In class for this week, we looked at high concept (blockbuster) cinema, and trying to relate to Inception which we were to watch again on the Thursday class. This wasn’t a concept I was unfamiliar with, we discussed High Concept cinema in my Popular Cinema class earlier in the week. However in my Popular Cinema class, we focused more on the High Concept filmmaking in terms of marketing and the way in which studios simplify the content when advertising to audiences, to entice them to come and view the film. In Dan’s class, we spoke of high concept cinema in terms of the content, and the way it has developed in terms of the techniques in narrative and character development, as well as editing and cinematography.

We looked at the work from James Cameron in Alien, more specifically the scene where Ellen (Sigourney Weaver’s character) speaks to the other girl very softly. The scene was focused on by Dan because of the way it was so intimate in the midst of chaos, and was brought about by the zoom in close ups of the characters and in turn, kind of ignoring the classical rules of Hollywood cinema. This kind of demonstrated how even though blockbuster films are synonymous with explosions (due in part thanks to Michael Bay, who we also spoke about in class), there is another element to it, an aspect that’s kind of outside what is expected of the genre. We then looked at Michael Bay as previously mentioned, and his film Transformers. Whilst Michael Bay is often known for compensating the lack of plot and character development with the ridiculous and almost obscene amounts of explosions and special effects he puts in his films, interestingly enough it could also be said to be breaking the rules of classical filmmaking. Such compensation is almost unheard of in film, especially when considering it had made so much at the box office that it demanded three sequels.

I kind of admire both films in the risktaking sense, as it allows the filmmaker a freedom to kind of explore different types of motion and composition of frames to distinguish itself from other films that find itself in the same genre. I hope to be able to find more examples and kind of incorporate the same mentality of risktaking in future projects.