London riots: Looting and violence

London riots: Looting and violence:In early August there was a case of lots of rioting and looting, this was all down to.... It was thought that more than 3,000 people were arrested in connection with the riots in towns and cities around England between Saturday 6 and Tuesday 9 August. Latest figures from the Ministry of Justice say 1,715 suspects have now appeared in court - most of them in London.

A2 Coursework

An extract from a new documentary TV programme, lasting approximately 5 minutes, together with two of the three following: > A radio trailer for the documentary > A double-paged spread from a listing magazine focused on the documentary > A newspaper advertisement for the documentary. After much thought and many discussions in class I have come to the conclusion of producing a documentary. I have set myself a higher challenge from last year and will be working solo. This will require me to produce, shoot and edit all of the footage myself. However, I feel this could work to my advantage as it gives me the ability to express my personnal views and portray the documentary as I can imagine it.

Charlie St Cloud

Charlie St. Cloud is a young man overcome by grief at the death of his younger brother. So much so that he takes a job as caretaker of the cemetery in which his brother is buried. Charlie has a special lasting bond with his brother though, as he can see him. Charlie meets up with his brother (Sam) each night to play catch and talk. Then, a girl comes into Charlie's life and he must choose between keeping a promise he made to Sam, or going after the girl he loves. The genre of this film is a, Romance, Drama, Fantasy. 

I really enjoy this film, and felt that there was a really good storyline. However, I did feel that it was very confusing at times, and they could have helped the audience by making it a little clearer. There were stages in this film that I felt were created very well, and some of the edits made this film. I also think the setting of the film was very strange, I mean how often do you go to a mariner, and around a mile away is a grave yard. However, I did really enjoy the film. 

A2 Pre-Production

At this early stage my feelings are that I want to do a Documentary or a Radio show. My inital reaction was to do a Radio show, however after looking in to it, I am now leaning towards a documentary. There are 5 main types of documentaries, and these vary depending no how they are filmed: 1. Raw footage 2. Expository 3. Observational 4. Interactive 5. Poetic - reflexive and performative I now face the problem of searching for a topic to do my documentary on, this will be the hardest stage of the documentary, because it is important that you do not force any ideas, and jump in to something, as I need to consider all the pro's and con's of the idea. Here are a few examples that I have thought of: Traffic conjestion around Oxford The cost of Public transport Uni fees Parking in an Urban Area London Riots and Looting Social networking effect

Takers

The genre of this film would be an, Action, Crime, Thriller. The storyline of this film is; A seasoned team of bank robbers, including Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown) successfully complete their latest heist and lead a life of luxury while planning their next job. When Ghost (Tip T.I. Harris), a former member of their team, is released from prison he convinces the group to strike an armored car carrying $20 million. As the "takers" carefully plot out their strategy and draw nearer to exacting the grand heist, a reckless police officer (Matt Dillon) inches closer to apprehending the criminals.

I really enjoyed this film, most films give you sides to favour, and show you the bad guys very clearly. With this film they don't, I think what they try to do is give you both perspectives, and allow you to make your own decision to which team you are going to back. I feel what I really enjoyed about this film is that you couldn't really sit back and say what was going to happen next, this was due to the editing in which took place. This film included lots of Diegetic sound, which helps the film feel more realistic. There was more melodrama than I was expecting, but I think it helped give the movie an ounce of depth.

This image shown above is a shot of two brother that are in the team of the bank robbers, this shot is taken just before they give there lives. This particular shot was used to help show the relationship, and how close the two brothers were, and that they were prepared to fight until the end. 

The Tourist

I have recently watched a film called the Tourist, it was out in 2010. Like two Persian cats who have been drugged and somehow trained to walk side by side down the street, those exotic A-listers Johnny Deppand Angelina Jolie make a curious spectacle. These pampered exquisites star in a glossy, silly, occasionally amusing caper set in Venice – remade from the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, and borrowing a little from Polanski's Frantic, with something of Live and Let Die in the chase sequences. 


Jolie plays a haughty, beautiful woman of mystery with lips as big as a Dalí sofa. She is first seen sipping a coffee in a Paris cafe while under surveillance from some flics hunched in an unmarked van – their leering sweatiness signalling, naturally, that they are about to be royally outwitted. She receives word from her top international criminal lover, instructing her to travel to Venice and make friends with any guy with his approximate height and build, just to convince the cops that it's him in heavy disguise. So Jolie swans off and chats up a bedazzled tourist – a long-haired, goateed maths teacher played by Depp. She intends to get rid of him once he's served his purpose. But that special, indefinable spark between them keeps the pair together in dangerous situations and tourist locations. 


I thought the film was very average however the thing that i thought was very good about the film was the ending of it, and how it was very unexpected. So what i thought i would do is, do some reasearch and see what other thought about the film, here is what some what said about the film; "The combination of two lazy, smug performances from its over-confident stars and a director mismatched with his material make for 2010's biggest 'It seemed like a good idea at the time...' dud". Another review quoted; "The tone is lightly comic, the dialogue flirty and amusing but the performances are unengaged. There's no floor of reality, as there always was in a Hitchcock film, even his light confections". 

From Paris with love

The genre of From Paris with love is an action, crime, thriller. The Storyline of the film is; James Reece is an ambitious aide to the U.S. Ambassador in Paris, doing little jobs for the CIA and hoping to get into black ops. On the night he and his girlfriend, Caroline, become engaged, he's told to pick up Charlie Wax at Orly. Charlie is an unorthodox government employee - large, bald and bearded, foul-mouthed and eccentric. Charlie immediately takes James on a wild ride of murder and mayhem, through ethnic enclaves. As bodies pile up, the purpose remains opaque to James. Caroline, unhappy that James has been out of touch for a day, tells him to bring Charlie for dinner. Charlie can be charming - where will it lead? Does the chess-playing James have what it takes?

I really enjoyed this film and I think there are some key scenes that really do create this really good action film. One of my favourite action sequences is around 30 minutes in to the film, this is when John Travolter really comes to life and shows us what he can really do. The key part of this action film is the sound, and the sound effects that have been included within the scene. Most of these sound effects are Non-diegetic sound, the reason they use this I think is to make the sequence more realistic and exaggerate it. They use Non-diegitic sound most of the way through, and I think most action films do, this is because a lot of them are very over the top, and would be boring if were realistic. 

This video above shows you a beginning of an action scene, and gives you a good understand of the sort of non-diegetic sound which they are using. 

The Switch

The Switch is a very good film which would be classed as a 'RomCom'. The storyline of this film is; Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) and Wally (Jason Bateman) are best friends. Being unlucky in love, Kassie has decided to have a child using artificial insemination. Wally doesn't like this idea, but he isn't capable of admitting to himself, let alone to Kassie, that he's in love with her. At Kassie's artificial insemination party, Wally gets very drunk and spies the sperm donor's sample in the bathroom. Wally was way too drunk to know what he did that night, and Kassie has moved away because she doesn't feel that New York City is a place to raise a child. Now 7 years later, Kassie has moved back with her son Sebastian. While she is looking to get Roland (the sperm donor) more involved in their lives, Wally can't help but notice the many striking similarities that he and Sebastian share. 

I really enjoyed this film, and felt that there was a real strong storyline. However, At one point The Switch may have been a darkly humorous romantic comedy, but it’s had so much plastic surgery you can only look at the too-smooth lines and imagine the wrinkles that used to add character and nuance to its features. During the film there is a huge jump in the film, this is when it shows the opening of the film, and then there is a big jump to 5 years later, this made it feel really unrealistic, because what sort of best friend doesn't speak to someone for over 5 years, and then when he has met the son, he starts thinking 7 years back to when he changed the sperm. 

PhoneBooth

The Phonebooth is a film about a slick New York publicist who picks up a ringing receiver in a phone booth is told that if he hangs up, he'll be killed... and the little red light from a laser rifle sight is proof that the caller isn't kidding.

I really enjoyed the Phone Booth, and felt that your really didn't know what was going to come next, however what I did think was very strange that they managed to film the whole film in the same setting. 

This video above is the main scene within the film, I think what they do really well with this film, is use a small location to make a very big film, this film is all set within a phone booth, and on a very busy street in New York. Being set in America, there seems little need to justify why some lunatic would target a complete stranger (especially as the film's original release was delayed because of the Washington sniper), but it turns out Stu is no random victim and so a reason is required. Unfortunately the one offered is somewhat implausible. Citing his philandering and arrogance, the gunman objects to Stu's immoral behaviour. "You are guilty of your inhumanity to man," he utters. "Ah, this is all some religious thing?" replies Stu. In the presence of the NYPD, his wife, a gathering crowd, Pam and the media, Stu is forced to repent. "I'm offering you the chance to redeem yourself," the voice pronounces loftily.


The challenge of trying to confine the action to a phone booth is an exercise that is of more interest to the writer than the viewer. The irony is that having imposed such rigid parameters, both writer and director are only too willing to discard them when expedient. I think the reason for it being set in a phone box, was to give of a claustrophobic atmosphere. 

The Coens: True Grit

Straightforward storytelling is the last thing anyone expected from the Coen brothers, more famous for tight filmic twists and dark comic turns. But in their new feature film,True Grit, based on the classic novel of the same name by Charles Portis, the Coens deliver precisely that. The movie’s narrative line is as unwavering as its precocious hero, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), whose determined pursuit of her father’s killer in the post-Civil War Indian territories drives and directs the plot. Making the film was anything but straightforward. The Coens, in their fashion, co-produced, co-wrote, and co-directed True Grit. They also co-edited the picture in Final Cut Pro, which ultimately gave them frame-by-frame control of its pace and direction. But before they got to the cutting room, the brothers chased the project far and wide with a trusted posse of veteran production talent.


Talk This Way

In writing the script, the Coens stayed very close to the novel. “It’s such a good story, a very simple and compelling story, about a young girl going off into a wild and dangerous place to avenge the death of her father,” says Joel Coen. “It’s also a very funny book, and it felt like it would make a good movie. There’s no adaptation of a novel to a film that doesn’t change things in small ways at least, but I would say it’s pretty much the book.”
Adapting the novel involved lifting not only the plot — adjusted as necessary to make it more cinematic — but also much of the re-created 19th-century vernacular that Portis channels through his characters. “The language in the book is very specific and part of what makes it so interesting,” says Ethan Coen. “Some of that’s not translatable into a film because it’s told in first-person narrative, but a lot of it is in spoken exchanges that are also very specific. So we tried to carry that over into the movie.”
Key to bringing Mattie’s voice to the screen was finding an actress who could manage her rapid-fire period dialogue. After holding open casting calls across the country and looking at thousands of actresses, the casting directors finally turned up 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in Los Angeles. “We cast Hailee pretty much just before we started shooting, and we were very lucky to find her,” says Joel.


Kids, Horses, Weather


Resourceful adjustments continued on location in New Mexico and West Texas as the Coens worked around Steinfeld’s union-restricted shooting schedule (no night shoots for minors), fickle weather (snow, then mud), tricky lighting setups, and the careful wrangling of horses and actors during difficult, dangerous stunts.
“We had bad weather, and it’s a largely exterior movie, so there wasn’t a lot of interior coverage to go to,” says Ethan. “Shoveling around our weather problems was the main production problem.”
“It’s a Western,” adds Joel, who, along with Ethan, reportedly wore a cowboy hat on the set. “You’re in distant locations far from a lot of the infrastructure that you need to make a film. You’re dealing with horses. And your principal character is being played by a 13-year-old actor. Children and animals are generally the things you’re told to stay away from in the movies, but we had both.”


All Assembled


When shooting wrapped, the Coens hung up their hats and returned to New York to face a dauntingly short post-production schedule that would get the film the Christmas 2010 release requested by the studio.
The close collaboration that marked pre-production and location shooting extended into post. Associate editor Katie McQuerrey worked with the Coens in their primary cutting room while two assistant editors, Gershon Hinkson and David O. Rogers, manned a satellite editing room at the Post Factory in Manhattan. Post supervisor Catherine Farrell moved between both locations. Each editing room was equipped with two Mac Pro editing stations with Final Cut Pro, as well as a dedicated MacBook Pro for secure file exchanges. All systems were connected to an Apple Xsan shared storage network, which allowed the editors to easily swap projects.To meet their 24-week post schedule — “much tighter than normal,” says McQuerrey — the editors immediately began assembling dailies that had been scanned by EFILM at 2K and converted to ProRes 422 (HQ) files for editing. They imported the ProRes files with one track of mixed audio into Final Cut, created a master Cinema Tools database (“essential for a film-based project,” she says), and organized the footage into separate project bins for dailies, screenings, individual reels, sound, and visual effects. Because the editors frequently had many projects open at a time, the Final Cut Pro multiple-tab display in the Browser window became a critical tool for accessing and organizing their work.


Custom Cut


The Coens, who co-edit all their films under the credited pseudonym Roderick Jaynes, helped themselves significantly in post by directing a typically disciplined shoot that generated only 270,000 feet of film (“between half and one-quarter of the usual amount of footage shot on a movie,” says Joel).
But they found their primary leverage in an efficient Final Cut Pro workflow honed over the course of their last five feature films. “Because Final Cut gives editors tremendous flexibility in how they use the application, the Coens have customized it to fit their specific needs, and it’s now essential to their cutting process,” McQuerrey says. That tandem workflow mirrors the process they’d developed editing on film, when Ethan marked sequences on an upright Moviola and Joel cut them on a flatbed. Says Ethan: “Now I look at footage in Final Cut Pro, mark ins and outs of various takes, and send them over to Joel, who assembles them in a Final Cut timeline.”
Adds Joel: “We’ve always co-edited, and that’s actually the main reason we use Final Cut Pro. The application managed to match the way we were used to cutting together on film, so the transition was almost invisible to us. And Final Cut continues to reveal itself as being a very efficient, flexible way of editing.”


Transfer Effects


Besides streamlining the edit, Final Cut made it easy to generate and exchange effects files. “The movie had a tremendous number of visual effects, many more than are obvious,” says McQuerrey. “We used matte paintings to extend the Texas town we filmed on location. And we did wire and track removal, as well as dust, squib, blood, muzzle, and weather enhancements. The ease with which we can create and manipulate high-quality temp effects in our Final Cut timelines was a great advantage.” The enhanced markers in Final Cut became an essential tool for tracking effects, including numerous shots of digitally created rattlesnakes in a key sequence.
Final Cut also expedited the transfer of sound and music files. “Because the sound department was using Pro Tools, we used Automatic Duck to import and export the OMF files they gave us,” she says. “We’d cut the music in as it was being written and see it against a Final Cut Pro picture.”
To speed up these turnovers, the assistant editors created templates so the editors could simply drag the various file types required by different departments into Compressor while continuing to work in Final Cut Pro. This allowed the sound and music departments to keep up with the Coens’ edits.
With these workflow enhancements, the team was able to create a first temp mix that incorporated sound, music, and visual effects 16 weeks into post; another with final scoring 19 weeks in; and a final mix at 21 weeks. Screenings of the mixes were as compelling as they were timely. “We were very happy with the quality of the ProRes 422 (HQ) image, which meant we only had to output our ProRes QuickTime files straight from Final Cut to HDSR or D5 tapes to be able to screen them, and they looked beautiful,” says McQuerrey. “That was a huge bonus for us.”


Closing Credit


On one of their tightest post-production schedules, for a film unusually heavy with visual effects, the Coens were able to deliverTrue Grit on time and without compromise. Joel Coen credits Final Cut Pro for significant help in getting them there: “We had to get the movie done in a very short period of time. Final Cut Pro, because of its efficiencies and speed, enabled us to meet that deadline.”