Visual Effects in “Constantine” (2005)

The topic for this week’s lecture was VFX, also known as Digital Visual Effects (DFX) which means to use computer hardware and software to create effects. VFX technology is also often associated with CG or Computer Generated effects/elements. The advantage with using CG and VFX is that the costs using it are low and it adds flexibility and realism to the movie creation. Almost all Hollywood movies uses VFX to some degree to enhance the look of the movie, create sceneries and situations that can not exist in real life. When using VFX in movies there is a wide range of tools and techniques available to create the scenes and situations that former just have existed in imagination.

Constantine stars Keanu Reeves who is a kind of exorcist who can see demons and angels and also helps people being possessed by evil creatures by using relics. In the movie he travels to hell to help a police detective finding out what happened to her sister and also find out that demons from hell are getting closer contact with the world. So he has to find a way of fighting them off.
This movie required an enormous range of visual effects to be able to make the action scenes, meeting with demons, how you travel to hell, what hell looks like, how angels look like and how demons interfere in the world. I thought the movie has succeeded in a great way with the creating and visualising of these things and made the movie look very realistic.
In the class we also watched some of the extra material for the movie. The movie has a great special feature part showing the creation of the visual elements, the production face, how “Constantine” was conceptualised from being a cartoon figure to a movie character and also about the cosmology behind “Constantine”. These clips showed what kind of VFX combinations they had in different scenes of the movie. They also showed the great range of physical objects and robots that had to be made for the movie to make the scenes look real and these clips answered a lot of the thoughts I’ve formerly had about how it is possible to make certain scenes look so incredible real, because there are several times I’ve been thinking in movies that there is no way all of this is just made on a computer.
It was fascinating to see the big and detailed process the film team made to visualise hell in the movie and how they actually had to create a big part of it and its figures. Another thing these behind the scenes material taught me was how they created a lot of the creatures of the movie. I found it fascinating how it is the combination of different elements, costumes, actors, computer generation and 3D markers that makes these creatures look real, and it also tells how much work it is to make the elements look real.
My favourite scenes in the movie is first when Constantine meets Gabriel in the library when you suddenly see the enormous wings behind him which gives him an extreme authority and you can see why he is God’s archangel. I also like the scene when Constantine visits hell and the uncomfortableness the scene creates and makes you feel. I also like the final scene when Satan arrives and you see his feet dripping and landing before he gets to Constantine, you know he is Satan and how superior he is. I really like how the movie has managed to create great authority to the characters because it is dealing with some of the supposed greatest authorities in the world.

In this week’s lecture the topic was editing, and since the technique in the lecture room failed we couldn’t watch a movie this time so we were asked to just write about editing.
The most popular editing technique is the conventional editing, and it is this type of editing we see in the traditional Hollywood movies. The most essential characteristic of this editing technique is that it takes out all the non essential elements in the content without destroying the flow, which means that it compromises time, uses the smallest amount of takes. Another editing element is to connect multiple storylines together through parallel editing. A movie can have several sub stories within the film where the movie switches between these stories and they make progress in the main story, and through the different sub stories we also get to learn more about the other story.
As the stories are tied more and more closely together, the swopping between the stories gets faster and faster, which means that the pace of the movie speeds up as the movie closes up to the climax. An example of a movie that uses several sub stories that gets bound together towards the end through the speed of the pace is “Smokin’ Aces”.


Like the big scene at the end of the movie where Alicia Keyes and partner are preparing to shoot from a building and the police closes up to them, the several very different sub stories suddenly gets connected to each other and the movie ends up making sense in the end and because of the clever editing in the movie you get surprised over how it ends up, and impressed by the story.
I’ve noticed that there are several directors that like to use certain editing techniques in their movies.
Baz Luhrman for example often uses a lot of fast editing in his movies to keep the intensity, together with a lot of montages, especially in Moulin Rouge, but also in Romeo+Juliet, when Romeo and his friends come to a party and takes some drugs.
Quentin Tarantino likes to use different and unusual editing in his movies, in Reservoir Dogs he uses retro perspective editing, in Pulp Fiction he uses non linear editing where the stories jumps back and forth in time, in Jackie Brown he also uses non linear editing in some parts of the movie, in Kill Bill he uses chapters to edit and separate the movie parts and in Death Proof he has two different sequels in the movie, two parts that even though they have a lot of similarities they have few connections to the previous story.

Editing allows the director to shoot parts of the movie out of plot order and to shoot scenes at different places and return to them for example. When there is a change of location in the movie, the editor usually uses an establishing shot showing where the scene takes place, either in a bank building, a mountain or in Paris, to illustrate to the audience where the scene takes place.
Another example of a movie that uses sub stories that first in the movie does not seem to have any connection to each other but later is tied together is the Cohen Brother’s “No Country for Old Men”. The movie starts very slowly with very long takes and little action, but through the use of faster pace and shorter takes the movie eventually becomes filled with action and excitement.

Reflections over Digital Video Course

When I first chose this course I didn’t know quite what to expect to learn. I’ve always been interested in movies and have become more interested in evaluating them by looking at the quality of different aspects and think of what makes me like a movie and what makes me dislike a movie. I also have a friend who’s been studying media and communication and from the things she could tell me about the different tricks and techniques film-makers do to make the movie more interesting also made me think of doing a closer study of movies myself.
My expectations to this course was to learn more about how movies are made and whether or not there are certain recipes for how to create a good movie, and what kind of tools and techniques directors do to set the audience in the right mood. In the course description it also said that that we would learn more about the process of making a movie like costs and use of time

I find movies interesting because they are such a great way of learning people about different aspects of life, society and history, especially since more and more people has become less interested in reading literature on these topics, so movies are a great alternative to get some of the same knowledge we get through books. I know so many people who never read books or newspapers or watch news and quality current news programs on TV, but often discuss or learn about important matters as mentioned by watching movies, so I think movies are an important resource in educating people outside of school and learning them about right or wrong or at least makes them reflect more over things that happen in society and why they happen.

Another reason why I find movies interesting compared to books, is that I've learned so much from being sceptical and negative to movies where I can't see there is a very interesting plot in from reading the cover of it. I used to be very sceptical of dramas, superhero-movies, foreign movies and also to low-budget movies and thought they must be really boring. But there are so many times I've been negative to watch a movie, especially if someone else have picked it, just to find out it was really great! That is also a difference from books and movies, because you need to devote a lot more time and concentration when you read a book that if it doesn't get you straight away, you just put it away and find something else. With movies they are so short that you get time to get into the story faster, even though it is a bit boring or confusing.

During the course I’ve learned a lot of what I was hoping to learn more about, what I’ve found particularly interesting was when we learned about scriptwriting and the script-formula, and the basic rule to make a movie successful. This also included the five essential elements for a good movie, which has in particular had an influence for how I look at a movie now and think of how the movie fulfilled these elements.
We have also learned a lot of useful things about the technical aspects of creating a movie and why it is important to have good lighting, soundtrack, clipping and framing techniques and what kind of function they have in a movie.
The course has definitely changed the way I look at movies. I’ve probably become more cynical of how I evaluate a movie, especially if it is a poorer one. I think of where the filmmakers have found the inspiration for a movie, how they’ve conceptualised it and why a movie of that topic would be interesting. I focus more on how good the technical aspects of it are, and sometimes think of how they could have been improved.

Lighting: "Commando", 1985

In this week’s lecture we learned about lighting in movies and we watched an action movie from 1985 directed by Mark L. Lester called “commando”.
Our task was to see how lighting was used in the movie and write about it in our blog.
I spent a lot of time during the movie to look at the lighting techniques, so much that it took a while before I realised that there is a lack of good lighting techniques in the movie. In fact there are a lot of mistakes and big parts of the movie seems dark and a lot of details are unclear and confusing.
“Commando” is about a former soldier whose daughter gets kidnapped by gangsters who wants to force John to kill a president for them. But he refuses to do so and starts a long journey and fight where he kills everyone who gets in his way of getting to his daughter. He also gets some help from a flight attendant.
Since this is an action movie I think it is particularly important that the lighting quality is good, because there are a lot of fast, chaotic shooting and to be able to pay attention to where the focus is in the scenes. Although I think some of the problems with the lighting in the movie can be blamed on the fact that it is made in the 80’s where the film-quality probably was a lot lower than what you can expect in movies today.
The scenes that really made me confused about lighting use in the beginning was the scenes in the car-shop, and inside shots in the car in particular. The characters became very dark and had a lot of shadow covering for the face details. I couldn’t see any lighting use in these scenes at all, except from the light shining in from outside.
In the beginning of the movie when Arnold Schwarzenegger is introduced, I noticed how they use the light from the sun in one of the scenes to make a natural backlight on him as he walks on his way home.Another problem with the lighting use in the movie, was that I think it often made the people’s face look very shiny and almost sweaty all the time, Arnold in particular, but maybe this is made intentionally to.
In most of the conversations during the movie I also noticed how the characters face often lay half dark in shadow, and I can’t remember seeing any scenes where there was use of backlight on the characters, or hair light or filling light.
This means that most of the lighting use in the movie probably comes from use of natural lights. Like when Arnold is climbing to get into the warehouse in the end of the movie, I noticed how the scene was lighted up by the natural lighting on the building. I also used the example with having daylight shining in through the windows in scenes taken inside when it is possible. The is one scene where there should be a lot of potential to use natural lighting, but where I still thought the scene seemed a bit dark, and that was the scene in the shopping-mall.
All over my conclusion is that it was a very entertaining action movie, but the lighting use could have been a lot better, especially since it was an action movie, but maybe a lot of it can be blamed on the fact that it was made in the 80’s.

Blades of glory

For one of the lectures we missed in the beginning of the semester we were asked to write a blog about a movie of our own selection, and include the five essential elements of a movie.
I chose the movie “Blades of Glory” from 2007, directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, as it is one of my favourite movies from the last year, and is a movie I like to watch over and over again.

The five essential elements:
1. A believable lead character.

The two lead characters Chazz Michael Micheals and Jimmy MacElroy are two professional ice skaters, even though none of them seems very smart and are both easily distracted by emotions that more than once destroy for their career. We find them believable and likable because they are funny and both kind and harmless of nature, even though it may not seem like that in the beginning.

2. Their urgent and difficult problem: They both get shut out from all future skating, which has been both of their lives until now, and they find themselves in a depressing and disgracing situation with no job or friends.
3. Their attempt to resolve the problem, which fails and make their situation more desperate: They find a way to get back into skating again by competing in couple’s skating and starts training together. They become better friends and everything seems to go well, until their competitors, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldernberg, previous champions in the sport, tries to destroy their friendship by setting them up with, Jimmy’s girlfriend, Katie, and makes him think she’s been cheating him with Chazz. Jimmy runs away and refuses to let Chazz contact him, and it is the day before the Olympics.

4. The crisis, their last chance to win, the anticlimax: Both Jimmy and Chazz is captured by the Van Waldernbergs so they can’t make it to the competition.
5. The successful resolution: Chazz manages to escape from Stranz Van Waldernberg, by using ice skates to get loose and races him to the competition. Jimmy also manages to find his way out, but first has to overcome his fear of bad hygiene by getting the key to his handcuffs from dirty toiletpaper from the bin. They both manage to come to the competition in time and wins.
They become friends again when Jimmy finds out that Chazz didn’t betray him with his girlfriend. Chazz who has been a lonesome wolf as he puts it himself, now admits that he has found a “brother” in Jimmy and won’t be lonely again.

Audio lecture: "Elephant"(2003)

The topic of this week’s lecture was audio, and the movie we watched in this lecture was “Elephant” from 2003, directed by Gus Van Sant and the second movie in his Death Trilogy, of movies based on actual incidents. This movie is based on the school massacre at Columbine High School in 1999. In the movie we follow several ordinary students at a high school, each living out their ordinary school life, totally unconcerned of the shooting massacre that is about to happen. Our task for this week’s topic was to take a look at the soundtrack used in the movie.






The movie is very slow in style and action, with very long shots with little action where we mostly follow students for a long time, not doing very much.ole movie almost seems neutral and banal sometimes, with very little action in it, and a long build up before the climax. One of the scenes is over five minutes for example, and this makes the movie a long and slow process to watch as the tension builds up and the school massacre starts. The quietness and calm of the movie also emphasises and increases how we see the two students planning and the great relaxation and how normal they think and act their horrible plan out, how incredible little feelings and consideration of how bad they are about to destroy their fellow students and their families life.

There are four elements of the soundtrack in a movie: narration, music, sound effects and the dialog. These elements are used in various degrees in this movie, but even though these elements may not be as clearly used in this movie as in many others, they still serve an important role for the mood of the movie.
There are few if not any elements of narration in this movie. This element of the soundtrack is mostly used in educational movies and documentaries, and even though this kind of tool to add information to the movie could be used in “Elephant”, since it is based on school massacres from realities, the director has chosen to let the characters and the story itself tell what is happening, through shots of students in their normal school life, letting us know or feel that something is about to happen which will change these students life drastically. We also know that one or two of these students are the actual gunmen, but all of the students we meet seem like normal people, including the two boys we later find out are the boys who is planning the school massacre. This increases the feeling that behind the apparently normal surface of these high school teenagers, there is so much inside everyone that no one knows about that can both be good or bad. There is more to a person than its surface.

The music used in “Elephant” suits the mood and the slow action of the movie. The main purpose of the music element is to add emotion to the moving pictures and to guide the audience to know what to feel in different sequences of the scenes. The music used in “Elephant” is most classical piano music, especially Beethoven, but also Hildegard Westerkamp, and probably has connection to one of the gunmen, Alex who we early in the movie meets playing Beethoven’s “Für Elise” to himself on the piano. In the final scene with Alex this song is also played in the background, maybe to remind us or illustrate that this is the same boy who we earlier met so innocently playing the piano to himself seemingly harmless.
The use of music in the movie has little purpose to build up tension in the scenes. The music doesn’t tell us clearly when the scenes are getting scarier, happier or more exciting, as a thriller or action movie would in a much stronger degree. In the scene where we follow the bulimic girls through the cafeteria, the music used is an exception, because then the music is very hectic and fast, using a lot of rhythmic instruments, maybe to illustrate the chaos and the hectic tension that can be experienced in a high school cafeteria during lunch break.





In “Elephant” the use of sound effects is very important to create the feeling of being on a high school. The most important sound effect elements used is the various sounds from students nearby that we can’t often see when we follow the various students on their way around the school, and we get the feeling of the students being just one of hundreds of other students on a high school. The noise from students, classrooms and other school activity is often used in increasingly and decreasingly degree, as to show that the characters are moving from crowded areas to less crowded areas and so on. Another important sound effect element used in this movie is the sound of the various shotguns and explosives. In the last part of the movie, when we follow Benny for example, there is no music, but the sound of screaming people, explosion sounds and gunshots tells us that something very bad is going on, and increases the feeling of being present the school when this is happening. I would say that this movie relies more on the sound effect part of the soundtrack to create the wanted mood and tension in the movie and with the audience, than the music.

At last it is the dialogue. The dialogue in this movie is special, because a lot of it was improvised during shooting, so a lot of the script was created as the scenes where shot. Most of the characters in the movie used their own first names and many of the actors didn’t have any previous acting experience. I think this was to make the characters seem more like normal students, with normal reactions and conversations. The dialogue is mostly very ordinary, and a lot of the time the characters doesn’t even say that much, if it’s not the students we follow through their random conversations, like Nathan and Carrie, talking about a party they’re going to and the girls talking about going to the mall.



So the contrasts when we first meet Eric and Alex, who also seems to have an ordinary conversation, and then we find out that it is actually about planning to kill their fellow students, makes the shock for us viewers bigger to find out who the gunmen are, and this turns up the tension in the movie slightly and keeps it going towards the end. From this point on, the dialogue in the movie becomes more and more surreal and unconventional.

So even though this movie was a movie without any particular action or excitement, it succeeded in keeping me as the viewer still interested, by building up a tension and an expectation of something very unusual that is going to happen, all of this much thanks to a special use of the soundtrack for it.

Framing and Composition: "Kill Bill, vol.2"

Composition and framing was the topic for this week’s lecture, and the movie we watched was “Kill Bill, volume 2”, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Composition is considered as an art, and if the guidelines for composition are broken, it must be done by someone who understands and recognises how they can be successfully transcended. In this movie, Tarantino uses a wide range of untraditional and original composition- and framing techniques, which differs a lot with the traditional principles. He does it very successfully and makes the movie spectacular, interesting and aesthetically pleasant to watch.
The way he uses the framing and composition techniques also play an important role for how the story is told, making it easier to guide the viewer through the story.




For example, he uses black and white colours in the scenes from the wedding massacre at the Two Pines, illustrating that this is something that happened long ago, in the past. In another part of the movie that shows scenes from the past, Pai Mei’s training of the Bride; it is used cold, gray/blue/green-looking colours, which also contrasts that it is something from the past.

One of the examples of where it is used untraditional composition techniques is in the scene when the Bride is outside the chapel and meets Bill there. When they are talking to each other there is not enough talking room and it is use of big close ups on both persons. When they are talking to each other, the camera is only showing one of the parts at the time, but rather focuses on their feet to show how they are closing up on each other. There is although an object in the background of the characters, the electricity chain pole that connects the two people to each other.

Another scene that uses unconventional composition is the training scenes with Pai Mei. There are a lot of fast changes in the framing sizes of Pai Mei, that illustrates how fast and unpredictable he is, and also suits to the fast clipping Kung Fu movies and Kung Fu scenes are well known for.

In the scene where the Bride finally faces Bill, there is a fast and intense close up as she sees him, which illustrates that the final moment she’s been waiting for is about to happen, and also illustrates her strong emotions about Bill and what he has done to her.
In this movie there were a lot of camera angles that impressed me, and I liked how the big effect of these camera angles had for my viewing of the movie and for the understanding of the plot and also how it illustrated the mood and the action in the different scenes. One of the scenes I liked the most and made the biggest impression on me, was the scene where the Bride is buried. It gave you great understanding and empathy for the panic and fright she must have felt and for the progress of how she finally gets control of her feelings and start the fight to get out. Since it begins with total darkness, you understand the confusion and panic for not knowing where she is, how far beneath the ground she is and you get the feeling of being there. When she finds the torch and starts the battle to get through the lid, and finally starts to dig her way up to the surface, you see how she overcomes an impossible task, so it seems more impressive.
I was also impressed by the fighting scenes between the Bride and Elle Driver, because the camera angles managed to show how both parts are struggling to fight each other off, and how they desperately seeks for new tools and strategies. The camera angles manage to show how good both of the girls are, and how much they have to use all of their skills and knowledge to stay alive. The finale of the scene is a very good ending, with the Bride using a very dirty trick to put Elle out of action, by stabbing her eye out, since Elle herself always have been using the dirtiest tricks.

The fighting scene between the Bride and Pai Mei was also very impressive. It makes Pai Mei look supernatural and really shows how superior he his.