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