Category: Uncategorized

Summary

• My project is a less than a minute film about what a typical online school day is like. I decided to show my making coffee because it is essential for me to get up and get ready for the day. Then I show me doing math homework and then an English assignment from my bed. I tend to do work on my bed a lot when I’m feeling lazy.

Logline

• High school student ordinary day in online school.

Intent / Goals

• FOR YOU: One technical goal I made for myself as an editor was to make sure the edits and cuts I made were clear what they were and you could clearly see what kind of cut or edit I did. One Creative goal I made for myself was to try something new when filming and I came up with an idea to do an invisible cut with no coffee to coffee made.
• FOR THE PROJECT: I wanted this short film to be aesthetically pleasing and easy to watch. I wanted to get straight to the point and just show a conventional day in the life of a highschool online student.

Research

• I rewatched the 13 edits youtube video about five times just to really grasp what each edit was really about and how to make it happen.
• I thought that their examples in the video were really easy to understand and they explained each cut very comprehensibly.

Questions

• Was each cut shown easy to decipher?
• Did all of the cuts blend together and make sense inside the film?

Peer Feedback

• The fade-out cut was not necessary
• The standard cut putting the cup on the table needed intention also

• In this clip, there were a lot of standard cuts and cuts between the fish tank and the clock trying to make continued suspense. Then when she couldn’t get out of the chains she proceeded to scream underwater and the shot got close to her face showing how scared she was “It was all acting as you could see it was a magic trick.” This continued to make even more suspense for the watcher. They had a couple camera shots from the top with the piranhas all the way down the fish tank below where the lady was about to be dropped in.
• One thing I liked about the film clip is that if it’s the first time you are watching it, you would have had no idea that in the end it all worked out and she got out of the tank safely. It really did look like she was getting eaten and she was acting the part very well. Also, the shots between her and the clock ticking down really make the watcher on edge the whole time. Even though I’ve seen this movie multiple times, watching it know what was going to happen still had me anxious to see what would happen next.
• This whole movie actually has many really cool editing examples, there is one clip when they are passing a card from a card dec around in a really cool way. This one was in the second movie “Now you see me 2”.

• Everything about it, the music, the camera angles, and the card movements was all so cool and fun to watch.
• Some things I learned from this week’s exercises were about the different cuts in editing and also, I learned how editors make movies a lot more interesting with sound and different camera angles and zoom.

• J- cuts and L-cuts are similar but different. By definition, J-cuts are scene transitions where the audio of the next scene precedes the picture change. In an L-cut, the audio carries over from the previous scene into the following one, despite visual changes.

• J and L cuts are used to create a scene that intriges the watcher into what is going to happen next. Can you hear rain? Is it going to rain in the next scene? If you bring that well known sound earily, it perks the watchers interest.

• The most important thing I learned J and L cuts is that I have seen them many times in movies and tv shows before, not realizing that they were J and L cuts. It’s crazy to think about what goes into film making and the editing process.

Summary

This short 60-second film is about the beginning of the coronavirus and the effect it had on our daily lives. When we had to quarantine for months on end it was very hard for everyone I presume. In this short film, I portrayed a teenager in lock-down and what a regular day was like. The goal of the film was to show how discouraging and BORING those couple of months were and how hard it was for teenagers to get back into regular life. (life is still very different but a lot better than how it was from late March to July)

Feedback Questions

• Was it clear through the film what I was trying to portray?
• Could you relate in any way?

Feedback

• “Great use of POV camera use, the grand music is solemn feel and time-lapse stuff is beautiful. Clear message and definitely related to the character in bed with a laptop!” – Brian
• “Was a good representation of what almost everyone’s lockdown was like so it made it relatable” – Cooper C
• “Yes, it was clear what you were trying to portray – I enjoyed the time-lapses used to show the passage of longer amounts of time.” – Francis
• “The delay of the text at the end reveals the rinse repeat since such a short film and works for me.” – Brian
• “Great job capturing the mood of quarantine. I could very easily relate to the film because of its great use of music and shots.” – Reese
• “I don’t think the ideas were super clear about how it’s an everyday thing since the explanation was at the very end. I do think the idea is relatable about how quarantine is very repetitive and I really liked how you used time-lapse to show the mood and feeling. ” – Naomi
• “Thought the idea was very relatable, but it would’ve been great to see the idea of repetition communicated without the text explanation at the end” – Josie

Summary

• This week was so so stressful because I had some much work to do before the break… IM SO STRESSEDDDDD

Film Analysis

Film Title	Handmaids Tale season one
Year	2017
Director	Kari Skogland (Actually, it was Reed Morano, for episode 1 & 2 of season 1 – Mr. Le Duc)
Country	Filming on the series took place in Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, and Cambridge, Ontario, from September 2016 to February 2017.
Genre	Dystopian, Tragedy
If you could work on this film (change it), what would you change and why?	I would change the personality serena joy, the commarnders husband to be more simpithetic to Ofred, I think it would have made the story more interesting.

As you view films, consider how the cuts, camera angles, shots, and movement work to create particular meanings. Think about how they establish space, privilege certain characters, suggest relationships, and emphasize themes. In addition to shot distances, angles, editing, and camera movement, note details of the narrative, setting, characters, lighting, props, costume, tone, and sound.

Ask yourself the following questions:

TOPIC	YOUR NOTES
1. Who is the protagonist?	Offred or her real name, Jane.
2. Who is the antagonist?	The Commanders
3. What is the conflict?	The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate.
4. What is the theme? (summarize in one or two words)Learn more…	Women’s Bodies as Political Instruments
5. How is the story told (linear, with flashbacks, flash-forwards, at regular intervals)Learn more…	This story goes back and fourth from flash backs from before the change in society then back into present time.
6. What “happens” in the plot (Brief description)?	As Offred tells the story of her daily life, she frequently slips into flashbacks, from which the reader can reconstruct the events leading up to the beginning of the novel. In the old world, before Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a married man. He divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Using the military, they assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a coup, claiming that they were taking power temporarily.
7. How does the film influence particular reactions on the part of viewers (sound, editing, characterization, camera movement, etc.)? Why does the film encourage such reactions?	I think this story really hits deep in your heart. It helps you really think about your life and the privallage you have in your life. Women in Irac don’t even have the right to vote. You realize the privillage of living in the US. That’s what I think about when thinking back to the first season of the handmaids tail. I think this film also makes the viewer tremble and get scared, be on there toes because no one knows what is going to happen next. Personally I can’t even imagine living in a world like Jane has to live in, I don’t know I could do it.
8. Is the setting realistic or stylized? What atmosphere does the setting suggest? Do particular objects or settings serve symbolic functions?Learn more…	I think it’s a little bit of both. The plot started in the real world, the way we live today, and then turned into a very dark place so who know, maybe it is realitic. But at the same time I don’t think that this kind of thing could ever happen to our country. Although Russia and China tried out communism which is very different but look how bad that turned out for them. I don’t know if that compare to the world in the Handmaids tail, probably not, but thats what I thought of.
9. How are the characters costumed and made-up? What does their clothing or makeup reveal about their social standing, ethnicity, nationality, gender, or age? How do costume and makeup convey character?Learn more…	All of the Handmaids where a red cloke and a bonnet, no makeup, they are supposed to look clean and pure. Commanders where suits white the wives wear green dresses. Maids who cook and clean where gray maid uniforms. The hierarchy goes from top to bottem: Commanders, Commanders wives, Maids and then on the bottem, handmaids. When Handmaids are pregnant though, they are treated a lot better than before they were pregnant.
10. How does the lighting design shape our perception of character, space, or mood?Learn more…	The lighting is usally dark and gloomy to make the scenes depressing and sad. There is not aloud any emotional connection between anyone, there is in the story, but it is forbidden and it anyone found out, they would be killed.
11. How do camera angles and camera movements shape our view of characters or spaces? What do you see cinematically?Learn more…	Different camera angles help show different parts of the story. There are some camera angles showing from behind when walking home from the grocery store, and then when the camera angle changes it could be right in front of Offreds face or of her and another handmaid, while they are being sneaky and talking about things that they shouldn’t be.
12. What is the music’s purpose in the film? How does it direct our attention within the image? How does it shape our interpretation of the image? What stands out about the music?Learn more…	Music was added to add dramatic impact to the show. It directs our attention to whats really going of in the film. When the music is fast and scary, like maybe the jaws music, it makes the views palms sweat, make they wonder if there favorite person is going to die. If the music is more of a slow wandering sound, I think i makes you interested in what the people are saying in the show. Maybe this is the time something important about the show is said.
13. How might industrial, social, and economic factors have influenced the film? Describe how this film influences or connects to a culture?Learn more…	Well the film really talks about women rights, so i’m sure they are trying to promot women rights and feminism. They had a lot of money to spend of this tv show, the budget was large enough to do everything that they could to make the scenes look more real and scary.
14. Give an example of what a film critic had to say about this film.Use credible sources and cite sourcesExample: “The Shawshank Redemption Movie Review (1994) | Roger Ebert.” All Content. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2015.Find good sources…	Liz Shannon Miller indieWire TOP CRITIC “The Handmaid’s Tale is a haunting confluence of tenses. It’s also one of the best shows of the year so far, at times hard to watch but impossible to ignore.”
15. Select one scene no longer than 5 minutes that represents well the whole film and shows relevant cinematic elements. Explain why.	PLACE THE TIME STAMP FROM THE SCENE HERE… Example: 00:02:00 – 00:06:00  Season One, Episode one.
16. In the selected scene: write a sentence for each of the elements below:
a. Screenwriting:	The script was very well written in this scene, it made you jump and want June and her family to escape.
b. Sound Design:	There was lots of vrooming and car sounds as they were being chased, then when they crashed there was a huge boom. The gun shots was load and there was a lot of them.
c. Camera Movements:	The camera movements changed throughout the scene, some were wide screen showing the woods, some word of the backs of June and her daughter running.
d. Light Setup:	The lighting was dark and gloomy, i was a raining day with clouds.
e. Soundtrack:	Some music like the jaws music, scared what is going to happen next when they are running, but becides that this scene didn’t have much music.
18. What’s the socio-cultural context of this film?Learn more…	It’s sometimes very hard to watch this show but you can’t ignore what is happening, it scares me to the bottem of my heart of this one day happening.

Mr. Le Duc’s Film Analysis Resources

• Diigo.com Film Analysis Links
• YouTube Film Analysis Playlist

“Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Lana Turner” by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“Analysis gave me great freedom of emotions and fantastic confidence. I felt I had served my time as a puppet.”

Hedy Lamarr – Read about 1930s actress Hedy Lamarr-inventor of cellphones, Wi-Fi and GPS

SUMMARY

• This week was stressful because I have a huge math project due and a whole bunch of other work.

CLASSROOM (THEORY & ANALYSIS)

I watched 6 Underground

After Watching The Film…

OUTSIDE (CREATIVITY, PRODUCTIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• Review the How to Practice Self-Care During COVID-19 infographic for 5 minutes (Click for larger PDF version)

• During covid I had a lot more time to myself. I am an only child so I was alone a lot. This made me have ot figure out things to do by myself that were helpful and productive. I am now a lot better at ocupying myslef when I don’t have anything to do.

THEATER

WHAT I LEARNED and PROBLEMS I SOLVED

• I learned a lot more about camera angles and sound effects by closely watching a movie.

WEEKLY ACTIVITY EVALUATION

Film Title:	6 Underground
Year:	2019
Director:	Michael Bay
Country:	Filmed in Abu Dhabi
Genre:	Action,Thriller

As you view films, consider how the cuts, camera angles, shots, and movement work to create particular meanings. Think about how they establish space, privilege certain characters, suggest relationships, and emphasize themes. In addition to shot distances, angles, editing, and camera movement, note details of the narrative, setting, characters, lighting, props, costume, tone, and sound.

Ask yourself the following questions:

TOPIC	YOUR NOTES
1. Who is the protagonist?	One
2. Who is the antagonist?	All the bad guys they are trying to kill.
3. What is the conflict?	The plot follows a group of six operatives who seek to bring justice to an unjust world. Ryan Reynolds plays a secretive billionaire genius code named One. Tired of watching the world go to crap, One devises a plan. He recruits a team of world-class operatives who each fake their death to become “ghosts” and join One’s cause. This group includes a doctor, a hit-man, a spy, a parkour ninja, and a sniper.
4. What is the theme or central, unifying concept? (summarize in one or two words)	teamwork, family
5. How is the story told (linear, with flashbacks, flash-forwards, at regular intervals)	There are a couple of flashbacks but for the most part, the story is told in regular intervals.
6. What “happens” in the plot (Brief description)?	This group of individuals all go as a team to take out some very bad people who have hurt many people. It shows their adventures and character development which added a lot to the story.
7. How does the film influence particular reactions on the part of viewers (sound, editing, characterization, camera movement, etc.)?Why does the film encourage such reactions?	This film has a lot of very high paced moments. In the beginning, they are in a very high-speed car chase and there is a lot of yelling and the cars vrooming and gunshots. I think it keeps the audience on their toes which is very good for a movie like this.
8. Is the setting realistic or stylized?What atmosphere does the setting suggest?Do particular objects or settings serve symbolic functions?	The setting is realistic. It suggests a present time, in a different foreign country, I think they are in Italy in the beginning.
9. How are the characters costumed and made-up?What does their clothing or makeup reveal about their social standing, ethnicity, nationality, gender, or age?How do costume and makeup convey character?	The characters are made to look cool. The sniper is a French lady, the doctor speaks in Spanish and is Latina. They are all in their 25 to 30s.
10. How does the lighting design shape our perception of character, space, or mood?	When the lighting is darker it makes you think the mood is dark and sad. Not a good time.
11. How do camera angles and camera movements shape our view of characters or spaces?What do you see cinematically?	When the camera is close up and you can see characters’ emotions better and you see how sad or happy they are. If the camera is wider you can see more around you.
12. What is the music’s purpose in the film?How does it direct our attention within the image?How does it shape our interpretation of the image?What stands out about the music?	When they played songs like “legends” that song really hypes you up and it makes you more interested in what you’re watching. Then in more serious scenes, they play more mysterious music.
13. How might industrial, social, and economic factors have influenced the film?Describe how this film influences or connects to a culture?	The film’s budget was 150 million dollars so It had a lot of money to make the film good. There are a lot of different glimpses at different cultures in this movie whether it is a state or someone talking in a different language or showing cultural food.
14. Give an example of what a film critic had to say about this filmUse credible sources and cite sourcesExample: “The Shawshank Redemption Movie Review (1994) | Roger Ebert.” All Content. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2015.	https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/6-underground/
15. Select one scene no longer than 5 minutes that represents well the whole film and shows relevant cinematic elements.Write a one-sentence description of the scene and record the time of the scene. Example, from 1:05:00 to 1:10:00.Explain why you chose this scene.	This scene is a car chase that shows all character’s abilities and strengths. 00:03:00 – 00:08:00 I chose this scene because it has all the character’s personalities in it and raps up the plot of the story.
16. In the selected scene: write a sentence for each of the elements below to justify why this scene best represents the film:
a. Screenwriting:	There were a lot of little jokes weaved into this scene that really helped show the personality of the characters in the film.
b. Sound Design:	There were many big sound effects in this scene, the car roar, gunshots, at one point an eyeball falls into this guy’s lap and you can hear the squishy sounds of it, which added humor.
c. Camera Movements/Angles:	There was a lot of close up angles on the characters in the car chase that added the effect of showing how everyone was feeling and their emotions.
d. Light Setup:	There was a variety of different light setups during this scene.
e. Soundtrack/Score:	I loved the soundtrack during this scene. It was so cool and made you so excited about what was going to happen next.
18. What’s the socio-cultural context of this film?	The main characters don’t go by their real names, they go by numbers. They start out as more just partners in crime (good guy crime) But later in the movie they become closer.

“The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.”

― Peter Jackson,  Link

SUMMARY

• This week was good, I’m not sure how I like doing the story of the film blog post, but it’s not bad.

PRACTICE ROOM (TUTORIALS)

CLASSROOM (THEORY & ANALYSIS)

Steps

1. Access Episode 2 and begin watching

OUTSIDE (CREATIVITY, PRODUCTIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• It’s hailing very hard right now it’s making it hard to focus
• Distress level: 4
• Cognitive Distortion: Catastrophizing
• Reframe my thought: It’s hailing really hard right now so if I can focus through the loudness of the hail, I can focus through most things.
• Reecaluate distress level: 2

• ‘simple way to overcome negative automatic thinking by challenging and reframing the thoughts in a positive way.’
• If something bad has happened to you, if you think of the positives it can really help your attitude go from bad to better. As long as you have a good attitude and you happy, life is better. If you keep looking back at something bad, then your life will be bad, get over whatever it is and move on. Don’t dwell on the past, be excited for the future and what it brings to you.

WHAT I LEARNED and PROBLEMS I SOLVED

I learned a lot more about film today, I learned about PSA’s, pre-production and production. Then I learned about our thought process and how your adittude can change everything.

WEEKLY ACTIVITY EVALUATION

Notes

The following material is from Wikipedia.

1918-1928: The Triumph of American Film…

• Citizen Kane (1941) dir. Orson Welles
  • Black and white with sky light
• The Thief of Bagdad (1924) dir. Raoul Walsh
  • What they thought Bagdad looked like
• Desire (1936) dir. Frank Borzage
  • Eyelashes put on to make look longer
• Gone with the Wind (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
  • Blowing by the wind away from the people on set
• Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
  • Creating patterns in the dancing to make it abstract
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
  • Shadows had light in them
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) dir. John Huston
  • “stars were angles with dirty faces”
• The Scarlet Empress (1934) dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • costumes on display, romatic
• The Cameraman (1928) dir. Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton
  • Shows fascination with camera
• One Week (1920) dir. Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton
  • Made a set with a house that folds and twists
• Sherlock Jr. (1924) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Buster Keaton
  • Silent cinima
• Three Ages (1923) dir. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
  • Over head shot to make the building look high
• Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965) dir. John Spotton
  • Saw a train arriving made it looked like he stopped the train
• The General (1926) dir. Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
  • set in the American civil war, jokes keep coming
• Divine Intervention (2002) dir. Elia Suleiman
  • filmed in dead pan and finds grumpyness funny
• Limelight (1952) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • less into the camera, more into embodyment
• City Lights (1931) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Board kept going down when he wasn’t looking
• The Kid (1921) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Breaks windows so his dad can fix them.
• Bad Timing (1980) dir. Nicolas Roeg
  • Shows timeline of a house being built
• The Great Dictator (1940) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • stuff was blown out at people
• Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953) dir. Jacques Tati
• Toto in Color (1953) dir. Steno
• Awaara (1951) dir. Raj Kapoor
• Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder
  • Impersonates him
• Some Like It Hot (1959) dir. Billy Wilder
  • same thing as the great dictator
• Luke’s Movie Muddle (1916) dir. Hal Roach
• Haunted Spooks (1920) dir. Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach
  • Neardy look
• Never Weaken (1921) dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
  • Athleticicm to do cool stunts
• Safety Last! (1923) dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
  • Plays a hick, what marketing for a store
• I Flunked, But… (1930) dir. Yasujirō Ozu

…And the First of its Rebels

• Nanook of the North (1922) dir. Robert Flaherty
  • Longest film filmed in Alaska
• The House Is Black (1963) dir. Forough Farrokhzad
  • Tracking shots
• Sans Soleil (1983) dir. Chris Marker
  • real places in Japan
• The Not Dead (2007) dir. Brian Hill
  • Close up a shot at eye level
• The Perfect Human (1967) (shown as part of The Five Obstructions) dir. Jørgen Leth
• The Five Obstructions (2003) dir. Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth
  • No challenges every time they made it over again.
• Blind Husbands (1919) dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • square on looming in the dark, creepy
• The Lost Squadron (1932) dir. George Archainbaud and Paul Sloane
  • actress how to do a simple thing like come to her hair
• Greed (1924) dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • Money was hand tinted yellow
• Stroheim in Vienna (1948)
  • 9 months of shooting
• Queen Kelly (1929) (shown as part of Sunset Boulevard) dir. Erich von Stroheim
• The Crowd (1928) dir. King Vidor
  • portrayed the 20s in America
• The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder
  • People dissolve
• The Trial (1962) dir. Orson Welles
  • The camera was upwards then people dissolved
• Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) dir. Yakov Protazanov
  • An alien sees a battle ship
• Posle Smerti (1915) dir. Yevgeni Bauer
  • Side lighting
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Black on the corners then black and white pictures
• Ordet (1955) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Laying in a coffen
• The President (1919) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
• Vampyr (1932) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
• Gertrud (1964) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
• Dogville (2003) dir. Lars von Trier
  • Opposite of romantic Hollywood
• Vivre sa vie (1962) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • passion for Joan of Arc

“‘Be shapeless and formless.. like water’ (Bruce Lee)” by Akinini.com is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“Have a mind like water.”

― David Allen,  GTD

SUMMARY

• I’m in quarantine this week so it’s been super boring.

PRACTICE ROOM (TUTORIALS)

• Set a timer for 60 minutes in this ‘room’
  • Complete up through pre-production in SneakOnTheLot.com

CLASSROOM (THEORY & ANALYSIS)

Steps

1.  Story of Film – Episode 1 – Birth of the Cinema
2. Take notes as you watch the episode
3. Access Episode 1 and begin watching

OUTSIDE (PRODUCTIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• I walked to the mailbox to send something out. I love it when It’s cold outside but only if it’s snowing. I hate the rain, it’s cold and miserable. I hope we get some snow this winter. I have a lot of work to do because I am very behind so I am going to stop writing this and go do that stuff.

WHAT I LEARNED and PROBLEMS I SOLVED

• I learned how to manage my time better and to realize when I need to take breaks or keep pushing.

WEEKLY ACTIVITY EVALUATION