Saturday, 13 March 2010
responsibilities while filming our film
Responsibilities:
Me: Contributing to the filming and directing of the thriller film. Also the editing when we finished filming.
Alice: Contributing to the filming and directing of the thriller film. Also the editing when we finished filmed.
Daniel: Playing the role of "Harry" and "The unknown character" and also the editing when we finished filming.
Me: Contributing to the filming and directing of the thriller film. Also the editing when we finished filming.
Alice: Contributing to the filming and directing of the thriller film. Also the editing when we finished filmed.
Daniel: Playing the role of "Harry" and "The unknown character" and also the editing when we finished filming.
Costumes
Eve: Eve is dressed in a long coat which covers her body and down to her knees. She is wearing dark ankle - height, lace up boots. She has long dark curly hair which emphasizes her glamorous look. Eve's style is sophisticated which I suppose you can say is a 'typical' femme fatale approach, for example the femme fatale in "Once upon a time in America" has a glamorous approach.
Her beauty and sexual presence helps her lure people into compromising positions and this is done to create power.
Harry:
Harry is also dressed as sophisticated. He is wearing dark, smart trousers with a buttoned coat. This is to make Harry look 'normal' and disguse his real reason to why he's there.His height shows powerfulness and his posture makes him seem important. The black outfit connotes sadness and general negative signifigance which is in contrast of the white snow which shows purity.
Unknown character: The unknown character is dressed in black. This is also to connote a negative view on this character. The unknown character uses his hood to hide his identity and his criminal erinds.
Plot to our thriller film
Our narrative structure:
- Eve (femme fatale) lights a cigarette while she is waiting for a phone call.
- Eve recieves the phone call and dialogue is exchanged. Eve says "I'll be there. Two minutes"
- All shots of Eve are to keep her mysterious character so the shots are only glimpses of her - not showing her face; as an intertextual reference to the introduction of Mia in Pulp fiction.
- She puts the cigarette out and begins to walk through an open gate and down towards the planned meeting point.
- She approaches a male character, Harry. Who is standing beside a lampost (which is in reference to the thriller film "The third man" which has a shot of the femme fatale standing next to a similar looking lampost) He hands her an envelope and they share no more contact.
- She walks on and towards the river.
- While she is walking, many point of view shots are established to show that someone is following her.
- Eve is oblivious to this and carries on walking forward.
- As she walks below an arch way it shows a point of view shot of Eve and a gun is raised in the view.
- As Eve walks out of the arch way she is shot (as she went from being in the light to being in the dark and being in the light again, the darkness is suggestive that something irregular was about to happen)
- As the camera shows Eve lying on the snowy floor with blood around her head a character comes into view and slowly takes the envelope Eve is holding in her hand and he walks away.
- The last shot shows Eve's hands twitching and her eye suddenly opening.
Friday, 26 February 2010
Memento Film Review
Memento Film Review
To call this an intricate thriller would be an understatement. Film noir has never been so labyrinthine. Leonard, the central figure, played by Guy Pearce, is a mystery even to himself. Expensively-suited, driving a chic sports car, yet living precariously in seedy motels, he seems to be on a desperate quest to find his wife's killer and avenge her death.
He is also up against a rare form of amnesia which makes it difficult for him to remember what has happened to him in the immediate past, although he can recall his earlier life. In order to keep track of where he is and what he is doing he surrounds himself with reminders, and even uses his body as if it were a giant note pad. On his limbs and torso he has indelibly etched messages designed to jolt his deficient memory cells, but which serve only to magnify the enigma. Nothing is what it seems. Characters he has trusted turn out to be duplicitous, those who seemed dangerous could well be friends.
The structure of Christopher Nolan's fascinatingly original second film is determinedly non-linear. The same sequences are seen from different viewpoints, alternatively clarifying and muddling perceptions. It is edited like a random pile of mosaic tiles, but when the last one has snaps into place, a surprise sets the whole intrigue in motion again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/10/16/memento_2000_review.shtml
To call this an intricate thriller would be an understatement. Film noir has never been so labyrinthine. Leonard, the central figure, played by Guy Pearce, is a mystery even to himself. Expensively-suited, driving a chic sports car, yet living precariously in seedy motels, he seems to be on a desperate quest to find his wife's killer and avenge her death.
He is also up against a rare form of amnesia which makes it difficult for him to remember what has happened to him in the immediate past, although he can recall his earlier life. In order to keep track of where he is and what he is doing he surrounds himself with reminders, and even uses his body as if it were a giant note pad. On his limbs and torso he has indelibly etched messages designed to jolt his deficient memory cells, but which serve only to magnify the enigma. Nothing is what it seems. Characters he has trusted turn out to be duplicitous, those who seemed dangerous could well be friends.
The structure of Christopher Nolan's fascinatingly original second film is determinedly non-linear. The same sequences are seen from different viewpoints, alternatively clarifying and muddling perceptions. It is edited like a random pile of mosaic tiles, but when the last one has snaps into place, a surprise sets the whole intrigue in motion again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/10/16/memento_2000_review.shtml
The Dark Knight Film Review
The Dark Knight Film Review
Overlong and overhyped but hugely entertaining... The Dark Knight
A sound like a batgloved fist smacking into a cupped palm is what this film delivers: only deafeningly amplified and clarified with crisp, digital precision. It is the sound of all other recent super-hero movies getting their asses well and truly kicked. The Dark Knight is strange, dark, grandiose and mad; it is overlong and overhyped but hugely entertaining. In a simple, physical sense it really is huge, with cityscape sequences filmed on Imax technology, that demand to be seen on the vast Imax screen. Watching the first dizzying, vertiginous overhead shot of the glittering skyscrapers and minuscule streets, I literally forgot to breathe for a second or two, and found myself teetering forward on my seat - timidly, I had chosen one high up at the very back of the auditorium - as if about to topple into the illusory void.
The Dark Knight is the continuation of British director Christopher Nolan's reinvention of the Batman story and it takes the story up to his primal confrontation with the Joker, the villain who among the wrongdoer-gallery ranged against Batman is first among equals: here leading an unspeakable cabal of wiseguys. The caped crusader himself (although this camp designation is now not used) is again played by Christian Bale, clanking around in a kind of titanium-lite exoskeleton and making use of a heavy-duty Batmobile so macho and military-looking it makes a Humvee look like the kind of Prius driven by Gok Wan. Otherwise, he bops around town on a brutal motorbike with wheels the size of rubber boulders, cape fluttering in the slipstream.
The Joker is played, tremendously, by the late Heath Ledger. His great grin, though enhanced by rouge, has evidently been caused by two horrid slash-scars to the corners of his mouth, and his whiteface makeup is always cracking and peeling off, perhaps due to the dried remnants of tears, making him look like some self-hating Pagliaccio of crime, sweating backstage after the latest awful spectacular. Ledger has a weird collection of tics and twitches, kinks and quirks; his tongue darts, lizard-like, around his mouth, a little like Frankie Howerd, or perhaps Graham Kerr, the galloping gourmet of 1970s television.
Batman is still a reasonably novel figure in Gotham city as the action begins. They still refer to this dubious vigilante with a retro-sounding definite article: he is "the Batman". And there is a new, conventional crime fighter in town: the handsome, dashing district attorney Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, a man who believes that the rule of law has to be upheld by a democratically accountable person, not some shadowy figure of the night. To the chagrin of Batman and his far-from-mild-mannered alter ego, billionaire Bruce Wayne, Harvey is dating the love of Batman's life: legal eagle Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gary Oldman plays Lt Gordon, before his historic promotion to "Commissioner" status. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman provide droll performances as Wayne's ancillary staff, his butler Alfred and his Q-like costume designer, Lucius Fox.
There are some really exhilarating set-pieces, especially the one that kickstarts the proceedings: Nolan starts off with a high-tension, high-anxiety bank raid, carried out by a dodgy crew all in Joker masks, all whispering among themselves about the crazy guy in clown makeup who hired them to do the job. Why isn't he there personally? Wait - is he there personally?
With some big masculine face-offs, and a high-speed convoy scene, Nolan appears to have imbibed the influence of Michael Mann, and a sequence in Hong Kong has a touch of the Infernal Affairs movies. Various debates about Jack Bauer/24-type torture methods appear to show modern Hollywood discovering, if not a conscience exactly, then a certain self-consciousness. But the film is better at pure action - particularly one awe-inspiring chase scene Nolan later contrives between Batman on his bike and the Joker at the wheel of a enormous truck. The conclusion to this sequence had the audience in a semi-standing crouch of disbelief.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment comes when the Joker has evidently abducted some unfortunate from the local psychiatric hospital to "impersonate" Batman's lost love: this man does appear to resemble Maggie Gyllenhaal: a joke of considerable malice, sophistication and lack of taste.
Nolan has made an enormously profitable smash with the Batman franchise, but at the risk of sounding priggish, I can't help thinking it may be a bit of a career blind-alley for the talented director who gave us brilliant and disquieting movies like Following (1998) and Memento (2000), whose inventions still linger in the mind. The Dark Knight's massive box-office success has surely given Nolan the means to write his own cheque, and in addition something sweeter still - clout. I hope that he will use it to cultivate movies that are smaller and more manoeuvrable than that great armoured Batmobile.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/25/actionandadventure1
Overlong and overhyped but hugely entertaining... The Dark Knight
A sound like a batgloved fist smacking into a cupped palm is what this film delivers: only deafeningly amplified and clarified with crisp, digital precision. It is the sound of all other recent super-hero movies getting their asses well and truly kicked. The Dark Knight is strange, dark, grandiose and mad; it is overlong and overhyped but hugely entertaining. In a simple, physical sense it really is huge, with cityscape sequences filmed on Imax technology, that demand to be seen on the vast Imax screen. Watching the first dizzying, vertiginous overhead shot of the glittering skyscrapers and minuscule streets, I literally forgot to breathe for a second or two, and found myself teetering forward on my seat - timidly, I had chosen one high up at the very back of the auditorium - as if about to topple into the illusory void.
The Dark Knight is the continuation of British director Christopher Nolan's reinvention of the Batman story and it takes the story up to his primal confrontation with the Joker, the villain who among the wrongdoer-gallery ranged against Batman is first among equals: here leading an unspeakable cabal of wiseguys. The caped crusader himself (although this camp designation is now not used) is again played by Christian Bale, clanking around in a kind of titanium-lite exoskeleton and making use of a heavy-duty Batmobile so macho and military-looking it makes a Humvee look like the kind of Prius driven by Gok Wan. Otherwise, he bops around town on a brutal motorbike with wheels the size of rubber boulders, cape fluttering in the slipstream.
The Joker is played, tremendously, by the late Heath Ledger. His great grin, though enhanced by rouge, has evidently been caused by two horrid slash-scars to the corners of his mouth, and his whiteface makeup is always cracking and peeling off, perhaps due to the dried remnants of tears, making him look like some self-hating Pagliaccio of crime, sweating backstage after the latest awful spectacular. Ledger has a weird collection of tics and twitches, kinks and quirks; his tongue darts, lizard-like, around his mouth, a little like Frankie Howerd, or perhaps Graham Kerr, the galloping gourmet of 1970s television.
Batman is still a reasonably novel figure in Gotham city as the action begins. They still refer to this dubious vigilante with a retro-sounding definite article: he is "the Batman". And there is a new, conventional crime fighter in town: the handsome, dashing district attorney Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, a man who believes that the rule of law has to be upheld by a democratically accountable person, not some shadowy figure of the night. To the chagrin of Batman and his far-from-mild-mannered alter ego, billionaire Bruce Wayne, Harvey is dating the love of Batman's life: legal eagle Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gary Oldman plays Lt Gordon, before his historic promotion to "Commissioner" status. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman provide droll performances as Wayne's ancillary staff, his butler Alfred and his Q-like costume designer, Lucius Fox.
There are some really exhilarating set-pieces, especially the one that kickstarts the proceedings: Nolan starts off with a high-tension, high-anxiety bank raid, carried out by a dodgy crew all in Joker masks, all whispering among themselves about the crazy guy in clown makeup who hired them to do the job. Why isn't he there personally? Wait - is he there personally?
With some big masculine face-offs, and a high-speed convoy scene, Nolan appears to have imbibed the influence of Michael Mann, and a sequence in Hong Kong has a touch of the Infernal Affairs movies. Various debates about Jack Bauer/24-type torture methods appear to show modern Hollywood discovering, if not a conscience exactly, then a certain self-consciousness. But the film is better at pure action - particularly one awe-inspiring chase scene Nolan later contrives between Batman on his bike and the Joker at the wheel of a enormous truck. The conclusion to this sequence had the audience in a semi-standing crouch of disbelief.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment comes when the Joker has evidently abducted some unfortunate from the local psychiatric hospital to "impersonate" Batman's lost love: this man does appear to resemble Maggie Gyllenhaal: a joke of considerable malice, sophistication and lack of taste.
Nolan has made an enormously profitable smash with the Batman franchise, but at the risk of sounding priggish, I can't help thinking it may be a bit of a career blind-alley for the talented director who gave us brilliant and disquieting movies like Following (1998) and Memento (2000), whose inventions still linger in the mind. The Dark Knight's massive box-office success has surely given Nolan the means to write his own cheque, and in addition something sweeter still - clout. I hope that he will use it to cultivate movies that are smaller and more manoeuvrable than that great armoured Batmobile.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/25/actionandadventure1
The Godfather Film Review
The Godfather Film Review
In "You've Got Mail" (1998), Tom Hanks suggests the answers to all life's questions can be found in "The Godfather". Not as ridiculous as it sounds, because Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece reveals something new every time you watch it.
The family that slays together, stays together, and that's certainly the case for the embattled Corleone clan. Caught up in the middle of a bloody gang war, Don Vito's doomed quest to make his family respectable is dealt a body blow when his youngest son Michael, a decorated war hero and lawyer, is inexorably sucked into a life of murder and violence.
Marlon Brando was considered box office poison when he was cast as the ageing Don, and his hamster-cheek performance launched a thousand parodies (Even Brando got in on the act, mocking himself mercilessly in "The Freshman" (1990)). His performance as Don Corleone won him an Oscar and sealed his reputation as perhaps America's greatest film actor - a claim he bolstered with "Last Tango in Paris" later that year.
Packed with more classic lines than any movie deserves to have ("I'll make him an offer he can't refuse"), "The Godfather" won an Oscar for best picture, became a world-wide smash, and marked career watersheds for James Caan and Robert Duvall.
For Al Pacino and Francis Ford Coppola, however, the best was yet to come with "The Godfather Part II" (1974), one of the few sequels to surpass the original.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/12/15/the_godfather_1972_review.shtml
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