The Film: Titanic by Director James Cameron; The Song: Nearer My God to Thee; By Composer James Horner and Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

 The Song can be from here: http://www.soundtrack.net/albums/database/?id=1504

Track number seven.

 The situation, where this musical piece was played within the film, was when the boat was submerging deeper in to the ocean. As one band member started playing this song, a few of his fellow members, join in as a montage of shots showed the circumstances of the environment around them. The music piece relates perfectly with the setting of the montage, which is showing shots of how certain characters were dealing with the sinking ship. Some were saying goodbye in their own form of welcoming death, or trying to survive by getting to the back of the boat, rowing away in a life boat, or by any means possible.

The tone of music playing over the montage, that had some dialogue and non dialogue shots, made me feel for the people who were welcoming death in their own way. One shot from the montage, made me feel honorable for the captain, who was closing the doors to go down with his ship, as we saw the water enclosing his quarters he was in. Also, I felt respect for the builder of the ship, setting the clock one more time, and glaring at the fireplace knowing he has failed and has built a ship that was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The music was perfect for the shot of an old couple, lying in bed holding hands, sharing one last moment of love together, as water rushes right below them.  The lowing of the music, but is still heard, in the shot of the mother talking to her children, about how heaven is going to be, just broke my heart. The ending shots seen as the musical piece is played, but more dialogue is being heard, are the people trying to live. They are racing to the back of the boat or trying to cut the ropes in order to row away in the remaining life boats. The very last shot as the music piece ends is the most touching. The band stops playing, and as the water is a few feet away, and the one guy who started playing the song, says it was an honor playing together. Since they could have just gone their own ways, and maybe had a better chance of surviving, they all stayed and played one more song.

The musical piece was very effective for the scene which is was used in, to give a short montage of how people were dealing with the sinking of the ship, as that point in time of the movie. The song was a great use of simultaneous sound. The digenetic use of the onscreen sound was a perfect fit.  The frequency and pitch of the music was flawlessly done. The music just enables the sad and powerful message the director was trying to address to the audience at that point in the film.  It succeed big time in evoking the intended response, by every time you hear the song being played, you think to how bad it much of been in those final moments on the ship titanic as it was sinking.

“Tim Burton Interviewed on The Treatment”

The guest being interview is Tim Burton was born Timothy Walter Burton and attended California Institute of the Arts where he learned of his love in hand made artistry. He is a well-known filmmaker whose extraordinary visual artistic talents are well displayed in every movie he makes. These talents include stop motion animation that can be seen in live action and animation movies. He also makes movies where the focus is based on a misunderstood outcast or loner. Some of the movies he has direction and/or produce are: Pee-Wee Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), and most current Frankenweenie (2012). The date the interviewed was conducted on The Treatment was Wednesday, February 15, 2006.

Tim Burton has always been a favorite director of mine since I first saw his films Pee-Wee Big Adventure and Edward Scissorhands. His stop motion animation has been a favorite aspect to viewing his movies, that when I got to see some of the sets on display at Disneyland including the clay models he used, for his current film Frankenweenie, I was truly amazed. The details of each clay model characters and sets provided were the exactly the same as if they were really people in makeup or the sets were build to life size. It was not said, but I wonder if the first Frankenweenie live action short 27 min film, he did in 1984 had a influence on creating this animated film? The interview provided a lot of knowledge I didn’t know before such as where he went to school and how Ray Harryhausen introduced him to the handmade artistry of animation. Tim Burton seem very relax in his interview and was willing to share a personal side of him to gain a inside to why and how he films his unique style of movies. I was also rather surprised by the symbolic meanings he also puts in to every film he makes, don’t be judgmental of people who are different. 

When studying animation at Cal Arts, he has professors who had worked at Disney on the classic Disney films, such as Snow White. The professors expressed how it’s necessary to learn different ways to illustrate, design, and learn the traits of the craft. To quote Tim Burton, “You learn to have passion towards the art…you are reminded it is a business, but never lose the passion and the artist you have for it”. This is very true in the film business, with the advance of computers and technology people are losing site of what they love about making a film and just going with the appeals to the public and sells the film. Sometimes big blockbusters often fail compare to B type movies, because they didn’t focus on plot and getting their overall message across, their main focus was spending as much as they can on CGI and other special effecting neglecting all else.

This is why I believe Tim Burton does a lot of Fantasy movies. He is able to hold on to his passion and not fall in to business only part of the trait. When asked during the interview, about how he does a lot of fantasy and live action, he remarks about fantasy, “you don’t need to so literal about life and death, its more about two sides of life…repress vs. the open and artistic” He treats each film as a symbolic meaning though his characters, sets, and plot. He goes with his passion of showing that there are two sides to every story. The outcast may not be an outcast after all; people are just not connecting with their ways of thinking, or living life. You must look at the whole story, and go back to his message of not judging a person by their lifestyle, or looks.

Tim Burton makes a great statement about storyboards in his interview, which I think helps make his movies that much better. In the movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, even though its gothic like, you can personalize with all the characters during each scene as they see the chocolate factory for the first time and all the adventures it hold for them on the inside. He states, “I used to storyboard a lot, and I don’t as much, once you start working with actors, you start working with good improvisation style of actors, it opens your mind not to rely on storyboards”.  By using this technique in filming a movie, allowing for the actors to do as they please to a certain extreme, then it helps bring a point across you are trying to give. When looking at other movies as well, his overall message is to not be judgmental, so by trusting the actors to do improvisation in certain scenes, to get a point across that might now have been good in a storyboard drawing, is a great thing to do, and has work well for him.

           In conclusion I loved this interview done with Tim Burton. It opened my mind to the meaning behind his type of film making. He does a fantastic making the audience feel for the outcast or non-normal person in all his movies. He is as master at using stop motion animated in most of his movies. In today’s world where there is so much bulling and hatred, his overall message of trying to stop the labeling of people and being narrow minded, to being more open minded by stressing this in symbolic form in his movies. I have gain more respect for Tim Burton and understand why he films the types of movies he does. 

Some of the photos I took from the exhibition: 

a kitchen scene with such details as working lights and food on the table and in the oven. 

the school room set with clay model characters.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly Cinematography Review

Overall Look:

In the movie, “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”, the cinematographic aspects add up perfectly to the overall look of the movie. In the New York Times video, by Randy Kennedy, he states, that the director of the movie, Julian Schnabel was a painter before he become a director and that you could view his movies as you would view a painting. This can be seen when director does extreme long shots of the main character when he goes to the beach with his family or goes on trips with his speech therapist. These extreme long landscape shots can be viewed as if you are looking at a still painting on a wall. The film stock is done well in capturing a heartfelt color film that has great use of lighting within the movie. The use of lighting in the hospital and the use of nature light with outdoor scenes are nicely done. There is a wide variety of framing and angles used throughout the film. The director makes good use of masks on the camera as well as an iris shot. The angles used really help get the point of view from the main character on how the accident has limited how he sees the world and the people who interact with him now. 

An example of a hat placed on the main character and used as a mask on the camera.

An example of an Iris shot. When the main character is seeing the doctor sewing up his own eye.
You see the frame of the eye closing, losing site of the doctor sewing it up. 

Images:

There are a few images that stand out in the movie. One is the scene of a man floating in the water in scuba gear. The meaning behind the scene tends to be a common theme in the movie, where the main character is like the scuba man just floating around in the water, both needing help from a machine to breath, but able to enjoy their surroundings around them. Another image that stands out is the one below. Even though the main character has suffer a bad stroke that has left him paralyze, he still has be imagination. This can be seen in the these shots that he visualizes well, of what the parents, nurses, and children would of looked like. 

Shot Lengths:

The common shot lengths I found were short focal length lens, which can be seen right after he enters the hospital and trying to get a view of his surroundings. The next one is medium long shots, this can been seen when he is sitting outside on the hospital or on a ledge type thing over the ocean looking that waves.

Example of a medium long shot.

Shot Types:

There are quite a few shot types in the movie. One is close-ups, when the people who are interacting with the main character are speaking to him. This leads to what are extreme close-up shots where the actors to lean in to camera lens when filming a scene.

Camera Angles:

 There are many character points of views though out the whole movie. This gave the audience a feel of what the characters in the film along with the main character was feeling and dealing with the aftermath of what has happen. There was a good aerial view shot, of the main character happy in car without a care in the world on his way to pick up his son.

Composition:

 The composition of each of the scene when evaluating each crucial scene is done great. The rule of thirds can been seen, with a front, middle, and back ground having meaning to what the scene is trying to get across to the audience.

Camera Movement:

One of the best Camera Movements is when they placed the camera in the wheel chair to create a dolly shot that gives a good point of view as if it were the main character’s point of view. This is done well, since when the wheel chair moves, all the bumps and noises are prefect. This can be seen in the image below. 

Setting up the shot to take footage from the wheel chair.

Cinematography Style: 

 By making the audience care deeply for all the characters in the film especially the main character, to an extent that it didn’t matter what language it was being presented in, you felt for them. That is a great purpose of making the cinematography so noticeable in the film. You left you feeling of warmth, love, sadness, and inspiration.

John M. Huston

Born August 5, 1906 

and

Died August 28, 1987

Famous Director, Screenwriter, Actor, and Producer 

Fun Facts:

-He was married four times, had one mistresses, and one love child.

-He had two children one with wife Enrica Soma, who is known as Anjelica Huston. She is popular as for her role in Addams Family. She also won an Oscar for starring in his movie “Prizzi’s Honor” in (1985).

-He had a son with one of a girlfriend name Tony Huston, who had a son name Jack Huston. Jack can be seen in the cable show Broadway Empire, as the character Richard Harrow.

List of Movies he directed and/or wrote:

 “The Maltese Falcon” (1941)                 “Key Largo”

“Across the Pacific”                                

“The treasure of the Sierra Madre”

“Let there be light”(1946)                        “The asphalt jungle”

“The African Queen” (1951)                   “Moby Dick”(1956)

“The Misfits”(1961)                                 

“The night of the iguana” (1964)

“Annie”(1982)                                          “The Dead”(1987)

Movies he own awards for and was an actor in:

“Moulin Rouge”(1952) –won two Oscars for Art Direction and Costume Design

“The Cardinal” (1963) –won a Golden Globe for Supporting Role

He also starred in “Chinatown”(1974), “The wind and the loin”(1975), “Candy” (1978)

Film Noir Highlites (Blog Post #2)

Film Noir is a great genre of movies. They are the types of films that have twists to them, such as the male is not always the hero at the end, and the female is not always the Damsel in distress.  In this blog, we will examine four different areas dealing with Film Noir.

 

A quote that best describes Film Noir:

As Abraham Polonsky states in the documentary Film Noir, “how circumstances become more and more unendurable. And yet you must endure”. This is one main idea that occurs all the time in a Film Noir film. The main character mainly a male, becomes in tangle in a situation, along with a female counterpart, that goes smoothly at first, but certain problems arise, and beings a lot of stress to the character. You see the stress building up on the character as he looks for a solution, to the new circumstances that keep transpiring, for each moment when someone is close to figuring out what he has done. An example of trying not to panic can be seen in the movie “Double Indemnity”, where the character Walter Neff boss, is leaving his apartment, and the wife of the man he kill is hiding behind his door, hoping his boss doesn’t see her. This is one type of circumstances that the main character must deal with during the movie, hoping the boss doesn’t see the wife of the man he killed, and figure out it was him.

 

 

 

Spotting a femme fatale:

The description of the spider woman by Janey Place best identifies with the character Phyllis from the movie “Double Indemnity”. When watching the movie, you she Phyllis is the typical woman, who is out to get what she wants, and use any means possible to get it. Her actions and ways of behaving makes you think she is up to no good. As stated by Janey Place in the documentary Film Noir, “She’s very smart, powerful and she’s extremely sexual.” Janey Place also summarizes what she considers to be the two characters of the spider woman; one is sexuality and being in control. Phyllis portrays the sexuality by wearing tight clothes, showing off her female figure, and smoking.  Phyllis displays control by the camera angles as which she film with during a scene, talking to Walter. She is shot in a low angle, to show control being in charger, and Walter is show from a high angle, to show he is inferior to her, she looks down at him.

 

Noir photography, lighting, and location:

In the movie, “Double Indemnity” you can see many of the different types of techniques and tendencies used to make a Film Noir film. One types of tendency is a motif that is a theme that occurs many times, during a film, can be seen many times, when Walter smokes, he strikes up a match on his finger. A technique used the called a process shot, such as driving in a fake car, but the background is moving along as if the car is really driving. This can be seen twice, where Walter is driving with Phyllis in the car and again when he is driving with Lola. However, when Walter is talking to Loa at the Hollywood Bowl, the background with the band playing is faked but the ground they are sitting on is real. As mention above, the use of different camera angles can be seen though out the movie, such as low angle and high angle. The other camera angles are extremely close up or panorama views. The use of lighting plays a big part in the movie. When Phyllis is about to shoot Walter at the end, the lighting is very dark, you don’t know who fire the gun, until you see its Walter who is shot. The locations of shooting in a market, when Phyllis and Walter meet up to talk, the phone booth when a diner in the background makes you feels she really is talking on a phone in a diner. The locations need to be as real as can do, to give you the effect you are the characters are really at those spots.

Neo-noir as an homage to the original film noir style:

The new films being made called Neo-noir is comparable to the original film noir style in a few ways. Even though, they are in color, they still have the female being the villain and the male being used to help her get what she wants. We have seen in the movie, “Body Heat”, a female using all the resources she has in order to get her dream of being rich and living on an island. You can see her using her female body to seduce a male character into killing her husband and getting all his money. She uses her smarts, to throw off the cop that is trying to solve the murder. The male being used is surprise on how she is playing out her plan so well. She makes sure all her tracks are covered. The filming techniques as angle shots, locations, music, acting and dialogue all put together makes this movie, a great example of modernize film noir movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

What qualities make a good movie?

  

     There are certain attributes to me, which must be address, in any movie to be considered a good movie. There needs to be a well-developed storyline, which presents the characters and/or objects in a movie, well enough for which the audience doesn’t lose interest or get confused. If a characters or an object is not presented, with a certain amount of background information, or enough plot as to why they may be the hero or villain, than that is a bad movie. Next, a movie needs to have great filming locations, such as sticking to the season, time era, and place the story is being taken part in.  Furthermore, the cinema photography needs to be done very well. If a movie can help you escape, from the reality you live in, to a whole new place in the gene you are watching, for the hour and half to three hours, then its consider a good movie.    

    One example I consider a good movie is, “Gone with the Wind” by Victor Fleming. No matter how many times I see the movie, the magnificence of the story being told through the film gets me every time, as I cry, laugh, and feel bad for Rhett. The movie has great actors that do a fantastic job, at delivering the many different sub stories being told throughout the movie. The audience was able to watch Scarlett grow from a child into a woman by the end of the movie. We see her interact with people in her life that had an influence on her having to grow up. The actors allowed us to be able to watch how the South deals with the war and the loss of family members. I love the locations and the houses as well. The locations added to the feel of the story, by showing how the South lived before the war and after the war has pass through destroying all they had.

      Another example of what I consider a good movie is one that can express a message without presenting it in a horrible way. The movie, “It’s a wonderful life” is a great example of a movie that expresses, love, family, friends, and not losing yourself by allowing someone to degrade you. The storyline is told in such a way, that there is humor, romance, death, poverty and caring for your fellow man. Its a feel good movie, that you want to share with all those around you. It may be based during christmas time, but its a movie you can watch all year around.