Mojave Mirage

The film is about all the different people this phone booth brings together and how they are all able to just be normal with each other because they all just want to talk on this disgustingly cool phone.
They made this film to show how it brings the people together just so they can say they have been to the phone booth and to have been a part of something that is known world wide.

Laughing Club

     The main theme in this film shows modernism but still traditional at the same time. How the city of Bombay has a lot of adverstisments of new things like technology, cell phones, hair products, etc. Then you see some shots of people carring baskets on their heads, traditional clothing. Then a second later you see cars driving around. So, it shows you the contrast and similarity of the modern and traditional aspects of the area. And with the laughing, it is sort of a silly thing and yet you see the peole, dressed for work, and in the traditional clothing.

     With the laughter club, it allows you to express any fear or sorrow yo had/have. In the film, it has people telling their stories, in intimate settings, telling how life is hard for them, how they have to live, the workplace, tension, all the things that bother them, and they are told to just laugh by Dr. Kataria.

     Dr. Kataria was the founder of The Laughing Club because he saw in Reader’s Digest an article about how laugher is the best medicine, so he fiigured, that is a much easier way to medicate someone, without payment.

     The way the film goes is working people, then children, then old people. How that protrays the compression of the city. As well as how the stories with so many eople living together, 14-15 people living in one room. The shadows with that story is very dim, early morning, almost like inside of a cave because of the gloomy set up they have. And then how most of the story was in natural lighting.

     As it is easy to tell because of the immense shadows in the film, and how dark it is in some of the shots. Then the interveiw with the Doctor, on the beach, the lightness of that portion of the film, and how the sun hits him from the side, and it doesn’t seem dark or gloomy for a second.

     However, the whole purpose of the Laughing Club is for people to be able to meet others, to find something that is similar between them is laughing. I’m pretty sure that sentence jsut didn’t make sense to you but, oh well!

     So, until next time--

Why can't we be a family again?

     This is yet another documentary, which is also based in New York. There are a couple of shots that are from the feet up, or of just the legs, which are pretty cool. The shots are of people dancing, walking, kind of like to show that they are higher than others because they are working hard to no tbe pulled down. The people in the shots are of kids that have some problems with their families. There is one shot when the mom and her mother and grandmother are sitting there, and one of the lights is shining brightly in the middle of the shot. It looks kind of like you are looking at things through a drug ged up haze. There is another great shot of the mother, Kitten, crying, after both of her kids telling her and letting her know that they are disappointed in her. This segment was about emotions felt. From the shots and lighting used, and the story that's told, this is conveyed.


     So, until next time--

Lucy Tsak Tsak

     This is another documentary about a lady who is the "slate clapper" for films. There are a lot of miscellanious shots from various films showing her clapping the slate. A lot of the shots were angled, which is a little odd, but, it adds to the randomness of this documentary. There is a variety of lighting throughout this film, and all other elements of cinematography are virtually thrown out the window for this short film.


     This review probably doesn't make sense to you but, it does explain completely the documentary, Lucy Tsak Tsak, which is what Lucy caclls the clap board.


     So, until next time--

The Sunshine Hotel

     This film is a documentary about a place that houses many different people. The film itself has a very grainy texture to it but, seeing as most of the things in the film just seem dirty, and there is vulgar language throughout the film, it makes sense as towht they would make it so grainy. It adds an element to highlight all this nastiness happening in our world. There are a lot of different kinds of people that are also highlighted in the film. One that stood out to me was the drag queen. This film is placed in New York, where the Sunshine Hotel is located. At the end of the film, there atour guide that is showing middle-class people the hotel and there are shots of all the occupants closing the windows, as if in shame of living there.


     There is a variety of lighting techniques that are used in the film, along with shots, costuming (which the people wore themselves), and of course, the people themselves. I would dare to state that this is acontroversial film because of the fact that the director decided to elicit attention to the Sunshine Hotel. There is not much else that could really be said about this film, other than that as a documentary, it
could also be classified as adocu-drama.


     So, until next time--

El espinazo del diablo

     El espinazo del diablo es asombroso cine. That translates to: 'The Devil's Backbone was an amazing movie.' And, it truly was. But as before, as many of our movies seem to have been, originated in another language, this time, Español, or spanish. The name 'Devil's Backbone' is revealed in the movie as a disease that fetuses have, forcing them to be still-born. The movie is based during the Spanish war, and in placed in an orphanage.


     The costuming during the film generally stays the same throughout, since the boys live at an orphanage, and there is no way for them to get any new clothing. There is some change in clothing, but it is very minimal. In the sense of clothing and special effects (to a degree) the lady who runs the orphanage lost a leg, and has an attachment, which is seen being taken off and put on. Since the movie is based in previous times, before the prosthetics we know of, she has a make-shift one, most likely made by the doctor who helps her run the orphanage. This doctor also has authentic tools from the same time era, and as far as the other props go, it was most definitely obvious of the time period, if not a little unclear. There are a lot of antiques (what would now be considered) that are shown throughout the film, including the costuming.


     Guillermo del Toro, the director and writer of the film, seems to love shots that easily showed different emotions that actor is trying to portray. With it being a foreign film, one many have to watch it many times in order to see all of the different selections used. There are a variety of shots depicting emotions, with the hands and arms, but also many close-up shots of the face, showing the different expressions. One of the reasons there are a lot of shots showing hands is because of the doctor, and they show him working on people, wringing his hands, or of doing some other action. It is also surprising, the amount of long shots used, but at the same time, it makes sense that they would try to show just how barren and empty and alone that the orphanage is out in Spain.


     There is also a huge bank of shots showing different ways that everything in the film was lit. In the hallways, there are lighted sections, rather than the entire hall, to show again, the barrenness. It looks like there is a lot of natural lighting used throughout the film, however, it is also evident by the colouration of the lighting that some is artificial to highlight some of the items in the frame. There are also scenes with rain and smoke from cigarettes that are highly contrasted to show the elements in comparison to the rest of the shot(s). Also, when the 'new kid' is left at the orphanage, and he is laying on his bed, the 'moonlight' that washes over him is obviously a lot more light than the moon would normally give so again, more artificial light was used in similar shots as that.


     There seems to also be a fascination in this film with special effects. Near the end, the man who is trying to take over is hit, and his eye gets all bloody. This is an extreme effect that kept drawing my attention, which highlighted his expressions when he was talking, after he got hit. Some more effects were when Santi, the boy who got killed, como mostrar es un fantasma. There is blood seeping from his head, flowing upwards, into the air, and the make-up on Junio Valverde, the actor who plays Santi, shows cracks on his face, and caked blood all over the place. There are also clots of blood on the sides of everyone's face or somewhere on their body at one point during the film which looks like a slug/slugs, so it is obvious that there was some fault in things. Santi is a ghost in the film, and in the beginning and end, the same monologue is told by the doctor (as a voice over), as if he is telling the story, since he himself becomes un fantasma (a ghost) near the end. The monologue is as follows;
Spanish--¿Cuál es un fantasma? ¿Una tragedia condenada para repetirse repetidamente? Un instante del dolor, quizás. Algo muerto que todavía se parece estar vivo. Una emoción suspendió a tiempo. Como una fotografía velada. Como un insecto atrapado en ámbar.
English--What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.


     There is also a lot of vulgar language and content throughout the film, adding to the reason why it was rated R, besides all of the violence. There is also some parts of the film where ties are being crossed in the people's lives throughout the film.


     A couple of interesting things about the movie are that 1) a lot of the film was inspired by Alfred Hitchock's image duality in his films, 2)Del Toro called Pan's Labyrinth a sequel in spirit to this film, which he also directed. It makes sense that there would be a
sequel' to this, considering that he also directed Hellboy and Hellboy 2, set to be released in 2008. Alright well, I think that is the best review I have ever written, but it makes me happy because this is such a wonderful film, and I saw it about 4 times! Estoy mirando realmente/escuchar a él ahora! (It's playing right now.)


     So, until next time--

An Inconvenient Truth

     Throughout this film, there are manyshots with extremely amazing lighting. But plenty of the other shots seem to have only natural lighting. But, there are also shots inside, with much dimmer
lighting, concentrating on the speakers voice when he is talking. Some scenes have lighting behind the main characters, making them seem mysterious, and extremely intellectual. With so many natural shots, from outdoors, actually makes the film seem surreal. Which is kind of ironic however, it kind of makes sense. The shots in this film are mostly normal but, there are some shots through the window of a plane that are warped and makes you understand the message of this film.


     There's not much else that is drawling about this film other than the lighting and the mixture of type of shots that are used in the film.


     So, until next time--

Hotel Rwanda

     Alright so here is the actual review:

     The lighting in the film Hotel Rwanda was well done. There are a lot of outdoor scenes, where it looks like maybe natural lighting was used, however, you can also tell that it was messed around with. Most of the scenes look like the lighting was overcast, as if there was a dull storm overhead, waiting to happen. Which, of course, works tremendously for the film because of the message it is portraying. If you look back to one of my recent entries, I had written a poem when we were half-way through the film, and I titled it 'Are we all just numbers?' See, there was genocide happening in Rwanda that finally ended in 1994, which is what the movie is about. It is centralized around a certain family, the man who runs the hotel that has turned into a refugee camp. The costuming stays generally the same throughout the film because most of the people don't have anything left for or to them. But, you can see by the costuming how the characters are ranked differently in society.


     It is extremely hard to pay attention to detail in this movie because of all the action going on at any point. There is some romance during the movie between the main character and his wife, but it is not enough to place the movie in that genre. Mainly, this movie is action and macabre. The set designs are fully comprehensive when you connect with what is going on in the film and realizing that this film is actually based on real events. Many of the sets were actual places that were affected by the Genocide. For the movie, the sets were renovated for the movie so that the actors were safe, however, they were still put through the horror of those torturous memories.


     The editing done for this film was a little shaking in the fact that some of the shots didn't fit well together in the final cut. Which meant that the plot line might have changed a bit. A few bits of the movie seemed to be randomly thrown in because of this small problem, which ruined the film a bit. However, eventually at the end, the film was pulled all together because of the overall problem that was happening during the time. At the same time, it seems as if these extra scenes were necessary to show that things could still be normal and the people affected by the Genocide were still sane, but it was obvious that things would not stay that way because in the very next shot, you go back outside to the hellish world.


     Aside from my review, I wish that people would have gone over and helped but now, something similar is happening in Darfur, which people can do something about. Please do.


     So, until next time--

Visions of Light

     'Visions of Light' is a film that talks about the importance of lighting in movies. It shows the development of lighting in films, ever since the beginning of film making. When films were first made, they did not want any shadows on the main characters. However, the brightness of the light on them needed to be very harsh, or very flattering to the actors or actresses. But then, cinematographers wanted to have shadows on the people because it added depth to the scene. To add emotion to the pictures.

     Up until the late 30's, films were only in black and white because that was the only way that film was made. Then people started to turn to colour because the colour added to the affect of the watchers experience and the actors performance. However, black and white was still used quite a lot because ti seemed to add a sort of a surreal element to the film itself.

     Lighting is still, and always will be, the largest considered element in any moving film. The type of lighting gives more life to a film. Cinematographers put coloured filters over the lights, or added a shade of blue or yellow to the shoots, so that the film received more emotion and had a more selective component to it. This component was to help the watcher see details more and concentrate on the main points.

      Emotion in a film is another component that cinematographers should consider very deeply before making a film. Emotions are brought out by the lighting in a film. Of course that is the actors job, yet if the film is a silent film, or has no sound, then you must convey to the audience what it is that you are portraying or showing. When you have shadows and shades, the shoots are better understood. The fusion of colour or black and white film, and the shadows, fading, and angle of the shoots makes a film what it is.

     Yes, cinematography has many more elements to it, lighting is the one thing you have to know, in order to make a successful film. The deal of having to make a film with such emotion is a hard job. You must make it believable to the audience that this is what is happening, what had happened before. 'Visions of Lighting', has multitudes of slips from the best movies ever made. The clips shown, all have wonderful lighting techniques to them, along with emotional fragments all throughout them.

     Most films have a yellowish tint to them, which accomidates the story at hand. However, you must take into consideration the plot of the story, and emotions of the scenes being shot. Bluish light is also very popular, and a favourite, when you are filming extremely emotional scenes in most any film.

     Then again, you have to make sure that no matter the genre of your film, the lighting should follow along with what is going on in the film, and what is happening at the current moment, in each particular scene. Otherwise, you may lose some of the affect that you want on certain shots. You must pay attention to the movements that are being made, in order to place the correct lighting in each individual shot. The emotion that is put across to the audience/viewers is an element that is extremely important.

     You need to be sure that the mood and emotion comes across very straight forward. In 'Visions of Light', the clips that they show, are the most intense scenes that I have ever seen. Most of them, the actors have austere shadows constantly coating their faces, in sporatic places. However, some of the shadows follow along with the faces, as to make it seem that the actor(s) are immobile but still moving at the same time. It is amazing the sentiment that is put forth in scenes such as these, and the methods that are used to pull it off.

     Filters are used to give scenes a shade of blue or yellow, or sometimes other colours. Most night scenes are actually shot in the daytime but, a filter is placed over the lens to make it seem like nighttime. So, in this case, it is a bit easier to do better placement of shadows and shading.

     So, this is my review for Visions of Light, from last year with a few updates to it.

     So, until next time--