Intro to Film Blog

  The Social Dilemma is a documentary created to show how social media is designed and tell people that it is designed specifically with addiction in mind. The documentary explains that this is all done by the companies to manipulate peoples views, emotions, and behaviors all while maximizing their profit.  I found this very interesting overall, escpecailly when the documentary dove deeper into the technology and artifical intelligence that makes apps like this possible. In specific, the interviews with software developers caught my attention as I am in my senior year of electrical engineering and there is a very strong influnece of coding in my major. This is certainly a heavy topic to acknowledge, especially if you have been able to stay unaware of just how much information about you is out there. It brings up the overall question of how do we reduce the dependance of these technologies that are doing nothing but selling off our information to the highest bidder. Unfortunetl...

I have never actually watched Jaws before, and because this was my first time watching the film I was fully captured by the story. I typically find it hard to become 100% invested in movies, and not get distracted but it was easy to only focus on the screen when watching Jaws. Overall, I think that this was an amazing movie and I wish that I had seen it before now.  In terms of the reputation of Jaws, it is iconic for its take on attack scenes, putting the audience in the place of the predator. During any of the attacks, we see the build-up to the events as if we were the killer shark. This type of shot adds a whole new level, and it is just one of the many things that elevated this film to reach its legendary, blockbuster status.  I also really enjoyed how no matter how much pushback from the mayor and others, Brody and Hooper did not want to stop until they were certain that the waters were safe for everybody to enjoy. This especially can be seen when they are on the boat wi...

Personally, while I agree that the film was very well done and the actors did a good job truly capturing the awkwardness and uncomfortableness of life, I was not a fan of the film. I think that Me and You and Everyone We Know very effectively shows the different types of relationships that people can develop, good and bad, as well as how they are developed, and how they grow either digitally (behind a chat screen) or through analog communication (posters in the window).  In specific, the relationship between the two girls and the man is very uncomfortable to think about and even more so to view. He is well aware of the fact that they are underage and that is why in the end he never physically does anything with them, however, things verbally said, or written in his case, still hold an intention. It is almost a fetishization of being with two young, young girls and being able to put faces and bodies to his fantasy. 

I think all of the groups did a great job with their projects, and whether you could see it on the screen or after, during the Q&A, it seemed like all of the other groups had a really good experience creating their films or trailers as well. One of my favorite films was the first one we watched, Merner Mystery. I think that the group did a great job of telling the story without any speaking parts. It was really impressive what every group was able to create with little to no budget at all.  I could tell that many groups took into account the things we have learned through the semester, either from the Moving Pictures book or from one of the many films that we watched over the course. For example, some groups were very creative with their shots and used written word and emotions to tell the story instead of relying on dialouge from the actors.  Overall, I am really glad that the fascination project became a group project instead of just an individual film presentaion. I thi...

On Sunday, before Halloween, my group and I set to film the scenes we needed for our fascination project. We decided to meet at the Bloomberg Lab in the business building so that we would be able to incorporate the business aspect of the comedy/horror/business genre we were attempting to create a film. We met up and began to review our storyboard created during previous meetings to see what shots would be plausible, what exactly we needed to film, and especially figure out any "b-roll" that we would need to have so that Josh had a comfortable amount of material to edit together. Our group was very lucky that Josh had previous editing experience and was able to execute the group's vision for the film in a way I never thought possible.  Being an actor in a film was definitely a first-time experience for me and it was certainly an awkward one. Because we recorded ideas as they came to us, we certainly had limited rehearsal time for most of the shots, and we had to figure out...

Monty Python Black Knight GIF from Monty Python GIFs After being introduced to the fascination project as a group film, I was able to join a group looking to create a film with a business/comedy/horror theme. I took that to mean a very cheesy type of horror where the characters are in typical horror movie scenarios but something about either the acting, the setting, the props, or even the music adds a very light, comedic lens to the traditionally terrifying scene. During the first class, we were provided with time to work on the projects, my team and I used it as a brainstorming session to just share any "bits" or scenes that we think would work well and to get a basic grasp of the type of film we were looking to produce. Never Give Up No Surrender GIF from Never Give Up GIFs Personally, I think that movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail would be a good type to try and match in terms of humor and such. I especially think a scene with either the victim...

Growing up, my family and I have always enjoyed watching and reading anything that fell into the fantasy or science fiction genre, and Pan's Labyrinth falls perfectly into that fantasy section. Pan's Labyrinth can be described as a dark fantasy film and Guillermo del Torro fully embraces this description. He does so by creating a realistic fable that leaves you wondering if any of the events Ofelia went through were real or if it was all in her head. Throughout the film, del Torro shares both the wonder-filled, child-like side of fantasy as well as the darker side through his iconic monsters, with some genuinely horrifying moments to snap the viewer back into a sense of reality.  The primary lens of the film focuses on Ofelia, who discovers that she is supposedly the daughter of the King of the Underworld. To prove she hasn't become entirely human and still contains an amount of  "godly" essence within her, Ofelia must complete three trials that will test her stre...

After watching Lost in Translation, while I do think that the movie was very well-made and the cast did a good job with their characters,   I did not truly enjoy the film. Along with what seemed to be a large part of the class, I found the film was a little too dull and it felt slightly lethargic. I think part of the reason I did not enjoy the film was the age gap between the actors themselves as Scarlett Johansson was 17 for most of the filming and turned 18 around the time the film premiered.  The opening credit scene was certainly a part of the reason I felt this way, as it was intentionally long and awkward. However, even though I personally did not feel the scene was necessary, I can understand the reasoning Sofia Coppola might have had behind putting that as the opening credit and tackling the major question many people likely had about what type of gaze she would utilize being the writer and director of the film. She might have felt others wouldn't take her work serious...

  In general, I am not the biggest fan of horror movies. They are typically my least favorite genre and I try my best to avoid watching them however, I was a little excited to watch a movie from Jordan Peele because I always heard amazing things about the three films he has directed,  Get Out, Us,  and Nope. In comparison to any other films I have watched, either in this class or on my own time, Peele's style appears to be very unique, especially when compared to how horror movies are traditionally portrayed. In every film he has directed he tackles stereotypes that those apart of the Black community face every day.  In this film, the opening shot sets the feeling the viewer has for a large part of the film. Setting the scene with a feeling of uneasiness as Andre walked down the poorly lit street and the main source of light becomes a white car heading the opposite way, only to turn around and drive right next to Andre. The first immediate jump scare comes from the m...