Month: March 2010

Joey Brennan

When to Move the Camera
This article tells you a little about the early history of film making and why directors did not move the camera. Most directors did not move the camera in there films because they thought it would make it confusing for people to follow the story line. It is very obvious now that it is very important to have camera movements in your movie, short film, montage, or whatever you may be doing. Of course there are exceptions.
They describe a James Bond film and how the tilt shot is used effectively. This shot allows the viewer to see every foot of his decent. After he leaps they are able to use a number of cameras so you see every foot of his fall. In this article they will tell you about a number of different shots that you can use to really help the effects of your film. One shot that stood out to me that James Cameron is also a fan of is called the Pedestal. They use an example in the terminator where Arnold goes into a bar and takes someones clothes. you do not see him physically take the clothes but it when he is walking outside all you see is his boots. The camera slowly pans up showing you his full attire. An outstanding but very hard to do shot which is called the “zolly.” This shot which Steven Spielburg used in the popular movie jaws allows the character or object to stay in place while the background is moving closer or getting farther away. To do this effect the zoom and the movement must be perfectly nsync. You zoom in while moving the dolly backwards or vice-versa.
This article was very interesting and I actually learned a good amount of new shots.

Hey y’all, Chris Balcer here again. Just because I can’t talk, doesn’t mean I can’t blog. Anyway, let’s get to it.
You’ve all undoubtedly run into the issue of not having enough space. Whether it’s an iPod, a mini DV tape, a computer’s hard drive, or your own head, you’ve had storage issues before relating to not having enough space. Well, these guys say that’s not a bad thing. Storage limitations create boundaries. You try to be more concise, more efficient, more competent at using what limited space you have. However, with some new inventions like the Flip Video, you literally never run out of space. The thing offloads all the video you shoot onto some parallel plane of infinite storage capacity simply known as “The Cloud”. (The Internets are completely unhelpful in this regard, as well. I still have no idea what “The Cloud” is specifically.) Anyway, this infinite amount of space available for as little as $130 for the common man is actually detrimental to the video industry. People are getting lazier with what they edit out, and home-made films are getting longer and longer, with no actual meaningful content being added. This leads to an oversaturation of media, and… well, nothing really good comes of that. So remember, keep your content meaningful, keep it simple, and keep it short. That way, you can use the infinite supplies of storage space wisely.

All righty, time for another amazing review of a movie. I’m sure you are all familiar with H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Well, this is the most recent video adaptation of it, at least that I’m aware of. Anyway, it starts out with Tom Cruise and two whiny kids hanging out with him (their separated dad.) So while that’s happening, there’s this weird storm, and something cool falls to Earth. It falls in multiple places, too. What could it be? Gold? Transformers? Health care? No! In fact, it’s a bunch of killer tripod robots, manned by aliens. (They are not from Mars, read the wiki.) They start laz0ring everybody, and woe and despair fills all. Mr. Cruise and bratty kids try to escape to Boston, but are defeated by an angry mob tearing their car apart. The bratty boy goes running off with the army to help die, and the bratty girl goes with Mr. Cruise to continue to Boston to get to mom. They encounter a few more surprises (which I won’t ruin for you), and then eventually reach the end, yay, happy ending. It actually followed the book somewhat well, I thought. I mean, it stayed within the general plot lines. But whatever.
The effects and camera work were fantastic (It’s Steven Spielberg here), and I thought that the fact that people got blasted into little bits of dust by a giant laz0r was AWESOME. (Also the part with Tom freaking out that he was covered in dust and that dust was people made me laugh). I give it a 4 out of 5, mainly because the bratty kids wouldn’t stop whining.

It is the Vietnam war, American citizens are creating an outcry for peace and the army/government refuses to yield. Meanwhile, our young men drafted from across the U.S. are dieing to guerrilla warfare, in battles that are almost meaningless to our country. This is a prelude to Full Metal Jacket, written by Stanley Kubrick.
As the movie begins Joker, Pyle, Animal Mother, Rafterman, etc… are all attempting to make it through the USMC boot camp. However, they are quickly taken to Vietnam to help support our troops out there. Fraught with danger, they are dropped down and entered in with the Tet Offensive, making their way through I.E.D.’s, snipers and guerrilla fighters.
Throughout this, instead of a sense of excitement and adrenaline packed fight scenes, you actually get a feeling of depression as you slowly see a platoon of men getting slowly decimated for a cause which none of them really understand. Then we see Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s predictions come to life, as he trains and leads them throughout the movie he foresees Pyle as being one of the best marines to be. Pyle lives up to most expectations as he starts becoming in himself a deadly weapon of war. However Joker seems to be a slight let down as he is afraid to act when the time comes where he is needed.
Now we find ourselves entering the second section of this two-part film. Joker then takes the lead roll yet again, as we delve into his personality and reasons for joining the Marine Corps. He describes how he wanted to be a killer, but when he was tossed head over heals into the Tet Offensive, he finds it difficult to kill another live human being. In total he must decide if he is the killer he wanted to be.
Reverting back to the Marine Corps. Training we see Pyle and Joker as they progress from untrained, unskilled men into somewhat fighting machines. Pyle is shown as being a slightly obese and very simple minded man, screwing up throughout boot camp, Pyle is then assigned as his tutor. Although this does help for a short time, It all comes to a head when group discussions and help turn into abusive sessions, where Pyle is the target.
Overall this movie is a great piece of American film and all should watch it. If you “enjoyed” Platoon, this movie is another good watch for you. Personally I would give it a 4/5 and I must say I am impressed how much it did affect me since I watched it for the first time around five years ago.

The other night, I was with some friends and we decided to watch The Island. I hadn’t seen that movie in ages, and I forgot how much I loved it. Now that I’ve been watching movies with a critical eye, I knew that I might not like it as much.

Simply put, the movie has some amazing shots and effects, but the dialogue makes it suffer. If I can predict what the actors are going to say before they say it, something’s wrong there. I was able to do that multiple times. But there’s a lot of cool angles and breathtaking shots, so that makes up for some of it.

This isn’t going to affect my overall rating, but can I just say this: Scarlett Johansan has the voice of a MAN! You’d think that she was meant to be the male lead, not Ewan McGregor! We had so much fun just mocking her screams and whatnot.

I give The Island a 7 out of 10 for its cool effects, shots, and action sequences – the dialogue was almost painful to listen to.

Samstar

So here’s the standard weekly update. I also want to try to do a review every week… so I’ll get to that later this week. When I don’t have a chem quiz and an english quiz tomorrow. 😀 

Last week, Anna and I began putting raw footage to the music to see roughly what it will look like. When the weather cooperates, we will continue to shoot happy scenes of “The Good Life” because a rain storm doesn’t showcase a “Good Life.”  Anna also put together a scene with the mantel/moving picture and it looks really cool!

Whoever thought of this music video was rather smart and knew their art history. I found this video very very amusing, and also genius. The paintings might not be all familiar to you, but you might crack a smile while watching it.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.