Category Archives: Uncategorized
Fallen Angels: Videoing Dad Scene Notes
Auteur Signature Film Form:
- Pop music
- Reflection of father and son in bed (off mirror)
Experimental Use of Film Form:
- Functional lighting e.g. light on the dad when sleeping is seemingly unmotivated
- Phasing/tinny noise
- Allowing the actor to dictate cinematography – authenticity
- Cinematography links to feelings
- Glitch in the video tape – authenticity
- Un-flattering camera angles – authenticity
- Deep focus – separated by wall, but together
Experimental Narrative Devices/Narrative Construction:
- Non=professional actor (dad) – authenticity
- Not about character development/motivation – or is it?
- Minimal cause and effect
Auteur Signature as Experimental Process:
- Improv and unfinished scripts
Auteur Signature and Meaning Making/Themes:
- Theme of connection
- Nostalgia (music, home footage – pixels, camcorder), yellow – warmth
Fallen Angels: Opening Notes
Auteur Signature Film Form:
- Close up – contrast of foreground and background
- Black and white
- Dynamic editing – breaks 180 degree rule, jump cuts, not continuous
- Mirror
- Off-beat camera angles
- Wide angle lens
- Voice over
- Editing – repetition – they both go to the same places, him in the station is edited the same as her
- All at night time
- High contrast, black and white, no explanation – this happened at a different time
- Harsh, functional lighting
- High contrast, extreme wide angle lens, depth of field
- Functional lighting e.g. lamp
- Close (house), city/outside is faraway – binary opposition and disconnected theme
Experimental use of Film Form:
- Wide angle lens – unflattering
- Sound – phasing (tinny) and sonic perspective isn’t right? E.g. train far away sounds close
- Sped up train and plant shot – establishing shot, sense of emptiness
- Foley of police car when we don’t actually see (binary opposition of criminals and cops?)
Experimental Narrative Devices/Narrative Construction:
- No explanation of these characters relationship
- Not about plot but feelings
Auteur Narrative Style and Themes:
- Loneliness – pager – can’t reply
- Not about plot, but feelings
Auteur Signature as Experimental Process:
- Use of big star, but he doesn’t let him speak (apart from voice over, which is in the opening)
Auteur Signature and Meaning Making/Themes:
- Narrative repetition – explores characters relationship
Fallen Angels: General/Overview Notes
Auteur Signature Film Form:
- Rain – brings characters together
- Mirrors
- Use of colour, contrast of bold colours – doesn’t use colour theory
- Pop songs – romantic not ironic
- Step printing – alienates character
- Hong Kong cityscape, neon, night
- Wide lens and close up (?)
- High key, functional lighting
- Unfinished scripts
- Dynamic editing
- Ignores narrative form
Experimental use of Film Form:
- Wide lens
- Time manipulation – fast motion, slow motion, step printing, freeze frame
- High key lighting
Experimental Narrative Devices/Narrative Construction:
- Ignores narrative form
- Unfinished scripts
- Lack of exposition
- No closed endings
- No explanation of motivations
- Ecliptic
Auteur Narrative Style and Themes:
- Crossing paths (characters)
- Loneliness
- Love
- Narrative – feeling not plot
- Not standard narrative/structure – feeling not plot, circling, ecliptic
Auteur Signature as Experimental:
- Wide lens (and close up)
- Unfinished scripts
- Use of same actors
- Getting main actor, who’s a big star, to not speak
- Amateur actors (the dad)
Auteur Signature and Meaning Making/Themes:
- Alienated characters
- Loneliness
- Love
- Mirrors – shows internal climate of his characters
Strike: Ending Notes
Expressive Elements:
- High contrast, high key, close up of their hands
- Knife – violence
- Tilts up – see people and people on horses – silhouetted (?)
- Editing of the falling child, long duration shot of them on the ground – no reaction shot
- Crowd movement , fast paced editing – chaos (tonal montage- feelings)
- Sped up film (like middle)
- “Sea” of dead bodies
- Children fighting emphasises the innocence of the people
- Cross fade to the man behind the event – like he’s devouring the people
- Editing – high cutting rate – he hits them, table shakes, ink spills over where the workers live (violence and blood) – puts his hand on the ink (like blood is on his hand)
- Montage – cow (graphic) and people – symbolism, working class, treated like cattle
- Pan – shows extent of the devastation
- Breaks 180 degree rule – chaotic
Visual Representation of Sound:
- Title cards
- Expressive performances e.g. the laughing
- Chaos of the crowd
Extent and Limits of Verisimilitude:
- Black and white – changes the way we view the film
- Non-professional actors
- Pessimistic ending – ignites anger – propaganda
Positioning and Address of the Viewer:
- Positioned within the crowd
- Looking up at the people on horses
- CU of eyes looking at the camera
- Directly addressed at the end – writing
Context and Messages:
- Propaganda- focusing on the time it was made, not the past
- Only one meaning that cannot be interpreted in a different way (cow and people symbolism) as it’s a propaganda film (need to get the message right)
Narrative Devices and Structure:
- Part of ‘Part 6’
- Pessimistic ending
- No protagonist – strength together, links in with the propaganda throughout the film (e.g. Lenin quote)
Strike: Middle Sequence (Police on Horseback) Notes
Expressive Elements:
- Dialogue shown as text on screen
- Expressive shadows – light tracks man in corridor (neo-classical architecture – shows power)
- Exaggerated performances
- Harsh directional lighting
- Juxtaposition of men making drinks and squeezing the lemon while workers get harassed/abused
- Squeezing of the lemon is symbolic of crushing the revolution (editing) – menacing expression when squashing the fruit, then cutting to the horses and people on the ground – his power is why the people are being harassed
- Police on horses – literally and metaphorically are higher and have more power
- Horses and police come over the hill
- Didn’t run away/disperse – unity is power
- CU lemon shot
- CU of wc man with men – laughs at the note
Visual Representation of Sound:
- Dialogue shown as text on screen – expresses what characters are like e.g. ‘clean it up’
Extent and Limits of Verisimilitude:
- Black and white
- Realism – naturalistic setting
Positioning and Address of Viewer:
- Text on screen (e.g. when they pick up the paper, and it tells you it’s the demands and after he’s wiped his feet with it the text creates the idea of what they think of the working class) (‘considered…care’ – ironic)
- We’re in the crowd, eye-level, in position with them
- Directly addressed – fruit guy looks at us, directly lit – evil, villains expression
Context and Messages:
- Unity of workers – propaganda
- Wipes feet with the needs of the working class – power dynamic
- Power of the men – menacing expression when squashing the fruit, then cutting to the horses and people on the ground – his power is why the people are being harassed
Narrative Devices and Structure:
- Large ensemble cast – targeting the masses, telling us we’re a group, should be
- No character names, just functions (bar the spy names)
Strike: Opening Notes
Expressive (formalist) Elements:
- Workers framed by factory machinery (wheel)
- Deep depth of field
- Kuleshov effect and cross fade (relates images) – factory owner looking at the factory workers, finds it funny
- High angle tracking shot of the factory – expressive camera movement
- Expressive lighting e.g. high contrast, silhouette
- Montage
- Action reaction shots
- Puddle shot – reverse motion (rotated film? Upside down, reverse?)
- Repetition of chimneys
- Expressive and exaggerated performances
- Corridor set – many doors, busy people, crowded
- Low level shot of factory chimneys
Visual Representation of Sound:
- Written speech (dialogue – text) – title cards
- over-acting/expressive acting to make up for the lack of audible dialogue and therefore get meaning across
Extent and Limits of Verisimilitude:
- Dark shadows (man with pipe etc) – stylistic, not real life (high key lighting)
- Workers working in the factory – real life
- Over-acting to make up for lack of sound – not real life (e.g. factory owner looking at the workers)
- Black and white/monochrome – changes the way that we view the film
- Only non-diegetic sound, which audiences wouldn’t even of heard at the time
- Shot in a factory
- Ordinary costumes
- No stars in the film
Positioning and Address of the Viewer:
- Lenin quote tells the audience what to think/believe
- Addresses the viewer through written speech
- Laughing factory owner – looking directly at the camera – laughing at us? Mocking the working class in the audience? Positioning us as the factory workers?
Context and Messages:
- Propaganda film e.g. Lenin quote (all got to work together)
- First state Film Factory
- Factory owner is evil
Narrative Devices and Structure:
- Strength that can be found when workers work together – Lenin quote opens the film
- Montage – introduces us to factory and factory workers
- Told straight away that the film is split into parts
Film Easter ISP
The Fallen Angels Question didn’t work for some reason, so here it is:
Section D: Film movements – Experimental film (1960-2000)
62) To what extent is the film you have studied recognisable as the product of an auteur? [20]
Fallen Angels is very recognisable as the product of the auteur Wong Kar-wai. For example, his recognisable use of film form. One of the main examples is his use of non-diegetic pop songs throughout the movie, not for ironic purposes, but to connote certain feelings to the audience. Another main example is his use of rain, which he uses to bring characters together in Fallen Angels, furthering the themes of loneliness and togetherness. The mise-en-scene of rain is also used in his other films like ‘The Grandmaster’. Furthermore, he has a specific use of editing in terms of time manipulation to convey meaning. Such as, the use of step printing, like during the assassination sequence, which to partially used to connote a sense of coolness to the character. He also uses slow motion, like the slow motion of the train dirivng past during the opening, which has a sense of lonliness. Simialrly, his use of cinematography also does this. His use of wide angle lens and deep depth of field shots create the sense of sepeartion, as the character at the front is distant from those behind them, creating the sense of lonliness and need for connection with other human beings. These themes can also be seen in his film ‘Chungking Express’, which is the sister film to Fallen Angels, which was initially the third part to the movie. Another connection between these movies are the actors. Interestingly, the same non-actor was used in both, which is an experminetal attitude to film making.
Narratively, Wong Kar-wai’s work tends to be experimental, which is part of his auteur signature. Such as, instead of the narrative focusing on plot and explantaion, it focuses on character, themes like lonliness and connection, and emtions, as he uses expermintal narrative devices and narrative structure to convey very real human emotion. Such as, the narrative device during the opening of narrative repeition of two characters following the same path through the station, then both picking up the same key (close up) and enetring the same house but at different times highlights their lonliness and lack of close connection. This is instead of narrative devices being used for expostion, which most films have during the opengn equilibrium, but Fallen Angels does not. Throughout, instead of explaining who the charcaters are, and why they do what they do, like why the man assisinates people, Wong Kar-wai doesn’t tell us, and instead focuses on the emotion. This could be why the ending equilibrium is open instead of a closed ending, as the two characters on the same bike, with her holding on to him, is suggesting a closness between the two, even if momentary, which in a way sums up the themes of the films and the emotions of the film rather than any plot. During this ending, the lighting in the tunnel is green, and green lighting was also iused earlier when the son was spying on his dad watching the footage he filmed. As Wong Kar-wai doesn’t foolow traditional colour theory, it can be hard to intepret the exact connotations and meaning of his colour choices, but they are picked intentionaly and for emotional meaning. It’s possible due to both times that green lighting was used that it represents closeness between the characters.
ISP Mock
Film Lesson 03/03/20
Apply one filmmaker’s theory of documentary film you have studied to your chosen documentary. How far does this increase your understanding of the film?
On the one hand, studying Michael Moore’s documentary theory increased my understanding of the film Amy. This is because, there are elements of Amy that align with the theory. Such as, the use of editing, like the Ken Burns effect, which is a way of manipulating the footage to tell the viewer what to think and feel – this links in with Michael Moore’s way of making documentary, contrasting say to someone like Longinotto. Such as, in Amy, there is a park scene which includes a long shot of Amy in a provocative outfit, and the Ken burns effect is used, along with voice over talking about Amy’s provocative behaviour. This is inviting a certain viewpoint of Amy, and therefore links in with Michael Moore’s theory and way of film making. This could be seen as a negative thing, however, this moment can also be interpreted as a way of the documentary commentating on the media’s representation of Amy, rather than trying to convey a connotation itself. This is emphasised by the photo being a paparazzi picture, as well as many other photos in the film.
This isn’t the only moment in the film that has been used to create a specific emotion. Such as, the shot that goes from Amy’s house and up into the air, signifying how Amy was forced out of her own home. This was taken using a drone, and could only have been done using digital technology. The shot also conveys the unfair way that Amy was treated, which is therefore purposefully conveying something to the spectator, which links in with Michael Moore’s way of film making. Moreover, the film also uses fake/edited lens flare in multiple occasions, such as the singing booth scene, which has happy and other positive connotations, therefore trying to sway the audience emotions.
Further more, the opening of the movie is full of film form elements that fit in with Michael Moore’s film making theory and documentary style. Such as, the opening found footage being of Amy singing at a friends birthday, and the person we seen not even being her. This is a way of representing her as a every day person, contrasting to the media representations of her. Moreover, there is slow motion of Amy after she explains that singing is something she can just do, while her ‘performance’ is happy. This paints a positive picture of Amy, which links into Moore’s documentary theory, especially when you consider how the director may have chosen to be biased to contrast preconceived media idea and representations of Amy, which is something that Moore does too, except he’d never focus on a specific person, more likely an industry for example.