Movie Review: The Dark Skies

1.This film is about the mysterious creatures that follows a young family. As husband and wife Daniel and Lacey Barret witness numerous numbers of disturbing and interruption events involving their family, their safe and home are getting risky. After that they finally find out that their family is being targeted by an unimaginably terrifying creature—Alien named The Gray, Daniel and Lacey take matters in their own hands to solve the mystery of what is after their family.(Movie Fone,2013)

Source:

Movie Fone(2013),retrieved from

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/dark-skies/58305/synopsis

2. The difference between this film with other science fiction film is this is the combination of genre horror with science fiction. According to  Entertainment.ie(2013), Dark Skies is quite a surprisingly effective sci-fi thriller that relies on thriller suspense rather than special effects to impress audience.

Source:

Entertainment.ie(2013), Retrieved  from

http://entertainment.ie/movie-review/Dark-Skies/151581.htm

3. The kids are considered a very important prop in this film. Because they are the one targeted by the “aliens” and usually creepy thing always occur on kids. Stewart(2013) noted that too many scary movies used kids as props, so he went for a different approach. He would avoid calling “action” and “cut” to set his young actors at ease, and he often shot their scenes first to make sure their attention spans didn't wane. For the background of the story, they are using the young family that living in suburbs.

Source:

Stewart (2013),retrieved from:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/05/22/bh-interview-dark-skies

4. 

Close up

When disturb by the alien

 Medium close up

Walkie-talkie with his brother

 Medium long shot

Get shock.

 Medium shot

When discover unusual sounds

Reverse Angle shot

Sammy disturb by the alien

Long shot

When wake up from noise.

 Extreme long shot

-Beginning of the film

5. I personally not prefer this style of editing, it’s because too many scenes that shown like flashbacks but actually it’s not. This is quite confusing and audience has to think it over and over to realize the plot and the logic of the story. I’m not resist this style I just find it inconvenient to understand, and this is just my personal of view maybe other people might think that it’s kind of art of editing.

Director Journal Week 5

17-20 March 2014

For this week lecture, we learnt about the basic type of shots theoretically hope that it’s useful to apply it in our coming actual shooting. Besides, on Thursday meeting session, again we are asked to present our production progress so that other groups can give some suggestion or essential idea to improve our production. Since we had done our rehearsal shooting, we done some part of the editing to show to the others. The outcome not satisfy enough as we expected and we are given some suggestion about the shots by Syazwan (Commercial‘s group leader). Thanks a lot dude!  Rehearsal shooting made us understand what actual problem we are going to face when shooting. We experienced it and we will do it better!

According to our director we will have our real shooting on either 17 or 18 April，will decide it soon after well discuss.

                                    When presentation start.

                                   Our presentation content.

Other director's blog link:

1.Shinno Lim-- http://iamotw1tobe2director3practice.blogspot.com/

2.Kuek Xi Jia-- http://xijiajournaldirector4.blogspot.com/

3.Augustin--  http://bun-nana.blogspot.com/

Director Journal Week 4

10 March-14/15March 2014

For this week lecture, we learn about the budget of film making. Budget control is important to reduce those unnecessary consumptions.  According to our producer/lecturer Dr. Azlan, our production will get roughly RM 500 as the financial support from HEP.  As I mentioned last week, our group will have rehearsal shooting on Friday (14 March 2014).  So on Thursday, we have our group meeting to discuss about the progress of the production and allocate the job so that our rehearsal shooting on the next day will be runs smoothly.

As you can see that everyone are very concentrate when our director, Shinno giving instruction.

So when comes to the rehearsal shooting day, I’m pleased that everyone comes on time and do the set up efficiently

Make-up 

 

This is our props which can make the fake wounds.

The result of make-up.

 Busying for the set-up.

Adjust the lighting.

 Shootings.

Here is the job list of the rehearsal shooting:

Director                : Shinno

Cinematographer/ DP    : Shinno, AND the crew

Lighting                : Augustin

Props                                     : Tiang Ai Li, Murni, Lily, Aiman

Storyboard                         : Liyana, Lela

Make-up                             : Xijia Kuek, Leo Siew Luan

Logs Keeper                        : Sylvia Ng (me)

Budget Control                 : Tiang Ai Li

Actor/Actress (cast)         : Faiz, Ng Siew Wei

Script Writer                        : Jasmine Teh Wee San

Editor                                      : Shinno

Luckily,our rehearsal shootings run quite smoothly and we manage to finish at 7pm. We had shot two version of our production and we will evaluate how the effect and result is.

Other director's blog link:

1.Shinno Lim-- http://iamotw1tobe2director3practice.blogspot.com/

2.Kuek Xi Jia-- http://xijiajournaldirector4.blogspot.com/

3.Augustin--  http://bun-nana.blogspot.com/

Movie Review-The Sixth Sense

1.       M. Night Shyamalan also known as Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan is an Indian film director, screen writer and producer. According IMDb.com noted that he born in India but raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is the son of two doctors. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. Besides, the style of directing that M.Night Shyamalan used to is having some sort of twist in the end or surprise ending in his films. He frequently uses shots of people's reflections in various objects. (IMDb.com,2009)

Source：

M. Night Shyamalan Biography, retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0796117/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

2.       Dr. Malcolm Crowe is a child psychologist and he got a new patient that has a problem far outside of his profession. Cole Sear is six-years-old child and claims to see the spirits of dead people all around him. Cole has extraordinary powers and can channel the ghosts of those who were troubled. Cole doesn't understand his powers, and he has little control over them. However, he's terrified by what he sees, and Dr. Malcolm is the only one with whom he feels he can share this secret. The Sixth Sense (1999) Dr. Malcolm is then discovering he actually had died one year ago, and he really get shocked.

Source:

The Sixth Sense (1999), retrieved from

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sixth_sense/

3.       "The Sixth Sense" isn't a thriller or horror movie but a genre of drama (tragedy). At first, I thought it was a horror movie but I’m wrong, the storyline is more concentrate on the emotional portray by the character. So, I think M. Night Shyamalan want to change our perception toward this film by the twist plot and the horror part is just to convey the story effectively.

4.       The main character,Dr. Malcolm Crowe and the kid named Cole Sear play very important role in this film. According Roger Ebert (1999),the psychologist is Malcolm Crowe, who is shot one night in his home by an intruder, a man who had been his patient years earlier and believes he was wrongly treated. The man then turns the gun on himself. "The next fall," as the subtitles tell us, we see Crowe mended in body but perhaps not in spirit, as he takes on a new case, a boy named Cole Sear who exhibits some of the same problems as the patient who shot at him. Maybe this time he can get it right. These characters are important in contributing on the effect of the plot, this is because if without the existence of the boy, Dr. Malcolm might not realized that he is actually dead.

Source:

Robert Ebert (1999),retrieved from

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sixth-sense-1999

5.       Concept ‘twist’ in this film is very important because it relate the beginning and the end of the story in which Dr. Malcolm had been shot down but never reveal that whether he is still alive or not in the beginning of the story. Without this element in the film, the audience won’t feel suspicious on the story. The feeling  of suspicious keep the audience eyes on the film.

Director Journal Week 3

3 MAC 2014 (MONDAY) / 6 MAC 2014 (THURSDAY)

Our group had a new member again named Augustin, he will be joining us as directing team. Like usual, our main director-Shinno explained our project concept to him and we also discuss further on our shooting script and the sequence of the scenes.  We shares idea to make our concept perfect and the most important is we need some different idea and different perspective of view from guy. Before that, since our group members are mostly female, the idea maybe limited on certain view and not variety enough. Here comes a new guy member might let us have a different perspective of view and opinion. 

On Thursday, we do not have opportunity to have a discussion with our crew because there is presentation session.  Our chief director-Shinno presented and distributed our group concept and idea in front of other group and lecturer so that they understand what we are going to shoot. Besides, our helpful crew had found some of the props that we are going to use such as the vase, flowers, belt and etc. But, the chair not found yet. We will try to look for it these few days because we are going to use it in this coming rehearsal shooting on Friday (14/3).

That’s all for this week, I really hope that our first rehearsal shooting will be runs smoothly, pray for it. =)

Movie Review- Kill Bill Volume 1

Basically, this movie is all about the assassin, Bill, and his member known as The Vipers left The Bride for dead, but unluckily for them she was just comatose but not dead yet. Four years later, The Bride suddenly awakens from her coma and realizes what has been done to her. She sets off on a bloody mission, setting out to seek revenge on her former master and his deadly squad of assassins. One by one, she kills the two members of the assassin group in Volume1 and she saves Bill for last.

The first person that The Bride meets up with for a fight is Vernita Green. The fight scene here is really incredible. Besides, it also has a great sense of humor. Suddenly, Vernita's young daughter comes home from school in the middle of the fight. The two try their best to play off the situation until Vernita can get the daughter off to her room.  However, The Bride killed Vernita in front of her daughter.

After beating Vernita, The Bride is then traveling to Japan to face O-Ren. The only complaint I have for the anime sequence is that it runs a little too long. From the anime, we are given so much of O-Ren's story that we completely understand how she has become such a terribly killer. I wonder, so how are we supposed to feel when The Bride beats O-Ren in their battle? Before the fight, The Bride gets a sword from a legendary master swordsmaker. O-Ren is very impressed and filled with respect for this weapon.  In the end, The Bride succeeded in revenge and defeat O-Ren.

Overall, I enjoy the background music of this film but the some of the violence battle scenes are too scary and awful for me, I’m not daring enough to watch the whole process.

Director Journal Week 2

24 FEBRURARY  2014 (MONDAY)  /  27 FEBRUARY 2014 (THURSDAY)

For this week, we finally had done our synopsis for “Domestic Violence”. The synopsis below is written in Malay:

Seorang wanita duduk di atas kerusi goyang, sebelah mukanya di dalam kegelapan, sebelah pula, terdapat serba sedikit luka. Dia sedang mengimbas kembali apa-apa yang telah berlaku. Gambar sepintas lalu menunjukkan dia dipukul sehingga menyebabkan pasu bunga terjatuh ke atas lantai, bayangan yang menunjukkan dia dipukul oleh tali pinggang, dan gambar tali pinggang yang terkena darahnya. Kembali kepada dia yang sedang duduk di atas kerusi goyang, luka di atas muka dan lehernya seolah-olah telah bertambah. Dia ingin bangun, tapi tangannya telah terikat kepada kerusi tersebut. Akhirnya, menunjukkan telefon gagang yang terjatuh, membawakan mesej untuk mendapatkan bantuan. Selepas semua scene ditayangkan, nombor talian bantuan ditunjukkan supaya memberi harapan  dan seruan kepada orang awam.

On Thursday, we had our first meeting with production crew. We are happy to see that many people attempted to join our crew. We begin our discussion by introduce ourselves and then our main director-Shinno Lim started to explain our concept and synopsis to our production crew.  After that we roughly allocate the task and position such as script writing, shooting script, storyboard, budget control, editing team, technical crew, production manager, and etc. according their ability. However, the job list will be confirmed soon.

We also discuss further on our shooting script.  Most of them tend to give essential ideas/comments/ feedback throughout the discussions. That’s a good start I guess.  Apart from that, we had decided our rehearsal shooting which is on 14/3/2014(Friday), after 3pm. The upcoming actual shooting schedule will be decided as soon as possible. Due to the lack of time, we will continue shooting discussion in detail on next week.

Until now, I really feel that film director is definitely not an easy task, he/she have to guide every single stage of production. Anyhow, I would like to give myself a try to experience this position and I’m looking forward to conduct our project.

Director Journal Week1

17 FEBRUARY 2014 (MONDAY)

This is my first class for The Art of Film Directing and every one of us had been divided into groups for different themes. For our group, the type of film that we got to handle and direct is PSA (Public Service Announcement).  Shinno Lim will be the main director for this project and I with another member-Xi Jia will be the assistants. At first, we do not have any idea on what kind of PSA that is suitable. After being advised by our lecturer, Dr. Azlan, we finally have our own concept. He suggests that we should make something that is easier, achievable with deep awareness. At last, three of us agreed to use “Domestic Violence” as our concept for this PSA project production.

Since our concept has been approved by our lecturer, we start to discuss and roughly come out the content of our project. Our idea will be discuss further next week. We haven’t done much for this week, but we are looking forward to meet our production crew next week. As I know, film director depends on the successful cooperation of many different creative individuals, so hopefully our future crew will do their best for this upcoming production. Besides, we will start to divide our crew into small segments according to their ability.

Generally the responsibility of film director is to direct the making of a film. He or she controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, and visualizes the script while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of that vision. As a freshman of assistant film director, I will try my very best to carry out all these responsibilities. 

Movie Review – Forrest Gump

This film  is all about a man who was born with the IQ below average which is 75  however he still able to accomplish many achievement in his life. The film begins with a feather falling to the feet of Forrest Gump who is sitting at a bus stop .Forrest picks up the feather and puts it inside the book, then tells the story of his life to a stranger seated next to him.

Forrest meets a girl named Jenny on his first day of school. This girl plays an important role in his life for example, the girl’s encouragement make him successfully discarded his leg braces. Besides, he even can run at lightning speed and this eventually gets him into college. He decided to enroll in the army after he graduate from the college and he is being sent to Vietnam. He makes friends with a black man called Bubba at there. Bubba attempt to approach Forrest to go into the shrimping business with him when the war is over. One day, while they went for patrol, Forrest's platoon is attacked. Although Forrest rescues many of his companions, unfortunately his best friend, Bubba is killed in this incident.

Due to his heroism for saving so many people, Forrest is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Apart from that, he unintentionally finds out his ability for Ping-Pong while he is in recovery. This ability enables him gaining popularity and also joins competition to play against China teams. At an anti-war demonstration in Washington, Forrest finally meets Jenny who missing such a long time.

After that, Forrest earning himself $25,000 because he supports a company that makes Ping-Pong paddles. He decided to use that amount of money to buy a shrimping boat to fulfill his promise to Bubba. His previous commander from Vietnam, Lieutenant Dan, joins him. Forrest is such a lucky man because his boat is the only surviving boat in the area after Hurricane Carmen, he starts to pull in huge amounts of shrimp and uses it to buy an entire fleet of shrimp boats. Lt. Dan invests the money in Apple Computer and Forrest is financially secure for the rest of his life. Then he returns home to see his mother who getting weak.

One day, Jenny returns to visit Forrest and he proposes marriage to her. She rejects.On a whim, Forrest suddenly decided to go for a run and this action make him famous again. Many followers accompany him throughout the running journeys.

After finish sharing his story, Forrest claims that he is waiting at the bus stop because he received a letter from Jenny and asks him to visit her. Once he is reunited with Jenny, Forrest discovers she has a young son, and he is the father. Jenny tells Forrest she is suffering from a kind of virus. Jenny and Forrest finally get married however Jenny dies soon afterward. The film ends with father and son waiting for the school bus on little Forrest's first day of school. Overall, this film used a very good technique which is narration of main character to bring out the whole story and eventually back to the present.