Gradually Gaining Insight...

This last class (which was about two weeks ago) is difficult for me to remember. It's always been hard for me to adjust to school and recall the things being discussed in my classes after a long break, but here it goes.

The first thing we did was watch a short film called, "The Last Summer," which was created by a graduate film student for his thesis. It was helpful to see all of the elements of the filmmaking industry we have been learning about being united on-screen. By watching this film, we were able to see how the setting, the actors, the screenplay, the script, etcetera are able to mesh and become an organized story. Each week, we do a different workshop that is focused on a different aspect of film. For example, we have done workshops on sound, editing, and cinematography. But it can sometimes be difficult to tie all of these elements together. This short film helped me to wrap my head around the fact that each part of film is intimately tied to the other parts of film. Yes, they each are constructed and work differently, but they are all vital to the end result and must fit together.

After watching and discussing this short film, we were also shown several videos. The "Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer" was very funny and emphasized how cliche and predictable many movies can be advertised in trailers. Another video was of Alfred Hitchcock discussing the importance of cinematic tension. He was telling viewers that the most important factor in film is determination; and when the plot calls for tension, it must be built up and then relieved. Otherwise, the audience will not be satisfied with the plot's delivery. After discussing these videos and answering questions, we then broke up into our individual film groups and discussed any last-minute details.

In my group, we made some important decisions on what type of lighting we should use in certain scenes. In addition, we decided where we were going to film and when our first time to film would be. We also decided to do a walkthrough of the different camera angles before filming. By walking through the set and camera angles beforehand, the actors' and other crew members' time wouldn't be wasted with a lot of standing around on film day. After making these decision, we were ready for the camera and have already begun shooting our scenes. I am excited to see what the final product will be!

A Twisted Ending

After watching The Player, I have to say that I was creeped out and unhappy with the ending. Although I am a sucker for the happy endings to prevail in movies, I was especially rooting against the anti-hero, Griffin Mill, in this particular film. In fact, this movie has a consistent theme of the movie-making business and happy versus unhappy endings. Oh, the irony.

As the movie came to a close, I found myself feeling irritated, confused, and disturbed. The discussion about the movie brought a lot of different things into perspective and gave me a little more understanding as to why the ending was how it was. The movie is focused on a movie executive whose job is to listen to an endless number of writers' pitches for possible movies. After getting several threatening postcards in the mail from an unknown writer, Griffin Mill tries to hunt down his attacker. He eventually tracks down a writer and kills him, but it turns out that the writer he kills was not his attacker; thus, the threats persist. To make this movie even more twisted, Mill falls in love with the dead writer's girlfriend. And in the end, he lives happily ever after by appeasing the angry writer and getting away with murder. The fact that he gets away with murder is what bothered me. Where is the justice? What did the innocent writer die for?

Well, maybe these questions can be answered by the director's intentions of the film and film's background. After discovering that the film fits into the genre of film noir, things began to gradually become pieced together. The music beats during the dark/disturbing parts of the movie along with the twisted ending allow this fact to make more sense. Robert Altman, the director, created a theme of the movie-making business in the film. He depicted this studio business as one that was averse to risk and shallow, screwed people over, and created empty, unrealistic movies. This last point about unreality points out another theme within this movie: the battle between reality and unreality.

One important instance in the middle of the film is when Griffin Mill hears a movie pitch from two writers who want to make a film with no big stars and an unhappy, depressing ending. The studio decides to try the movie; and at the end of the film, we see that the movie opened into theaters using Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis as main characters and instead of dying, Julia Roberts gets saved. Altman is sending the audience a message that in the movie-making business, it all comes down to the story film makers want to tell versus the story they believe that audiences will want to see. Most often, unreality is what dominates in movies. Yet the fact that Altman allowed Mill to get away with murder illustrates that in reality, unhappy endings can be just as common (if not more common) than happy ones.

Short Film Workshop

And so it begins. This past Thursday our class opened up with Eric showing a couple of short film examples. In these clips, he pointed out the importance of details that should be included in our films. From costumes to the background scenery, details should be added to a film in order to make the scenes seem more realistic. Other vital tips that Eric gave us include advertising for good actors. Actors can make or break a movie, so it is a good idea to advertise far enough in advance to cast the actors you are interested in. And probably the most important tip Eric told us is to have everything ready before shooting. By being organized with paperwork, knowing which shots go with each scene, and having your lighting and sound set up correctly, the time you spend on set will go smoothly and productively.

Although we do have a script and storyboard written, we still have a long way to go before we are ready to start filming. Our next step is to begin the production process. I thought that we already had our crew assembled, but we are missing one key member: the producer. The producer is vital to our short film project because they are responsible for getting the paperwork assembled and organizing the set. My group definitely needs to designate someone as producer as soon as possible due to the fact that we begin filming in 4 short weeks!

The second half of the class we broke up into our small groups and had a workshop, discussing ideas about our plot and the technical aspects of our film. Although we had created a storyboard and script, we decided that we needed to expand our ideas a little bit, allowing our short film to be longer in length to fit the assigned time. In addition, we decided that we needed more actors in order to expand our story. Although we have the framework of our script and storyboard, we still need to decide what to do about our lighting and the location of the film. We are gradually making progress, but I know we still have quite a ways to go before we can even think about filming. Having the genre of horror, I think that my group has a big challenge to overcome. It is hard enough to legitimately scare someone with a movie that even professional filmmakers create. And it will be that much harder for us rookies to do the same; but do not worry, we will find a way.