on This week I draws some storyboard which I think will be helpful when I start to shoot next week. It includes the shots I may have in the first and second scene, but I am sure some of them will be changed later during the shooting according to the situations on the day.
on This week we starts to talk about our own short film project, and I also have some ideas in my mind already. The first thing to decide is to make a documentary or drama, even as Robin said we don’t need strictly follow the rules of them which means a ‘hybrid’ between the drama and documentary is also allowed, I still want to try something new and creative, and I think drama will be the best form to do that. What about a man suddenly finds he can’t speak? And I can use stylistic and experimental ways to show the story to audience because the plot might be abstract, but it will be more suitable to try some devices that I haven’t used before. For example, the subtitles and voice over. I will keep writing things down if I think of any practical things which might make the film more ‘unusual’.
on This week in class, I have done a short video which tells a story happens in study room. A man is studying in a quiet study room alone, and a woman comes in. She sits next to him and starts to make lots of noise which makes the man can’t concentrate on studying. He tries to remind her that she should be quiet here by many ways, but she just ignores all of that and keep making noise. As a result, the man leaves and the woman seems happy with that because she can use the room alone now.
https://drive.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/file/d/0B2OnYC0nJlysQUpNVlhZa2lDSUE/view?usp=sharing
on We have done some interesting exercises in week one and week two, and I have learnt a lot of skills of shooting, adjusting camera and principles of selecting location. For example, in the first week, we spend all our time on the basic functions of Sony EX-3 camera and its tripod. From how to set up the tripod and mount the camera correctly on it, to the actions like panning, zooming and tilting. Although how to do these might be slightly different on other cameras, but the basic principles are always same. We also tried some more complicated functions inside the camera, like changing the white balance, focus and exposure. It is really interesting for me to explore these functions and find the relations between them (like white balance and exposure), but it is also difficult for someone who uses the camera for first time.
The thing I discovered about the exposure is, as the homework I showed in class, the cloud which blocks sun always make it difficult to find a good exposure outside. When I tried to shoot the coming trams in front of the building 80, the background sky was always too bright, however because of the cloud and high buildings, the street was actually not that bright, even a little bit dark. So when I tried to use Zebra to check the exposure, I found the street is too dark if I make the sky looks just good, and the sky becomes too bright if I use the right exposure on the street. So I asked Robin if there is any way that by camera itself I can separately change exposure on different object, but it seems impossible unless we have some other equipment. At the end I decide to make the street little bit dark in order to not make the sky completely white, and maybe it is a right decision in that situation?
on Bordwell, D., 1986. Classical Hollywood Cinema : Narrational Principles and Procedures. In: P. Rosen, ed. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, pp.18-32.
on Luján-Mora, Sergio; Juana-Espinosa, Susana de, 2007. he Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers. Valencia, IATED, pp. 1-7.
Wright, Susan (2005), The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Landmark Antidiscrimination Legislation, The Rosen Publishing Group, ISBN 1-4042-0455-5.
on This essay will address in Clouzot’s claim regarding the French Nouvelle Vague film, and compare the authorship characteristics of Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy shown in Une femme est une femme and Les parapluies de Cherbourg. In order to explore the technical competence and creative vision of the two famous directors, two scenes of each film will be specifically analyzed and discussed. Besides, although the focus of this essay is auteur theory, the narrative features of the two chosen films will also be mentioned for the reason that the narrative, as an essential element of a film, is also largely affected by the author’s personal style and aesthetics.
‘Just as one recognizes the vintage of a great wine by its body, color, and scent, one recognizes a nouvelle vague film by its style’ (Neupert, 2007). The importance of authorship in French new wave films studies is emphasized by a vivid metaphors. According to Andrew Sarris’ Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962, the authorship can be concluded as threes premises: director’s technical competence, personal style (personality), and interior meaning (Sarris, 1962). Therefore, this essay will explore the authorship features through illustrating the stylistic techniques, personalities and implied thinking of the two directors.
What is Une femme est une femme? The answer cloud not be simpler: it is a film, and specifically, a comedy musical. This seems to be a clear enough answer for an audience. However, in cinema studies, there are much more complicated and various interoperations on this innovative work which is strongly featured by the director’s personal style and creative vision. “I thought of the subject [of Une femme est une femme] while thinking about a musical neo-realism. It is an absolute contradiction, but it is precisely that which interests me in the film” marked by Godard in a 1962 interview (Godard, 1998). There are two things worth noting in his comments: neo-realism and contradiction. Firstly, this film is a typical French new wave film, not only because of the director’s techniques, personal style and interior meaning, but also the theme, which reflects on realistic issue rather than romantic love or hero story. Secondly, the contradiction mentioned by Godard is significant because Une femme est une femme can be regarded as experiment of founding a new genre of comedy musical or at least a trying of a new form of film. With an understanding of these two points, the question of what the film is and how it works will be much easier to answer.
One reason of discussing narrative features in this authorship-focused essay is that especially in French new wave films, the director plays significant roles on narrative construction, and his or her personal style directly affects how the story is told and what it feels like. For example, in Une femme est une femme, the overall narrative is ambiguous. If there has to be a story line, it would be a woman wants a child, but her boyfriend does not, that is all of it. The film does not have a strong narrative, a climax or even a most impressive moment like a classical Hollywood or French film usually has. The rapid changes of scenes and character’s improvised conversations even show no attempt to tell a literary story at all. Godard, as the auteur, made the story exactly like the common life of the young people living in that age, which is usually confused, worried and disappointed. The problem of two-person world or having child between Angela and Emile is the problem exists in real life, not romantic stories. This is why when audiences sit in cinema, they do not feel watching a film but watching a real, while maybe slightly exaggerated, life. In fact, the reason that Godard likes to break narrative conventions can be found in his opinion on classical narrative, which he described as ‘oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot’ (Sfetcu, 2014).
There is a scene which perfectly shows the contradiction mentioned by Godard himself, where Angela and Emile is arguing about having child first time in their apartment. Angela said, before we start, we should greet the audience, and then they both look at and smile to camera. This certainly reminds audience of a master of classical musical comedy, Ernst Lubitsch, who has used this technique in his representative film One Hour with You. Lubitsch used this technique to indicate and emphasize the character’s inner life, with his ‘Lubitsch touch’, which is usually related to elegance, subtlety and charm. However, although the same way of using camera and actors, it feels and looks completely different in Godard’s hand. It does not show character’s inner life with an elegant manner, but makes audience confused with the sudden, abrupt, and confusing actions taken by the characters. And later in the same scene, there is another classical stylistic feature that Godard ‘learned’ from the elder generation: after quarrel, they both keep silence, a white French title just fades in, saying they think they are mature enough to overcome the current problems between them. This is a typical technique of showing character’s feelings and explain the plot for audience in silent films. But apparently, Godard did not aim to use this old fashion to make up the technical limits. It seems he just causally made it, without any technical or meaningful reason. According to the rules of continuity editing, or any other conventions of making a film, these two shots should not exist in this scene, and in the same film together. But Godard made it anyway by his own understanding of art cinema. In the name of paying homage to the Hollywood classical musical comedies, he deliberately mixed up those old fashions together, ignored the rules of using them, and made them feel and look extremely uncomfortable with each other. In the name of a neo-realism musical comedy, what he was really seeking to achieve is a brand new genre, which learnt from the features of old films, made of the techniques of former directors, but eventually became a product which overthrew the old film industry.
Besides remaking the old features by his unique style, Godard’s characteristics as a auteur is also known by completely destructing traditional film-making with his revolutionary editing and shooting techniques. Film critics were already impressed by the rapid change of scenes, planless moving of camera and intercutting of unrelated scenes in Breathless, and this time he used them again. For example, when Angela is talking with one of her friend about the future prospects of her job, the camera does not focus on them, but however move to the sidewalk, which has no logical connection with the conversation at all. Is there any implied meaning of this shot? Maybe only the director himself knows it, but spending too much time on guessing every single shot is certainly not what Godard wanted. And the music, which suddenly starts and ends all the times, is also an example of his unique editing technique. Another key feature is intercutting of unrelated scenes, for example, when Angela claims she will find a man who would like to have child with her, two policemen came to the apartment, and then gone after inspecting. They are not related to the plot at all, but Godard takes over a minute to show them. All of these are actually trying to remind audiences that what you are watching is not somebody’s life, is just a film, which consists of moving sounds and pictures, no matter how you present them.
It seems the only thing that the two films have in common is they are both directed by French director, and released in 1960s. They are of course different wines according to Clouzot, and the best way to taste them is to find their differences, and recognize that the director is the person who creates the diversity. Demy and Godard are both active in the age of French new wave, and they both challenged the classical musical to different extent. Godard intended to achieve a total destruction on classical Hollywood musical, and the stylistic techniques he used are effective on this point. However, despites those innovative techniques, Les parapluies de Cherbourg does pay homage to classical Hollywood musicals. For example, the theme is romantic love between young man and woman. But on the other hand, the love story between Guy and Geneviève is not a comedy at all. Demy shown a new genre of musical film which differs from classical Hollywood musical comedy that aims to make audience laugh and relax, but intends to offer an experience of the reality of adolescent love.
The first impressive place in this film is the opening scene, a bird-eye shot of the pedestrians walking on the street in a rainy day. The colorful umbrellas draw a beautiful picture of a small French town, the place where the story happened. There is only one single shot at the beginning, but it does not make audiences feel the credits is too long because of Dmey’s special techniques of catching attentions. And at the end of the film, Demy and his family are playing snow in front of the gas station, at the same time camera is moving up above them, which is perfectly correlated to the beginning.
The whole story is coherent. Unlike Une femme est une femme, there is no extra unnecessary shots of unrelated characters in this film. There is also no surprise in the narrative construction, every character is acting according to their wills, and those wills are clearly indicated by their dialogs, precisely, singings. Shots are edited chronologically and logically, and in order to avoid possible confusions, Demy even add title of time at the beginning of each scene. The transitions between scenes are usually straight cuts. However, after the scene that Guy and Geneviève hug each other on the street, it directly turns to the next scene in a café. In order to make the transition smoother, Demy made the characters and camera keep the exactly same gesture and location. At this point, Demy is just the opposite of Godard. In contrast, his style of delivering scenes is more like a common touch, which the interior meaning of the film can be easily understood by viewers. Apparently, there is a strong attempt of telling a complete story, and the director seeks to make audiences engage in the world he created, feel the emotions of the characters.
Another notable feature in the film is the color and lighting. In the scene that Geneviève is found pregnant by her mother, the massive use of exaggeratedly bright color is remarkable. The two characters are wearing red, the wallpaper is purple and pink, and the whole shop is decorated like a palace rather than an umbrella shop. This is an ingenious arrangement, because its visual effect on audience is opposite with the mood of the characters. Usually in a scene that the character is so disappointed, the color and light should be dark as well to match his or her emotion. From the creative uses of lighting, custom and camera movement, people can see Demy’s skills and high vale he puts on mise-en-scene. By contrast, Godard pay little or even no attention on mise-en-scene stuff. His films seem to be causally formed by without prepared scripts.
1960s is the time that society is changing significantly. Different ideas of politics, economy, and culture caused conflicts. And like the way of living was changed, the film industry in France was also transformed by a new generation of directors like Godard and Demy. They putted new blood into the notion of film, and the revolution they started soon spread to the whole rest of world. Nowadays when people talking about authorship, no matter they agree or disagree with the idea, it is a recognition of their profound creativity and contribution to the film industry.
Godard, J.-L. (1998). Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard. (A. Bergala , Ed.) Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma.
Neupert, R. (2007). A History of the French New Wave Cinema. London: Univ of Wisconsin Press.
Sarris, A. (1962). Notes on auteur therory in 1962. The film artist, 561.
Sfetcu, N. (2014). The Art of Movies. Nicolae Sfetcu.
on
This essay aims to discuss the issue of censorship of networked media in China, and focus on one specific case – the Great Firewall of China vs online media and communities. The questions like ‘How and why the Chinese government uses it to control Internet’, ‘What are the problems and struggles behind the system?’ and ‘How do the Chinese people react to this’ will be critically analyzed with examples like the blocking of access to Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The Great Firewall of China, which officially named as the Golden Shield Project (Norris, 2010), is operated by the Ministry of Public Security division of the government of China. The purpose of creating this system is to block the content which the government thinks could be harmful, like ‘superstitious beliefs, spreads rumors, threatens national unity or encourages gatherings disturbing social order’ (Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa, 2006). Generally, the content which might threaten, or potentially challenge the current one-party political system will be blocked or filtered. As a result, foreign social media community like Facebook, news media like BBC and CNN’s websites certainly became the targets of this system. Without VPNs, Chinese people cannot receive uncensored information from Internet.
The history of Golden Shield Project is not long, which just started to operate since 2003, but there are enough notable events happened during the decade. For example, Google is not the only foreign major company disagreed with the Chinese censorship, but it might be the first one to challenge the system. In 2006, a Google.cn search page with the censored results according to the regulation of Chinese government was launched by Google China. It can be interpreted as a compromise that Google climbed over the Great Firewall to explore the Chinese market, because without communication or some agreement with the authority, this was unlikely to happen. However, this situation did not last for long time. Google finally removed all its services in China, and redirected search queries from Google.cn to Google.com.hk (Hong Kong), which does not censor the results claimed as harmful and illegal by the central government. David Drummond, senior vice president of Google, then explained they made this decision in response to ‘a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China’ which usually known as Operation Aurora and ‘(attempts to) further limit free speech on the web in China’, such as the block of YouTube and Facebook (Drummond, 2010). On March 30, 2010, all the Google services in Mainland China were blocked again, any attempts of accessing will lead to DNS errors (Hoffman, 2013). Google is outside the wall again for the Chinese, exactly same as BBC, CNN and Twitter which were already intercepted by the Gold Shield project due to the political reasons.
The reason of creating this censorship system might be complicated, but the result is apparent – without the free connection to international network communities and media, the Chinese teenagers seem to be isolated from the rest of world. China is engaging in the international society and rising her power with incredible economic development, but the gap between her and Western world still exists, thanks to the tight censorship and regulation of Internet, TV, films and even print industry. Being aware of these outcomes, the Central Chinese Government seems not to intend to release its control of Internet, like it is a very fundamental principle of its ruling. But in fact, is the one-party system always incompatible with the freedom of speech? Or the Communist Party of China is just not willing to find a solution?
“The Chinese Communist Party is just more cunning about how it controls public opinion.” said by Former CFR Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow Matt Pottinger (Xu, 2014). In fact, the Chinese authorities never deny their excellent skills of controlling public opinions, because for them, it is not something violates human rights or shameful, but a common and fundamental function of the government of a great power. While people criticizing the censorship system in China, a question is usually forgotten: If Chinese leaders should feel guilty for controlling public opinions (or lead the people according to their interpretation), how could other countries in the world, like America, refuse to admit the propagandas they used in cold war are not a sort of public mind controlling?
Certainly some will argue that although controlling public opinions is inevitable, it could not be considered as a sound reason for the censorship of Internet, which does violate the freedom of speech and people’s right to know. So what reason makes the central government such sensitive and stubborn about the censorship issue? As mentioned above, freedom of speech and one-party system might not be necessarily incompatible with each other. However, thinking on the government’s stance, is there any chance when all the blocked results, websites are suddenly released, and there is no increasing attempt to overthrow the current government, which might cause massive and long-lasting chaos? Besides, according to the report written by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, content which refer to Tibet independence, Taiwan independence are often censored by the system. The historical and political reasons already putted so much tension on the relation between the central government and Taiwan, Tibet. If the Golden Shield project shuts down, it will undoubtedly be the best gift ever for the separatists, even the terrorists and radicals.
Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, is the country’s biggest microblog service with over 300,000,000 registered users (Hewitt, 2012). Since started in 2009, its impact on Chinese society is always a popular topic for foreign media workers, political researchers and even the Chinese authorities to evaluate. There were also opinions that when the authorities realize the power of Weibo, it is not far from its end. However, while paying attentions on improving the censorship system’s ability of filtering the key words on Weibo, the government departments, official media and institutions are competing with each other to register account on Weibo, and to show their welcomes. “We welcome people to take part in the debate,” says Chen Cheng, who runs an official microblog for the city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province (Hewitt, 2012).
Now the reason of blocking Facebook, Twitter is much clear. What the Chinese authorities seek is a free, but most importantly, controllable place which they can receive feedbacks of people rather than facing protest. There are criticism on local government’s policies that central government would notice and take actions if they think it is against the central policies. Therefore, Weibo could survive under the Golden Shield. Twitter and Facebook, those who refuse the self-censor system, are refused by Chinese market.
However, the situation is not always what the authorities wish to see. The key words are replaced by others which are not included yet in the censorship system sometimes cause negative effects on the government’s figure. And from the harsh comments which survived, the authorities see the people’s wrath. For example, on February 9th, 2013, Chinese New Year’s Eve night, Fang Binxin, who is the father of the Great Firewall system, whished his followers on Weibo happy new year. However, he receive thousands of comments like ‘get lost’ as the wishes of a new year (The Economist, 2013). Thanks to his contribution, the sensitive words system was created and used for the Great Firewall, and apparently the Chinese people are aware of this.
Rather than saying the Great Firewall is a single case of media, Internet censorship, it is more reasonable to consider it as a reflection of the increasing imbalance of economic and cultural development of China since the 1978 reform and opening up. The gap is as real as the CPC’s worries of its legitimacy doubted by democratic ideology and ability of controlling public opinions from separatists and anti-communists. There is still no clear intention of releasing the blocked foreign websites. However, the question now becomes whether the experiment of Chinese characteristic online community supervisor mode is effective and long-lasting as the authorities expect.
Drummond, D. (2010, March 22). A new approach to China: an update. Retrieved from Google Offical Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html
Hewitt, D. (2012, july 16). Weibo brings change to China. Retrieved from BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18773111
Hoffman, C. (2013, February 5). HTG Explains: How the Great Firewall of China Works. Retrieved from How-to Geek: http://www.howtogeek.com/162092/htg-explains-how-the-great-firewall-of-china-works/
Norris, P. (Ed.). (2010). Public Sentinel: News Media & Governance Reform. Washington: World Bank Publications.
Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa. (2006, March 20). China: Internet censorship, including state regulations, technical control, enforcement, and methods used to avoid censorship (2005-2006). Retrieved from Refworld: http://www.refworld.org/docid/45f1470820.html
The Economist. (2013, April 6). The art of concealment. Retrieved from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21574631-chinese-screening-online-material-abroad-becoming-ever-more-sophisticated
Xu, B. (2014, September 25). Media Censorship in China. Retrieved from Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515
on This week’s reading is an introduction of a leading American playwright Samson Raphaelson, who wrote many scripts for Hollywood films like One Hour with You, the Merry Widow and Heaven can wait played in this week’s screening. Together, he and Ernst Lubitsch created an era of Classical Hollywood film.
The Author introduces Raphealson’s history as a playwright, and then focuses on his few representative works. I like the part of why he and Lubitsch could work together and make great successes in film history. According to his analysis, Raphealson and Lubitsch both aspired to create things more than comedies, which involves more wisdom and morality. Thanks to this, and the fact Lubitsch freed him from playwright’s obligation ‘something to say’, he had the chance to not be afraid of the rules and just write down the scenes came up in his mind. This way, he could be somehow irresponsible, and like the author mentioned, trust his impulse and instincts. However, when back to theater, he had to hold it down. Anyway, writing for Lubitsch is totally different experience for him in his career, and through it, his words, his dialogues were polished and became more poetic and romantic.
on The reading of this week written by Noel King basically explains the concept of ‘New Hollywood’, and introduces the history of its development and changes.
The author firstly tried to make it clear that although the descriptions on ‘New Hollywood’ are critical and different, but all these arguments agree that it is a specific period of Hollywood film history from 1960s onwards. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, due to the innovations of the European art cinema, the Hollywood also started to consider the direction it should take. Few expansive films were made, but the most were out of touch. Then the real and significant changes happened in the early 1970s, when new generation directors started to show their understandings on film criticism and art by making unti-heroes, commercial American films. They started to make experiments, to explore the new style and trey to mix the traditional classical Hollywood film genre with the new elements.
After those experiments in early 1970s and the emergence of ‘movie brats’, the next key move is the release of Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws in 1975. It is usually marked as the arrival of the New Hollywood, which redefined the commercial films as a cultural phenomenon. This successful, profitable mode has profound influences on the post-1975 Hollywood commercial films and film studies. More and more successful and influential films like Star Wars (1977), The lion King (1994) emerged and enriched the New Hollywood.