127 Hours Image Analysis

127 Hours

The image that I am analyzing is a documentary film called 127 hours. It is a film about a man who films his journey hiking across Americans canyons where he finds himself in an awkward position which leads him to making a video diary of himself, This film could be put in the observational documentary category as it  where life is lived and observed and how people react in different situations. From the image on the front of the DVD cover we the audience can clearly see that this man is in danger due to his posture and the position that he is in, We can see that he is faced with various challenges as he has to overcome a series of events such as making his way across to the other side of the canyon, whilst in the midst of the heat from the canyon. This sense of danger is also shown through colours as from the Bright Red/orange colours; we the audience can tell that already you get a sense of jeopardy and danger as those types of colours tend to represent danger/risk.

From the Image I can tell that the genre the film documentary belongs to would be action adventure, this is already hinted within the image as we can see that he has found himself in an awkward position due to him hiking in the canyons and that he has to find a way of getting himself out of it.

The slogan that has been put on the bottom of the image ‘there is no force more powerful than the will to live’ this slogan almost sends out a message to people and makes people have a rethink about life and make people think about the things they take for granted in the sense that it makes them think about how people would do anything just to be alive. Also from the caption about what the New York Times thought of the film ‘Dazzling and perpetually surprising’ would interest/almost persuade customers to go and see/buy the film as most documentary films don’t have much appeal about them however this film being ‘a triumphant true story’ and being directed by the academy award-winning director of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ This Documentary films seems to have a big appeal about itself almost selling itself to customers/potential audiences.

The type of shot used for this DVD cover would be a long shot, this is used to get everything in perspective and to show to position that he has got himself into, It also signifies/informs of us the dangers of hiking without proper supervision/equipment as the rock in between parts him from his death and may indicate a ‘stepping stone for him’ as it may infer that he has been given a second chance.

The use of natural low-key lighting gives the image more of an appeal as it makes it stand out and puts all the focus on the man being trapped between the two parting canyons. The soft lighting on the edges of the canyons make it appears as if there glowing and again putting the focus on the man trapped almost putting us the audience in the characters shoes making us think about what we would do in that situation.

Overall I think this DVD image does a great job of selling itself, it doesn’t give away too much of the film leaving the audience intrigued to find out more. It also does a good job at putting documentary films on the market as people wouldn't really tend to go watch documentary films due to escapism, People would rather hide away from true stories/events, However due to the positive feedback received from this film as we can see by the front cover with the caption from the New York Times, I can tell that there may be a gap in the movie industry for documentary type films.

Documentary

DOCUMENTARY - A work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration.

1.     Poetic documentaries - is a personal abstract that emphasizes some aspects person’s life and presents these aspects via music, camera shots and angles and the editing. It can also be quite artistic in the way it is presented. 

1.    

E    Expository documentaries - Direct access to the audience. There are social issues assembled into an argumentative frame with a narration voice-over emphasizing what is happening.

2.   

          Observational documentaries - where life is lived and observed and how people react in different situations.

3.    

P    participatory documentaries - where the events and situations presented are influenced and altered by the presence of the filmmaker

4.         

      Reflective documentaries - demonstrate consciousness of the process of reading documentary, and engage actively with the issues of realism and representation, acknowledging the presence of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at.

      Performative documentaries - acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of Documentary and presents ideas as a part of a context having different meanings for different people and are often autobiographical in nature. 

Examples

 Poetic documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk_u_8ajoo0

Expository documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOJXt5R8ijE

Observational documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_9sfXIhe9U

Participatory documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWzcGXUWsI8

Reflective documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4237pS55h4

Performative documentaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6osXJcLg_oo&feature=related

Codes and conventions - The voice over, diegetic, non- diegetic sounds, Interviews with experts, use of texts/titles  

ok  

Super 8 Review

Super 8 Review

The film Super 8 a collaboration between J.J Abrams and Steven Spielberg in my opinion was a very entertaining movie due to the fact of its computer graphics and special effects. The characters were all delightful and the story slowly unfolded, letting our curiosity build as we tried to figure out why people were acting as they were and what was going on as things proceeded.

The film begins in a small town in Ohio in 1979 it was about a group of teens filming a zombie movie at an abandoned train station where it just so happened that a train was passing by where ‘Charles’ the director of this film thought that it was of great production value towards the film however they happened to film a train crash, which happened to contain secret us air force property. After the train crash mysterious things started too happened around the local town which was the main focus throughout the remaining part of the movie.

Super 8 could be categorized as a sci fi adventure due to it having an extra- terrestrial character and special effects. The film is intense throughout and is made even more intense at the end when the audience gets to see what the alien/creature looks like.

The audience are constantly jumping out of there chairs and biting there nails due to the twists and turn off events throughout the movie. The movie builds up suspension as they are not aware of what is going on as they only get to see the alien right at the end. The movie not only deals with the suspense and thrills, but also strives to develop the main characters’ inner struggles, whether it’s dealing with loss, strained relationships, friendships and that first crush between Joe and Alice.

The soundtracks within the movie super 8 built up a lot of the suspension within the movie as they were a key indication to how the twist of events would turn and also showed an insight to what was happening. Personally I liked the soundtracks as I thought they went well with the movie. They were very catchy and played important roles within the movie

This film was not a let down as due to having high expectations due to the fact that Steven Spielberg played a role in producing the movie, The film doesn’t disappoint and kept the audience on the edge of their seat. 

The film allowed you to connect with the characters real well and the humour was quite hilarious

I especially enjoyed the dialog between the kids as it seemed very natural, I think that this movie wasn’t intended to be an ET Remake but instead JJ Abrams seem to be trying to make a tribute to Spielberg’s classic style.

Overall I thought that super 8 was a fantastic film as the graphics were amazing and the storyline behind it was quite meaningful and the way that Joe’s family was portrayed a lot of people can relate to those circumstances (single parent family). I would rate this film 7 out of 10 purely because it was a heart felt movie and had a lot of twist and turns, the reason it never got rated higher was because I didn’t like how the movie ended as it left many unanswered questions.

Super 8 Research

Super 8

Super 8 Targets a teenage audience as it is about a group of boys who bark upon mysterious events within their town and how they try to save it. We can tell that it is targeted towards teenagers as the movie tries to convey messages and tries to appeal to the teenage audience through the characters within the movie.

Broadcasting

Theatrical trailer of the movie super 8, this would have been shown in the cinemas across the uk and america

Tv Spot - superbowl advert --> Huge american event

Love Film exclusive interview where J.J. Abrams talks about how he kept Super 8 under wraps and reveals which of the lead boys is based on his younger self. Also Interview with the young stars of the film.

Kids choice awards interview (Super 8 won this award) -> http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/super-8/kids-choice-awards-interview

Special apperance from tom cruise at the super 8 premiere

Print

Super 8 Poster -> Promotes the movie via print, Release date for cinema june 10th 2011

Empire magazine -> Rates the film a 4/5 

"Super 8 is something to cherish: a beautifully made homage to better times, and better movies"

Super 8 Billboard in America -> Promotes the movie via print

A Promotion of the Movie Super 8 on a cup of noodles advert / Poster

The Guardian super 8 movie review -
JJ Abrams's amiable, ever so slightly disappointing mystery adventure is a weird hybrid. It's an affectionate tribute to Spielberg classics such as Close Encounters and ET, but it is also itself, as the poster announces, a Steven Spielberg movie: Spielberg produces. So it's part homage, part franchise operation. Spielberg has, in effect, licensed out his (former) style to Abrams, who in some way is like a lifelong burger fan entrusted with the chief managerial job at America's biggest branch of McDonald's
Everything about the movie has been meticulously created or recreated: the homely suburban setting, whose housing sprawl is set across a valley or plain that can be viewed, all at once, from rising ground. The setting is 1979, a time briskly established by a quick mention of Three Mile Island on the TV news. A group of kids career around keeping secrets from the grownups, although one of them is semi-legally driving them in car: there are no bikes. They have garrulous overlapping conversations in diners, and in open-plan breakfast-bar kitchens at home. A certain alien something is in evidence, creating intense light sources suffusing its witnesses with an unearthly, buttery glow. Its very familiar-looking face is not seen clearly until almost the end, and this visitor is creating a strange termite-mound structure of found objects.

In this setting, a group of teen film-nuts – including Joe (Joel Courtney), Charles (Riley Griffiths) and Alice (Elle Fanning) – are shooting their own zombie horror flick on Super 8, that is, the home movie 8mm format; Charles has the classic home-use cine-camera made by the Austrian company Eumig. They have gone out to a remote stretch of ground near a railway track to shoot a vital scene in which Alice's character emotionally begs her cop husband to abandon his dangerous zombie hunt. The nerdy boys are awed at how superb Alice's performance is, and at the greater emotional maturity of girls in general. But just as they are filming, they and their camera witness a terrifying train crash, evidently part of a creepy Area-51-type conspiracy. It is a dangerous secret for them to keep, but Charles is assailed by a brilliant new plan: why not incorporate this priceless footage into their film?

It really is a terrific first act: witty, smart, exciting – and Fanning's reading of her first scene is great, perhaps the best "rehearsal" scene since Naomi Watts's audition piece in Mulholland Drive. The growing intimacy between Joe and Alice, which develops from Joe pasting zombie makeup on Alice's face, has something of the Spielberg-fannishness in Kevin Williamson's Dawson's Creek. Later, Charles is to reveal his own feelings for Alice, and his horror at being fat and unattractive is no way allayed by his doctor's assurances that he will one day "lean out".
But then what? An obvious direction would be for the reality to be an amplification of what's happening in the kids' homespun film. But it's no spoiler to say that zombies are not wandering across the landscape. So what is? Well, the film ranges far and wide in its search for an urgent plot that could possibly do justice to this bravura opening. It turns out that there is some bad blood between Joe's dad and Alice's dad, but this Capulet/Montague idea is neither satisfactorily established nor plausibly resolved. The train carriages, spectacularly flung around in the opening phase, contain weird Rubik-ish boxes, whose vital importance is clear from the military personnel swarming all over the place, gathering them back up, but the secret behind them does not deliver any clear, satisfying storyline punch. The geekery has charm, but is a little self-conscious and just occasionally, this movie resembles an open-ended, rambling drama serial that gets a little, well, lost.
Having said that, the affection and high spirits of Super 8 are infectious. The digital generation of 2011 are teased with the prehistoric conditions that film-makers had to struggle with, back in the day. The stoner guy who works at the camera store says that he can do a "rush" on developing their film: it can be completed in just three days!
Of course we do get to see the kids' completed homemade movie, and, though it would be a cheap shot to claim that this film is a tighter and clearer piece of work than Super 8 itself, I have to confess, churlishly, to a faint disappointment here. The completed film does not particularly reveal anything that had been mysterious in the preceding action, and it does not mesh in any particularly ingenious way with the real-life adventures we have all just lived through. But it is funny and likable, like everything else Abrams has to show us.
The movie elsewhere suggests the more general experience of families' home-movie-making. Watch Super 8 home movies and you'll see mum and the kids, but not dad. Dad is the one doing the filming, the only one allowed to hold the camera. So the father is intensely present and absent at the same time: Abrams hints a little at this more melancholy aspect of Super 8 culture. The rest of the time it's a boisterous genre piece with some of Spielberg's tricks but little of his storytelling pizazz and none of his intense heartfelt belief.

http://www.super8comiccontest.com/ - A Spin off Comic about super 8, also a spin off comic about the director JJ Abrams

E-Media

Production Companys website
Paramount - http://www.paramount.com/
Amblin Entertainment - No website
Bad Robot Entertainment http://www.badrobot.com/

Super 8 website - www.super8-movie.com/    Also an interactive feature of the website is thesuper 8 editing room where you can edit clips from the movie.

Each character from the movie has its own wikipedia page with information about them and about there acting carrer.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_8_(film) (Characters List on the right hand side)

Dvd Released on 22nd of November 2011 (Blu ray available) 

Pod cast Interview with the super 8 crew http://thefilmtalk.com/blog/super-8-podcast-william-eubank-love-interview-seattle-international-film-festival/

Interactive trailer within the game portal 2, extra scene from the movie super 8 where audiences can interact and re-visit the scene of the train crash.

Super 8 Twitter and Facebook Pages



Four stills

The camera angle that is used in this still image would be a close up, the effect given from this would be that it shows how the character is feeling due to his facial expressions.

The camera angle use in this still image is a medium shot, the effect that this shot creates is that it allows us to connect with the character through facial expressions and body language.

This is also a medium shot, the effect given is that it allows us to interpret how the character is feeling through his body language, also it allows us to interpret how he is feeling due to his facial expressions.

The still image that is shown is a long shot, the effect that is created from this is that due to seeing the full body language of the character the audience can foretell what is going to happen later on in the movie.

cinematography hw

Casablanca 1942 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt1vQ81jNWw

At the beginning of the clip the directors uses a long shot to introduce the cast and setting within the scene, as it progresses close ups are used to show the characters emotions and facial expressions, this gives the audience an idea to how the character is feeling within the scene.  Panning is used to crossover between characters, instead of using transitions.

Shawshank redemption 1994 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwXlIwozog

Its starts off as a POV shot as he enters the room; this gives the effects that we as the audience are involved within the movie. As the clip progresses it remains a medium shot and then gradually zooms into the face to transition it to a close up, this shows how the character is feeling a sends a message to the audience that whatever he is saying must be serious as the camera focuses on what he saying.

lighting

High key lighting is used in this still image to represent the burst of life within this film. It also makes the poster appear realistic and depicts a party atmosphere. The use of neon lighting also portrays the party atmosphere due to the electrifying colours within the background. The use of bright lights also attracts the audience as the bold outline is very eye-catching and grabs the attention of the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMF-bVxlkc

In this short film extract top lighting is used to show the effect that everyone is watching them (crowd). its also uses top lighting too give the effect that the spotlight is on them as the clip is a rapping scene from the movie 8 mile. gives off the impression that it is a dramatic scene within the movie