Today in film class the Clean Air Network came to "brief" us on our project (okay, I stole the "brief" part from Vikki). The guy gave us a lot of statistics and how like 3 people die every day from air problems. I guess we should all be scared and feel threatened by the air problems that could KILL US and OTHER PEOPLE, but honestly I don't really care if people die. Just as long as Vikki doesn't die before I die, and I really don't mind dying. At least I can contribute to the statistics, right? :)
Anyway, so we listened to this guy talk and he made us feel like these "corporate soldiers" (I'm sorry I don't think that's the right term, but it kind of just POPPED into my head and it sounds nice, but anyway), we, or I, felt all "professional" and "official" and stuff, like we were in a real meeting, I think it's the shape of the room, really. And I'm actually kind of excited to make the things, because a) it makes me feel professional, and I like that feeling, b) I get to fight for something I don't (really) believe in, actually I do believe in air pollution, but I don't really think that the main reason for reducing air pollution is to save the people, because we have too many people in Hong Kong anyway (oh my Gawd, I'm going to FAIL this course because
I said that, aren't I?). ANYWAY, that is a skill that all debaters need to learn, so I should learn it through FUN stuff, like making a film.Also, this lady from Focus On Film came to teach us about making films and she showed us 2 clips (okay, 3, but we'll get to the 3rd one later). I think the soundtrack of the first one was a kind of annoying but I'm glad that it's there because the whole video would be kind of awkward if it wasn't, really. Of course, they should choose better music, but if you don't want "disruptive" music, I think that music's okay for a video like that. (Being a music video person, I pick the music first and then time the clips to fit the music, sort of like the James Bond one, but not as good).
The second clip was a trailer for the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. It's basically your typical action movie trailer, and from what I've noticed, they have a pattern. It's basically like this (of course there are some exceptions, but from the ones I've watched, and I'm not a pro or anything so for those of you who are pros, please feel free to correct me, still...): the trailer starts off with either some really dark, mysterious clip (which this trailer used) after the production signs and stuff come on, or it starts on some brighter, rather normal-looking clip then something INTENSE comes up and THEN the production signs come on. Either way, there's always someone doing a voice over, whether it's a narrator or a character doing some kind of off screen talking and then the camera showing the guy talking. Anyway, there are always these fast fade-out-to-black scenes that keep fading out even if it's virtually the same scene and stuff. But somehow it has this effect on people and people go like *GASP!* when they watch it. Okay, so after the quiet part with a lot of audio comes out, there's always this bit with this really intense action music that sounds really LOUD and the people edit in all the scenes where the guys punch each other and shoot at each other or use their superpowers on each other and stuff and make the movie seem all INTENSE (even though in most cases action movies tend to be rather SLOW most of the time when there's no real action). They put in all those scenes from flashbacks and the really intense parts at the start of the film and make it seem like it's the "peak point" of the film and stuff even though when you watch the movie you'll find out that it's actually just a flashback that lasts for like 2 seconds or something. But people like that too. And then there's this quiet part where someone says something and then BOOM the action music comes back on and we all have heart attacks and we keep watching it. THE GENIUS OF THE TRAILER EDITING PEOPLE. Honestly, in my opinion, they're the real geniuses, NOT the directors, NOT the cinematographers, NOT the actors, the Trailer people (whoever they are, okay, maybe the directors directed them to do it so they're genii too, whatever). Because the real success behind the film is how many people WATCH it, NOT how many awards it gets (even though it really does count), NOT how good the camera is, NOT how good the plot is, it's how many people WATCH it. I mean who cares if the critiques all say it sucks when the people all buy tickets to watch it, AND the trailer guys MAKE the people WANT to watch it. Okay, I see that I have gotten off topic again. I'm sorry. BACK TO THE REFLECTION. I think the trailer's really good because I really want to watch the movie after I watched the trailer and it makes me want to watch it RIGHT NOW, which is good because if people all want to watch it RIGHT NOW the box office would be flooded on the first day and BAM it hits the top of the Box Office Hit List, whatever it's called.
After that we watched a clip from this movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which I know and wanted to watch but never watched because of some reason. The clip we watched had a lot of cinematic techniques with the cool lenses and really good shots and stuff. There was this one shot that I liked a lot, like when Brad Pitt as Jesse James was standing in front of the train and the steam of the train comes out all at once and sort of covers him in this really magician-like way, I kind of felt like he was about to DISAPPEAR, you know? Like in those really creepy movies that aren't even sci-fi where the main characters have these peak-human abilities to like disappear really fast or something. But we never got to see whether he disappeared or not because they cut into another shot. So now I really want to watch the movie. :)
I kind of forgot what I was about to write after I wrote all that really useless stuff about those action movie trailers...but I'm really looking forward to starting the film project because I really like feeling all professional and stuff. I think it's good that we can say our own opinions because I have a lot of opinions that are different from others and other people also have different opinions so it's a good chance for us all to be OPEN MINDED (referring to the IB Learner Profile). So anyway, that's all for now.
Over and Out.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: IMAGINATION CAN'T RESIST THE LAZINESS...from Happiness and the Fish
After that we watched a clip from this movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which I know and wanted to watch but never watched because of some reason. The clip we watched had a lot of cinematic techniques with the cool lenses and really good shots and stuff. There was this one shot that I liked a lot, like when Brad Pitt as Jesse James was standing in front of the train and the steam of the train comes out all at once and sort of covers him in this really magician-like way, I kind of felt like he was about to DISAPPEAR, you know? Like in those really creepy movies that aren't even sci-fi where the main characters have these peak-human abilities to like disappear really fast or something. But we never got to see whether he disappeared or not because they cut into another shot. So now I really want to watch the movie. :)
I kind of forgot what I was about to write after I wrote all that really useless stuff about those action movie trailers...but I'm really looking forward to starting the film project because I really like feeling all professional and stuff. I think it's good that we can say our own opinions because I have a lot of opinions that are different from others and other people also have different opinions so it's a good chance for us all to be OPEN MINDED (referring to the IB Learner Profile). So anyway, that's all for now.
Over and Out.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: IMAGINATION CAN'T RESIST THE LAZINESS...from Happiness and the Fish
Posts
Lots to discuss in this long post:
ReplyDelete1) Clean air. I appreciate your honesty in saying that you don't much care about the clean air movement. This is important because there are many people like you, and these are who we want to talk to, who we want to reach. So you can approach this project in two ways -- you can treat yourself as a guinea pig for whether your film is effective; and you can use it as a learning experience to find out more about an issue you know very little about (and then maybe you will see why it is one of the most important issues of your generation);
2)Film grammar: You dissect the 'Quantum of Solace' trailer very closely and accurately but you are not using the correct language to do so. As you continue on this course, you will discover that the "peak point" is known as a climax and how this is constructed deliberately to cause the audience reaction that it does. The trailer creators are not geniuses, just very good at their jobs.
3) Success: Yes, it is very well put together but don't forget that the whole point of a trailer is to SELL THE FILM. That is not always the point of the movie itself. I actually don't agree that the measure of success is bums on seats, although that is certainly one way of being successful. What about those films that help to bring awareness to an important issue? Or those that pioneer the craft of filmmaking? Film should be celebrated as an art form as well as mass entertainment.
Good work on your reflections so far and keep thinking and discussing!