Editing Techniques

Editing Techniques

Within this assignment I shall explore the “hallway” fight scene from the original old boy and the same scene from the remake.

Editing can boost the look and feel of a scene if done correctly, but if done wrong the viewer may be left with an incorrect view of the scene. In editing it’s essential to find good balance, knowing when to use cuts and importantly for the scene in question when to not use them. The following scene is from the original Oldboy.

This entire scene is a continuous shot from the same perspective throughout, with the main actor always centred on screen. The camera tracks left to right as the character makes progress through the fight scene. The scene features no visible cuts, I believe this is to emphasize the struggle that this man is facing after what he’s been through, and this is also supported by the large amount of people he is tasked with fighting against. If this scene was to feature many quick cuts like we’re commonly exposed to within other films. It would take away a large amount of emotion that this scene so greatly conveys. The quick cuts would provide a sense of pace and power which doesn’t match this characters persona, although he’s winning the fight he’s still a “loser” in the sense that something horrible has happened to him.  The scene also features slow paced dreary music which matches the state of the character within the film. This scene as well as the entire film uses quite a strong colour correction with dark green and grungy colours being essential to convey the mood.  What I find interesting about this scene is simply how uncommon it is to find in other modern movies. Many people would consider this scene to be unrealistic and possibly boring. Primarily because the character unrealistically continues to fight such a large amount of people, and for how the scene drags on with no editing at all.

On the other hand we have the 2013 remake which has attempted to make this scene a little more believable with some interesting camera techniques which the first film did not incorporate. Although the modern remake has next to no regard for the original piece and frankly should have never been created it does hold some merit in this area for how he reworked this scene.

This is probably the only scene from this film worth mentioning, if we compare this to the original you’ll find that this version incorporates a much more fluid camera style opposed to the static but tracking camera in the original. This version also features one or two cuts within the main fighting section which the original does not. A notable cut is when the main actor is stabbed in the back (2:42) the cut itself is terrible and features noticeable continuity errors. However this style of editing does reflect modern cinema, specifically in how everything is shown at a much faster pace.

In a more positive note this scene poses an interesting camera style which does challenge the realism of the original scene.  Both films provide a continuous shot, however in the remake the camera tracks through 3D space to the opposite side of the room as the character climbs down a ladder to reach the next “stage” of villains. The camera goes from a wide shot to a close up and then back out to a wide during this “transition” from upstairs to downstairs. I believe this is a highly creative method of creating an important break in the fighting which the first film lacks. The shot is still continuous with no visible cuts. I believe that with a cut in place a sense of disconnection is made which would ultimately take away that feeling of desperation that can only be emphasized with a continuous shot.

Overall I believe the original film is better and conveys emotion to the audience with its controlled use of editing. But I do like what the remake offers in the same scene with its dynamic camera movement.  

Realtionships Between Audiences and Films

For this post I shall be exploring the movie Inception by looking at the relationship that this movie establishes with its audience. Every movie uses similar methods of creating this connection; however these views can be shaped depending on genre, cultural differences and personal experience of the individual member watching the film. It is these areas that I shall be discussing when applied to Inception.

Before we watch a movie we have obviously heard about it or been targeted by the extensive advertising campaigns which the producers distribute to the audience, usually to draw attention and generate interest towards the subject. This content is what develops the early stages of active spectatorship between the audience and the movie. When a viewer is exposed to the advertising which accompanies a newly released movie the viewer will develop a level of expectation based on the content they have been show. Such as Adverts, posters and trailers. If a viewer is shown something comical in a trailer for example they'll expect the film to be a comedy. The trailers which accompanied Inception would have left the viewer’s asking questions and wondering what the film was actually about, this plays into the films "mystery" genre. The viewer would have also noticed that DeCaprio is the lead star in this film. All these factors would cause the viewer to experience active spectatorship upon viewing the film in the cinema. A large percentage of cinema goers would know who DeCaprio is and would base their assumptions of this film based on his past performances.

Inception was written and directed by Christopher Nolan, inception was released in 2010, by which time Nolan was already a well-established director with the likes of “Batman” and “Memento” under his belt. Having had this past success Christopher Nolan would definitely be under the watchful eye of fans. This is also another form of active spectatorship as the people attending the cinema to watch inception will be arriving with a preconceived idea of what Nolan is capable of.

Once the audience begin watching inception they are immediately taken on a complex emotional ride, the very nature of inception is quite mind bending and requires the viewer to pay attention to very fine details constantly throughout the film. A preferred reading is how the media producer wants you to/expects you to respond to the media. However failure to follow the story precisely may warrant an oppositional stance towards the films message. This is especially prevalent in the final scene when we see the spinning top begin to tip over; this small detail could affect the viewer’s entire “reading” of the film. This leads us into the “post viewing” area. I personally myself will search the internet after watching a film to corroborate my ideas with other peoples “readings”. Inception is definitely a film in which many members of the audience would do the same. Often time’s people will look to see what the directors themselves have said about the film, furthering the post viewing experience.

Inception also did the rounds on social networking websites with many advertising campaigns taking place on facebook using targeted marketing depending on what those people had already “liked” on facebook. This is probably why many people around my age would have heard of inception before it appeared in cinemas, simply for the fact we had engaged with other online content which Christopher Nolan had created.  It’s common to see teaser trailers being shared by your friends which in turn may make you share the video to your “friend base”. Most people develop their “pre viewing” experience upon watching one of these trailers online. This is usually followed up by browsing websites such as “IMDB.com” to look for even more information such as Cast & Crew.

Conditions of reception are also a big part of inception, you need to completely blank your mind and not expect anything. Save all the thinking for the very end of the film when you try to piece together a fragmented idea. Most fans would of watched inception in the cinema which is probably the best viewing conditions for this film. It’s stunning visually and matches that in complexity that only a quiet cinema room would do it any justice. If someone was to watch this film in say a family environment, it may cause a distraction which will negatively affect the viewer’s perception of the film.

Inception is quite a strange mysterious story which requires the audience to constantly be thinking on their feet especially as the nature of “inception” is incredibly convoluted. This delivers interactivity between the film and the audience. There’s certain variables that the audience must constantly be considering when dealing with the world of “inception” which is why this is one of my favourite films. Depending on how you perceive the events within Inception ultimately changes your interpretation of the films ending.

independent, international co-productions and developing countries

Within this assignment I shall be looking at the production contexts of independent, international co-productions and developing countries within film.

Independent

An independent production is usually produced by and or distributed by a subsidiary of a major studio. For a film to even be considered independent only less than half of its total budget can be funded from a major studio. Some of those studios include: Lions Gate, Mirimax, Paramount Pictures, Fox Search Light and Think Film.

The example I shall be exploring is “Reservoir Dogs”. This was Quentin Tarantino’s break out film and one of his most notable early pieces of work. This film was going to be entirely funded by Quentin Tarantino and his friends on a budget of about $30,000 however once actor Harvey Keitel became involved who agreed to act and co-produce the filmmakers managed to raise $1.5 million to create the film. In modern day the film is heavily considered to be a cult classic. Established filmmakers can find funding through the major studios because of their own personal track record of creating movies. When breaking into such a market and trying to garner investment people are going to be incredibly reluctant to invest in someone who has yet to demonstrate their ability. This film did exactly that for Quentin Tarantino.

International co-operation film

An International co-operation film is a movie which has enlisted multiple production companies to help create the film. The amount of production companies working on the film isn’t just limited to two. It can be more however this is unlikely for profit reasons. A perfect example of a movie which is the product of international cooperation is the Harry Potter movies. These movies are created by Warner bros, an American company and Heyday films which is a company based in the UK.

When movies are created on an international basis the filmmakers together create a production treaty which gives the creators the ability to declare the film as a national production, which further allows both nations to have access to film funding services from both nations. This also allows both economies and Job markets to benefit from the production. This agreement also allows both countries to come together and offer their individual services to aid in the production such as studios, technology, cast and crew. All of which will better the entire production.

However with all these potential benefits there is of course always down sides to International co-operation. Such downsides include a loss of creative control as one company/country may want to have more control of certain aspects of the production. There are also increased costs when dealing with both nations governments. The film industry is an incredibly strong entity with competition worldwide, when working together there’s always the possibility of ulterior motives to be at play.

Developing countries

In many developing countries cinema takes on a simpler form, with low quality and low budget movies being created. However there is an incredibly strong independently operated film industry slowly beginning to emerge from such places.

These places run solely on independent movements to create the “cinema” as their economy isn’t as strong as what you’d find in western culture. Nollywood churns out many more movies that Hollywood ever will. This is primarily because of the quality being much lower than what we would expect within the west. However this doesn’t discredit the film market in third world countries at all. I’ve personally watched documentaries about these people making films with literally nothing at all. I believe the western world has a lot to learn from this emerging market. When you look at the situation properly it’s quite simple.

There’s a huge gap in the cinema market in these countries, with limited resources and wealth the people of these countries have decided to create movies for themselves simply because no one else is. A large amount of the money that these companies generate goes straight back into creating more movies. 

bollywood horror

Rise of the Zombie Bollywood Production Context

Within this blog post I shall be discussing Rise of the zombie and how it fits into the Bollywood production context. I shall also explore how this production context relates to the genre and how that production context has affected the outcome of the film.

Rise of the zombie is a unique Bollywood film and the first zombie film from there I have seen. Its genre is still deeply connected with the core aspects of Bollywood films, that being about romance and love etc. The core story is about a man who splits up with his girlfriend and goes on a photography trip to clear his head. During said trip he is bitten by a bug and begins to slowly turn into a zombie. The film features a lot of cross cutting to give the perspective of the “zombie” and his loved ones. This is a feature of the movie which is most unusual when compared to similar movies of a different production context such as Hollywood. We’re strongly encouraged to usually follow a single hero character or group around during the entire movie.

With this film we have a strong “drama” feel with the cross cutting to and from locations. I believe the target audience of this movie is quite clear, although the movie is a zombie film in terms of horror and Gore the film is quite tame at times. Bollywood is quite centred on romance and musical films so I believe the reason for a lack of Gore is to prevent that audience being turned away from the common aspects and conventions that they are usually expecting to see from a Bollywood film. Other areas which show the Bollywood context is through the use of music and how it reflects what’s happening on screen. Many Bollywood films feature a music video-esque type scene where the characters usually break out and dance. This film doesn’t actually feature any scenes like that however it still has the uplifting romantic music which we can commonly find in most Bollywood films. I believe the film was created this way in order to appeal to a western audience but to also stay true to its Bollywood origin.

The context of this film is further shown through its apparent budget, as Bollywood doesn’t generate as much money as Hollywood we see a large amount of sponsors at the beginning of the movie that have helped contribute towards the films production. The movie also only features two key locations throughout, the forest and the city. This would have saved a large amount of money. If we compare this movie to World War Z which is from a Hollywood context we can see incredibly drastic differences in budget. Here we a have a fairly straight forward film with a minimal approach to “horror” special effects. On the other hand we have a Hollywood film that uses the latest in CGI technology to create this entire “world” affected by a virus outbreak. World War Z uses incredibly intricate visuals to help sell this idea to the audience.  Rise of the zombies only features one main character that is affected by the zombie virus which obviously keeps expenditure down.

Post production is the primary factor in what makes this film a horror, especially with the use of flash backs as the zombie sees his past life. This type of editing is a fairly cheap method of creating that visual aesthetic that we usually associate with horror films. The film also has an incredibly western looking Bollywood actor which further shows how this production context is trying to emulate the conventions of western cinema.

Overall this film isn’t immediately seen as being a Bollywood film especially when compared to what Bollywood usually produces. It’s evident that this film is attempting to break into a wider western audience.

British horror - In Fear

For our British Horror assignment, Gage and I decided to create a Vlog in which we analyse the movie together working through the film piece by piece. This was the first video of this sort that we've ever done and after multiple technical problems and having to re shoot a couple of times

Marketing the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" from producer to audience.

Wolf of Wall Street was released on the Christmas of 2013, which would maximize its chances during the award seasons of 2014. The movie was marketed by a man named Josh Greenstein who is the "Chief Marketing Officer of Paramount Pictures. In an interview with "adweek" he reveals the different stages and processes of marketing films. I will be using the article to return an informed report on the marketing of Wolf of Wall Street.

Due to the nature of the the movie and its sexual content it's clear that it must be marketed to adults who can legally watch such material. The film also features Leonardo DiCaprio who can bring a massive following to the attention of the film which is also clearly what they have done. In the poster we can see that Leonardo is standing with a smug posture whilst an outrageous party is happening in the background. To anyone who doesn't know what the film is about the poster will draw many questions which should prompt the viewer to investigate further. The poster includes a partially naked woman which will appeal to men who see the poster. The poster depicts such a bizarre scenario such as the dwarf in flying attire, the monkey throwing money around and the marching band.


The poster also tells us that the movie is a  Scorsese picture who also has a massive following, all these factors will home into the viewers mind spurring them to look into the film even more. So from the above poster we can establish that the movie is aimed at mostly adult men.

The Wolf of Wall Street also used novelty advertisements to draw attention to the movie in places such as Sydney Australia.
Here they used advertisement boards with $10,000 real dollars inside floating around. The billboards were also guarded during the day with the money removed at night. This is quite an unusual advertisement due to the extreme lengths which can be put in place in order to run this ad. It's for these reason I believe they were going for the viral word of mouth attempt because of the quirkiness of the advert. It's sure to be something which would get people talking, which would further promote the film. This type of advertisement allows for maximum exposure as many people come and go throughout the day to use the bus. There's also people in the street which will be exposed to it. It's cost effective in that sense as only a couple of boards would need to be placed around the city where most people travelling around in the surrounding areas will surely come across it.


Here's another poster which incorporated a similar theme to the first one. However within this version we can establish what type of character DiCaprio plays due the nature of what's happening in the poster. Despite the movie having multiple well known celebrities it's clear that the marketing of the film has focused on the following which DiCaprio can bring to the table for the movies marketing. It almost every poster he's on the front without any of his co stars. It pays off because even casual cinema goers know who he is.

Within this poster we see DiCaprio in a more party like ethic, compared to the first poster where we see him not taking part in the party behind him. This poster would instantly appeal to younger audience as we associate them with enjoying wild parties more than the older members of our society.



Also building on the relationship between the audience and producers are the countless TV chat shows and interviews which cast and crew are offered to help promote the new film they're featuring in or have worked on. In this talk we get to hear Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio & Jonah Hill talking about their upcoming film. These chat shows allow the audience to get a feel for the people who are responsible for creating the film. Usually providing a bigger insight into the motive behind the movie and how the people involved feel about the creation process. It's great publicity especially as the majority of the people within this interview are usually well received. Jonah Hill being a comedian he's probably involved within this interview to drum up some of the fan base he has claimed throughout his career. We also see Scorsese, the director who's obviously here to deliver his vision to the audience. And also Decaprio who's a very well established actor. These events are create PR for the upcoming film because of the great amount of insight they give the audience, if a potential audience member watches this talk and enjoys it. They'll be more likely to go and watch the film.




There's also première events which allow strong fans to get involved in the launch of the new film. these red carpet events allow fans to see the majority of the celebrities involved in the creation of the film. With multiple premières taking place all over the world, it makes for great publicity. From a producer stand point it's essential to target less popular areas in the market to try and tap into otherwise forgotten about audience members. In this image you can see the same main three faces involved in the premiere in Tokyo. 

World War Z

Within this assignment I shall be exploring the movie "World War Z"

The movie begins with various shots from all around the globe. This is to build up to what causes the "Zombie outbreak", this is achieved with a mix of real life footage such as news reports and cinematic footage of city streets. It also features sound bites from celebrity personalities such as Piers Morgan and Michio Kaku who can be heard concerning over problematic scientific situation. The intro gradually builds in tempo which increases the level of unease you feel. The intro successfully establishes the genre of the movie by setting the developing stages of what causes the "outbreak".

World War Z falls under the Hollywood production context, we can identify this by various aspects of the film. The most common way of doing this is by taking note of the overall quality of the film. Good special effects usually imply a high budget which can be attributed to Hollywood. Within this film we can see from the quality of the shots, editing and overall look of the video that this film was created on a huge budget. Secondly the film also begins within the USA which further hints that the movie is a Hollywood production, it's incredibly common for Hollywood movies to be shot in America. The final area is the actors used, the lead role goes to Brad Pitt who's a Hollywood A-list celebrity, most movies created under the Hollywood context almost always use american actors in the majority this allows them to pull in more viewers because of the massive following that these Hollywood stars have.

World War Z is a Horror Action Film primarily because it incorporates zombies and the world famous actor Brad Pitt who is also known to play many action roles. Zombie Films are heavily associated within western culture especially so because of George A. Romero the man responsible for creating early zombie films which formed the “stereotypical” zombie that we know today. The zombies within this film are similar to what we’d usually expect, biting people, spreading blood and guts etc. It’s these factors which tell us this film is clearly a horror. The action element is clearly shown though the use of Brad Pitt, action scenes with large explosions/Gun fire and epic scenes. If we compare this to “rise of the zombie” we can see clear differences in budget. World War Z comes from a Hollywood production context which results in massive amounts of money being invested.

The overall look and narrative have clearly been affected by the production context of this film. We a have a fairly complex storyline with a key problem that needs to be solved (finding a cure) which takes the characters all over the world to find the solution. This is something that could only have been conceived with a massive budget in mind. The storyline has been designed in such a way that allows for these rich elaborate scenes to take place along with the incredible camera work which accompanies such scenes. An example of this is the helicopter shots commonly used to establish new scenes and give the viewer an idea of where the characters are.