Film Studies Blog

Discuss how important cinematography is in establishing strong responses from spectators to a key character in La La Land. Of the scenes in La La Land, the one in which I will be focusing on is from after Mia and Sebastian break up - in it I will focus on Sebastian, I chose this scene because in this point of the movie, I believe the characters become more relatable. The scene begins with long shot of a wedding, as the camera pans anti-clockwise we see couples dancing and sitting then it stops at Sebastian playing the piano and pans forward.  By panning the camera around the audience, the audience can notice that Sebastian is the only one alone at the wedding, this highlights how lonely Sebastian must feel, since all around him are happy couples while he has recently experienced heartbreak. An audience member may identify with this scene, because many people have to go to weddings when they're single, and most people experience terrible break ups. If the camera had just shown Se...

What is independent cinema? + Winter's Bone social and production context. An independent film is a film produced outside of the mainstream usually about problems in a real  setting with long takes that lack action. Verisimilitude is used to make the film feel realistic, this is also helped by the aesthetics and visuals. Another difference is that compared to mainstream films, independent films have a much smaller budget, for example, Winter's Bone's budget was $2 million, while La La Land's budget was $30 million. On top of this independent films are filmed on location without a long time to shoot - Winter's Bone was shot in 25 days. The film maker Debra Granik has a neo realistic style, which is why the film focuses on the rural poverty of the Ozarks, as well as their lack of opportunities and education. The majority of the social context comes from kin based patriarchal power and the dependence on strong women, as shown by Ree and Merab's resilience. Throu...

How far does 'Winter's Bone' rely upon an understanding of it's social context. Refer in detail to at least one sequence from the film. [20] Winter's Bone is an neo-realistic, independent film on a young member of the Ozark community looking for her father. The sequence I have chosen is when Teardrop shows up to collect Ree from the garage, where she has been attacked. I'm starting from the moment, when the garage door opens with close-ups of each of the people in the room, then a tracking shot of the door as it opens and stops at a mid-shot of Teardrop. Through this scene there is only the diegetic sound of dialogue, the garage and of the rain outside. When Teardrop walks into the garage there is a long shot, which shows how the surrounding people respond - the men act and speak first. There is then a mid shot of Ree, curled in a ball with blood on her face behind the women, who take up part of the screen, which highlights how weak and powerless she is, which...

Checkmate FADE IN: EXT. ALLEY - DAY Two people sit in an alley with a chess board between them. MARA, a teenage girl dressed in white/grey clothing is controlling the white chess pieces, while an unidentified FIGURE dressed in black is controlling the black pieces. The game is nearing the end, with the FIGURE only moving one chess piece to win and put her in checkmate. When the chess piece hits the table, an upbeat song begins to play. CUT TO: INT. TABLE AT COLLEGE The song continues to the next setting, and is revealed to be MARA’s alarm. MARA sits up and turns her alarm off. Then, she looks around at the homework she was completing and sees the FIGURE at the top of the staircase next to her. She gathers her papers and leaves briskly.  CUT TO: INT. CLASSROOM MARA sits at the front left side of the room, with the FIGURE at the back right side. TEACHER, a strict teacher stands at the front of the class teaching Maths. The TEACHER is going over th...

In our film we emphasised the battle between Mara and the figure through framing, for example the opening shot was made symmetrical to highlight the feud between the main characters as it showed their opposition. In many shots we used negative space, such as in the close-up shots of Mara and the figure, to create an uneasy tone and make the audience uncomfortable. We used a graphical match cut to transition between her dream and reality conveying how her anxiety has an effect on her life. However, we had to remove possible ideas due to time constrictions and the inability to film in a bedroom, therefore we had to adapt by having her wake up in college. This lead to us getting rid of a scene of her walking to college which put more focus on the represented anxiety. For future reference, we will make our plan achievable.

Our short film is a psychological horror, using a narrative portraying a conflict between two characters, portrayed using the mise-en-scene of costume with the main character, Mara, wearing white and the other wearing black and with the character’s game of chess. The first scene will be a dream with no sound, until the last chess piece is moved then an upbeat song will play, that is contrapuntal sound, this will be revealed to be a phone alarm for Mara to wake up, thus creating a sound bridge, highlighting the scene is a dream, high brightness and low contrast will also show this. The transition from this scene will use a graphical match cut from a close-up of the chess board to a close-up of a phone. She’ll go to class that will be lit with low key lighting and the teacher will be shot using low angles to imply Mara’s fear of them. We will have another sound bridge when Mara takes her tablet, which will be coming from Mara’s earphones in the next scene. In this next scene Mara will b...

The film focuses on Mara, our protagonist,  a teenage girl in college struggling with anxiety who is being stalked by a mysterious figure in black. We follow her through a normal school day as she is forced to fight against the figure, a physical representation of her mental illness. We see how she is haunted by nightmares of the figure in a metaphorical game of chess throughout her day, which is used to foreshadow Mara’s inevitable final confrontation with the figure, in which she loses against it. During the film, Mara and the figure are the main characters with some minor appearances from background characters, such as her Maths teacher who contributes to her growing anxiety by asking her to answer a question in class and the other students in class. Our film is a psychological horror, to show the harm that mental illness causes and the feeling it gives to those who suffer with it, for example feelings of isolation and hopelessness. In the end, the film can be seen a...