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David Fincher

07/05/2024

"Guess who's back, back again? Shady's back, tell a friend" (I had to type this. It felt right in my spirit)

Hey everyone! I'm back again to blog on MI4012. Most of the time I'm so busy and focused on MI4011 that I end up forgetting about the rest of the modules. But of course, this needs to change, and I need to stay in touch with the rest of the modules as well. Trying my best.

In this post I will be talking about a director I absolutely love 'David Fincher'. Fincher has directed some of my favorite thriller/suspense/psychological films like 'Gone Girl', 'Zodiac' and 'Seven' (The movie we watched in class last week)

To be honest, I'm a sucker for these types of films. It's not just about the genre. What makes these types of films so interesting to me are the plot, linear storytelling, acting and the feeling the scenes in the movie create.

Before I talk about David Fincher, I would like to note that I have watched this video by 'Studio Binder' to get a much better understanding of Fincher's style of directing.

After watching this video I learned a few things about Fincher's directing style. He sees importance in,

Blocking/ shot Composition

Relentless Scene Takes (He's known to be a director who records many takes of scenes when creating movies)

Directing with precision

Color Theory

Feeling (He wants to create the right moods and feelings in scenes. Specially through acting and set designs)

Like Fincher mentioned in the interview, shit composition plays an important part in film recording to show which character is taking charge of the scene.

e.g. - Gone girl - In the scene where Amy meets her husband for the first time, we see that the characters have a 50-50 share of the scene. once her husband starts talking or flirting, he takes away most of the screen space. This vice versa when Amy starts to take charge of the conversation.

#Youtube

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Movie No. 3 - Seven

03/05/2024

Ya'll.... I am so excited that we are going to watch 'Seven' and analyze the film. I watched it last much with my fam and it was honestly such a jaw dropping film!

detective somerset (the other detectives seem to despise him)

"crime of passion"

detective Millis

"seven days"

dull background with yellow lighting

Film intro - Shows the killer's journals, The killer's preparing his journals, pictures, highlighting, God.

Somerset - organized, neat, especially with his process of getting ready for work (first scene)

Millis - Messy, rushing

Lamps (Yellow light) - common source of light seen

crime scene 1 - Gluttony Victim (hand and legs tied, head on the table, bruises) MONDAY

There's a bit of a rocky relationship between Somerset (senior) and Millis (junior)

Crime scene 2 - (Millis) ELI COULD - defense attorney Greed Victim

TUESDAY (Clue : The wife's face with the blood circled around her eyes.

(Somerset wants to resign)

suspicious plastic pieces found in the Gluttony victim's stomach)

Somerset goes back to the Gluttony crime scene. He's looking in the fridge. Any clues. Plastic pieces on the floor match those of the plastic pieces. Somerset places them and moves the fridge to discover a note from the killer and the word "Gluttony" written on the wall.

Somerset picks up that the killer is killing people based on the 'Seven Deadly Sins'.

Somerset is in the library to learn more about the killer - divine Comedy, Dante's inferno, "seven children slain" (research is given to Mills)

Cut scenes showing Mills looking at the crime scene photographs.

WEDNESDAY

(detective Mills is now assigned to Somerset's office)

Mills' wife helps them bond by inviting Somerset for supper (Thier first names are shared - David Mills, William Somerset)

Greed victim - wording and note (merchant of Venice)

~Religion, Literature and Art~

(clue from the Greed case - upside down painting, fingerprints covered up on the wall with dust, not the victim's fingerprints)

THURSDAY - Prints results (Victor - Sloth victim)

Victor has a criminal record, police thinks it's him (Mills and Somerset are suspicious of it)

(There was a man who was in the building while the SWAT team went in the catch victor)

Air fresheners in Victor's room, pictures of victim, Victor (Sloth victim) is alive.

(Journalist walks in to take pics of Mills and Somerset. Mills chases him away - Since I've watched the movie I know he is the killer)

FRIDAY

Tracy meets Somerset for breakfast. He's the only person she knows who lives here. She's pregnant.

Somerset figures out that the killer has planned everything. He's a mastermind.

'Library Card' - first clue to finding the killer's identity

~ FBi / bureau friend of Somerset's to run a list~

JOHN DOE - (Police found his apartment)

chase scene, they break into his house afterwards

I realized something, while Somerset was trying to understand the killer he read the books in the library, Mills on the other hand looked at the crime scene photos.

In John's apartment, Somerset discovers John's journals whereas Mills discovers the photographs taken by the killer. (Interesting match up)

SATURDAY - Lust case (death victim - Blonde prostitute, man held at gun point)

Questioning - Man held at gun point to kill the prostitute and the person in the glass cage

SUNDAY - Pride victim

Library - John enters the library right after the detectives, finger tips cutoff

black mail plea

Mills and Somerset are driving John to the location where the remaining bodies are.

John asks for the time (because of the horrifying delivery)

Envy case - John Doe (killed by Mills) - Killed Mills' wife

Wrath Victim - David Mills

[mi4012mariaperera]

Dunkirk - perspective drawing

Air

2. Water

3. Land

[mi4012mariaperera]

Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Hi again! I'm back to talk about another amazing director. I say amazing director because Gangubai was such a beautiful movie in terms of aesthetics and plot.

Before I express my viewpoints on Bhansali, have a look at the videos I watched to understand his style of cinematography

I haven't watched alot of Bollywood films in all honesty. But after watching Gungubai, I feel like I need to get started.

It's so amazing how Bhansali was able to take this real life story and tell it in such an emotional and creative manner.

In the 'director style breakdown' video learnt that Bhansali used water as 'motif'. It is apparat that he used water to show scenes of both life and death of characters. He also uses water for aesthetic proposes in his films.

#Youtube

[mi4012mariaperera]

Christopher Nolan

02/05/2024

Hey! It's been a while since I've last posted on this blog. At the moment I'm suffering with having too much of work on my plate to finish.

Anyways, this was some work I had to complete a while back. But unfortunately, I couldn't do so since I paid most of my attention to the MI4011 blog. But I'm back again!!! (Yeeepeee)

Alright! so for starters, we were told to have a look at Christopher Nolan's style of cinematography and express our views on it.

Before I express my views, these are the links to the videos I watched to understand the genius of his film style!

Out of all of his movies, I've only watched Inception, Dark Knight and Tennet and Dunkirk. In all honesty, I sometimes don't understand the storylines in some of his films (Talking about my experience of watching Tennet) but maybe that's the beauty behind his style of writing.

Nolan's films are known to be a work of art and not meant to have well structures, linear plot line. He has mentioned that his plot lines are similar to a "hair pin". He has also mentioned that he uses a geometric/ mathematical way of writing stories. That honestly sound complicated and impressive at the same time.

I think the beauty of being open minded is to be able to see the beauty in all types of films and having the curiosity to dig deep and see the bigger picture.

I don't know if I'll ever become a director one day, but I know for sure I would try to learn a thing or two from Nolan's tyle of cinematography because of how complexly beautiful it is.

If you think about it, it's not easy to go against the norm of writing stories by following a 'non-linear structure' it's confusing and requires you to find a way to connect the dots in the circle you created.

Out of all his movies, I would say my favorite for now is 'inception'. One reason as to why I like it is because Leonardo De Caprio's there. (It feels cool knowing that we are birthday twins<3) But the main reason is for the complex story line and the cinematography.

As an anime fan, I should make a note that 'inception' was inspired by Satoshi Kon's animated film 'Paprika'. But regardless, it's incredible how Nolan brought this animated concept and brought it to life in a live action film.

I believe another common thing to be found in Nolan's films is a 'motif'. A motif seems to be an ordinary prop that might have symbolic value, but it's much more than that.

e.g. - In inception, the characters who enter dreams use a small object to help them keep tract of what's real and what isn't. Dicaprio's character uses a spinning top to help him out with this. At first, I thought it would just be symbolic to keep him together in reality. But this tiny object, which was seen towards the end left the audience confused with the ending. Since the top kept spinning at the end, the audience doesn't know if it kept spinning since Decaprio's character is still dreaming, or if it eventually falls because he finally meets his children in real life. That's how powerful this motif was.

That's pretty much it for my take on Nolan's cinematography. I know it isn't much but during my free time I would love to do more research on him.

Thank you for reading!!!

#Youtube

[mi4012mariaperera]

Dunkirk - Movie No. 2

17/04/2024

4 army soldiers walk in an abandoned city.

shots fire and only one person escapes

his comrades look down at him

soldiers lined up

death seems like a norm

monotonous

robotic - soldier's reactions

3 character povs

air force

navy

army

camera angle choice when carrying the wounded soldier

camera angle usage with the airforce pilot's movements - Tilted, sideways, upside down

close up shots, rule of thirds shots

minimal dialogs, more visual elements in the film

main color scheme in the film - Blue, Grey, Black, Brown, Yellow (Dull Scheme)

Binocular pov

realism and immersion - for the audience

H/W

Draw 9 perspective drawings from the film that you liked. (use screen cap)

3 each for Land, Water and Air

[mi4012mariaperera]

Gangubai - Movie No. 1

03/04/2024

During the afternoon sessions for lectures, we are watching Ganguba. This is one of the movies we will assigned to watch for MI4012.

Bhansali Productions

Girl is crying, makeup is forced on her (14 years old)

The ladies are evil

Dark setting

Like Red light district

GANGUBAI - rebal type (white saree)

Girl is treated like a save, in chains - Madhu

Ganguba’s from a prestigious family - Black and Red setting

Ramnik - (using the fact thats eh wants to be a movie star to get her out of the house. Didn’t tell her parents)

Aunt Sheela! (PURE EVIL) - Sheela’s brothel

- she’s rule over this city one day

Someone tries to kill her.

Bilaal - (Protection)

As white as a swan

MONEYYY HUNGRYY PPL

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Assessment 10 - Model Building (part 4)

Here’s the final part for the model design!! I remember Dinendri asked us to use different lighting and see how the model would look.

This is how I used the phone flashes for lighting! Was genuinely scared the phones would break the model but no worries 😂

Take a look at the pictures I took using the tea candles (yellow light)

2. Pictures taken by using the phone flashlight (white light)

Enjoy the following video and experience what it was like to be in Danny’s shoes!

[mi4012mariaperera]

Assessment 10 - Model Building (part 3)

Hello again! So this part is where I talk about the assembling process of all the things on the set and the final look of the model!

So…AVENGERS…..assemble! (I’m so sorry if that sounds like such a dumb joke💀)

Step 6 - Assembling Process

Kudos to whoever invented Double tape because that helped me assemble everything in the model to perfection!

For this I used hard cardboard to create the ceiling for the scene!

This is the final look of the model!

Step 7 - Cleaning up the mess💀💔

There was retiform everywhere in my room (still I see pieces of retiform everywhere) So I obviously had to clean it up!

Have a look at what was mess was like

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Assessment 10 - Model Building (part 2)

23/03/2024

I’m currently mad because Tumblr decided to be an impatient little brat and discarded everything, I typed down😀 (Tumblr likes to play games huh? 🙂)

Okay I’m gonna calm down now and type everything single step by step process work (which is a lot btw)

IMPORTANT STUFF:-

Hi there! Welcome to part 2 of my process work for the model building! Like I mentioned in my previous post, this is related to ‘the shining’ scene where Danny’s on the labyrinth Carpet.

Step 2 - Sculpting and Painting the walls

For the White walls on the side I used retiform. Since the retiform was quite large, I had to use a cutting blade to trim most of the edges for the walls.

I enjoyed this process because it made me feel like I was a Walmart version of Michelangelo.

For the back wall I used hard cardboard and painted it in white (unfortunately I couldn’t take a separate picture of it)

Step 3 - Painting the Doors

I decided to use hard cardboard and painted the doors with Dark Brown to give it a wooden look.

Step 4 - Red Elevator

For this I used retiform and painted it using Black and Red paint!

Step 5 - The light bulb plan

Sk I decided to have 2 places where a light source would be present. First was right at the top center and the other would be behind the exit door.

For the light bulbs, I decided to cut the top part of plastic bottles for that ceiling light look.

As for the lighting, I decided to use battery operated tea candles and phone flashes. (Stole my mom’s and dad’s phone for this🙃)

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Assessment 10 - Model building

20/03/2024

Today we got started on making the model for the ‘Heterotopia movie scene set’ of our choice. For this assessment Dinendri requested us to make the model in size A4.

For the ‘Danny on the Carpet’ scene, my plan was to first paint the labyrinth carpet on sketch paper and then paste it onto thick cardboard. The next step would be the make the Whitewalls using retiform. The next step would be to add details like the lights and room doors. Then Finally! We can get to assembling everything and the pictures.

We have to submit this on Sunday so I hope I won’t mess up in bits of my hardwork😭

Step 1 - Designing the Labyrinth Carpet (a.k.a. The hard part)

For starters, I knew that things were going to be tough for me given the fact that I have to paint the labyrinth carpet in ‘the shining’. But I was determined to give it a try because it’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I spent majority of my class time just to finish this puzzlingly designed carpet. Kudos to the people who actually made it in the film. Once thing I can admit and give advice to anyone who tries to draw this carpet is that, the sketching process will take forever💀💔

This is my process work for the carpet from start to finish!

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Assessment 10 - Brief and sketches

19/03/2024

For this assessment we have to select a scene where Heterotopia is being portrayed. After selecting a film, we must select a specific location in the film, create the floor plan, architecture structure and then build the model.

Since the most recent film I had watched was ‘The Shining’ for Irushi’s essay assessment, I decided to create the model from that movie.

At first I was invested in building the model for the ‘Red elevator’ scene. But I changed my mind and decided to do the ‘Danny in the Carpet scene’. I chose this scene because I was mesmerized by the Labyrinth carpet designs and I wanted to challenge myself and make an attempt to replicate it.

Here’s the link to the the ‘Danny on the Carpet scene’.

Floor Plan

Location Perspectives

Architectural Sketch

#Youtube

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Assessment 9 - Submission

17/03/2024

hello again! Today I plan on blogging about my submission for assessment 9. I have a few assignments that I must complete for tomorrow. However, since this assignment isn't too hard to handle, I decided to finish it off yesterday before forgetting about it.

Just like I've mentioned in my previous post, we must choose a scene from the 'Kung Fu Panda 1' movie, take screenshots of the change in camera shots of that scene and sketch out a story board for it using the 'Blocking Composition' method. We have to create a minimum of 12 panels.

I chose the 'Po and Shifu' training scene for this assessment. I absolutely love this scene because it's the starting point of Po's and Shifu's friendship.

In the beginning of the movie, we see that Shifu dislikes and judges Po, thinking there's no way he could save China as the 'Dragon Worrier'. Once this scene comes to play, we see that Shifu, despite the fact that he disliked and doubted Po's ability, he decided to take an approach of training that would suit Po. (Since Po loves to eat, Shifu decided to use that to his advantage in training Po.)

You could say that this scene shows the character development of both Po and Shifu. Po finally gets his act together, trains hard and starts to believe in himself. Shifu becomes open minded and builds his faith and trust in Po.

Here's the link to the training scene!

Here are the scene screenshots along with my Block Composition sketch of each scene.

I would like to mention that I didn't focus on the lighting for the objects in the environment. I only paid attention on the lighting on the characters. In any places where you see 'Greyish White' on the character, it is the color I have used to show the 'lighting' on the characters' bodies.

After looking back at the artwork from start to finish, I realized that I may have not added the proper lighting on the characters for the first few panels.

I will wait for Dinendri's feedback before making any changes.

That's all for today. Thank you for reading :D Have an amazing day!

#Youtube

[mi4012mariaperera]

Assessment 9

13/03/2024

After the Pictionary game, Dinendri gave us a run through our next assessment. For this assessment, we must select our favorite scene from the 'Kung Fu Panda 1' movie, take screen shots from that scene and using the Blocking composition we must draw these scenes as a story board. (minimum 12 panels) She advised us to map out the shadows and lighting on the characters as well.

This assessment is due for next week. So, I have time to draw this. I'm hoping to finish it by today after completing the sketch and essay needed for this week.

I wanted to get started on the digital drawing today. However, my laptop battery dies so I had to draw on my sketch book. I draw 2 panels from the ‘Po and Shifu training scene’.

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Heterotopia Movies - Pictionary

13/03/2024

Heterotopia is a world within a world, but it can't be a magical fantasy world that isn't on earth. It could be a magical garden or a spooky cemetery. Anyone should be able to enter a place like this in the real world.

Today our lecturer asked us to do some research on movies that show heterotopia. Once we finish our research, we must split into 2 groups and play Pictionary for our peers to guess the movie based on the sketches of the movie.

These are the list of movies I made

(Jumanji won’t be considered because it takes place in another dimension/ alternate reality)

This is the brief for the PICTIONARY game

For this game I was part of team ‘Anti-munus’ with Shiza, Hemansha, Cain, Semini, Pinipa, Mmalith and Nihindu.

It was a fun game. Everyone from our team was invested in the game and I believe we did good team work to win!

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Assessment 8 :- Promo Trailer storyboard

For part 2 of this assessment, we must select one of the movie posters we have created and draw a story board for a promo trailer for the movie.

For the final part of this assessment, I decided to create the promo trailer for 'Aladdin'.

Story Board Idea:-

Jasmine's crown is on her balcony. All of a sudden, Aladdin's turban appears on the magic carpet to visit Jasemine's crown. Aladdin's turban hops onto the balcony to be with Jasmine's crown while the magic carpet flies away. While the carpet flies away the title of the movie will appear.

Note: - The reason why I added the headwear instead of the characters is because most of the posters for Aladdin have him and Jasmine together. I thought that having their headwear hoping onto the carpet instead of them would be an interesting way of representing both characters for this short promo trailer.

Story Board: -

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Assessment 8 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets poster (No.4)

Before designing this poster, I had to rewatch this movie. It's been quite a long time since I've last watched a Harry Potter movie.

Sketch 1:-

I initially thought about having Dobby on the poster, but he isn't the most significant character/ center of attention in the story. So, I decided to come up with another sketch.

sketch 2/ final:-

One of the most important items in this movie is Tom Riddle's diary. I decided to add it to the poster along with the symbol of the 'serpent of Slytherin'. This would have more of a symbolic connection to the movie.

Color Palette :-

This is the final poster!