Shawshank Redemption Write-up

Justin Noddle

Period 6

Shawshank Redemption Write-up

Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, is a 142 minute film distributed by Colombia Pictures. This movie had a budget of $25 million. This is a film from 1994 that was adapted from the Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Supposively, this is an allegory for maintaining one’s feeling of self worth when placed in a hopeless position.

1.     What does jail symbolize in this film?

People in our society today view jail as an incredibly frightening and horrible place. Just the thought of going to jail immediately strikes fear into everybody. However, in this movie, Andy arrives in jail and is very casual. He walks around like nothing is wrong and everything is just dandy. He acts very casual even though he is living a tough life. Many other people in the jail call it their “home.” When they leave their home, they do not know what to do any longer. They have been suffering in jail for so long that once they are free, they are really still in captivity. Jail changes a man no matter what. Andy states, “I had to come to jail to become a crook.”

2.     What was so great about the way Red’s exit from prison?

Red tried multiple times to be released from prison but each time the guards shot him down. He would go in and say the same thing and the same camera angle would show him getting rejected. His final time the same camera shots were taken, but he said different things and he was released. When he was out of jail and into the real world, he did the same routine as Brooks. He worked the same job and stayed at the same home as Brooks. Brooks finished with engraving his name on the roof and hanging himself, because he could not handle the life outside of jail. Red did the same thing but after he wrote he name he left to find Andy. This was so greatly shot because the shots were the same as Brooks and it made the audience very nervous as to if Red would take the same path as Brooks.

The Godfather Write Up

Justin Noddle

Period 6

Godfather Write-Up

The Godfather is a 175 minute long movie that was made in 1972. It is a mob-film directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on the novel, The Godfather. This movie had a budget of $6.5 million and was made in both English and Italian. Two sequels follows this movie. The Godfather received Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

1.     Why does the opening scene of the movie have such a strong impact for the film?

The movie opens with music playing and as it slowly fades out, a voice begins to speak. At this point the screen is still black. This creates a sense of curiosity and anxiety for the viewer. Slowly, the blackness fades out and the camera is shooting an extreme close-up on the man. The camera slowly fades out as this man tells his story. However, he is not looking at this camera. This lets the audience know that he is not speaking to the viewer, but he is speaking to someone else. He is very upset because he is telling his child’s story. As the scene continues to zoom out, the godfather appears and it becomes apparent that the man is telling the story to the godfather and asking for a favor. This was a bold introduction to this movie.

2.     What are some of the ironic hints that the director uses?

The man asks for “justice.” When the man says justice, he really means revenge. The term justice in this case is used as murder. Murder is quite the opposite from just. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”  This is what the Godfather responds with. This sounds like something an advertiser would pitch, but we all know that is means a murder threat. As they say, murderers mean business. In this film, the murderers and all of the criminals would always meet up with each other wearing suits. They were very proper. Even when discussing murder and killing people, they all seemed so happy as if it was completely harmless.

Jaws Film Write-Up

Justin Noddle

Period 6

Jaws Film Write-Up

Jaws is a thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg in 1975. It is based off of the novel, Jaws. This movie is 124 minutes long and was created by Universal Pictures. The movie had a budget of $7 million. The sequel, Jaws 2, and then two more after that followed this movie. The movie as about a man-eating shark and the terror it causes. Men try to capture and kill the shark.

1.     What did the angle at which shots were taken allow the viewer to feel more related to the people in the film?

When a swimmer was swimming in the water, the camera took a low angle shot looking up at the person and at their feet. This puts the camera at the perspective of the shark. This also shows us that the swimmer is oblivious to what is below him and about to attack. Martin Brody is reading a book about sharks to learn about them so he can save many peoples’ lives. The shot, however, is pointed towards Brody and the audience is able to see what Brody is reading because of the reflection on his glasses. This allowed the director to have the focus on Brody but still show exactly what he needed to.

2.     How did facial expressions add emotion for this film?

After the shark killed a woman, the audience does not know this yet. However, a police officer runs onto the beach and looks very frightened and upset at something. This allows the viewer to assume that the woman was attacked by the shark. As the shark is biting at the woman, she is screaming and makes herself looked very afraid and in pain. She sells the attack really well and makes the viewer afraid of the shark as well. At the beach, everyone looks very relaxed and this shows that they have not hear about the shark attacks, but when the shark comes everyone’s face turns to fear. When debating about what to do with the shark, all of the men’s faces are scrunched in anger and this shows the tension of their argument.

Crash Film Write-Up

Justin Noddle

Period 6

Crash Film Write-up

The movie Crash was released in 2005 as an American drama film co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis. This film focuses on racism and social tensions in Los Angeles. Paul was inspired to make this movie by a real life incident. This movie won three Oscars. This movie is 128 minutes long and was filmed in the United States. There are many different stories going on during this film that collide together near the end of the film. Each story involves a part of either racism or sexism.

1.     How does the music and sound of the movie contribute to the mood of the scene?

There are many sounds from this film that hint at being certain things. For example, the sound of a siren signifies cops, which usually brings fear to people. Screaming and yelling in this movie showed frustration and fear. Crying showed sadness, but fear as well. Fear was a major contributor to this film. Much of the music played for this film was in a foreign language and viewer could not understand what it meant. This meant that the viewer was completely focused on what was occurring on the screen. At the end of the movie, a song played in English and the lyrics were very relevant to the scene occurring at the moment. A common trend to this movie was when people were angry and shouting, the music would speed up and get louder just as the characters in the movie did. In one of the most dramatic scenes of the film, all voices were completely taken out and only music was playing. This was an open form as to what the characters were saying but it also gave the scene a more drastic effect.

2.     How were the lighting and colors of Crash able to act as symbols for other objects?

Lighting and bright color were used to point out the dominants. Flashing lights, light sirens, immediately drew the attention of the viewer.  Many of the important and frightening scenes occurred at night. This is because the lighting is much lower, like a high key, and this added an eerie feel to the area. Bright lights from the sun created a blur effect, which then faded away and focused in to exactly what the director wanted it to. Black lighting was used often in this film. A man wearing a white shirt was standing in from of a black background. This shows the outline and shadow of the man but does not allow the viewer to make out, who the character is. The color red symbolizes many things in this movie. Red is the color of blood. Men are murdered and shed blood as a main part of the plot. At a stoplight, the red light means stop. Also, the woman is trapped in her car and a giant fire erupts. The fire is red, ride fire trucks arrive, and the woman’s dress is red. A major climax to the film is the red bullets that were bought that turned out to be blanks. Red was very symbolic.

Horror Genre

Horror films traditionally leave the audience with fear, disgust, and horror. The object of these movies are to scare the viewer. Therefore, macabre and supernatural means are commonly and successfully used. The thriller genre is commonly confused with horror. However, thriller is more tension and excitement rather than the fear from horror. The plot of horror films commonly contain morbidity, serial killers, a disease or virus outbreak, surrealism, and anything else designed to frighten the audience. Common characters in this portion of films include fake characters such as werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons, zombies, etc. What is considered to be a horror film has rather drastically changed as the decades pass. Currently, most horror films are gory and contain jump scares or supernatural content. For example, Saw films, The Strangers, and The Ring. Early films, on the other hand were based much more off of classic literature. Examples of these are Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera. The first horror films were created in the 1890s. There were several silent films produced by film Pioneers like Georges Méliès. In the early years, horror films were a common trend for the Japanese directors. In 1910, the first version of Frankenstein was created by Edison production. However, it was lost for many years until found by film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. in 1993 and he release the movie. The era of the German Expressionist films gave birth to many fantastic horror movies. Many of these films greatly influenced future film productions, including those made in Hollywood. The hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) were both some of the first Hollywood horrors. These movies both starred Lon Chaney, Sr. He was the first American horror movie star. One of the very first horror films, also made during this time, was called Nosferatu. Nosferatu was a vampire film. The next years if films were the 1930s-1940s. This is the time period when American directors and produces become much more prevalent. For example, Universal Pictures popularized horror films such as Frankenstein and Dracula. They began to blend science fiction with gothic horror. This is also when actors first decided to dedicate themselves completely to the horror genre. One of the greatest make-up artists of all time came from this age. His name was Jack Pierce and he immigrated to the United States from Greece. He helped with the make-up for Universal Studios’ 1931 adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Two of the most famous movies from this period were Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931) and Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933). Although not the first werewolf film, The Wolf Man (1941) was the most influential Werewolf film. As the years approached the 1960s and 1970s the gothic horror films were becoming less popular and films were becoming more relevant to a late-Century audience. This is also when horror films split into two categories. These categories were the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film. This was a time of very low-budget productions. Many alien, abduction, and mutation films were introduced in this period. Japan also got involved in horror at this time. This is also when 3-D horror films began being produced. In the 1900s horror films faced two major problems. First, the genre wore itself out with non-stop gore films. Second, the desire of the audience was changing. They previously Horror films are commonly made into sequences or series of movies. Ghosts and monsters have remained popular from the very beginnings of horror films and are still used to frighten the audience. The end of the Production Code of America in 1964 was when films began including the Devil as a fear tactic. The devil would possess pregnant women and possess children quite often.  Exorcism movies are still made today such as “The Last Exorcism” or “Paranormal Activity” uses the devil in some way. Many movies made in the past have recently been remade with special effects. This has become very common in the 2000s. Some of these include Friday The 13^th, A Nightmare on Elmstreet, The Wolfman and many more. The early 2000s did not release many movies for the horror genre. It seems as if recently the zombie genre has returned. Another trend that is reappearing is the extremely graphic violence that is made from a low-budget. This exploits the Seventies and the post-Vietnam years. There are many types of horror films that are popular that will come and go through popularity trends and continue to be desired by the viewers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms2.html

http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/

Minor Sub Genre- Parody

Comedy is a popular genre, which contains the minor sub-genre know as a parody. A parody is a type of films that takes previous scenes from a movie and mocks or imitates them in a humorous manner. To successfully pull this off, the characters, sound, shot angles, and all other details must resemble the original scene and then shock the audience with a comedic result. The words parody comes from ancient Greek Theater. The word parody means “beside song.” An example of a Parody is the movie Airplane! (1980). This is a parody of the disaster movie. Monsters Inc. (2001) is not a parody but there is a certain scene in the movie, which mocks a similar shot from The Right Stuff (1983). Film parodies date all the way back to Buster Keaton’s The Three Ages (1923). Parody is often connected to satire. Parody films are very tough to please critics. In the 1960’s, many spy movies were made, possibly due to the Cold War, and this led to many spy spoofs. One of the most famous series of parodies is the Austin Powers series. In 2004, Edgar Wright directed Shaun of the Dead intending to mock the zombie genre. This movie remains near the top of the parody genre. The plot is a normal man named Shaun witnesses a sudden zombie outbreak. He must be brave to save his mum and girlfriend from the zombies. When the movie seems as if it would get scary, a surprise turn occurs and forces a chuckle from the audience.

http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Parody.html

http://www.onlygoodmovies.com/blog/good-movies/10-good-parody-movies/

Minor Sub Genre- Superhero

A superhero film is sub-genre of action and science fiction. These films focus on the actions for one or more individuals who possess superhuman abilities and use them to protect the public. This character will commonly have an archenemy or supervillain who wants to terrorize the public. Many superhero films have been made based off of comic books such as The Incredibles and Hancock. Some of these comics were originally targeted towards children while others have been targeted towards adults. However, they now appeal to all audiences. Some of the earliest comics have very recently been made in to very successful movies. For example, Batman, Iron Man, and Superman have all been made into well-known movies. There are certain things that help to contribute to a successful superhero film. Sticking to the heart of the character creates a connection between the audience and the hero. Vivid descriptions of the superheroes personal life is vital. Another idea that works is giving the superhero average human problems. This adds conflict that superpowers cannot solve. It also allows the viewer to at least somewhat relate to the protagonist. The music to this movie is very important as well. The sounds should resemble and define the superhero. Sounds can affect the intensity of the impact that the characters have on their surroundings. One of the movies that followed these rules was Richards Donner’s Superman (1978). This was the first major superhero feature films. The 2000s was a time in which some of the most profitable superhero franchises in history were made. It all began with Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000), which was also a comic. Some of these movies were animated, like The Incredibles (2004), but most were played by actors. Currently, The Dark Knight (2008) is the highest grossing comic book film of all time. It was also nominated for eight Academy Awards, which is the most ever for a superhero film. Acting and costume design greatly improved this film. The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, had make-up painted on his face in the perfect way to reflect his character. Special effects gad a large impact on this movie as well. This brought drama and intensity to crash scenes and explosions. The location of the film is also very important to portray the culture of the society. Many scenes of the Dark Night were filmed in Liverpool and many other parts of London. One common trend in recent years, is combining superhero films with comedy. This is very challenging and very few have become successful. This is because this allows the viewers to not take the characters seriously. Minimal jokes and irony are acceptable, but the characters must be taken seriously. One must find the perfect balance.


http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/01/14/what-makes-a-good-superhero-film/
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/05/can_superhero_movies_be_works.html