bringomcstingo-blog

[bringomcstingo-blog]

‘The Room’

The room

Directed by the ever infamous Tommy Wiseau ‘The Room’ is what I could only describe as a ‘So bad that it’s good’ film and probably one of the best of its kind.

The film starts off with the most uncomfortable sex scenes that I have ever witnessed; I was alone when watching the film again in preparation for this review but it felt like I was watching Tommy Wiseau wiggle and writhe around on top of the poor actress Juliette Danielle Worden (Lisa) while my Parents, Grandparents and Great Grandparents were breathing down my neck. Not only that this unfortunate display of ‘sexuality’ goes for far too long it honestly felt like I was watching it for 10 minutes. And that is only the opening to the movie; I mean it sure does grab your attention. The plot of this film is confusing at the worst of times and utterly boring and predictable at the best, the best way I can describe this odyssey is; there is a love triangle between Johnny (Tommy) his soon to be wife (Lisa) and Johnny’s best friend (Mark). One day Lisa just all of a sudden gets bored of Johnny, and starts to fall in love with Mark for whatever reason. All at the same time Johnny is under the impression that Mark is definitely not sleeping with his soon to be wife.

To talk about the camera work and editing, boring and formulaic, what really shines in this film however is the dreadful performances the main offender being Tommy Wiseau himself. Every line he utters with his very confusing accent sent me into a fit of laughter and amazement I never once thought that something intended to be taken seriously could be this funny. And almost every line in the film is ADRed nothing sounds natural in a acting sense and a location sense too it sounds like he recorded the audio in a room which is absolutely not fit for audio recording. There are so many dull colours in the set and in the costumes, there was clearly no thought put into it at all. Every shot, every angle and every set is an offence of grey, dark blue and black completely dulling my senses to the point of sleep. There are many things about this movie that make no sense at all the, characters are not at all believable and their motivations and ideals sometimes just flip flop around for no apparent reason. None of the characters feel like real people they more feel like what an alien thinks real people are and how they behave.

Now with all the bad things that I have to say about this film you would think that I hate it and I would rather watch paint dry than sit through it again but you would be very wrong. I love this film from the bottom of my heart no irony. Tommy Wiseau clearly made this film with a strong passion for acting, writing and film making and it never ceases to give me the biggest smile on my face every time I sit down to enjoy it all over again. Tommy looks like he was having so much fun being a ‘big shot actor/film maker’ so much that it just shows in the film and there is always something new that I discover about it every time I watch it. I love the film ‘The Room’ with a passion and I could not recommend it more, it should be taken as a lesson; one how not to film a film and two how to film a film. It should go without saying at this point that the film making is terrible, everything is boring to look at and it is laughable when it tries to take it self seriously, but there is such a passion behind it that I simply can’t ignore it.

[bringomcstingo-blog]

Living in Oblivion

Living in oblivion is an unapologetic take on the film industry and Hollywood as a whole, nothing is subtle and everything that happens is a slap in the face for the audience. I think that we have just grown accustomed to the story that Hollywood is a place full of fantasy, wonder and happiness but in reality it is just that, reality. Living in oblivion doesn’t follow your typical storytelling blueprint it instead follows a three part structure with its biggest smack in the face being the ‘it was all a dream’ cliché which honestly I thought was very funny. I believe that living in oblivion showed the complete dichotomy of the film industry, one side being people’s dreams and aspirations clashing with the deadlines, money strains and usual bull shit that happens.    

[bringomcstingo-blog]

Costume Week 6

As I am doing a scene from the film ‘Birdman’ where the character I am playing is a girl we had to slightly change the character to better suit what we were doing. The character originally was a depressed girl who is an actor, so we changed it to a depressed male actor who is gay. I thought that because the character is an actor he would be a bit eccentric so I went looking in my closet for some wild and colourful button up shirts and finally settled on a very vibrant green Hawaiian button up that is a few sizes too big. For the bottoms I just wore some black shorts and converse. So why did I choose to wear a loud shirt? It is not just because he an eccentric gay actor but because he is trying to hide his sadness with a fun and bright shirt in hopes to distract people form the fact that he has some serious issues going on and is not coping well at all.    

[bringomcstingo-blog]

Reflection  on the shooting process

So the shooting process for me was quite the stressful one. The day that I was supposed to film my scene (from ‘Birdman’) got rained on, so we couldn’t even set up anywhere as the wind and rain was too loud even if we were under cover. We obviously had to re-schedule and that meant a change in location too. Instead of being at the back of our theatre, where no one goes and there is no noise we had to film on a balcony of an apartment. Unfortunately for the crew and I the wind was particularly bad that day but as our sound system wasn’t working properly we couldn’t tell just how bad the wind was. As for my performance I thought I did pretty well even with the wind blowing in my eyes and stuff, but that doesn’t really matter now as we have to re-schedule again and film in our own time. Something that surprised me during the filming process was that after a while you don’t even notice that there is a big ol’ camera right in your face because going in that was my main concern. Hopefully for next time luck will be on our side and we won’t have to re-schedule as many times as we did. I still had a lot of fun though helping out the other shoots being the boom operator for them, I found it actually quite interesting how close I could get to the other actors with the boom and still b out of shot, having to duck and wiggle around. All in all I have learnt a lot about what really goes in to shooting a scene and just how much fun it can all be, for actors and crew...I just need more luck i suppose.

[bringomcstingo-blog]

Films that I like (2)

Wanted (2008)

[bringomcstingo-blog]

!MONOLOGUE!

So in class for an assignment we had to prepare and perform a monologue from a movie of any choice, the only requirement is that it can only be at least 1 minute long. My choice of monologue was from a movie called ‘SLC PUNK’  written and directed by James Meredino. In this film, Steve-O played by Matthew Lillard is a disgruntled young punk who lives in Salt Lake City Utah. 

I preformed a scene in which Steve-O is being talked to by his parents and he finally snaps back at them with an unrelenting tirade, dismantling their points and views one by one. 

I am a very nervous person in general, so when I performed in front of a camera for pretty much the first time with all the lights and eyes on me i got a bit tense and that really came through with my first try. My second attempt which is the one we looked at in class on a big projector was slightly better in that aspect, but I was still tense as anything. The feedback that I received from that attempt is honestly very helpful, first I was told to calm down a bit, that the tense energy could work and did work in some parts but I need to control it and use it to my advantage rather than let it control me. The other bit of feedback that I received was I should try stillness, don’t move around as much and just let the emotion come through my eyes and the way that I say each line instead of gesturing too much. Overall I thought my performance could’ve been so much better, but now I know what I need to to in order to get better and continue on and such.     

[bringomcstingo-blog]

Films that I love (1)

[bringomcstingo-blog]

F I L M! what do I want to do? (1)

I question I need to ask myself is “What do I hope to achieve studying film?” I did do ‘Film and T.V.’ all throughout high school so I do have somewhat of an understanding of film theory, shot types, Camera angles and stuff like the 180 rule. But that is just pretty basic stuff, what I want to get out of this course is to have a much better understanding and appreciation of just what goes into making a film, every aspect from lighting, to hiring actors, how to use a camera to its fullest potential and just how I can be a better actor for the screen. I think that adjusting from theatre acting which need as much movement and ‘bigness’ as possible to the more internal and sometimes very subtle and nuanced style of acting for the screen. I am honestly very excited to see how I’ll be able to do that, if I can do it. But I am very excited to finally understand just how a film works and just what goes into making one good or bad, I do not want to just be an actor I’m also interested making my own films and telling my own stories through film. It is so important for an actor to actually understand just how much work happens behind the camera and even how much work happens after filming. I feel like a lot of actors have no idea what’s happening while they are talking in front of a camera. So what do I want to get out of this course? I want to be able to understand film making and the artistry that goes into making a film. I want to be able to act for the screen and adjust better from theatre. Yep I can’t wait to see what happens.