Practical: inspiration

Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas

Clip one:(Opening Scene)

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Clip Two (Hotel/ Reptiles):


The element of this particular film that inspired me was the fact that the setting is represented as being half realistic and half in the character's minds, this is a direction that I would very much like to experiment with, it is intriguing to think how to manipulate misce-en-scene to represent character's imiginations.  Also I like the home-made un flashy effects, typical of terry gilliam films.

The Opening Scene is effective as it represents the charaters, Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo, very clearly through use of Dialouge, Narration (from Duke) and camera angels.  The closeups on Duke's face are often filmed on a slightly askew angle, representing him as different or weird.  This is (as we discover) because he has consumed epic ammounts of illegal narcotics.  Also, we see that other characters, i.e. the Hitcher in this particular clip, and the hotel check in woman in clip two, respond to the duo in a bemused kind of way, which helps to further represent them as "different" to the audience.

The Dark Knight is a large budget production.  As such it could afford big name stars, like Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger.  Also the advertising campaing was large and intricate, using many viral methods as well as the above trailer, which as you can see, displays the film's budget, showing elaborate action scenes and panning and tracking shots of Chicago (as Gotham City), with the camera on a high shot, showing the state of  the art film equipment used on the production.   The viral methods included making a website entitled Ibelieveinharveydent, who as Batman fans would know, is a prominant character in the series.  This site gradually became more defaced looking and "joker-ified" tantalizing audineces further, as no-one had seen the Heath Ledger version of the Joker at this stage.  These methods show that Warner Bros. had sufficent money to spend thousands on promotional materials to whip up internet discussion and exceitment about the film. 

As previously mentioned, Nolan chose Chicago to use as Gotham City, which would have required extra.

Also, Christiphor Nolan (the director) shot certain scenes of The Dark Knight with Imax cameras, which are state of the art cutting edge technology, and would never have been within budget for a smaller film.

Film Openings:

I have been researching film openings and have attached some of my favourites that I found most effective:

 PLANET TERROR (Robert Rodriguez) Genre: Horror


I chose this intro as it is a good example of how music in a film is effective, and it really sets the seedy Grindhouse tone of the movie, whilst also introducing the main character, Cherry.  Also, it is made so the film looks dilberatly aged and scuzzy.

 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Joel and Ethan Coen)- Genre: Modern Western/ Thriller


This Intro is effective, as it shows the back drop of the movie, the setting: Texas.  This is an integral part of how the characters behave and speak and the Coen brothers have suggested that the film's plot cold have only happened in a place like Texas.  Also the voice-over (provided by Tommy Lee Jones) is representative of the character of the Sherrif, an old man lost in an immoral modern world, and the fact that this speech is delivered against pure silence makes it all the more hopeless-sounding.  It is also an opening that reflects it's genre, or rather the warped version of the Western genre portrayed in the film.

RUSHMORE (Wes Anderson) Genre: Comedy (?)


The third opening I have picked is from Wes Anderson's Rushmore.  I like Wes Anderson's style as a director because he has a unique vision, and is very precise in his filming and arranging of actors and set.  His films really are like "moving pictures."The Intro to "Rushmore" is good because we can see two different sides of the main character, Max (Jason Shwartzman), the dream sequence version of him, the version he would prefer to be and the reality of him, a loser, asleep in a school service.

 NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared Hess) Genre: Alt. Comedy



This is another succseful combination of music an images.  We see the daily meals of Napoleon and the acoustic stylings of the White Stripe's "We Are Going To Be Friends" really suits the mood of the text, it is an indie song in an indie film and both feature strong themes of friendship and school.  It also prepares the audience to meet napoloen, to "befriend" him.  We also see some of Napoloen's quirky drawings.


In thinking about my own film opening the styles of Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers appeal to me in particular, as I am fans of their films, and enjoy films that blend genres and have a precise look and feel to them, where the director's vision is strongly evident.

Our Prelim Task (IT WAS WIKKID)

Ahoy there. The name's Aidan (parenthesis) Barker-Dean III


For our first media premilinary task we had to film a character walking into a room and then engaging in a conversation with the second character, always obeying the hideous confines of the 180-degree-rule.  We had to film a shot of the first character entering the room via a door or some other portal. We then had to film character numero uno (played be me in full on leather jacket- looking hot ) entering the room and flying into a raging discussion/debate with character numero dos (played inexpertly by Chris "where's my beverage" Smith).  Owain "make mine a decaf" Anderson, took most of the shots of my adorable mug, whilst I took most of the shots of Chris "bulldog chewing a wasp" Smith, which were predominatley closeups and extreme closeups (and, as such, terrifying.)  I chose to use mainly close ups and extreme close ups on Chris's character to represent him as "weird" and disorent the audience by never allowing them to see him properly whilst he spoke.  The shots of Chris's "clive" character that weren't close up, where at bizzare angles so as to continue the whole "weird" vibe.

Editing.
Enjoyment?

MY MAGAZINE

Our target audience was Teenagers, so we used a bright, but strict colour code.  The reason it needed to be a strictly 3-colour (blue, green, white) is because this is a generic convention of magazines (not using more than three colurs on the cover) and helps to make it easier on the eye