Monday, March 29, 2010

Going Beyond The Still Image- "Wrong place, Wrong time."

Character:
In this movie, a grown man is the main character. In this shot, we get to see a lot about this man's character. He is a well-dressed man because of the tux, who happens to be in the wrong situation. When i first saw this, I thought to myself, why would this wealthy looking man, be locked up in a box? As we can see, this man is the good guy/protagonist. Also, later on we see a shot of him asking a valet for his car as he is coming out of a party, which may indicate that he is rich. Because of the fine quality of the camera, we can make out his face features, and his body appearance. We can tell that in this situation, he seems to be very frustrated and confused because he explains to us that he doesn't know why he is in this situation.


Conflict:
In this film, the conflict is communicated through a flashback. In this shot, we can see the reflection of the action through the car window. We can see that in this shot, 2 men are "adult-napping" the man. From what we can see, he is innocent and don't know why he is in this confliction. This is mostly communicated through the action that is going on. The two men that are approaching the other man from behind are zapping him unconscious. The actors in this shot are wearing all black and because of the reflection we can't make out every facial feature. This effect of using a reflection to show this shot is to leave a mystery feeling in the audience and to leave questions unanswered. This reveals to us the reason why in the beginning of the short film, he is trapped in a box.


The resolution & feeling:
In the end of this short film, we see that the resolution of the story line is that the man in the box will end up dead. During this shot, we feel a finished feeling because we know there isn't going to be anymore to the story once the man is dead. From being part of the audience, we understand that the good guy will not survive because he is unable to stop the villains from pursuing their plans.

This resolution of the shot of the picture show us a feeling of sadness because of the blue tint that is added to the shot. Also, we feel sadness because we know that this picture is reminding him of good memories which he will never have again since he is about to die. We can tell that the man is cherishing this photo as he will be taking his lasts breathe spent in a box under water. He is putting this photo in his mind, so it will never be forgotten even after he is gone. These shots are symbolic to the meaning of life. It is symbolic to the meaning of life because you never know when things are going to change in your life and sometimes things happen and you question it, but an answer is never revealed to you. Life is unexpected and this picture tells us to enjoy the good times and learn from the bad times in life.

Reverie and the DSLR Revolution

I picked this picture because when filming this, you didn't have to add much in order to get the lighting and its effect from going dark to light. The lighting is usually found in tunnels. I specifically picked this still image of the lighting because it could symbolizes the good and bad times in life. The character is traveling to find this one lady so he can give flowers to her and the long narrow tunnel resembles the on going adventure to find her. The lighting in the tunnel filters the shot to look black and white. This shot is used to show us the urgency the character has to find the women through the continually changing of lights and the speed of the car. The camera the Laforet uses, the canon eos d5 allows for his footage to be so vivid. In this shot the lighting is blown out to where you can't see anything, but it is perfect to the extent that you can still see the tunnel as it extends farther down. Usually when a light is aimed towards the camera, the camera self adjusts its self so that the lighting isn't to bright, but this camera takes in the reality of all shots. The lighting for the camera is just a minor detail to refocus on, but it doesn't make a big effect on the rest of the shot.


This shot caught my eye because of the lighting that is mirrored onto the water behind the lady. In a big city like the one in the shot, you may be able to see this with your naked eye if you find the right location. The lighting in the shot is very real and the director didn't have to add any effects in order to get this shot to be the way it is. The black and white lighting in the background really makes the women in the red dress stand out while it isn't over contrasted. We can tell from this image that the pixels the camera has reveals to us every little detail in the lighting that we normally wouldn't see with a normal camera. During each shot, the setting is usually taken place at night, so the lighting really stands out in the city. I believe that the city at night with all the lights symbolizes romance. I believe it symbolizes romance because at romantic times usually, its dark with light or candles. The camera's ability to capture such vivid images allows us to see the ripples in the water let alone, make out everything around the women. Lastly in this shot, we notice that the women has a spotlight on her. The vastness of the background lighting and the simplicity of the spotlight on the foreground/women represent the loneliness as the women is waiting.


In this shot, the lighting is really interesting. Laforet reveals to us his interest and what he is looking at through the reflection through is sunglasses. The camera really focuses on the man in the plane as he looks upon the city filled with lights as it starts to get dark outside. Laforet is well known for his picturesque aerial landscapes. He is well known for being up in the air while collecting his footage. He also shots a lot of footage in low lighting. When up in the air, there isn't going to be much light especially while the sun is going down. But the camera's super low f-stop allows the camera to shoot in the low lighting. If you notice, the city in the background is blurry which draws our attention to the young man and the reflection on his sunglasses. Laforet is also well known for his selective focus in his shots from up in the air. Because of the reflection through the young man's sunglasses we can see the extreme detail that the camera can pick up. (* I would die to have this camera with this type of power to capture this footage!)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Blog Film Review-- Solitude Trailer


This shot in the trailer caught m
y eye because of the scene location and the presence of nobody there. When I first saw this my eye was attracted to the empty swings that were swinging back and forth. My eye was attracted to this because usually on a play ground there is many children, but this shot really emphasizes the word solitude which corresponds to being alone. This shot is an extreme close up and a long shot. It's an extreme close up shot to the very first swing that we see and it becomes a long shot as we can see the objects in the background. I wouldn't consider this shot at eye level, but a show lower then eye level. The symbolic implication of the slowly moving swings is to emphasize once again the main idea of the movie. It is telling us that the group of kids is alone in the world. The color of the swings is black which in my opinion may be some sort of symbol. I think the color black symbolizes destruction and the color black can often connect to death. At funerals most guests wear the color black and that's why i think it symbolizes death.

This shot in the trailer caught my eye because of the lighting and how it reflects that they are alone in the world and its a dark place. When i first saw this my eye was attracted to the "spotlight" on the girl sitting on the floor against the wall with her arms over her knees. The position that the girl is in shows me that she is in emotional pain and I can see through her body language that she is upset. This shot is a long shot because we can see her whole body and the surroundings around her. Also the wall that she is leaning against looks to be a long wall and the depth of it could represent how life is a long road. I would consider this shot to be eye level because if I were standing far away from her i would see the exact same thing as the camera sees in the shot. The symbolic implication of the lonely girl with the spotlight is to once again emphasize the name of the movie "Solitude". Most of the scenes in the trailer that are given to us are to tell us that the group of teens are alone and I also notice that there isn't much of bright colors. Most of the colors are dark colors resembling a dark time and danger.

This shot caught my eye because of the lighting and the camera angle. What caught my eye was that you could only make out some features of the figure standing on top of what i think to be is a roof. The lighting is coming from behind the figure so you can only see parts of the sides on it. The figure looks to be studly because of the way its standing. Its standing tall and we can see that the body language of the figure reveals to us that it has power and can be dominant. This shot could be a POV, birds eye or long shot. It could be a POV because this shot could be the point of view of someone looking up at the figure from the ground. This shot could be a birds eye view because it could just be the camera looking up at the figure from the ground. And this shot could be a long shot because you can see the roof or wall that the figure is standing on and you can see most of its body and the dark background. From the figure with the lighting coming from behind it looks like the figure is wearing some sort of armor. The symbolic implication of the figure standing on the wall is to show how powerful it will be in the film. The figure standing higher up above everyone else kind of shows us that he is powerful then everyone and everyone else below him is weak and useless.