Pre pro- documentary

                                                   Documentary Pre-Pro                                      Luke Gray

                                                                                                                                         Film 4

1)    The intent of this piece is to examine how sports relieve stress in certain people.

2)    In order to fulfill my piece, I must speak to people on either the basketball team, the wrestling team, and/or the soccer team.

3)    –How does _____ help you get through your day?                              

- Why do you choose _____ to help you cope with your problems?

- What problems do you experience outside of sports?

- Any particular person that helps you out with your problems?

- What would you do if that sport was taken away from you?

      4)   The beginning of this piece will consist of a collage of shots of the people I interviewed playing their sport. They will all be working hard and will transition back and forth from sport to sport. After establishing this, I will introduce the first person I interviewed. Their will be a little A-roll, but generally all B-roll. Then I will repeat this process for the remaining people that I interviewed. At the End, I will reflect back to all of the people I interviewed (Same line at the end to close piece).

     5)    Beginning portion- shots of the kids on the team doing drills (mostly longer/medium shots) and scoring one way or another.  They will keep playing until the final shot where the teams ‘break’.

Middle portion-Before I thoroughly introduce the people I interviewed, I will establish them by putting a title sequence to make it clear. The middle shots will first show the interviewee by himself focusing on the interview, but this middle portion will still ultimately be on him working hard on practices. This section may also include interviews of people who simply observe him. The end portion will bring all of the people I interviewed together and showing a similarity between them by showing a shot of them saying the same thing, and then another shot of the different teams ‘breaking’.

     6) This piece will not include a script because this piece doesn’t involve a narrative. I don’t want to have a narrative because I believe a voice that is not relevant to the piece will take away from its meaning (I learned that from Baraka). The only voices will be the voices of the interviewees and the background sound as well to capture its full intent.

documentary- "Stopping the Cycle"

 
     The documentary I watched was "Stopping the Cycle", a documentary that exposes the harsh realities of relationships that many wives suffer through the abuse of their husbands. In the annual doc-fest, this piece achieved first place among hundreds, and is well deserved. Along with its powerful messages, it shows the audiences links to find help and to take care of those types of problems. It allows the reader to carefully consider the message by displaying the physical punishment that wives have by locking up their expressions and accepting the beating their husbands give them. “Stopping the Cycle” is an immensely powerful film not only through its deep message but also through its portrayal by its narrative, camera work, and its editing and sound effects.

    
This is a powerful documentary, for its use of examples and powerful language helps engage the audience within this piece (narrative). It begins with the harmony of a new married couple, living happily together, but immediately counters these loving emotions by diving into the topic of abuse of husbands and the game they play on their wives. Along with that, this film uses a young, yet sorrowful voice over to depict the voice of a new wife that is a victim to this type of abuse; therefore, the tone matches the intent and allows the audience to sink into the film itself. The director of this film also decided to use titles, showing the common words that husbands use to threat their wives, and this text is surrounded by a cynical background. This dark images depicts the seriousness within the film, and the dominant voice over of a man (characterized as an abusive husband) creates the feeling to the audience that they should be aware and cautious about this existing problem as well.

   
Another powerful technique that this documentary used was its unique cinematography. This film used numerous close-ups, thus, providing heartfelt emotion as we see the physical pain that many wives endure such as the image of the women’s black eye. Along with that, they used very slow zooms that fluently moved towards the subject. This smooth camera work provides a certain professionalism within the piece, which personally dragged me more into the piece itself. This documentary’s camera work supports the piece’s message through its ability to capture emotion.

     
 The editing and sound design in the piece “Stopping the cycle” was unique, yet very effective. In the beginning shots of the couple getting married, you see the clips as very bright and fuzzy on the screen. By eliminating all darkness in the shot and adding dream-like characteristics, you see the “overwhelming beauty” in marriage, when in fact its not, which is shown in the next shots. This portrays the message to the reader that marriage may not be what many think it is, but that in fact it could be the beginning of the end. Along with that, when people spoke, the sound was overlapped. By overlapping one’s voice, a dramatic effect is created as it sounds quite daunting and scary. This technique enhances the film’s message by supporting the tone of the piece in a very effective manner. “Stopping the Cycle” is a well established piece that effectively grabs the readers attention through its wonderful production.

Baraka

       Baraka is an intricate film that depicts the life of various places, people, groups, and geographical locations. It scrutinizes the different traditions that a group holds as its own, comparing the different societies through their own culture and the way they maneuver through each day. This is all communicated through the interesting use of cinematography and the crucial block of dialogue. The sound helps portray and provide emotion to the different areas and places, showing a sense of isolation, culture, and most importantly, harmony. This film’s production allows it to exceed its potential to expose the lives of diverse, yet special groups.

1)    This film is given the name Baraka, meaning “breath”, because the underlying meaning of the film is to compare and show the different people and their cultures, and this corresponds with “breath” because although the cultures may be quite different, every group still takes the same breaths and are quite similar in many ways. Despite the fact that one group may use a comb for face paint, and another may use it to style themselves, regardless they both still share the same feelings, emotions, and pride as the other. Along with that, “breath” also describes the cohesiveness and conformity of each group. Each and every group move as one and do things on a daily basis and work and help each other to complete the days one step at a time. The title Baraka well-establishes the motive of this movie as it shows the similarities of each different culture.

2)    The planetary perspective of this film does express the world in moderation, yet it may be a little skewed for the different cultures use its resources in extremely different ways. The cinematography of this film displays the geographical features in this film in such a remarkable way that we are not use to that we may feel the urge to believe it is not in the same time period but in fact it is. Also, since some of the cultures are not fully industrialized, it may seem that this exhibits the past but it is in actuality the reality of today’s world.

3)    The message I get from the film Baraka, is that no matter how many privileges one society may have over another, they are all equally special and important. Despite the industrialization that some cultures have, even the ones that aren’t have beliefs and traditions that are just as important as any others. This film is about respecting one another’s culture no matter the differences, and appreciating it just as you would appreciate your own. The unique part about this film as that this strong message is provided without dialogue or commentary, just through observation which is very difficult to achieve.

4)    The absence of voice and text affected the global perspective because it suits the calm and mellow mood of this film. It allows the audience to relax with the addition of the subtle music and the smooth transitions. Without any form of commentary, the audience is not criticized on what to take from the film itself; The absence of persuasion carries out the film to the audiences benefit as they are able to shape the film the way they see it through their own eyes and not through the film maker’s. The sole presence of calm and suitable cultural music enhances the film’s approach on the audience which, in turn, the audience respects.

5)    Some images that applied to culture were when the tribe that was practically bare was dancing around a certain staff in the middle of the forest. They took turns doing a party of a dance while singing a song together around a staff that seemed to have some importance. This corresponds with nature because they surround themselves with the environment, showing a type of appreciation to nature itself. Also, I noticed that their clothes were made from a part of nature itself. This shows that this particular culture is very closer to nature and what it has to offer. On the other hand, the image of New York and its busy streets showed some contrast to nature. It showed that the societies in America were far from the usage of nature and has been swallowed by industrialization and what it has to offer.

6)     Some interpretations of the monk following the street with the cigarette factory is that the people within that society are very coherent, yet they don’t seem too happy. Among the countless amount of people in the cigarette factory, all of them seem to just get by through the day, just taking care of business. This plays a role in religion and spirituality because it shows that within that particular culture, all of the people share the same ideologies and share the same religion and spiritual beliefs.

7)    The social statement that Baraka makes of the refuse heap and the images of the poor is that some people may be miserable within their own society. Like some societies over others, some people are more privileged than others, which can crucially affect how one lives. The poor images show that people have to strive to live and bare with the society around them while others can breeze right by, perhaps because the certain culture is more suitable for them.

8)    The transitions that stood out to me was when the camera glided over the waterfall and entered into a new society. Through this smooth transition, it shows similarity between the two different societies and what they share, thus, enforcing the central themes of the film itself. Along with that, the transition over the water where the birds are flying around also help show this similarity between two different cultures. The sounds that stood out to me was the traditional singing of the certain tribe that chanted in unison. This was a very strong             sound because it pulls the audience within the culture, thus exemplifying the differences of each society and the certain types of traditions that culture has.

9)    I believe we watched this film for two reasons: to see how cinematography and sound can solely drag the audience in through its swiftness and coherency; to expose us to different cultures and to appreciate the lives we live today. I don’t think I would view the world the same without this film because its melody and conformity helped me realize how similar I am to the different worlds around me and to not take what I have for granted. This was a very strong piece that was very insightful on how to utilize camera techniques to the fullest.

 

shrt film critique- the game of love

 
In my film The Game of Love, sound became a rough patch that caused many problems in production as well as post-production. As far as microphone placement goes, we had a pretty rocky time with that; we were very inconsistent. We filmed in public places, unable to control outside sounds such as other people within the vicinity we shot in that made irritating sounds that disrupted the recording of the shot; Consequently, I was forced to avoid it in the editing process and had to replace it with music so it would flow better although I thought the film would be stronger if I preserved the natural sound of the film, but i couldn't due to those outside distractions. As far as audio levels go, they are pretty distinguishable; they are pretty consistent so nothing is overbearingly loud that it is aggravating, and in other moments it loud enough to lightly hear but doesn't take away from the film's environment. The audio is somewhat clear for it doesn't contain that much but in the end, the dialogue between the boyfriend and girlfriend is a bit sketchy when the boy friend says "you’ve been actin' hasty, find your own ride home". Other than that the audio is easy to determine and the mood of each scene is depict as well. Looped segments do go by unnoticed, solely because the editing process helped blend them. But, when importing the last two scenes footage, we hit a speed bump as the audio didn’t record for one reason or another. Also, considering that our two column script didn’t fully set us up for success and didn’t quite prepare us as needed, when we re-shot those last two scenes, our dialogue change; consequently, the dialogue we used was somewhat bad and unrealistic. With all of this being said, I personally realize that sound design and maintenance is the most difficult film process for me that I immensely struggle with. This is one aspect I look to improve over the course of the year.
       The most spectacular and personally fun component and process of the film that I thought I did a decent job on was the editing. Despite the fact that I felt our scenes had loose ends on top of dealing with the acting (meaning looking at the camera and their placement), the editing allowed those stains to be unnoticeable. The shots do flow in harmony and call for a simple, yet coherent film. I successfully avoided jump cuts and the continuity was pretty consistent as well. We were consistent with the continuity for we made uncountable match action cuts and the actors wore different clothing to portray different days. The audio has a somewhat good balance to it and the sound effects somewhat accurately match the motivation of the particular scenes. We avoided crossing the 180 degree line so the audience will definitely not be confused despite that the story and plot itself may not be quite fully developed. The shots are cut to see what is necessary and eliminates continuity problems. Shots are held longer such as when the awkward boy first sees the girl to establish the fact that he has fallen in love. Considering the fact that we had a short spectrum of time, I cut the scenes to only view what is necessary to help develop the story although I believe if I were able to get a couple more shots in the hallway scene as well as the end scene, I believe the film would be more clear and effective. One problem that I constantly had trouble with was the camera. The actor playing the awkward boy kept on looking at the camera in crucial moments in the film such as the flashback when the two are frolicking in the field. By him doing that, it somewhat distracts the audience as they wonder what he is so happy about when it should be obvious that he is happy that he is frolicking with the girl. Another example is when the two are in the hallway scene. After the awkward boy gets knocked down and the girl helps him get his books, when he is standing up he looks directly at the camera for a good two seconds. I avoided this by later getting another shot of just the girl preparing to hand him the book. Meanwhile, in this shot of the girl, the audio of when the awkward boy is getting up is held so it would flow easier. Despite some misfortunes during production, the editing helped remove some of its problems.
            After this film I have realized that picking actors is crucial to the success of a film. Our actors loosely provided the audience with emotion, but it is easily seen that they were just acting, as opposed to putting themselves within the film’s intent. In my opinion, the actors were not too emotionally involved to a point that the audience would care what happened to them. This is not only because of their personal acting though, but because the film is focused on comedy and quirkiness. As a director, I tried to make all of the gestures to be meaningful, but the acting made it seem unrealistic and meaningless as well. Although the talent energy was always fueled, it was spent in an unexpected way and although it helped our film in some ways, it also hurt our film in many ways. On the other hand, the costumes were always perfect to portray another moment in time. I was impressed with the actors because when we had to re-shoot the last two scenes, they remembered to bring the same outfit as when they previously did without me or my partner’s direction. Make up was unnecessary for our film, so that relieved us a bit. I hate to bash on the actors (and I am an actor as well), but I feel that they had the potential to make our film to be much better. Predominantly, I hold all responsibility because I realize that I should have directed them more although I tried hard to do so anyways. If it is any consolation, all of the other actors we tried getting had bailed out on us.