Research - Alea

Amelia and Micheal

• The genre of the piece is social realism which is determinable by the style and content of this film. This films narrative is character driven, it follows a couples activities when they are apart from one another as both of them are cheating on each other. The characters themselves are scripted to just be real people in thier everyday life so aims for a sense of realism and the mise en scene also reflects this. The settings that we see are those of everyday environments: interior of a house, a hotel, hosptial and streets.
• Conventions of social realsit genre in this film is a realistic style of film with real characters that are believeable and allows the audeince to empathise and connect with them. The story itself focuses on a real life situation and is not complicated. The editing also refelcts this, it simple with few transitions and simple cuts. The only transitons that appear are at the beggining if the film and near the end, both of these fade to black and are used to transition between shots and the opening titles as well to bring the audeince into the action  after the titles have finshed at the beginning of the film. At the end it is used to show a passing of time as we are brought to the end scene in the morning when they are both in the car before the dip to white as the end credits come in. Use of simple editing like this allows the audeince to follow the action and is conventional of the social realsim genre.
• With a short narrative something that is not dominant in the film is dialouge. Most of the narrative is mainly described through the characters with body movement, interactions as well as props and setting. It allows the audeince to interpret more for themselves and raises questions as a narrative. With this narrative it is quite clear what is happening to the audience, it raises questions at first but are answered in the scenes shortly thereafter. We dont know at the begging why the characters seem so distant but after it is clear why, they are both having an affair with someone else. The narrative does loosely follow the three act structure of the set up, conforntation, and resolution. The set up of the story is establishing that Amelia is having an affair and a little but later in the story it also establishes that Micheal is too. The conforntation is when Amelia finds Micheal's passport in the drawer despite him having to supossedly have been to Milano and recives a phone call that says something has happend to the person she is having an affair with. The resoloution is that the person she's having an affair with dies and she has to return to Micheal who thinks she knows about what he has been doing and that is what she is upset about. At the end of the narrative it seems that there has been a resolution as we are brought full circle back to them sitting in the back of a car which is the scene the film opened with but this time there appears to be more tension.
• Use of sound is intersting in this film. There is little dialouge and even less music. Most of what is heard is diagetic sounds eg. the sounds of the cars in the street. with this lack of sound it leaves much to audience interpretation about the characters emotions by reading into the camera work and characters body language. This is something I feel could work well in our film.
• One thing that stood out to me the first time watching this film is the placement of the characters in the frame. there are a couple of scenes where the two characters sit on the opposite side of the frame with very little interaction, e.g at the beginning of the film when they are both in the car and when they are both sitting on either side of the bed. This seems to create the feeling that there is tension in the relationship, they feel quite separate from one another.

• Themes and issues raised by this is that of "what is it to be faithful to another person? And what does it mean to be true to yourself?". The films main plot, and therefore theme, is that of betraying your partner and both Amelia and Micheal have affairs.This is achieved well in the visuals with the mid shot on both the characters sitting on either side of the bed which shows tension for the audience and that although they are together both in terms of being arried as well as both being in the same frame for a long take, they are split from one another.

- ColourBleed

• Again the theme of this film is social realism however it differs greatly from the last one. This one creates more enigma as the subject matter is not something you would expect to see in a social realist film.
• Genre conventions used in this film are characterisation - the character is set up at the beginning as we see she is someone who likes art and is quite different from the rest of the people that she meets. There is also good use of camerawark, its simple but effective. there is a good use of shallow depth of filed to draw the audiences attention to a certain part of the frame and also this technique, especially when used in the bueru as it makes the character seem isolated from everyone else which fits what is happening in the scene.

• I think this film also does make use of the 3 stage narrative, however there is not the typical resolution ending as the character is not able to fight what has caused the disruption. Something else that both ColourBleed and Amelia and Micheal share is a lack of dialouge. There is dialouge used but again its mainly left down to the audeince to interpret from the visuals and allows the audeince to ask questions and to think about what is happening to the character as we are not sure what is happening to her untill it is revelaed but again with it being such a strange occurance it still keeps the audience thinking. This film also follows a chronological order, the same as Amelia and Micheal which works well for this piece as we follow the character through what is happening to her and is still engaging to the audience.
• Sound has more of a presence in this film than in the last as there is more of a soundtrack to this film which starts off early after the first title and at that time is quite minimalist so we it is nit very noticable to the audience but over time it bulds up with a happy sounding melody for when she sees the bird outside of the window and becomes more sinister as the old lady looks over her before hitting her with the stamp. From this point on the music takes a more darker tone to fit in with whats happening in the scene. Diagetic sound is also used a lot to create a sense of realism and can clearly be heard over the soundtrack as the music stays rather minimal even during the climax.
• As previously explained the camera work is effective, it used simple shots but there is a variety of the shot types which keeps it interesting even when we cut back to the same part of the scene e.g when the paint is dripping onto the plate, different shot sizes and angles are used when it cuts back to it. Aswell as the camerawork putting forward the idea of isolation mise en scene does to. At the beginning of the film we see the character graffiting a wall, the setting itself is colourful and has a fairly bright amount of natural lighting but as we move into the bureau the setting becomes darker and a lot less vibrant with the set being plain and in disrepair. Also the other people we see in the bueru are wearing nuetrally coloured clothing so in comparison to the main character we feel that she is the odd one out as she stands out more. continuity editing is also used well in this piece as well as the placement of the titles which i think is effective.The overall style of this piece is somthing I find quite intersting and may be something that we think about when it comes to our piece.
•  Im not entirely sure of the themes and issues surrounding this although one thing that does come to mind is that one particular issue that may be being addressed is that we judge people who we deem to be different. the main character is seen as visually different to those around her and is therefore punished in a way eenthough at the end she becomes something she has always loved or so we assume as we dont see  what happens to her body after she collapses, all that is left is a pinting on the building next to where she was of the bird she was looking at while at the bureau.

two cars, one night from kofe on Vimeo.
- Two Cars, One Night

• This film is again a socail realist piece whose narrative is character driven. It keeps to the more realist drama with the simple setting that does not change - a car park outside of a diner. The characters seem very real in how they act and there is a simple narrative to follow.
• Camera work in this peice is very simple with a single camera being used to create the shots which a large majority of are static shots. there is also minimal lighting used as it is set outside in the dark so that also adds to the realism of it. Aslo instead of using the fade to black transition that the other two films have used to show the passing of time there is time lapsed footage of the car park as well as the people inside which I think is quite interesting and may be something we thaink about using for our piece as we have an idea that we mayt want to do something based around the manipulation of time or if not it is still an interesting techniques that we can use for another idea.

• The narrative of thise piece is chronological and doesnt follow the three act structure. Instead what we get is more of a 'slice of life' of these characters as it only accounts for what they do on just one night. Also beyond the films ending we can imagine that if this was a longer film that these characters would meet up again at some point in the future as by the end of this film they do get closer to one another and we can imagine it could turn into a love story. In addition with the short narrative it is in someway clearer to she how the characters are getting along as due to the passage of time when we cut back to them each time they intereact more untill at the end the boy is sitting in the girls car quite close to her and being nice wheras at the beggining they were in separate cars and were insulting each other.

• In this piece there is no music untill the very end, even during the time lapse scenes, all of what we here is diagetic sound. This is interesting as it does seem to create a mood of lonliness and possible boredom as these 2 characters are sitting in the cars waiting for there parents for a long time with noting to do so i think that works quite well for this piece.
• The main themes and issues surrounding this piece are that of gender and it is seen in quite a childish way. By that I mean that with young kids there is always that thing of 'boys are better better than girls' or 'girls are better than boys' so people of different genders are separated by that ideology and there isn't as much a theme of romance as there would be with older characters. The boy is trying constantly to make himself seem better than the girl by insulting her at the beggining of the narrative as well as showing respect to the mauri man who drives past as a sign of traditional masculinity. By the end of the narrative the girl seems to be in a more powerful position than the boy as she gives him her ring so he doesnt forget about her, shes taking control of the situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 - Answer

 

• This film is different to the others as there is no dialogue to be found and I feel it doesn’t really fit into any specific genre. It is about someone finding the meaning of life by following certain books. There are no real genre conventions that this film follows but the camera work, continuity editing and mise en scene give this film a sense of being real so it could possibly be placed in the social realism genre like the others.
• The narrative of the film is short and simple but can still fit the three act structure. The set up of this story is that the character has a dream about this book that he finds in his house that holds some important information for him. Previous to and after this dream we see the character surrounded by books of different types, we are drawn to one in particular with a mid close up shot of a book in the centre of the frame titled “Getting to Know the Real You”.

• This suggests that the character may be unhappy with how he is and is looking to find something a deeper meaning in his life. The confrontation is that when he wakes from his dream the book is not where he dreamt it was so has to search through his entire book collection, growing increasingly more desperate to find this book that contains the “answer”. The resolution is that he finds the book that he is looking for and exit’s the house into a white light that could be representative of heaven which also brings connotations of religion providing the answer for people. Costume also changes towards the end of the narrative. At the beginning the character is dressed in just a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms but when he finds the answer in the book he has been looking for he undergoes a transformation and changes into a smart shirt and trousers which suggests he has pulled himself together in order to gain the answer.
• Sound in this film is used effectively, at the beginning there is no soundtrack to be heard, only very faint diegetic sound is heard. As the characters wakes up the soundtrack starts, it starts off slow as the character investigates their house and builds up when they start reading the book. As they wake form the dream state it ends sharply along with the cut to the character in bed. The soundtrack stars again when the character looks for the book in his house, it is more frantic than the previous part of the soundtrack and the tempo does seem to increase as the character becomes more desperate to find what he is looking for. The soundtrack then changes once again at the end of the film and does support the connotation of the white light possibly being a symbol or religion as the soundtrack becomes almost angelic as the film reaches its resolution. Editing is also used well with an interesting use of jump cuts especially in the scene where the character first wakes up in his dream and searches the house. The camera breaks the 30 degree rule by not moving much in-between the cuts and the character doesn’t move much either. This is an unusual technique that does draw the audiences attention to the processes of editing and does provide some discontinuity, suggesting that he may not be in the real world. 

• There aren’t really any specific themes and issues that this short film focuses on. The main issue of the entire film appears to be about finding yourself and searching for that deeper meaning in life. As the film is named ’Answer’ the theme it seems is also one of finding the meaning of life as a whole which is again something that links into the religious connotations.