MEDIA 5 // WEEK 1
FINDING THE EAR
Reflection
A short film by Wes Anderson.
This is the first time that I watched a black and white film by Wes Anderson. Anderson is very well known with his distinctive and colourful set designs in his work. However, throughout this film, I can still identify some unique techniques and characteristics of Anderson. He often create and allow subjects to activate the small objects in the surroundings. The bold and jump cuts in editing create a very storyboard like is also a highlight of his work. Watching his film is like reading a story book, flipping pages to pages. The sense of humour he uses throughout his film is very subtle. Example can be awkward pauses at the end of conversations or weird stares from strangers.
A short film by Christopher Nolan.
I actually wasnt sure who this director was until I heard he is the director for Inception. Sci- fic movie wasnt always on my list but yet it is quite similar (sometime) to surreal film. After watching this short film, I am definitely in love with it. It is strangely constructed and has a very surprising ending. I guess this is also a characteristic of Christopher Nolan’s film, it is always working within one world in another world, the multiple dimensions is something that I am fascinated about. Somehow this reminds me of the movie Peeping Tom, the use of “dimensions”, creating multiples layers of world through one visual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWs1SM0xYiI
This short film although is my least favourite comparing to the other two, I still enjoy it with the way its delivering the story to the audience. Just by the beginning, it reminds me of some kind of comedy program. It is often in fast pace, one joke over another joke. The voice over makes makes this film stands out a lot. It uses a personal perspective to tell the story which makes it more interesting, audience are becoming the character as they watch the film. Audience are allowed to put themselves into situations as the voice overs continue, through this, I feel like audience can get more emotional throughout.
Chapter 2. Rabiger, Michael. 2006, ‘You and the creative process’ in Developing story ideas, 2nd ed., Focal Press, Amsterdam, pp. 15-19
After reading this, I do have a more clear idea when developing stories. There is this specific sentence that caught my attention on:
“If you need therapy to survive, it is (and must be) self- directed. Art, however, is other directed, and people make it to grapple with the mysteries of human existence.”
Whether this is referring to films or not, I very agree with it no matter in what kind of circumstances. In terms of creating a story, art is basically creating something out, using our own creativity to imagine and build non- existence situations. To some extend, this is something as a story teller must have, but we must also bare in mind that therapy sort of symbolises the fundamental of story telling. The basic is something we follow but yet it is also something we are able to put twist on.