Boyhood: Blog Post

Boyhood is filled with different cinematic elements in different unique ways, giving the movie some perfection with elegance and reach into your heart with family matter. The element I would like to focus on from the film is on editing.

In the film, editing was used effectively when the main character Mason was moving out from his home at a young age always from his friends and the friends that he knows with his family. The scene transitioned from Mason being at a very young age and moving out to the impact it has had on him in the next scene which taken of him the next year. It shows Mason being impacted with living in a new home in which his mother meets her new husband Bill and Mason's family moving in with them. The editing was shot well with them moving out and how it impacted the family with moving in with Bill's family and Mason personally changing with his personality and his attitude.

Another important moment where editing was important was the scene where Mason arrived home late while his mother was throwing a party. Mason has dramatically changed from the previous scene he has been in with being normal and behaving very shy and the mother being concern for her child to Mason's mother throwing a party and Mason coming back home past curfew and telling his mom the truth that he has being drinking and smoking with his friends. The editing went from Mason and his mother being innocent and having a strong between them to Mason and his mom being separated and Mason behaving like as if he doesn't care about anything in the world. The editing shows how much as one year can have an impact on the individual and who they really are.

The scene where it was least effective was towards the and of the end of the film when Mason was talking with a girl about the moment and their opinions on the subject. This coming from the previous came almost out of nowhere with this small inspiring conversation about "moment" and jus Mason and the girl talking. The scene wasn't that necessary when compared to other scenes where Mason himself was dragged into the pitfalls of his life as well as the joys. This was barely introduced when he went to college and met his roommate along with his friends. Another film that used this concept almost in a similar way was Ratcatcher. in the film, the family were relocated into a new neighborhood and lifestyle when moving out. Although it doesn't show a big time lapse, it does show the scenes where and how the family is affected with the moving out and experiencing the different scenario.

Myst #4: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I love movies with special effects and with a lot action along with a touch of romance to show the extent of how far the characters are willing to go to protect or save or help the other character. The special effects expands my imagination as to what the director can do and bring to life. I especially love how the actors interact with the computer generated forms ranging from robots to a whole world. With that in mind, I don't like when the entire movie is based entirely on the special effects without reason. The Director Michael Bay directed all the Transformers along with "Pain & Gain" and "Pearl Harbor" which are action movies that has good editing from special effects to the editing in someone being cut in half putting the audience in amazement with seeing the effects across the movies and some wondering to themselves "how did he do that" when watching one of his movies. When I was watching the movie, I was kept at the edge of my seat while watching the movie because of how realistic the transformers looked and amount of action with explosion and special effects mixed into it despite the story line itself. I mean the storyline was good and all but it wasn't extremely good material and could've been revised a few times more to improve the story but other than it was good.

Towards the beginning of the film, we are going to take a close look at when Alice (Isabel Lucas) transformed into an evil transformer from human to a robot. (Spoiler) When Alice transformed, her face transforms and than the rest of her body follows with the whole transformation. The composition is her flash turns inside out as her metallic body comes out and overcomes eats away her flash as she is getting prepared to kill Sam (Shia Labeouf). As she transforms, the sunlight being shined through the window casts a shadow from the robot as even the smallest want to look as real as it can with her transformation and her surroundings. The camera zooms in on her at a low angle to show the dominance and of how evil she is. The close up shot indicates the significance of her and how important she is as she starts the hunt for Sam and the surprise she also brings.

Another scene was towards the end when Sam stabs Optimus Prime to revive him. What Amazes me about this scene is how Sam goes on top of Optimus, it looks like as if Optimus was actually real and not computer simulated. When Sam stabs Optimus, Optimus moves from the shock and Sam moves along with him and looks like as if he's touching him. The camera switches from medium shots to close shots to show the effect from the cause of Sam stabbing him in his heart and Optimus coming back alive. The medium shot show how big Optimus is and how small Sam and how little chance Sam has at reviving him considering Sam is tiny when compared.

In my opinion, what I enjoyed about the movie was with each different scene there's a different scenario with the special effects and how it plays and important role for a certain character and shows a different composition with the transformers. what I didn't like about the movie was how the storyline was being told. It was in a generic way with the good guy in trouble and somehow coming back to the top and beating the bad guy and saving the day. Don't get me wrong there were some funny and awesome scenes but the majority of it was just descent. I would recommend this movie to those who love action packed movies that has a lot of good special effects.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

 

 

Short Term 12 : Blog Post

Short Term 12 is filled with different cinematic elements in different unique ways, giving the movie some perfection with elegance and reaches into your heart. the element I would like to focus on from the film is on lighting.

In the film, lighting was used effectively when the main character, Grace, would talk or just simply hang out with Jayden. When Grace and Jayden sat next to each other trying to comfort each other, there was low key lighting on their faces and barely enough light surrounding them. Their bodies is being partly covered by the darkness the and on top of their heads shows the most light but still minimal light. The lighting shows that both of them have been through some sort of trauma at a very young age at their childhood. They're both devastated and are being haunted by their memories of what happened to them in their thoughts. The only person who can relate to them are each other and are special kind of friends.

Another important moment where lighting was important was at the scene where Grace and Jayden were riding in a bike together in night. The lighting around is set in night time, sure it was because it was at night but this scene took place at night time purposely to show the darkness that still surrounds them, not just individually but also both of them together. Both Grace and Jayden are riding together with grace being relaxed and Jayden holding her. this shows that Jayden's trauma was recent whereas Grace wasn't and that Jayden is scared and can only rely on Grace for help and protection and that she also experienced a similar situation. The lighting that's literally shining right on their heads (even though it's a street it's taken right above their heads) suggest that there might be hope in them and a recovery for a new life. For the new hope, they'll need to be with each other for without them, their might not be any light but darkness instead.

The scene where it was least effective was when Grace was talking with Marcus. Marcus also has had something bad happen to him and that it also destroyed some part of him. Some darkness should have been showing on him for his past that has shaped him destroyed a part of him. When Marcus talks to him, theirs no light shining upon them and no darkness but low key lighting on Grace's face. The scene contributed a lot from this scene on building and knowing who Marcus really is and why he's there. With no lighting we can't depict if whether he still traumatized from what happen to him or if the memory isn't haunting him. The director's use of lighting helps with the story by showing you the darkness in each of the characters and how it affected them and in who they are. When the characters would speak or show up, some minimal lighting is shown in some scenes upon them to show you that they have a dark past that haunts them so you can see what they've through and so you can mentally see their emotionless face. Another film where this component is used really well is The Godfather. One of the characters, Vito Corleone, always hard almost pure darkness upon him with little lighting shining on him. It was to show the soulless, evil man that he is and it tells you that Vito is a powerful man and that if you fail him, you'll suffer the consequences he's going to put upon you.

Myst #3: Drive

I'm not a fan of a dark theme crime movie and often times it's hard to follow with the story or what the main character is doing. Don't get me wrong, there are some crime related movies either because of it's intensive unpredictable scenes to the smaller aspects of the cinematography and fitting well with the story. The director Nicolas Winding Refn directed Drive and other including "Only God forgives", "Bronson" and the "Pusher" which are crime movies that have decent storylines and well appropriate cinematography and fitting in with the appropriate scenes in the movies symbolizing the personality of that certain character. While I was watching the movie, I was wondering if I was going to get bored either from making no sense to me the scenes of being judgmental if the scenes would make sense with what's happening. When I was this movie, I was amazed at the scenes in cooperation with the cinematic aspects and how the characters interacted with those scenes. The movie is about a driver (Ryan Gosling) and that he is a very good at stealing money. As the movie progresses, he becomes fails at stealing a heist. The consequences of him failing is that he ahs to protect Irene (Carey Mulligan) and Benicio (Kaden Leos) from the criminals that want him dead.

Towards the middle of the movie, we are taking a closer look at when the driver kissed Irene. When they kissed, there's light coming from a little source that has it while the rest of the room is covered in darkness and the light shining on their faces indicate that there might be hope in what they're about to do and or their mission to save each other. The darkness indicate that while their might some hope with the light shining upon them, that there might be a chance that death will occur and concur their lives and that they might die with what they're about to do. Their kiss indicate like that of a usual movie that it could be their last time together considering that it might their last time being alive. The high key lighting is separated from the darkness with no low key lighting showing a chance of them surviving and a chance of them not surviving.

In my own opinion, what I enjoyed about the movie was the how the lighting fit in well with each scene and how it set separate tones of the mood of the characters and their situations they're in from the different components that fit well together. What I didn't like about the movie was how (Spoiler) towards the end, the movie left you to ponder as to what just happened and what's going to happen to the main character next. I would recommend this movie to those who love crime related movies and those who always criticize a movie for they might be surprised of what this has got to offer.

 

Drive Official Trailer

Myst #2: Avengers: Age of Ultron

I loved action packed movies a lot and I sometimes lose interest to the movie that I'm watching that is if the action isn't flowing well with the components from lighting, editing to the camera angles. You may think that it may sound weird but I don't want to watch an action movie where the camera isn't flowing but rather it takes a scene then out of nowhere another scene comes into play. The director Joss Whedon directed this film and other including "The Avengers", "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" which where intended to amuse the audiences from all of the action and amazing graphic editing and amazing camera work that looks like as if there was just one camera filming the whole time and you as the audiences personally spectating from the action is taking place. Action movies varies when it comes to the story line and what other genre it collides with. In most movies that I've have seen have good cameras at scenes but in most however are very little used. I get upset because most movies have the capability to achieve more from their camera work and form better angles. This movie had a lot of really good angles. (Spoiler) The film starts of with the team fighting against the enemies and win as usual. When the team celebrates their victory, they accidentally unleash a powerful enemy named Ultron that somehow cam the cyber world. Ultron came out when the team were celebrating and the enemy downloaded itself into a robot that was built from Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) . When Ultron came to up close, he attacked severely with other robots which he summoned to attack the team. The team lost and they retrieved because they weren't prepared for what happened to them. Upon deciding on how could've they let that happen, they start to turn against each other assuming it was each others fault. When they start to realize that going against each other won't help anything, that's when the team started to suite up and go to the war the verse against Ultron and the enemies he summoned. After an intense battle with Ultron, the team (not surprisingly) defeated Ultron and reclaimed their victory.

In the beginning of the movie, When the team versed against their enemies their was a clean continues good clean flow with each individual fighting the enemies while helping each other fighting with the quantity of enemies. Their was clean continuity editing with each character fighting with the characters fighting one enemy and then fighting another enemy from a different angle. The angle and the height matched perfectly as the characters fought from ground level and fighting on rooftops. The camera was at a good range of distances as the characters fought from one enemy to the next exposing them and the enemy and a little of the background, the long shots. At the above picture, when the characters lined at a perfect angle, it exposes all of them at a long shot along with Hulk and Iron Man being exposed at medium shot.

Another Part of what I liked was the fight between Hulk and Iron Man. When they fought each other, the camera would go back and forth with each other at a continuous motion when they would go back from the strike and they themselves would hit the others person. The camera would go continuously from long shot to full shot and sometimes to medium shot. There was constantly different shots happening while it's giving a nice flowing and continuity editing with the angles of the camera and the distances.



In my opinion, What I enjoyed about this movie was not the generic exposition to rising action to climax and resolution in a predictive manner but whether I enjoyed the different types of camera angles and the different type of camera shots. The editing was flawless and caught my attention to the movie. It was like seeing an illusion image, it caught my attention to the movie and wondered what other camera cool shots and angles the director was going to bring to the plate. I recommend this movie to those who on behalf love action, superhero movies but also like to see really good camera angles and shots the editing provided for a flawless and continuous motion with the scene. All in all, I think this movie was one of the greatest that's associated the camera but the story was as always generic.

Official Trailer

 

Memento: Blog Post

Memento is filled with different cinematic elements in different unique ways, giving the movie perfection with elegance and something to ponder on. The element I would to focus on from the film is on editing.

In the film, editing was used effectively at most moments of the film when the main character, Leonard, would switch from color scenes to the black and white scenes. The moment where the editing was used most effectively was when Leonard killed Teddy and the scene transitions to Leonard talking in a black and white scene. It was effective because it set the tone that Leonard has short term memory loss because he saying where am I. It also started the movie at the beginning and the opposite from the ending. With the movie playing in reverse, the black and white were playing their scenes in chronological order explaining somewhat of what's going with the movie and also explaining of why the main character has tattoos and other "small" things.

Another moment where editing was important was at the scenes where Leonard was interviewing Sammy Jankis. When Leonard would interview Sammy, he would talk about the side effects of his condition and how Sammy forgets everything. Leonard talks about how he forgets everything and that his wife tries to help but he forgets and that it would be hard it to remember this relates to Leonard and his condition as well. The scenes relates Sammy to Leonard in how they both forget things within the first couple of minutes.

Sammy and Leonard also don't experience any emotion such as fear and anger. Toward the end of the film, Leonard goes to the exact same position as Sammy suggesting that he has the same conditions and experience the same symptoms where it seems like they don't care about anything and don't know where they are.

The scene where it least effective is where Leonard is talking on the phone and then he ask "who is this". I think it's least effective because Leonard at some point did remember who he was talking to but just forgot considering he has short term memory loss. The scene doesn't have any important plot compared to the movie and no foreshadowing but just simply Leonard forgetting who he was talking to. The scene didn't contribute any important information related to the film and the bigger picture the film is trying to bring to the audience. The director's use of lighting helps with the film dramatically because the black and white scenes give the background of the character and who Leonard is. Leonard talks about what he's doing and why he has the tattoos on his body and about who he's trying to catch. The black and white scenes also give a foreshadowing of the movie. One foreshadow was when Leonard sat in the same position as Sammy. It gave information about who Leonard really was because when he described Sammy, he described himself because Sammy and Leonard as the same. A movie that relates to Memento is Inception. Both movies are hard to follow usually lead the audience into confusion while simultaneously trying focus on the main objective. The audience struggles a lot trying to connect everything together to make sense of what they just watched.

Formal Film Study: Movies Where The Main Characters Are Potrayed As TheBad Individuals

Different movies leave different audiences to ponder in their thoughts with the following question of "why"? Movies get its high rating from the audiences either from the movie having a great storyline without the audiences having predictive judgement of what's about to happen or where the audience is kept in suspense on what's about to happen next or from the story line being inverted (where the main characters are set apart from the others either from their behavior or why they matter), not too generic. Some of the most famous movies like Taxi Driver left audiences with a great suspense and in question as Robert De Niro is practicing with a pistol for a future cause. Movies that I found interesting that kept audiences on the edge of their seats was Memento (directed by Christopher Nolan), Nightcrawler (directed by Dan Gilroy) and The wolf of Wall Street (directed by the famous Martin Scorsese). The characters from the movies live in their own world and are also living in the prerogative that they have the right to do whatever they want to get what they want with desire without any restrictions until they achieve their own goals. The characters will also try to lure in others to help them in their way to get their treasure or goal.

Industry: The movies give a different a different path of the story then those from the modern generic movies. When compared to the other Hollywood movies, the directors of these movies decided to take a different approach and give a different look to the main characters. The main characters in the movies have a different attitude, wanting to become the bad villains that corrupted the world or their surroundings in some way either through politics and money or craving their own desires in some way. The movies show how corrupt an individual could be either by cheating through the American currency system to obtain riches or to get to their own personal goal of killing someone or getting rewarded and praise from everybody else. The unpleasant main characters also manipulates others into helping them knowing little the character are using them to obtain and cheating the system to obtain their dream victory thus corrupting the system. Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) is an individual trying avenge his wife's death by killing the murder go always from the justice system and going by his own justice system the victim whom he thinks killed his wife. I forgot to mention that he by the way has short term memory loss so he forgets what he does in about 10 minutes or so. With the short term memory loss, he kills Teddy (played by Joe Pantoliano) from assumption since he met Leonard's criteria's and not from any actual facts. Leonard also killed him with his own system of justice and not the laws with a fair trial. Leonard also helps Natalie (played by Carrie-Ann Moss) by killing her boyfriend. One of main characters Natalie, manipulates Leonard so that he can kill Her boyfriend for her. Natalie takes advantage of his condition. In night crawler, Lou (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is an individual who wanted to get and obtain every bodies attention through the use of capturing disturbing videos of citizens being killed or a car chase. Lou manipulates the news station employer Nina (played by Rene Russo) by talking to her in a nice tone showing that he's an intelligent person and by being nice to making not say no to him. At one point of the movie, he manipulates into telling her how much money he wants. In the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) manipulates the job of an American stock broker by telling the customers that they'll succeed if they invest their money. With the invested money that the customers out, Jordan actually steal their money for himself thus obtaining his American Dream of being rich. Most Hollywood movies tell the story where the main character or characters start being liked and  are at the exposition state. As movie continues, the characters are moved into a rising action until they reach they're biggest threat or climax. Afterwards they fall into a depression and are picked up by resolution. The three movies are showed differently by the main characters being the bad guys instead and they succeed at what they're trying to achieve even though they go through obstacles and challenges ahead of them.

Camera: The camera angles and lighting are unique with the lighting being consistent with the theme of the character and the angles focusing on the main characters but also the other people the main characters come across to.