Smu Production 1 Fall 2017

This informative article dives into depth over narration, plot, cause and effect, space, time, and many other aspects in creating a story with a new perspective. Personally, I have never really analyzed narrative construction and the things filmmakers think about when writing a story, but this article really opened my eyes about production and filmmaking. Bordwell mentions viewers' anticipations going into a film frequently in the article. Because stories are all around us, spectators approach narrative films with definite expectations. It was interesting to think about what we assume about plot and characters before even watching a movie. As spectators watch, films shape their expectations by bringing curiosity, suspense, and surprise. Also, I had no idea that parallelism is used among characters, settings, situations, and times. It was super interesting learning about the use of parallelism in Hoop Dreams , and how it made the documentary more complex. Some new terms for me were...

As an individual who believes everything has a reason or purpose I agree strongly with the article as it states, a narrative helps people make sense of the world. It makes me think back to Ancient Greece when people could not explain the feeling of love so they conjured up the idea of Eros, with his magic bow and Aphrodite with her beauty. It makes me think of when people could not understand why storms ragged, why droughts shriveled crops, and why people were able to self-heal wounds. The Ancient Greeks took characters and fitted the actions of natural phenomenons with something their minds could comprehend such as Zeus throwing lighting bolts out of anger, Poseidon being stingy with his precious water, or Prometheus stealing the ability to heal and giving it to humans. People want to believe in a higher power and in order to make that myth a reality they make up and tell countless stories that become so wide spread it's unclear if they are fiction or not. That's all everythi...

Bordwell´s Narrative of a Formal System Bordwell´s explanation of principles of narrative construction are extremely comprehensive since he uses great examples to make his points clear. It is truly fascinating to learn how to  "read" films and see how automated our perception and interpretation of film is. A film might not make sense to you if you missed the first part and just see a few incoherent scenes in a progressed stadium or sometimes incoherence is the true purpose of a film and is deliberately chosen by the film maker BUT there are automated processes we learned and that help us understanding a storyline. Film as the embodiment of narration and engagement of the viewer in a dynamic activity paired with our specific expectations with which we approach a film illustrates our need or desire for watching movies with the hope of being emotionally transformed. Seeing film as a continuum, a closed entity which is called diagesis including the total world of the story act...

Arman Jeddy  Production 1  Professor Morris                  There are many different aspects when it comes to storytelling. Many of which are described in the recent readings. What I found most interesting was the topic of "Parallelism". I have seen many different uses of it, but never really thought too much of. Especially in that context. One example of this use would be in the animated film "Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox". In this film Barry Allen travels back in time, which as a result changes the course of the present. In this new reality, most major superheroes such as Wonder Woman and Aquaman are villains who are at war with each other. Superman is locked away and being experimented on by the government, while Bruce Wayne never becomes the Batman. This film portrays parallelism very well, by showing the huge contrast these heroes become compared to their counterparts. Other topics that I found important...

Welcome to Film Production 1 at SMU! This will be our course blog, where you will respond to certain articles you will be assigned to read. Please post your responses to the articles, not a summary of the article, but what it made you think and feel, observations you have about some of the points raised in the article, and feel free to post images or link videos that are relevant to the conversation about we will have about the article. Looking forward to a great semester!