TWO SHORT FILM ANALYSES
For our Task 1, we had watch two short films and analysed them through mis en scene, sound, camera movement, and storytelling.
First Film:
The Ellington Kid
Release date: 2012 (United Kingdom)
Director: Dan Sully
Running time: 6 minutes
Screenplay: Dan Sully
Music composed by: Nic Nell
Cast: Charlie G. Hawkins, Durassie Kiangangu
Summary:
In a typical South London kebab shop, Nathan explains to Beefy why he really shouldn’t eat the burgers.
Genre: Dark Comedy
*Goes against Levi Strauss's theory of good vs evil according to narrative.
We don't know if the Ellington Kid was a good person or a bad person given the fact that he was involved in a gang. Nevertheless, we do sympathise with him.
Also the killers in the kebab shop, despite the fact they saved the boy, we are not sure whether they are good people though. We can also see a
And the boys in the kebab shop who were chatting in the begining didn't look like heroes or protagonists they were just normal people having a conversation.
IMAGES & SHOTS:
Second Film:
Everyday
Release date: 2013
Director: Gustav Johannson
Running time: 4 minutes and 16 seconds
Music composed by: Oskar Linnros
Cast: Amie Henrikson, Daniel Nilson Maka
Plot: A girl and a boy talk about what would it be like if there were an extra day in the week, and what would they do on that day.
TASK 2:
Poster Analysis
For this task, we had to analyse two independant film posters.
THE ELLINGTON KID
BRICK
2. Blonde Disco Hipster
This eccentric character, I saw in the Undergorund tube, Piccadilly line.
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A young man that looked between in his mid twenty's to early thirtys.
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He had long blonde long hair brushed aside to the right side of his face.
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He was wearing big thick see through specatcles
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He was wearing a black suit jacket
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His shirt collar was unfolded/ sticking out.
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His shirt buttons were undone revealing his chest hair.
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He wore baggy jeans and big brown shoes.
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He was listening to music, he was wearing earphones.
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His face seemed concentrated. His eyes here squinting and he was bobbing his head to his music, slightly vigourously. I could really sense his passion by his face and movement/gesture to the music.
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His fingers was tapping to the music aswell, it made me imagine/wonder what sort of music he was listening to.
This man looked resembled a very cheesy, eccentric character. If this sort of character would be protrayed in film, it would be a comedy. I thought he was on his way to an 80s theme disco.
This sort of character reminded me of the eccentric comedy character/persona, Napolean Dyanamite portrayed by Jon Heder, as shown below.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
For this task, we had to go to a busy street in London and follow three people, who seemed to look interesting.
When walking in Piccadilly Circus I could witness, in a busy crowd, that there were countless people with interesting character traits.
1. Man with a cast.
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Looked like he was in his mid 30s.
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He was also carrying a rucksack which looked heavey. Wearing a rough looking t shirt, and baggy jeans.
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His posture in his movement seemed identical to Shaggy from Scooby Doo. His back was hunched and his neck was sticking out.
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The way he carried himself was sustained and the weight he was carrying on his back/backpack seemed heavey.
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The way that he swings his arms from side to side. As if the arms were weightless. He let's all the tension go in there.
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This sort of character engaged me because I wanted to know:
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What is this man's job? (Most probably a construction builder judging by his clothes)
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Where is he going? Why would he even still be working if he's injured?
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How did he get that cast?
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This is the sort of character I would sympathise for.
What Makes A Good Short Film?
3. Pregnant Lady with a Toy Car.
This preganant woman was on a bus.
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She was seated in the priority seats.
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She was wearing a green cardigan and tight black leggings. Stereotypical clothing for a middle class expecting woman.
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She had a rucksack placed between her legs.
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She opened it up and reached inside and took out a white mini convertable toy car.
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The way she held it and looked at it and examined it side to side.
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The expression on her face was a slight smirk and her eyes seemed relaxed.
This was the most engaging because she didn't have a baby beside her. So why did she have a toy car?
Was it for her son? Ideally mini toy cars are stereotypically made for young males. Was she going to visit him? Why does she have it with her? Did he lose it?
Or maybe she bought it and would give it to her currently unborn child as a gift.
If this sort of character would be in a film, the genre would be Drama or Romance because this would normally be an iconography of that sort of genre.
It would be a good opening sequence aswell.
Please click on the soundcloud where I talk about what I think makes a good short film.
Task 13:
Research
We went to the British Film Instituition where we we researched in the library books about filming. Our task was to reflect the information we have learned from our sources.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick by Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill
Case Study: A Clockwork Orange
The film begins with Alex staring into the camera with a smirk on his face as he looks forward to the coming of night of sexual escapades and "ultra violence" with his gang. Alex's world as it is projected in the picture has a basis in reality, in tendacies that already exist in contemporary society.
This film is not really a prediction. It is more of a PARODY of the materialism, sexual indulgence, and mindless violence of the present.
Which is why the writer, F Alexander's wife, dies of a viscious assault by Alex and his henchmen (Droogs) Shows his wife is a victime of the modern age.
What makes A Clockwork Orange a piece of cinematic art are two stylistic pervasive elements.
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Reveloutionary musical score
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Eye popping visuals
"A Clockwork Orange employed a darker, obviously dramatic type of photography. The period called for a really cold, stark style of photography."
- John Alcott, British Society of Cinematography
They needed so much location and new, faster lenses in order to shoot in natural light under circumstances that would have been impossible before.
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Allowed 360 degree pans
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Removed bulky studio lights so saving precious time in shooting schedule.
Overall result: curious blend of gritty realism and futuristic starkness.
Violence in his films are stylized like in the book.
Elements of visual style and musical scoring have their most rewarding meetings in the beautifully choreographed, highly stylized fight scenes.
His only problem is finding a way of presenting it in film without benefit of the writing style.
Violence is turned into Dance.
The Fight Scene
Out on the town for some ultra-violence, Alex and his droogs encounter Billy Boy's gang and a small brawl ensues.
The music is from La gazza ladra (The
Thieving Magpie) Composed by Gioacchino Rossini.
Singing In The Rape
A brutal scene where Alex and his gang break into a writer, F. Alexander's home. The Droogs paralyze the writer for life whilst the leader, Alex, rapes his wife while he watches. Alex all of a sudden starts bursting into a song, unexpectedly: Singing In The Rain. This combines the joy and the misery. Alex's dancing and singing and his enjoyment and the Droog's laughing and the horrified, shocked, terrorised expressions from the people we see being attacked and chaos Alex brings as he carelessly vandalises their home.
"...The most iconic juxtaposition of sexual content and classical music in the cinema occurs in the menage a trois in Alex's bedroom which is set to an electronic version of the William Tell Overture."
Stanley Kubrick
"Kubrick's reminds viewers Beethoven's art, Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Michaelangeol and most of world's greatest artisits both profoundly violent and sexual."
EDITING and CINEMATOGRAPHY
Source: Cinematography edited by Patrick Keating
Contagion (2011) - Some of Steven Soderbergh's low-resoloution signatures: shooting with available light, tonal adjustment to the frame and Hollywood stars in silhouette.
Collateral (2004) - A low-light allowing the nighttime cityscape to be visible in the background in Collateral.
Se7en (1995) - A devastated noir composition accented with vivid reds in Se7en.
The Godfather (1972) The underexposed "push" look.
A variety of film stocks and video formats were used in conscious juxtapositions as a means in creating meaning through contrasts in texture and emotional tone.
In crafting the film's garish, eye popping psychological mindscapes, Stone and cinematographer Robert Richardson (ASC) combined a wide variety of shooting formats (colour and black and white 35 mm, black and white 16 mm, Super 8, Hi 8 and Beta.) with front and rear projection photography, bits of heavy-metal animation, footage and clips from other films, including several of Stone's previous projects.
Director Oliver Stone and Robert Richardson mix film stocks in Natural Born Killers (1994)
Black Swan (2010) was noted for combining low-budget grit with adraned digital techniques ina film based context.
M. David Mullen used the term "low-resolution realism" to describe this technique of underscoring the authenticity of a drama through non - professional formats.
Black - visible grain and intrusive close-ups are Swan combined with digital effects.
The Dark Knight franchise (Christopher Nolan 2005 - 2012) are shot particular on film with sequences in the IMAX format, demonstrated that effects - heavy studio franchises did not have to forgo sophisticated visual design offering a while variety of looks: grim prison tableaux, romantic dinners, daylight street scenes, slashing chiarosuro (italian for light dark)
Batman Vs. Bane
The Dark Knight is given a complex composition in the midst of an extended fight scene in the Dark Knight Rises (2012)
David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007) was the first Hollywood live feature film to use digital data cameras.
Zodiac portrayed the fruitless search of a serial killer in 1970s San Francisco and it featured a murky, low light atmosphere the recalled other Fincher films like Se7en and Fight Club in tone and visual style.
David Fincher’s account of the camera’s look of is strikingly different, arguing that its synthetic quality could be seen as a feature, which “came to support that we were doing with this particular film. It feels like a news report. Not a Hollywood movie.
The capacities of new digital cameras clashing with cinematographer’s traditional concepts of beauty and realism, made the mid 2000s a period of significant discontent for cinematographers and generated much friction between collaborators.
Research - Short Film Analysis - Same Genre
For this task, we had to analyse three films that have the same genre. We had to outline 5 things we liked about the film and 5 things we could to do to change the film if we were the director.
Click on the video below to see the film: THE FLY. Underneith the video is a slideshow gallery of the prezi of my analysis
