This task requires me to review a film which has been directed by an ‘auteur’ director. An auteur is a filmmaker whose work can easily be identified through the use of their techniques, messages and actors.

I have chosen to review the ‘The Dark Knight’, probably the most famous film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film follows Bruce Wayne (Batman), as he teams up with district attorney, Harvey Dent and together they try to clean up Gotham city by targeting the organised crime and the psychotic Joker.

From the opening, you can tell that this film is made by Nolan. Before this film, every superhero film, whether it be in a shared universe or stand alone, had this sense of wonder and obvious fictional qualities to it. They all had over the top powers, crazy villains and was fairly obviously fiction. The Dark Knight on the other hand is very different. With every film Nolan has made he brings an incredible amount of realism to the genre, whilst both Batman and The Joker still carry their unique styles from the comics. This works incredibly well, especially with these characters as they don’t have any real powers, Batman is just rich, which means it translates very easily to the big screen. You can believe all the gadgets and cars he uses because Nolan likes to use practical effects, which means that the majority of equipment and stunts completed in this film could be created in real life.

Like all other Nolan films, the characters from this one are all upper class and intelligent, all wearing suits, and all speaking quite formally with each other. Yet again this works very well as Bruce Wayne is a billionaire and an owner of Wayne Enterprises, his own company that deal with very high standard equipment.

However, the most prominent and what I consider to be Nolans best ‘auteur’ technique is his use of cross-cutting during very intense scenes. Although this is a Batman movie, this is a multi-strand story, following Bruce Wayne/Batman, Harvey Dent, The Joker and Commissioner Gordon, and after following all these characters on their journeys, eventually they all cross each other for a very intense scene. The scene I am talking about is when The Joker crashes Bruce Waynes party for Harvey Dent. Whilst that scene is happening, it also cuts between a scene where Gordon has to save someone from being poisoned and a scene where a judge gets killed in an explosion. This happens about half way into the film, so at this point the audience understands the characters and has really connected with them, and having to watch all these characters try to overcome nail biting scenes, it really does put you onto the edge of your seat desperately waiting to see the outcome.

Overall, I think that Nolan making a superhero movie was one of the best decisions ever made. He brought a sense of realism to a very unrealistic genre by making plausible characters, stunts and story. Along with Nolans writing and editing style, he really gives the audience such a thrilling experience with huge characters, making possibly the best superhero movie of all time.

This weeks blog task required me to choose a film genre and analyse it by breaking down its conventions. The Genre I chose was ‘Mystery-Thriller’, to truly get a good analyse of this genre I went onto IMDB and picked three films that I had seen and that were categorised as ‘Mystery-Thrillers’ so that I could compare them to each other. I chose to look at, Seven (1995), Prisoners (2013), Shutter Island (2010) – Three movies categorised as mystery thrillers on IMDB.

Seven is about a serial killer that is on a killing people to the theme of the seven deadly sins, whilst the killer is on the loose doing this, two detectives hunt down the killer before he can complete all seven murders.

Prisoners is about a young girl that goes missing and the father of the child and a detective, both on their own separate journeys try to hunt down the kidnapper.

Shutter Island is about two US Marshalls that are sent to a secluded that is home to an asylum with the job of finding a missing patient.

As you can see from the get go, all three movies listed are essentially the same concept but different plot; law officials on the hunt for someone who is potentially very dangerous. This seems to be a common thing with these movies is that the characters always have a dangerous antagonists

Twists are another plot device used in all three films, I will not spoil these movies, but in the third act of all three films a twist occurs that has immense consequences on the story, affecting some of the protagonists.

Religious Iconography is used throughout these films, especially in Seven, the killer is formed around the seven deadly sins, a very big part of the Christian religion. Throughout most Mystery-Thrillers, I have noticed that there is a lot of christianity sprinkled throughout, usually with the antagonists which leads perfectly onto the ideology used in these films. A lot of the antagonists are very political, having many problems with the society they live in and a lot of the time this is due to them becoming blinded by their religious beliefs and losing control with themselves and right from wrong.

These films usually have an age rating of 15 and above, this is due to the films all containing a lot of heavy and dark themes within them. Sometimes the characters commit horrible acts and in my opinion it is needed to add tension and really give off the thriller vibe by creating suspense because this genre would not work for a younger audience, it would be too boring.

In terms of the industry, these films are mostly independent but they build up money and success as if they were mainstream. Initially this genre used to be only associated with independent cinema, but as the popularity grew a lot of mainstream studios joined in and began to produce them too.

With my experimental film I decided I wanted the film to fade between each shot almost seamlessly to give off the effect of being lost and not understanding how you got there. I think this is really interesting as you cannot really show this with any other art form except for film, which is the beauty of it. You can show the passing of time within film whereas you cannot in other art forms and you can also tell a whole story without saying a word. When filming this I tried to film very calm locations for around 10 to 15 seconds to really capture the simplicity but yet complexity of film. I did not move the camera too much, very simple camera movements and I decided to cut all the audio to leave all the focus on the film so the viewer could really concentrate.

For this task, I was required to write the opening page of a screenplay. Coinciding with this project is a pitch for a three to five minute short film, to kill two birds with one stone I decided to write the opening page for my pitch.

Here is a breakdown in the form of a five-finger pitch:

• Genre: Drama.
• Protagonist: The Artist.
• Their Goal: To paint again.
• Obstacle: Their dominant hand has been permanently injured.
• What’s Important: The Artist still has their other hand.

               https://youtu.be/e9pQ62EQE0o             

This blog task required me to film a forty-five second shot of something mundane. No edits were aloud, just one continuous shot. I chose to film a shower that was on, the reason I decided to choose this was because it is something I and many others use everyday, which I thought by default made it mundane because it is not very exciting as it is the norm. To film this I simply held my phone up to a shower head, set my phones camera to slow motion and filmed. The reason I decided to film this in slow motion was because it was easier to achieve a forty-five second short film and also if it was shot with a lower frame rate it was harder to see the water falling. In terms of the ‘cinema of attractions’ theory I do believe that my clip will interest viewers without any narrative. I believe that my clip will make viewers think, by simply admiring and questioning why everything in shot is occurring.

• Mis en scene – Excluding Actors, this is the arrangement and usage of everything inside the frame. This includes the setting, props, costume and make-up.
• Shot reverse shot – This is when there are two actors in a scene and the edit cuts between two shots of the actors, usually it is two separate close ups.
• Pan – This is when the camera moves either left or right in a turning motion.
• Track – A track or tracking shot is when the camera follows the subject as it is moving.
• Zoom – A zoom is when the camera gets a closer view on the subject
• Audience – This is what films are made for, the people who watch the film. This can vary due to genre and age-range of the target audience the film is made for.
• Montage – This is an editing technique where multiple clips are put together to show the passing of time within a short amount of time.
• 180 degree rule – An imaginary line drawn within a film where the camera cannot cross, this is used to establish where characters are placed within a scene, crossing the line would break the illusion and confuse the audience.
• POV – Point of View shot, this is when the camera is displayed in the direction of a characters vision.
• Close up – A close up is when a specific part of a characters body or object is within a close proximity of the camera.
• Two shot – a shot where two characters are in frame together.
• Voice-Over – This is when an actor records audio that plays over the top of visuals, this includes voice acting for animated characters and narration.
• Iconography – This is when symbols or visual images are used to interpret different meanings within a film
• Ideology – A system of ideas, usually influenced by politics or economics.

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