I Love Movies!!!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Motivated Camera Movements

There were two different scenes from Fast and Furious that I thought showed great motivational elements. I this movie because one it's one of my many favorites and two they had/have an excellent DP. Every shot tells its own story. You could probably watch this without sound and know what is going on just by the different shots. In this clip there are a lot of tracking shots, maybe one or two dolly shots, and one jib shot.

Maybe a jib shot off the roof or a building.

Glide Track shot

Dolly Shot

Another Dolly. (This shot is meant to be a p.o.v.)

Monday, July 16, 2012

Terminator Salvation Scene Analysis

Terminator Salvation was released in 2009. A brief synopsis of this movie if you haven’t seen it is pretty simple. A place called Skynet has basically destroyed the human race in what they call a “nuclear holocaust.” There are only a few survivors called the “Resistance” who are led by John Connor.

FULL SCENE:
The scene I chose is one of my personal favorites. This scene is titled “Marcus meets Kyle Reece.” (click below to watch)

This first shot gives us Marcus’ p.o.v. with him being placed in the left hand corner following the rule of thirds as he looks into this desolate world. This would be an establishing wide shot from a higher angle to get the vast empty feeling. In the top left of this frame shows the sunlight settling on one side of his body while the other half of the frame appears very gray and dark. Representing a world of death and despair. Also notice the contrast between the grayish skyline and his forest GREEN jacket. This jacket almost looks like something someone in the army would wear.

The second sequence is a medium close up of Marcus also in the left side of the frame with the desolate background out of focus behind him. In this shot there is hardly any sign of sunlight because he is now in the valley and it is beginning to get dark. Besides his skin tone his jacket tends to blend in with the isolated gray background. This medium close up lets us know that he is seeing something in the distance, but is uncertain what the subject is. Also in this scene there is absolutely no sound, until he decides to call out to the subject.

We then have an over the shoulder with the subject in the right side of the frame looking down the deserted street at Marcus’ ant like shape. This particular shot seems to be more open than where Marcus is standing because you can see the sunlight gently lighting this figures forehead.

I noticed in this shot that the colors are more metallic than dark grays and green, I assume this was to go along with the color of the terminator’s appearance. This again is also an establishing shot, because now we see what this figure is; a terminator. We clearly see that this machine is designed to kill anything that does not resemble him.

We get an extreme close up of the gun that the terminator is carrying and how it is very black compared to the lit rumble that is out of focus in the background. The dark black color of the gun could symbolize termination.

Still a close up of the gun only now we see bright fire like ammunition as it begins to shoot at Marcus.

The repercussions of the gunshot. Dirt and smoke fill the picture giving a bomb like look to the scequence. And now there is no sunlight it is back to the dark area where Marcus is standing.

Now we are on ground level with a close up shot of the terminators feet. This gives the feeling of being crushed like a small ant under the machines feet. When he walks over a small skull in the road we are show how heavy is stance is by the skull being crushed to many pieces.

The music has picked up to make you feel suspenseful. With the Machine being caught in a trap and pulled up from the ground his body is stretched out giving him that perfect sweet spot from the top of the frame to the right of the frame. His figure is very black to stand out from the background.

Once the Machine hits the ground the camera zooms in for an extreme close up of his face giving us a very intimidating reflection. We are now able to see that the Machine if very angry and that it is wearing a green tattered military vest. This vest is about the same color of the jacket Marcus is wearing.

In this sequence it cuts away to Kyle Reece and Marcus taking safety. With the framing they chose here it appears they are diving into an abandoned building that is completely dark with the exception of them coming from outside. The shape of this shot is almost a pentagon with the exception of the right side of the frame not being completely symmetrical.

This movie is so AWESOME!!! The music behind this trailer made me want to see this movie!! If you haven't seen it, you must!!!

http://youtu.be/ktUms4Wn1xc

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Visual Style

My visual style? Honestly I didn’t know what this really was so I did as everyone else in this century did. I “googled” it. I began by searching under visual style, and when nothing grabbed my attention I moved on to a different phrase. “Compelling images,” and that’s when I saw my visual style. I discovered that I love images that are crystal clear on an object that you wouldn’t normally see and everything in the background is out of focus. Those are my favorite kind of photos. Yes they might be overrated, but I think those are the most moving kinds of images and I want to learn how to take these compelling images myself. I also came across photos that are frames within frames. These types stand out to everyone, but again I want to have an eye for capturing these types of photos. It takes a true artist to see these and the pictures sell their selves. The third type of photos that have me amazed are the pictures that have a specific object completely black and outlined infront of a sunset. This type of picture makes it seem that there is a cookie cutter within the frame. It’s an amazing style to have. I’m glad I was assigned this post so now I can begin to visualize and keep my eyes open when trying to capture beautiful photography.

Goals, skills, and Everything Else

I first began writing movie scripts when I was in 6^thgrade. From then on I knew I wanted to do something with movies. I used describe writing these scripts as if I were already watching it live. Movies are my passion and my life. I would be very content with watching movies all day if only I could get paid to so.

One of my top goals is to become very familiar with many different types of cameras and know everything there is about what I can do with them. Over the summer I had the opportunity to be on set of an R & B music video that gave me the feel of what it would be like in production. I am not quite sure that production is exactly the track I want to take, but I do enjoy this side of film. At the beginning of the summer I took a class called Digital Storytelling where we basically got to create a small documentary type film. I really enjoyed doing this part of production because it was my story and my vision entirely. I also enjoy editing, however I don’t believe that editing is my main track I want to do either. I really just love doing a little bit of everything and learning how it all works and what all you can do with resources that you have.

One of my favorite things that I have learned so far is how to analyze the different aspects of movies. I find it very interesting about the rule of thirds, and the reasoning behind why they do certain things with the shots. I also like learning how to look for things they sneak into a movie to make you have a certain kind of emotion.

In conclusion if I still continue to be indecisive, I know for sure that I would want to be a film critic, screenwriter or a movie trailer editor. Those would be my three main goals as of right now.