Archive of ‘Journal’ category
There are different approach to this assignment and after watching 10 other videos, I find that adaptability is one of the qualities that matters. Can our audience relate to the video or the message behind the video?
If we listen to the script and watch the visuals separately, it contains its own message. The skill here is the ability to blend different forms of media into one video. the visuals, audio, script and editing.
It is like making a good cup of coffee, the ability to pull a good espresso shot, not too coarse and not too fine and frothing milk at the right temperature( between 50-70 degrees). Pour the milk into the shots so that our customer can enjoy a good cup of coffee.
After watching my own work a couple times, it could be done a lot better.
I spent most of my time finding the right footage to fit my voice over but I should have spent the same amount of time editing and figuring out the pace of the video. After watching Cameron’s work, I realised I could have explored more in editing and Nora’s work, I could have explored more in scripting- the perspective of the object.
Now I understand why we were instructed to spend 25 mins for each section to draft our script in the first place. we should also spend more time crafting and exploring how we should work on different forms of media.
Every process is equally important. I harvested some good coffee beans but I’ve spent lesser time crafting on my skills on the coffee machine.
A friend sent me a personality test link on Facebook, spent a good 10 mins answering the list of questions and I got my personality test results- according to the test, my personality type is a defender with a whole list of individual traits. true to a certain extend, period. nothing changed or nothing will change because of this test.
Another friend said she went to the psychic recently and she told us how accurate her prediction from the psy was. I don’t believe in such things , or maybe because I haven’t been to one yet. I find that most predictions are general and whenever the psy predict something, we tend to find the closest relation to the prediction.
Do we define ourselves or do we allow others to define us?
I find this article ( How to stop “flipping “) useful and could relate well to the term flipping.
In my opinion and observation with advanced technology, our brain and attention spent is trained to work in a fast paced environment where we could get anything and everything instantly. When was the last time we spent the whole afternoon reading a good book? Or When was the last time we had an actual face to face conversation with a friend/family member and not through text?
I’ve learnt a new term – sclerotic management: becoming rigid and unresponsive, losing the ability to adapt.
Problems with advance technology – with short attention spent, we lose the ability to adapt and we tend to follow rules/system, becoming rigid. which links back to Tuesday’s discussion about Technological determinism( please correct me if the term is wrong) how much control do we have in the chain of agencies in our lives?
Last thoughts- I’ve been watching Black Mirror on Netflix and it scares me how technology takes over the future of humanity.
We did a little sketch exercise in class today
Through this simple exercise, I actually questioned my existence! We learned about connections and how dense things can be. (Agency =the capacity to do things) How much control do I actually have of my life? Not much! Humans are always known as the most powerful spices in the world, we have this ability to communicate, create and resolve but at the same time, as an individual, we do not have much control over our lives. We are just following a system.
Technological determinism is a reductionist doctrine that a society’s technology determines its cultural values, social structure, or history- Technology that determines action.
We also watched some clips of the kuleshov effect – images that connects meaning. bits and pieces of non-continual images that allows out brain to connect and link them together to form a conclusion/statement.
how can we make a documentary that shows these relation?
what other ways do we have with visuals and audio that we do not need to rely on stories
stories are accounts of the world and it only covers people.
documentary without stories ( arc, journey, characters, BME )
teleology- idea that things happen for external reason and an end of point in mind
Musical-
One Night The Moon is very different from the other musical i’ve watched. It has very minimum dialogue and the dialogues can be redundant. The story line is very simple- The whole village help to search for a missing girl, the songs are the key narrative in the movie, it establish different characters in the movie and it reveals the emotions of the main characters.
In our weekly readings, Barry mentioned that the musical is the only genre that consistently violates the otherwise rigid logic of classic narrative cinema. It narrates the movie through a songs written specially for the movie. Characters breaks into charmed space- musical privileged space is a place of transcendence where time stands still. where contingent concerns are stripped away to reveal the essence of things (Rick Altman). Characters break out into song and dance to express their emotion to the audience.
After this week’s readings and class, I finally understood the difference between a musical film and a film with music ( I always wonder if movies like pitch perfect fits into musical genre)
The use of sound often used to evoke irrationality, an excess of emotion, or subjectivity to a crisis. Music are common examples of formal manipulations of sound, it creates an atmosphere/tension of a film.
Scream in Psycho are replaced by violins played at a high pitch because the scream of woman being stabbed to death cannot be reproduced effectively by an actor. Sound used in film may not necessary sound the same as how it sound like in reality. We’ve discussed in class that the sound of a car accident in reality is not the same in a film, it plays with fidelity and timbre and create what the audience think it might sound like.
In Barbarian sound studio, it shows us how sound engineers used (mainly) vegetables to create slashing/stabbing sound for a horror film- how horror films are built with mundane elements. Ears is the second most important cognitive organs to absorbs knowledge. Even though there isn’t any jump scares/scary plots but the sound and music used in the film builds an atmosphere and tension, as I watch the film I was excepting something scary to happen, but it didn’t.
Sound can be used to narrate a film, it gives out information to the audience and made us believe that something is going to happen. Reflex sound are stylized and accentuated so that the audience constantly notice them Sound plays a huge part, it engages the audience and it has the power to build the audience’s anticipation of the film.
Aliens
The readings by Jeffery Brown talks about how genre stereotypes in a film.The spectacle of the muscular male body had become the genres’ central trademark (Eg. Arnold Schwarzenegger). Through Aliens, we see a switch in gender roles, instead of the usual male hero, the heroine saves the day. Jeffery talks about how Masculinity is determined by one’s ability to perform certain culturally recognizable traits. In Aliens, private Vasquez shows the perfect example of a her masculinity.
James Cameron showed the audience that women can be as tough as men. In a particular scene, Ripley and Newt were claim while one of the male solider were panicking and screaming away. Being tough is not about a person’s masculinity but it is base on natural human instinct on survivor. Newt, a small little girl managed to survive by herself without proper training and food.
During our class debate, we were split into 2 teams to discuss if Aliens is more then just a science fiction. Through this exercise, our team did some research and find all sorts of evidence to support our argument. Marketing and promotion use genre as a platform to sell and promote a film- by looking at the official poster of Aliens, we can tell that it is a science fiction movie.
I enjoyed watching Sleepless in Seattle even though I find the plot unrealistic; there are sets of emotions/situations where the audience could relate. Romantic comedies are usually unrealistic, but audiences love the idea of plots, the perfect happy ending in a relationship. I guess that’s the reason why rom com is successful in it’s way. Women are highly influenced by rom com movies, they can relate to the story plots- loneliness, displacement of a relationship, finding a ideal soul mate.
From the readings, politics of romantic comedies- such fantasies left the audience dissatisfied with what they have, they expectations and reality is different- it can be harmful to one’s relationship building such fantasies.
There is an irony in Sleepless in Seattle; “An Affair To Remember” influences Annie’s romantic life, after persisting on her fantasies, she finally met Sam at the state of empire and they got together in the end. The chance of this happening in real life is very slim. Perhaps, winning the lottery would be easier.
I enjoy watching romantic comedies, even though it is exaggerates- as long as we know the fine line between fantasies and reality, it is actually quite entertaining.
Romantic comedy convention:
-Difference from what is usually expected in the non comic world
-In congruity
-Exaggeration
-Displacement, sense of things/relationship being out of place
-Happy ending
-Childish energies that can no longer be contained by the adult framework ( which makes it funny!!)
Sukiyaki Western Django
Adaptations:
This film is a remake of Sergio Corbucci’s Spaghetti Western Django. It is a western movie made by Japanese adaptations. The whole movie shows different adaptation of Asia and the West. We can identify all the western genre conventions such as gunfights, alcohol, horses, stranger wandering, empty village, man hanging at the entrance(disorder), woman always smoking etc.
When the 2 clans were pressurising the gunman to choose his sides of the clan, Ruriko also known as the bloody benten( dressed in western costume) cuts in and stop the argument. In most traditional culture film, woman never voice out their opinion when the man talks.
We can also identify some Japanese cultural elements like samurai, swords, clans, costume- colours used in the film, Heike and Genji’s clan represent the Japanese flag of red and white, geisha tattoo.
Language:
I find it interesting how Miike Takashi made all his actors speak English because ,from the reading-” Hollywood often employs English-speaking actors to play other non-American nationalities. “It is a very big decision as most of his actors have to go through English classes a month before the actual filming. He did exactly what Hollywood did- but somehow we find it stranger compared Hollywood productions.I wonder if we will find it as strange if the director gets a caucasian guy and made him speak Japanese?
We can all relate to the movie, weather we are Asians or western- as we share certain similar values, we no longer categorise them as Asian or western values- in my opinion it is basic humanity values.
It was an interesting film to study 🙂
Journal 01
Whenever I go to the cinemas, I choose a movie genre based on how I feel that day. If I had a rough day, I’ll watch a comedy movie to lighten my day up. As a movie audience, genres categorised the different types of movies; it makes it easier for people to choose the movies they want to watch. As a film student, I’ve learned in today’s lesson that there’s a lot of different aspect in understanding a genre. The style of the shots, the editing, sound, scripting, lights, character eg. adds on to how we differentiate each genre- it can be more complex whenever we define a genre. Like what Neil Gaiman said: “ There is a huge difference between for example, a novel with spies and a spy novel; or a novel with cowboy in it and a cowboy novel. Different genres lay the fundamentals of structure for the writers/directors to work with. If it is a cowboy genre/novel, the focus will be on the life of the cowboy, the main actor should be cowboy.
After watching High Noon, Psycho and Singing in the rain’s scene in class, comparing to a recent western, thriller and musical genre, the fundamentals of the genre remains but certain style changes alongside with the era/generation. Like how technologies advance, genres evolve. Who knows what other new genres will exists 20 years later?
