Jarhead (Editing)

First of all I would like to say that Jarhead jumps up onto my top 10 list of favourite films. I liked it the first time I saw it, but wow, no I really enjoyed it and I’m close to loving it. The commeradery, friendship and all that comes along being stuck together is beautifully portrayed by the actors, and who doesnt love Jamie Fox portrayal of the Staff Sargeant. I know I do. He made me laugh, but also reflect on a few things.

When I started paying attention to the editing I realized it was done quite well. A few times I couldn’t even notice the cuts, and that is one of the greatest compliments an editor can get. The editor, Walter Murch, did a great job, and when I looked at his resume on IMDB I noticed that he has done some quite astonishing work on movies such as Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Pt. 3, The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, to name a few.

The pace and flow of the film as a whole is done quite well. I low and mellow when needed, and fast pace also when needed.

All in all I think that the job was done pretty good.

Constantine (VFX)

A few of the people dealing with VFX on Constantine have previosly worked on films such as Star Wars, Pearl Harbour, Jurassic Park and Hellboy.

I don’t remember much from Constantine to go really in depth, to be quite frank. I remember that the “hell scenes” were done quite well, other than that I really don’t know what to say.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the film. Dark and mysterious, and Keanu Reeves actually surprised in the lead role.

Commando (Lighting)

When hearing that were going to watch Commando, my first thought was “Great. A really, really bad Arnold flick.” But after watching it I love it. I guess the fact that Arnold somehow makes a little fun of himself in the film makes me like it more than any other war-veteran-hero-movie starring Arnold.

Any who. The lighting of Commando was genrally done quite well. They mostly got the following source technique down well, except for some of the scenes in the mall and right after Arnold and the girl crashed the car. I would say there’s an mixture of lighting used in the film.  High Key lighting, to create an upbeat flow at some parts, and Low key when it’s more dramatic.

My experience in DV foundations

I remember the first Digital Video Foundations lecture as it was yesterday. Josh and Jules introduced themselves and said a sentence I will never forget; “after being enrolled in this class this semester, you will most likely not be able to watch movies the way you used to. In fact, you might hate us after this semester.”

They were right. I can’t watch a movie the same way as I used to. Even though I used to pay a lot attention to some of the technical aspects of a film before I was enrolled in this class, I now look for everything from dialogue, lightning, plot points and the screenplay formula.
I also find myself watching the display of the DVD-player, as well as watching the film. “Why?” You might ask. Because according to the screenplay formula, 1 page = 1 minute of the movie, and to make an interesting film you have to have things happen every 10-15 minute. And the opening sequence is extremely important, because it sets the standard for the rest of the film. It makes the viewer decide if they want to watch it or not.

I like the fact that I learn more in depth about things I sort of knew about making films prior to this course. Before I enrolled I knew the basic of lighting, a little bit about screenplay, a lot about framing and composition. Being a creative soul, almost, dying to put words into action on screen is something I truly enjoyed this course. The greatest feeling is to make something and be really proud of it.

When I watch a film on DVD I always watch the bonus features and behind the scenes footage. Now I get basics of film making in by watching various types of movies, and talking about the different topics in lectures and tutorials.
I am a true fan of films, and I love DVD’s. My DVD collection back home proofs my obsession. My collection consists of close 300 DVDs of various genres and quality.

I know that this course has done me really good, in the sense of really getting in the basics, sort of getting to know how things are done. And you realize that there’s more to a film than the actors and the director.

Elephant(Audio)

After watching Elephant (one of my favourite movies) we were supposed to look at audio and soundtrack, and how those things enhanced the experience of watching the film.

To settle some things.
Elephant is movie loosely based on what happened at Columbine High School, in the United States. Director Gus Van Sant had for a long time wanted to make a movie about the horrible “event” at Columbine, but many felt that it was to early. So, a friend of Van Sant wrote a short story similar to what happened in and around Columbine that one day. And that product is Elephant.

Audio:

When shooting a film we have a few different types of microphones that we can use.

In Elephant they mainly used:

Omni-directional microphones:

These type of microphones are mainly used for picking up general sound, the ambience sound, of a location. I.e the sounds from the cafeteria and outside of the school when the “jock” is walking.

Super Cardioid microphones:

These types of micriophones are primary used for picking up dialogue. Mainly because they exclude the majority of ambient sound from the set. I.e the dialouges in the film.

Lavaliere:

These are small clip-on mics used in the film to hear each individual characters when they are talking better.

Sound effects

Most of the sound heard in movies are made by an foley artist. An artist or group of people hired to make sounds to action in a film. I.e walking sound, knocking sounds. You name it mostly every sound except from the dialouge is created by foley artists.

The soundtrack:
The soundtrack of Elephant is not a whole lot of music or tunes. When something is about to happen in throughout the film, composed “classical” music sort of fades in. This enhances the pleasure of watching the film. It’s like with Jaws, when you hear that special tune, you know the shark is around and something bad is going to happen.

Kill Bill 2 (Framing and Composition)

In Kill Bill 2, Quentin Tarantino  uses horizontal shots, where the subject of interest is mainly to one side of the screen.In many ways that emphasizes the background and the subject.

Tarantino breaks the rule of thirds in the movie when the subject of interest is divivded vertically and/or horizontally.

One of my favourite scenes in the flick, and also show some of Tarantinos geniously skills, is the scene where Bill drops “The Bride”(Uma Thurman) off at Pai Mei’s, to learn the craft of martial arts, and become a deadly assasin. In that scene there’s some dialouge delivered between Bill and “The Bride” briliantly shot. “The Bride” is standing infront of Bill’s car, while Bill sits in it. When the camera is angeled towards “The Bride”, it also shows Bill in the left mirror of the car. It’s wonderfully shot beacuse even though they “stand” opposite eachother, we get the sense of seing both even though the camera is directed towards Uma Thurmans character. This goes to show that mirrors can be use efficiently in movies. And it gets you thinking who is the main subject of the frame? Bill or “The Bride”.

Bad Boys 2!

Last Saturday I watched Bad Boys two, starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence,Peter Stormare and Gabrielle Union.
As many know, this is the sequel to the major blockbuster from 1995, Bad Boys.

In 1995 Mike Lowrey(Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) had to protect a murder witness while investigating a case of stolen heroin. This time they are investigating the flow of Ecstacy into Florida, and the DEA is represented too, by Marcus’ sister, portrayed by Gabrielle Union.

Act 1 introduces us to what Marcus and Mike is up to. And at the beginning they are undercover as KKK members in the sake of taking down drug dealing members. The whole opening sequence is really action filled, and it makes you really pay attention and get into it.

The first plot point is when we find out that Marcus’ sister is working on the same case as her brother, as an undercover agent from the DEA.

The second plot point is when Marcus’ sister has been kidnapped by the bad guy and taken to Cuba(?). At this point Marcus and Mike know what they have to do, and do it.

All in all I think Bad Boys (both 1 and 2) are great movies if you’re after some entertaining action, but none of them are mindblowingly good. I like to say that whenever you’re after some good action with cars crashing,explosions and onwards; Look for movies directed by Michael Bay. (or a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.)

Westworld

 

The last movie seen in class was Westworld. A futuristic movie made in the early 1970′s. The whole movie is set at this “amusement park”, where you can choose to go to several different decades and live like they used to back then. The main story in Westworld evolves around two men from Chicago, looking forward to a vacation at Westworld. A part of the amusement park where they go to golden western days and live as cowboys and living with robots portraying those who are not visitors. The robots looks like humans, and the only way to tell the difference is looking at their hands, or when you try to shoot someone. If the gun doesn’t fire, the one your shooting at is a human, and vice-versa. (because of heat detectors).  

Act one of the movie introduces us to the main characters and gives us an idea of what whole fuzz about Westworld is how things are being run over there. The first plot point comes towards the end of the end of act one, and that’s when we learn about the malfunctions of the robots. Whoever has watched a fair chair of movies that this plays a crucial part of what is going to happen next. And we slowly move over to act 2.

In act 2 we know that the thing we found out at plot point two will develop into something bigger. In Westworld the problem with the malfunctions of the robots clearly develops. First we see that the character/robot “The Gunslinger”, do whatever he wants to do, and goes out to hunt down one of the main characters we have got to know. And there’s nothing stopping him. The other sign is when the other main character get bitten by one of the snakes. The snakes are programmed not to bite humans, I think with the same technology used one the guns.  And with “The gunslinger” hunting after one of the main characters we clearly understand that something is going on and that soon they will understand what to do fight them. And when the one character overhears the formula of shutting them down, we’re at plot point two.

This brings us over to the third act. Formally known as the resolution. As mentioned, our lead character knows exactly what to do, and he does it. And in Westworld the lead standing tall at the end knows that to defeat “The Gunslinger” he has to splash acid on him. The robots, for some reason, can’t survive acid. So the last man standing splashes acid on him, and he shuts down.

That’s my “short” description of the plot points and the different acts of Westworld.  

Speed Racer

 

Speed Racer

 

 

The third movie watched was Speed Racer. A remake of the a classic cartoon from the 60′s. The first time the one of the studios tried to make the film was back in 1992. At the time Warner Brothers offered the role of Racer X, and in June 1995 they offered the title role of Speed Racer to Johnny Depp. The chosen director at the time was Julien Temple.  In August the same year Johnny Depp asked the studio for some time off, due some personal business. Later that month the director left the project, and without a director, Johnny Depp also left the project. Warner Brothers began at once to look for a new director, and one of the directors the studio considered was Gus Van Sant. Some time past, and the studio hired Alfonso Cuaron to direct the film. A great deal of screenwriters were hired to write the script. J.J Abrams (LOST),Marc Levin and Jennifer Flacket, to name a few.

In 2000, WB hired writer-director Hype Williams to finish up the project. Once again they hired new writers to write it, and this time they got Paul Scheruing (Prison Break) and Christian Gudegast. But with no filming of the project all three left the project. Mid 2004 Vince Vaughn went in and wanted to make the movie. Now wanting to develop the characters more. Vaugh was hired to portray the role of Racer X and also hold the role as a executive producer. But once again the production of the movie didn’t find place, so Vaughn was detached from the project.

In October 2006 producer Joel Silver brought the Wachowski brothers on board. Silver explained that by doing this movie, the Brothers wanted to reach a broader audience.  And by doing this, Silver, who had worked with the brothers on V for Vandetta and The Matrix trilogy knew what I would get. Alongside the Wachowski brothers, they hired Visual Effects Designer John Gaeta, who also did the visual effects on The Matrix. This time they chose make the film outside of the american borders. And Germany was chosen. For the production the brothers chose to shoot the whole film with high-definition cameras to archive a feeling of watching an animated movie. The Wachowski also bought the rights of the sound effects and the theme song of the original series to set the over all feeling for long-time fans.

Throughout the film the use of colours and CGI was crazy. The first thing that stroke my mind watching it was; ”This is like watching a disco-bowl made of rainbows.” The use of colours are crazy. But when you actually look at the original Tv-series you can clearly see why. The filmmakers only followed in the footsteps of the originals, only taking a bit further.

First thing I notice while watching the movie was the crazy editing. Transitional footage overlapping each other throughout the whole film. Madness. But I enjoyed the pace of the editing in the action filled sequences.

The total budget of the film was $120,000,000 US. The total gross of the film was $86,145,766 US, so it clearly didn’t do all that good. But it didn’t do that bad either. It almost broke even, and I think it will do so when the release of the dvd and blue-rays is coming up.  

The actual series origins from Japan. Original name of the series was Mach GoGoGo, but in the English remake the simply named it Speed Racer. The original series was actually a manga cartoon, and they made it in to a animated tv-series in 1967. 

The five elements:

1) Believable and sympathetic lead character: In Speed Racer Emile Hirsch portrays the character of Speed Racer really well. He’s down to earth, and his great passion in life is racing. The passion only grew stronger when his brother died in the crash, but either way; speed racing has always been in his blood.

2) The urgent and difficult problem: In Speed Racer, Speed is up to several problems. Firstly he meets the investor, and he goes into prove him wrong about the fact he’s pointing out about only the racers with a great team and investors backing them up can win. A point he certainly show them is wrong. Secondly I think the thing about his brother being this major race car driver before he died is one of the major problems. Speed Racer is a great driver, but he wants become as good as, or a better driver then his brother used to be. And on the way to success he meets a lot of barriers to get there. But he gets through them all.

3) The attempts to resolve the problems: Along the way throughout the film Speed is up against great trouble. One is the bad influence of the investor and owner of this great race team, and secondly the fact that he almost have to live up to the great success of his late brother. Speed tries to prove and resolve the issue raised by the villain(the investor), by raising (almost) legit, and beat him by winning the last race in the movie. Secondly is the not so en-lighted  comparison towards his late brother. 

4) The crisis; the last chance to win?: Towards the end of the film there is this last race. The ultimate race. Speed has the chance to become the champion of some major championship and to prove the investor guy wrong. All he have to do is to win the race, and prove that you don’t have to be bought as a driver to win the championship. Which he actually do really well. 

5) The successful resolution: At the end Speed show us that if your really good at something and go for it, you can do it. Racing is in his blood, and has always been. When the car almost breaks down in the middle of the race he’s calm, and actually shows us that he knows his craft. He listen to the car, and then knows exactly knows what to do. By doing that he shows us that he is a true sportsman or an athlete, and he wins the race. The happy ending we’ve all been waiting for. And show the villain investor he’s wrong.

As mentioned the filmmakers of the movie have a great  and successful history together.  They’ve made several movies together and know what to expect what to get from each other. That’s most likely why the successfully made a watch-able movie, but the the usage of too much CGI was too much for my taste. All in all I think the movie was made with all respect for the old series and the fans in mind, but in my book the digitally workflow and equipment was to much for my own good.

Enter…Zombie King vs. Brick.

 

Enter... Zombie King

So. We have now briefly watched two films, Enter…Zombie King and Brick. And now the task is to write about them, finding differences and/or similarities. To start this nice blog post of, I have decided to start with the basic concept of the two movies. Here it goes.

 

Trying to find similarities between the two movies aren’t that easy. The big, and clearest similarities are the fact the both of the movies were made as “indie” films. One really good. And the other really bad. It’s therefore a whole lot easier to point out the major differences. 

The concepts of the two movies are simple. One is about a group of Mexican wrestlers from the U.S. (sounds funny). Well. These wrestlers are on a mission. A great mission evolving around stopping a string of zombie killings where they live. The “actors” run around in their funny masks and costumes and find their way around taking down zombies after zombies on their way to take down the Zombie King. That’s the basic story line and I think the concept they were going for. And I think the main idea behind even making this movie, was a terrible idea of how amusing it would be to see wrestling zombies and.. ehm.. other non-zombies wrestle and take each other down?

The concept of the other, and better, movie is also quite simple. Take the golden age of film noir. A film noir high-school drama set in today’s american high-school. Not only is it a great idea, it also turns out to be a great movie (judged from what I’ve seen in class).  Comparing both films budget vs. outcome of the final “product” is not a easy thing to do. There are several aspects to look at when comparing budget vs the film. One thing is to ask yourself the question: Will a film with a bigger budget automatically be better than a film with a smaller budget? Sure, with money you can do a lot of things, visually. But the complexity of a movie is more than just looking great. Sure you can go a long way with fancy equipment and so on. But without a great story to tell, there’s no need for the super-fancy gear. Right?

Budget-wise, there’s $255 000 US dividing the two movies. Enter… Zombie King’s budget, according to www.imdb.com, was US $220 000, and Brick $475 000 US. In the business of moviemaking that is not a lot money, but one can still make movies on way smaller budgets. You only need to be creative, and make some compromises. A great vision, creativity and willpower can get you a long way. Script-wise the two movies aren’t even in the same league. Brick consist of references to the old school film noir movies (slang-words, actions and dialogue). The dialogue in Brick goes fast, and sometimes a bit too fast. But that’s probably a part of the whole “homage” thing, the director has going throughout the whole film. Enter…Zombie King on the other hand is pretty weak. I can’t even find words for how bad it was. I drives me to the point to question whether or not there actually was a script for that horrible piece of moviemaking.

When it comes to location, both movies operates with few locations. From what I can remember. The story of Brick develops around 10 or less locations. I can’t really recall them, but I’m certain that there was no more than 10 locations use in Brick. I guess the same goes for Enter…Zombie King. From what I can remember, the story developed around the same 10 or less location spots. But I have to say, my memory is quite vague regarding that movie. All I can remember when it comes to that film, is that it really sucked!

Acting-wise, there’s major differences between the two movies. In the Enter…Zombie King the acting was so bad. At one point I got the feeling that the “actors” just stood there and delivered the words written down. And that was it. In Brick on the other side, the acting was great. Every actor delivered their lines great and acted more than what the so-called actors did in Enter…Zombie King. Maybe the connection between the better acting and a better script hangs together. But just because you have a great script, does not mean you’ll automatically get great performances.

 

Brick

My favourite scene in Brick was the scene were the lead character had a meeting with the schools principal. I immediately got the typical chief of police talking to one of the detectives who have done something dumb or stupid- in comedies type of feeling. Which I guess the filmmaker went for. One of his many references throughout the film.

 

Audio in both movies were not quite, especially being two independent movies. But some of the audio (foley) could have been a bit better in both. 

From both of the films, I got a sort of mid-90′s film feeling. More or less from the way they were shot and so on. So I was actually quite shocked when I checked them out on IMDB when I got home and found out they were made in 2003 (EZK) and 2005(Brick). 

The editing of both movies I would say is well done. But I especially how Brick was done, and I’m even more amazed after finding out that according to the New York Times, the whole movie was edited on a Macbook (or Powerbook). The editing pace in Brick was really great, and made enjoy the movie even more. Some parts in Enter…Zombie King, shout have been edited together more tightly. (e.g the fight sequences). The pace is too slow in my opinion. When dealing with fighting scenes, and especially wrestling, I think, as long as the actual fighting allows it, the editing pace should be so fast that you actually feel like being a part of the film. But that’s only my own personal opinion.

From what I can remember, wasn’t all that. But once again I’m amazed what the filmmakers managed to do. According to IMDB, the director and, I think it was, his brother who by interacting over Apple’s Ichat wrote and composed the score. That’s pretty awesome, when you get to know that the brother was living in England at the time.

By reading this small comparison I guess you get which movie I prefer. It’s not really a big secret!