Intro Film Reflection

Looking back, I feel that choosing the Intro Film class was the best choice that I could have made. The class has taught me countless good traits such as working collaboratively with the others and voluntarily working without having to be forced. I think that those lessons I have learned in the film class would benefit me in many of my other classes whenever I have group works to do or whenever I have to manage my time in a wise manner.

One of the classes that I found similar to the film class was English, in that we produce creative ideas from various processes in both classes. I also think that they are similar in that we both work in groups for big projects such as performing play.

Election(1999) Analysis

1.) Elements of Mise-en-Scene

Focus on a central character/actor. How would you describe his or her acting style in the film? Does the style seem compatible with the story?

Reese Withespoon, as Tracy Flick in the story, quite decently acts out the a girl possessing what I saw as a duplicated style of life. On one side, she is an all-A student with intelligence and leadership. But on the other, she is an outsider with no friends, unable to think for anyone other than herself. To her, her success and well-being was the only concern she had for her life, and in that I think Witherspoon had portrayed such intentions of the writer quite well, and very compatible with the story.

2. Elements of Cinematography
a. Examine one or two shots in which camera movements – tracks, pans, zooms, or others – are important. Why is a moving frame of a single shot used here instead a series of shots? How does that movement comment on what is happening in the shot?

In the scene where McAllister witnesses that Linda, who was supposed to be having an affair with him actually told his wife the whole story, the camera slowly zooms into his face about ten times closer from where the camera is. By doing this, the director strongly emphasizes the shock and feelings of betrayal apparent on his face. Over this, a calm-toned voice-over narration also adds to the heavy mood.

b. Look for a pattern of compositional distances in the film or sequence. Do there seem to be large number of long shots? Close-up? Some other pattern? Describe one such pattern, and explain how it reinforces one or more themes of the film.

One of the camera actions that appear quite often throughout the film stops in the middle of a character’s speech particularly when he/she  has a distorted face that is unavoidable when speaking with a narration from another character describing him/her (often pretty negative). By capturing those distorted facial expression (and what may be extremely natural) of a split second and super-emphasizing it by zooming into it, the director intends to convey that making mistakes like McAllister (and his friend) commits in the movie is as natural as making those distorted faces while talking in our everyday lives.

3. Voice, Music and Sound effects
To what extent do sound effects add to the films sense of realism? Can you locate an example in which sound effects are primarily responsible for creating a particular impression of location, action, or mood?

The sound effects add to the films by strengthening particular moods and feelings that certain scenes are meant to convey to the viewers. In the case of Election, the tribal screaming/music always supports the  crazy/angry feelings Tracy Flick is supposed to have whenever she is unable to attain what she wants.

Film Review 3: Black (2005)

Black

Black is an Indian movie directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The movie portrays the story of a girl very much like Helen Keller, blind and deaf. But despite her physical disorders, Michelle McNally, lead by her teacher Mr. Sahai and his enthusiasm, succeeds to understand sign languages and read braille. Then she moves onto an even bigger goal, to study in college and graduate. The film showed me what the words ‘Hope’ and ‘Dream’ really means. Towards the end of the movie, Michelle recalls that ‘The only word Mr. Sahai did not teach me was ‘Impossible’.

Editing

As I am going to be the director/editor of our film production, i decided to go out look for a clip with some interesting editing and then i found this:

and an exerpt from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Film editing is an art of storytelling practised by connecting two or more shots together to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an entire movie. Film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema and which separates filmmaking from all other art forms that preceded it (such as photography, theater, dance, writing, and directing). However there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms such as poetry or novel writing. It is often referred to as the “invisible art”, since when it is well-practiced, the viewer becomes so engaged that he or she is not even aware of the work of the editor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editing