The World's end -- The First Drink

My opinion this is the weakest of the Cornetto trilogy but still is a good film, up until the last pub.

But really I want to focus on how it manages to make drinking funny using visual comedy. 

So the scene I'm going to talk about is the first pub they visit called - The First Post. I'm gonna start the scene where Gary is talking to the pub owner. This is a wide shot but going back to my blog post about body expressions I want to mention that the busy real estate manger moves to take a quick call while Gary is buying drinks and this can be seen over Gary's shoulder in the next few shots. 

But where the comedy for me starts is the mid shot of Gary finally ordering the drinks looking very happy with the sudden shift of camera to Andy with heavy contrasting emotion as he orders a water instead of a pint.

The reason this works well is because it show two very different contrasting ideas with one movement. 

Then this is followed by another mid shot of Gary but this time using a small zoom inwards to create tension. We then get some of the best shots in the entire film being filling the glasses up, because it's some of the smallest of details but it all shot fast and quick and all adds up to the drinks that they ordered and it makes the audience understand exactly what's happened and sets up the joke. Followed by the next shot with Andy drinking is water from a pov inside the glass and the moment the glass is down it's followed by Gary exclaiming his disgust.  

All of this adds up to the comedy of the scene because we had the set up then saw what this issue is being the 4/5 drinking followed by the reaction from the characters.  

Link To scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhsqHk8J58M

Whiplash -- Monologue films

The Whiplash monologue film was one of the best in my personal opinion which was shown during last Monday's lecture.

The reason I enjoy it so much is that because it speeds up adding a lot of action during the parts of the monologue where the the drum is being played. Then there is a sudden calmness with the shots being quite relaxed. This adds so much character to the drum set because it gets angrier while it gets played faster and calmer when it's not touched.

The thing  I feel like I've picked up on  is that if you want to make something that little feel angry you'd want to make the object either sound aggressive or act aggressive accompanied by fast shots. 

Unedited Footage of a Bear -- Running shot

Now I could talk for ages about this short piece and the director Alan Resnick as I love his work as it has some very interesting messages and has lots of very interesting shots that peak my interest.

Now i'm not going to spoil it, but I want to talk about one segment in particular which is the running scene.

I'll give you a little run down - I'll be starting the clip at 3:37, So the woman gets out of her car looking down at the ground where the same colour cardigan is shown. The camera is a close up of her face panning down to the floor slowly with the camera becoming unstable this is then backed up with her looking terrified. The music slowly builds up and cuts to a wide shot of the street with a single white person in the middle. The Camera slowly pulls in with the accompanying drums slowly getting faster until you see it's the same woman. Then she wakes up with the camera also motioning this. Then she starts sprinting. The camera almost feels locked on with it being unstable with only her being the stable thing in the shot but still feeling incredibly unstable.

This shot is amazing at building up tension, mostly due to you trying to work out what's going on but the drums and the unstable shot all build up and makes you wonder if the woman will make it out alive. The reason I like this shot so much is because the shot shows the audience how unstable the situation is.

Link to Unedited Footage of a Bear: https://youtu.be/2gMjJNGg9Z8

Working with Level 5's

On Saturday the 17th of November, I traveled up to Manchester to help a Level 5 shoot her film on mental health. It was an interesting and fun experience (Also a long one XD).

I picked up on a few things too, like if I use masking tape an label a ton of numbers on it, it makes it a lot easier and clearer to mark a scene (Also saves time). 
Also I got to see a lot of new equipment that i'd want to use on future projects like the rig and lights. I will need to work out how to use them all as, especially with lighting is one of my weaker points and I want to learn how to set up a shot using lights.
I also got to see the dolly and track which i've used at college but this one is a bit different to set up but it's more or less of the same thing.

One big thing I noticed was how preparation can help out massively on a set. At time there was a lot of paperwork on set that allowed the crew to set up fast and efficiently. However I feel like things could have gone a lot fast if there was a floor plan with test shot so they knew exactly where they needed everything to go.  If they took a full day just to test what they need, taking notes of lighting and camera placements things could have gone a whole lot faster and the cast wouldn't have been sitting around so long.

The experience of working on a film with level 5's was pretty fun and enjoyable and it really makes me want to shoot a film I'm planning for in the ideas generation unit.

Oh and I learnt one other thing.

The level 5's rule: You always have a pint at the end of a shoot, or you're doing it wrong! (As long as you won't miss the train in doing so)

Hotfuzz -- Montages

Hotfuzz the first in the Cornetto trilogy and one that in my opinion is the better of the three. Today I want to talk about the two very different montages that the film uses in the start of the film.
First let's go over what a montage is. To start, yes the most famous montage is probably Rocky's but most people think that's the only type of montage (one where there is music and the character trains in the time and gradually becomes better at what he does) when that's not the case. The two montages i'm covering in this blog are rhythmic and tonal montage.
Rhythmic being something cut to a the continuity of the shots (this is montages like Rocky and Ant man) and Tonal being that there's an emotional meaning to a shot.

To start lets talk about the opening of HotFuzz, We start with a wide shot of the main character walking up to the front desk turning to a close up, from this we can tell this is a very determined character from his posture and marching towards the desk. We then start the montage with the character talking over the scene telling us information about himself and how well he's done in the academy, this is achieved well in the montage because the shots that are used back up what the character is saying so the audience then perceives him as the amazing police man who manages to be the best at everything he does.

The second montage on the other hand is more of a tonal montage showing us two thing, the character's emotions and the change of location. So through out the 35 second montage we can clearly tell that the character is almost depressed with the situation he's been put into, but there's alot more we can pick up on too, the whole thing show is move away and this is shown by a few thing in the montage, two taxis show very different styles symbolizing change. This is also the same with the train going from a upper class and clean train to a very basic boring train. Another little change that we see only for 2 seconds is his phone going from full bars in London to next to no bars in the countryside. All these little details add to the montage making for a funny intro to the change of the character's life.

Two of the Cornetto trilogy down, one to go!

Here are the two montages referenced:

Opening Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lqd-UwZmJ4

Move To Sandford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8dFK5nI1YA

Shaun of the Dead -- One Take Shot

One of my favorite things about Shaun of the dead was the two, one take shots that they do in the first act of the film to show that change in Shaun's environment.

To start it's best to say that these shots are parallel to each other. In film this normally means that two scenes/shots/situation relate to each other and will be seen in different parts of the film. The best example of this would in both Star Wars Ep 5 & 6. Luke gets his hand cut off by Vader leading to his eventual fall, Paralleled by Luke cutting Vaders arm off but realizing what he's doing stops.

Here's a link to that scene: https://youtu.be/YZ_j3s5xj8I?t=135

Now Parallels can be very subtle things, but I want to focus on Shaun of the Dead's scene because it's also a good example of a One Take scene, that being a whole sequence shot in one take. This is an effective parallel because we two key point, how repetitive and mundane Shaun's life is and the change to the environment.
Having the scene be one take shows this really well, to start we can see that Shaun is so used to his life he doesn't see clear change around him, as he walks down the road he doesn't see the bodies by door steps or zombified beggar on the road which adds a layer of visual comedy. But this also works for the parallel too as the audience will laugh at this walk because its similar to what they go through everyday while going to the shop too and seeing the parallel just show the audience nice little details that Shaun is missing because he's used to meeting them day in and day out. For example Shaun trips over the same bit on the pavement on both occasions but a keen eye will notice that on day 1 the man is washing the windscreen of the car, where as day 2 the same part of the windscreen has a hole in.
And I think this is why the one take works so well, is because its allows the audience to receive information about not just the character and him not being aware but the little details that would be removed if it wasn't a one shot.

Here's the clip in very low quality (Sorry)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpkQPJ5w1o8

Marvel: Captain America The Winter Solider

Not really gonna talk much about the film itself but I want to note about the starting sequence of the film that takes place on a ship. Now watching the scene can show the audience how powerful Cap is but as a film maker its nice to see the little camera movements that show the action Cap is doing even if its off screen / out of frame. The part I'm referencing here is where cap goes to take down a guard with a chock which he takes the guard to the ground, at this point the camera only shows part of caps head while his body and the guard are obstructed by a pipe, even though this is happening the camera makes a little motion down to show the guard falling to the floor. And there are plenty of other little camera movement throughout this scene two all showing movement or impact of a hit. Which for me, tells me that movement isn't just conveyed by a subject moving or a pan/track with a camera, it can be much more subtle movements which adds to a scene.

Checking Equipment

So on the Monday shoot (which we were filming our Forrest Gump monologue) we decided to take out a Swit Monitor. Unlike Ambleside I remember to charge the battery for it this time. So we go to set it up and what did we forget. The HDMI cable. So Important note to self, check what comes with the kit and make sure we can use it all before a shoot.

Marvel : The Avengers (2012)

So I'm on my first run of the marvel films and on my first time watch of The Avengers I thought it was an alright film, maybe a bit long for what it wanted to tell but in general a good film. But I'm baffled at one story thread being Hawkeye's brainwashing. The whole Loki taking over people was fine however during the last act of the film Hawkeye magically became unbrainwashed with seeing someone important to him just seemed a bit rushed or lacked was a misdirect in story. I feel like it would be more compelling to the story if they went this way but had Hawkeye fight himself during the fight in New York and you saw him trying to kill both the Avengers and Loki's army before settling with one.