When we first arrived back to uni after the summer break we were assigned a quick starter project to the year. The project was to make a 1 min film that shows the same scene from two different points of view. I decided to show a scenario were both people involved are having a bad day and through there own actions and carelessness something really bad almost ends up happening.
The first character that we are introduced to is Tom. Tom is sat in his car reading a note that contains some bad news, once he is finished he tosses the note to one side and speeds off out of the car park almost knocking over a pedestrian crossing the road. The second character is Jake, Jake is sat in uni looking at his phone and listening to his headphones. He is texting his friends with intention to meet up with them, once he realizes that his plans are cancelled he leaves, crosses the road and nearly gets hit by Tom in his car.
One of the things I’m most proud of about this short is how we managed to show both sides of the story. I drew inspiration from films like Jackie Brown because the whole of that movie is basically the same concept of this short and that is following one characters story all the way through from the beginning to the end, then going back to the start and telling the same story again but from another characters point of view. Its just a different and more interesting way to tell a story and in a world were the same story is being told time and time again we need to explore different ways to tell a story because modern mainstream film making is stale.
So with that in mind, I hope that you enjoy this short because it is a perfect example of what I’m trying to do and hopefully I will be making more films like this in the future that challenge different ways to tell a story.
Every year in Birmingham their is a film festival called The Flatpack film festival which runs for a full two weeks. One of the most interesting things about this festival is they have what they refair to as an “Open Projector” session where amateur film makers bring DVDs of there films to showcase to a large audience. Unfortunately I didn’t have any of my films on me and only found out after I got there but it was still a really good idea. This event was called “The Best Of Magic Cinema”.
There was then a best of event witch was based around the films that were deemed most effective and they were to be re-shown. This was healed in a caffe with a row of sofas in front of a projection screen. Even though there were limited spaces to sit down me and my friends that I went with all agreed that this was one of the most comfortable cinema screenings we had ever attended. The most important thing was the films that were shown, well they was a very wide range of them and they all varied in styles and ideas. Some worked some were just weird and tried to hard to be funny.
One of my favourite films that we saw that day was one that explored the “Selfie” a form of photography that is taking over the internet. The film started with a montage of photographs that were taken by the film maker and a narration that explained what they liked about taking selfies. This was then followed by a collage of all these images to make up a face that people usually pull when they are taking a selfie. The film didn’t make me like selfies, I just made me hate them more.
One sad disadvantage to this festival was that the non of the film makers were actually present at the screenings and I dont understand why. There was no Q and A’s or anything and that is usually one of my favourite parts of a film festival because its one of the most interesting ways to watch films. So because of that I didn’t find this festival to be that good compared to the other ones we went to, it wasn’t by any means bad I just felt that because it literally was just allot of people in a big room watching allot of films it didn’t hold up compared to the others.
In March of 2014 the British Library held a film event called “Inspiring Film Makers” this was a series of screenings followed by Q and A with the people who made the films that were shown.
The first film was called Beats, the most memorable thing about this was the the soundtrack. The film opens with the main character sat at a table eating breakfast, he then breaks into a musical like dance routine around the table and dances out the door and onto the street going into every shop doing his dance routine in all of them. The film is based on how the public would react to a situation like this, needless to say he gets kicked out by many places and beaten up by many passers by on the street. I could see what this film was trying to do and whilst I felt it was quite well made and did what it aimed to it kind of didn’t work from an audience standpoint. Watching the movie was a very weird experience and I don’t wish to watch it again.
The second film that we watched was called “In the air is Christopher Grey”, this film was an animation that also tried to be a black comedy if you will by making the animation look terrible, the background was barely visible and the characters where silhouette’s. The film began with a simple boy likes girl scenario, this leads to the death of a child and our hero of the film being heartbroken. The film then did a very similar thing of the boy being depressed but the soundtrack staying very up beat. I think that this is a good tool to use but it is quite pretentious and artsy and I would only use it in a film myself if I wanted to do a strange quirky Woody Allen type atmosphere. Having said that after seeing this done twice in a row it wasn’t nearly as effective.
After watching a few more films the panel that followed was based around the research techniques that were used for them to make there films. I did feel however that the only problem with this Q and A was that they were asked by the library to talk about what the themes that the library wanted them to go with and I would have preferred it if the library had let them talk about what they wanted to talk about, but over all I did really enjoy the festival.
On Tuesday 11th March we where all invited to Stoke-On-Trent to attend the Stoke Your Fires film festival. Stoke Your Fires is a festival that takes place every year and revolves around screenings of student films from all around the world.
The first film we watched I cant remember the name of but it revolved around a marriage councillor that was having sex with his clients, to be honest I found this film to have some quite amusing moments but overall didn’t hang well together as a film and me and a few others found it quite boring.
The second film that we watched was an abstract film was made by our tutor John Bradburn it was an abstract film about people who are stuck in purgatory. We all thought that this film had fantastic production but lacked a narrative and once again was quite boring to watch. The characters didn’t really have much depth because there was barely and dialogue to establish them, the film was full of symbolism and we all felt like this over threw the story.
This was followed by a discussion between Fair, Rudge and Arno Hazebroek with the theme of why should you make feature films with the amount of noise that there is with websites such as YouTube and what streaming movies means for the future of film. I’m glad to say that the discussion reached the conclusion of there still being a demand for feature films despite all of the noise on the internet. I often find that lectures or discussions such as this one can leave me quite depressed and thinking that know one wants to watch my films or they cant find them under the weight of the internet and this means that I will not be successful. But I have to say that I found this one to be quite interesting and I quite enjoyed it.
So overall the Stoke Your Fires event was quite an interesting series of screenings, despite me and my friends not liking all the films that where shown I did find that they sparked either a good discussion or debate and seen as though I love discussing and debating films this really appealed to me.
In Post-Production I was given a brief were I was asked to edit a film into 4 mins, I decided to edit the movie Paranormal Activity, I decided to do this because I thought that it has a great story that could be condenced into four mins. At the moment I am in the middle of editing so I haven’t got allot to show in this blog, so I will talk you through what I have done so far.
If you have seen Paranormal Activity you will know that the first part of the film is them establishing who they are as characters and all the paranormal stuff that has gone on in the house so far, at the same time there is allot of filler exposition of stuff that you don’t really need to see, such as them talking about there extended family which plays no part in the film, or them sleeping, or even brushing there teeth. While I’m sure that the film makers had there own reason to put this in, I think that when you need to tell a story in four mins, and need it to make sense, things like that can afford to be lost.
I’m about half way done with it and its pretty good so far, in the brief it said that we needed to honour everything in the narrative of the film and I feel I have done this. The only difference is that I have decided to use the alternate ending instead because its better, more creepy and rounds it off properly, the only reason that this ending wasn’t used in the final film was because it doesn’t leave it open for a sequel, which is the way I like it.
I’m currently in the process of starting the edit for our short film Something’s up with Jack but I will do double duty and get this project finished in the next couple of days ready for the deadline.
“Something’s up with Jack” is finally in Post-Production, we finished filming earlier today and headed strait into the editing studio from the set and started watching what we have done so far and weighed up all the work we still have to do and its on fire. Its been a strange experience because I cant wait until its finished because so far its a film that I’m really proud of and I cant wait to share it with people to see what they think. But at the same time I am having so much fun working on it that I don’t want it to end. As you can see, the photo I attached was a tweet that I put out to celebrate us finishing filming with #PostProduction and as you can see everyone is heavily working and really enjoying themselves.
Well I know this blog has been brief but thats all I have to say right now, think of this as an update on us finishing filming, in the next blog there is going to be some make up tests and on set photos, so you can get a taste of what the film will look like, TRAILER COMING SOON!!!
I’ve been meaning to review this video for a while because there is allot I have to say about it. Firstly I love how there are allot of music/movies that are now addressing issues with the American Government, I reviewed THE LEGO MOVIE not long ago and commented on how happy I was with how it managed to what I felt, almost accurately represented how the american government sees the american people.
This video came out a while ago now and I knew I wanted to review it but felt like I should sit on it for a while in order to gather together all the things that I have to say about it, as a side note, I was thinking about this video when I was watching The Lego Movie because in that sense there linked. Before I get into what I didn’t like about the video, lets talk about allot of the positive stuff I have to say about it. Firstly, I agree with what KoRn is saying politically. I think they manage to sum up perfectly all of the problems that have been going on and hopefully will manage to raise some awareness towards these issues. What KoRn are trying to say with this video is that Barack Obama is using cellebrities as his “Puppets” and using them do distract the public whenever he does something controversial. For example, according to KoRn’s lead singer Jonathan Davies “The night Miley Cyrus performed at the VMA’s Obama passed a law that he could prison and interrogate any suspected terrorist for as long as he wanted, and know one noticed because the public where distracted by the controversy surrounding the VMA’s”. This makes sense and I totally agree with it and am glad that allot of artists are recognising it as a problem, it sounds like a really interesting concept for a film actually…
Secondly, the video was visually stunning and one of the most creative music videos that KoRn have ever created. The first thing that we see in the video is the band members looking up at a series of TVs all of which are featuring a celebrity event that was highly publicised, such as Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance, or Justin Bieber getting arrested, or Kanye West a beating up a member of the Paparazzi and brilliantly constructs them around the lyrics of the song. In all of the music videos that KoRn have made for this album The Paradigm Shift they have used slow-motion with filming some shots of the band, such as the shot of Ray Luzier the drummer hitting the symbols and water flying off them in super slow motion at the camera. I think this was more of a “cutting to the beat” thing that they tried to do in order to make the video fit with the music, but its a brilliant effect and defiantly fits with the dub step theme of the album. Another thing that I loved about this video is the shots of Jonathan Davies on his famous mike stand and how they use effects to make it look like there are more than one of him, again I feel this was a cutting to the beat thing and it fitted very well with the song.
Now onto my problems with the Music Video, there is really only one but for me its a major problem. In the video they are having a go at commercialism and for festivals they have a backdrop that has big logos for big products and changed them into how the band sees them. For example “Snickers” became “Suckers”, “American Idol” became “American Idiot’ and my personal favourite the “MTV” logo became “WTF”.
This is all fine and fun and again quite creative but KoRn are sponsored by Monster Energy Drink… Last time I checked, thats a brand. So I don’t really feel like KoRn have the right to have a go at TV channels like MTV for selling out, when they themselves are branded. I mean for heavens sake, just look at Jonathan Davies’ car.
But anyway apart from that one thing this is one of the best videos that KoRn have ever done and one of there best albums as well. KoRn still remain one of my all time favourite bands and I feel that they just keep surprising the audience with every album/ video, which is one of the things I like most about them. I hope that they keep making videos like this because not only is it very entertaining and different to what allot of people are making now, but also because allot of people still need to be informed of this issue.
Despite the excellent reviews and constant praise The Lego Movie got I was a bit reluctant to see it, I think this was just down to me avoiding any really hyped up movie due to past films where they have been really disappointing. I was going to see The Lego Movie on Blueray when it came out, the only reason I saw it in cinemas was due to my friends going and I had nothing else to do that night, so when they asked me if I wanted to go I was reluctant at first but then decided to go due to not having anything else to do that night.
I have to say that I was really surprised as to how much I enjoyed The Lego Movie and as to how much the film relates to and makes fun of issues with the american government and capitalism. With the opening scene of the lead character Emit reading a Manuel on how to be a successful human and includes a montage of overly happy people singing a really terrible pop song called “Everything is awesome”. It also shows people how much people are distracted by TV shows and what is going on in Celebrities lives so much so that it over takes there own.
I felt that the moment the film started it had a fantastic pace and didn’t let up until the credits roll, there where some moments when I genuinely laughed out loud weather it was due to how well established and developed the characters are, or due to the films awesome soundtrack. The animation for this film was excellent, I think it was a mix between stop motion and CGI but I’m not too sure, the whole thing could have been CGI but whatever it was it worked, I felt that they came up with some excellent ways that they played on the idea that this was Lego and not real, its a running gag throughout the film, through how they animate water for example.
So overall I think that The Lego movie was an excellent surprise of a film that I think kids and adults everywhere will enjoy, I saw a 21:30 screening of the film, so there wasn’t really anyone there, just us and two other groups of students and we were all laughing. If you can get to a cinema thats still showing The Lego Movie go see it, if not buy it on Blueray, you wont regret it.
Last Friday I drove with a few of my friends to see the new 300 movie, I had to travel to stoke because the cinema in Stafford wasn’t showing it in 3D and my friends really wanted to see it in 3D, I wasn’t even really that bothered about seeing it but I didn’t have anything else to do that day so I thought “Why Not”.
I quite liked the first 300 movie, I didn’t take it too seriously but I thought it was technically really well done due to the visuals with the use of Slow Motion and the fact that it looked like a comic book. Going into this movie I had low expectations, I didn’t go in expecting Citizen Cane I just wanted to see some slow motion Spartans cutting apart some Persians with lots of blood. And that’s exactly what I got.
The story is basically not there, After its victory over Leonidas’ 300, the Persian Army under the command of Xerxes marches towards the major Greek city-states. The Democratic city of Athens, first on the path of Xerxes’ army, bases its strength on its fleet, led by admiral Themistocles. Themistocles is forced to an unwilling alliance with the traditional rival of Athens, oligarchic Sparta whose might lies with its superior infantry troops. But Xerxes still reigns supreme in numbers over sea and land.
Basically the movie opens with the last scene of the first movie, I felt like the opening scene was weirdly were the 3D was at its best, I felt like that’s where the used it to add depth to the screen and it worked. After that the movies narrative goes all over the place, with it being a sequel and with it opening with the last scene from the first movie I thought it was going to carry on telling more of that story. I get the vibe that they quickly found out that if they were to go the strait up sequel route then the movie would be about 30 mins long. So they then jump in the 300 timeline right to before the first film happens and tries to run alongside the first movie. At first they start telling the origins of King Xerxes, I felt like for the most part that scene was quite well played out, but in the end it ultimately ended up boring me and I just wanted to see another battle scene.
For a movie that is being sold because its really violent and has the 300 logo there is allot of really boring exposition that isn’t there for any reason other that to drag the run time out. Once the film finally gets to the battle scenes (Which to be honest, is why were all there) were treated to overly long and frankly quite ridiculous battle scenes that did nothing but remind be as to how much I enjoyed the first film. With the dull and boring plot the actors were quite good, my favorite performance in the film was by Eva Green just because I felt she stole every scene she was in and basically carried the film.
So to conclude I thought that 300: Rise Of An Empire was a pretty dull movie, it has a few action scenes but over all was long and boring and the 3D was useless, it was almost as if they forgotten it was supposed to be in 3D, just as I was starting to fall asleep then they remembered “Oh yea this is in 3D” and something would fly out of the screen. For a movie that’s got allot of people just standing around talking I fail to see why it needs to be in 3D, they don’t even use it during the action scenes. But anyway if your 15 you will probably enjoy the more extreme scenes of violence but I just felt it to be a still born film.
seanreynolds1 