Week 12-Shrek

Shrek is a colossally entertaining animated 3D feature film which was been produced in 2001. It based on the 1990 children’s fairy tale book Shrek. Much of this movie might expand the visual palette of computer animation. It is very important of the animation that the wit and compassion CG animators at PDI/DreamWorks bring to this fractured fairy tale. It makes audiences feel the fairy tale is more near our daily life. Compared to the Dumbo, Shrek also play the tale of “The Ugly Duckling” for all its worth. But instead of a tiny elephant with huge ears, the title character in “Shrek” is an ogre — green, ornery, nasty-looking and foul-smelling, and even more worse that he has terrible table manners. Shrek is the very distinguish to other fairy tale heroes. He hates everybody. He lives apart from society in a swamp. And he would have remained content with such a caste system — with him as its caste-away — if a funny thing doesn’t happen. Shrek is a really entertaining cartoon that fit for any age group.

Week-11 Fight Club

     

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Science, Fiction, Fantasy,thriller and adaption.

Running Time: 2hrs and 19 min

Release Date: October 15, 1999

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing and graphic depiction of violent anti-social behaviour, sextuality and language.

Distributors: 20th Centure Fox Distribution

U.S.A. Box Office: $37, 023,395

David Fincher’s Fight Club was from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a story about a special kind of male anger. It’s the anger of single guys, night-owl guys, guys who work and fret and have nothing to show for it, guys who can’t get laid or for whom getting laid doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s high concept agitprop about detached, anesthetized guys who float through their lives, and who see society as a bully, a prison, a form of castration. The editor put the cause in the beginning and then we can see the effect gradually over time. We see that Edward Norton – the mundane existence of a product liability evaluator and insomniac, who is addicted to self-help groups, is turned upside down when he meets a sado-masochistic anarchist who is secretly plotting to overthrow civilization. As their friendship grows, they become increasingly involved in a secret society of “fight clubs” where men act out their aggressions and violently beat one another to a pulp.  

Movie! Movie!

     

During the summer of 1975, North American beaches were quieter than usual. This wasn’t the result of concern over the damaging rays of the sun or the poor weather. Beaches were poorly attended because people were scared. The spectre of Jaws was enough to keep them away. Editing is very important to the success of this movie. The ‘monster’ isn’t visible for the first half of the movie. It is the anticipation of horror that grabs us much more than the terrible acts themselves. Jaws theme reminds us of the terror that lurks just beneath the surface. The scary feeling make audiences keep watching the movie until finally see the leviathans. This movie took place in small coastal New England towns and on the open seas. These both factors pit man against the forces of nature. This film show the ‘monster’ near the end (though in Jaws this was a case of necessity forcing the filmmakers’ hand, as the temperamental shark proved uncooperative through most of the shoot). Jaws bring a so realistic feeling to audiences that you can smell the salt in the air, feel the sand in your shoes and hear the clashing static-riddled signals from dueling AM radios at the beach. Jaws is a really a remarkable horror movie throughout the movie history.

Week-9 Let’s movie! movie!

  

Sin city is a movie adaptation from a comic book. It is the most visually inventive comic book adaptation to make its way to a movie screen in 2005. The movie is separate into four single stories that is about a dying cop (Willis) tries to protect a young girl from a sadistic madman (Nick Stahl) who’s also the son of a senator, a disfigured and seemingly forever can not be killed brute (Mickey Rourke) seeks to avenge the murder of a prostitute he loved, and a murderer (Clive Owen) on the lam supports a well-armed hooker mafia in a street war against corrupt cops, vicious pimps, and Irish mercenaries. Vision is very special of this movie. Generally the color is black and white. But there are still some colorful things– a femme fatale’s blond manes of hair, a hooker’s cobalt-blue eyes, and the diseased yellow skin of a very bad guy. Sin city used lots of low-key lighting which is knows as ‘mood lighting’ because the use of light to illuminate an object or background in a deliberate manner can help to evoke a certain mood or emotion. This lighting skilled lighting technique is very subtle but nevertheless can achieve highly effective outcomes.

Week-8 Transformers

           

Genres: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Adaptation

Running time: 3 hrs. 20 min.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor and language.

Distributors: Paramount Picture, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Inc. Paramount Pictures International.

U.S. Box Office: $316,476,438 

Transformers” is based on the mid-1980s cartoon. The director is Michael Bay who gave us “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor.” Transformer’s visuals and sound are very good. Michael Bay provides audience a nonstop feast of coolness throughout the film. “The special effects work from Industrial creates Transformer’s most seamless visuals on a big budget picture since Master  & Commander: The Far Side of the World.” The transforming effects are really cool, and the sound is equally fantastic — especially when the Transformers start to speak. It’s like some one just had a tracheotomy and start shouting in a big empty room. In the first scene, helicopter Robert attacked American Amy. When this transformer shack back to the Robert, the sound of its every transforming action makes people feel so real and so awesome.   

Week-7

         

Brick

Director: Rian Johnsonn

Genre: Crime/Dram/Mystery

Running time: 110min.

MPAA Rating: R for seuality, language and some drug use.

The story is about “In a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school, student Brendan Frye’s piercing intelligence spares no one. He’s not afraid to back up his words with actions, and knows all the angles; yet he prefers to stay an outsider, and does – until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily, reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes. His feelings for her still run deep; so much so, that he becomes consumed with finding his troubled inamorata. To find her, he enlists the aid of his only true peer, the Brain, while keeping the assistant vice principal only occasionally informed of what quickly becomes a dangerous investigation. Brendan’s single-minded unearthing of students’ secrets thrusts him headlong into the colliding social orbits of rich-girl sophisticate Laura, intimidating Tugger, substance-abusing Dode, seductive Kara, jock Brad and – most ominously – non-student the Pin. Only by gaining acceptance into the Pin’s closely guarded inner circle of crime and punishment that Brendan will be able to uncover hard truths about himself, Emily and the suspects that he is getting closer to.” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/plotsummary)

The whole movie gives you a feeling of  lonely, cold and makes you feel very sorrow. There are just high-school girls and boys. People always think they are a happy and optimistic group which is designer for the future. However, they are not. Their daily life is complicated and dark. In order to make the sad atmosphere for the film, the director used high-key light to make the scene looks old and nature light which makes the movie looks a little bit dark than usually.

 

Week-6

          For a film composition can be defined as the orderly arrangement of elements in a scene which, when taken as a whole, conveys intent and meaning. 

Static composition: covers the content of fixed images such as painting or still photos.

Dynamic composition: goes a step further and takes into consideration the effect of time= moment-to-moment change. When you get start for shooting. We must control the elements of headroom, talking room and center of interest carefully, because they will decide understanding of the audience. 

Daisy is a good movie that tells you how important are the framing and composition to a film. The story is about Hye Young a rather naïve Korean girl named Hye Young who lives in Amsterdam and spending her life working in her grandfather’s antique. One day, she begins receiving flowers at exactly the same time from a secret admirer, who she believes to be a mystery man from her past who once built her a nice little bridge. One day she meets Jeong Woo who unbeknownst to her is actually an Interpol agent tracking Asian criminals in the Netherlands .With Hye Young assuming that Jeong Woo is responsible for the flowers, the two fall very slowly into a chaste romantic relationship. However, it turns out that the man sending the flowers is actually Park Yi, an assassin working for a Chinese crime syndicate. Inevitably, the love triangle turns tragic and the two men end up facing off while poor Hye Young tries to work out which of the two is the love of her life. 

The first hour can be separated into three parts. But we can say it’s just one part but played three times by shifting different interests. Audiences can get different meaning by different interests but in the same scene.     

Week-5

                                                                                       Dogville is a movie that works as a demonstrating of how a good idea can go wrong. The director Lars von Trier set the story in a Rocky mountain town during the Great Pression, but doesn’t provide a real town. The first shot looks straight down on the floor of a large sound stage, where the houses of the residents are made out with chalk outlines, and there are only a few props-some doors, desks, chairs, beds.We can just see some basic living props. Is it a peacefull town. Yes it is. But just in the begging.

People always like to develop their living quality. When something new and beautiful come to the villedge, people begin to change. Thus, everything will change when residents of Dogville see such a beautiful woman who escaped away from the  gangsters. Residents will be excited to ask the new women about what she saw, what she experienced and what’s the novelty of her surroundings. This means residents want to get connection with the out world. So, the beautiful woman will be found in the end. On the other hand, there’s no wall of the all the house in the town gives a feeling to audience that the place can’t hide anything. Thus, the woman must be found.

Dogme 95 is a collective of film directors founded in copenhagen in 1995.t expressed goal of countering “certain tendencies” in the cinima today which is the raging of technological using in the film. The goal of Dogme is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular effects, postproduction modifications and other gimmks.The emphsis on purify forces the filmmakers to focus on the actual story and on the actors’ performances. The rules of  Dogme known as Vow of Chastity. “Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found). The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic). The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.) The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera). Optical work and filters are forbidden. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) Genre movies are not acceptable. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.) The director must not be credited. “

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95

Week-4

Hello, how is everything going during the week. Hope everything’s all right. What we will talk about today is something about screenwriting especially about the formula of screenplay.

Films are come from scripts. Usually, a movie script has 120-160 pages, each page is a minute of film time, and most movies are two hours or shorter. First ten pages tells the reader what the movie is going to be about. After that, every ten pages must have a plot point which keeps the story moving. A little bit before the middle of the screenplay, about page 50-55, a mid-point crisis should occur that takes the story in a logical but unexpected direction. The conclusion should come at page 105 to page 120.

Syd Field developed a screenplay formula which as three acts-set up, confrontation and resolution. The great scripts have distinct beginnings, middles, and ends. In the first 30 mins, the film should tell the audiences who is the movie about? Where is the movie taking place? What’s going to happen?At the end of act one comes the first plot point. Act Two is the Biggie to write- it will be 60 pages long. Creat your characters and throw stuff at them. Let them Struggle towards their goal. At the end of Act 2 comes the second plot point and usually by now the solution is in sight.

Those Movies’s structure belong to traditional screen formula:Three kings, Jaws, Romeo+ Juliet

       

Week-3

Hello, I am very happy to join this interesting course this semester.

Today, our lecture talked about Visualisation, conceptualisation, plot & genre of movies. There always a great vision behind a great movie before films can be made, before the screenwriter can put pen to paper every film needs a vision. As a filmmaker you should always be aware of your environment, keeping an eye open for future locations, keeping your ears open for snippets of dialogue, and keeping your mind open to ideas as they flow into your head. Whether you keep a mental notebook or a paper one, it is important to keep tabs on all these things, so that when you are conceptualising your film you have a large database of ideas to refer to. After you got ideas, write then down and orgnise your felling effectively that can lead us to… Now, you’ve got a basic plot, Then carefully design every scene of your story because they are the very important elements of an succrssful movie. 

There are five steps to produce a movie: development, preproduction, production, postproduction and distribution.