Editing: How meaning is created

Watch this instructional video to learn how filmmakers/directors select editing techniques  to create meaning within film sequences. You will be applying these techniques when analysing scenes for your first coursework essay.

MTFilm3 - What Does the Editor Do? from Max Tohline on Vimeo.

Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies BBC4 (BBC iPlayer)

Click on image to view

Neil Brand explores how in the second half of the 20th century, composers and film-makers embraced jazz, pop and rock to bring fresh energy to film scores.

In this episode he shows how in the 1960s, films as diverse as the James Bond movies, Italy's spaghetti westerns and Disney's musicals drew on the talents of pop arrangers and composers like John Barry, Ennio Morricone and the Sherman Brothers to create unforgettable soundtracks. But the role of the film composer would subsequently be challenged by directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, who showed that a soundtrack consisting of carefully chosen pop songs could be as effective as a specially written one.

Camera Shots: Framing & Meaning

Watch this instructional video to learn how filmmakers/directors select camera shots & movement  to create meaning within film sequences. You will be applying this technique when analysing scenes for your first coursework essay.

MTFilm2 - What Does the Camera Do? from Max Tohline on Vimeo.

How To Analyse Genre: A Brief Introduction - 'The Western'

Genre theory is used in the study of films in order to facilitate the categorisation of films. Genre are dependent on numerous factors such as storyline, whom the director is, what are the audience expectations and what conventions are used.

In order to understand Genre we may look at several examples. When we analyse 'The Western' we may expect to find gunfights, horses and indians, the solitary cowboy and to some degree the actors and directors of such films (all regular conventions). They also expect certain content and a certain style of filmmaking (camera/setting/sound).

When analysing any type/genre of film it is important to recognise and discuss those elements that make it fall within a specific, or possibly a number of categories.  

Film Noir: Video Essay

'The Berlin File' (2013) Korean:Clip

'Only God Forgives' (2013): Clip

'Elysium' (2013)

'Elysium' is director Neill Blomkamp's follow up to his relatively low-budget debut feature 'District 9' – produced by Peter Jackson. What he has done with a $90 million budget is pretty breathtaking.

Set in a dystopian future where the rich live on an idyllic space habitat while the rest of the population slug it out on a dying, overpopulated Earth stricken with poverty and disease, 'Elysium' looks like it could be genre defining.

Damon plays Max De Costa, a man diagnosed with terminal cancer, whose only hope is undergoing a radical - and mechanical - surgical procedure to help him break into the metropolis above.

Pitted against Jodie Foster's Secretary Delacourt, who oversees the utopian world in the stars, De Costa carries the fate of those living on Earth in his hands.

It appears that Blomkamp has hit a balance between political comment and eye-popping action with only his second film, so this could make him a serious Hollywood player in years to come. Also starring 'District 9's Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner, Wagner Moura, Alice Braga and Diego Luna, 'Elysium' is due for release on August 23.

Film Noir Lighting

The Basics of Lighting for Film Noir from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.

'Only God Forgives' (2013) - Released August 2nd

'Only God Forgives' stars Ryan Gosling, re-teamed with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn,

Plot:

“Julian (Gosling) lives in exile in Bangkok where he runs a Thai boxing club as a front for the family’s drugs smuggling operation. When Julian’s brother Billy is killed their mother, Jenna (Kristen Scott Thomas), arrives in the city. She wants revenge and forces Julian to find the killer. Julian’s contacts in the criminal underworld lead him directly to The Angel of Vengeance, a retired police officer who knows everything and who is both Judge and Punisher. Jenna demands that Julian kill The Angel of Vengeance, an act that will cost him dearly.”

'Only God Forgives' premieres at Cannes this month and is set for UK release on August 2nd, 2013.