Tag: Film

Reflections on Cinema

by Anthony Dorsey

            As a beginning filmmaker, it is important to be able to make your movie look the best it possibly can without breaking the bank. Robert Rodriguez understands this better than most and certainly better than I and others I know personally have done in practice. As Rodriguez described in the two short documentaries I watched, The Robert Rodriguez Ten Minute Film School and Robert Rodriguez – Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shoot Out, when working on a low budget you want to spend as little as possible to make the best film you can make while also retaining your creativity. 

            In the Ten Minute Film School, Rodriguez went into detail on how he made El Mariachi on a budget of $7,000. Some of these cost cutting measures included filming with no sound so he didn’t need slates, had cast double as crew, reused props and vehicles and cut around it, and saved film by not shooting master shots and not cutting if someone screws up like in the shot when the actor ran up the stairs and failed to throw the case onto the next floor. These tactics to shoot cheaply are very useful for me in my own projects as in my latest short, The Loop which I directed, shot, and edited, I would discard angles I knew I wouldn’t use in the edit including master shots when I felt they weren’t necessary. I also only used things I had in my apartment (where I shot it) and things someone helping me brought over. To contrast that, on another project I’m currently involved in, there are people making big purchases for the film without saying anything as if they expect a bigger cut of profits (if we even get any) despite us all contributing to the budget and trying to keep spending to bare minimum. As Robert Rodriguez said “if you want to make a movie [for] a really low budget, you can’t spend on anything. You have to refuse to spend [on anything] …Think of a creative way to get around your problem and keep your money in your pocket.”

            In his Anatomy of a Shootout Documentary, Rodriguez goes in detail on the making of the opening sequence of his film Desperado. One thing he says early on in the video that I found interesting was when you hire a storyboard artist that artist is basically directing the movie and creating the shots for you, so it is beneficial to draw on your own to retain creative control. Throughout the rest of the video he details an alternative method for those, like me, who can’t draw, which is video storyboarding. He basically took a video recorder and walked through the scene with Antonio Banderas and stunt people/crew in the order he wanted while recording in the way he wanted to shoot the final scene. I find this method great as it makes all the time spent planning the scene and rehearsing more efficient by making it double as storyboards. I did something similar on a past short film where I was DP where I would put the other crew in the positions the actors would be in when we shoot and had them pose for visual storyboard shots which would help me easily set up the shots on the day of filming.

            These short documentaries by Robert Rodriguez were very useful and informative and has made me want to watch more of his films as I have only seen a couple. The films he described here I’d especially like to see as I don’t think I could ever pull off what he did for $7,000 budget, but in any case I’ll be sure to keep in mind what he talked about here if I ever have to shoot an action scene on a low budget.

Bibliography

Rodriguez, R. (Director). (1998). The Robert Rodriguez Ten Minute Film School [Documentary Short]. Los Hooligans Productions.

Rodriguez, R. (Director). (1998). Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shootout [Documentary Short]. Troublemaker Studios.

Movie Review: The New Mutants (2020) Dir. Josh Boone

As a comic book fan, I was starting to think this movie was never going to release. It has been constantly delayed since its original date in 2018 and when COVID-19 struck I was sure it would just be dropped on Disney+ or another streaming service. That is not the case. For the first movie I saw in a theatre since they closed in March, was it any good? Was this a good cap on the Fox X-Men franchise or did it go out on a whimper? Probably more the latter.

            The New Mutants begins after a tragedy that leaves a young Mutant named Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) in a strange facility with four other mutants; Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), and Roberto Da Costa (Henry Zaga); with the mysterious Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) as she helps them come to terms with their abilities all while they encounter strange apparitions and their greatest fears. In addition to controlling their powers, a major theme of the movie was that we all have good and bad inside of us and it’s up to us to go one way or the other. Of the ones I’ve seen, I believe this was also the first superhero horror movie and it is packed with jump scares and creepy imagery, though not as much as I expected.

            In the first act, I was expecting more character build-up as it is an ensemble movie, but the focus was mostly on Danielle and Rahne with some good scenes with Illyana. Throughout the movie Sam and Roberto seemed to be only there to round out the team and when they had scenes showing backstory for them they felt very shoehorned in and out of place. There’s an early scene with Sam where he has a vision with his dad which I didn’t understand and probably could’ve been moved to a later point in the movie when it would have made more sense. There is also a good romantic element between two cast members, and a less developed one between two others, which had some of the best acting in the movie and felt very genuine.

            As the movie progresses, the characters and the viewers start trusting Dr. Reyes and her “superiors” less and less. This culminates in the reveal of who her superiors are which most X-Men fans should know, and it was a genuine surprise for me so I won’t spoil it. Sadly, they’ve planted a seed with that which will never grow since this is the final movie in this franchise thanks to the Disney/Fox merger.

            The third act was quite good and is where characters like Illyana shined as she seemed to be the closest to an actual superhero this movie has (despite being a murderer). It was also cool seeing how each of their powers came into use in a fight, although there’s never that kind of The Avengers like group shot. Still, the connection between the new mutants was easy to see by the time the movie ended.

            One thing I appreciated in the movie that I know would be useful for the project(s) I’m currently working on, is the fact that the movie is pretty much only set in one location. That was definitely a factor in keeping the budget low, although there is some impressive CGI and vfx during the horror scenes and the third act. The set design was also minimal as it was a sterile hospital though there are a couple of rooms they go in that have more personality like the hidden club house where they use a lie detector on each other. 

            The cinematography was fine, it didn’t have much that stood out to me. There was one part in the third act when Illyana was using her powers where it cut between two locations without changing the angle that I thought was pretty cool. Similarly, the music was passable and didn’t have anything that would get me excited enough to but the soundtrack. The dialogue also lacked subtext and pretty much led you to know exactly what characters were going to say or do and often made characters seem stupid especially with how others don’t believe when some of them say they encountered strange things happening until pretty late into the movie.

            Like I alluded to earlier, I believe the editing could’ve been improved, especially with how long they could’ve been tweaking it with all the delays. Some of the scenes felt out of place like nobody watched the whole thing in one go to see if it all made sense. It also would’ve benefited from spending more time with the ensemble early on with more scenes focused on each of them or even like a montage of what they do every day to show more of their unique personalities, especially Roberto and Sam who only started to get mor screen time at the halfway mark. 

            All in all, I think my favorite part of this movie was the movie theatre popcorn I’ve missed so much. Next to that I thought Illyana was very well portrayed compared to her comics counterpart (she is the only one I’m familiar with so I can’t really judge the rest). There were several other elements I enjoyed such as the romantic subplot and the action and horror elements, but overall I’d say it was just pretty good. If you’re desperate to return to the theatres like I was then at least wait for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. That should be much better than this. 

For my own project, I’d look at this movie as an example of what to not do with the edit while also realizing how smart they were to place the film in one location which I wish we did for our film and I’ll definitely keep in mind going forward while making zero/low budget films.

Rating: 6/10

The Neighbor’s Window

The other night I watched the 2020 Academy Award-winning short film, The Neighbor’s Window (Curry, 2019). The basic premise of the short is a mother who is growing bored with her monotonous life starts spying on her neighbor’s through their open window and gets more than a peek into their lives. The short’s main theme was other people’s lives seem more appealing until you look closer. The short is a drama, though from the first scene it could’ve almost been the start of a romantic comedy. After that, it gets much more emotional as the mother, Alli (Maria Dizzia), becomes obsessed with watching her neighbors through the window.

The Neighbor’s Window, like most films, follows the basic dramatic structure without much deviation or breaking of rules. The inciting incident is when Alli and her husband (Greg Keller) first see the neighbors having sex while they’re eating dinner and cannot stop staring at them. The first plot point is when Alli gets binoculars for her husband but then starts using them herself, the midpoint of the short is when Alli notices the neighbors sitting at their table, clearly after getting bad news. The second plot point is when Alli’s husband notices the neighbor is now bald and assume he shaved his head. This all leads to the climax where Alli sees the neighbor in a hospital bed in their apartment passed out as his wife climbs into the bed and lays with him. The film resolves with Alli going across the street after the sick husband passes away and his wife reveals to Alli that she and her husband watched and were envious of Alli and her family. 

The production design was quite good as it perfectly conveyed the two apartments for what they were: a family’s lived-in home and a newlywed couple’s apartment turned in-home hospice. The costume design also helped show how tired Alli was with her routine as well as the state of the neighbor’s lives as they never have dialogue until Alli meets the wife at the end, so their emotional state is only seen how they look and their physical actions. 

The cinematography was also interesting in that it was generally very well-lit in both apartments, but that lighting is accentuated in the voyeuristic scenes as they’re mostly at night so even when it is bright in the apartments, everything around the windows is darkness. The first and final shots are also similar in that they both have lit windows on the right side and the night sky on the left, but the final has more focus on who is seen in the window, giving the audience a voyeuristic look at them just like they had of the neighbors.

There isn’t much music in this short, but what is there is very somber to fit the emotional nature of the short. Most of the audio in this short is natural sounds and dialogue. The natural sounds help root what is happening in reality and give a sense of the familiar such as plates being set on the table or coffee being poured. Most of the dialogue isn’t needed but does show the state of mind of Alli and her husband as he quickly loses interest in the spying and she becomes infatuated with looking through the binoculars every time she’s near the window. The neighbor’s dialogue is needed, though, as it’s the best way to get the full meaning of the reveal.

The editing was not too interesting, but the editor did leave a lot of lengths in shots and there are few short takes used throughout. This allows the pacing to take its time and lets the full emotional weight sit with the viewer even when it cuts away, such as after Alli see the neighbor in the hospital bed for the first time as the impact is felt for so long that when Alli is pulled out of staring, the viewer is still thinking about it. It also helps that they cut nearly all sound out leaving the viewer thinking about how someone so full of life was quickly brought down by a fatal illness. It was noteworthy that an unknown amount of time passes throughout this short as at one point they say it was months since they first looked into the window, but there is little indication of time jumps after that.

What is useful to know for our no-budget short films is knowing how an Oscar-winning short is filmed almost entirely in two apartments and a short scene on a sidewalk. Similarly, our film will be able to be shot entirely in two areas of the backlot on campus. Limited locations clearly do not prohibit artistic expression and can actually be a boon for the creators as they’re forced to make it work with what they have. Also, while this short was simple, the production design was effective at making what is seen on screen look real and so it is very important that we are able to make what we shoot look like it is real despite filming on a backlot.

The challenge for our project, I realize, is making it look as real as this short looked. Although I’m not the production designer, as DP I can put the focus on what is real to mask what isn’t as, even in a five-minute short film, immersion is a crucial factor. To quote the movie Inception (Nolan, 2010), “Our dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake we realize things were strange.” My group, like all filmmakers, must endeavor to make our film look so real that the audience forgets they were even watching a movie until it is over. 

References

Curry, M. (Director). (2019). The Neighbor’s Window [Short Film]. Marshall Curry Productions.

Nolan, C. (Director). (2010). Inception [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.