Short films are the ideal medium for exploring ideas and confronting universal issues. Unheeded by the conventional restrictions of full length feature films, short films encourage the director to experiment with unconventional techniques which best presents their intended idea. These personal choices are endless and span anywhere from non-diegetic sounds to eye-catching visual effects. Without the need of a complex plot or excessive dialogue as found in full length feature films, the message from the director is not concealed, but instead showcased in a clear and precise manner. The short films, L’Homme Sans Tete by Juan Solanas and Borrowed Time by Pixar demonstrates the personal choices made by the directors, which are apparent when comparing …show more content…
Unlike a feature film, short films do not require complex plots, allowing directors to communicate their main message across to the audience more effectively. As the short time frame also limits the complexity of the plot, the absence of other aspects otherwise found in a feature film keeps the audience focused on one idea. L’Homme Sans Tele consists of three main characters with some other characters that play a minute role. If more characters were to be added, the plot would have to compensate by making the plot more complicated, ruining the simplicity of a short film. However, L’Homme Sans Tele is stripped to the bare minimum. The protagonist needs the shopkeeper as their interaction highlights the clear motive of the protagonist, to be aesthetically pleasing when he meets his date later in the evening. The tracking shot of the shopkeeper prompting the protagonist to follow him into a large intimidating room demonstrates just to what ends he would go to impress his date. Borrowed Time consists of two main characters, the father and the son. In this short film by Pixar, the decision of including two characters was perfect as it accentuates the son’s confrontation of his past. With added characters, the son’s experience would not be as influential and it would also complicate the simplistic plot. Extreme close up and tracking shots of the son attempting to pull his father up created an eventful scene. If the short film were to be longer or have more aspects, this meaningful scene would lose its purpose, rearing away from the characteristics of a short
This is a movie in another movie that has a story from the past that is repeated nowadays: the same conflicts between exploited and exploiters, enslavement, injustice, protection of the public against those who put a price, and also the story of how the union of many sometimes gets what seemed
because of both its truth and its presentation. Fay Weldon may as well have been
During the opening six minutes of Nicholas Roeg’s film Don’t Look Now, the viewer experiences a dynamic mixture of film techniques that form the first part of the narrative. Using metaphor and imagery, Roeg constructs a vivid and unique portrayal of his parallel storyline. The opening six minutes help set up a distinct stylistic premise. In contrast to a novel or play, the sequence in Don’t Look Now is only accessible through cinema because it allows the viewer to interact with the medium and follow along with the different camera angles. The cinematography and music also guide the viewer along, and help project the characters’ emotions onto the audience because they change frequently. The film techniques and choppy editing style used in Don’t Look Now convey a sense of control of the director over the audience and put us entirely at his mercy, because we have to experience time and space as he wants us to as opposed to in an entirely serial manner.
The film Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt, presents a sparse narrative. The film has been criticised for its lack of background story, and as a short film, much of the story is left to the viewer to infer from what is presented in the plot. However, Wendy and Lucy is able to depict the intimate relationship between Wendy and her dog as well as reflecting more broadly on the everyday, and commenting on the current economic state of the film’s setting in America. This essay will examine how film form contributes to the viewer’s awareness of the story in Wendy and Lucy and allows a deeper understanding of the themes presented. The aspects of mise-en-scene, shot and editing and sound in the film will be explored.
Romeo and Juliet presents an ongoing feud between the Montague and Capulet families whose children meet and fall in love. Markedly, the meeting scene depicting love at first sight continues to be praised by today’s critics. Romeo and Juliet then receive the label of star-crossed lovers whose tragic demise is written in the stars. In fact, Shakespeare 's work is well received and its numerous adaptations have made it one of his most enduring and notorious stories. The cinematic world brings to the screens a disastrous approach by Baz Luhrmann to do the play justice. A glance at Baz Luhrmann’s productions allows audiences to assume he delivers movies which are unlike those of any other filmmaker today, or perhaps ever. Therefore, blending a delicate
The stories of Nick Cassavetes The Notebook (2004) and Richard Curtis About Time (2013) are both similar yet different in their own ways. The Notebook is an American romance drama film starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling that was extremely successful not only in American box office but also shared great worldwide success. This film exemplifies the struggle between love and social class. Two young lovers have to face social class boundaries and put their loves on the line. The approach that this movie trying to make is a relevant topic in the world we inhabit today and undoubtedly contributed to this film’s success. The film is kind of slow, leaving some empty spaces along the way in order for the audience to fill in and fully engage with
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic love story about two young lovers who are forced to be estranged as a result of their feuding families. The play is about their struggle to contravene fate and create a future together. As such, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would try and emulate Shakespeare’s masterpiece. This had been done before in many films. Prominent among them were, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Both films stay true to the themes of Shakespeare’s original play. However, the modernised Luhrmann film not only maintains the essence of Shakespeare’s writings, Luhrmann makes it relevant to a teenage audience. This is done through the renewal of props and costumes, the reconstruction of the prologue and the upgrading of the setting, whilst preserving the original Shakespearean language. Out of the two, it is Luhrmann who targets Romeo & Juliet to a younger audience to a much larger extent than Zeffirelli.
This New Wave aesthetic solidified film as a mainstream artform, stressing that film was carefully crafted similarly to literature. Individual directors, or auteurs, were expected to “author” their films in much the same way that an author would write a novel. This auteur theory and its accompanying aesthetic became the backbone of the French New Wave and was what drove innovation. Breaking free from the screenwriter, producer, and studio driven systems of the past, and putting the creative power back in the hands of the director was seen as a crucial step in solving Cahiers’ perceived problems with French cinema before the movement.
Think about your favorite movie. When watching that movie, was there anything about the style of the movie that makes it your favorite? Have you ever thought about why that movie is just so darn good? The answer is because of the the Auteur. An Auteur is the artists behind the movie. They have and individual style and control over all elements of production, which make their movies exclusively unique. If you could put a finger on who the director of a movie is without even seeing the whole film, then the person that made the movie is most likely an auteur director. They have a unique stamp on each of their movies. This essay will be covering Martin Scorsese, you will soon find out that he is one of the best auteur directors in the film industry. This paper will include, but is not limited to two of his movies, Good Fellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. We will also cover the details on what makes Martin Scorsese's movies unique, such as the common themes, recurring motifs, and filming practices found in their work. Then on
In the short film ‘Runaway’ produced by Ringling College the use of symbols, relationships and focus all lead to the creation of a drama within the film. The relationship between the characters in this film is and antagonist in opposition to protagonist relationship and one of best friends. The relationship in this film makes it dramatic because of the misunderstanding and confusion between the characters. The use of this relationship between the characters is to make the film dramatic and interesting for the viewer. Due to the target audience for this being young children the lack of speaking accounts for the younger audience.
Art has been always seen as a form to express self emotions and ideas; an artist creates an idea and shapes it by culturally known objects and forms to send encrypted message. Through the times both, ideas and materials used, separates art in to different periods and movements. In late 40’s and late 50’s two art and culture movements emerged, one from another. The first one, Lettrism, was under the aspiration to rewrite all human knowledge. From it another movement, Situationism, appeared. It was an anti-art movement which sought for Cultural Revolution. Both of these movements belong to wide and difficulty defined movement of experiment, a movement whose field is endless. Many different people create experimental films because of the variety of reasons. Some wishes to express their viewpoints which are unconventional. But most of them have an enthusiasm for medium itself. They yearn to explore what prospects the medium has and wishes to open new opportunities to create and to explore, as well as to educate. Experimental filmmaker, differently from mainstream filmmakers, wishes to step out from the orthodox notions. The overall appreciation is not the aim that the experimental filmmakers would seek for. Experimenters usually work on the film alone or with a small group, without the big budget. They intend to challenge the traditional ideas. And with intention to do so Lettrism tries to narrow the distance between the poetry and people’s lives, while Situationism tries to transform world into one that would exist in constant state of newness. Both of these avant-garde movements root from similar sources and have similar foundations. Nonetheless, they have different intentions for the art and culture world and these movements...
As an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.
Since the creation of films, their main goal was to appeal to mass audiences. However, once, the viewer looks past the appearance of films, the viewer realizes that the all-important purpose of films is to serve as a bridge connecting countries, cultures, and languages. This is because if you compare any two films that are from a foreign country or spoken in another language, there is the possibility of a connection between the two because of the fact that they have a universally understanding or interpretation. This is true for the French New Wave films; Contempt and Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and contemporary Indian films; Earth and Water directed by Deepa Mehta. All four films portray an individual’s role in society using sound and editing.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.
Movies take us inside the skin of people quite different from ourselves and to places different from our routine surroundings. As humans, we always seek enlargement of our being and wanted to be more than ourselves. Each one of us, by nature, sees the world with a perspective and selectivity different from others. But, we want to see the world through other’s eyes; imagine with other’s imaginations; feel with other’s hearts, at a same time as with our own. Movies offer us a window onto the wider world, broadening our perspective and opening our eyes to new wonders.