The American Anti-Hero

Several historical factors influenced the rise of  the American Anti-Hero in cinema. After the end of World War II, America felt a need for a new type of hero. From this, the birth of the Anti-Hero had begun. For one, America wanted to see new kinds of heroes to represent the new, post-war America. They also wanted heroes to rebel, as if the American public themselves were rebelling. America also wanted human heroes, people that have faulty qualities because they are human, like the real heroes of America. Lastly, America wanted a hero to represent true American spirit, whether it be good, bad, or ugly.

First, America felt that after they had won World War II, they had become a new, restored country. They felt that they needed a new type of hero to represent that. After being a part of a new World War and the Cold War, America was put in  a state of paranoia, or unsettling. The reason that the Anti-Hero succeeded during these times was because "'People were relating to the hip non-hero who was not involved in world problems but devoting his time to overcoming his own personal problems'" This characteristic allowed this new kind of hero to be accepted in America and Hollywood films.

America was also becoming more rebellious. After enduring two wars, they were left with almost nothing, and weren't going to take anything from anybody. Advocating people's rights and freedom were related to by many Americans. Relating to this group of people meant that they would stress a stronger relation to the anti-hero who exerted being an individual more than any other.

Also, Americans wanted a human hero, with his flaws and capability of being an ordinary man, like anyone in the audience. The perfect and charming hero began to lose favor among Americans. Instead, they wanted someone like them, able to accomplish great tasks using their own human strength. Having an anti-hero like this would allow the audience to find the motivation to believe that they can achieve such great tasks as well. "The anti-hero is rarely happy in situations that please other men. He prefers conflict and struggle rather than comfort and certainty.” This contrasts the standard perfect hero, who would give everything of himself for the sake of others.

America wanted to have heroes that represent the spirit of America itself. "The anti-hero became a darker, edgier character, who was just as confused as the average American" The average American could easily relate to the Anti-Hero because of his edgy quality, which represented the spirit of America for "the country went askew from what was once a politically and dogmatically ironclad identity."

Intensified Continuity

The term of intensified continuity is the description of traditional continuity amped up and raised to a higher-pitch of emphasis.  Elements of intensified continuity vary greatly from traditional continuity. Bordwell suggests that continuity has intensified in Hollywood cinema because of technological innovations in film making. Techniques and innovations that lead to the creation of intensified continuity include changes in shot length, varying lens length, and framing and cinematography techniques.

Bordwell is saying that over the years, American films have begun to develop faster paces of editing in their films, compared to traditional films from the 1930's to 1960's. Back then, the average shot lengths of Hollywood feature were around 8-11 seconds. One would be commended for maintaining an ASL of 6 seconds or less. In modern Hollywood films however, films have hit up to 3000 shots and the ASL's have gotten surprisingly low. Some films averaged around a 2 second ASL. Bordwell asks, "Has rapid cutting therefore led to a 'post-classical' breakdown of spatial continuity?" This question suggests whether the rapid cutting can keep the viewer contained and understanding throughout the film. This can be true in some cases, where action sequences get cut too fast and one loses coherence. However, many film directors nowadays have adapted and developed spatially coherent forms of capturing fast-paced action sequences.

Traditional film makers would take a lens length they would deem suitable to rely on for certain shots of their movie. For example, if a traditional film maker wanted to rely heavily on close ups and long distance shots, they would choose a 100mm-500mm lens for the entire film. They would use shorter lenses if they wished to capture wide or full shots. What intensified Hollywood films' concept of continuity was how directors decided to "freely mix long-focus and wide-angle within a single film." Directors that adapted this technique pushed the limits of relying on only certain shots to create successful films. They adapted all types of shots incorporated with their varying lens sizes.

The third element highlighting the change to intensified continuity is the use of close framing in dialogue scenes. In traditional films, an actor was hired for their entire body. Close ups were frowned upon, for the audience believed they payed to see an entire person, not a part of them. Directors later realized that the full body shots didn't entirely capture the audience. This introduced the creation of medium-shots and close-ups. Bordwell stated “If a scene relies on rapidly cut singles, the filmmaker must find fresh ways to emphasize certain lines or facial reactions.” The use of long shots versus close ups depends on the director's perspective, but the simple fact that Hollywood has learned to accept both styles of filming supports the acceptance of intensified continuity in American mass-audience films today.

Advanced Editing Notes: 3. Soviet Montage and 4. Realism

3a. Pudovkin's concept of constructive editing was that each shot should have a new intention on purpose and point. He believed that juxtaposition of shots could form meaning between two shots. The individual shots themselves were not as constructive towards the meaning of the scene itself. He used close ups in a unified order to also help create meaning. Long shots were too close to reality, and montages of close ups, textures, symbols, and other selected details were most effective in expressing the film's idea.

3b. The Kuleshov effect shows that juxtapositions create emotion, not the performance of the actor themselves. He believed ideas are created by linking fragmentary ideas to make a fluid action. These ideas don't even have to be related in life. An example of this can be seen in Spielberg's movie, Schindler's List.   This film had been shot in black and white, but Spielberg intentionally colors a little girl dressed in red to be able to be spotted out in the midst of all the action of clearing the Jewish ghettos. We close in on the little girl and see her being carefree and skipping everywhere to symbolize innocence. However, the shots that follow consist of gruesome and horrid scenes. With this contrasting juxtaposition, an idea of sympathy or sorrow is heavily created. However, this example leans a bit more towards Eisenstein, who developed the Kuleshov effect into context within the scene.

3c.  Eisensteinian montage is an adaptation of the Kuleshov effect explained earlier. Eisenstein had taken this effect, and used it within elements of a scene, rather than shots unrelated in life. Eisenstein heavily believed life was about constant change and contrasting opposites. In Odessa Steps, the Eisensteinian montage was evident when we see a child falling down the steps as the army's advancing and taking innocent lives. 

4a. Bazin believed that what attracted an audience the most was the direct relationship of realism. His opinion was that editing and unorganized shots caused a scene to lose its effectiveness. Film could be much more simplistic and effective without editing and montages. Montages were only one of many techniques that filmmakers had at their disposal.

4b.  Realist filmmakers strive for a sense of simplicity, and disinterest in a forced approach to an idea. Instead, audiences are expected to gather their own opinion and form an idea based of what they are given within a scene. They believed the essence of reality relied in ambiguity, allowing the audience to develop an idea of their own.

4c. Realist filmmakers do not believe in juxtaposing shots, montages, or heavy editing. Instead, they make use of other techniques, such as, long shots, wide screen, lengthy takes, deep focus, panning, craning, tilting, or tracking. They did not cut to individual shots, for they believed this was too direct of an action to allow the audience to develop their own idea. Cutting was a technique more manipulative of the audience to force an idea into their heads.

Advanced Editing Notes- Overview/Classical Paradigm

1. There is varied camera work between the two pieces, "Arrival of a Train" and "Damsel in Distress". The "Arrival of a Train" is one long sequence shot, with practically no cuts or other shots at all. The camera is in place the entire film, not moving or panning or making any other camera movement. In "Damsel of Distress" however, the concept of camera angles are much more evident. This film utilizes different camera angles and perspectives. These help us develop ideas contributing to the narrative purpose of the film. For example, we look down on the damsel from a higher perspective to show her feeling of hopelessness and distress. However, when she realizes she can call her dog for help, we go into a close up to show delight and hope on her face.

2.  "Arrival of a Train" is heavy evidence of the realism editing style. This is a prolonged sequence edit, and all events happen within the scene. There is practically no real editing here. "Damsel in Distress" leans toward the classical editing style, with its use of cuts and parallel action. In "Damsel in Distress", for one, there are multiple shots that have been edited together. We'll be watching as the villain ties up the woman then hides behind a tree, then we cut to the tree to see his dastardly evil grin. This highlights the classical editing style by using selective shots and close ups to allow us to interpret the message that the filmmaker wants us to understand, rather than giving us a wide shot and allowing us to interpret our own message.

3. The story and narrative characteristics are both pretty straight forward. "Arrival of a Train" is practically one prolonged shot, giving a simple story, or telling of event. One can obviously infer that the train is arriving, and people begin to board and disembark. However, there is no real plot, like what "Damsel in Distress" offers. We are presented with a 3-act story, and with the help of parallel action, the story is told clearly and interpreted easily. Classical editing takes place here with the incorporation of parallel action to help tell a story. We see a girl chained to the train tracks, and then it cuts to a shot of the moving train. It's obvious to the viewer that the woman is about to be run over by the train, and she needs to call for help. From there, it's  evident that one can determine the courses of rising action, climax, and resolution. She whistles for her dog who calls for help, the dog goes to the train and signals for the break, the train stops, and the dog finds the criminal hiding in a tree. 

Trailer Review - Snow White and the Huntsman

1. In terms of narrative structure, this trailer does a good job in exploiting the narrative structure of the film. The trailer opens with a vague war scene, leaving the viewer to wonder what could cause such a battle. At this point, the trailer introduces and characterizes our antagonist, the evil queen. It is evident that her goal is to become the fairest of them all by eliminating those fairer than her. When the magic mirror introduces Snow White and the hired huntsman, the viewer can understand the concept and plot of the film. The narrative aspect of this film is simply achieved through the individual characterization and tying them together with other characters.

2. The cinematography in this trailer seems remarkable by using many vivid landscape shots and lighting techniques. Lighting is more noticeable during characterization scenes, whereas the landscape shots are used during filler shots, i.e. the battle scenes. In one shot, the shadow across the evil queens face suggests a dark, demeaning mood. This helps determine that she is the true antagonist. The wide shots capturing the

battle scenes are to allow the viewer to gain interest in the entirety of the battle. These battles were placed in the trailer to provide interest to the film, and promote that it isn't your ordinary tale of Snow White.

3. The editing of the trailer implements fast cuts during action scenes, and slower cuts during suspenseful scenes, to amaze and interest the viewer. The trailer starts off fast with a large raven flying towards the camera, which then caws to transform into many tiny ravens. This was done with CGI obviously, and it adds the edge to the film that may convince viewers that the trailer and movie could be "cool" or "awesome". The first battle scene with the armored knights is cut at a fast pace to keep up with the fast-paced action mood that has been set. However, when the evil queen is introduced, her shots slow down to allow the viewer to develop that emotional understanding and possible hatred for this character. 

4. The sound and backing audio for this trailer is that of any standard action suspense film. The beginning starts with subtle and settling music behind the visuals. The narration of the evil queen comes on, and the music slowly increases. We can hear the volume of certain events spike up when these short scenes come on. For instance, the impact and slaying of an armored knight during the first battle scene. When the evil queen 

is seen on screen, we hear a suspense crash at times. When she summons the mirror, the music gets more suspenseful and increases volume as well. We can hear the dramatic increase in volume after Snow White is introduced, to foreshadow that the suspenseful buildup may reveal its purpose within the next few scenes. While portraying the chase for Snow White, the music is definitely noticeable and will only go down when a character speaks. The intense music buildup is halted when the evil queen disperses into a murder of crows and the title appears on screen. The purpose is to enthrall and interest the viewer throughout the trailer.

Short Film Treatment. Duh.

Boy suddenly appears on street. He had appeared out of thin air. Getting up, he is familiar with the surroundings. He had been placed in front of his house.
He looks around and isn’t noticed by anyone. He can’t make contact with them and his voice isn’t heard. His phone beeps.

Camera looks down at his phone. He’s received a message from an unknown number that informs him that he’s been given 10 minutes to reach the train tracks. All will be explained there. The train tracks are at least 15 minutes away. The boy dashes down the street.

As he runs, he doesn’t remember anything. How he got here, what he was doing, or where he even was before he arrived here. Running, one foot after the other, he tried to keep his mind clear.

He arrives at the train tracks, sweaty and exhausted. Out of nowhere, several hoodlums appear and ambush the boy. He’s in no mood to fight. As they close in, he’s pulled away by a mysterious figure.

“Dude, what are you doing? Do you want to lose or something?!?”
“Lose? Was this a game to him?”, the boy thought.
“Cmon, form a pact with me.” The stranger said. Suddenly, he takes his hand and the boy feels this rush of power flow through him.

The boy sits back in awe, as the partner takes out the hoodlums.

“Don’t just stand there! Help me!”

The boy gets up, and attempts to put up a fight against these men. It’s as if his punches are lethal blows to them, whereas 2 minutes ago he was nothing to them.

Many questions ran through his head. He fought until he could have his questions answered.

As he landed the final blow, the hoodlums vanished in a puff of purple smoke.

“Nice job. Heh, for an amateur.” Said the stranger. Amateur? Even more questions. At that moment, an ominous voice was heard overhead.

“Well done, all players have survived. You’re safe. For now.”

The screen suddenly shifts to blackness.

The boy appears in the middle of a bustling city. Same as the last day, he can’t remember how he got here. He just appeared. In a completely different venue, unfamiliar to him. There is a tall tower standing in the background. It triggers a painful flashback

He sees himself, at this very location. He sees himself with someone else, possibly a girl. It then flashes to a scene of his corpse on the street. A man runs past the corpse. He comes back to reality.

After this painful interruption, he finds his partner in the distance. His partner notices him staring and walks towards him. “Finally awake huh? Don’t worry, no mission yet.” The boy replies with, “woah woah woah, if i’m gonna keep working with you, you have to let me know what’s happenning. Where are we?  Who are we? What do we do?”

The partner takes a seat.
“We are players in a game. This game is run by reapers that manipulate this world for their own pleasure.”
“Why are we here?”
“Cause we’re dead.”
“WHAAAT?!?!?!”
“Yeah, this game is our second chance at life. It explains why nobody else can interact with us. But however, it came with a price.”
“A price?”
“Yeah, your entry fee. The reapers had taken whatever was most valuable to you when you died. If you win their game, you get it back.”
“Why don’t i know any of this? I can’t even remember how i died.”
“Then obviously they took your memory. Duh.”

Their phones ring again. “Get to central park alive before 12. Winners will be declared.”

.Central park was several blocks away and they only had an hour. The two rushed down the street. It seemed unusually easy for the final mission.
They had spoke too soon. Before they knew it, reapers and henchmen seemed to be coming from every corner. With no way around them, they had to fight through the neverending reaper chain. The clock is shown at the bottom every so often to indicate their time left.
After pushing through the reaper waves, the two had reached central park. They check the time. It’s 12. Silence takes over. This silence is broken by the familiar ominous voice.
“Congratulations. You’re free.”

Screen flashes to white.

The boy awakens again back at the pagoda tower. He’s alone while he sits on the steps, remembering the entire reaper game experience. He’s approached by the same girl from the flashback. She gestures him to get up, which he does.

“You alright? It’s like you’ve just seen a ghost or something.”

He apologizes. As they’re about to head home, he suggests to take a different route, avoiding the death scene from his flashback. As they walk away, the boy’s old partner passes them in the opposite direction. They walk past each other. Screen fades to black.

Run Lola Run Editing Analysis Presentation

Critique

I. I believe my interpretation went pretty thorough, pertaining to my section. In my area, I had interpreted the cutting and editing pretty well. It could probably have gone on longer, and I might have been able to go more in-depth into the message Tykwer wanted to send through the edits. This includes the style he uses when he changes from fast to slow shots, and even a shot cut in two halves to develop an intimate connection between the two shown in the shot (Lola and Manni)

II. The strengths of my presentation I believe to be my voice-over and description of each slide. The viewer is able to read the basic idea written on the slide, when I interpret and bring the idea further with my voice over.

III. Certain challenges included how to record the presentation. I debated between using a screen recorder and using screenshots and placing them in Final Cut. I chose to go with Final Cut because one error when using a screen recorder will force me to redo the entire project. Areas for improvement could be how much content I had in the entire presentation. I thought that only these few slides wouldn't be enough to cover my perspective, but I thought there was nothing else I could go over. I could have also chosen better screenshots to accompany the slides.

Broadcast Critique

Broadcast Segment Critique

Pre-Production

It took our group a while to decide on an idea. Our initial idea was to interview people on summer trends, or interests. Such as new movies, video games, and other general ideas. However, we couldn’t choose that, for we had seen that someone had chosen for their segment “Summer”. Baffled, we decided to put that idea on standby until we decided to interview the girls tennis team. From my perspective, tennis doesn’t get much recognition as our other sports at Cap, so we decided to shine some light on our hard working tennis players. We ended up interviewing the coach, and volunteers from the team. Many of them were shy, so we ended up pulling people from practice to speak into the camera. Many of our b-roll was situational, and on the spot, except we envisioned a shot of a tennis ball upon the floor, and practice in the background. This shot ended up to be our title.

Production

We shot down on the tennis court in the midst of all the action. We had a helper warn us of incoming tennis balls, and believe me, many of them did come flying our way. Our b-roll was effective, but I think it was standard and cliche. I think we also lacked a few b-roll and we ended up animating a few still images, which ended up looking quite interesting. We used a variety of trucking and panning shots.  We had implemented a shot of the team and managers running diagonally past the z-axis. Our audio seemed to be fine, but there was one problem where our voice-overs ended up in mono, but I believe this was fixed in post-production.

Script
We had Vargas do the voice overs with his exceptional broadcasting voice. We found his voice the best for the questions, intro, and closer. Our questions gave the school a nice informative update on our tennis team. It may not be up to date however, for some players had quit the team since our interview. Our idea was to leave the viewers with a higher respect for our tennis team, considering it doesn’t get much interest as the other sports. We had also added a “Go Mustangs!” from the tennis team, to help add some extra spirit.
Editing
Our b-roll blends in well with our interview shots, we had placed them so one could hear and understand the interview, while being mesmerized by the intense tennis practices. I liked the title Conner had implemented with simple free fonts he had found off the internet. We ended up using a similar one for the labels for the names of the interviewees. I am a fan of the music Conner had chosen for the background audio. Apparently, it was stock audio that came with his computer. We had adjusted the start and end of the audio to sync the “motivational speech” with the part where the epic orchestral strings kick in. It added that extra flare to our project that seemed to tie up the segment pretty well.

Overall
I believe this project seemed to turn out well, considering how many hindrances we seemed to miraculously overcome. If we had more time, I would fix up our voice over, because i believe it is too quiet to hear. But that would be a challenge, for we didn’t have the seperate audio tracks. We had the combined, exported audio from the rough cut that Conner had organized at his house. So we ended up panning the audio in order to make it equal. The most important lesson i could draw from this is to have all the editing done on one computer and one program. Problems will erupt from transferring the project between two programs.

Why is it just me? (Character in Time Assignment)

Once an aspiring musician off the streets of New York, Andrei wanted to become the “next big thing” to hit the music industry. However, that was all lost in the past. Now he’s glad that he’s survived the virus outbreak. Few years prior to this day, RENEGADE Laboratories had exposed an infectious virus to the public. The effects of this virus destroys higher brain functions, leaving one’s cerebrum to govern one’s behavior. The infected will stop at nothing to devour your body. All Andrei’s left with is his electric guitar to bash in their skulls. He remembered the golden days, when his guitar skills would bring his fans cheering and screaming. However, nowadays he’s lucky to get past these “fans” without having his limbs clawed off. Andrei sat and wondered alone in an alley, wishing for life to be normal again. But what was normal? He couldn’t even remember. Crushing skulls and plowing through swarms of infected day by day had become the normal. He pondered whether this life was worth living. It sure isn’t a walk in the park when you’re infected, but it sure is a hell of a lot worse when you’re trying to fight against them. He’s lost his closest friends, his family, and even the love of his life to the infected.

“I just wish it wasn’t only me...”

Camera In Action- Response to PRISM

PRISM by CorridorDigital

The short Youtube film known as "PRISM" is a compelling film with stunning effects and great screenplay to accompany an interesting plot. The film is set sometime in the future, with advanced technology present in the public world.

Lets start off with a few things seen across the entire video. This was filmed with many of the shots using a handheld camera, without a tripod or other stabilizing device. This may have made it seem less cinematic, but in return, caused the action scenes to become more intense and captivating. There were also many scenes that used close ups, which could add to a more emotional feel.

After the intro, the first few scenes gives us an establishing of the setting. We can infer that it the film is taking place in some sort of futuristic rendition of New York City, or any other large, populated city. In these scenes, the background is more dominant, attracting our eyes towards them, but we still acknowledge the existence of the characters by the clever rack focus at 0:28.

Here we can see the connection between the two characters through their conversation and use of the shot/reverse shot. The shot/reverse shot is used to show a conversation without using a two shot, where both actors are seen in the shot.

The lighting in this shot purposely casts shadows across the man's face in order to establish that this man is the main antagonist and will play a major role in ruining the actors' fun, and causing a load of trouble.

In the first screenshot, the scene has high key lighting in order to highlight that they have just escaped trouble. A celebration would be appropriate, until the next scene, where they realize that they haven't escaped just yet. In the second screenshot, the lighting is suddenly low-key in order to show that trouble is nearby and thus, creates suspense.

This is an excellent movement match where the character walks up the wall, and we are cut to the point where he lands and takes down the soldier. This is all done without breaking the 180 degree line, which helps keep continuity and allows the viewer to follow the action.

This film is obviously of the action/sci-fi genre, but this style isn't what you'd see in any old Star Wars movie. This film style gives it a more humane, and less robotic style by using the handheld camera. With a tripod, this movie would look still, and lifeless. The simple fact that the human hand isn't perfectly still, adds that small touch that gives this film more life than other films.