Smu Production 1 Fall 2017

These two readings explored the significance of photography and paintings. Dziga Vertov says that the main thing in film is sensory exploration of the world. The kino-eye is used to explore the chaos of visual aspects that fill space. The kino-eye lives and moves in time and space, as it gathers information. This shows how our eye sight is fixed, but we will always be able to improve our technology, especially cameras. Andre Bazin Talk about realism and perspective as shown in medieval arts. Cinema is often interpreted as a language. People can construct different meanings of images through different angles and settings in nature.

In these two readings, the importance of cinema and photography was explored. Dziga Vertov said the main and essential thing in film is the sensory exploration of the world through film. More perfect than the human eye, the kino-eye is used to explore the chaos of visual aspects that fill space. The kino-eye lives and moves in time and space, as it gathers information in a complete different manner than the human eye. I found this very interesting because it shows how we cannot improve the making of our eyes, but can endlessly perfect the camera. Andre Bazin talks about medieval art and different theories with realism and perspective. Cinema is often interpreted as a language, as you can construct different meanings of images through different angles and settings in nature.

Alec Gilman I assisted on Conrad Li's shoot "Baffled". I benefitted from the experience in multiple ways such as learning new techniques and seeing first hand the passion directors have for a project. Although there was a lot of down time, I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend as a member of the team. This project helped me learn how much of a commitment that production can be and I am grateful for that. My job was a production assistant and that mostly entailed getting things the director needed and helping open and move pieces around.

The reading ultimately left me with a feeling of pride, allowing me to not feel foolish for considering cinema a stylized form of art, similar to sculpting and painting. Any fool who considers the filmmaking process trivial and lackluster must consider the complexities of making a film. There's certain mechanics and a science behind it that most take for granted, such as the construction of narrative, and the readings beautifully illustrate that storytelling isn't as simple as it may seem.

In "Narrative as a Formal System," Bordwell exemplifies how each separate part of a film--plot and story, cause and effect, time, space, openings and closings, and the narrator--work together to form a successful narrative. It was very interesting for me to learn about the narrative form of a film and how a story comes together as it is something that I have never gave much thought to. The art of making a film is far more complicated than I thought. Bordwell raised many fascinating points, but what I found most fascinating was how parallelism was used in Citizen Kane . Even though I have never seen the film Citizen Kane, I was able to learn that parallelism in a narrative "allows both lines of action to develop simultaneously in similar directions." I personally have never realized that parallelism can be present in films, and if the viewer isn't actively reading the film, they probably are not going to realize that parallelism present either. Overall, ...

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...