Roma (2018)

Roma is one of the most successful films in 2018 winning multiple awards. Winning 4 Baftas and 3 Oscars and being nominated for much more. It's story is simple, following a maid going about her life for a year in mexico. During this year her employers go through a lot of trouble ultimately trying to find themselves as well as Cleo (The maid) who gets pregnant and has the struggles of what that brings with it.

The thing that stood out for me was the great use of wide shots and one take shots where we would get a nice shot of an area. The reason this is important is because the film is trying to show what general life is like and the wide shots establish that Cleo is just another cog in the system. For example, we get an establishing shot a Mexican village, where a bus pulls up and Cleo steps off. This establishes where we are and what Cleo's plan of action is in the village when asks where to go. Instead of the camera cutting however it stays static waiting for Cleo to move right of the screen. This helps convey to the audience that she isn't necessarily the most important part of the film, but it's the attempt to capture life.

Another that really stuck out was the lack of any soundtracks. All the music that's presented is done through diegetic items such as radios and TVs and the piece is better off for it. Just like life, without music the audience can't predict what's going to happen. There's a scene where Cleo is threaten at gun pointing at her and without the music it creates suspense not knowing if she'll be shot or not.

I think its the focus on realism and lack of a genre that managed to encapsulate the audience. The best way I've heard it from the person I was watching it with was. "Its a film about a mundane life, who managed to discover more about herself as well as them around her in a year." It just goes a long way to show that a film about a life can be interesting if presented well.

May I Please Enter

Another piece by Alan Resnick, this time being a tv show about a man entering a house after finding it. It feels very much like a show where a host will show case a house but where it differs at first is that Alan is instead intruding trying to force his way in. Obviously this is creepy but it the piece does a 180 and instead of Alan being the weird one it becomes the two owners of the house.

The first sign that this piece will be weird is when Alan knocks on the door, we get a nice beat transition between doors, but when it comes to the current door the audience is left with a lingering shot of Alan knocking with each hit sounding like it's hitting an empty void. Then Alan rings the door bell where is finger goes through pushing the button all the way back and falling into a big mess on the floor.

From here out it's relatively normal having a small montage of Alan looking around the house, until it ends where one of the owners shows him a pair of lungs on the floor, breathing in and out. The piece does this a fair bit having a normal home with something random being placed in without any context and the characters acting like it's normal. And it's that which gives this piece a really good scare factor. We don't get any context and no resolve to what's presented making it an even more creeper experience. Sometimes that best way to creep the audience out is to show something so unexpected they don't know how process it. I've seen this with a few people and each one had a similar action going from creeped out to forgetting about it during the times where the piece is normal again to straight up weirded out by the bizarre actions. This is a good way to keep the audience engaged because it keeps them focused on the screen

Link to the piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgxSIFcTvLo

The Celebration (1998)

The Celebration is a film about a rich family coming together to celebrate a 60 year old man's birthday, however one of his son's decided their going to reveal his darkest secret which is that He raped him and his Sister when they were both younger.

This film is considered one of the greatest Danish Dogme films of that genre. Danish Dogme is a form of film making that was using during the 95 to 05 where the brother of Dogme set out a set of rules to follow.

• Shooting must be done on location. 
• Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
•  The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.)
•  The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must be in colour. 
• Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.) 
• Optical work and filters are forbidden. 
• The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) 
• Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) 
• Genre movies are not acceptable. 
• The film format must be Academy 35 mm. 
• The director must not be credited

In the celebration it uses the majority of these with the it's greatest achievement being that it's one of  the best handheld film made. It really goes a long way to see what you can shoot with such little equipment and how you can make it feel very action packed by having a shaky camera or cutting to another shot very quickly. It also breaks the 180 degree rule often which adds to the action of the scene showing how chaotic it can be.

Comedy Crib Mirrors

These shorts were created by one of my favorite content creators called Wham City Comedy. The shorts are a vlog style take on the life in a cult which is all about cleanliness. This is a piece that is used to make you feel like something behind the scene is going on an they manage to achieve this well with the style they used in their videos.

Like stated before the piece feels like a vlog that would be found on a youtube channel with the characters talking to the camera in order to create that friendly bond with the audience. And with this we get the sense that these people are giving us a glimpse into their life but it also becomes apparent that the film makers want the audience to pick up on something by using an edit that consists of an exaggerated zoom and tracking of that object. And this persist through the rest of the series.

The videos carry on going and slowly progress worse and worse showing that something is wrong with the characters as their eyes become redder and redder and their faces become pale. With this being gradual it draws an audience in to wonder what will happen next.

Another thing to mention is the static break up during episode 5 which to an audience makes it seem like Curtis is going insane however through the static you can see that something is infecting them, and this then causes the audience to go back a review the other clips to see if they can piece anything together.

This is an effect way to post a film because for the audience it's a quick form of story telling that feels relaxed. It also is a good way of showing how the character life without breaking the forth wall and then potentially allows an audience participation.

I quite enjoy these as they are their to make you look deeper into the piece and if you randomly came across it I could imagine people would be creeped out.

Here's a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmu6JBK17BzjH0HBjhdUXc2IfrCRQGhcD

Sex Survey Results

Well this is definitely a interesting video that gets the cogs turning, but it's not for the vaint of heart ot anyone who doesn't like gore.

It needs a little bit of explanation before we start, the film creators behind this film since 2008 have been using Garfield to show how unfunny it is. For years people have stated how Garfield is a funny news strip where people say 'you have to imagine the cat saying those things, imagine it's real'. So they did just that.

Skip to 2017 and the film makers put a phone number out their so people would call up to leave their number sexual encounters. And in February of that year a 4:40:51 second piece was created.
And for that 4 hours and 44 minutes the audience is shown the same knock-knock joke consisting of a character sitting reading a news paper, they hear someone knocking at the door. The character approaches and says "Who's there?" with the door opening revealing a mannequin  reading one of the answers from the survey. Door closes and the cycle repeats with a newspaper showing it as a 3 panel comic strip then repeating the process all over again.

This is trying to tell the audience how the same style of jokes are repeated for Garfield and that they have never been funny and by repeating it they will never get better. Of course there are some that are funny but there's only around 10 minutes that can be considered funny.


But at 4:33:58 something else happens, Jon opens the door to see himself. Jon outside tell the Jon inside he's had 2 sexual encounters, He looks back at himself in disgust before smiling and then telling himself "Jon Arbuckle, 0" Closing the door, but instead of going back to the newspaper we're stuck on the other side of the door with the other Jon. The piece here visually changes to something more fitting for a film. The whole house changes to become more realistic showing a real cat staring out of the window. With Jon looking more like his creator, Jim Davis. From the next shots it becomes clear that the character is left unamused and is baffled in what he's seen. We are greeted with a shot of Jim staring into the cat's eyes almost ashamed, but also creating a difference between the two, which is then backed up by the subtle voice over of Jim in an interview he's conducted about how him and Garfield are very different.
In the next few shots, what we see is Jim's distance between himself and reality. The streets are empty and he looks visually drained, he comes across two mannequins that leave him a briefcase. He opens it finding a decaying cat. Personally I believe this is representation him saying that Garfield will never grow out of fashion and will always be around after he's dead due to his "funniest" with the film makers directly showing that it's very much the opposite.

The film takes another shift with it cutting to a desert with Jim navigating up a slop to come across a nude tribal man wearing the same colours as Garfield. Eventually the Tribal man attacks Jim but becoming more like a demon on his shoulders. All of the shots here make it feel empty, but in a good way. It makes the audience feel like nothing is more important but these two characters and they achieve this by mostly using wide or long shots to show the characters and their positions.
John turns to worms and the scene transitions. The scene for me represents how Garfield has and will take over Jim's legacy with the worms representing Jim's death and Garfield looking over his death.

If things we're weird enough then it gets even weirder from here. We cut to a close up of a school girl screaming sitting on the toilet, already the shot make the audience feel too claustrophobic but then we go damn right disgusting as we see the girl give birth into the toilet bowl. She talks in a foreign language, which roughly translates to about her giving birth to a bad thing and asking for forgiveness before leaving. The last shot is the baby covered in blood, utility cord and all sitting in the toilet while a ginger cat is circling it.

Lovely thing to be watching on a Sunday right?

People have been lead to believe that this symbolizes that Jon Arbuckle will never die leaving a bad legacy behind, something that is damaging to Jim and is considers a grave sin.

Things like this I really enjoy, not because of the blood and gore, but because it's something that's really creative and visually weird. I like conventional films too but it's pieces like this that are able to spark a community to talk for hours about one subject pondering what it all means.

Here's a link. (Please if you don't want to be come extremely creeped out or don't like things like gore, don't watch. I'm lowkey regretting watching this)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgmoMO66uPg

I WILL DIE IF I CANNOT BE FAMOUS

This short film is about a man who recalls his story about wanting to become famous, talking about his friends and the aims that he and them want to achieve.

The film itself is a montage of the friends doing various activities. It make them feel like their free doing whatever they want cutting to them being themselves and preforming for the camera to show their best versions. But the narration has a darker undertone with the Marcus the main character talking about how he feels during each situation. It almost feels like everything we see are a visual representation of what the characters want where as the audio is what the characters have, and this contrast is effective because it makes you second question what the characters all think about each other.

Sure the audience sees all of the friends spending all the time they have with eachother, enjoying themselves at the park, however the Marcus' reflection paints a different feeling where the characters a simply using each other for their own benefit.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGMWaMJBDzY

Children of Men - Car Scene

Around the half hour mark into Children of Men, the audience is shown a scene with the characters moving through the countryside. However they are ambushed by tribal like people who block the road ahead resulting in a car chase set inside the car. During this time, a character gets shot, another takes out two bikers using a car door and and we see the getaway with the police pulling the car over to see what's happened.

What makes this scene unique is that it's all a single shot inside the car without any cutting making it a single take shot. The way the film makers achieved this was by creating new vehicle rig that that consisted of a shell of a car with a platform on top so the camera operators and director can stand on top. The Rig itself was was able to move around the car using a ball like axis, along with seats that can move around so the camera isn't restricted. It also pushes the actors to be on their toes all the time because they never know where the camera is because of how it moves about the car so for them they also needed to be very aware of the scene and the actions that are happening in order to be able to give a good reaction.

The effect this gives the audience is a very panicked one, where because of the camera the audience can't gauge how bad the situation is, putting them in with the characters. It almost feels like the audience is in the car with the actors creating a sense of immersion due to the scene having no cutting.When Julian gets shot the sense of space really helps add the sense of lack of space with the characters trying to move in a confined space while tending to one another, while feeling so tight. It's the sense of immersion that the film makers are trying to create that is really helped by the rig system, if they were to shoot something without it they would lose the sense of space because the camera can then move a lot more freely shifting between characters and never feeling like it has it's own place.

However the scene might also be the films biggest disadvantage. Throughout the entire of the film, it's established that the world is a dystopia with the films using a urban setting utilizing grey colours to show how bad the world has become. However this scene is looking quite bright and is almost a complete contrast to what was before and after the film. It almost feels like the film was going for a different style with it feeling like it was going for a bandit attack rather then a terrorist attack giving it more of a mad max feel then a hunger game dystopia. It does however manage to capture the danger of the terrorist and this is then used again during the film half hour of the film showing them in a confined building with bullets swizzling past them.

Link to BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBfsJ7K1VNk

The Smiling Man

A lot of horror films that are released aren't very scary. They mostly consist of lots of darkness, a lot of random crap from characters that don't add anything and then boom the monster comes out of nowhere and tries to scare the characters and audience with a random jumpscare.

Spooky right?

Well 'The Smiling Man' doesn't do any of that. In fact it removes all character dialogue. To start the film we get a nice introduction to where are, with some panning shots to show a very young girl sitting staring at her tv screen, eyes lock on. It is here when we first learn that something is wrong with a shadow moving past the screen which the girl picks up on and goes to investigate. It is here where we get a tracking shot that inching closer to a balloon. As children do they, she goes to investigate picking up the balloon too see a disassembled doll (nice foreshadow to later on.) She spots another balloon with the same small bag attached and we first see the glimpse of our monster, only showing his hand and brushing the child's hair acting like wing. It's smart not to show the audience the monster yet because that way we still feel like us as the audience are endangered with the little girl.

As the girl moves downstairs and into the kitchen, the monsters hair is shown and intises the girl over. Still keeping the audience on edgy the film makers use a high angle over head shot to establish the distance.

Then the reveal.

The girl slowly moves around the counter and the camera pans with her actions revealing a pasty white man staring right down the lens. Instead of having the monster do anything the camera lingers on him preforming weird movements. This is effective because right now we don't know what he's capable of and using shots like these creep us out. Then there's a close up with the man painting blood across his cheeks indicating something is wrong. Then we see what is causing blood to spew out on the floor. The mother.

The end goes well with this piece leaving on a shot with the monster moving his hand towards the girls face ultimately leaving it up to the audience what happens next...

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-eY5S1Nck

Is This Free? (Short Comedy Film)

"Is this free" is a funny comedy short about a man giving various funny responses to people asking if a seat is a available to sit on.

The majority of the shots utilize tight over the shoulder mid shots that are used in a conversation pieces as most of the action are taking place between two characters. This allows the film makers to establish a relationship between the character and to show easily show the reaction of the character that walks into the scene.

It also uses a pull focus where it goes between two characters, this does a good job of highlighting an interaction between characters that you didn't realize were going to interact with. 

One thing that the film does well is it's lighting, you don't really realize it until you look carefully due to it fitting the atmosphere well. The lighting used in the cafe is quite soft orange lighting and at times it feels like a natural sun light is coming through the window leaving a nice white glow on the actors face in places it's supposed to be. For the outdoor scene, the sun is always behind them leaving a nice black lit glow that doesn't overexpose the shot creating a nice aurora around the characters.

This film was really well shot and is worth viewing, not just for the technically but also the humor as well.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxCWB47ZCLQ

PICTURE DAY - a short film

Picture day is about a young girl preparing for picture day at school. Her mum pushes her to look her best ultimately resulting in them both fighting.

It becomes clear in the first few opening shots that the girl is clearly terrified of the day, because to her it's ultimately her trying to impress people she doesn't care about. The piece achieves this by using a mid shot of the girl staring terrified into the camera. This is to represent her looking into a mirror, this is effective because it's an indication to an audience that something is wrong and show her feelings. Mirrors are also used in the car to show emotion with her reflecting with what she's about to do. It a good device to show that there is inner conflict with in herself and the film would have benefited ending with the end shot being a reflecting shot looking back at the house.

One thing that the film suffered from however was the music. It's used to show the 'perfect' life that the mother is living. However it slowly become obnoxious with the sound slowly getting louder and louder until it takes over the majority of the fight scene. The film would benefit more if it would change and quieten down the music so it doesn't take up as much sound so they could add more impact sounds to add more risk to the fight.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tronhPRNM0

Blackbird

Blackbird is about a motorcyclist that wakes up in the middle of nowhere to find a young woman roaming the empty roads. He escorts her to his cabin where he nearly passes out due to a head concussion.

The film does a really good job of building up the feeling of isolation and trying to start to get the tension built up for the audience. The way it does this is by showing the emptiness of their surroundings having a drone shot showing the long road with the absence of anything along it along with the mist that is slowly engulfing them which gives it the feeling of it being like Silent Hill.

One of the problems with this piece is that in the next scene it's established that the biker has a concussion which poses the question, "how did he stay on his bike" which is something that is never explained but oh well.

In the next scene we mostly get a high angle shot looking down on the two characters as one tries to stay awake while the other sings herself to sleep. Instead of changing angles or cutting to the next scene the camera eerily stays in position making the audience feel uneasy as she falls asleep.

However this is where the film starts to go down hill, it starts to show what happened to the girl as she moves through an abandoned building until falling off a ladder and waking up to show us the biker slowly removing his top revealing some scars. Basically all that they built it is slowly disassembled as they don't really explain anything. It did have the guy do a creepy sort of movement but other then that he didn't really do much.

It had potential and all it need to do was to show something that would spook the audience like a ritual or showing that he's a monster. Alas this feel more like a teaser to a film then a full one.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=treWO3ys06g

DON'T LOOK AWAY A Short Film

Don't look away is a short horror film about a two family members seeing a man looking creepy standing in the garden. This 'scary' film has clearly taken inspiration from the creepypasta genre looking at creatures like Slenderman that have taken the internet by storm in 2014.

There's not much to talk about in this film, it uses standard shots and never really puts the audience on edge like it tries to. The acting isn't very good and is very corny feeling like a youtube video made by children back in 2009.

The one thing that the film achieved kinda well was when the monster was in the room and the monster tracked the girl as she moved around the room. This is because the monster never really moves just turns with the camera and it gets a distorted effect giving the feeling that the monster is keeping the character out as it slowly blurs the lens. Only problem is that it's quite anti climatic with the tension ending after she puts tape over her eyes never really building up after that.

To improve they needed to have a a scarier way to show the monster with a different way for it to creep up on them by adding a unique trait that no other monster has.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f3hG-5grlw

The Old Republic: Rescue Mission - (2015) Short Film

Another Star Wars short film, this time set during a period not covered by film. It follows a team trying to rescue a young alien girl from the hands of mercenaries. The majority of the film is action with a firefight taking place for 3/4 of the film until resolved with basically everyone dying.

The film used the classic star wars shots, being a wide pan down from a skyline to establish where we are, then cutting straight to the action of the mercenaries moving through the woods. One of the things to note here was the use of a shallow aperture to create a nice focus on the character, highlighting her as an important character in the piece. However, due to the shallow aperture we get a  very over exposed tree in the background and the rest of the piece suffers along with this where a shallow aperture is used because there are times where there is a massive glow of light resulting in a white spot. But overall it doesn't effect the piece massively because what is in shot is shot nice.

Another thing the film does quite a lot are unstable shots due to the fighting taking place adding the feeling of madness. At times however it doesn't feel right because it the camera is too unstable and feels handheld where a shoulder mount would make it a little bit more stable and easier on the eyes for the audience.

One of the coolest scenes in the film is between the Jedi and Revan during the duel, the scene was an action packed scene consisting of a lightsaber duel. The shots moved with the action giving every hit a more impactful hit. The only issue with the scene is at times it the audience loses the positioning on the characters in the duel with the camera being all over the place.

Overall the film was alright for a fan film, it won a few awards and the Revan reveal was pretty good.

Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLEMLevAMfQ

the weeknd - False Alarm

Directed by the same director as Hardcore Henry, this music video uses the POV perspective to follow the artist weeknd as he and his crew rob a bank then tries to get away. Looking at some of the behind the scene a lot of the people on the video really were passionate about it talking like it's a film instead of a simple music video. It uses a lot of the techniques that were used in Hardcore Henry but it feels a lot more refined as it doesn't try to jam a lot of crazy stunts like Hardcore Henry.
But also being quite a fast piece it doesn't give the audience the same sense of nausea because everything seems more planned and doesn't have the random time skips that the film has.

Another interesting thing was the incorporation of a drone being used as a 'character' to help drive the plot forward. Originally it was planed to use drone shot to establish the situation that the crew were in. But instead it was used as a piece of equipment for the crew in the story flying it out of windows and leaving it on top of the van to use as a camera to allow the weeknd's character to gain more information about the police force. It's a very interesting way to use the drone as then it feels more involved in the world the director is trying to create.

Another interesting thing to note is the amount of special effects used in the piece. Quite a few of the things that weren't expected are VFX which are small things like gloves being added on to character as well as a display for the drone. Without knowing this the audience will be lead to believe that it's all real, so credit to the team for being able to do this. The company which did the VFX posted a small video showing the thought process through them editing the effects on showing little notes of all the things that needed changing, from blood and rubble being added to the removal of lights from the last scene (which is really off putting once you know they were removed).

This type of technology is getting better and better and soon we'll see more pieces created this way.

Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW5oGRx9CLM
BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym1VosDeX8s
BTS VFX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_YsRPI7Img

Ok Go - Upside Down

Another interesting music video by Ok Go has them in a airplane as it hits 0 G where they float about doing various actions on the plane looking very interesting and fun.

In the behind the scene they explained how they managed to shoot the video. To start they did a lot of experimenting with various props spending about a week working with Russia's cosmonaut team testing what fluids and props looked cool when shooting as well as working out what will cause visual chaos. Along with this they also needed to work out how to float in 0G as most people either try to swim resulting in them looking panicked or them throwing up.

After experimenting with their props and getting used to the flight they went straight onto practicing the video due to the small time frame they had to do to shoot. When going into 0G they have only 27 seconds before returning to gravity so in order to shoot the three minute video they broke the video into 8 segments to make the floating look as seamless as they can. So planning and timing was key as they had 5 minutes to get back to 0G's.

Another challenge they had to overcome was how to shoot the song in 27 seconds, as the song was broken into 21 seconds between segments of the song so what they did was to slow the song down by -28.5% while shooting meaning that the band would have to sing in slow motion but when it speed up it would look normal, allowing them to get a lot more out of their 27 seconds of 0G.

It's definitely an interesting video to check out and even more so to watch the BTS.

Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co
BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnTqZ68fI7Q

Ok Go - The One Moment

Ok Go is a band that are always trying to push the boundaries of music videos by trying the impossible. They started out by create a simple but very effective video of them dancing but using treadmills to move themselves around.

But in this music video they set out to show the most important moments in someone's life and tries to replicate that feeling. To show this they shot the majority of a song in just 4.2 seconds. When slowed down it reveals a an amazement of imagery from various paint cans exploding, glass shattering and the destruction of a set with paint everywhere.

This was a pain staking task for them which I believe worked for them, the biggest things for them to get this together were actually three  elements. Planning was the first, each frame was planned out to make sure they can convey the information they wanted to. Because they were recording in such a short amount of time they had to plan very heavily to include all the elements to make this an effective piece.

The other important things were experimenting and practicing, to make sure they could actually preform the task for an entire month they would through trial and error to get things perfect, along with all of the practice they had during that time they managed to get it perfect for the camera.

The best part from the behind the scene in my opinion is the fact that their reactions are genuine. It was the first time they actually keyed all the elements of the music video together so their face are showing their true emotion adding more to the piece.

BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dFdNUz2cQc

Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvW61K2s0tA

Black Mirror (White Christmas)

This episode in my opinion has been one of the best ones I've seen so far. Recalling events of two guilty men as they spend Christmas together. The stories have plenty of twists and turns keeping you as the audience on the edge of your seat even after the show as ended.

The ways they achieve this is by having the two men alone in the room talking without any outside interference locking the audience purely in their conversation. When retelling their story it isn't cut up with random intervals  but waits until a natural break in the story so both characters can give their feedback to each other.

A big thing I enjoyed about this was the POV perspective, like I said in the hardcore Henry I don't thing it's been done to the best it can be, but unlike that film this does it really well by not moving the characters head fast/ using any motion at all. It's really used to show the important details of the story, such as a woman who would later kill a person, or through the eyes of a character to show his connection to his daughter.  It really feels like a new operating system for the eyes with every time that they show the menu it looks sleek and smart something akin to new phone menus thus adding a sense of realism.

It also has a sense of emptiness with the a character's brain chip entering a white egg cell with a vast white room. All of her shots are wide shots but due to her being the only thing of colour in the entire place it then makes it feel like she's the only thing in the cell - i.e her world.

Another thing I enjoyed was the portrayal of the blocking feature, making the character appear as a big grey blob making them terrifying that's intrusive to the world making them feel alien and not having a place to belong in that character's world.

Black Mirror (The Waldo Moment)

This episode is about what happens if we let a mascot like Kermit the frog become a strong political subject that manages to win over a country slowly but surely by basically insulting the competition and saying what the people are saying without any political motive. This is quite scary as it's possible that something like this could happen one day with various polls on places like Reddit already trying to get non political members elected for leaders of a country.

From a film point of view nothing special really happened, I enjoyed the piece because of the subject matter it was handling as well as the whole prospect of a bear who would speak what everyone was thinking. I think the way they handled the moving truck was well executed using an actual screen to show the bear.

Right at the end during the end sequence however the piece goes from it's standard full screen to a widescreen showing a transition of time harboring a blue shift in colour setting a depressing tone, feeling like it's referencing the original Blade Runner.

To be honest I enjoyed this for what it was but I didn't think it was anything special.

Black Mirror (White Bear)

This episode deals with the issues of what to do with people that have committed crimes, by making them repeat a day over and over again with no memory, ending up being tortured and ultimately exposed to the crime they committed and forced to redo the day again.

One of the main things I enjoyed about this episode of Black Mirror was how it effectively used camera position to give the audience a uncomfortable feeling. From the very start the camera uses a close up of the main character but just pushing past her comfort bubble. As well as this the camera likes to linger on her as she does various actions. For example as she moves down the stair and moves towards the sink, the camera stays on one shot as it moves around still feeling extremely close and lingers as she takes a gulp of water. 

This goes on until she comes across another person where the camera still tries to remain close but it's not as effective as when she's by herself. So the rest of the piece feels like a normal film until the end sequence. This is where it's revealed her day to day life but instead of repeating the same shots used in the piece it has the camera positions moved to places like behind a one way mirror or looking at the on lookers and this gives it the feelings like it's showing us a narrative BTS informing the audience how it's all set up in the world. It works because it feels like someone is slipping a camera behind a wall and just shooting what is going on and it really helps the audience understand what's going on. 

Bensplayhouse (starting 2013)

So bensplayhouse is a very interesting project that happened over the course of (2013-2016) which is various recordings each lasting around 30 seconds to form a story, while maybe this isn't a viable way of telling a story, I do believe that it could possible act as an effective promoter because it's snippets of a story which then a community has to work out, which there is a community for it who work towards finding out what it has to tell.

This ARG (Augmented reality game) had the community looking into each clip finding out about a man who was kidnapped while searching an abandoned asylum. The clips each show various actions in a deformed or distorted way accompanied with distorted sounds. This is really creepy because you only have a few seconds to analyse on the first go and it being quite dark too really leaves the mind to speculate.

I want to cover a few more ARG's as each is different and manage to form a community that are there to basically uncover the mystery. This strong dedication could work out well to help advertise but the only problem would be creating a piece that lives up to the mystery. A project like marble hornets is a good example of how longer and more frequent piece slowly damage the ARG because as people became more fixated, the more the creators tried to push new ideas that ultmiatly damaged it's fan base by forgetting previous story arcs and going completely off the ball.   

Ben's Playhouse :https://www.youtube.com/user/bensplayhouse/videos

Annihilation (2018)

Annihilation is about a science team that goes into a bubble that has started to consume the world. Once inside they realize that DNA is being changed, changing all forms of life to become either plan matter or horrid creatures. The story follows Lena as she ventures through the hellish landscape as she reaches the light house which was the point of origin of the phenomena.

The film isn't anything special in my opinion, it has a very cliche story with some boring at time scenes that is just the characters arguing with each other as they stand around the forest.

One of the notable things about the film is once they enter the bubble the whole film gets a warm pint tint like they are inside a actually bubble that is detached from our world, and this has made me think more about artistic styling for a location. If something is a certain way how do I replicate that or if there is a style I want to create making sure I stick to that without losing the desired effect.

The other thing I thought was cool was the alien shown at the end, initially starting out as a form of starts then becoming a compact eye looking shape where it becomes like a kaleidoscope, this is cool because unlike most alien creatures it isn't nessarily a formed creature but instead an alien entity creating some stunning visual effects.

I'd rate it like a 6/10 maybe that a bit too generous but I really liked the alien scene even if it might of dragged a bit.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OP78l9oF0

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

20 Years on, Mark Renton decided to return home, hook up with old friends and you guessed it. Gets back on drugs.

Carrying on from my Trainspotting blog, T2 in my opinion can't be compared to trainspotting due to the style it goes for, instead of focusing on Renton, T2 lacks the narrative voice over and is more like a conventional film that follows lots of different stories, giving the film a very different vibe.

One of the things I enjoyed about the film was how they reflected shots out of the old film by either recreating the shot with the new setting or showing the scene play out with a character reflecting on it, each giving it's own feeling.

Recreating the scene implies that the characters are reforming to their old ways showing the audience that they will go into a similar character arc to what they had in the previous film ultimately reforming back to their drug habits also creating a form of nostalgia for the characters so they can reflect on it later in the film.

Something that I think is more effective on the other hand is showing the scene play out, because unlike the characters looking happy about it, it generally looks like they have lost something from back then and they are trying to find out what made them that happy. For example there is a shot where spud is walking back home, where he stops in the same alley where he and Renton 20 years prior were caught by the police which was shown in the first film. However instead of cutting back to a close up showing Spud looking nostalgic, instead he looks lost and feels distant from that memory.

I think that just like the original, that this film still manages to define a generation. What i'm talking about is how the characters react during the film still acting like teens, but in the modern age. But more importantly is the speech Renton makes in both films. The choose life speech in the original stood out because it helped define the 90's generation, where the teens were rebellious and did whatever they wanted, using choose life a mock from 90's adverts where they would say to stay away from rebellion and choose your future. But eerily manner the speech he does in this film reflects the present day where people are more concerned with what on their phones and how to harm each other online, and I think this is where the two differ. Where the speech in the 90's was about living how you want, Renton in present day isn't talking about living how you want but instead living in the present and absorbing the things around you and this is where you can see how the 20 years away from the others has developed his character.

Also another thing I liked about the film which is really weird is the lack of closure from the characters. It feels like Renton may or may not go back to the old days. Sick Boy hasn't changed but it can go two ways, either a owner of a business or a rapid decline into drugs, Spud yet so far in the film having a somewhat successful book in the works but you don't know if that's enough to help him out. With Bigby its only a matter of time before he does something batcrap crazy taking someone out. The only person with somewhat of a solid ending is Veronika who leaves with a big chunk of money leaving the boys to go back to her own family help them out. This for me doesn't sit right because everyone else doesn't get a happily ever after which a some deserve. I think that everyone else got grey endings where it feels like real life not knowing the way the wind blows. Where she gets her perfect end.

Link to scene with spud : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UFpuctFlp4
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsozpEE543w

Hardcore Henry (2015)

Hardcore Henry is an interesting film not because it has a good story or interesting character development. But because it's one of the first main stream films that are shot for a VR experience. Now I didn't watch it in VR instead I watched it in the 1st person perspective but from what I've heard its not a very good experience, making the audience feel sick and disorientated. But this film was the first of its kind being classed as and experimental first person film. I think as film makers we still have along way to go with this kind of technology, but we are learning.

The director Ilya Naishuller went on to shoot a music video for the Weeknd being false alarm where it feels like they've improved using it but not mastered.

There's some BTS to accompany the film, mostly showing the technology, and the way they shot it was with a massive head mount that wrapped around the head like a box that had a go pro attached with it. One of the limitations of this was that the actors that were wearing the mount would have to extend their arms further and exaggerate their movements because the go pros can't get as close to the eyes as they wanted due to restricting their vision. This coupled with the wires that the actors would use to preform stunts would really endanger the actors, and for the audience would mess up their sense of surroundings.

In fact there's a point where shooting a chase scene one of the actors fell on top of an actress sending her face first down an escalator, where everyone thought she had serious damage. Luckily she got up and brushed herself off and said she was fine. This made it into the film because on the camera it was really good, but outside that was really dangerous.



I think it will be a good while before we will see a film created well in VR but we are making progression with VR projects like lazer tag which will help the development of VR later down the line.

Link To Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96EChBYVFhU
Link To BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz3_57Y7ju0

BTS on Oliver Tree - Hurt

Oliver Tree has recently become one of my favorite artists, and towards the end of 2018 he released a music video for his song 'Hurt' which involves some crazy things, like driving a tank down a main road, jumping off a roof and creating part of the worlds largest scooter so he can be positioned on it like Jesus on the cross. Also to accompany this is the BTS for the production as well as the storyboard/previs.

From the previs you get a to see the clear understanding of what they wanted to shoot, and from it I can see why it's so important to get it done, one so everyone on set knows what they have to shoot, from camera positions, camera movement as well as what they want in the scene so the production team can prepare props and equipment to create it. Thus on the shooting day everyone will have a clear idea of what needs to be done.

The BTS is created in a mockumentary style with Oliver creating a fictional character that he plays. But it does show some truths, such as one car crashing into another during shooting, or not being able to use the tanks for the time they want to.
One of the things I took from the BTS is that even though you can prepare somethings you can't prepare for and that you need to be able to adapt and change in case things don't go according to plan, other things I learnt was things that I didn't know how they did it, such as the decapitated head was him wearing a green suit and edited in post and falling off the building involved a massive crane with massive wires dangling him down.

Music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpnbSFprB4
Storyboard/previs : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtjdwBqVoLk
BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkYzgeVkI1A

Metal Gear Solid 3 - Boss' Death

Throughout Metal Gear Solid 3 it becomes apparent that there is a strong connection between the Boss and Snake. To sum up the story fast. A Russian scientist wants to defect to the USA however when snake is sent in to rescue the scientist he is stopped by his former mentor the Boss and is thrown off a bridge. The Boss defects to the Soviet Union and hands over 2 nukes one being fired over the lab. Snake is sent back into the jungle to rescue the scientist, stop a mech tank and take out the boss.

During the final minutes of the game Snake and The Boss finally have one last confrontation where Snake manages to take down The Boss resulting in one of the best cinematic cut scenes in a video game. The Boss explains that she never betrayed the USA and that only he would know that because the USA would want to cover up that she really was a double agent. She tell him she needs to kill her. The camera cuts to a over the head wide shot of Snake pointing the gun at her as she's surrounded in Zephyranthes, the shot only last for a few seconds however it feels like a life time as you understand the connection between the two. The gun fires, snake lowers his gun and the shot fades to black reopening on a wide shot on his level as the petal from the Zephyranthes start to float away, cutting back to high angle shot with the flowers reacting to her death by turning crimson red.

This is really effective because instead of just having a quick gun shot with possibly a reaction shot it drags the scene out to show Snake's inner conflict and regret for the action he's about to commit. Along with the nature around them changing as a result to her death really shows how impactful her death is.

Here's a Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFFkV7Zlds&t=110s

After Life (2019)

This is a TV show about a man going through the loss off his life, becoming cynical, suicidal, and very sarcastic.

I like this show pretty much because it has some amazing dark comedy moments as well as some pretty out-standing sarcasm.

The reason I'm doing a blog post on this is because it had one transition that I though worked really well where the main character closes a locker and then transition to another door that wings the opposite way to reveal a character walking through a door. This is effective because it's a creative way to tie one scene to another without a fade to black or sudden cut away to something else. The show does this multiple times with various objects to transition the scene, moving with a car as it turns a corner to become a different one changing the location and time to show the passage of time.

But other then that the show doesn't do any special, the thing that keeps you hooked is the dark comedy and the realism of the situation that the character is going through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIGGKSHMQOM

Trainspotting (1996)

Trainspotting unlike what the name suggests is about heroin use. In fact the reason it's called Trainspotting in the first place was used as also most a code phrase indicating to what a person would be doing.

Like said before this film is about the use of heroin following the chracter Mark Renton (played by Ewan Mcgregor) as he deals with his life hooked on heroin and betraying his friends. Unlike most films, to me this feels like what drugs could be like while taking them. It's got lots of wavy shots that are there to disorientate people for example the shot of Mark slowly diving into the toilet to end up in an ocean only to swim back up.

Where most films tell their story by showing the characters doing, I would say around 65% of this has a voice over of Mark telling the audience what is going through his mind, making it feel more like a book or a Vlog and we get a real deep understanding of the character. Because of this the film is primarily focused around him more then anyone else, following his story and his experience. (Unlike T2) this does something very unique for the audience because by hearing what he's thinking and ultimately doing for us it ultimately tell us that we are seeing the good guy in the film, making 'positive' decisions. However, his choices are shitty and are not good at all. I don't think many people realize this because of how the film goes about it. It tries to justify what the character is doing by the telling the audience exactly what's going through is mind.

Another thing I like is how it doesn't stray away from things that would normally be kept out of a film, going into subjects like the loss of a child, the decline of mental health until the loss of a person, underage sex showing it in full nudity and the desperation of man looking for his next fix. A lot of people said when this film came out that it was that it glorified drug use, but personally I think it does the opposite, It's not just the Mark telling the audience not to do it as well as him showing how he tried to get out of it, but its the use of the themes to show the audience the consequences.

And the scene where the parents of mark lock him in his room is a truly terrifying experience for both him and the audience. It does a really good job of making the room feel like an endless suffer experience showing everything that is damaging in his life slowly attack him. With a creepy baby crawling towards him.

I really enjoyed this film, I'll be making a post on T2 but I don't think you can compare them to each other because of how different the stylistic choice is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LuxOYIpu-I

Captain Marvel (2019)

So there was a lot of negativity circulating on both YouTube and other reviewing sites like rotten Tomatoes, so I reluctantly went in with low expectations but I really enjoyed this film.

There was a few places where the I thought the CGI was a bit bad and it was slow paced to start however it really picks up and gets better after the half way point.

One of the biggest things I liked about the film is how it suggests something and directly tells the audience but using one of it's characters it to act like the voice of the audience tries to counter act that. Eventually actually showing the audience that we are wrong but doing it in a funny way.

As well as this there is a scene that is full of a thick mist towards the start of the film using mostly a POV shot from the sniper's POV or tight close ups. This conveys to the audience that everything is going to start to become worse and the situation will spiral out of control which it does resulting in lots of fast shots showing the action taking place.

I loved the ship shots that are used as they feel like a Star Wars dog fight. It was primarily a singular wide shot where you could see both ships as the camera moves around showing who's got the advantage at the time. It would cut between mid shots from the pilot seats too just to show how the pilots are feeling in that situation.

I don't want to spoil anything more, but it's good, and really funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LHxvxdRnYc

Don't Breathe (2016)

Don't Breathe is a horror films about 3 thieves that break into a blind war veteran's house in an attempt to steal the small fortune the man is sitting on.
I wasn't a fan of this film, it felt slow paced and would work better as a short film due to it all being set in a small house, this would make it more effective because everything would be moving a lot faster and you would always be on edge as the tension rises.
Another thing I didn't like was the use of darkness, it doesn't make sense in the film because the neighborhood is empty meaning nobody was around, and the camera gets punished at times because it's way too dark to see at times.

But there is one good thing that came out of that, and that would be the blind scene. Around about a 3/4 into the film there is scene where the blind man manages to hit a switch to turn off the power creating a pitch black room so two of the characters can't see. This is where the audience along with the characters loses where they are in the room. When the camera turns back on we get a night vision scene where the characters are frantic searching for each other. It switches shots on the regular and is constantly moving keeping the audience on edge.

But that was all I really liked about the film, I know the others who I was viewing this with had very different opinions, so this might be me not being scared at it.

Here's the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yBTNDB6vU