Evaluation of foundation production - "Obsessed"
Evaluation of foundation production A/S media foundation production "Obsessed" We had the task of producing the opening sequence to a psychological thriller with a video camera. The equipment we were given to film was a Canons XM1 Canons entry level 3. Firstly we had to carry out immense amounts of research into films and especially psychological thrillers. Our main focus was on Alfred Hitchcock as he is renowned for his portrayal of the human mind and relationships between people. We had to research this genre quite thoroughly as we wanted to achieve the conventions of psychological thriller. We chose to make an independent film so that we could express ourselves through the film, rather than taking a mainstream Hollywood view, which would have been a bit opportunistic but we did use some elements of mainstream- e.g. the title music and the conventional killing and psycho set up. Typical examples of mainstream thrillers are 'Along came a spider' 'Seven' 'The Hole'. Their mainstream characteristics cab summarised as being very dark dull and a limited use of colour. They always seem to start in a dark secluded spot and have a hero and psychological villain. Our thriller relates to the established genre as it is about the inner inhibitions of the mind. It creates a bleak but realistic atmosphere, which adds to the psychological aspect of the genre. We intended to target a
Compare and contrast the uses and meanings of symbolism within the book and film - Don't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier, published in a collection of stories titled After Midnight
British Literature and Film Compare and contrast the uses and meanings of symbolism within the book and film. Don't Look Now was originally a short story written by Daphne Du Maurier and published in a collection of stories titled After Midnight [1]. The story focuses on a couple, John and Laura, who have recently suffered the bereavement of their daughter, Christine, and are on holiday in Venice, trying to return their lives to normal. While there, they encounter two twins, one of whom claims to be psychic, and from there on strange events start to happen. Nicolas Roeg's film follows the main outline of the story very closely, however, many of the specific details have been altered with the result that the film story becomes Roeg's rather than Du Maurier's. The first scene in Nicolas Roeg's film is probably the scene that differs most from the book, and the scene that contains the most symbolism. Instead of watching the film passively as we would normally, Roeg forces us to concentrate and question and argue what we are seeing on the screen. He teaches us that, in film especially, our eyes can literally deceive us. This is the essential point of Don't Look Now; nothing is what it seems and Roeg doesn't want us to believe the illusion - questioning it is all part of his fun. The film contains an amazing amount of red herrings, which send us down the wrong alley in the
Discuss the role of symbolism in Un Chien andalou.
Discuss the role of symbolism in Un Chien andalou. Jean Goudal writing in 1925 expressed the view that the cinematic experience (medium, message and location) was the 'ideal means for the realization of surreality, of the marvellous' stressing its potential for the recreation of dream: 'The cinema [....] constitutes a conscious hallucination, and utilizes this fusion of dream and consciousness which Surrealism would like to see realized in the literary domain [....]. They should lose no time in imbuing their productions with the three essential characteristics of dream; the visual, the illogical, the pervasive.'1 It was another four years before Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel worked together on Un Chien andalou (1929), a short (seventeen minutes) silent film, that is considered by critics (e.g. Rudolf Kuenzli2) to be one of only two or three truly Surrealist films produced (along with L'Age d'or (1930) and possibly Man Ray's L'etoile de mer (1928) or Antonin Artaud's and Germaine Dulac's La Coquille et le clergyman (1928).) The genesis of the film can be found in Dalí's writings in the Catalan avant-garde literary review L'Amic de les Arts, specifically La fotografia, pura creació de l'esperit (September 1927) and Film-arte, fil antiartístico (December 1927), the latter dedicated to his student-friend Buñuel. Dalí emphasized that film could create visual images
Billy Elliot - Billys struggle against gender roles discussed.
Essay "Billy Elliot" Billy´s struggle against gender role restrictions for the opportunity to dance ballet is compared in the film with Jackie´s fight as a striker against his company. This happens on two narrative levels. To be more precise, the desperate fight of the miners that Billy´s father supports at the beginning, as well as he can, is displayed by the useless efforts to prevent Billy from developing into a good ballet dancer and becoming sophisticated. The industrial progress taking place in the depressed area and the cultural advance in Billy´s family cannot be prevented -neither by his father nor by anyone else as the end concluding scenes of the film shows. A scene demonstrating this parallel quite vividly is the (also) parallel sequence where Billy in a lesson works hard to improve his dancing on the one hand and the police defeat the striking workers in their own neighborhood on the other. Taking a look at Billy´s part in the film, I would even say that Billy does not only achieve a cultural education for himself, but he is the one who who makes culture and new working class values accessible to his family. For instance he does not only start to learn ballet, but he also shows an interest in the content described in famous stories such as "Swan Lake". He is the one who thinks differently. No one else in his family would have the courage to behave like
Does the opening scene of "Mission Impossible Two" clearly show what genre the film is in
Does the opening scene of "Mission Impossible Two" clearly show what genre the film is in? Mission Impossible Two which was made in 1996 stars Tom Cruise in the sequel to the blockbuster hit. Directed by John Woo the film should contain fast paced action and a considerable amount of gunfire. This is proven in the opening scene. The main protagonist, Ethan Hunt, is first sighted by the audience climbing a mountain somewhere in south America with no safety harness. Already there is the element of danger which is typical of an action film. Also, later on in the scene, he seems to be being chased by a helicopter. Another action film then? I'm sure we'd all agree. However, many other types of genre are revealed throughout the opening scene. At the end of the scene a comedy genre is hinted at. The words by Ethan "I'll tell you where I'm going, but it won't be on holiday," show that Ethan could be a funny man. This could make the film a comedy or be a mixture of the two. A mystery genre is also hinted at. From the scene the audience would be able to tell that something needs to be solved to uncover the mission. Also when the glasses state "I advise one of them be Mrs Norduf Hall." This means it would appeal to the audience as the perfect couple and would almost promise a romantic side to the film. This would also make the film better and more appealing to the audience. The
Review of Beloved
Beloved is divided into three parts, each increasingly disjointed or "mad." The first section is told from the narrative present, 1874. Past events are distant and fragmented (albeit intrusive) memories, related in enough detail only to limn that something once happened, that strange behaviors and events in the narrative present are sufficiently motivated by the past. Not until the end of the first section, halfway through the novel, is the pivotal event recounted recognizably: Rather than return to slavery, Sethe takes a saw to her children's throats, killing the "crawling-already" baby girl. The vivid retelling of this murder is confirmed and captured in an old newspaper clipping shown by Stamp Paid, the runaways' ferryman, to Sethe's lover Paul D. With the newspaper clipping, the "mad" narrative voice seems to shore itself up by adding a sane counterpart: objective reportage. The clipping's existence authenticates the oral text, much as white abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips appended their imprimaturs to Frederick Douglass's 1845 narrative. Among other uses, an authenticating text's function was to attest to the narrator's veracity -- and thereby, to his or her sanity. The second section of Beloved becomes more and more absorbed in what Sethe ambivalently describes as "rememory," and in what Paul D metonymically calls a tobacco tin rusted
How does Hitchcock create suspense and tension in the film psycho?
How does Hitchcock create suspense and tension in the film psycho? Psycho was a low budget movie. It was made in 1962 and was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film was to be different it was the first of its kind. It misleads people by portraying a sexy image when really it was to be a horror based on the notorious serial killer Ed Gein. To promote his new film Hitchcock used various techniques, for example the denotations of the poster was a red herring and mislead people in to believing the film had a sexy genre. To get the film better publicity Hitchcock decided to make rules up for the film. These were the following once the film had started nobody else was allowed in. Moreover the audience were made to sit in absolute darkness after the film had ended. Hitchcock believed by doing this he would scare people more this would create more tension therefore giving the film a better effect. In the film Hitchcock uses various techniques of lighting. Lighting defies horror convention in ways. Firstly they reflect the lights off the bright tiles; this was to show a sense of innocence. It made people believe nothing was going to happen. Hitchcock then shown the lighting so it was coming from behind the shower this created suspense, an additional reason was to cause dramatic irony this meant that the audience would see the killer, but the victim would be oblivious. Tension was
Analysis of a series of adverts promoting "Virgin Mobile."
Over the years, advertisers have been looking for new ways to get their point across. They do this in a number of ways, but mostly my suggesting that we the viewer should be thinking about the connotations of what we see on our TV screens. The idea that what we see can be associated with what we already know is not a new one however. The relationship between what we see and what we feel has been studied my many such as Saussure and Barthes. Both wrote about concepts relating to connotation and signs in the media, which I will be referring to in my analysis of the advert. The advert which I have chosen is part of a series of adverts promoting "Virgin Mobile." It features Busta Rhymes and is set onboard a private jet. The opening shot is from the outside of the jet. We know that is private jet because it is obviously too small to be a commercial aircraft. Through general connotations we assume that the occupants are wealthy or famous. Then, the next shot is of the interior of the plane where we see Busta getting up out of his seat. The whole advert has a very cinematic feel to it, with high contrast and an expensive looking set. As Busta stands up we see that he is wearing a lot of gold. Our pre-conceptions of people who wear lots of gold again tell us that these people are rich which affirms the previous sign given by the shot of the jet. This is showing the
Psycho was a landmark in film history due to Hitchcock's Stylistic innovations - Discuss.
Psycho was a landmark in film history due to Hitchcock's Stylistic innovations. Discuss Psycho is one of the most famous, ground breaking and most influential film ever made. It was so ground breaking it created a whole new genre of its own which was the slasher horror. Hitchcock aim was to achieve certain effects. Hitchcock wanted to make a film that would change the ways films were made and to shock the comtempary audience. The film challenged many Hollywood conventions. Until Psycho it was usual to walk into a film, watch it to the end, and then sit and watch it again until you have seen all of it. Films were played on a perpetual loop with the news and B films. Hitchcock wrote to every cinema showing the film. He gave them specific instructions and a handbook about how to show the film "The manager of this theatre playing Psycho has been instructed, at the risk of his life not to admit any person after the picture starts. Hitchcock wanted to engineer people's experience of Psycho. He also wrote "Close curtains after end credits and keep lights of a greenish hue and shine spotlights of the same colour on patrons as they left. Under no circumstances should credits be interrupted by news or anything else." Therefore the cinema going experience of Psycho was very different Audiences were also confronted with a film, which challenged many social taboos such as voyeurism,
Analyse how Amy Heckerling’s film ‘Clueless’ portrays the youth of contemporary America and the society in which they live.
Analyse how Amy Heckerling's film 'Clueless' portrays the youth of contemporary America and the society in which they live. Clueless is a satire, which means it's satirical; it makes fun of something in one of two ways, irony, or exaggeration. This can be seen throughout the film although it is only satirical about one thing in particular: the youth of contemporary America. The film does tend however to mock just one person as opposed to the whole youth of America and that person is Cher. Cher is portrayed as a spokesperson for her generation and we are led to judge most of her friends and relatives by how she behaves. The story, therefore, focuses on the life of Cher, a 15 year old 'spoilt rich kid', who feels she has to be in control of the life of her friends as well as her own. The main turning point in Cher's life is when her plan to makeover Tai backfires on her: 'I've created a monster'. As Tai becomes more and more popular and self-centred Cher 'makes over her soul' and sees her life and her friends for what they really are; shallow and selfish. At this point Cher changes drastically, she is now involved fully in her friends' wants and needs and even tries to help with the 'Pismo beach disaster league'. She loves to be the centre of attention and I think that might be one of the reasons why she buys so many outfits, to be different and to stand out, in
