Blog Response- The American Anti-Hero

The rise of the anti-hero expanded the realm of the cinematic art, and equipped it with a tie between the events that occur in the real world and the creativity of film making. An anti hero is a reflection of our historical selves. As events heated up in the 20th century, the need for an anti-hero in films quickly arose. The anti-hero within films was a powerful way to depict events and the emotions that tied along with these events. Before anti-heroes were used in films, film makers portrayed real life only through a realistic style of shooting. This included longer shot durations and less cutting. The addition of the anti-hero was an outlet to escape the realistic style, yet still accurately coney events that occurred in the world. Along with that, this also allowed for the escape the overused approach of hero-villain scenario: "The spice of a story, the element that makes it more than simple heroes and villains lies within the character of the Antihero".

This transition of the depiction of real events being portrayed by individuality has increased the emotional output displayed in film. By taking this approach, we become tied to the character as he faces what can be a manifestation of the real world's current problems. These are the most compelling protagonist because although we usually will not be able to relate to them as the audience, we admire their independence and courage. This is exemplified by Travis Bickle in Martin Scorcese's "Taxi Driver".

Travis Bickle is a very unorthodox character, as he clearly is inexperienced at communicating with others. He is secluded not only in a social level, but a mental one as well. He is "a character, who violently deals with being "dislocated"" (Kolker 181). Although his thoughts are very rational to the common audience, within the film his view on life contradicts the people he is surrounded by; he wishes to end the filth that recurs in New York City while others promote it. Although his actions are definitely out of the ordinary and very extreme, we are sympathetic towards him because we understand that he is innocent within his own mind. It is very relieving to the audience that, in the end, he is rewarded for being the couragous and honest character that he consistently is.
The incorporation of an anti hero contradicts the forms of classicism because the purpose of each form is very different. Classicism suggests that things are directly related to one another, and the fast cutting enhances this idea of cause and effect. But with an anti hero, it contradicts classicism because the anti hero is somewhat absorbs these problems within this one character, and through his action he produces the effects. This doesn't necessarily have fast cutting as well; with anti heroes, fast cutting is much more selective. These anti-heros become virtually heroes within the film media, and are accurately chosen as they are symbolic for something larger, hat can be reflected in real life. These characters are inspiring: "the goal of the warrior/hero is not long life, but glorious life followed by glorious death"(Fitch www.usask.ca).

Blog Response- Article- Intensified Continuity

David Bordell's concept of intensified continuity has greatly revolutionized the cinematic arts. Intense Continuity is continuity that creates cinematic incoherence and stylistic fragments. This idea of intensified continuity had not developed, or was not adopted until the 1960s. Prior to this, films had generally followed the idea of realism in which the focus of continuity was displayed through elongated shots and a lack of cuts. This preserved the realism within the film which, in turn, made for absolute coherence in the film. Yet this style was soon revolutionized when new lenses, camera movements, faster cuts, and closer shots were integrated.
With the addition of extreme lenses in a film, the ability to create more coverage within scenes. Polarized lenses, such as narrow lenses as opposed to the more commonly used wide-angled lenses. The use of narrow angle lenses created a much more discrete depth of field which, in turn, allowed their to be more concentration within each shot. Along with that, this use of extreme lenses allowed for the creation of more surreal images. This not only amused the audience to a much larger degree, but it also allowed for an expansion of narratives. Film makers were enabled to film more radical narratives that were well-supplied by the use of extreme images.
Faster cuts is what defined "intensified cutting". The use of faster cuts had greatly sped up the pace of the film. Action became much more substantial as events took place in frames that lasted less than 3 seconds on average. The introduction of this technique heightened the effects in action, thrillers, and horror films. Faster cutting has been so affective and appealing to the audience that it dominates the modern world. This was a large transition that marked the largest innovation in cinematic art.
The integration of camera movements has also greatly enhanced film production. With the addition of camera movements and tracking shots, the audience is more compelled to the actions of the film as the camera itself brings them closer to the film itself, as if they are participating in the events themselves. Tracking shots and panning had also added to the affect of bringing focus to the frame. This is exemplified by directional movements; thus, adding to the dynamics of camera movements. In some cases, this addition to the cinematic arsenal has also allowed the camera itself to adopt a personality of its own. Depending on its movements and role within the film, the camera becomes very affective in making the audience feel as if they are interacting with the actors within the film themselves.
Last, the use of closer framing added the emotional aspect of this cinematic revolution. As the use of close-ups and extreme close-ups became more prominent, the connection between the audience and the actors grew. As the audience is closer to the action of the film, they feel a larger emotional attachment to the events that are occurring. This supplemented the fast cutting as the audience begins to feel the intensity of the action.
Although their were many strong additions to the film industry, this adaption did come with some minor discrepancies. The abandoning of a more realistic style of filming lost a sense of continual continuity. Film became a bit more choppy, and lost some sense of realism within the film; Events within the film were not fully depicted in the scenes. Despite this loss, overall, films use of "intensified continuity" has strongly aided film into what it has become today.

Blog- Advanced Editing Notes- Overview/Classical Paradigm

1) Their are clear differences in the camera works of "Arrival of a Train" which reflects a more realism style of shooting and "Damsel in Distress" which reflects more of a classicism style of shooting. In "Arrival of a rain" the camera is static in one position as it is in one spot as an ordinary train is passing by. This realism style of filming was very compelling in the time period of this film because it was the first step to actual film making. Yet in retrospect, we generally look at this film as boring, for the camera is static and it is a dragged on shot to commit to continuity of the action.
"Damsel in Distress" on the other hand, has a much different approach on film making than "Arrival of a Train". The shots within this film were much more diverse and, therefore, had much more coverage and composition. This focused on different objects or people at different times to reflect a relationship between two things in order to show cause and effect. In addition, the shots used contain much more close-ups than "Arrival of the Train" to capture more emotion and to draw the audience within the piece.

2) Their are glaring differences between the edits between these two films. In "Arrival of a Train", their is little to no editing done (or at least any noticeable editing). The shots in this film are elongated to its fullest extent in order to preserve the film's continuity. In addition, this realism editing style is used to portray real events that can relate to the audience as much possible; this is achieved through pure continuity and a central focus on one event.
Contrarily, "Damsel in Distress" uses full use of editing to convey their desired meaning. Following the classicism editing style, this film has very fast cutting to tie with the close ups on different people and objects. This allows them to take full advantage of a parallel action, and intensifies the film as well. This is exemplified near the beginning of the film where it begins with a close up on the train and the steam coming out of its top, and it then cuts to a women sitting down on the ground. This also conveys a relation between the two that will become more clear as the film progresses.

3) I would describe the the characteristics of "Arrival of a Train" as subtle, yet interesting. Considering the realistic style of this film, their is no true plot or narrative to it; thus, this simple idea becomes very subtle. It is interesting because, in hindsight, I see it as interesting, for my perception of music is quite different than this. I am more exposed to faster cutting and more complex storytelling.
I would describe "Damsel in Distress" as a very intense film. This is because the cutting of the shots are very quick, and the sounds and images are very uneasy. Along with that, the use of parallel actions makes the film even more intense, for the audience awaits what is going to happen in the end between the train and the women. In my perspective, this classic style of editing is much more compelling than realist editing.

Advanced Editing notes (3;4)

3:
a) Pudovski's concept of constructive editing was that long shots were too close to reality, so only close-ups, textures, symbols, and other selected details should be used by filmmakers. He believed these montages were the most effective way to convey expressively the idea underlying the complex jumble of real life. He manifested this concept by juxtaposing different shots in order to create new meanings of objects or actions. Yet he did not want to overuse this technique extensively because he thought it would be intrusive like D.W. Griffith's use of close-ups.

b) The Kuleshov effect is when their is a sequence of shots to suggests that their is a certain connection between these objects or people. This effect shows that juxtaposed images is what creates emotion, not the actor's performance. It is linking fragmented details to produce unified action. An example of this in a modern movie is the Tree of Life. In this movie, the greenery of the forest is sometimes followed by a sequence of different view of the outside earth. The lack of dialogue also supplements the idea that is trying to be conveyed in the film.

c)Eisenstein produced a collision montage with contrasting images, for that is what he believed life was all about.He believed shots needed to be contrasted to produce a new meaning; the shots couldn't be too linked. He considered it a mystical process. This is shown in the Odessa steps scene when Eisenstein begins the sequence with people running down the steps, but he contrasts this idea of a fast pace with a mother slowly picking up her injured child in the middle of the frantic scenery. This contrasts illustrates the emotion given between the mother and her injured child.

4:
a)Andre Bazin was frustrated with the much of the editing process. He believed that editing could destroy the effectiveness of a scene. Distortions in using formalist techniques, especially thematic ediing, can violate the complexities of reality. Formalists were egocentric and manipulative. Thus, in his own film making, he condoned the idea of subtle cuts to preserve the realism within the film, and the narrative.

b) Realist editors strive for continuity and coverage within their films; thus it gives a more realistic effect on the audience. In order to achieve this, the editing must be very subtle and not distracting to the harmony between the shots. In this case, the sensitivity of the artist. In this case, filmmakers must be modest, self effacing and a patient observer to see where reality leads. This, in turn, reflects the ideas of wonder and the mysteries of life which is the desired goal for realist filmmakers.

c) Some techniques that realist filmmakers use long shots, wide screen, lengthy takes, deep focus, panning, craning, tilting, or tracking rather than cutting to individual shots. Realist believe the best films were when the artists personal vision is held in delicate balance with the objective nature of the medium. Realist editing is powerful to the audience, for it can relate to them in the most powerful way as opposed to classicism or formalism.

Blinded- Short Film Critique

Rationale:
The short film that my group made was titled "Blinded". This film is about a generous man who gives his blind girlfriend his eyes so she can see the world and eventually marry him. Yet when, he does, the girl gradually veers away from him until they are no longer together.

Commentary:
My responsibility in this film was being the director. I was responsible for taking part in the script writing, but also made decisions during post-production such as: overlooking the shots by the cinematographer, telling the actors where to be and when, bringing the props needed, and organizing the location according to our desires. Last, i also overlooked the editing so the film would turn out as planned, which i thought was pretty successful.

Some problems that arose for me and my responsibility was getting all of our actors together at once. Our main actress was constantly busy which really tampered with our schedule to a point where some scenes were rushed. This was apparent in the 7th scene at the Burlingame train station in which we could only hint at what Lauren's mind set is as opposed to convincing to the audience her change in attitude towards John. This aggravated the plot line, yet it still was plausible due to this small hint. Another problem that we had was accessibility to props. As seen in the film, John's glasses constantly change throughout the film. This is due to the fact that original pair of sunglasses that we had were not available; thus, we encountered some continuity issues.

In some cases, we could not fix some of these problems. For example, we had to comply with our actresses schedule as opposed to our which really put us at a disadvantage in relation to time. In turn, we were unable to meet the required deadline and, as i stated before, disallowed us to develop some of our crucial scenes which jeopardized the plausibility of the plot. As for the glasses, we had to replace with other dark-looking glasses in order to cover our actors' face.It generally worked for the film and didnt penalize it in any significant way. Overall, with a good team effort we were able to finish the film with a good amount of success despite some rough times during production. On top of that, editing also really helped the success of the film as it was well put together and was put in a good sequential order.

Some problems that arose as a whole went hand in hand with the problems with the actors; we had missing shots by the time of the edit that we were unable to reshoot. This problem made it hard for our editors. For instance, in the third scene when Lauren is about to sit down she has her glasses on, but in the next shot she has them off.This continuity error forced us to put in an unprofessional cross fade in it. Another large problem was the recording the audio. Using the new adapter for the first time, we didn't really know how to use it properly; thus, the audio became unclear and constantly buzzed. This overall created problems with the quality of the film as it becomes irritating to the audience. When I tried to get rid of the buzzing noise in soundtrack pro, i was unable to because soundtrack pro takes in two recordings of audio while we mysteriously only had one while the other one seemed to not have recorded any audio. This problem was very apparent in the last scene, as we unavoidably had to keep raising and dropping the audio, so it would be completely silent in the background when John was talking, but when Lauren was talking their was a constant buzzing. Last, We also had problems with the camera. We kept interchanging between two lenses which was very distracting to the audience. We were forced to do so because the long lens blurred in any close up shots, so we had to use the wide angle lens. Although it is not a glaring problem, it is still a bit noticeable which took away from some of the quality of the film. Overall, these problems did have some effect on the outcome of the film, yet we were still able to get by by having a tied-together storyline.

The problems stated above were generally hard to fix, but we managed to handle in the post production stage. First, to deal with missing shots, we either cut the scene short before the noticed problem, or we used cross fades as stated before. Another unique way we dealt with this was in the first scene. In the first scene, we put titles between the missing shots, for it wasn't their, we would have had jump cuts. By putting in titles, the audience can assume that a certain amount of time had passed, thus, the reason why they are much further ahead. This also was generally a presentable way to present the titles as it continued throughout the first scene while establishing Lauren's daily problems dealing with her blindness. To deal with the audio, we chose either to take out the dialogue itself, or we put music over it to hide the buzzing sound. For instance, since we couldn't get rid of the buzzing sound, in the second scene, we put a very faint background sound so the buzzing seemed more subtle. Not only did this music hide the buzzing sound, but it also contributed to the overall tone of the scene; thus, it was a very affective method. On the other hand, their was some instances in which the buzzing sound was unavoidable, such as the resolution of the film. Last, we were unable to deal with the lens problem. Only in some small shots we could, such as in the first scene when Lauren falls, we put a blur filter on it so the depth of field is a little more hidden.

Despite all of the problems that my group and I faced, I thought that the film was compelling and pleasant. The plot itself was very attention grabbing, as you end up feeling really sorry for John, and end up hating Lauren. This attachment to the characters allowed the story to prevail itself. Along with that, i thought all of the shots and scenes we had were very purposeful, and i though that the editing was very solid. Despite all of the problems that we had faced, I thought we handled them to the fullest potential, and were successful at conveying the plot effectively. Contrarily though, i thought many improvements could have been made. To begin, I would like to have had a more reliable and skilled actress. Disregarding the fact that she was always busy, it was really hard to get her to convey our desired emotion. For instance, when she is breaking up with John, she kept smiling, which was out of character. In addition, we could have improved on developing the relationship between the two after the surgery a little more thoroughly. This would give a better justification of why she wanted to leave them. Last, I think we could have improved on the dialogue At times the dialogues is either very cliche or is unrealistic which took away from the validity of the scene. Despite all of the problems, i thought that our film "Blinded" was a good showcase of my groups' talent in film making.

Trailer: Immortals

The trailer that i reviewed was Immortals.This film based on a mythological war, in which one hero tries to protect an entire human race. This plot was revealed by the simple techniques used in the trailer. As the audience, i was dragged in by the creative way they presented their narrative which was enhanced by the cinematography, sound design. and the editing. I was first intrigued by the slow motion effects and the peculiar positioning f the camera. This shot was placed under the ground as if those in the frame were floating; thus, giving it the surreal effect that matches the film. The scoring at this point is also very slow, allowing it to build up as the action builds up.

This trailer also included many bizarre frames and characters. in this frame, people are biting a certain stick while covered in a an interesting powder-like substance. This close framing puts the audience in an uncomfortable position as they are so close to these odd characters. At this point, the sound is in the process of getting louder and louder, adding the intensity to the film, enhancing the emotions within the audience.

As the trailer comes to a close, the scoring has risen to the highest, making it the peak of the action. The coloring has been altered in order to give the gigantic wave a tyrnical feeling as the colors are very drab. This framing gives whole coverage of the way in comparison to the town; it presents the wave as a large overwhelming threat to the protagonist that he will face. Considering all of these components, it makes this trailor very appealing.

Run Lola Run Critique

     The aspect of film that my group discussed was Acting within the film Run Lola Run. The way we approached this was not only by looking at Franka Potente, the actor behind Lola, but also by demonstrating Lola's progression throughout the film by the three sequences, and demonstrated how the surrounding characters helped Lola's character evolve. Considering the evolution of the German socialism genre, Lola represented a rebellious women who breaks through the social "norm" of women always relying on them due to a particular weakness they have. Although German's weren't fond of this film and its depiction of a German women, this strong-willed character develops an iconography around her name due to her aggressive, confident actions. Along with that, her exotic hair and rag-tag clothing supplements her ambitious, relentless character. She exceeds the parameters that women once had in society. Perhaps this iconic character allows for a revelation of women's' general image in society which, in turn, may have accurately suited Tom Twyker's intentions. She acts a tool of language that Twyker uses to justify his intended message behind the film.
    Within the film, Lola is first characterized as  a passive, yet confident person. This hesitance and uncertainty is what prevents her from saving both herself and Manni. This is shown throughout the whole first sequence. In the beginning when her father denies her the money, she is left with nothing to bring to Manni, thus setting herself up for a failed mission. Along with that, her uncertainty is scoped when she is uncomfortable with Manni's feelings towards her. Manni acts as a catalyst to drive Lola's emotions to commit her rebellious acts. In the second scene, Lola becomes very aggressive. For instance, she holds up a gun to her own father in order to get what she wants. Yet, in the second scene, Manni questions her love for him. This unbalance in mutual feelings for each leads to their failures, for in the last sequence, their success proves their excessive love for one another.
    Throughout our presentation, i thought we touched on many key aspects of acting within this film. I thought our background knowledge of the actors was very appropriate for the project. This helped communicate to the audience the different relationships that the director and actors had in putting this film together as suspected. This was essential in this particular film because Tom Twyker and Franka Potente formerly dated each other; therefore, Twyker's vision may of women may have been skewed by his connection with Franka; perhaps he is implying that Franka has served him similarly to how Lola served Manni. Along with that, i thought we had a good, in depth analysis of Lola's character and how the game theory was applied in terms of the characters. We accurately demonstrated her growth and culmination throughout the film, as broken up between the different sequences. For instance, Anissa talked about her excessive love towards Manni. Then, i suggested that this love led to her aggressive behavior as shown when she threatens her father. Last, Maria summed it up by stating that she had supernatural powers (As shown by her screaming in the casino to get her way). These interconnected points allowed us to cover the dynamics of Lola's characters as well as the role of the other characters through their effect on Lola.
      On the other hand, i thought their was some holes in our project. I believe that at points we veered away from the given topic, myself being a prime example. I realized that i tended to talk about camera movement and editing when making my points, and although they helped support my claim of Manni and Lola's relationship, it didn't cover how acting itself helped portray this. I thought we could've improved by talking of how Lola is an iconic character and how her actions helped communicate recurring motifs and themes as opposed to simply characterizing her persona. On another note, i thought we could have constructed the organization of our presentation a little better so the points were clearer and showed differentiation. Despite this, i thought our project was solid and generally clear to the audience.