Screen Arts - S2 Week 9

04/09/2019 

Video Detective. (2014, November 5). To live trailer 1994 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhRgMU0wyB8

To Live looks like an interesting and beautiful slice-of-life human drama that would be censored because of the film's inclusion of violence and revolution.

Zhang Yimou toned down his films in the 2000's, which allowed him a better relationship with the Chinese government and lead to him being allowed to choreograph the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Movies that are hard to watch or put me off are films with scenes including rape and child abuse. Ones that infuriate me include discrimination. Films that used to put me off would be films with sex, horror, jump scares, monsters, and melodrama.

I wouldn't be surprised if China's oppressive film laws is why a chunk of the new Mulan movie was filmed in New Zealand. 

Film censorship in China
Censorship laws in China is basically the Production Code on steroids. It's so oppressive that is almost impossible to create drama in your films if made or screened in China. Your film even needs its own travel consent, in order to be screened at a film festival overseas and the Chinese government have the power for your film to be taken out of a film festival overseas or its screening to be revoked. It generally forbids immortality lie sex, violence, nudity, disrespect towards history and religion, and so on.

Ang Lee trademarks
Family dynamics
Lows and high of Western or Eastern culture
Beautiful cinematography


Kerr, S. (1996, April 1). Sense and sensibility. New York Magazine, 42-47. 

https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=MuECAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA44&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

"In some ways I probably know that nineteenth century world better than English people today, because I grew up with one foot still in that feudal society. Of course, the dry sense of humour, the sense of decorum, the social code is different. But the essence of social repression against free will – I grew up with that."  - Ang Lee

Borg, L., Doran, L., Schamus, J., & Lee, A. (1995). Sense and sensibility [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures.

The cinematography in this film provokes lust and vibrant colours like a paintings from that period in history. 

The scene where Marianne is only happened to saved by a gentlemen (John Willoughby) was a predictable and cliched part of the film, although it would poorer quality of a screenplay if it happened to be Colonel Brandon) and  . It can be a funny film if you understand the dialect of the time, and intelligent and veiled humour.

Hugh Laurie maintains a level of sass that is a reminiscence in his future role in House

It includes highs and lows of English culture at the time like women having no power in inheritance, and the social etiquette, protocols, and snobbery of the upper classes.


Behind the scenes photos

IMDb (n.d.). Sense and sensibility (1995) - photo gallery - imdb. Retrieved September 4, 2019, from Internet Movie Database website: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114388/mediaindex?refine=nm0000487&ref_=ttmi_ref_nm

06/09/2019

I started the day by going ahead with ringing up actors from the contact information that Jacqui gave to me. It took a lot of courage to say the right words in contacting them, so I took my time practicing a script for the calls. I also kept in mind of the filming dates across all my projects, which are September 21 (BSA206), 28-29 (BSA227), & October 4, 6, 12 (BSA231).

Call script

Hi there, I'm Jerry Westaway, a film student at SIT. I understand you auditioned for a part in a student film earlier this year. I'm ringing you to see if you're interested in acting in a couple of short films on [filming dates]. To get back to me, my number is 0273146356.

The films include a drama on mental health and a sci-fi on a conspiracy theorist discovering a portal.

Jeremy (No.35)

I rung him about being in my 231 and 227 projects, but he didn't answer and I just left him a message. He get back to me and told me he was interested, but only available on the 21st of September (BSA206), 28th of September (BSA227), and 12th of October (BSA231). With this in mind, I will just have him cast for my 206 project and eventually have the screenplay 206 sent to him.

Sophie

I rung her and she answered. She is interested, but would be unavailable for filming 206 and 227 because she would be in Dunedin. She would be available for the filming of the BSA231 with the exception of being unavailable for an hour on the 6th of October. I will email her the script for my 231 short film, but I would like to do a final draft before then. 

She will be cast in the role of Daisy for my 231 short film.

Jenny

She is interested, but is only available for the afternoon on the 21st of September. She seemed genuinely keen to be part of this and I will try to work around this obstacle for filming. I will eventually email her the 206 screenplay.

07/09/2019

Heyman, D., McIntosh, S., & Tarantino, Q. (2019). Once upon a time... in hollywood [Motion picture]. United States: Sony Pictures.

Last night, I went to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Reading Cinemas in Invercargill, before I leave for some down time at my home in Timaru. It's cheaper to go and see a movie in cinemas in Invercargill ($12) than Timaru ($14-16).

SPOILER ALERT

It's a superb film that continues to show Tarantino's upmost respect and obsession with film history. While it's a respectful homage to 1960's Hollywood cinema, it also carries tonal references to his other films; Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Inglorious Basterds.


Tonal references

Pulp Fiction - Subtle transitions between characters at different locations set during the same day
Reservoir Dogs - Rick Dalton's (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) car is the same car that Mr Blonde uses.
Jackie Brown - Production design of airport terminal
Inglorious Basterds - The climax where history is altered to an over-the-top extent (Manson Family members killed just before the Tate murders) and a scene where Dalton is in a movie where he kills a group of Nazis with a flamethrower. Style of narration and exploration of film history is almost done to the same extent.

One original element that Tarantino does offer in this film is where he distorts the story between the film and the film that is being made in the film, and as a result, it becomes the film. Nothing is done to differentiate between the two. Conventionally, it would have different colouring or aspect ratios. 
However, it does do that with other shows and films being made as part of the film.

Even if the black and white TV shows being made in the film was shot on film, it still looks too pristine and clean for that television era and potentially not enough film grain.
It was perfect VFX compositing where Ricky is in the movie, The Great Escape, instead of Steve McQueen and this effort is reminiscent of Forrest Gump.

Al Pacino's character always make clear in one scene on what film print he saw films or TV serials on e.g. 35mm, 16mm

Tarantino continues his trademark style in this film by having long discussions in two-shot camera framing, popular music from the 1960's (this was used more to set the era and atmosphere of 1960's America, different to his other films), and having a focus on a woman's feet.

I like how Tarantino's frequent stuntwoman, Zoe Bell is in the film as a New Zealand Hollywood filmmaker. However, being a New Zealand film history nerd I would make this choice more creative than historically accurate since New Zealand filmmakers didn't direct in Hollywood until at least the early 1980's. I do think how her character's relationship with Kurt Russell's character is meant to be somewhat a reference to Tarantino's film, Death Proof, which is a film that features both actors.

The scene where Dalton improvises in a scene seems like a callback to how DiCaprio improvises in a scene in Django Unchained.

I believe the primary theme of this film is self-worth because the film focuses a lot on Dalton's dilemma and conflict on his worth as an actor and whether he is becoming a has-been, and having to resort to perform in a film genre that he despises. He believes that eventually meeting his next door neighbors, Roman Polanski or Sharon Tate will lead him to being a bigger star since Polanski was a successful filmmaker, having directed Rosemary's Baby just a year prior. He eventually achieves a satisfactory self-worth by being complimented for brilliant use of improvised acting on-set from both his child co-star and director, and being finally invited into Polanski and Tate's mansion.

Tarantino manages to make a scene still unsettling and tense by only using cinematography and not worrying about adding music, sound, or colour grading, in order to set the tone or atmosphere of the scene and location. It's unsettling because you as the audience don't know whether Spahn (the ranch owner) is dead or really sleeping, that a member of the Manson Family could kill him at any point, or whether Booth will leave the commune alive.

10/09/2019

I manage to get emails sent out to my actors for filming my project next weekend. I got my equipment booked on CHEQROOM for that day. The next steps are to organise a call sheet.