Intro to Film Blog

    During the fourth week of this class, we moved forward with continuing to explore new films and their specific formats. The focus was on a well-known classic directed by Alfred Hitchcock, "Rear Window". This film was a groundbreaking film at the time of its release, as it explored new shots and angles that had yet to be used or popularized while largely relying on the visuals telling the story, as the audience's knowledge and view are limited to that of the wheel-chair bound main character. Hitchcock found an inventive way to take advantage of a small, confined space and make it feel unrestrained.      While I still largely prefer more modern movies, I continue to enjoy all of the films we have watched so far, regardless of how old the film is. Rear Window in particular maintained a balance of curiosity and suspense even with the slow-moving storyline, culminating with L.B. being thrown out the very window he observed his neighbors from, ending the film with...

In week three of this course, we were introduced to a new type of film, following the viewing of old movies like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" from 1920, and watched a short film. This documentary was simply called "Snowy" and showed the unfortunate life of a turtle named Snowy who lived as a family pet for over 10 years at the time this documentary was filmed.   Snowy spent almost all of his life locked away in a small fish tank, banished to the basement window, and was typically visited only once a day, by his caretaker Larry. The directors Alex Wolf Lewis and Kaitlyn Schwalje saw how Snowy was living and felt a need to help improve his situation, helping Snowy go from surviving every day to truly living. Throughout the telling of Snowy's story, the directors used certain shots and angles to create an unignorable contrast of Snowy's tiny window in the basement to the thanksgiving feast with the family all together. Creating this shot of viewing both situa...

Looking back on the previous week of classes, I have already learned so much interesting information about the history of film that I would have never considered delving into without this course. Starting with the reading from Moving Pictures, and just how surpising it was to think that the modern day multi-billion dollar ($91.83 billion in the U.S alone) movie franchise was started by a "wealthy robber baron" who was bored and wanted to win a bet against his friends.  The series photography, which was used to win the bet, later became more and more developed with first silent films like "The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari" from the 1920's, followed by "unpredictable and trangressive" films such as "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967, and just 10 years later in 1977, the very first Star Wars episode was realsed and "Hollywood would never be the same" as Moving Pictures, and many others have claimed.  Personally, I have never had much of an interest ...