#lectureba2a

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Film Language - 01/11/20 - Steven Spielberg’s Approach to Both Films

Today with my approach to the research for the essay, I decided I would focus on Steven Spielberg and his look on my two films as the title I currently have for the essay is ‘How does Steven Spielberg tackle film language in a chase scene in ‘Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’ and ‘Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark’. Because of this, I wanted to look at interviews both video and text to see if there was any reflection or film-making that Steven wanted to achieve in those films and how I feel add to the chase scenes for my essay.    

I started with watching interviews on him discussing ‘Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark’ where the AFI interview has him talk about the Indiana Jones character being this vulnerable guy that’s tough as nails on the outside but is incredibly soft-hearted inside which I feel is communicated in his chase scene as there’s a bit where him and a Nazi are laughing over a guy that landed on the hood of the tuck and got flinged away only for that laughter to lead to Indy throwing him out of the truck. To me, that communicates his softer side as he would of continued to attack the Nazi in the truck if he was so persistent on trying to get rid of him but more so uses that softness to his own advantage. Continuing on with the Indiana Jones character, the actor ‘Harrison Ford’ apparently wanted to punished as much as possible in the movie to show he wasn’t this unstoppable force in the film and he’s only human which I feel Steven took advantage of when it came to the chase scene as you have him injured in the truck from gun fire as well as having to be dragged across the ground to get back onto the truck which Steven uses the composition and music of those scenes to highlight this.   

With the Tintin video interview research,  there wasn’t too much I could find on the film as it doesn’t have the same cult following compared to ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. However in one of the interviews I watched, Steven mentions how much so he respects any opinion on his films which is why he doesn’t give too much input on the film language he’s trying to convey in his films. This is probably why it’s so challenging to find him openly speak out about film language in his films because of this fact which I genuinely like as it allows us to openly think about his movies without him saying this is meant to represent this.             

Steven Spielberg on RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK                    

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - Interview by TheaterLive

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson 'The Adventures of Tintin' Full Interview

Steven Spielberg Interview for THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

After the video interviews I found, I looked more into some more written interviews if there was anything else he may of added to the films just in case. Reading the vanity Fair interview with Steven Spielberg on his films (inculding ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark), he further speaks about the Indiana Jones character and essentially re-confirms what I’ve been saying above in this post.

 ‘...the willingness to allow our leading man to get hurt and to express his pain and to get his mad out and to take pratfalls and sometimes be the butt of his own jokes. I mean, Indiana Jones is not a perfect hero, and his imperfections, I think, make the audience feel that, with a little more exercise and a little more courage, they could be just like him. So he’s not the Terminator’.

But something new that I found in the interview was how Steven goes about giving clarity with his action sequences which I found to be so useful towards the chases scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ as he talks about getting the geography of the area make it as clear as possible where everything is in that scene so your not lost in the audience and it isn’t a series of quick cuts which is exactly what I’ve been looking at.

‘No, I don’t go for that. I go for geography. I want the audience to know not only which side the good guy’s on and the bad guy’s on, but which side of the screen they’re in, and I want the audience to be able to edit as quickly as they want in a shot that I am loath to cut away from. And that’s been my style with all four of these Indiana Jones pictures’

With Tintin, I found actually one helpful source of info that I could use towards my chase scene where Steven takes a large amount of inspiration from classic film noir films as he goes on to say how lighting ‘Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’ was done to give it mystery and adventure to the story which is why it isn’t camera lit and more tingy lit around the environment. This is definitely evident in my chase scene as a lot of the times there isn’t a direct source of lighting in the chase and rather it’s lit just briefly around the scenery to make the film almost more real and Indiana Jones feeling.

‘It gives a better sense of mystery to the adventure,” the director said. “There’s a little bit of that in the ‘Indiana Jones‘ movies. I just thought this movie could not all be lit from the camera — we couldn’t just front-light it. Even Herge, in his artwork, attempted to suggest film noir. He would tincture the scenes at night, almost like the great Freddie Young‘s day-for-night cinematography from ‘Doctor Zhivago’.

Overall whilst I couldn’t find too much research on Tintin, I have more than enough background research into Indiana Jones and the intentions that Steven had with the film language and the characters that I feel very confident talking about the chase scene in the essay. Whilst it may be a bit harder to do, I might for next time look into a tiny bit more into Tintin if there's anything else I find but because it doesn’t have the same cult status as Indiana, I think I’m definitely happy of what I’ve manged to find today. In addition, I think i’ll need to go more into researching about chase scene theory just a tiny bit more as well as establishing what I want to cover in my essay for points to talk about and research for those prompts in the my scenes.

Links I looked at today:

Steven Spielberg Interview - Vanity Fair - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/02/spielberg_qanda200802

Steven Spielberg on making 'The Adventures of Tintin’ -  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/8825003/Steven-Spielberg-on-making-The-Adventures-of-Tintin.html

Steven Spielberg Says ‘The Adventures Of Tintin’ Is “85% Animation, 15% Live Action” -  https://www.indiewire.com/2011/10/steven-spielberg-says-the-adventures-of-tintin-is-85-animation-15-live-action-115766/

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Film Language Research - 13/11/20 - Redo of Layout and Essay Writing

For today, I ended up making a much needed improvement to not just my essay, but to the layout as I now know which scenes I want to analyse as well as structure. I began with fixing my layout through documenting what points I wanted to talk about in each of the paragraphs in my book for: editing, camera movement, composition, colour and non-diegetic music. This allowed me to break down where I should write my points in the essay as well as realising that i should write two paragraphs on both of the films with their seperate use on film language before I made comparisons with each other. This structure felt so much nicer to me when I eventually got around to writing it all as this allowed me to get many different points in before going in depth with some of the other film languages I wanted to cover.

The whole experience of writing this second essay felt so much better too as I worked from my points of the previous essay and adapted them to this one by shortening points and structuring them better. In addition, I also added a lot of visuals from the chase scenes to give added clarity to my points. 

Overall, I felt so relieved with this essay as this was such a bigger improvement over the other one as I felt confident on how I delivered my points and answering the question above. With many sessions of proof reading it over and over again, I feel I’ve done justice to the question I’ve presented for film language.

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Film Language Research - 12/11/20 - Layout for Essay and Writing it

Today, I started to construct a layout for how I will write the essay from yesterday’s and the whole of my blog research I’ve done so far. For the layout, i made sure to include and bullet point the main areas I wanted to talk about for each paragraph so that I wouldn’t have to keep referring back to my blog research all the time.

I found writing the essay quite difficult as I think the structure that laid out didn’t allow all the main points I wanted to tell into the essay. This was because of how much background information, like the sequence of a scene in a scene, took up a paragraph giving me not too much room to get the points I wanted across. The whole essay to me came across very rambly. In addition I felt it really needed the use of images to accompany my points as it’s very visual my chase as not only would you get and idea of the points I’m talking about, it would also cut down on unnecessary words that I could use as points for the essay.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that I would try and finish this essay the best I could but wanting to re-write the first half of it again and re-editing the points I liked to fit under the word count. In addition to these changes, I would also include images to help accompany my points. So overall whislt I may of came out with something I wasn’t satisfied with, I’m glad I took the time to make this draft as now I know what I want to include in the essay as well as what i think it should be structured as.

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Film Language Research  - 11/11/20 - Re-Watching Chase Scenes Under Specific Film Language Prompts and Film Language Research

For today’s research, I thought I would do one final analysis on both of the scenes I’m looking at  and look under the film language prompts I’ve chosen to do when watching these scenes. These were:

Editing (Cuts. shots and positions)

Camera Movement and Composition

Colour - Briefly

Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds

Film Technique (CG vs Live Action)

My Analysis Notes 

I think I may of done a bit too much analysis here but my plan with this research is to combine it with my blog research to help with my layout for the essay so that I know exactly what I want to write for the essay. To help with the layout just a bit, I also decided to do a little research on the film language titles just for some added clarity before I write the essay. Not only do they help out with my layout but they will provide useful citations for the essay as these are sites I plan to include in my essay too.

One of these sites analyses six different films and how it uses editing to describe suspense and action these films. Particularly I found ‘Jaws’ to be valuable from the site as not only is it a Spielberg film, the same info describes elements of the chase scene of Indiana Jones only at an accelerated pace for its use of tension like how Indy looks at the wing mirrors frantically. In addition to this site, I also looked at composition as Tintin whilst very frantic in its action, has elements of slowing down the chase to let some of the action be drawn out or anticipate action out the blue. One bit of info I liked was the use of balance in a frame as one scene jumps to my mind which is where Sakharine holds his arm out for the bird to land on his arm only for Tintin to smash through the pots of spices to disrupt a possible ending of the chase. Sakharine being darkened by the light serves as a metaphor for his antagonist nature as well as placing the lighting on his arm as it gets closer and closer to the bird  as well as bringing attention to the lighting on the floor of the market which is where Tintin crashes in. This also relates to the psychology of colour I looked at as the orange mist of the spices shows a transformation in Tintin like he’s been rebirthed as a phoenix from falling behind in the chase. Same goes for Sakharine as the black silhouette that pushes against the camera suggests evil but also powerless as he just lets the action happen before him like he’s been dazed.

One of the last things I looked at was the comparison between 3D and CGI as I wanted to see what things you can do in animation compared to live action. Two articles I looked at establish the pros and cons for each medium but to me, i feel live action makes scenes feel more atmospheric as we can visualise ourselves in that place of the character. Something like Indy getting pulled against the back of the truck whilst on the ground makes us imagine what that feeling would look like as our humanity allows us to connect with it. Compared to Tintin because of it’s animated style, it takes us to another world where our mind is suspended in disbelief from all of the crazy events that could happen. 

Overall, I feel really happy with my research today as I feel very in top of it all as I’ve done two separate detailed analysis on their respected chase scenes which I feel I can adapt into the essay paired with the research I’ve done so far with an essay I’m happy with as well as the foundation for a good layout that I can follow by whilst I’m writing. 

Links I looked at today:

The Psychology of Color in Film (with examples) - https://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/watch-psychology-color-film#:~:text=GREEN%20%E2%80%93%20healing%2C%20soothing%2C%20perseverance,fertility%2C%20jealousy%2C%20inexperience%2C%20envy

Manipulating the Audience’s Emotions With Color - https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/manipulate-emotions-with-color-in-film/

Diegetic Sound and Non-Diegetic Sound: What’s the Difference? - https://www.masterclass.com/articles/diegetic-sound-and-non-diegetic-sound-whats-the-difference#3-examples-of-diegetic-sound

How to Shoot The Best Car Chase Scene [Mad Max: Fury Road Example] - https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/best-car-chase-scenes-shots/

A Beginner's Guide to Film Editing Vocabulary - https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/a-beginners-guide-to-film-editing-vocabulary/

Editing Insights and Analysis of Six Masterpieces -  https://blog.frame.io/2018/03/12/studying-6-editing-masterpieces/

What is Non-Diegetic Sound? Definition and Examples - https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-non-diegetic-sound/

Rules of Shot Composition in Film: A Definitive Guide - https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/rules-of-shot-composition-in-film/ CGI VS LIVE-ACTION: ONLY ONE CAN TAKE YOUR GUESTS IN A FANTASTIC ADVENTURE! - https://redraion.com/cgi-vs-live-action-only-one-can-take-your-guests-in-a-fantastic-adventure/#:~:text=CGI%20content%20is%20a%20form,with%20the%20power%20of%20drawing. Live action vs Animation: A Comparison - https://stormystudio.com/live-action-vs-animation-a-comparison/

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Film Language Research - 9/11/20 - Extended Research into Chase Scenes and Film Language themes for Essay

For today’s research, I decided to further research into chase scenes to get a grip for the theory for it as well as some last bit of research before I look into the film languages that I want to talk about in my essay. But before I went into researching chase scenes again, I came across this clip on YouTube of the chase scene from ‘Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’ but it’s been re-scored to Henry Jackman’s ‘Cut to the Chase’ track from the video game ‘Uncharted 4′. The reason I’ve involved this video in my film language research is because of how well the music syncs up to the action and the pans of the chase which all comes together to fully emphasises the chase’s visual rhythm all because of the music. This shows how well the action flows with whatever music is tied with the scene as the chase itself is designed to work with any kind of music from how its edited and paced which makes the scene all the more effective to watch as it gets down those visual ques/beats in the action.

After the video, I went on to research more into chase scenes themselves and the throy behind it to help with my essay. From the research I conducted, I didn’t find anything that was too stand out or relevant to what I needed to help me out in the essay as it was mostly looking into how to write a chase scene and not really anything to do with film language. One thing that I did actually find useful was where one of the articles talked about using practical effects over CGI effects in car chase scenes which in terms of what I’m talking about for the essay seemed valuable as one is done in CGI over Live-Action. It mainly talked about how often audiences prefer live action practical effects as they feel the most realistic to the eye making the film more believable. However my perception of that for the essay is that with my chase scenes, it makes sense why they’re both done that way as Tintin is inspired by a comic book and goes for more of a cartoony feel in its acting and appearance which is why a lot of the scenes that happen in the chase scene of that film are very slapstick the kind you would see in a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Whereas with Indiana Jones, it more goes for a much gritter and grounded tone like this is something that someone could possibly do in an event like it. 

After my last bit of chase scene research, I went back on the briefing document for the essay and based off the research I made so far, I looked at the potential film language titles and chose which ones i felt were most relevant to the my chase scenes and comfortable talking about too. From reading through these, I think the ones that stand out to me the most and feel are the most doable out of these are: Editing and Pace, Shot Sizes and Positions, Subjectivity/objectivity of shots, camera movement, composition, Diegetic and nondiegetic sound and music, and Film Technique (CGI vs Live Action). This is obviously way too much film language to fit in 1000 words so I think I will limit down to five film languages to make the process a lot easier upon myself although reviewing these examples again, there’s a lot of overlap with each of them.

To help narrow this down, I decided to do a little research each of the film languages that I’ve chosen at the moment to see which ones seem like something I could further discuss for the essay as I plan to re-watch my scenes and identify each of the film languages I’ve narrowed it down too. From the research I did, it was more refreshing myself on what these film languages were about and seeing if they applied to my scenes of not which is how I’ve managed to come down to these film language titles for the essay. 

Editing (Cuts. shots and positions)

Camera Movement and Composition

Colour - Briefly 

Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds

Film Technique (CG vs Live Action)

Overall whilst even these film languages overlap with each other, I plan to further look at these film languages a lot further in detail so that I know what I’m properly looking for in my essay which is why I’ll re-watch my scenes and look specifically for those film languages in preparation for the essay.

Links I looked at today:

How to Shoot a Car Chase: Advice from Shane Hurlbut, ASC - https://blog.filmsupply.com/articles/how-to-shoot-a-car-chase-advice-from-shane-hurlbut-asc/27/

How All the Best Car Chase Scenes are Filmed - https://interestingengineering.com/how-all-the-best-car-chase-scenes-are-filmed

Want The Secrets Of A Great Chase Scene? - https://www.standoutbooks.com/great-chase-scene/

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Film Language - 26/10/20 - ‘The Language In Film’ and research into Chase Scenes

For today’s research, I looked into the theory of chase scenes as well as looking into other films chase scenes that I could compare to the ones I’m doing in my essay. But first, I researched and read a book all on film language ‘The Language of Film’ which Carla suggested I take look at looking at ‘Constructing Meaning’ which talked about Editing and Sound. Reading through the book, I found it quite useful towards my essay as they’re points I plan to talk about as the two scenes both use sound and editing differently with one more all about panning and the other being fast cuts. In fact, there were things that added on to my research from yesterday which made my analysis on the scenes all the more confident. 

My Book Notes on ‘The Language of Film’:

After reading through the book, I then went ahead of researching online for my scenes mainly the theory that goes into a chase scene. Two useful sources I found online and on Youtube was a video talking about the different kind of shots that goes into a chase sequence like the camera angles, how those cameras are arranged and the meaning behind those shots and the other being a breakdown on film direction on ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ in relation to how it uses it’s camera and editing in the sequence. 

With ‘The Basics of Filming a CHASE Scene’ video, it focuses more on the foot chase side of things than vehicle chase scenes that I’m looking at in my essay. Despite this, it covers the same information for both types of chases as they use the same style of filming and framing of the characters and the scenes they’re in like focusing the camera on the runner with the chaser often appearing briefly in the frames as the camera is mostly on the runner. One thing that stuck out to me in the video was how you create a conversation between characters through a chase scene and show a characters intentions and philosophies. In the video, they use the film ‘Point Break as an example to express this which the character Utah is thrown a Pit Bull dog at him to slow him down which his immediate response is to drop-kick it out the way to emphasises how much he needs to get to this person no matter what gets in his way. Another good example in that film is where a glass door is sealed in front of him to also slow him down which he grab the nearest flower pot when running and completely smashes it down as he’s running showing he’s prepared for any challenge that’s thrown is way by the enemy which makes the dog scene further proof of that or almost a final test to the character and very much testing each other in the film.

The BASICS of Filming a CHASE Scene

The other video which looks at ‘Mad Max:Fury Road’ talks a lot about camera movement and composition of a scene which two things really stuck out to me. The first being it’s use of having every important piece of action that’s happening in the chase scene to always be in the middle of the screen particularly the crosshairs of the camera so you aren’t missing any of the action as well as giving extra height to the violence and aggression that's part of this post-apocalyptic world. The other thing being something called ‘Eye-Liners’ which is used to help travel the camera in the scene feeling natural as possible as in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, the eyes of the of the characters and where they look tell the camera where to be in the next perspective of the scene and where to cut next which makes it helpful if you want to naturally get to another area of your scene. So for example when a Ravager gets blown up in the scene, the war boy gives out a scream of glory which  where hes looking cuts to the front of the truck which then prepares itself for the next action piece on the other side of the truck. Doing this process makes the transition as smooth and natural as possible making the action seamless and there aren’t any unnecessary shots that could make the audience lost in that interaction.  

One last bit I wanted to talk about from today was me watching the clip of the entire fleet catching up to the oil rig in the desert as watching it shows how much time is used to get knowledgeable on this fleet and the mass scale of it that’s coming to our heroine before the big finale chase scene happens at the end of the film. Comparing it to my scenes, it’s very different form of chase as the two parties are barely even close to each other as it’s more dine as exposition for what is about to come and what our heroes have to face at the end of the film. But as mentioned before, this scene still uses the same principles of always making the action of this fleet in the center of the screen as well as the use of eye-liners to direct the camera so the audience doesn’t get lost in the action.  

How to Shoot a Car Chase Scene [Mad Max Fury Road Analysis] #carchasescene

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - The chase begins (1/10) (slightly edited) [4K]

Overall, today has been really informative towards my essay as the biggest takeaway from it is the knowledge of ‘Eye-liners’ with the camera as this is something I greatly want to talk about for my essay with my two scenes as they both do it in two very different and unique ways. 

Links I found today:

‘The Language of Film’ - https://www.vlebooks.com/Vleweb/Product/Index/2038972?page=0

The BASICS of Filming a CHASE Scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNfmHm0n4XY

Greatest Chase Scenes in Film History 1979 - 1983 - https://www.filmsite.org/filmchases5.html

How to Shoot a Car Chase Scene [Mad Max Fury Road Analysis] #carchasescene -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YriUMCnIGUw&feature=emb_title

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - The chase begins (1/10) (slightly edited) [4K] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtjGTrVwRr4&t=24s

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Film Language - 25/10/20 - Watching Films with my Scenes In

With my film language essay, I decided to watch both of my scenes respective films for the essay those being ‘Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and ‘Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’. This was not only to anlyse the chase scenes I’ve chosen to look at for the essay but also to get a feel for the movie too and what’s the context before the chase scene begins. Because of the topic I’m looking at, this information was very vital to me as it would allow me to back up the points I plan to bring up in my essay in case a certain action happens or something needs more context within the chase like going after one particular person as oppose to basic human instinct.

How I planned to write my notes on both of my films was to continue my analysis I did with Carla in the Seminar where we discussed our ideas once I had finished watching the film and re-watch the scenes over and over again and then write notes of anything that stuck out to me whilst I was watching the film so I wouldn’t forget later. 

Notes on ‘Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’:

Notes on ‘Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark’:

To summarise the notes I made whilst watching the film, the film is very rough and gritty with a much more serious tone compared to Tintin in terms of presentation which may to do with it being in live action and the colour palette being a lot more dryer compared to Tintin’s jumpy and dynamic energy. However this isn’t to say that Indiana Jones doesn’t achieve this as the different environments and countries that he travels in the film are vibrant and polarising to each other feeling like we’re really on an adventure very much like how Tintin creates its narrative too as it takes influence from it. The film can be over the top but knows how to control as it has things like a trained monkey to find Marion in a basket and to spy on Indy but then could cut to Indy trying to rescue Marion and make it seem like she exploded in a truck filled with bad guys making the fake death bring us back to reality. This also includes it’s use of humour too as it’s a light-hearted journey where it has its serious moments but knows when to reveal it’s soft spots to the audience very much like the character Indy. 

Coming to the Chase Scene, there were quite a few points where I had re-iterated myself but one of the things I spotted from not just the chase scene but in the whole film was that it likes to do a lot of cuts to establish the scene where the characters are giving the audience a sense of world building and knowledge of the world. This allows us to fully understand the world as Indy travels the world as well as making the action all the more tense and knowledgeable of where people may come and attack Indy and how he might be able to get around a situation. One of the other big points that I spotted from watching the chase scene was it’s use of music as after watching Tintin, music is used in very different ways in both films as Tintin in it’s chase goes more for a orchestral frantic style of music which perfectly illustrates the amount of action and chaos that happens in the chase with the characters jumping from either side of the scene to the Falcon and buildings crumbling over changing the landscape. With Indiana Jones on the other hand, the music is much more to do with Indy’s core feelings in the chase as before it begins, he’s discovered essentially the most hidden relic of all time only for his hard efforts to be taken away from him and having to escape an impossible pit, defeat multiple Nazis and destroy the Nazis easiest form of transport of delivering the Ark to Hitler. Because of this, the music in the chase scene is a lot more serious as he fights a whole hoard of Nazis to take back what’s rightfully his with the music at the end acting very triumphantly as he steals back the Ark and eradicates the Nazis guarding it. 

Include Pictures of your notes as Evidence

Overall, I feel today has been very successful in terms of research for the essay as I’ve gotten myself much more familiar with my movies as well as things I may want to talk about for my essay structure. For next time, I think I’m going to look into the theory of a good chase scene and look at various examples to my scenes.

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Film Language Lecture - 21/10/20 - Where to Put the Camera?

Today’s film language lecture was all to do with camera placement and how the camera is used in film to express film language. This consisted of these prompts for when we look at a frame in a film weather that be live action or animation: Distance, Height, Depth of Field and Movement

To help understand these prompts further, we anlaysed a scene from Citizen Kane together where we tried to spot how they use camera placement and the prompts to explain and enhance the film language that happens in the scene. From my analysis on the clip, the kid is out of focus a lot of time in the scene where the parents are inside the house with the camera more focused on the parents showing that they’re more interested in the money they’ll be receiving than their own child. It’s further emphasised by how their son is playing outside but he’s framed in the window to not only imply their son is out of the picture in the deal but also to present who the characters are talking about like they have his image on wall. This is all achieved from how beautiful the camera has been angled so that you see the Mum, Dad and Mr Thatcher inside whilst also seeing the kid all done in a very basic and clear way. To add on, both Mr Thatcher and the Mother sit together sitting down with the Father standing high and separated from them showing how he doesn’t agree with the deal. 

Going back to the start of the clip, the camera is stuck on the Mother’s face as it pans with her as she’s walking towards Mr Thatcher further showing how it was her choice to make this decision whilst the Father, reducing his depth of field tells us he has no say. Whilst this is an obvious observation when we watch the clip, without sound really makes this scene stand out as you can tell whats happening without the need for dialogue as you can tell whats happening from the film language and the camera.

One last bit I observed in the scene was the ending of the clip which is where the camera is at a close up shot of the kid’s face showing how seperated he is from his family from not only what’s about to happen in the film but also the decision all together as he had no way to influence the decision of leaving his home. This then fades to a cut of a sledge timelapse of it collecting snow until it’s slowly buried showing how the kid is losing his boyhood in a pursuit of Mr Thatcher to make him as rich as possible. I feel the camera angle is greatly done by having the sled to the corner left hand side for the scene as it presents the sled as useless and forgotten which greatly empahsies the kid’s change in mentality as well as his mark on his home.

After analysing ‘Citizen Kane’, we went through some technical terms on framing and what kind of shots you can achieve which were:

Extreme Close-up

Close up

medium Shot

Long/wide Shot 

Extreme long/Wide shot

Big close-up/Choker

Medium Close-up

Medium Long Shot

Very long/wide shot

Two Shot

To help understand the shots a little better, we watched the opening of ‘Apocalypse Now’ looking at its use of framing. It’s use of wide shots help us at the start to soak in the environment from how long we have to look at the wildlife and the glimpses of choppers flying by which makes us feel attached to this space untill it all gets ravaged by fire making that environment a whole lot personal from the time we had to feel connected to it. After that, it slow pans across the screen which is done to put us in the perspective of the soldier recalling all the events that he’s had to do in Vietnam and no matter how much he tries to forget it, sounds and imagery keep making re-think of the horrors he’s had to faced which is done from close ups of his face and extreme close ups of fans.

One of the last clips we watched was from ‘Trainspotting’ where two of the main characters are ‘hunting’ in the park being philosophical and enlightening towards each other. From how the camera is angled for most fo the scene, it’s very static and cuts only a few times to give a very calming and relaxing approach like its two mates catching up to see how they’re doing. This makes the scene very comforting to watch until it cuts to the scope on the dog which makes it completely flip on itself on delivery from a nice and comfortable scene to a vicious and sadistic parallel.  

After the lecture, I went back to the Tintin chase scene I’m going to be analysing for my essay and looked at how it achieves it’s camera movement in it’s chase scene since it’s so iconic for being one continuous shot. One thing of note as I was re-watching it was how the camera constantly tracks the bird’s movement from set to set like we’re in the perspective of the falcon. This makes a lot of sense to why it’s treated as a continuous shot which to the film’s benefit, helps to make the scene that more exciting to watch as you see all the main characters dramatically coming into frame of the falcon which elevates the action and sets up a lot of close calls this way which is what Spielberg is known to do.

Overall, I really enjoyed analysing the clips we went over in the lecture as I felt it’s been useful towards my essay as my two scenes involve a lot of camera movement and cuts which both of my films do in different ways and especially since this is one of the main comparisons I plan to talk about.

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Film Language Session - Ideas for Essay - 13/10/20

For today’s session, we looked at our potential ideas for our essay on film language which we discussed and explored which idea we would think of taking forward. Before the session started, I had came up with a couple of ideas that I really liked that I wanted to do for the essay: 

‘Tintin, the Secret of the Unicorn’ and ‘Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Chase Scenes

‘I saw the Devil’ and ‘The Babbadook’ – How these films convey danger and fear

‘Speed Racer’ and ‘Le Mans 66’ – The element of comeback

For the session, I decided to stick with my original and first idea with looking at Tintin and Indiana Jones which I was tasked with discussing with the class my ideas of what I’ll be analysing in the film (specifically the chase scenes) as well as having to do a mini brief analysis myself on the scenes film language for the session. Below are the notes I made during the lesson which was analysing the Bike Chase scene in Egypt from Tintin and the Truck chase scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark:

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN Falcon chase scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NADnDdLXDYE&t=187s

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Truck Chase (1981) [HD] -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqQD8sVtfA4

With the notes shown, I plan to continue adding onto these as I really want to get as many notes as I can on the film’s I’ll be looking at so that I can just look at my list and plan my essay this way. But to conclude, I feel satisfied with the session as I’m going to continue on with these notes as well as re-watch their respective films to get into the atmosphere of those films so when their specific scenes come up, I’ll be able to pick up on the context of what’s happening and the decisions used. However whilst I really like this ideas, I think I might explore one of the other starting ideas as well that being the third one as I really adore the film language used in those scenes. 

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Lecture - Film Language - Semiotics - 30/09/20

For today’s film language lecture, we looked at semiotics which is to do with how something is presented to us through either a physical or a psychological meaning behind it. For example, if we had a man walking into a dark alleyway only to not bee seen in the camera, this can either imply he’s walking away from the camera or showing he’s coming away from the world. 

What are the Signs?

Signifer > Physical (Sign-as-object)

Signified > Psychological (Sign-as-concept)

Meanings:

Denotation - Direct Meaning

Connotation - Suggested Meaning

After the shortish lecture on semitonics, we had an even further look at everybody’s submissions from last week analysing the film language in them as well as the semiotics too. ‘Pretend to Live’ (A 2D animated Music Video) features a lot of visual signifers in the animation as there isn’t too much left to the imagination of what happens as the events of the story are very much presented to you as they are. This necessarily isn’t a bad thing however as the scenes in the animation make it really easy for the audience to follow and in fact, the last bit of the animation is left up to the imagination of the audience if you don’t count the opening scene.

Pretend to Live -

‘Cream’ was definitely my favourite out of the media pieces we watched today in the lecture as I loved the visual aesthetic of it as well as being filled with signified factors in it. This is due to how much you interpret the actions that happen in the animation as on one hand, you could just look at the animation of how gross looking it all is as a giant signifier or interpret all the actions as signified actions as this could all be seen from the perspective of the female that’s about to give birth how she views each character in the hospital. 

CREAM -

The last piece of media we watched was ‘Eight’ which is a music video that combines live action, 2D animation and 3D animation all together to create a really lovely music video that describes the various different feelings that our main character goes through. This is because I feel the 3D animation is used for her claustrophobic and restrained feelings like sadness are kept, the 2D animation for her free feelings and spirituality and the live action being split in the middle of them showing us how everyone views her. 

Eight - IU ft. SUGA - 

After viewing some of our video submissions, we had a slight discussion for our essay planning and how we may go about it. One of the things we looked at to get us started was from a past student’s reference which was looking at one of the scenes from ‘Oldboy’ specifically the fight scene where they compared it to John Wick. The scene itself is so hard-hitting and brutal to watch as the action feels so realistic which is further helped by the green/greyish colours to show how washed out and violet the whole situation is like the purity of this alleyway has already been tainted with also not mentioning how much the scene is shot like a video game from how the camera side scrolls across the screen. From all of this, it definitely made me motivated to do my own kind of research by finding specific scenes I love from films and have an idea for what I should be looking for. 

Oldboy Elevator Fight Scene - 

After the session had finished, I thought i do my own research of my own for the essay after watching the ‘Oldboy’ clip as it got me inspired to do a bit of my own research leading up to my own essay. One film that immediately popped into my head that I so wanted to do and analyse it’s film language was ‘The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’ specifically the chases scene they do over in Egypt as its all filmed in one continuous shot with no cuts to it. I love this scene so much not just for it’s one take, but for its creativity through the use of witty dialogue and spectacular visual pieces that all get slammed banged together. Looking at it in a film language sense, the musics and sound helps it to give quite a large ‘Indaina Jones’ feel to it where the music is emphaised in the more action based scenes or when Tintin just grabs the Falcon’s legs. 

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN Falcon chase scene -

In conclusion, I really happy for this lecture as not only did I learn a bit more film language but also already having a possible idea ready for my essay brewing up which makes me a whole lot more confident with the essay process.

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Lecture - Film Language - Colour Theory in Film - 30/09/20

For today’s film language lecture, we had a look at using colour in film and how its used to help enhance the film language in a moving piece of media. Colour in film is used to create: World, Character, Emotion and Journey which can all be done by how much the colour’s hue,saturation and volume is adjusted to fit the mood of a scene/shot to help the set pieces be enhanced for the audience. 

With this knowledge on colour theory in film, we looked through examples of various shots from films which all showed the same colour to see what kind of meaning was given off each scene. One of my favorite colours that we looked at in the lecture was the colour green as whilst it’s my favorite colour, the scenes that we analysed had elements of greed, fantasy, unknown, technology, safety, envy and strangeness that I could spot in the shots. Another one I really liked was the colour blue which was mainly because of a scene from Blade Runner that really had me going from the intention behind it as it evoked feelings of loneliness, sadness, mystery and peacefulness just from the colour

Blade Runner, Deckard walking along the street -

After we had gone through colour theory in film, we went straight onto looking at peoples moving pieces of choice in class starting of with a music video called the ‘The Wolf’ by SIAMES. Regarding colour, it has such a heavy emphasis on the colour black and in a visual sense, it’s amazing how much time and thought and to be put into each frame and shot of the animation fomr how the while highlights help to distinguish the scenery, characters from the background as everything runs so smoothly. However if we were to look at it with colour theory, the black and white colours could be used to show how lifeless and empty the world is (which is why most of the characters shown resort to addiction) with the colour red coming after them in a fit of rage to be consumed almost like its the end of their lives. 

SIAMÉS "The Wolf" [Official Animated Music Video] - 

One of the other films we watched in the lecture was a short film called ‘Garden Party’ which stars various frogs and toads hopping around a home interacting with the appliances as well as helping make a pool party towards the end. There’s definitely a lot to talk about when it come to colour theory in the short as I like to think the toads and frogs being colored green as opposed to the houses colors shows a sign of deep curiosity and naivety as they have no grasp of what has happened to the occupants of the house and rather just do their own thing or whatever interests them. On the other side of the spectrum, the brownish frogs could show how much they’ve gotten used to the home due to how much they’ve grown use to the house almost like they’ve become part of it. Another thing to point out is that there are a lot of mood colours shown in scenes to show the kind of feeling and action that’s happening like when a frog is crawling through a broken glass hole in the window with how intense that blue is in the background almost like there’s some mystery to what has caused this hole to happen as well as the bedroom being very red and marroon lit to envy love.

Garden Party -

In Conclusion, I really enjoyed looking through colour theory as part of film language as it’s one of my favourite topics to cover under it as I love the differentiating meanings you can find through one singular image based off the colour of the shot.

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Lecture - Film Language - 23/09/20

Today’s lecture, we began learning about film language in not only animation but in live-action too as we looked at examples in both to see how each medium helped convey emotion and subtly within a character’s performance and the environment around them. One of the things we learnt about was the grammatical tools used to help fully utilise film language in piece of moving image which are these below.

Grammatical Tools:

Shot Size 

Camera Position

Movement 

Lens

Light

Colour

Sound and Music

Editing

Performance

Out of the pieces of media we looked at today, the film ‘Taxi Driver’ really stuck out to me from how much is told from the opening scene alone where our main character ‘Travis’ is trying to apply for a job as a taxi driver. Things I really liked from the scene where things like the smoke still staying on him from the title screen as he enters the interview room showing that he’s making his grand entrance to the room but also very alien to the whole situation which is very much present to how he doesn't recognize words like moon-lighting and acts very slow and sarcastic in the process. In addition to that when Travis gets smart with the interviewer, he’s told to keep himself in check which the camera pans into his face showing that he isn’t in control of the conversation anymore as the camera was presented looking up at him and now is eye-level showing his loss of stability. However, I kind of interpreted it a bit differently as I thought it showed him analysing the person in front of him like hes making a social profile on the interviewer as he gives a small chuckle after being called out like he discovered what makes the interviewer tick. All of this analysis that was coming to me after we watched the clip felt like I could very much go on an on of how much I loved the film language of the opening scene which really helped me get a grasp of what I should be looking for.

Taxi Driver - first scene -

After the lecture, we were tasked with finding a short film, music video or any kind of media less than 6 minutes to show how the film language is shown in that clip. For me, I went with the opening credits from ‘Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 3 - Stand Proud’ for so many reasons as I felt it really encapsulated so much film language in under 1 minute and 30 seconds. The way that it plays with the shots helps narrate both the past characters back stories leading up to our main hero as well as narrating the events of the current characters stories as they go off for their adventure. One good example of this in the opening is how our main character ‘Jotaro’ is central within the shot as he walks and performs for most of the opening further emphasising him being the main character and who you will be sticking with the most in the story. In addition to that, movement is used heavily to not only prepare the rapid nature of the show but also how vibrant and distinguished each character is from each other as ‘Jotaro’s’ chain movement is to show how hard-hitting he can be and someone like ‘Polnareff’ has very elegant and energetic sword swings to express his finesses and aggressiveness. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OP3 STAND PROUD 1080p SFX -