10/10 & 11/10

Choosing to combine today and yesterday's notes as yesterday I was quite tired, this post may be quite extensive.

10/10

Today in the seminar we went through pages 61 - 78 of Introduction to Film Studies 5th Edition. Our lecturer gave the class a task to complete in regards to the film Springtime in an English Village. As I did not have my annotated notes I had to briefly read through the reading to collect my previous thoughts. What I will do is read over the readings again and reproduce my notes. I had begun with the first page today.

I have devised a little exercise for myself as I haven't done any editing for a little while now. I will create a short train animation sequence that visually is unique in it's own way. Even though this was very extensive, it gave me a more hands on approach to animation. I vaguely remember coming across train-cinema in my previous year from one of the books I was reading. After a little bit of digging I came across the piece I had read. The book it was from was The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Lamarre (2009) opens the paragraph with "So much has been written about the profound connection between trains and cinema" (Lamarre, 2009, p.13). I remember thinking to keep hold of the book, because of that one sentence, Lamarre (2009) continues with "The train cinema interface is almost paradigmatic of the modern" (Lamarre, 2009, p.13). Time can be linked by the types of railway services available.

My example leads me to the Victorian times, in the 1850s one of the most popular modes of transportation was the train journey. Considering just a few decades before the 1850s was the invention of the first passenger train. Trains now look nothing like they did from the Victorian times and the twentieth century saw a huge rise in train demands, including passenger capacity. It cannot be neglected that such demands were supported by the government in times of World War I and World War II, for obvious reason of combat. Even through having radical changes such as: The Big Four merge, the train business continues to evolve and is still a popular mode of transportation used. How does this relate and connect with time? As times continue to change the train becomes a spectator of the contemporary and represents it through the transformation of itself. From a simple train film set before the 21st century to a train animation set in the 21st century.

Trains are useful tools to represent transportation within motion pictures, so the interpretation of myself being a traveller can be concluded.

11/10

Today I had a seminar session in Creative Media Practice, the session revolved around analysing and discussing short films. The lecturer put on a few shorts for the class to view and after a group of viewings, we created groups to discuss and explain our own thoughts (thank goodness I didn't sound quite as clumsy as I did in the one yesterday). The short films the class viewed were: Gasman, Salaryman 6, High Rise, Love me or Leave me alone, Tango, Strange Lights, The Life Size Zoetrope, Steel Homes and Christmas with Dad (I still don't know which one is my favourite). As a task everyone in the class has to analyse either Love me or Leave me Alone or Steel Homes (This is where the extensive bit begins) and write our analysis on our blogs.

Love me or Leave me Alone by Duane Hopkins (2003)

The first noticeable aspect of this short film is that it instantly diverts from Todorov's theory. Todorov suggests (1990: 29) "(1) the opening situation of equilibrium; (2) the degradation of the situation through the kidnapping of the boy; (3) the state of disequilibrium observed by the little girl; (4) the search for and recovery of the boy; (5) the reestablishment of the initial equilibrium". The film introduces a problem straight without introducing an equilibrium. This gives thew viewer the task of following the characters' actions and dialogue more attentively to understand who they are. It successfully establishes to the audience that the characters are in relationship and have are currently having a breakup.

The montage before the short title sequence paints a vile and problematic theme for the film, when the title sequence is introduced the expectation that the film will be filled with relationship problems and successes doesn't seem too distant. The audience is given an unofficial trailer of the film, this successfully works to direct the audiences' expectations, however provides an early limiter of expectations too. The film's subject is the journey of a young relationship in Britain, should we expect anymore than that? In this sense, the film repels potential viewers who dislike the idea of love relationships in films, worse yet the depiction of the youth relationships in Britain. Not everyone will agree with gruesome and harsh images. For audiences that do enjoy the unofficial trailer, this technique deployed will minimally quench the thirst of curiosity and have the audience wanted more answers.

The short sequence that appears when the girl is walking up the road facing the left and the guy is in the kitchen facing right further represents the separation in the relationship. From this point on, an expectancy of further separation between the two wouldn't seem impossible.

The semantic essence of the cigarette plays a deep role in trying to further understand the characters within this short film. From works such as Pulp Fiction and Angels with Dirty Faces a pattern can be applied that the 'bad guys' or my preferred understanding, characters with a tough attitude, are likely to be the characters that smoke. Again in Double Indemnity the detective smokes, in a rhetoric way the characters that smoke are likely to hold a strong assertive essence on screen.

The syntactic technique deployed of the girl's attitude is interesting. When after it is seen that the girl has tried on numerous occasions to get a hitchhike lift from anybody passing-by, the boy gives pursuit to catch up to the girl walking down the road. He stops in front of her and the music that she is listening becomes slightly louder to a noticeable level. At the point where she walks passed him, we see no hesitation in her actions and have upbeat music amplifying her sharp negligence of the boy. On screen, this successfully creates the representation that the girl is not even remotely interested in the boy.

Towards the end a neo-noir suspense is built where the girl makes it clear that she cannot further see the boy. The mise-en-scene deployed in this sequence provides a mysterious confusion as to what to expect by using low-lit characters and harsh shadows; whether the boy will go on a rampage from being rejected or whether the boy will accept the rejection with 'open arms'. What is clear, is that without the sound, this mystery would be unsolved.

In conclusion, the film is effective in creating a strong moral of contradictions. Audiences will have to use moral and ethical judgements to decide whether they agree with narrative. Impressive film-techniques are deployed in regards to visuals and sounds, further taken the director has thought about some of the possible interpretations that would be assimilated by audiences by the choices he has made. The final choice being aimed at the tertiary audience of the film, an open ending. Leaving numerous amounts of possibilities for sequels or fan-made products.

Steel Homes by Eva Webber (2008)

The conventional opening is deployed where the shots of the settings around the subject are used, however what is the subject? From the sequence introduced it is leading to believe that the first speaker is the subject of the documentary. When further speakers are brought forward a connection can be drawn the speakers that they have all lost somebody, it isn't made clearer until further into the film that the deceased people of the speakers are different people and of no relation. This result would disappoint any viewer trying to string together a connection between the speakers. What is shown are shots of what the audience believe the to be the speakers in this one familiar place. The sound used does not constitute making the location the primary subject at the beginning of the film or throughout the film, apart from the hearable dialogue from the interviews, there is no major recognition of sound.

The arrangement of the film is powerful. At numerous points, sympathy is invoked by the recollection of the deceased and strong dialogue points. In the film a speaker mentions in similar words, one of these boxes, is my life. Inadvertently the connection between life and the steel boxes are created, however the arrangement of this particular answer alongside close ups of the steel boxes is a creative decision by the producer trying to amplify the emotions at this one point.

In conclusion, their is a strong invitation for sorrowful emotions to be felt behind this production, the lack of sound recognition will not cause the film to suffer lack of quality as their are no clear disturbances within the piece. The flow is maintained and selective decisions were made to get the audience to connect with the subjects.

(I got a lot more to write, I may attempt to extend this day tomorrow in a separate post)

Ty

Books:
Nelmes, J. (2012). Introduction to Film Studies: 5th Edition. Routledge
Lamarre, T. (2009). The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. London: University of Minnesota Press

Films:
Springtime in an English Village.
Gasman. (1997). [FIlm] Directed by Lynne Ramsey
Salaryman 6. (2002). [Film] Directed by Jake Knight
High Rise. (2002). [Film] Directed by Gabrielle Russel
Tango. (1983). [Film] Directed by Zbig Rybczynski
Love Me or Leave Me Alone. (2003). [Film] Directed by Dwane Hopkins
The Life Size Zoetrope. (2007). [Film] Directed by Mark Simon Hewis
Strange Lights. (2010). [Film] Directed by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow
Steel Homes. (2008). [Film] Directed by Eva Webber
Christmas with Dad. (2008). [Film] Directed by Conor McCormack