Hurt Locker- Film Response

In class last week, we watched the movie Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the first women to win Best Director, and this movie also won Best Picture, which beat the move Avatar. This movie is about three United State men who are on the same team for Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. In the movie we see these three characters try to overcome mental and physical problems because of the war, and it was difficult for them to go back and live in their own normal lives.

1. Opening Remarks
The opening began with a quote, and the quote had the phrase "war is a drug", at first I didn't really think about this phrase until the movie ended, because one of the soldiers, James, was talking about how he loves only one thing and he can't let go. I think that since this character in in love with war, it is a drug to him, because he can't let it out of his life. I also thought that the first opening scene was interesting because there was a lot of camera movement, and when one of the soldiers tried to disable a bomb, we can hear the soldier breathing. When the first bomb in the movie went off, the shots were very interesting. Like when we see the smoke, the camera cuts to the dirt, and we can only hear the dirt, then when it cuts to the car, we can hear the medal on the car. I thought that the opening scene made the movie sound and look real.

2. Context
a) Place the film: The film was shot in Jordan within miles of the Iraqi border, and I think the director chose this place to shoot because it would make the setting look real. Also my mom's relatives live in Jordan, and I have been there before, and I did not notice that this setting was in Jordan. So I give credit for their mis en scene, because they did a good job with the setting and props to make it look more real.
i) Director's Work: I think that the director did a good job with have a good setting to shoot this film. The director also had good extras, like for example the boy, Bekkum, because that boy helped us learn that Eldridge was being nice and had a little attachment to this boy. It helps the audience see the relationships with the soldiers and the people living in the area.
ii) Time when made: This film was made in 2008, but it premiered in a Venice Film Festival, after it was sent to America in 2009. This is a modern movie, since the war is still going on until right now.
iii) Relations to other films: The camera movements in this movie remind me of the movie Amelie, because in Amelie there was different variety of shots and had lots of camera movements. Hurt Locker had lots of camera movements too.
B) Place the Extract
i) Position in plot: It's based on personal feelings about soldiers. The plot tries to show us that soldier are mentally and physically affected by war, for example, Eldridge always thought that he was going die, and used to talk to the doctor about his feelings. The plot tells us that soldiers in war feel different when they go live their regular lives.

Camera angle is an extreme closeup when the characters reveal their emotions

ii) Thematic Threads: One theme of this movie is the name Hurt Locker. I think this name symbolizes the locker each soldier has when that soldier dies. Because when the soldier in the opening scene dies, his personal belonging are put in a locker, which is sent home to his family. It's called a hurt locker because the person that is going to receive the locker is going to be hurt and sad since their soldier has died.

3. Setting, Acting, Costume

a) Visual Style: This movie won Best Picture in 2009, and I think that they deserve this award because of the visual style. For example, when James was looking into the burned car, he ripped open the inside of the car seats. At the same time the camera was cutting back and forth to James actions and the other soldier with him (parallel action). I this the style is classical cutting because we have different variety of shots and lots of reaction shots. I thought the visual style was very good, because that's why it made the movie more interesting to watch.
b) Iconography: I don't there was lots of icons or symbols that I seen in the film. Maybe one icon would be the mosque because its the religion of the people living in that area.
c) Actors: I thought that the actors did a good job, because at the end when Sansborn and James were talking about their emotions, I felt like it was real, and I felt sad. The actors did a good job as acting like soldiers when in danger like when there was a suicide bombing but James couldn't diffuse the bombs off the man. I felt that there was a lot of emotion when James was talking to the man. I liked how the actors had different sides to them because they showed the audience many different faces.
d) Production design: The production design was well made, especially the production designs for the bomb. I felt like I was actually seeing a real bomb explode,or when the soldiers went into this building and found a dead boy, I thought that the building design was good because it looked old and desolated.

4. Cinematography and Lighting
a) Style: The style of this movie was realistic because there was a lot of variety of shots, and establishing and reestablishing shots.

b): Angles, Framing, Lens Choice:  This film had one best picture, and know I know why, because it had a variety of shots. Every time a bomb would blow up we would see this in different of angles, and in slow emotion. I think that the action is in slow motion because it emphasizes that the bomb it big, and its in slow motion to show different angles of the the soldiers.
There was a lot of manipulation of time especially with the bombs. I think one symbolism that was very important was the bomber's suit. In the opening scene we see the first man to wear the suit dies when the bomb explodes. Then after this person dies James is the one that begins to wear this suit. This makes the audience feel curious because is the bomb suit safe? Is James going to live?

Genre: The genre of this movie is action because its based on these three soldiers on the same team to diffuse bombs, and risking their lives everyday.

Closing Remarks:

I thought that the closing remarks wrapped up the whole story. Since in the beginning of the movie we got "war is a drug", James goes back to his regular life. There is this one scene where he has to chose a box of cereal and there is tons too choose from. This shows that since James at war had to make life and death decisions and in his normal life he had to make small simple decisions, that's when he realized his addiction to war, that is why "war is a drug". James is in love with war, that he wants to stay there, he doesn't want to go back to his regular life.

Short Documentary Blog:"Art Works"

The short documentary called "Art Works" by Natalie Hon and Emily Munoz
from Freestyle Academy won first place the SI DocFest 2010. These two people earned 10,000 dollars, and I say they deserved it. They made this documentary to explain the non profit organization The Image Bus Project. This documentary showed how kids love doing art, and it relieves them from school, and makes them express their feelings. I believe the theme of this documentary is that art is full of color and a world without color makes everything dull. This organization helps many kids be creative everyday, and the kids love doing art work. I thought that the narrative was well showed because we didn't see the same people talk and talk, we saw a variety of people. We saw the kids talk about what they think about art, a parent, and the organizers of this organization. I also thought the camera work was interesting because I saw different perspectives on everything, like the kids playing with the clay and the teachers talking.
I also liked the first shot of the documentary because it showed the school as dull and an  unhappy environment, but when they showed the kids drawing or playing with clay, the shots were filled with color and the environment was happy.

The sound wasn't that interesting, I mean it wasn't unique, I feel like I was familiar with the type of music they were paling, but it didn't affect the narrative of the film. The sound was fine, but what made me like the film was the use of different perspectives. I just liked how they should different opinions about the organization from its members to the parents and to the students.

Jen&Jen's Fencing Short Documentary Treatment

In class, we watched the movie "Baraka" and it inspired Jenna and I to make a short film documentary. Jenna thought of the idea to do a short documentary on her fencing club, and I decided to go with this idea because it sounds interesting. I also wanted to do this topic because I don't really know what fencing is about, so during this project I will be learning and having fun making a short documentary. Jenna's fabulous idea is now going to turn into a short documentary.

Purpose: The purpose of this documentary is to inform people about the true life of a fencer and what fencing really is.

Contacts: Peninsula Fencing Academy: Jay Choi (fencing coach),  John Stayner (fencer)

Interview Questions:

1. What is fencing really?
2. What kind of protection gear do you have? 
3. What does it take to mentally and physically prepare for a tournament?
4. How has fencing become such a major part of your life? 
5. How big of a part does it play in your life?
6. Does fencing cause stress? If so, why do you continue? 
7. How do you cope with stress?
8. What goes through your head as you're fencing a bout?
9. How does your coach influence you and what do coaches try to do for their students?
10. What does victory mean to you?
11. What does it feel like to lose? 

General Flow: We are introduced to the main coach who talks about what fencing really is. They are in the Peninsula Fencing Academy on a break from coaching. As they talk, there is a typical class in session. Then there is going to be a private lesson going on in the background. As the coach talks about protective gear, all of gear is shown laid out, we see a fencer putting it all on.

Next the fencer is introduced and we learn how fencing plays major roles in their lives. So we see John enter the club. Then we see him leave hours later (clock). We see the particular fencers in medium close-ups working on skills with their coaches during adult classes.

We hear the coach's perspectives of what they try to do for their students and then we see the coaches helping John work on his skills. During this time there is a fencer having a private lesson on the fencing strip while coach is explaining how to do something to John. The fencer than does the action.

Next, then John talks about how he deals with stress (insert b-roll). John states why he still fence, even though it causes him stress (insert b-roll). John tells about his particular case where he got injured, but is still willing to fence in the upcoming tournaments.

Now Jenna catches a plane to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a national tournament is going to be held. We are introduced to the rather huge venue, where all fencers are preparing for the tournament. At this time, we hear how John mentally and physically prepares, as we seehim warm up before the tournament begins.

Finally, John is ready to fence, and we see him all dressed up in their protective gear before his bout begins. We hear what its like to be on the fencing strip, and what it feels like after a bout. Through the mask see their expressions on the fencing strip. The two opponents are fencing in slow motion, but as one of the fencers hit, it cuts back to regular motion. We need a couple of more touches in a regular motion.

After the fencing tournament, we see John taking off their protective gear as we hear if they won or lost the tournament Also how it feels to win or lose. We see the last shot of the camera zoomed in to the protective gear than zooms out while a coach says that's what fencing is about.

Baraka Film Review

Today in class, we watched a film called Baraka. The film is shot in 24 countries and it shows the different cultures, geographical views, and social diversity in the 24 countries. This film was made in 1992 and took over 13 months to get the shooting done.

 



Foreground, midground, backgroundshot



 

high angle shot

In the beginning of the film, it felt like it was going to be a boring film to me, but it swept me off my feet. In my opinion, I never seen good cinematography in a film, maybe that's why it took over 13 months to shoot it. There was long shots, and in the majority of shots there was foreground, midground, and background. The shots weren't just fast edits, images were panned or dollyed. For example, when we saw shots of the mountains covered with snow, the shot was a dolly shot. All the shots were so interesting, I never saw anything so beautiful. In the shots, I saw a pattern, it was that all the shots were seen from high angles, or the camera would pan up to be in a high angle shot. Since this movie doesn't have actors or a plot, it didn't make sense to me. The shots would just come in and it jumps from one country to the next. Its hard to tell where each place is. The director of this film should have inserted captions so the viewers, like me, won't be confused. Another thing I disliked about the film was that some shots took forever. What I mean is that one shot would take about 4 seconds to pan up to the object than it would take 4 seconds on that image. This drove me nuts because some shots were so boring that it took really long to see the next shot.

Baraka means "breath", I think that this film was named this because Earth has many people of different cultures, religions, and social diversity. Everyone on Earth breathes and if all people stop breathing they will die. When everyone dies, Earth will die. I believe the point of this film is to show how people's different cultures and social diversity changes our planet.
After seeing this film, I learned many new messages from this movie. One message is that everyone in the whole world is living differently due to culture differences and social diversity. For example, Baraka showed how people sleep in Japan, how there is many cars in New York, and people in Nepal do rituals. Another message I got was that people shared religion. All over the world people practice Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, catholic, and other types of ritual sacrifices.
The only reason why I disliked this movie because their was no narration or text throughout the movie. There was music. The music and sound effect flowed with the shots but it didn't help me understand what is going on. If there was a voice or text heard or see, the film might be less confusing.


Poor villagers



I got to admit that this movie inspired me. I am glad that I watched this film because the shots were so professional, and it makes me want to have really nice looking shots in my next film. I would have never thought to see a movie like this with each shot having a foreground, midground, and background. That inspired be so much. I saw so many beautiful shots of different places in the whole world, yes it makes me want to travel to those places.

The music was very unique because as seeing beautiful shots there was smooth calm music, but when I saw the scene where all the men wave their hands and dance and yell words out, the music was different. After that scene there was a transition of music to a sound effect of boom. And the boom was form a volcano that erupted.



baby chicks bing squished



In the beginning of the movie we see lots of poor people in rural areas. I think that this movie is trying to show how different cultures and social diversity affect poor people. Poor people are also living near dangerous places, for example, near volcanoes, and that affects their health and economic status.



humans being sqished



Overall this movie was interesting and I encourage everybody to watch it, because it MADE INTERSETING PARALLELS BETWEEN BABY CHICKS AND HUMANS. I thought that was we see baby chicks being squished and humans at a substation, people are jammed and squished as walking around. I think these parralles tell us that humans and animals are the same becausewe both live on the same planet and have many things in comen. I consider everyone who read this, go watch the film now!!

The Wrath of Camilla- My Film Critque



the last shot of the movie, boy
and girl walk away together



Rationale: During the first weeks of school, as a class, we watched the movie, Amelie. This movie inspired my group's film project. At first I wanted a story about a boy and girl meeting each other than they become in love with each other, but this treatment didnt work out so we went with another treatment. Our film was produced by me, Jenna Fontaine, and Isabella Wen. Our film was about a young michevious girl who has revenge on a bully that bullies her freind. The girl is an outcast and the boy is a nerd. The genre of this film was a romntic comedy because the girl does mean/funny things to bully and at the end the girl and boy walk away holding hands. This film was made for teenagers becuase usually teenagrs deal with bullies and tis movie shows that people should stand up for something that harms other people.



The boy and bully did a good job acting



Genre Connections/ Director Influences/ Influences and Narrative/Story: The genre is a romantic comedy because the character's personality are funny and corny, that it would make you laugh. its romantic because in the begining of the film we see a relationship between the boy and girl in class, and we also see a relationship at the end of the film where the boy and girl hold hands and leave the scene. This genre is connected to the film Amelie because the genre in Amelie is a romantic comedy. That is one of the reasons why or how we incoprorated this movie in our film. In our film I wanted to do more with it butit didn't go as well. I wanted a mystery going on in the narrative but it didn't make the cut. Our film, which I feel was a good film narrative to begin with but our next film narrative should be a little more challenging.

bad lighting

 Directing/Acting/Character :
Well in this film, I was the director. I think I did a good job and it wasn't me all by myself, I give credit to my other group members because they all focused and they were doing their jobs. They made m jobs easier. Duringn shooting our actors were on task and following our directions. I didn't take the full roll of the director, but I was helped by my group members. Our characters did a phenomenaul job on gettig their part done. They didn't just pretend to be the character, they were the character. That is another reason why our film was so successful, because of our actors did
their jobs well.



nice facial expression

Our character's in our film fitted the roles of the actors that we asked them to act for our film. They were on time and productive with us and I thank them a lot. Being the director on this film was a very good experience because I managed to be productive and get to finish our shooting on time, which we did!

 



over the shoulder shot

Edit/FX, Techniques or Concepts: I just wish that I had one more day for editing because I feel that al my cuts are simple, there s technique, but I would like to have done the matching cuts and color changes. I feel that my editing was fine, but I had a problem. When the girl throws the pencil on the floor the cut isn't smooth. I tried to fix it but I had no time, and I wished I had the time to fix it. Another problem I had was with the P.A. announcemnt because I felt my cuts weren't smooth at all in those scenes. I felt that I had simple cuts in my film because the concept of our idea was simple. Next time I would like to do a different concept so I can incorporate more editing techniques into my film.



in edit I put a slip noise



Sound FX/ Score: Since we had a camera with a boom mic, we had good audio, but the sounds were too low. But that is ok because I highered the volume in the editing process. I also had trouble with the background sound, so when the gilsaid bye the sound was very low and it wasn't clear at all. Next time we should have a boom mic closer to the actors when they are going to speak.



 Cinematography: Our cinemetographer was Jenna Fontaine, and she did a good job. Our shots were simple, but we had a variety of shots, like over the soulder, extreme closeups, medium closeups, and full shots. One mistake that I saw when watching my movie is that we

had continuity problems. Next time we should work on keeping continuity.

Another problem or imporvement we should make is to have close ups on

the action scenes. When Camilla observed the bully attack the boy,the whole

time this is seen from the girls point of view. We should have had some closeups

 of the two actors. When Camilla saw the P.A. the shot was an over shoulder

shot, and we wanted to do a rack focus but none of us knew how to do that,

 so next time we should work on our camera techniques or at least review them.



had extras in the way which led to confusion

Production Design/Mis En Scene: Our production design isn't that interesting or unique because we shot at school. The girl always had her backpack on and was always holding a binder. We didn't really manage props because we didn't need a lot of props. Our most important prop was the planner because it set our climax. Next time we should include more props and have more interesting locations.



too much lighting

Your "objective" analysis of the film as a whole:  I thought that the film was successful because I had fun prepearing it and editing it. Since this is my first film I feel that I was a little rusty. One scene that was hard fo me to edit waswhen th bully tripped on the banannna that scene took a long time for me to perfect. I wished that I took a little more longer to edit all my scenes like that. One imporovement I have t make this year ismy bckground music because I had different types of music in the background that didn't relate together. We also had too much lighting problems.











My First Treatment of the Year!

This treatment relates to the movie Amelie. This treatment is about a girl's problem, which will help her find love at the same time.

Treatment: Girl’s Dilema

A classroom filled with students, some voices are heard in the background as a teacher’s voice appears in the foreground. A girl, sitting in the back desk, near a window.

The girl looks out the window, then hears a vibration. The vibration is text message alert.
The girl smiles and looks at the text message.

The girl starts to text in class, while the teacher is speaking. The girl’s eyes go up and down so she doesn’t get in trouble for texting in class. The bell rings.

The girl walks out of the class, with her phone, she is texting, and she bumps into a boy.

She turns red and starts to run out of the classroom. The boy just keeps on looking at her until she is out of his view.

Near the end of the school day, the girl puts her phone on the desk and forgets about it. The boy she bumps into, sees the phone and grabs it.

The girl is outside the school, there are many background voices, and she is talking with her friends.

She checks her pocket for her phone and she doesn’t find it. She then checks her bag and still couldn’t find it.

The girl walks back to her last class and checks her desk, but she finds nothing. The girl begins to panic and thinks about where she puts it.

She begins to dream about her phone. She is imagining herself texting all day in class and at home. She is the only person you see in her dream.

She left her classroom and looked out in the hallway. She sees the boy that she bumped into.

The boy walks toward her and begins to start a conversation, the girl gets shy, but she begins to feel that she has a crush on that boy.

Then the boy begins to open his backpack, and the the girl begins to wonder why he is doing that.

The boy pulls out her phone and she starts to scream and jump up and down.

She thanks the boy and tells him that her phone is very important to her.

The boy responds by smiling, then gives her a hug, and they both walk off holding hands.

Music is playing in the background as the two characters get out of the shot.

Amelie Text Analysis

1st stylistic.

    In Amelie I spotted four stylistics about the first ten minutes of the movie. The first sylistic I observed is that the director, in each shot always has a dominant place or thing that always caught my attention. A dominant thing that always catches your eye is important to the movie because sometimes, it sets the scene or its just a design for the audience to look at, while the plot begins to develop. The director wants the audience to attract our eyes to the building because its the begining of the movie, and this dominant picture sets the screen and sets thing up. This can be seen in this screen shot. I feel that the director's intent is to keep the audiece aware of everything througout the movie. As you see this picture your eye directly looks at the window, because the light is bright, while the rest of the picture is dark.

2nd stylistic

   The second stylistic is that the director keeps the camera close to the action to emphasize motion. This is important because its shows that the director wants the audience to feel like they are in the movie. The director wants the people to pretend that they were watching these actors doing everything right in front of them in real life. In this screen shot on the right, you can see the camera close on the actress's hand while she puts her hands in the beads. I feel that the director does this to give the audience a sense of what the actorsm are really doing to feel like it happening right in front of them. This effects the film as a whole because througout the film the director keeps the camera close on the action. The director also uses the same shots, because in the begining of the movie you see Amelie put her hands in the beans as she was a little kid. And, the director had the same shot. This also shows the repition in lots of shots.

3rd stylistic

   The third stylistic is how the director had the lighting keys. During the film, the director had different lighting styles for each shot. The director usually had a little bright light in the corner of an actor, then had the actors side be dark. In each shot the lighting had a bright and dark light. In the screen shot on the right, Amelie's dad is seen in a dark light, and near the gate it was very sunny. This shows that the director wanted to have the dad's side to be dark and the outside have lots of bright lights. I feel that the director did the lighting like this because he wants the audience to know that the dad is living in a bad dark place. He is very lonely and is surrounded by a gate in darkness, while outside of the gate is sunny and bright. This effects the play because lighting can show how the actors feelings are like.

4th stylistic

   The fourth and last stylisic is how the director shows the style of magical realism. Throughout the whole film, we see animated stuff. For example, when Amelie takes pictures and sees a teddy bear, or when the guy with the album imagines talking to the pictures. This stylistic is important because it shows Amelie's character as a child imagining everything about her life. It also shows how Amelie thinks that her life is based on her imaginantion. My interpretation is that it making a real creative mind of Amelie's character. In this screen shot, Amelie, as a little girl is taking a picture of the clouds, and she imagines the clouds as a teddy bear. Througout the whole film Amelie imagines everything as if it was her own life. This effects the film because it represents Amelie's imagination of life. Amelie wants her life to be like her imaginary life, thats why she is not social with freinds or her family.