have greater access to what i can do with them and ask them. An another factor apart from that it was a experiment that i used a college setting was that it was a lot cheaper (free) and simpler to shoot there then in town or public buildings
With most of my films I normal have a story-board or a blueprint of how the film will look but shooting a documentary is different. As you let the footage inform the final structure i could only have a idea of how i wanted it to me filmed so editing played a bigger part in this. i found it really helpful to close my eyes and visualize how I wanted my finished film to look.
Planning as i found out is a key part of any film making, as i could not plan out what the people in my film would say i decided to make extra time controlling the factors that i was able to control. II asked the people I would like in my film beforehand, I made sure I was allowed to film in the selected locations and I booked out the items and equipment that I wanted to use the day before.
For the editing of my film (the post-production) I look at all my footage in great detail and made screen grabs of each shot so that I could make a image of how the finished film will look and n what order all the clips should be in. Doing this saved me a lot of time in the editing room.
For one of my contact sheets I desided to go to The Mount which is an old run down hostipal in Bishopstoke, eastleigh. I took a lot of photograths of places and angles that I though i could use in my FMP film. I then put all the photos into Final Cut Pro and made a short film out of then adding sound effects from Sound Track pro.
Ok so last night the moon was nearest to earth it has bveen for a very long time so I though I would do a timelapes of it moving across the sky. Insted of setting it for every 30 seconds, i did every 5 minutes. The end result was that the moon went too fast but on the plus side the battery lasted a lot longer so i got the sunrise.
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes
Cinematography: Robert Burks
I have seen vertigo meny times, it is one of my all time fav films. I have re looked at this film to look at how the editing was used to show time-passing. When watching Vertigo i focused on the nightmare that scotty has.
Vertigo is about a detective from San Francisco in the US who has a medical condition (acrophobia) a fear of heights. He is asked to follow the actions of an old friend’s wife but at the same time he is becoming obsessed with her. Vertigo is some of my favourite films of Hitchcock’s as it captures your imagination as you do not have any idea about who Madeline really is until the end also the suspense had me on the edge of my seat until the very end. The sequence I will be looking at in detail is the nightmare that Scottie has when he is have issues focusing on the themes, motifs and symbols.
Sleeping. At first i was not sure what was happening but the contuining stricks of purple and blue and with the animation lead me to know that it was a nightmare in Scotties mind. What i find intresting about the nightmare is that it gives clues of what we should be looking out for in the rest of the film like when it focuses on Carlottas red necklace. The dream then takes a more and more surreal approach, Scottie is seen walking into a cemetery he falls into an open grave which turns to tunnel which Scottie is falling down. The nightmare ends with Scottie landing dead next to Madeleines body on a roof top.
The scene using a lot of symbols are objects to create an idea in the audiences mind to help link ideas and thoughts and example of this is when Scottie is falling down the abstract tunnel which fits in well with his fear of heights. One other key factor that stood out in sequence as well as the film as a whole was the use of colour to represent ideas and concepts In the nightmare the colours blue and purple stands out but I thing the colour green is more relevant when you see Scotties head fallowing as the colour green is used a lot in the film, mainly when Hitchcock is to showing a spooky/ ghost like imagery. To prove my point I will highlight some use of green in the film; Madeleine vibrate green dress at the restaurant, later on in the film Scottie is wearing a green jumper, Judy’s room glows green as well as her green dress. I think that the green at the start of vertigo is meant to symbolize life but as the film progresses I think the meaning changes to symbolize the dead. I will use colour symbolism mainly focusing on red in my film experiment as well as in my final exam film so the audiences is always thinking about blood and death, I am wanting this effect as aim to scare my audience
When watching the film and examination the sequence i spotted some are parts of the story that seemed to repeat its self most likely to help the audience know the plot and themes of the film. It also used a lot of contrasting imagery and themes which i liked as it make the film more interesting. Having imagery that contrasts is something I would like to have in my abstract film. One of the Motifs that are found in the nightmare sequence, as well as other place in the film in the use of tunnels,
I believe the use of tunnels in the dream (when Scotties head is falling) is meant to show his gateway to death. other uses of tunnels in the film is when Scottie looks down the side of the building at the very start of the film and when Scotties friend Midge leaves Scottie by going down the hall way showing the end of her faith in Scottie. Hitchcock use of tunnels are very cleaver in his films just like in ‘Rear Window’ the use of tunnels is so focus the audience attention of a curtain thing as well to show the death or rebirth of a person like when we see Judy come up to see Scottie its like she is being reborn
Over all i would say Vertigo is by far one of my favorite of all of Hitchcock’s masterpieces. What i like about the film is how complex and personal the film is, it has the power to make the audience go though a range of emotions. What made the film for me apart from Hitchcock magic is the great James Stewart and Kim Novak who acting is brilliant. All the areas that make a good film great this film has from the story to the cinematography it has it all and it is for these reasons and many more why i am a Hitchcock fan and a lover of Vertigo.
I did my talk in front of everyone about my project. I found it very intresting and has lead me to re-think my work some what. I have been experimennting with stopmotion this week.
I have just watched the film ' The happning' I found a good film 7/10 I would say it has some really intresting time-lapes init aswell as playing around with speed/ time.
For my experimentation I have made a range of different stop-motion and
time-lapse films. I have based them all in my home town of Eastleigh
so it would give a more personal touch to the end result. As
Eastleigh is a very flat town I have found it hard to get high angle
shots of the whole town but I have however managed to get some
stunning shots of the sky and moon.
I am making my films in two different ways one with a Nikon Coolpix
stills camera and one with a digital Canon video camera. the Still
camera can only take a photography every 30 seconds and for some
things that happen a lot quicker I need more frames per seconds. For
the shots that are done on the camcorder I remove frames, so that it
haves a simluer look to the Nikon stills. I am using a tripod for all
my experiments.
As the moon lately has been the closes to earth that it has ever been
for 18 years I decided to use this and make a time-lapse of the full
moon moving across the sky. For one week I stayed up till 12 and set
the camera up and left it. On my first go I had to take a
photography every five minutes but found that the moon moved to quick
so it did not create a smooth motion across the sky. I also did one
for every 1 minute the next night and one every 3o seconds the night
after that. The 1 minute one goes all the way to sun rise but for me
the 30 second one looks the best though the battery ran out before
sun-rise.
I had the camera take photography at 8 mega pixals so I would get a
good quality image. I used a 4 Gib memory card so I would not run out
of room. My only limitation is the life of the battery as I do not
own a mains lead.
Ones I had the camera all set one I went to
ed as I am always tempted to move it or change the settings which
would ruin the final look of it. One of the main worries I had was
that someone would steal the camera but lucky for me no one did. For
the second night I added a lock to my back gate for safety.
In the morning I uploaded all the 100s of images and coped and rotated
them using the batch setting on Photoshop CS5 to make sure they were
all the same. I then at college added the file will all my stills in
to Final Cut Pro and put all the images on the time-line, changed the
duration to 0.3 seconds per image then exported it as a QuickTime.
from yesterday me and Emma also took some photos of me jumping around a tree. I have been editing these today. It looks like i am flying around. I have added chicken sound effects and i think the movemnts I am making look like a chickens
I have picked time-lapse photography for my FMP as it really interests me. I love the way that it shows something that would normally have a slow state-of-change and with the simple technique of speeding up shows it in a complete different way that I find truly fascinating. I wanted to show the sun set in the evening which would normally take hours so by making the process of viewing faster you get to see things in a way you would not see normally. If you was to watch the sun set in real-time like I did you would probably not see any change but viewing it speed up like this it becomes interesting.
I made this short time-lapse of the three and sky by having a stationary camera taking a single photograph every 30 seconds (using a build in setting on the camera). I left it taking photos until the cell ran up which was about 3 hours after stating. After I have all the 100s of stills I compressed them into a Quick Time movie using Final Cut Pro which made the time lapsing movie you can see here.
Other ideas I have in mind to time-lapse are:
a town center, clouds moving, water movment, ice melting, stop-motion, a plant growing, drawing a image, flower dieing and a sun-rise.
I have been experimenting with Finalcut today, using the ink footage i got, I have been playing around with it adding effects and overlayer and editing it in diffrent ways. My faverate one is rainbow one.
Using the footage from my first ink film I have reedited to create a diffrent look. I used idffrent layering ways and inverted the colours as well as speeding up and slowing down the footage.
I have been trying to make a diffrent type of film today, insted of filming from one or from the side I have filmed from the bottom by using see-through plastic and having the camera under it. I slowly pored ink over the top. Ones the footage was on final cut I over layed the diffrent inks.
I hope to keep experimenting with this footage tomorrow
I have been doing a arange of candle time-lapes in ther morning to evning. I had to stay home as it was unsafe to leave it burning on its own. One thing that went wroung with this was that i was un able to do anything else in the time. The other thing was the cell died before the candle was compleaty gone. Having these issuse i am still pleased with the outcome.
Today I went ot the lakeside and the new housing development and took a group of photos so I can make a contact sheet of location where i hope to film so i already know the angles and locations first to save time.
I have just been re-researching about lighting this morning so i dont forget the basics when I start my experiments for my FMP. here are some of the notes I made.
Lighting
Backlighting
When predominantly lit from the back.
Makes characters + objects be placed in shadow or silhouette.
Don’t let audience engage with characters.
Characters become mysterious, sinister + unworthy.
Keep information away.
Side Lighting
When a character is lit on half the side of their face.
Use to pick out facial features.
Helps to give important details to connect with characters.
Used to create mood in a scene and contrasting sides.
Top + Bottom Lighting
top
When characters are lit from above.
Produces shadows under the eyes giving the character an unflattering look.
Bottom
Bottom lighting is lit from below.
Bottom light adds a menacing look to person.
Enhance a fighting mood
Used to get a particular response.
Rarely used on main characters.
Hard + Soft lighting
Hard lighting – direct bright spot light
Picks up detail, especially on face.
Soft lighting is also called Soft focus
Creates appearance of smooth even surfaces
Soft lighting is often used in romantic films.
Both hard and soft lighting is used for specific moods.
3 Point + Natural Lighting
Mainly used in documentary films,
Both give a very naturalistic look.
Makes audience feel as if they were there.
Helps audience connect with charter on screen.
Can still use natural light for effect.
Colour
Can be used to give a certain feel to a scene.
Certain colours represent specific meanings.
Colour is also taken out of films to give a more realistic documentary feel to it.
Used to draw audience attention.
Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1989) Directed by: Mary Lambert Cinematography by: Peter Stein
I have currently been reading Stephen King's Pet Sematary and wanted to watch the film. The film its self does not directly relate to my film at all but I wanted to talk about it in my blog as It made me think how important the opening of a film can be. I am currently working on a ink based film that I hope to use for the very start of my time-lapse film.
Pet sematary is about a family that has just moved to an empty place. Not long after they move, their cat is killed by the road. Being very sad, the father takes the cat to a cemetery for pets that is neat by. It brings the cat back to life. All is good, until the son is killed and the dad doses the same thing to this child as he did the cat. I will be looking at the opening sequence.
It opens up with paramount’s logo so you know it’s got a decent budget and you assume it will be at least ‘semi’ good. I believe it was, I really enjoyed watching it.
From the opening font of Pet Sematary (formal white writing with slanted T, a jet black background and spooky music) you straight away get a feel about what the film genre is, horror (this is one of the reason why I selected it to analyse as my exam film will have aspects of horror). As black is the darkest colour you can get, it is simplistic of nothingness, the end, death. The white is the lightest colour you can get which could symbolise a ghost or supernatural feel to the film without even reading the text. I will be thinking very closely at the font in my film to give the right impression of the film right from the start.
Pet Sematary opens with a close up of a small round glass jar surrounded with greenery. At this point it does not give a great deal away but you can tell it is outside and that it is going to continue to zoom out slowly revealing the rest of the shot.
As it zooms out you can start to make out a small old looking wooden cross and then you hear a young girl’s voice saying “bye little chef, see you in heaven”. It does not tell the audience that this is a grave of a little girl’s pet, but it gives you all the clues so you can figure it out, I like this idea of letting the audience figure things out for them self’s and hope to also display this in my new film. From what it looks like it is not a very well kept cemetery in the film from the mise-en-scene as all the white paint of the cross is chipped and there are leaves, branches and moss surrounding the cross. It is not until you hear the spooky unclear talking that is playing under the echo of the girls’ voice that you truly get the feel that it is going to be supernatural. In my exam film I will be twisting between supernatural and real insanity, I also plan to use an echo in my film to give the impression of not really being there, an echo of the past.
Pet Sematary continues to play the spine-chilling music and zooms out revealing more of the scene, giving you more information that it is not just one grave at a bottom of the garden but a massive run down pet cemetery that goes on for ever almost. As the camera moves to show you more of the graves, you keep hearing voices all blending in to each other of children saying good bye to their pets, but you do not see them so you can assume with the dilapidation of the place and the voices that it used to be a ‘well used’ pet cemetery but for years has not been looked after or even used, just taken over by weeds and wildlife (you see a skunk run by).
It isn’t until it shows you more of the area that you see just how big it really is, 100s and 100s of old graves with pet names on with old worn pet toys laid about with no bright colours or anything like flowers about which adds to the effect that it has not been used for years and that death is all-around. All this information is before the credits have even stopped showing. The director Mery lambert does this to set the scene to show you what to expect and get you in the mood to be scared!
My own thoughts personally of this movie are that it was very well gone and works well with the book it was set on. Some of the points in the film could have been development more like how the ground brings people back from the dead but apart from that a very good film.
A Clockwork orange is about the protagonist Alex who is an "ultraviolent" adolescence in the UK in the near future. He has a lot of good fortune but ultimately ends and he's detained by the law after his mate’s stitch him up and sentenced of manslaughter and rape. In prison, Alex hears about an untried project in which criminals are trained to hate violence. he has the treatment and his punishment is condensed and ends up back on then the streets in which he started. Ones on the streets he gets a taste of his own past actions.
My favourite part in Stanley Kubricks: A Clockwork Orange is at the beginning were four teenage boys drinking milk in a milk bar.
The metaphors in the film is mainly metaphorical in the words Alex use as you can tell what he is saying even though he is saying something else. I hope to do this in my film also using a voice over saying about beautiful things but showing ugly things. The film has a twist of surreal as this film is set in the future, mine is set at present date but still about the area and the people that are in it like ACO. What I like about ACO is that it dose not tell you its in the future but you can tell this by the style of the mise-en-scene (naked manikins with unusual coloured hair, and the outfits which the four boys are wearing) as this is not the type of things we would expect to find in a milk bar for children in the present day..
There is a lot of controversial topics in this film and that was the reason why I picked it, nearly all surrounding the theme of sex. Firstly the naked manikins with unusual hair suggest a sexual and futuristic concept to the scene. From the outside this is the only noticeable object of sex. Now this looks odd as it seems to be four innocent children drinking milk which is seen by most people to be the drink of young children or babies, but they are resting on a ‘erotically positioned’ manikin of a naked lady. Going back to the milk, apart from the hidden meaning of the inner child there is another one of a sexual nature. They are holding their glasses in a way which looks like they are holding there own penis in an offensive way which you would not expect from children drinking milk. Looking at it from this point of view the milk now becomes a much more fitting symbol of sex than say a beer or tea. I also think the colour has a strong significance to the shot as it is mostly white, this hints towards purity and youth. In my film I will be having it black and white to give a dark, grimy and depressing feel to the short film. In the Korova Milk Bar it is an interesting shot as it is very contradicting of itself, which in turn makes it a fantastically interesting idea.
Lastly focusing more on the teenagers in the shot as I also will be using youth as my mainly characters, they all have large crotched pants. This highlights the fact that they are very sexually orientated young people with only one thing on their mind, though the teenagers in my film are not as sexually orientated, sex if normalcy a force behind anti-sosal behavers. Also Alex and his drougs are part of a gang just like the youths in my film. Looking at their facial expressions they are not of a sweet youthfulness but aroused and showing a readiness of what they are about to do. All of this sets the scene nicely for what they are about to do and tells you a lot about them before the film starts (in the film they beat up, rape and even kill people!) referring back to my short film ones again I also plan to show youth as how I see them, smoking, swearing etc. and not quite hard working people. Though we all know that they do these thinks we turn a blind eye and I hope to highlight these issues just like ACO.
In my opinion the use of objects like the manikins is appropriate as it sets the scene and gives a lot of important information about the type of people in the bar, what they do and plan to get up to without the use of words. I plan to do the same but with cigarettes and because and people link beer with trouble. The part of the cinematography/ mise-en-scene that stands out to me the most is the colour white. I do not think this scene has been digitally manipulated in any way; this enhances the scene in making it more believable.
Comparing my film in more detail to ACO, they both use symbols to represent things that add layers to the meaning of both films, but A Clockwork Orange uses more hidden ones and is linked with a theme, unlike my film which the visual look is one of the hidden theams.
The music in both are films are very important I feel as a different sound track would give a different meaning and would have come across differently to the audience. One more thing that makes these two films the same is that they are very iconic images, like you could show Alex’s eye to most people and they will know what the film is and in my film the speed up images of the train station in Eastleigh, the railway and the iron man is very well known to everyone that has been to the town. I hope my film will create a emotional reaction for people that know the town well.
