i feel

that the exam went okay

mesed up my timing n_n finished 15 and a half pages with 25 mins to go. i couldve done abit more to each question but i didnt have the space so mehhhh. added more to the american question and just chilled like a bitch. happy i suppose just gotta wait and see, no point worrying ^.^

Crash Essay

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/384904/movie_comparisoncontrast_crash_and.html?cat=40

oo revision

worktarawork - aims andcontext cover sheet

WORK TARA WORK
Aims & Context cover sheet


For our creative project; Myself, Tara Costello, Callum Jackson and George Elfwood plan to create a short film three minutes in length. I plan to take on the role of director, and my main tasks will to shoot our footage and help in the construction of the mise-en-scene. The lighting shall be ambient to keep the setting looking as naturalistic as possible; this will be paired with a messy mise-en-scene within a school classroom. This working environment within a classroom will be captured on film throughout Work Tara Work, anchoring the narrative and allowing the audience to develop an understanding of the characters intentions and her school background.

My role within our project will be to direct and film the majority of our footage. I will make sure that my camera work is concise and sufficient in capturing the mindset of our protagonist Tara. Overall I hope to film at least ten minutes of footage, repeating various scenes all from different angles to allow a lot of fast paced editing in post-production which shall add to its (sometimes) fast paced style. Work Tara Work will not be a specific genre piece, but we envisage it to be a modernistic outlook of school life and “geeks” in school who work hard; challenging the stereotype that all geeks are kids in glasses who do nothing but work all day.

In a stylistic sense; Work Tara work will be an intimate piece of film focusing upon one person, yet it will still be fast paced at times to anchor her work-crazy mindset. To capture this I plan to use a variety of shots whilst filming: close ups of her expressions and gestures to anchor her “workaholic” mind frame, panning shots of the room to help establish the mise-en-scene for the audience, and various point of view shots to allow the audience to see from Tara’s perspective. A tripod will be used for shots such as the establishing shot, but the rest will be hand held to allow it to become more realistic; allowing the audience to feel like they’re with Tara in the room watching her. I also plan to improvise for a short while once we’ve finished the bulk of filming, which I hope will add an element of spontaneity to Work Tara work.

Our aim is for our short film to appeal to a young, “modern” demographic, we hope to have added in a non-diegetic mainstream electro soundtrack to our piece which would add to its appeal to a youth audience. Also through use of camera work I will establish that Tara is a student in school studying/working hard on her sketchbooks; hopefully this will also help Work Tara Work cater for a youth audience.

reflective analysis mhmmm

Reflective Analysis - Work Tara Work.

For the FM1 creative project, myself, Tara Costello, Callum Jackson and George Woolford decided to work together to create a short film. After planning and preparation we came up with the idea for “Work Tara Work” - a short film based upon a girl who has the impulse to do nothing but work within her sketchbook. (the name was inspired by Run Lola Run) We wanted to make the protagonist somewhat hyperbolic with her work, yet we strived to make the mundane task of “work” seem more fun, or worthwhile as a workaholic would see it.

My role within the group was to film the majority of the footage and help motivate the group along the way.(director). On our first filming date we all set up the mise-en-scene within an art classroom; making the table messy and full of items which someone who was working within a sketchbook would use. Items such as: pencils, scalpels, pencil shavings, drink, cut up magazines and glue. We wanted to emphasize her constant desire for work, as that was what our narrative framework was to be built upon. As camera man I decided to film the opening of the film, which is just Tara flipping through her book, numerous times from different angles to allow fast paced editing and experimentation during post production between different shots. Flipping through 6 pages within one shot would have been boring, whereas cuts between them from different angles paired with music adds life to the film. Also we decided at the start to have the title of the film integrated into the film instead of adding it in during post production, so we wrote “Work Tara Work” on the front of her book and I filmed this as our opening shot.

To introduce the mise-en-scene I filmed two tracking shots panning from left to right, which showed the room and environment which Tara was working in. These work as they establish the mise-en-scene for the audience and from this we gather that she is a student studying what seems to be art work in an art class room: developing the audiences understanding of the short film and its narrative.

We decided as a group to add the notion of repetition within the film, focusing on her constant use of masking tape. So I filmed her pulling and ripping masking tape from various angles to allow them to be edited into faster sequences in post-production. Which adds a faster pace to our film at times and breaks the mundane stereotype of “work” that some people may hold; work can be fun or exhilarating depending upon your individual perspective or mindset. Further on in the filming process I filmed various angles of Tara slicing paper on a guillotine, once again this was so that during post-production this could be edited at different intervals when she was cutting pieces of paper; our film relies heavily upon it’s pieces of fast paced editing and I feel I made this possible due to my determination to capture as much footage from different angles to allow for various possibilities during editing.

I also decided to film various point-of-view shots to allow the audience to see from Tara’s perspective; one shot in particular where she seeks and grabs a roll of masking tape works particularly well. Mainly because the way the camera moves follows her arm movements clutching for masking tape and allows the audience to view the mise-en-scene as Tara would; allowing us an insight into her frantic workaholic mindset.

I feel I as if my role as director was carried out successfully. Overall we had filmed over twelve minutes of varied footage which we felt we could successfully piece together to create a successful short film. In retrospect I don’t feel like we should have done anything differently; we worked as a team, each with our own roles and places throughout the making of our film and now I feel our efforts have been made worthwhile. Our film is of high quality edited in Final Cut Pro, and filmed on broadcast cameras which I feel added to the professionalism of our creative piece and made it as stylistically rich as it is. Given the chance again all I would have done differently was not underestimate the endless possibilities of editing and how the editing in a creative piece can either make it successful, or fail abysmally.

Films which portray the American Dream

First of all i thought i'd start off with quotes from some films which evoke different thoughts and feelings about the American Dream:

Coming To America, 1988

Maurice- "Oh yeah, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. Then I moved up to washing lettuce. Now, I'm working the fat fryer. Pretty soon I'll make assistant manager and that's when the big bucks start rolling in."

Boiler Room, 2000

Jim Young - "I am a millionaire. A weird thing to hear? Well let me tell you, it's a weird thing to say. I am a fuckin' millionaire. And guess how old I am - 27. Do you know what that makes me around here? A fuckin' senior citizen . . . They say money can't buy happiness? Look at the fucking smile on my face . . . Ear to ear, baby."

Risky Business, 1983

Joel - "My name is Joel Goodson. I deal in human fulfillment. I grossed over eight thousand dollars in one night. Time of your life, huh kid?"

Office Space, 1999

Milton - "And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year and I used to be over by the window and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and its not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire."

American Beauty, 2000

Lester Burnham - ". . . today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus."

Fight Club, 1999

Tyler Durden - "I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war . . . our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

ROCKY, 1976

Rocky Balboa - "I just wanna prove somethin'—I ain't no bum . . . It don't matter if I lose . . . Don't matter if he opens my head . . . The only thing I wanna do is go the distance—That's all. Nobody's ever gone 15 rounds with Creed. If I go them fifteen rounds, an' that bell rings an' I'm still standin', I'm gonna know then I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood . . ."

The notion or concept of "The American Dream"

Seeing as i didn't wake up until 12 oclock last tuesday, i missed out film studies lesson on hollywood and films which portray the american dream. therefore; independant study and shit.

The term American Dream was coined in 1931 by JAmes Tuslow Adams in his book "Epic of America"

"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

But y'know alot of people at the time wouldn't have kinda gone along with the whole "be happy with what you got" way of thinking because it was a time revelling from the great economic depression. so! people were most likely more focused on obtaining jobs which paid well in order to live out a happier more beneficial life for themselves or their families. But with changing times and attitudes, the american dream nowadays and it's whole concept is more open to interpretation or personalisation due to how a person feels, how they were raised, or what their long term goals are.

General overlook:

The american dream is basically the notion of freedom and hope that allows all peope of the US to seek out their goals and aims in life and succeed in them through hard work and determination. Ultimately being able to choose and shape their own fate and reach the highest goals possible if they put the effort in; without having any restrictions as to their ethnicity, class, religion gender, or sexuality.

It's a widely known term used to describe the ideology of the United States.

Throughout the years the sole long-term aim of the american dream was money. Although some facts i've read claim that it all started with the whole notion that everyone is equal, anyone regardless where you come from can succeed blah blah blah. But for the majority of people who were born and bred in America, i feel that the concept of the american dream is born out of a longing for a easier life, which ultimately comes when you have money. Because in-the-end, we all need money to survive, because money is the thing gets you far in life, and provides an easier way of living. A good example of the american dream is the book "of mice and men" in which the two main characters constantly speak about the prospect of owning their own piece of land one day, being able to make their own living and not have to continue working for other people. To achieve this though, what would they need? - money. But overall the message in this book is one that the american dream is futile, because one of the pair dies and along with him dies the hope of ever achieving that dream. Although it's a book and not a film, i felt it was a realistic interpretation of the American dream. (back to films and information now)

"The phrase's meaning has evolved over the course of American history. The Founding Fathers used the phrase, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." it began as the opportunity to achieve greater material prosperity than was possible in their countries of origin. For others it is the opportunity for their children to grow up and receive an education and its consequent career opportunitie"

"Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity - that people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families - but have less time to enjoy their prosperity. Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor who must work two jobs to insure their family’s survival. Yet others look toward a new American Dream with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life."

Some believe that the messages behind the original American dream were changed during the radicalistic hippie period of the 1960's. In which the whole "dudeee, love, peace, be happy with treeeeeees" stuff came along. And along with this era came a new way of thinking, and some changed their "dream" to one of spiritual gain, and since then the american dream has evolved into a phrase which can become more personalised to suit ones own feelings, beliefs and long term aims.

I think that the overall message behind it is one of "HOPE" and in moden day culture a great example would be President Barack Obama. Who was born a black man of kenyan decent, and through all of his hard work and determination he came out ontop to become the first black president of the USA. This kind of situation doesn't just give hope to black citizens of America but any and all citizens, albeit the whole "yes we can" is pretty much a sham, because obama did recieve private tuition and went to good schools, which a "typical" black american probably would not recieve. But as a hopeful realist i do somewhat see why it's good to have hope that you can succeed as long as you put your mind to it, but on the other hand if you think about it realisticly... you most probably won't come out ontop of your life long ambitions no matter how hard you work because YOU DON'T GET WHAT YOU WANT IN LIFE THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME. and this is probably the largest criticism of the american dream, because it can be seen to encourage naivity and give the people of the US false hope, and the outcome could always go downhill for them because life is unpredictable innit.

but there we have it, a general overview of the american dream, now onto hollywood and it's interpretations of the american dream in cinema.

I found an essay online which explores the American Dream and how it is presented in Hollywood media, and instead of re-writing it in a mediocre sense i'm gonna paste it on here for you to read, so take note. NOT MY WORK:

The American Dream is an often mentioned and well-known term used to describe the ideology of the United States of America. Despite the common usage of the term it is not always completely understood and so requires, at least, a brief introduction and definition. P Mueller in his writing Star Trek and the American Dream claims that “…to some the American dream is just "from rags to riches", to others it includes the realisation of high flying ideals as old as mankind itself.” Mueller then goes onto say that the term was coined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams and identifies three main roots: mythical aspects (leading back to the ancient dream of a perfect society and as paradise even before the continent was discovered), religious aspects (which Mueller describes as dealing with the puritan vision of a city upon a hill) and political aspects (arising from the declaration of independence and the constitution). It would seem that the most important of these three themes is arguably that of the political nature and various commentators have defined the American Dream in this way. Martin Luther King claimed “It [the American Dream] is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a dream. It’s a great dream.” Jim Bickford concurred with this view within his writing The American Dream: Our Heritage of Hope (in which he goes onto to identify several examples of the American Dream in practice throughout history) when he claimed “America was built on dreams” and went onto to discuss the importance of the declaration of independence in creating the dream by stating “Our ancestors chose to take the risk by putting their lives on the line and fighting for freedom” .

In respect to the medium of film it comes as no surprise that the American Dream has filtered itself, both consciously and unconsciously, directly and indirectly, onto the screen. America, and in particular Hollywood, is the dominant producer of film within the world today. Where Hollywood leads other filmmaking nations follow. The American Dream is largely presented within film in the sense of the political context: life, liberty and (in particular) the pursuit of Happiness but there is no uniform depiction of this. There are various distinct ways of presenting the American Dream within film and not all of these correspond to each other. For example, for every glorious and gratifying presentation of the USA and the American Dream there is arguably a cynical and misanthropic representation, criticising America and it’s society. Situations such as this lead us to question the methods of presenting the American Dream. What forms can this presentation take? What agendas do the filmmakers have? And do the films come with any particular political, social or ideological comment intended?

The most common thread of the American Dream within film is arguably that which Mueller identified, the rags to riches story. Mueller describes this as the most basic definition of the American Dream and its simplicity may be one of the factors in increasing its appeal to filmmakers. Mueller also lists key elements within the American Dream such as “manifest destiny”, “the frontier” and “the melting pot” and it would seem prudent to include another key element, that of “the land of opportunity”, which whilst not specifically mentioned by Mueller is often held to be interlinked to the American Dream. Mueller transposes these notions onto the long running television series Star Trek and cites such elements as the ship “boldly going” and the role of space as “the final frontier”. However, he does not comment as to the motion pictures of this franchise and the difference of the two mediums (most notably reception and presentation) could make the comparison difficult. Whilst it is highly feasible to suggest that that these ideas could be applied to film it seems prudent, for the sake of both clarity and originality, to concentrate upon other examples.


REST OF THE ESSAY FOUND HERE: http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=26161

i'll add examples of films and analysis and other stuff later on tonight, i just gotta do some other stuff. x

Beautiful Thing

Today i watched a film called "Beautiful Thing", which was released in 1996 and released by Channel 4 Films. It's an adaptation of a play and that kinda showed through in some scenes, like some where Jamie and Ste were just talking their acting felt like i was back in drama in year ten and watching two boys perform an awkward scene. But that kinda added to the film i guess, it felt more real and as if i was watching real life people and not glammed up over dramatic bull. Also the fact that it's set in Thamesmeade and Greenwich and at one point on the radio you hear them speak of Shooters Hill and Bexley is just like "wow that was filmed near us!"

But, overall the film does live up to it's tagline "an urban fairytale" - filmed mostly upon council estate full of towerblocks and typical "common" south london people i've gotta say that given the areas and people i've grown up around; most of the characters in the film i could pair with somebody i know in terms of personality. >:]

Overall it is just a big soppy romantic story about first-love filled with rough pasts and the odd domestic which im sure most people would enjoy, unless your a homophobe. It does deal with coming to terms with the boys love for eachother, the consequences from their close-minded council estate community and their sexuality and stuff. Without being stupid and overdramatic like American "gay" films like Brokeback Mountain. It's a good representation of London and the struggle and secrecy that alot of gay people probably feel if they don't have the most accepting family and surroundign environment. But it deals with it well and although the plot-holes aren't really sewn up at the end, it ends upon an optimistic note and i couldn't have asked for a better film.


The black nextdoor neighbour absolutely made me die though HAHA, i haven't laughed so much at a film in so long! Leah is the black teenage girl living on the same row of flats ad the two boys and she's always drugged up out of her head, and blasting out Mama Cass at full blast, dancing around with face cream on and cussin Jamies mother, such a funny breath of fresh air throughout the film! She reminded me of quite a few people i know, which just made me laugh more. But being able to identify with characters in a movie is good eh?


Also the happy 60's soundtrack present throughout was brilliant, mainly Mama Cass songs but nontheless it works well.


So yeah, if you haven't seen it and you like the sound of it then go watch it!
(short post)

Conglomerates and such

"Jeffrey Katzenberg, while he was still at Disney, once said, “You know this business is not fun anymore". I said "Why is that Jeffrey?", and he said, "Because there used to be a time when somebody would come into my office and be absolutely passionate about his movie and I would think, “God damn! I don’t think this movie would make much money but it shouldn’t lose money because it is a bright idea for a movie. I want to make it.” and with that passion, every once in a while I would say, "You know we are having a pretty good year and so let us take a chance and make that movie. Now we cannot do that anymore. Disney certainly does not do it!"

Has the Hollywood film industry just become consumed in its attempts to make money?

I found an interesting debate online titles "The Future Of Hollywood, Creators, Conglomerates and Culture" - It's abit long winded at times and focuses upon America but it's a worthwhile read about the notion of TNC and goes into detail about HBO and AOL at times; so yeah! READ IT

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/artists/the_future_of_hollywood_creators_conglomerates_and_culture/

I wont really elaborate upon all of this for the time being so i'm gonna include some of my favourite quotes from the debate here :)

"So what you see out there is a monolithic audience of 16 to 24 years old, who have a great sex drive and a need for action in order to distract them from anything else that might make sense. That is the audience that we are racing towards in order to make big money. That is why we are seeing these wonderful little independent movies that come along and tend to win Oscars and go on to making 6 million dollars. Monster’s Ball was a tremendously successful movie that won the Academy Award for Halle Berry. That movie made the makers about 6 million dollars. In Hollywood today that is chump change. "

"Some people say that the arrival of personal video recorders or digital video recorders will create a new business model which caters to highly tailored choices and creates more potential, successful niche markets which could then leave you with a successful blockbuster strategy and many other strategies as people move away from a time based network model. Is that a possibility? Shall we just not put our faith in technology?"

"Within three or four years, going by the way that technology is advancing, it is going to be feasible for an ordinary person to download movies. Right now it takes a long time even with DSL or fast access or broadband line. but the time is going to come when it is easy to give away movies from somebody who has gotten hold of one, as it has become in the music industry, which has been really devastated by this whole thing."

" I thought you were going to tell him that you want a healthy capitalism, and that unless you have government regulation that breaks up vertical integration, the kind of economic power to fund creativity that he is talking about won’t be liberated. "

"So there is a narrowing of the base of the population from which we draw for fresh and new ideas. They are only a few network executives and these few executives own blocks of the show time and the rest. They are the ones who are now essentially creating and bringing forth the new ideas. We see this impoverishment of what is happening particularly in the field of network shows, much less so in HBO. HBO is a refuge that we now run to. It is like coming home. It has those few people who are alert and looking for some fresh ideas."

"The same thing is true in the motion picture business. The net result of this kind of vertical integration is that the major studios are solely in the business now of making big blockbuster pictures that could make half a billion or 3 quarters of a billion dollars of money that appeal to a very narrow base of customers, i.e. boys with disposable incomes, that is those between 16 to 24.
And anybody with a brain, education and experience or a desire to be enriched by their entertainment experience is simply not being served. It has had an extremely destructive effect on the creative community and a very depressing one for those of us who remember that making movies on television was once fun."

"And this also translates into entertainment because studies have shown that so much American public gets its values, its news, its information, its culture, its intelligence not from watching news but from watching entertainment shows, all in the family, Cosby show, law and order, ER etc."

So there we go, if you read it and enjoyed it then comment me :D
xx

Transnational corporations

So this post will be dedicated to expanding on what we learned/discussed in class about transnational corporations, focusing upon Time Warner foremost because they were the larger company behind the release of my case-study subject film "Sex And The City"

We learned that the majority of the worlds media is controlled by a small number of primarily US based companies who to a certain extent; have the power between them to influence what we view everyday via the media. But how dangerous is this? When you think about it, the media is more-or-less a part of almost everything in day-to-day life nowadays. From adverts on the interior and exterior of buses, to the news reports and findings we switch on at night time: apart from word of mouth we wouldn't really be aware of what's going on in the world if it wasn't for the all "amazing" media and technological advances of the 21st century. I'm kinda going off on a tangent and i'll probably do so in the rest of this post here but i feel it's necessary (;


Back to Hollywood for abit; the top Hollywood studios are:
-Pixar
-Disney
-Universal
-Paramount
-Colombia Tristar
-20th Century Fox
-Dreamworks
-Warner Brothers
-Fox

But most of these studios are governed by a higher power. An example would be Paramount, they are owned and run by the Viacom corporation.

But, overall the top five biggest Media giants of the world (not just hollywood) are the following:

1- Time Warner
2- Disney
3- Bertelsmann (A corporation more based in Europe)
4- Viacom
5- News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch)

But but but lets concentrats on Time Warner. Time warner forged in in 1989 when Time Inc and Warner communications merged. At the moment Time Warner has almost become a fully global company, with well over two hundred subsidaries worldwide. Here are some of Time Warners select holdings:

- The largest cable system in the US
- Alot of Global and US television channels, such as cartoon network, CNN, and many others.
- Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema film studios
- Fifty percent of DC comics, publishers of spiderman
- Six Flags theme park chain
- All AOL products (AOL purchased Time Warner in 2000)

Here is a list of all the assets owned by Time Warner:

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

When i read the big long list i couldn't help but think "What the hell?"
How the hell does one large company run so many other companies? But hey i don't mind, but it is kinda scary the thought that the CEO of Time Warner has (to a certain extent) complete control of all the outgoings from Time Warner.
And they own Loaded and Marie Claire magazines! So many things are all influenced and run by this sodding big greedy company, i would have never had a clud of any of this if it wasn't for film o_0



I liked this page and how it kinda explained all of the "big players" in the media world, albeit it is from nearly ten years ago:

www.fair.org/index.php?page=1406

But, no matter how hard you debate or try and detest; is it inevitable for mainstream society nowadays to become manipulated by the mass media corporations? With the rise of the internet also comes with many subversive people who can easily express their opinions to a broader audience on the whole notion of the world being somewhat "taken over" or manipulated by these media moguls. But in all fairness, if you were never really aware it was happening in the first place and were happy to go along with it; then why should you complain? I kind of think it should be considered in human rights and ethics somewhat, because in all honesty i dont wana see some make-up'd celebrity flicking their hair telling me to kill my hair with dye because "im worth it", or see some bullshit advert about compensation. I don't believe people should have to see all this crap on a daily basis, but if i elaborate upon all of this then i can see myself becoming contradictory and easily open to counter-arguments so i'll just leave my opinion here.

But there we go, the end of a moderately short post, and i spoke to a teacher via Facebook chat tonight! That was something new.

Happy 2009.

Or maybe we just stopped trying?

So the purpose for this post is, i'm gonna try an go through all the stuff we've covered in the year so far. Which would class as revision wouldn't it? As i'm rehearsing what i've already learnt so it's going into my long term memory.
So yeah REVISION GUIDE and other help if i aint ever got my folder with me or i just wana jam at the computer screen and look over things instead of having to decipher my handwriting. So here we go, a brief summary of what we've done so far:

But anyways: back to september~
First of all we were handed an introduction booklet for an introduction to A/S film studies, which goes through all the stuff we'd be learning nd stuff. Like analysis of film language and it's subsequent meaning and messages it puts forth to audience members.

Which can be put into either:
Micro - Small
Macro - Big

And you can furthermore refer to film language as text (film, it's techniques and genre etc)- Or context, which is institutions and stuff, things that the film went through to be where they are now and what they stand for.

The we looked into analysing film sequences and how different shots, dominant colors, music and characterization etc shape meaning. First looking at Moulin Rouge.

And how we should include things like representation, ideaology, arguments, social commentaries in essays and when thinking about film to a deeper level.

We also looked at what film is? and all the different things it stands for:
business, companies making money, marketing, commercialism, hobbies, an area of study, entertainment, film's aimed at a wide demographic, and also has cross-cultural links with tv shows, books, tv series and games etc.

Film can be:

Controversial - explores issues which we wouldn't expect to be seen on screen, or provide a commentary on controversial social issues at the present point in time.

Educational - It can open the audiences mind to reality, or allow them to learn abut certain taboo subjects.

Escapism - It allows the audience to escape into a world that they long for, etc etc.

and we were told to list out top ten films, mine of which are.

1 - Princess Mononoke
2 - The Matrix Reloaded
2 - Spirited Away
4 - Mona Lisa Smile
5 - Get Real
6 - Death Note
7 - American Pie (LOL)
8 - Battle Royale
9 - Sex And The City
10 - Sympaty For Lady Vengeance

Next we looked at components of a film, like narrative, editing, sound, mise-en-scene, lighting, performance, and the camera and cinematography
Then we compared viewing a movie at home to seeing one in a cinema.
And we went through a sequence from Silence Of The Lambs in class and looked at its film language and blah blah blah. We were then given a film Language booklet which explained things in more depth. Alot of things i won't re-write thougth coz i know them and itd be silly because after writing a few essays all the stuff we need to look for in film is already in my head, easy peasy.

At some point we also watched Run Lola Run in class and looked at how films can be non-linear and outside the basket in terms of normality, and stuff we don't expect or see in all films.

Next we looked at story boarding >.<
And were asked to storyboard a poem for homework (which i didn't do because storyboarding is hard and i dislike my drawing skills)
But it kind of showed how hard it is to put words into pictures unless you have a secure idea of what you what kind of message you wana put across to the people watching.

Also we looked at the Psycho shower sequence and looked at why it worked so well and why it's such an iconic sequence.

The, we were told to scrutinize a 3-5 minute film sequence of our choice and deliver it to the class in form of a presentation. Big scare.

But when it came down to it it wasn't so bad, after alot of "arse-farting" about i chose the dinner scene from American Beauty.



And in the presentation i looked at how the viewer is put in the place of the empty seat on the table, and how the camera goes from side to side during the argument like your head would do if you sat there. And how the word "irresponsible" comes up alot during the song played in the background. I can't remember much about it but then i played the DVD commentary. Everyone did pretty goood ont he presentation thing seeing as it was the first one we ever had to do.

Then then then, we looked at the bladerunner upening in class. Made notes on it and how things are put forth, and were told to write a micro essay on it. Which was harddd because the sequence is so vague and short. But i did good in the essay so meh.

But yeah, at this point it was around the start of November i think? From here we were focusing upon our practical task with mr Fairnie and having lost a few of my note sheets we may have gone over more in class than what i've wrote, but oh well things are going good so far. We were told to come up with ideas for a short film/sequence and to think of: style, production values, storyline, a storyboard, context and the target audience. Also we were told to research and watch Short Films!

And in Ms Moore's class at this time we started to look at Hollywoood*
and how we all looked at our own connotations and perceptions of the place, some were:
exaggerated, wealth, success, superficiality, beautiful people, stars, walk of fame, american dream.

We also listed major studios in Hollywood
- Fox
- MGM
- Pixar
- Columbia Tri-star
- Dreamworks
- Sony
- Time Warner
- Touch Stone
- Disney

and also films go through the vertically intergrated system of production - distribution - exhibition.

Also at the notion of film being an Art. Versus the notion of it being mainly for commercialism and making mone. Which led us to watch two documentaries on Hollywood which provided us with alot of information >=]

Next in Fairnies we were told to remember three memorable scenes from films. I chose:

- Sympathy for lady vengeance - hands of a killer
- American Beauty - dinner scene
- American pie - where he fucks the pie LOL

And from this we were told to think up of more ideas for our short film we'd produce and were told to come to next lesson with concrete ideas for our potential film

Next in Ms Moor'es we looked at her cast study of Quantum of Solace on the board. And were set the task of producing our own case study into the marketing, distribution, exhibition and studio research of a Hollywood film,

She told us to look at:
www.impawards.com
www.moviemarketingmadness.com
www.imdb.com
and Mark Kermode

And were told that it had to be in at somethig in December! lots of time, and what i've done so far is in my case study post.

And since then we've all come into groups and shot the footage for our short films, all we need to do now is edit. was a good experience shooting our film :D
considering it was kind of spur of the moment and completely different to our original idea but we got it done and improvised and shot some good scenes of Tara. Alot more fun that i originally anticipated!

We looked at "The magic of movie editing" in class and it's on the blog so i watched it on there, which further informed our knowledge on the history and importance of editing. And we looked at the American Beauty opening sequence with Mr fairnie and were given a good essay example looking at certain aspects of the scene.

Then came the genre lesson in which we had 45 mins to come up with a film, and all we were given was the genre. Pretty hard lol we were given "Musical." Was okay i suppose given we only had 40 minutes. Also we looked at the importance of Genre and how and why it's used. Minimizing economic risk for producers and studios, it allows advertisers to produce a certain style for the advertising campaign as it can link in with the genre and themses of the potential movie. Also it works through audience members prior knowledge and previous experiences they've had with films of a specific genre. And we drew some diagram about how genre is cyclic, etc. It works through repitition and difference and cashing in on typical characters, settings and music (etc) of a specific genre.

But all-in-all, so far fim studies has been fun but i just wanna see our finished edited film which i hope we can finish before christmas, then thats out of the way!

Personal understanding of "The matrix" trilogy

Ever since i saw the first Matrix film i've always been somewhat confused as to what-the-actual-fuck was supposed to be going on in the movie?

Having seen all three of them numerous times and always thinking i kind of got a grip of the storyline and the different worlds and stuff, today i found out i was kind of wrong, and that nothing in the film happened by chance and the Oracle was the one who manipulated and "played" more-or-less all of the characters involved.

After waking up at nine and having no lessons on Friday's i decided to spend all day watching the matrix trilogy; i decided to try and get my head around all of the different plots and freaky details which lead to the end of the war between humans and machines.

I spent alot of time after watching all three movies tryna research about online and grasp the whole concept of what everythings significance was and what the hell some bits of the films were even about?

http://www.thematrix101.com

Helped me out alot, its a "guide to understanding the matrix".

and believe it or not i just started trying to type out everything which explains the untangling of the story but i stopped coz it would take ages and why read that when you can check out that website up there!

but yeah, if you came away from any of the matrix movies feeling you didnt understand them then thats a link you should look at :D

like i never knew that the oracle was all about "know thyself" and instead of telling people what they wanted to hear or what she could have told them. she merely just gave them advice and pushed them in the right direction. like in the first matrix, she used morpheus' life and the notion that he could be killed to release his protective instinct which consequently led to him dodging a bullet at high speed. One of the first glimpses that Neo IS the one.

She played neo, morpheus, trinity, and the architect overall. The architect is the person who created the first matrix (which failed) and all of its subsequent ones, and the 6th one in which Neo now occupies. The architect sees everything as an equation, and balances all equations in the matrix; whereas the oracle exists to unbalance these equations. The oracle gives Neo just enough information about what he needs to do and who the true enemy is. Not the machines, agent smith is the one to be eradicated.

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

She then sacrifices herself to smith and lets him absorb her and turn her into a copy of himself. (I never knew this next part until today!) The reason he laughs so menacingly after this is because he's now gained the Oracles foresight, and he laughs because he see's neo lying on the ground defeated in the future. The oracle knew that if Smith gained her vision, then his over-confidence would lead to his downfall. This is also why during the big fight scene in Revolutions only one smith fights Neo, and the others don't join in. But when that time comes in the battle which Smith foresaw, he's confused as to why Neo continues to fight. And the reason is the nature of choice. Nobody in the matrix can understand the nature of human choice, and why Neo chooses to continue to fight, and here the oracle speaks through Smith saying "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo." And because Smith has always called him Mr Anderson, Neo knows it's from the oracle. He knows what he has to do, so he unbalances the equation. He sacrifices himself to Smith; becoming a copy of him. But this allows the machines who have jacked Neo in to access Smith, and consequently destroy all traces of him from the matrix, leaving behind all the people who he had once taken over.

But but why did the machines wanna get rid of Smith?
Because he would have destroyed everyone in the matrix entirely. All the pod-born people who the machines created would be useless as power suppliers to the machine world as they would be dead, this is why the machines fear agent Smith. Leading to Neo bargaining for peace with them if he defeats Smith.

Ahhh just everything on this page helped me understand things that i didn't even think about in the movie before, all of this thought that had gone into the storyline just amazes me :

http://www.thematrix101.com/revolutions/meaning.php

WOW.

I know i rambled on abit here and it was rather unnecessary but OH WELLZ, it was fun to learn about a film, and just made me wonder if this whole thing could be true.

Case study as a whole

So this is gonna be first the post in which i scrutinize the making/production of a hollywood movie... theres nothing really "big" or recent what i really enjoyed so i've been stuck on what to do it on - but i've chosen "Sex and the city" the movie.


Lead 4 Roles:
Sarah Jessica Parker - Carrie Bradshaw
Cynthia Nixon - Miranda Hobbs
Kristin Davis - Charlotte York Goldenblatt
Kim Catrall - Samantha Jones

"And we were dressed from head to toe in love... the only label that never goes out of style."

Websites used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_the_City_(film)
http://www.hollywood.com/movie/Sex_and_the_City/4230151
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000774/
http://www.google.com
www.moviemarketingmadness.com

So let's start with the basics:

Theatrical Release: 30/5/2008

Director: Michael Patrick King

Studio: New Line Cinema

Production companies: HBO productions + Darren Star Productions

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance/Adaptation

Length: 145 minutes

Rating in UK : 15

Reported Budget: $65 million

Writers :
Candace Bushnell - Source material
Michael Patrick King - Screenplay
Darren Star - Characters as source material

Primary filming location:
Mainly in Manhattan, but some beach shots were filmed in California aswell as some hotel shots.

Sountrack production:
Released on May 27 2008 by New Line Records, it debuted at #2 in Americas Billboard top 200, the highest debut for a multi-artist theatrical film soundtrack since 2005's Get Rich or Die Tryin', and debuting at #6 on the UK Albums Chart, selling to date more than 55,000 copies.

Box Office Performance:
"The film has experienced commercial success. Opening in 3,285 theaters, the film made $26.93 million in the US and Canada on its first day. The three-day opening weekend total was $57,038,404, aggregating $17,363 per theater. The film recorded the biggest opening ever for an R-rated comedy and for a romantic comedy, and also for a film starring a woman. As of October, 2008, the film has grossed $152,619,616 at the US and Canadian box office, and $256,274,667 in other markets, bringing the worldwide total gross revenue to $408,921,925." (probably alot higher now!)

Advertisement:
Overall i couldn't find much online which spoke of the amount of money or effort put into the marketing of this movie. I believe that this is because after the series of Sex and the city, fans were left somewhat wanting more from the four characters that they've spent the past 6 series watching. After initian plans to make a follow up movie straight away were scrapped, there was nothing but speculation as to whether a sex and the city movie would ever be made. But now, four years after the end of the series it was made. The amount of people who had been waiting for years for this moment couldn't believe it was actually here, leading to people going to see the movie because they were fans of the series, just to see whether it reached their expectations, and alot of male audience members were probably dragged along by their partners or female friends. Also the introduction of a black person filling a dominant role in the movie gave the wider and certainly different demographic of a black audience, a chance to identify solely to a main character in which; was a pre-dominant white casted show during the series.

Later on I found an article online which tells of New Line Cinemas partnerships with other companis which led to certain products being used and promoted in the movie; all ultimately which would appeal to a female demographic. Heres the article:

http://www.christonium.com/fashion/ItemID=12057909163163

(RANDOM FACTS)

Based on the autobiographical newspaper columns written by Candace Bushnell, the TV series Sex and the City debuted on HBO on June 6, 1998. The series’ six season run ended with the final episode airing in 2004. The film picks up four years after the end of the series.

Costume Designer Patricia Field had to come up with 80 costumes for Sarah Jessica Parker for Sex and the City: The Movie, and more than 300 changes overall amongst the four main characters. Commenting on Field’s work, Sarah Jessica Parker said, “Pat Field is indispensable. We could not continue to tell the story without her, period. Her ideas, the breaking of the rules, is infectious.

Candice Bergen(the miserable old 50+ woman from the series) who reprises her role as a Vogue editor in the feature film, first met writer/director Michael Patrick King when they worked together on Bergen’s series, Murphy Brown.

According to a report in Entertainment Weekly, neither the series nor the movie ever accepted money for product placement.

Filming on the streets of New York was a bit of a logistical nightmare for the cast and crew as hundreds of fans would show up to watch the action. Assistant director Bettiann Fishman was given the job of keeping the crowds entertained and out of the way of the production.

African Americans felt that they weren't represented enough in the series, which led to Jennifer Hudson being casted as Carrie's assistant.


LOL - the director originally wanted a padel which just had "69" on it, which anyone who had watched the series would know that it would've gone well with Samanthas chracter. But as it wasnt available they had to settle with 969.

I also found this small article explaining that the majority of people that would be going to see this movie would be women: (bit obvious though)

http://gawker.com/tag/lady-business/?i=393348&t=shocking-statistics--mostly-women-plan-to-see-sex-and-the-city#cshocking-statistics--mostly-women-plan-to-see-sex-and-the-city

Posters

























Trailers/Advertisements





On youtube i found a three part "Making of Sex And The City Movie"
Here it is!

Part One:


Part Two:



Part Three:

Public Criticism/Reviews

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3919749.ece

-This was the first published review of the Sex and the city movie.
(Two stars out of five!)

It's good to take note that the person reviewing the movie was male(Will Pavia). Will thought that the movie was "stretched", and even compares it to a luxury meal that just gets too much to handle once youve had enough. The things that he felt felt were a downside of the movie; didn't seem to bother the rest of the audience (who were pre-dominantly female) whilst watching the film.

He acknowledges the fact that the way he feels is probably because he's male, which also links in with alot of people mosconceptions about the main audience for this movie. Because primarily, Sex and the city is about and targeted at WOMEN. Womens issues and lives are explored, and whilst the protagonists partners play a big part in shaping the narrative, the focus is constantly on the women. (and incidentally what they're wearing, or who they're fucking, or who they're not fucking)

Which does kind of put forth that alot of typical male reviewers who would rather a strong acting piece of film which confronts issues to a "classy trash" piece like Sex and the city. Whereas alot of women baske in the notion of being able to escape from reality and long for the $1000 shoes that Carrie's wearing or the sexy underwear model that samantha's having sex with. A female audience is more than likely to identify with the characters even though the women on screen aren't that "real". All women would love to be able to throw money at they're problems and live a glamourous easy-going life in the city. But the reality of it is, most women who go to the cinema don't have lives like that. But all in all it comes down to your preferences; if you're interested in fashion in the slightest, or the promiscuity and harships of womens lives then you'd probably love Sex and the city!

Mark Kermode confronts the issue of "Boys not liking" the SATC movie, and even describes it as "having a handbag where its heart is". This short frank review of it puts across his reasons for describing it as "crap"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2008/06/sex_lies_and_merchandise.html

Marketing continued

The marketing for this film was pre-dominantly towards women, almost to the fact that the over-glamorousness and focus upon fashion almost turns men away from wanting to see the film. The marketing campaign was about selling a lifestyle to the audience(communicated via the teaser and theatrical posters and their glamourous setting) , albeit it was an aspiraional lifestyle for the majority of audiences.

The online marketing was done mainly by the official website:
http://www.sexandthecitymovie.com/

Which now focuses upon the movies DVD release and encourages you to buy the dvd with a slogan saying "Get Carried Away, BUY NOW"
Playing on Carries' name.

The soundtrack button allows you to listen to only one song, which is Fergies "Labels Or Love". This was probably an incentive for buyers to actually go and buy the rest of the soundtrack to be able to access all of the songs.

Also it now features a "Win a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes" competition. Yay, you can waste your time and potentially phone bill whilst ringing up and trying to become a normal middle-classed woman so you can walk around in your valour tracksuit and "my shoes are fit" designer shoes. Oh what a glorious age we live in.

The film was also given a myspace page prior to its release, which showed trailers, teaser photos and information about the upcoming movie. But it's been deleted now as the films been out for so long so i cant provide a link.

Cross Promotion

Sex and the city's focus upon fashion and materialism all make this film a prime advocat for big budget companies who wish to advertise their merchandise and products.

One of the cross promotional deals was with car giant "Mercedes". In the film two of their cars were shown the GLK-class SUV and its S-class sedan. Also the fashion week which takes place in the movie is shown to be sponsered by Mercedes-benz.

This video shows an american commercial which links in SEx and the city with a Mercedes car:



I also found out on www.moviemarketingmadness.com that Swarovski provided the decor for the New-york premier, which covered the carpet and decor for the after party in swarovski crystals.

Three drinks companies also jumped on the sex and the city bandwagon, these were:
- Skyy vodka
- Vitamin water
- Bacardi

Vitamin water created a micro site which advertised the movie in favour for some references in the movie. Skyy vodka launched an advertising campaign for the movie, doing online ads, print based ads and created various recipes for its drinks based upon the characters of the movie. And bacardi used the movies launch to help highlight the relase of their silver mango mojito drink, which linked in themes of the movie in with its advertisements.

The movie highlighted the american company "Bag borrow or steal" which works as a somewhat kind of "blockbuster" or rent-outlet for fashion acessories such as handbags and purses. Carries assistant (Jennifer Hudson) says in the movie that she used the company to gain temporary access to a Louis Vuitton bag. Once the company had realised that they were mentioned in the movie, they decided to re-vamp their online layout which featured fashions from the movie for people to potentially lend. All-in-all, sex and the city led "Bag borrow or steal" to gain much publicity!

Short post

Last lesson was abit of a challenge. Just being handed footage and being told to create a 30-second narrative piece was alot more difficult than i had originally anticipated; especially because i'd never edited stuff before i was abit clueless >=]

The documentary posted on the blog was interesting, didn't realise that editing went back so far and how crucial it is for alot of movies. Especially after watching the matrix reloaded yesterday i was just thinking...edit cut speed sound o.0 wow.

but it's my birthday today and i've had a swell day. I'm looking forward to overseeing our editing process tomorrow because i have no idea what im doing, i'll leave Callum and the others to it and add in my input everynow and then. Much thanks Mrs Moore for the blogger of the week badge.

:)

Potential music for our Short Film

We haven't really discussed a particular song or music to place over our short film as of yet. So I'm gonna try my best to find some stuff that i think woud suit our films style and subject and discuss with everyone tomorrow, or if they see this before then i'll talk to the group :)

Well i started by typing in "hard work music" into youtube and this was one of the first that came up:



Which is an 80's music video entitled "work hard" and the song's all cheesy and silly. I'm guessing that everyone would disagree on this as a suitable song, but i thought it could work well and make our films seem more silly. But now i think about it the kind of shots we've done wouldn't suit this song, and would probably suit something less upbeat and cheesy.

FEIST - 1234 Remix:



Possibly? Maybe?

Yeah im aware that all my music suggestions are pretty lame so far but its something.

And so i proceed~

Bjork - Sun in my mouth.


I think this could possibly work well, creating a light hearted atmosphere possibly? which would juxtapose with the images we see on screen of Tara's frustration at constant pencil breaking and making tape pulls etc.

Bjork - Violently happy



"Violently happy, cause i love you" - just like how Tara's a violent workaholic in our film because of her love for her sketchbook ;-)

Bjork - Cocoon



Hmmm, it's a weird song and would probably create a weird moody atmosphere. Something about it i really like though...

FF8 - Maybe im a lion



im gonna try and find some music now with no lyrics what could just possibly set different atmospheres for our short movie, and like if we also add a different tinge of color into our film in post-production it could work with some of this music?

The extreme:



THis could be used to create a weird melancholoy atmosphere and seem asif we're almost telling a story of tara's compulsions? Maybe maybe maybe.


FF8 - Lunatic Pandora



Creepy high pitchy techno like music that i find quite nice.

I know that probably none of these songs will be used but at least im exploring different possibilites ^_^

But ultimately, after editing our piece together we may decide not to have a main song running through our piece at all. We could rely upon a small piece of background music which would stop or louden when we cut to a splitscreen sequence. All shall be discussed and worked upon in time. As we discuss and look at possible tracks to include in our piece as a group i'll add them onto here, this was just a potential starting point because we haven't looked in depth into potential music yet.

Editing

Callum's the person who'll be editing mainly in our group, it's what he'll evaluate his skills on when it comes to writing our evaluations. As my roll was primarily directing that will be mine and i think Taras is producer and so on and so forth.

So so so so as none of us has used final cut pro before i kinda thought id youtube about abit and found this:



Which will hopefully help as we want a split screen in our short film.

Bloggers block o_o i don't know what to write or blog about, i want something to write about.

Film and english tomorrow; i loveee tuesdays.

The transgression from Video game to Film.

I finished my english work an hour earlier than expected, so i thought i'd contemplate over the whole concept of Video games that have been turned into movies.
Overall i think this post will just be a rambling of things i appreciate and don't appreciate, i'm feeling critical >=]

Firstly im gonna look at "Final Fantasy" franchise and how digitally animated movies have been produced because of the popularity of these games. Just to note that Final Fantasy is the fourth biggest video-gaming franchise in the world, extremely extremely popular and to only be beaten by Mario, Pokemon and The Sims.

The Spirits Within:



Made by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man who created the whole Final Fantasy gaming franchise; this movie was the first movie to attempt to create a realistic photorendered 3d film. The animation or rendering of the people (whatever the process is i dont know LOL) reminded me of Final fantasy 8 sequences in terms of graphics. And in terms of style and similarity i believe that it somewhat does pay a good homage to it's predacessing games. BUT. and thats a big but.
I thought that the film and the concept of it was completely and utterly: shit.

I felt almost no similarity to the original game in terms of characterisation, battle style or emotional attatchment from the protagonist to another person. ME NO LIKEY. I did like the subtle similarites to Final Fantasy 7 in terms of the planets life force and a evil big baddy threatening to potentially destroy the earth, but it didn't feel authentic. -sad face-

Maybe my expectations of this film were too high, but i was expecting something that would keep me glued to my seat and wanting to sit there for hours waiting for the plot to unfold. (as i have done with most of the games) but nah, it was all futuristic and sci-fi like and them silly "phantoms".
Abit of a single-minded and ignorant review, but i'm just a fan that was let down.


ahhh i just found something on wikipedia that made me happy :)

"The film received mixed reviews and despite aggressive promotion by Sony, it became a huge box office bomb. With a budget of $137 million (including marketing costs) the film made $85 million worldwide, meaning total losses were approximately $94 million (the studio typically receives half the box office gross). The domestic box office loss was, at the time, the largest in film history."

^_^ it failed. and that's what you get when you try and rip off an amazing piece of gaming history and besmirch its name with a tacky typical cliche sci-fi movie.

But i think i'll progress onto the positive side of this post, video game movies which progress on an already made plot which was established in the game. and elaborate and enlighten the audience as to "what could have happened next"


Advent Children:



When i had heard that this film was being released i think it made me the happiest id been in ages. And after looking through alot of internet forums and talking to alot of other gaming geeks at the time, i knew i wasn't alone. Due the the huge popularity of FF7 the release of this film was to be sought out by gaming geeks all over the world ;D

Yeah once i watched the film i was extremely please with everything i saw, the progression in graphics since number seven was outstanding. I thought that the voices for each of the characters were good and the english actors voiced the parts well, everything in it ticked my boxes.
But thinking in retrospect, had i not been a big fan of the game then i probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much, because well; i wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. All the re-introductions of characters and references to the old game just made it one of the most fun movies for me to watch.
I could go on for ages about this particular film but i should stop innit before i sound like even more of a nerd.

But that draws me to my conclusion. I think that Movie producers who try and re-create an already defined and well known game into something completely new will FAIL

Whereas a movie-based prequel or sequel to a game which has an already established background and workable storyline, will do well. (particularly if the original game was met with large success)

The whole starting point of this post was when i was reading some reviews of the new "Max Payne" movie which is a remake of the game. And all the reveiws were mostly bad bad bad, which made me laugh because i actually loved the max payne game LOL.

But will more classic video games be brought to life on the big screen because hollywood is running out of ideas? Only time will tell!

HAHAHAHAHA

100 movie spoilers in 5 minutes.

Made me laugh alot =|

School life in film

I'm feeling kind of bored so i thought id take the time just to write about two movies which somewhat represent life as a teenager in school nowadays :)
Two very different films in many rights, "Get real" being a British independant movie which focuses upon not only the struggle of growing up as a teenager, but as a gay teenager. "Mean Girls" being the funny American comedy which focuses upon the bitchy/slutty side of high school and the different cliques/stereotypes that all of us as teeenagers can identify with to a certain extent.

I think that more-or-less every person i know has seen Mean Girls and most people seem to love it. The way in which the "popular" girls seem to be at the top of the student body heirachy and every other clique is somewhere beneath. Us teenagers (mainly girls for this film) who go to a typical school full of typical kids can see it as abit of a relity show; just looking into another school and somehow identifying ourselves with the characters on screen. It also tackles the evil malicious bitchyness that goes on in more-or-less every school i know of, and having had many of my girl mates cussin down the "skets" to me i know that bitchyness is rife in mainstream school society :D Also i gotta say i love how naive Lindsay Lohans character was at the start; coming from a home schooled environment in Africa into a mainstream school and progressing to become one of the "plastics" just because of her looks. Which i do think could happen in any school because everyone is extremely judgemental in their own ways, especially teenagers >:3

Whereas "Get Real" almost every person ive asked if they've seen it has been like "whaaa? no". Which i didn't find too surprising because i don't think that it's an amazing film in terms of entertainment and comedy, but more of a tender romance story between two boys who are constricted by majority of their school and societies homophobic views. Having looked on IMDB about it i found a comment from a user which said this:

"Could a more realistic demonstration of what it is like to be young exist than this film? Don't think so.

A lot of talk centers around how hard growing up is for teenagers. Yet seldom is it mentioned that however hard it is for straight kids to grow up, it is a million times harder for gay kids, who have no one to turn to for help - not friends, not teachers, not parents, not the church, not books, not counselors, not ANYONE. This film shows what it is like. And it further shows the horrid situation that a young gay athlete finds himself in, torn between being able to do what he enjoys (sports) and being able to be himself. When you're gay, you can't have both, thanks to the homophobia which still rules athletics with an iron fist.

The two main characters of this film struggle to maintain a relationship, because they are in love - yet ultimately the homophobic attitudes of the world force them to part. Tragic, yet it is a tale that plays itself out in every little town on the globe. In spite of this, it is a tale never before told on film. It's about time. This should be required viewing for all high school students."

Which i thought summed up the film entirely and saved me from going on.

I think both films are both good in their own right, and show the bigotry and single-minded judgemental views that are held by alot of kids nowadays. Albeit Get Real was produced nearly ten years ago, i still think that it communicates its message very well because yeah, society has become more accepting towards people who were once discriminated against: Such as the recentintroduction of gay marriage and the new-found presidency of a black man. But in all honesty if what happened in this film was to happen at Welling in the lower school then the kids would most likely be cussed and ridiculed.

But yeah, out of the two i believe that Mean Girls is the one thats the most entertaining. Thats because it's made more to provide humour for everyone of all ages because its just a well scripted jokes film :D abit overplayed and everyones seen it but nontheless its well good, and the whole concept of scopophilia and the male gaze could be brought in because of the four "Sexy" and "Desireable" plastics.

And even in the posters we can see the differences in the messages that each film is trying to put across, the whole "what if you cant avoid....etc" line in the Get Real poster lets us all think about our own place in the world whilst/when we were growing up. Which is different to the mean girls one which places Cady in a dominant position and having the three slutty looking ones in the background being smaller, paired with her evil glare shows us her contempt for them and shows that the film will be what the film title is. A film completely about "Mean Girls"

But there we go: a long typing session for me donw and out the way. I'm gonna start on my case-study thing for film later on and i still need to decide what film to do it on. So yeah :D Have a good weekend everyone

xxx

Documenting our progress.

Here we are, most of the photos taken on Tara's camera documenting our filming progress. At the end of the year we'll be able to look back on all this and remember how our film came together :D






i'm not doing anything today as its tooo cold and i have an ear infection, so i might just do all my homework and blog all day o.0