Silent Film Commentary

Title: Waiting on a College

Tagline: It’s worth the wait

One male student walks through the hallways wearing a plain white t-shirt. Then there is a close up of the boy’s planner showing his list of top colleges and showing the boy crossing out two colleges on his list. Right after this passes he passes his friends (who are wearing shirts to the colleges he just crossed out) and makes small talk as they show him their college acceptance letters and shirts, and he continues on his way. The camera tracks the male for a short while, then as he greets his friends, it follows them. As the camera follows different people, the audience is introduced to other student’s in the school and they come to realize that everyone the camera is tracking is in a college. Finally, it gets back to the first male as he is sitting by himself in the hallway, still wearing his plain t-shirt. When one more person walks up to him, he gets up and walks away showing that he is fed up with it. Although the audience has only been introduced to this character twice, it is through tracking the other students in the school that the audience begins to feel bad for the boy that has not yet been accepted to a college. The camera once again zooms in on the boy’s planner as he crosses off every school except his #1 choice. The next scene is with all the kids at the lunch table laughing and having a good time as the boy sits quietly and keeps to himself. Finally, he stands up unexpectedly and makes a dramatic exit. “The next day” comes and the final shot is the boy running in excitedly to the group of his friends with his college letter and a shirt for his #1 college. His friends pick him up on his shoulders and carry him away. (311 words)

 

Reflection:

I prefer silent films because I find writing dialogue difficult. I also find that silent films lend themselves to more of an artistic approach because the cinematography and music is amplified when there is an absence of dialogue. For this project, I started off having a solid idea that I was really excited for but then realized that getting enough actors to pull it off would be difficult so I had to downsize it. Originally, I wanted to film it during the school day with lots of people walking around to make it more realistic, but one of my style elements was to have everyone either in college or not in college and that would be distinguished by either a college shirt or a plain shirt. I realized that it would be difficult to coordinate a great number of people to dress up in college gear, but I am still happy with the amount of people I had. I was able to have 2 or 3 actors in each shot and still have some of them be extras in the school to make the school look more populated.

Another idea I had originally started with was to have to boy go home and receive the letter but not open it until the next day at school, but I did not realize how much time the tracking camera used up and I was left with less time to fit in that scene. I think that my message that he got into his number one college was clear because I demonstrated it by making it the only college not crossed off on his list and he was also wearing a shirt for the college, but I think that the suspense would have made that scene and the film in general more interesting and coherent.

I was happy with the music selection I made in this film. The two songs I picked were both in the ‘heavy metal’ genre so there wasn’t a big contrast that made the film seem disconnected, but the upbeat music helped the tracking camera seem more fluid. I think I could have added more sound effects to make it seem more life-like, such as adding water sounds when he went to the water fountain or a sound of a door closing when he walked out of the cafeteria. However, I don’t think the absence of these sound effects took away from the film in any way.

All in all I was pleased with the way the filming and the editing process turned out for me because normally it is a disaster. Although, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have one flaw in equipment and that was that the dolly I used would get it’s wheels stuck when I tried to roll it, so instead I just waked with the camera which I think still worked out in the end and made it seem like someone was walking with the characters in a documentary sort of way. I think that I am stronger in silent films because it allows me to do more artistic films and that is something I am more interested in. While there are several ideas that I have that could have made my film strong, I think I used the resources I had in an effective way and made the most of it. (559 words)

What makes a great film?

“Great films” are defined differently by many different people because it all depends on taste. However, there are many reasons a film is “great”. The first thing people associate the movie with is the genre because that is what applies to their personal taste. Further than that, the audience cares about how well the film relates to the genre. The film should engage the audience while doing this. To engage the audience, a film can take their specific plot and use cinematography, editing, lighting and sound to enhance the quality of it overall. While most audiences will not specifically be able to point out these aspects of a film, but in the end it’s what draws their attention to the film.

My opinion of a “great film” is Shawshank Redemption because the plot completely engages me. While this film does not have a fast moving plot, the plot engages the audience by the great character development. The film gives the audience the feeling that there are with the characters and feeling what they feel, although the end makes the audience question everything they know. In my opinion, the end is the best part of the film because of that. The audience doesn’t know what’s coming and their uncertainty makes them wanting to know more. The director of this film was able to make the audience feel that way because they  feel a connection with the characters which is what the director spent the whole movie building up to.

Films that can create an emotion in the audience members are the films that the audience will remember and relate to, and that is what makes a film a “great film”.

The Longest Day

The film, The Longest Day, accurately represents three sides to the story of D-Day. Three different directors follow the stories of the American troops, German troops and British troops in order for each side to be represented in a different way, as they had different ways to deal with D-Day. The three directors further provednthe accuracy of their segments by having each part in the respectable language. This helped to do each side justice and not weigh the film so heavily on the American side by making the film fully in the English language. Despite this even playing field set by the languages, there was still a clear favor for the allied side. Because they aimed the movie to clearly favor the allied side, I have to applaud Bernhard Wicki, the German episodes director, for portraying the German side.

I think the German episodes were well done for this film because their frustration by this invasion was clearly portrayed. Wicki was able to draw some sympathy for this side by displaying all of the mishaps that happened which gave the German side such a disadvantage, such as Hitler being asleep when the officer called his office to request more backup. Although these misfortunes were able to shake up the emotions of the audience, Wicki still ended the movie by making the Germans the clear enemy which ended as a crowd pleaser for the audience seeing as they lost. While Wicki’s scenes were not notably unique, he was able to make their side seem flustered and frustrated by the constant switching back and forth to their side.

Value of Historic Accuracy in Films

In my opinion, if a movie is going to be classified as a “historic film” then the primary purpose of it should be to create an accurate account of the historical event in the film, however with that being said, a film in general should always have the primary purpose to entertain the audience. I think that a film can do both serves more of a purpose because people are engaged in the film while they are being informed of the actual events.

An example of a film that performs both is Schindler’s List. This movie is a true story based on historical events and the movie effectively engages the audience, however like most entertaining historical films, they omitted some historical accuracy in order to better portray the director’s artistic vision for the film. This is true for most films because it is almost impossible to be 100% historically accurate in a film, while also making it fit in a time period that is acceptable for the audience to sit through.

Without the aspect of entertainment in a film, it is more difficult to engage the audience and interest them enough to pay attention and actually take away knowledge of the historic event. For example, the film Marie Antionette is very historically accurate, however it ranks up there as one of the most boring films I have ever seen. Because of its lack of entertainment, the details of the movie went right over my head as I struggled to even stay awake through the film. I believe that when a movie does not entertain the audience, the audience is less likely to take away a higher appreciation for the historical event the film tries to portray.

As a film maker, we should always try to engage the audience in the film. The audience makes the film because without them it serves no purpose. A good movie will arise emotions from the audience, and that comes from some sort of entertainment, whether it be hatred or love of the movie, if the audience can get entertained then they will pay attention. With that being said, if a film is going to classify themself as a historical account of event, it should try to be as accurate as possible in order to allow the audience to take away more knowledge than they previously had.

Krrish!!!!!

1.) Rate this film: One and half stars

 

2.) Respond to the film overall: (186 words)

I thought this film was entertaining, but it did not reflect the American’s cultural view of a superhero film because it was more comical than serious. The action in this film was underplayed mainly because the film did not focus on the quality or quantity of the action. Because this movie came out of Bollywood, the musical aspect of the film is normal to the viewers from their culture, but as an American viewer it made the movie worse. I thought that the song and dance parts of the movie were entertaining for the first few times, but as they played it up more and more and made the songs so long, I thought it took away from any potential the movie could have started with. All in all, I think that the movie dragged out too long and did not include enough action to deserve a mediocre rating. Even though that is my opinion, if I were to evaluate it through a Bollywood perspective, it would fit the themes for their films because it was cheesy and had plenty of musical elements throughout the film.

 

3.) How does this movie meet/portray the conventions of the Superhero genre of film? (258 words)

This movie met several conventions of the Superhero genre of film. Krrish represented a Superhero in a very accurate way because he followed the main themes of having a costume, having a love interest, being an outcast from society, and having an inner conflict that gave him the motivation to rise up and get rid of the villain. Krrish’s costume was very similar to the one that batman wore because he had a mask, and a slick black cloak-like outfit. This made his outfit very closely reflect the ones of the American culture superhero films and thus made his costume fit the convention of the genre. The most common element of a Superhero film is the love interest and Krrish demonstrated this through his prize girl, Pyra. This element was played up most in Krrish because Bollywood mostly focuses on the love story in their films. Finally, Krrish had several inner conflicts that gave him the motivation to complete his task. One of these conflicts was that he was an outcast to society because his grandmother took him to a secluded land to hide his powers and he had to constantly fulfill her wishes by not displaying his powers for the world. His other inner conflict is that he had to deal with the tragic incident with his mother and father the whole time he grew up. When he found out that his father was still alive, it gave him the motivation to defeat the villain in order to save his father and bring peace to his grandmother.

 

4.) How does the film differ from the American films? (310 words)

Since Krrish comes out of a culture that has many elements that differ from the American films. Some of these differences that are portrayed in Krrish are the musical aspect, sexual aspect, fashion, and length. Bollywood typically uses song and dance in all their films as mainly a way to portray the love story so it makes sense that Krrish would use this thematic element to play up the love story in the movie to make it appeal more to their culture. The musical aspect of this film also covers their “overacting” because musicals usually overplay the emotions. This element differs from the American culture because musicals are way less common and are never in the superhero genre. The sexual aspect of the film is also very different than the bulk of American films because their culture is more conservative. Because of this, they never had Krrish and Pyra kiss and instead left the “intimacy” aspect of the film to the musical numbers, which is typical in most Bollywood films. The conservative culture of India is also reflected in the outfits in the movie. Pyra typically wears outfits that cover her chest and legs which is what is usually shown in American films to be “provocative”. Instead, Pyra showed her stomach more than an American film would because that is more stylistic in their culture and known more of a “provactive” style in their culture. The last element that makes Krrish differ from American films is the length of the film. Bollywood usually produces films that are much longer in length than films in the American culture and while this film is relatively short than most Bollywood films, it still moves at a slower pace than the American culture is used to. It gives a lot of back story behind Krishna’s life before getting into the action of the film.

Spiderman

Rate this film

Three and a half stars

Respond to the film overall (154 words)

I enjoyed the film overall because it was much more high tech than Superman. With the CGI technology, they were able to make the superhero’s powers more believable. In Superman, when he had to fly around, they would make it more abstract by doing things like zooming out to a picture of the world so that they had to show him flying less. However, in Spiderman, they were able to make the computer graphics look very believable as Spiderman flew through the air. I also liked that the setting was familial. Since everyone knows New York, it was more comfortable to watch the movie in that setting. It was also familial because the crimes in the Spiderman movie mainly involved street crimes that happen everyday in our real world so it was amusing to watch a superhero save ordinary people from ordinary crimes, which is something that is easy for some to relate to.

Why do you think it broke so many box office records and grossed $821,708,551? (63 words)

As I mentioned above, this movie was set in a familial setting which was appealing to many people. Because this movie came out so soon after September 11^th, it was encouraging to people to see a superhero saving the very city that had just gotten attacked. This movie was also a big hit because of the technology that had surpassed other superhero movies.

How are Norman/Green Goblin & Peter/Spiderman mirrors of each other? (189 words)

When Norman and Peter were first introduced in the movie, they showed that they bonded mainly over their love for science. They were both successful in the field, and they also fit into the conventions of what people would call a “science geek”. This meaning that they were quiet and kept mainly to themselves, with the exception of the people closest to them. They were both very family oriented. Peter did everything in his power to keep his aunt and uncle happy, and Norman was very protective over his son. Both Peter and Norman were suffering through financial troubles; Norman’s company was struggling and Peter’s family was facing some hard times. However, their human lives were not the only thing that was similar between the two. When they got their “super powers” it was because both of them had been genetically modified in some way. When Peter turned into Spiderman, he was bitten by a spider; and when Norman turned into the Green Goblin, he was put under radioactive gas. The similarities between the two characters are not brought out much in their personalities, but more in their backgrounds.

Find and watch a couple of episodes of the 1990’s spiderman cartoon. Compare and contrast the difference. What can animated versions do that live action cannot? (184 words)

The 1990’s Spiderman cartoons are different than the movie because they focus less on the background of Spiderman, and more on the specific characters of the episode. TV shows are able to focus on smaller problems over a longer period of time because they do not have the time constraint that a movie does. The movie has to address a big problem that will grasp the audience’s attention, whereas a TV show can do a small problem that leads to bigger problems in other episodes. The animation is also able to make more unlikely situations and show off more of the superpowers. The animated show goes more in depth to the “spidey-senses” because they are able to add illusions to signal to the audience when he is having the senses. Another difference is that the villains are often times much larger than Spiderman because it is less unnatural in an animated world. Since all the characters are animated, they look somewhat the same whereas in a film, a larger character would involve more costumes and look much more fake than in the animated series.

Superman (Three and half stars!)

Respond to the film overall: (195 words)

I liked this film because, considering the time it was made in, it was really well done. The special effects in this film were what was going to be the wild card because of the lack of technology. However, the director made it so that there were few times that Superman needed to be shown flying. The intent of the director was to make the movie be a realistic as possible so that it could earn the respect of the film world and give a name to the superhero genre of films. The special effects were also well done considering the technology that was available to them. The flying scenes were possible because of green screens and the simple backgrounds they used. Since it was in the sky most of the time, the technology was able to successfully make it look real. The acting in the film was also a lot more serious than I thought it would be (with the exception of the last line in the movie from the warden). I enjoyed watching this film because it kept me entertained and was easy to follow, unlike some superhero movies with very obscure plots.

Why is this film the quintessential comic book superhero film? (140 words)

This movie was a quintessential comic book superhero movie because it followed many conventions of the genre. The four main conventions that this movie successfully displayed were that Superman’s character was an outcast from society and was alienated by his ability. He was raised to be modest and humble and to not be showy about his powers, and because he had the burden of such a big secret, he was not able to live like a normal teenager would. This also links to the theme of the inner verse outer struggle. He is faced with this struggle because he has to deal with people who don’t know his powers and thus has to deal with this issue on his own. Superman also follows the convention of having a love interest and a super-villain, who are Lois Lane and Lex Luther.

John Williams’s score is one of Film’s most recognizable and iconic. Why? What instruments stand out and what effect do they have? (107 words)

The score in this film is so iconic because it is such a powerful sound. The music is used during the “epic” scenes in this movie when the audience is paying the most attention, and therefore the music stands out to them as being the only sound, because there is not a lot of dialog during the action scenes. The instrument that most stands out in this score is the trumpet because it is loud and has a powerful majestic sound. This instrument helps to characterize Superman as well because Superman is known as a glorious hero while being powerful, yet not overbearing… as the trumpet is.

Special effects at the time this film was made were rudimentary compared to today’s cgi and other advanced tech., yet it comes across as believable. How did they achieve this? (135 words)

The special effects in this film were made believable because, as mentioned above, the simple backgrounds. Without the use of CGI technology, the director was able to show Superman flying in the sky very easily because the background did not have to change. However, flying was not the only special effect they were successful with. Superman’s super speed was also shown in a believable way because they showed it in different views. When the background was simple, like the field, it was easy to make it have the speedy effect because the colors were all basically the same: green. However, when Superman had to speed around the world, they changed the view to show the entire world so that they didn’t have to make the unbelievable effect of Superman in different countries and changing scenery.

Yojimbo

The fight scene in the film Yojimbo is a slightly mockery scene by it’s tone, performances, and camera movement. The matter in which the man’s arm was cut off was a mockery in the ways of fighting and the language used further proved this.

The tone of a normal fight scene is usually based on a lot of tension built from smack talk and stare downs, however this scene took a different approach. There was the typical stare down with the group and the fighter, however, the smack talk was less “manly” than most fight scenes would use. The language used was not harsh and violent, but moreso of a mockery and a tease. This language was used to prove the warrior’s dominance over the townsmen. This dominance is important in the tone of the scene because if he did not have that dominance, the arm getting cut off would be less of a mockery.

The camera movement in this scene also helped to mock the townsmen. The townsmen tried to prove themselves to be “big men” and “big fighters” by talking smack to the warrior and bucking at him thinking he won’t do anything. These men are proven to be ignorant in their way of thinking when the warrior makes a joke out of one of the men’s tattoos. He makes this a joke by slicing off the arm of the tattoo. The camera in this scene follows the arm as it gets sliced off and by doing this it is showing off the defeat of the townsmen. This is a mock to their way of fighting.

The tone is tied together by these elements because they show the ignorance of the townsmen. The warrior uses irony to defeat the man and thus is mocking him. The language the warrior uses with the townsmen is also a depiction of this because he speaks down to him as if he were a baby and makes him less of a man by doing this.

NY Times Acting Blog

In the clip of Lesley Manville the performance is extremely emotional throughout the scene. The camera focuses on this emotional angle by framing only the face.

From the very beginning of the scene, Manville’s eyes show a sign of sadness. While speaking on the phone she is smiling and laughing and engaging in conversation, but all the while, her eyes are still filled with sorrow. This mood is more appearant in the mood change in the middle of the scene when her entire face turns into sorrow to the point where she is crying and hiding her face with her hand.

The lighting in this scene also shows signs of sorrow. Instead of the lighting being just a plain light evenly lit room, there are shadows of shutters across Manville’s face. This further goes along with how Manville covered her face with her hand when she truly became sad in the scene.

Good Dialogue

Good dialogue is not usually the first thing a person notices in a movie or TV show, although it is up there. Usually one of the first things a person notices is the plot and what is going on. That is what really engages the audience. Because of this, the best dialogue is the dialogue you don’t notice.

Dialogue should flow like a conversation. It shouldn’t stand out to someone because if it does than it is out of the ordinary and thus taking away from the action and storyline of the movie. This also means that it should reflect humanly manners. Humans aren’t perfect- they make mistakes and the dialogue should be able to reflect this. A conversation has many pauses, stutters and other mistakes that are inevitable and should be put into dialogue accordingly. This helps the “conversation-like” flow of the dialogue.

Dialogue should also be a good length. Too long of a dialogue will lose the attention of the audience… fast. Keep the dialogue short and somewhat to the point. Again, make it conversation-like.

Finally, dialogue should be consistent. Dialogue creates the characters and it should remain the same for the characters throughout a film or tv series. This helps to develop the characters persona.

A good example of good dialogue is in the tv series Gilmore Girls. This tv series is known for having one of the longest scripts in an hour long tv series, however this is because of the characterization of the two main characters Lorelai and Rory. The irony of two people living in a small town who speak rather fast and of intellectual matters is what brings the show to life. Their dialogue stands out to me because while it is fast, it is to the point and the style of their dialogue remains consistent and is a way for people to identify the characters. The dialogue is also written in a way that the characters flow with eachother because their conversations are so fluid.