FINAL BLOG #4

Ah, the final blog. Let’s just get to it, shall we?
Right off the bat, my favorite part of the class was the lab. It was just fantastic to be able to work hands-on with lights, cameras, and film, and to gain some insight into the basic use of Photoshop and HTML. There are not many readily available opportunities to play with this sort of equipment in a controlled setting. The variety and availability of the things we worked with truly are what made the experience. That, and the fact that our TA was awesome. A lab is nothing without a good TA.
As far as labs go, I feel like we could have done more in general. I’m not exactly sure how, just that there is a potential there that has yet been tapped.
The lectures were also really interesting. The visuals and linked examples really added to the presentation. Because this is a media class, the lecturing professor could—and would—click away to various examples and websites numerous times in a lesson. In my opinion the more pretty pictures, funny jokes, and creative websites we look at, the better. I think I speak for a decent body of sleep-deprived students when I say that, in general, it is the interest in the visuals that kept us from unexpectedly nodding off.
Not to say the lectures themselves weren’t interesting. They were. Both of the lecturing professors know their stuff, are approachable, and are able to convey their vast knowledge of the subject in a fun way that anyone can understand. The information itself is almost always interesting and the concepts themselves—thanks to the professor’s lecturing ability—are not overly difficult to grasp.
One thing I really took away from this class was The Rule of Thirds. Since that lesson, I’ve consciously become aware of how I aim shots in projects for class, for fun, and even with family video. I was so intrigued by it, that I even got my family in on it. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a photo or movie the same way again.
I just really enjoyed this class the entire time. I cannot emphasize that enough. For me, the more visual and the more interactive the experience, the happier I am. And this class had it all.
< / media150 >
(little HTML joke there.)

Media Blog #3 - “Design I Like” - Galaxy Quest Open Sequence

Media Blog #3 - “Design I Like”


Media design is everywhere. It’s on our cereal boxes, in our movies, and on our clothes. We can’t escape it, but we don’t mind. We like it.
One bit of design I’ve always enjoyed is the opening sequence to the 1999 comedy, Galaxy Quest.
The movie starts out with us, the viewers, dropped into the middle of an action sequence of a campy Star Trek type setting. The colors are all too sharp, the film is a little too fuzzy, too warm, everyone’s makeup is too harsh, and the acting is overdone (when the ship is attacked they all fall—every-so-enthusiastically—sideways). The dramatic music climbs, the crew panics, the captain makes a split second decision, and suddenly, a huge To Be Continued… appears on screen.
Only then do we hear the applause and the over-the-top MC start talking about the 1982 hit TV Series Galaxy Quest, as the camera pulls back to reveals a cult convention of epic proportions, with costumed aliens and kitsch merchandise as far as the eye can see. We are suddenly very aware that what we watched was in the past, and that this is the present. The camera cuts to back stage where we see those same, once-famed actors now aged, jaded, and depressed, sitting, milling about, and overall washed up, complaining about each other, the show, and their lives in general.
What we’ve been watching was not the movie per say, but a lead in to it. Within the first few sequences, just from the lighting composition, directing, and feel of the film in the first sequence, we know what we are watching is a mockup of an old campy space TV show. They don’t confirm it till after the cut away, but they don’t even have to. We KNOW. The convention and back stage cutaways also adds to it, showing us just how extensively the time jump was; that what we were watching—once glowing and successful in the past—now has trapped this cult-beloved, intrepid crew of actors into a lifetime of character acting parts and comic conventions.
We don’t know ANYTHING about the plot of the movie as of yet, but with the lighting, makeup, color composition, and a few seconds of acting, the entire character structure is completely set up just in those first 5 minutes. All thanks to media design.

If anyone is so inclined, here is the scene I'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVAFMrHHoxQ
Enjoy! :)

Blog #2: "What I see" - Camera Technique in Jaws

In some films, it can sometimes be very difficult to know exactly what the cinematographer or film director was trying to do to add to the overall feel of the movie. Jaws is not one of those movies. On the contrary, Jaws is one of those films that not only has great acting and an awesome plot, but a fantastic use of camera technique displayed throughout the entire film.

This movie is referred to, by many of the people who worked on it, as “the most expensive hand-held movie ever made.” Because of the size of most cameras at the time, very few could be handled on open water, moving from boat to boat to boat or on rough waves. As such, they decided to use a hand-held camera for most shots. Though heavy, they were very balanced. The operator was able to get many different angles and lengths of shots of the boats and actors in actual open water.

One of the main technical cinematic points of the movie is the shark itself. Now, you should be thinking “Wait….what shark? I don’t remember seeing any shark, not until the last 40 minutes of the movie.” But you aren’t thinking that. And that is what makes Jaws such a fantastic film.

You see from the perspective of the shark, you see the aftermath created by the shark, but you hardly ever see a physical shark. Yes, it is true, some of this is brought on by the fact that the mechanical monster used in the movie was never supposed to touch salt water, but that, in my opinion, is just a technicality. Spielberg easily could have said, “let’s buy another shark.” Instead, he placed the movie in the hands of the film director and cinematographer, and said, “let’s do this.” True, they had to improvise, compromise, and fill in the blanks because of said malfunctioning sea beasty, but it was their ability to work so efficiently with these massive compromises that makes the illusion of the shark so undeniably realistic.

As already stated, many of the camera angles take place from the point of view of the shark: Underwater, dark, gracefully swimming past the kicking legs of the unsuspecting beach goers. The final shot of the attack is never from the point of view of the shark, but is always of the reactions of the surrounding people in each scene. One of the most memorable moments is when we see the long shot from the beach to the boy attacked in the water. It’s shot as if we are a bystander. Then, suddenly, the camera cuts back to a series of close ups on Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) as he takes in the panic occurring in the waves. We can’t really tell what is going on, but there is no doubt in our mind as to what has just happened. As there is no real dialogue in that scene—a side from screaming—It is undeniable that it is the camera work that truly captures it.

Another good example of technique is the appearance of the marker barrel while the three men are in the boat cabin. Earlier in the movie, the “shark” has submerged with the barrel, vanishing. Some time later, while the men are drunk and singing in the cabin, a long shot of the boat shows us their position in the distance, while the yellow barrel slide into a close up in the frame, moving towards the boat. A cut to the men again allows us to believe that the two events are occurring simultaneously and that an attack is imminent.

The feel of the movie Jaws is constant suspense. Because we never actually see this rusty, sharp-toothed contraption, the audience becomes uneasy at almost every moment the ocean is in view. We fear the open water as much as we fear the unknown thing in it. This is all thanks to the camera work. Since the thing we fear isn’t viewable, let alone even there half the time, our emotions are projected onto the water itself. It is the illusion, created by this technical choice, that we fear.

That, and of course, the sound track, with it’s fantastically ominous half step…dunnn dun……