THE MAGIC SPELL’S OF CLASSICAL NARRATIVES

The film I have chosen to do Classical Narratives on is The Harry Potter series. I would just like to say that I know it is originally a book series but this has been done so fantastically, The author who wrote them, J.K Rowling, made sure she was involved in the films so it wouldn’t ruin her creation as well as for the readers.

In this opening scene you are presented with a few characters but much information about them is withheld. This instantly makes the audience ask questions and start to put things together from the beginning so they will understand the story as it goes along. This already is a mixture of plot and story; the biggest give away is the title name in this instance because “Harry Potter” are the first words in the title the audience will automatic know this is protagonist and that the world is revolving around him. During the discussion between the characters in the opening scene, the subject on what they’re speaking about is kept unclear to the audience. The ambience of the scene creates a mysterious effect especially through the use of the non-diegetic sound in the background such music throughout the entire scene. It’s noticed that the characters refer to Harry as “him” and “the boy”, creating some form of secret identity for him only to be revealed at the end of the scene when Dumbledore leans down and places a letter on his blanket saying “good luck Harry Potter”. This creates a dramatic finish to the scene with the use of the zoom in shot which captivates the audience’s attention and making them to want to know what’s going to happen next

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The Harry Potter film series consists of 8 films. Using the simplify version of Todorov’s 5 stages the still broken down in the same way, beginning, middle and end. Each film has its own version but together they have a universal one which helps combine the story and plot, the beginning stage consists of the first film, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone; the next 5 films, chamber of secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of The Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince would be considered as the middle stage and the final film Deathly Hallows which is broken into 2 separate parts is the end stage.

The protagonist of the films is Harry Potter, he is driven and determine by what happened to him and his parents when he was a baby. The plot reveals an antagonist called Lord Voldemort who killed his parents and tried to kill Harry but he failed. This now added to the plot that Harry is destined for when Lord Voldemort returns. So with this baseline for the plot each film holds a new challenge for him to overcome whist continuing his journey towards his goals.

The narrative was written in third person allows the thoughts, intentions and motivations of the entire cast of characters. They can also be referred by their names or as “he” or “she” or even “they”, whist being on the topic other characters this series has many great characters which add to the plot and one of the best to mention Severus Snape which took the plot and story’s and gave it shocking twist and its things like that which make a great story.

This scene takes place in the last film in the series Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. It’s at this point Harry uses the tears from the dying Snape to view his memories. This brings the single most important twist in the Harry Potter universe, Harry who has always hated Snape, with everything that happened to him over the years of him being at Hogwarts would never have believed that he had rejected Lord Voldemort. This is the second climax of the film, in fact it’s the emotional climax of the whole entire story. Now we discover what a selfless and courageous life he has led, it is an extraordinary revelation, and deeply moving. We hated him just as much as harry did and that is because of the way he was written. A character who always stayed incognito, we never knew his true intentions, Harry’s reaction afterwards was the same to the audience.

This scene help answer a lot of questions that anyone might have from any of the films before and I’d like to finish by saying this film series closure was a fantastic one it resolves all situations raised in the narrative and it left almost no room for ambiguity.

WITH SOUNDS LIKE THAT I CAN BE SPIDERMAN

The film I have chosen to do sound on is Spider-Man. Still to this day it’s my favourite Spider-Man trilogy for many reasons. This shot takes place at the end of the film when Mary Jane reveals her feelings for Peter and that’s all he has ever wanted but he has to turn her away because he is Spider-Man and he doesn’t want that life to come and hurt the one he loves. He’s doing it to protect her,  As much as it’s hurting him inside that’s what a true hero does. All the sounds that take place during the scene sets the mood and makes it such a beautiful moment.

So the first sound I’m going to talk about is speech. At this point Peter is walking away from Mary Jane after having an emotional conversation her. As he’s walking he is narrating about himself and his life, He speaks in a calm and soft tone. This lets the audience stay intrigued to what he is saying and therefore, makes them pay attention; this is a form of non-diegetic sound because it wasn’t captured live from the camera. Before this the two characters were having a conversation which involved the emotions of happiness, love and sadness. We can tell this from the tone in which they are speaking as it’s very soft and smooth, and you can feel the connection between the two characters. They are both educated as you can tell from the way they speak by their vocabulary use; I say they are working class citizens and the accents are clearly American.

The only ambient sounds that goes on at this point is wind in the background as well as quiet bird chirps. These can also be known as off-screen diegetic sounds, and because all the sounds are diegetic it gives this scene realism. During this whole scene there was graceful music playing in the background by composer Danny Elfman. It was orchestral music, so crisp and divine it just added more to the emotional spectrum to the scene. The instruments that I can hear are chimes, a trumpet, violin, flute, and many others. The ones that I have mentioned give of such beautiful sounds of colour and changing moods. Also the music is well in sync with the acting on screen.

So back to Peter walking away; he is saying something to himself. As he started the music changed tempo for a more uplifting effect. How they did this was by adding in a choir to hit certain notes to lift your spirit, to make you happy almost as if you’re with Spider-Man swinging around. This then leads to my favourite part: the film ends with Spider-Man having a final swing with the fantastic movie theme. I have to honestly say this: “no other music could have fit that scene better”. There is something about it, for it just captures the essence of Spider-Man. Even when I close my eyes and listen to it I can instantly imagine myself as Spider-Man; it gives me Goosebumps every time. Lastly, the music playing throughout the scene till the end is known as non-diegetic sound as well as the sound of his webs shooting out, which is in his final swing.

I thought I’d add the actual Spider-Man movie theme on here for you guys to check it out and enjoy!

THE WING CHUN OF EDITING

So the film that I decide to do editing on is Ip Man one of the best martial arts film that I have seen. Now what happens in this scene is IP Man is about to fight 10 black belts arrange by the Japanese army during the war. The reason why he is there is because he was wondering where is friend had disappeared to so went to where he was last seen. When he arrived he saw another friend be killed right before his eyes for no real reason. This then enrages him whist finding out that his friend he was looking for got killed also.

The shot here is an establishing shot, this let you know it’s set in a dojo and that a fight is going to go down. Also it shows how much they outnumber him, from seeing this shot you get a thrill of excitement for what is about to come. Now within this scene there was some shot reverse shots going on at the beginning of the scene between IP Man and the Japanese general this type of shot is mostly used when there is a conversation going on this enables the audience to see facial expression, the emotions that are being used and relationship between the characters, its also to see what it’s like from the characters perspective.

During the shot reverse shot there was also eye-line match going on between the three. This shows that the character has seen something of interest and you get that from them looking in a particular direction. This then makes you want to know where and what they are looking at. In the conversation when two characters are looking at each other its creates a form of tension for the audience it makes them want to know what’s going to happen seeing that they have each other’s attention.

I now would like to talk about the actual fight scene which takes place after this shot. There is a lot of editing that takes place during the fight it’s consist of match on action, cross cutting. Because this is an intense moment the film-makers are going to want the audience to be on the edge of their seat trilled with excitement, so using match of action to start off the fight then to continue it simultaneously, collaborating it with cross cutting to let the audience know that this is happening all at the same time. Then to go back to what I mention earlier about him being enraged the film-makers done a brilliant job during the fight to show that he was really angry by the speed that he was moving but by using the cross cutting editing method to give the illusion he’s move really fast. Another thing I’d like to mention on how they show his anger is at some points in the fight would get a close up his face to show emotion he has towards his opponent this gives a brief moment for the audience to take in what’s happening and bond with the character as he takes out his anger.

THE FANTASTIC CINEMATOGRAPHY OF THE GODFATHER

The film that I chose to do cinematography on is ‘The Godfather’ this film is a master piece of work and one of my favourite films and it never fails to entertain me. In this scene Bonasera The guy on the left is asking the Godfather (Don Vito) for a favour. He would like the 2 guys who beat up his daughter to be killed! But then changed his mind after the godfather spoke to him he then asked for them to suffer how she suffers.

The lighting and tonal range of this scene is a very warm and dim choice of colures and so is the lighting, take the godfather himself for example he has a lot of shadows on his face mostly throughout the scene and his eyes are almost completely blacked out. Why do that? To me they did this to add to his dark and powerful figure it gives his character that sense of being mysterious and dangerous. Watching this scene you can just feel the power what Godfather wields and personally automatically gets my respect this was due to the fantastic choice from the filmmakers.

Now the use of Technicolor is used with in this film, in this scene the godfather is wearing a red rose and it’s a rich red which automatically catches your eye and I believe it so you keep your eye on the Don. he is the center of the shot an important person, also a rose symbolizes love and it’s a key fact that everyone at the scene loves The Godfather and they show it to him as well as their respect and another small thing that the rose does is add a bit of goodness to the character to not make him so scary and intimidating. A small fact “The last American film released before Technicolor closed its dye plant was The Godfather Part II (1974)”.

The type of shot this is, is a close up shot this give you a sense of tension as if you apart of the conversation also whist being this close you will be about to read characters facial expressions. The way that the filmmakers have place the characters in this in this scene are done well to sort of create a centre line making The Godfather the most important person there. Also in this scene there is a lot of over the shoulder shots this is so you can see form the characters perspective to show the conversation going as well as the relationship between them. A quarter way through their conversation a establishing shot happens filmmakers used this type of shot help the viewer’s get an idea of the surrounding whist the conversation is going on.

Reference

http://www.digital-intermediate.co.uk/examples/3strip/technicolor.htm

My Choice on Mise-En-Scene

So the film I decided to do mise-en-sene on is The Great Dictator; this is the shot I chose to write about.  This shot to me is so powerful with a lot of emotion and meaning the reason being is because of who it is and what is said. The film is about a dictator called Adenoid Hykel who is meant to be Adolf Hitler you can kind of tell from the clothing only that the sign is different  also the moustache is a big give-away and from the clothing and who it is you can tell what time its set in which is the 1940s during WWII.

Also you can see that he is addressing people; how you can tell is by the pops used in the shot. The props used is microphones this shows that he is talking to a big crowd even by the way its set up,  past events show the set-up has been used were leaders are addressing their country or the world.

The way that this shot is set up you can get a lot of information out it like when it takes place like I’ve already mentioned what give it that extra meaning is what he says, now obviously it’s a different take on Adolf Hitler but the twist is that the person giving the speech is a great lookalike of the real dictator in the film. so in this scene he has been mistaken for the Adenoid Hykel and takes his place on the speech stand were he is addressing the world but had something different to say instead all the horrible and hatred things that were planned to be said he comes out with things like:

• “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white”.
• “Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed”.
• “More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost”.
• “The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people”.
• “Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!”

These are just a few quotes I took from the speech that he said to give you a brief idea of the positive things and how wonderful they are. The reason for all of this is because if the real Hitler was to say these type of things with his position and power at the time could have changed the world for the greater good instead of off the horror that actually was brought this is why it’s so powerful to me it gives you a different outcome than what actually happened; the things that is said really get you thinking and put a smile on your face only if everyone thought like this the world would be a better place.

Facts

‘At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin’s film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini’s fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis’.

The result, released in 1940, was “The Great Dictator,” Chaplin’s first talking picture and the highest-grossing of his career, although it would cause him great difficulties and indirectly lead to his long exile from the United States.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2046rf_the-great-dictator-w-charlie-chaplin-full-1080p_shortfilms

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-great-dictator-1940

Hi everyone welcome.

This is the start to a long journey.