Creative Process and Development of The Reel Show

For this module we had to create a 10 minute magazine television program as a group. In this blog post I will depicting the critical creative process of creating our show and delineating how we developed our ideas.

To commence, the first thing we had to decide on was a theme for our show. We were given a few to choose from to get our creative juices flowing such as weird and wonderful, spontaneous, risky business and etc. As a group we liked the idea of fantasy and being comedic so this is what we initially decided. This theme eventually evolved into our show being about films. We initially wanted to do review films and show trailers. This was quickly shown to be the wrong thing to do by our mentor and then we started developing into other territory such as trending youtube videos, making videos on film industry related topics such as piracy and going out engaging the public with film related issues or challenges. Before we knew it, 10 minutes wasn’t enough to fit in all the ideas and items we wanted to do.

Moreover, one particular item on the show that went through much development was our guest demonstration. Originally we were inspired by Jimmy Fallen’s Lip Sync Battle which he does with his guests.

We wanted to do something similar to fit into the demonstration requirement of our brief. We brain stormed many ideas such as a film trivia quiz. These ideas we came up with just required a lot of talking which seemed quite boring and mundane especially since this demonstration would come after our guest interview. We wanted something that was more engaging and less talking and since we were interviewing an aspiring actor we then came up with the idea to make him do film impressions that our audience will tweet him in to do. This engages audiences and fits into our theme nicely.

Sarah – Short Film in the Style of British New Wave

A young man is left distraught after his girlfriend breaking up with him and being diagnosed with cancer. Will he ever find hope again?

Sarah is a short film concerning the topic of euthanasia filmed, cut and edited in the style of a kitchen sink drama/British new wave film.

Without much further ado here is the film:

My Poetic Eyes – Reflection

Times have changed a lot. My film addressing the ‘real terrorists’ and who caused 9/11 was received less critically than I thought it would. Maybe from a historical context, the fact 13 years have passed since 9/11, it is an issue that is safer to talk about now than it was in 2001 when the events occurred. Or it could also be a combination of a social context that we live in a society that has become desensitised to violence and activism because of the rise of the internet and the “truth” being open to more people than ever before.

This assignment taught me a lot about how we can re use footage to tell another story. Initially some of the archive footage I used was used themselves as propaganda tools. Using archive footage and masterfully crafting it together to tell piece of poetic narrative was something far different to what I thought I would be studying when I decided to attend Coventry University to study Media Production.

I have developed as a media producer during the course of creating and showcasing our Poetic Eyes films. I knew that my film was going to be controversial and I did have initial worries but after screening it I don’t think I will ever have those same worries again if I ever produce controversial media. This assignment taught me in particular about being true to you not only as a media producer but also as an artist or creator. We should never censor ourselves in fear of what other people may think. As long as it is your honest opinion and belief, that’s all that should matter.

My Poetic Eyes – God Bless America

Here is the final video I made to the Idea I last posted about (in which case you didn’t see was the poetic/narrative film about America’s violent history).

I took inspiration from films such as Night and Fog (1955) and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011).  I was inspired by Night and Fog on its observational style of narrative about the horrendous acts during the holocaust. This influenced the factual themes expressed in my narrative/poem. I was reading facts and commenting on events rather than writing my emotions which was my aim to begin with. The Black Power Mixtape influenced my use of archive footage. A decade’s worth of footage filmed by Swedes found and cut together 40 decades later. This visual approach was attempted by me through the use of archive footage of wars, war films, news and television content from decades of American history.

Bibliography:

Night and Fog (1955) Film, Directed by Alain RESNAIS, France, Argos Films

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) Film, Directed by Göran Olsson, Sweden

My Poetic Eyes – My Idea

We have the assignment of making a 1-minute poetic piece of film using archive footage and only our own voice as dialogue. The stimulus of our poetic piece had to be an international event that has or is taking place at the moment and something that effects us deeply. I made a list of events that I’ve felt strong emotions for such as the Bangladesh liberation war (being of Bangladeshi origin), the rampant cases of rape in India and wars/genocides that have been caused at the hand of America.

The 2 ideas I felt strongest to write a narrative about were the Indian rape cases and the violent history of America. A close friend of mine had already mentioned she wanted to cover the New Delhi rape protests so I decided to go along with the American military idea. Writing the narrative/poem came easy to me as I’ve already manifested thoughts about how I felt about the violence of the American military. My writing was fuelled by the anger I felt when researching about the genocide of the Native Americans, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the use of napalm in the Vietnam War and the invasion of Iraq after September 11.

This was the final draft narrative/poem I wrote:

Title: God Bless America

Countless Native Americans: The arrival of Christopher Columbus (History News Network 2014)

246,00 Japanese: Hiroshima and Nagasaki (BBC 2014)

495,000 Vietnamese: The Vietnam War (Statistics Brain 2014)

184,000 Iraqis and counting: The Iraq invasion (Iraq Body Count 2014)

Total Death toll: Unknown

Cause of deaths: America

September 11^th 2002, the attack on the World Trade Centre, casualties: Approximately 3000.

I understand many loved ones were lost that day. But what are 3,000 people compared to the lives of millions. I’m not one for comparing deaths but numbers don’t lie.

9/11 was orchestrated by a minority group of pissed off rag heads from the Middle East. But the genocide of millions throughout history were orchestrated by the government of America. A democratic congress of powerful leaders. See the difference?

America is a land founded upon genocide. America is a land that only leaves death in its wake. God Bless America.

Bibliography:

History News Network (2014) Were American Indians the victims of Genocide?, [online] available from http://hnn.us/article/7302 [31 Jan 2014]

Statistics Brain (2014) Vietnam War Statistics, [online] available from http://www.statisticbrain.com/vietnam-war-statistics/ [31 Jan 2014]

Iraq Body Count (2014) Total violent deaths including combatants [online] available from http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ [31 Jan 2013]

BBC (2014) Face File: Hiroshima and Nagasaki [online] available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6652262.shtml [31 Jan 2014]

Task 2 – The Remix

This week we were given the task of remixing our previous work from another module with any other footage from the web to make an entirely new media text. I chose to make a mock gangster film trailer. I looked at trailers for famous gangster films for inspiration such as Scarface, The Departed, The Godfather and 50 Cent: Get Rich or Die Trying.

I noticed it was common to show parts of the film that fell into Todorov’s theory on narrative. Todorov states that narrative falls through 5 stages which are equilibrium, disruption, acknowledging the disruption, attempting to solve the disruption and a new enhanced equilibrium (Todorov 1977). In the beginning of the trailer I show that the protagonists have failed a mission, that is the equilibrium. The disruption are the gangsters after them. The acknowledgment is one of the protagonists saying sorry. And the the rest of the trailer shows snippets of the attempt to solve the disruption since you wouldn’t show the final stage as it is a trailer designed to entice audiences into watching the film.

The genre of gangster films were quite simple. There were obvious conventions such as the use of guns, swearing, mob henchmen etc that were abundant in gangster films. The most important were the paradigmatic themes being expressed that makes a film unique compared to other films in its genre and the syntagmetic structure it is told in.

So without further ado, here is the trailer to the smash hit, coventry based gangster film, One Mission:

Bibliography:

Todorov, T. (1977) The Poetics of Prose, Ithica, NY, Cornwell University Press.

Analysing the Trailer to Shutter Island

The trailer to Shutter Island that I analysed can be found through this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iaYLCiq5RM

To commence, the narrative told in the trailer can be seen to show snippets of Todorov’s theory on Narrative Structure. You have your equilibrium being the detective and his partner investigating their case of the missing patient and interviewing the staff and the other patients on Shutter Island. All seems to be going according to plan and this is the equilibrium. We get our disequilibrium half through the trailer when the investigation seems to have hit a halt because no one seems to want to answer the detective’s questions and it seems as if they are scared and one person that works at Shutter Island even tells the detective to run. As this is a trailer to wet the audience’s appetite no more of the narrative is told apart from showing snippets of the detective’s attempt to solve the problem if you refer to Todorov’s narrative structure again. The narrative told in the trailer works well as it does indeed wet the audiences appetite without telling too much of the story so audiences still pay to watch the movie and buy it on DVD.

In addition to this, the mis en scene works well to convey the story and make it more believable. The locations showed in the trailer shows that it is a mental hospital. There are locations such as a canteen, bedrooms for the prisoners/patients and for the most dangerous patients, prison cell holdings. Further, the costumes also play a vital role, the staff and detective are distinguished by their smart clothing, suits, ties, shirt, dress shoes. This is done to show that they are the stable minded authority figures on the island where as the patients all where white overalls. In some shots in the trailer the detective is seen wearing the white overalls patients do and this would make the audience ask themselves why? Is he trying not to be found by the people on the island? And if so why are the people on Shutter Island searching for him?

Moreover, one last aspect to look at the trailer is its representations. The men in this trailer are being depicted as violent and unstable. There are shots of police officers with guns and the detective at one point searching the island with a rifle and pointing at people for answers. The dangerous prisoners shown in the cells and one that attacks the detective are all men. Could the movie be saying that men are more violent and unstable compared to women?. The women however shown in the movie are depicted all as victims and scared. At one point one of the female staff hands over a booklet to the detective scribbled “RUN” inside it and she looks to be scared and frightened as well. Also the escaped prisoner is a woman and the trailer could be depicting her being missing through despicable acts done by the hospital.

Limitless Film Review

Proof of modern thinking that every problem you have can be cured with a pill and that’s what ‘Limitless’ is. So ‘Limitless’ is the story of Bradley Cooper who’s a struggling writer and hasn’t written one page of his new book and lives like a slob. One day this person comes along offering him a pill that can unlock the rest of his brain. We only use 10% of our brains but this pill unlocks the rest of it (think of it as Viagra for your brain…. Now that’s what I call a mind fu*k). So Bradley Cooper takes this pill and we watch his whole journey and see how this pill affects him. So already the premise to ‘Limitless’ is enticing and different to any other story or movie out there so it’s worth a shot to watch and check out.

Now ‘Limitless’ is relatable to everyone. Whether you want to be a singer, actor, doctor, garbage man (hey, some people want to make the world a cleaner place) but ultimately people dream to be a better version of their current self and that’s exactly what Bradley Cooper gets to do in this movie.
But the problem Bradley Cooper faces is that with every pill he takes, there are consequences and side effects (and people who want to kill you for it… Didn’t read that at the back of the bottle did you, Bradley?) 

So in the trailer to ‘Limitless’, it’s marketed to make Robert De Nero look like the bad guy but in actual case, he’s really just an extended cameo, the main bad guy in the movie is this Russian dude and even then he doesn’t feel like the big villain in the movie. The point to the movie is Bradley Cooper unlocking the rest of his brain with this pill and ultimately the true villain in ‘Limitless’ is the pill itself. But that doesn’t matter because the movie’s still really interesting. People just want to see what it would be like to unlock the rest of your brain and be able to see maths, become a millionaire in just a week. I’m not going to lie, if such a pill did exist, I would take it and go to Wall Street or something… Jus’ saying.

The movie itself did feel kind of disjointed at parts but a part of me feels maybe this is what the Director wanted the audience to feel like. One thing the movie did was this weird camera thing, where it zooms through the city but it looks like it’s going through photo after photo after photo and made me feel like I had the ‘Bed Spins’. 

Now, Bradley Cooper was really good in the movie. He shows that he can play in something like ‘The Hangover’ but he can also play a serious role which shows that he’s here to stay in the movie industry for a while. Let’s face it, every chick wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him… And you just can’t deny it.

So to encapsulate this review, ‘Limitless’ was something really new, different and exciting. It had a really good premise and was pretty interesting and liberating to watch because it was really cool to see someone unlock the rest of their brain’s power and become a super genius but you know… Minus the brain cancer and psychic super powers which brings me onto another thought. If he could unlock the rest of his brain’s power, wouldn’t he have like mind telepathy or something? Just throwing that out there, but hey, becoming a genius, playing the stock market, becoming a millionaire, that’s totally worth not having mind telepathy. So yeah, ultimately it was a really interesting movie to watch and I would recommend it to everyone even though it did feel disjointed at parts and it felt like the movie just ended. There wasn’t a solid climax. As if the movie’s just going and it ends. Imagine like a rollercoaster that travels really far up, tensions building, you regret eating that £5 veggie burger and as it gets to the top, it just stops and the ride’s over but the movie’s still pretty cool and I love the thought of a pill that could make me super smart. I give this movie a 7/10.