Visual Theory Reviews & Research
Visual theory Reviews
This entry consists of short and brief reviews from Alex Todd's section of our unit, looking at visual theory- reason as to why I am making an entry for this is for research purposes and to show my development and understanding with what to look for and pick out in video footage.
Task 1
"Morning all,
I hope you’re all well and safe.Firstly, thank you for all of your short reviews. It’s been great reading them. Please see below the links to three films (or, parts of films). This week, they all use a form of montage. Montage is a method of film-making that slices and re-stitches moving images to expand, focus, or advance the narrative of a film or animation. The first clip is from an early film by Sergei Eisenstein – an early theorist of montage – and uses montage to draw connections between two acts of violence (this clip has very violent scene, so please avoid this clip if you’re not comfortable with violence against humans or animals). The second clip is from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, the final film in Sergio Leone’s western trilogy, and employ montage to build the tension in the movie’s final standoff. The third and final clip is from Pixar’s ‘Up’, which uses montage to rapidly move through time, and guide the viewer through the marriage of its principal character. Please select one clip and, once again, write a review of 140 words by the end of the day (21/04). (Alex)
Up the marriage scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjAFMNkCDo
My Review
For this review I’ll talk about the marriage scene from up. This scene is at the beginning of the film and is one of my favourite scenes from the film, because it is very symbolic, emotional and very meaningful. I love the translations of the story in the scene. How quickly the motion changes from happy to sad within a few seconds. It shows a standard relationship between man and woman. Showing how they grow together, spending everyday together till the very end. I love the fact there was no speech in this section of the film as the animation did the talking. I think that worked well and had some clever sections within the animation using a traditional and stop motion animation and how they’ve edited the animation example there was a lot of symbolism in that scene with babies in the clouds- to convey they want a family together for instance.
Week 2:
Task 2
"Evening all, I hope you’re all well and safe.Thank you for all of your short reviews last week. Please see below the links to three short films (or, parts of feature films). This week, they all use a single shot technique. Unlike last week’s clips, which focused on how frequent cuts can be used to focus or reshape time in a piece of moving image, this week’s clips will focus on a technique that, instead of slicing time into small sections, opens it up into longer segments.The first is the opening shot of ‘Touch of Evil’, a feature-length film directed by Orson Wells. This tracking shot begins with a bomb being placed in the rear of a car, and ends with the car exploding on the US side of the American/Mexico border. This single shot introduces not only the main plot of the film (the explosion) and its context, but also the film’s principal character, the Mexican agent Miguel Vargas, played by Charlton Heston." (Alex)
My Review
The film is about a forgotten actor who has moved on from the life of an actor but still wants fame and fortune, in this clip specifically, you can see the Bird man is himself playing Birdman in the past reminding the man we see him as today almost like an inner voice or conscience saying, you can do it, you know you want to. We see Birdman’s alter ego arise- bringing the man’s nostalgia as he wants the fame and attention- so we see the visuals that Birdman is created as the supreme super heroic god. We see the man in the beginning of the clip looking homeless, lost in his ways and depressed- then gets up and we see him, with a stab of pride though his quick change of facial expressions from depressed to optimistic.
Week 3:
Task 3
"I hope you’re all still well and safe, and that your projects are progressing well. Please see below links to four short films. This week, they all use the technique of stop motion: a method by which objects (or people) are repositioned in individually photographed frames to give the impression of autonomous movement. This is a very popular technique, and there are numerous examples I could have shown this week, but I’ve tried to show only short (and thus complete) films. I would, however, suggest a number of recent stop-motion feature films. I’ve included links to the trailers here, as I’ve not been able to find them online – but, if you can, they’re well worth your time. Charlie Kaufman, Anomalisa, 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQkHA3fHk_0); Shengwei Zhou, S He, 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RjdB8tWMgY); Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, Loving Vincent, 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDSTw6mNwY) – this last one is on Netflix, and while it isn’t technically stop-motion, it is an interesting adaptation of the technique. The first short film is titled ‘Neighbours’, and was directed by Norman McLaren in 1952. Unlike most instances of stop motion, which uses the technique to animate static objects, McLaren animates both objects and the actors. This short, produced in the years following the Second World War, is a reflection on the futility of war. Norman McLaren, Neighbours, 1952
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_aSowDUUaY The second is a music video directed by Michel Gondry for the American band the White Stripes. Gondry’s video uses lego pieces, which are built and rebuilt, to imitate the band performing, moving through several levels of detail. Michel Gondry, I Fell in Love with a Girl, 2001"
Fell in love with a girl
140 characters: The stop motion animation in this video is very abstract, out of the ordinary- it’s very out of the box. This piece is very colourful, the way they create the stop motion has a lot of clarity and each frame is precise and they very much follow on top of each other.
The 140 words: this piece, fall in love with a girl is very moving and riveting, the use I love the use of Lego, for creating the animation, how Michael has created the abstract patterns out of Lego and light, I think it’s very fluent and it attracts attention because when you look at it, as for one I can hardly resist to look away and makes me want to see more. I like the simplicity of his work- in a lot of his work it is known for him using repetitive movement in his footage- called recusion. I really like this element and the way he’s used it with each transmissive frame element created some fast flowing but simple movement. There is a lot of energy coming from his work because of the moving image and the consistency of the revision in his pattern work, how it all corresponds together, I love how at the beginning of the clip it starts off as simple but sophisticated with the traffic lights- and then as the clip develops it gets more abstract and works well with the song- which I thought was a clever move.
Week 3:
Task 3
"Good afternoon all,Apologies for the delay in sending out this week’s links. Please see below three links. This week, we’re looking at the use (or absence) of colour, and the ways that it has been employed in film and animation to shape the viewer’s understanding of mood and atmosphere. Colour is one of the most important tools that an image-maker has in their toolbox, and there several instances of its subtle use in the history of film-making, from Hitchcock’s use of opposing colours in Vertigo, 1958 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95o-QM-lz8g), the single moment of colour – a young girl’s red coat – in Spielberg’s otherwise black and white Schindler’s List, 1993 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG22XNhtnoY), to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, 1987 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBUbmT8cCkM) in which the colour is slowly drained out of the film, mirroring the emperor’s rejection of the opulent tradition that we see in the first half of the film. This week, though, we’re going to look at three less subtle uses, outlined below. The first is a feature length film by Robert Reinert, titled ‘Nerven’ (Nerves). The film follows a dispute between opposing political ideologies, encapsulated in the film’s three main characters, Herr Roloff, Johannes, and Marja. Reinert made ‘Nerven’ in Weimar Germany in 1919, and uses a range of colour filters to convey the political instability of the period and the shifting emotions and political allegiances of its characters.Robert Reinert, ‘Nerven’, 1919 (watch from 52min – 57min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3I5X19r1xsThe second link is an advertisement for the iPod, first released in 2003 and produced by the advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day. These ads, which feature a black silhouette, carrying a white iPod and dancing against block-colour backgrounds, ally the iPod with the vibrant colour of early 2000s fashion and popular culture. A similar technique can be seen in Drake’s 2015 music video for ‘Hotline Bling’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpDa-c-4Mc). TBWA/Chiat/Day, iPod Silhouette advertisement, 2003 – 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHUz99l-eoPS – Since the early 2000s, Apple have released several noteworthy ads, including this one for their 2018 Apple HomePod, which also uses colour – as well as an elaborate hand-built set – to distinguish between the drudgery of the commute and the vibrance of home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k70OczvX45kThe final link is for a clip from the feature-length animated film ‘Persepolis’, which tells the story of a child, Marjane, during the Iranian Revolution. Here, an absence of colour is used to accentuate the binary politics of the revolution – with black often being used to represent a fear or fundamentalism. In this scene, we see Marjane being engulfed in the black Chadors of two women, in which all of Marjane’s white items – that is, secular objects – are obscured, leaving only the black of Marjane’s headscarf and the women’s Chadors. Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, Persepolis, 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1LPToZPf5cI’m be running office hours again today, until 4pm (Zoom link below). If you can’t make that, but have questions and/or concerns, please send me an email or message me on here. Very best,
Alex"
The iPod one, now this has a simplistic way of using transmissive colour change- by keeping the people in the adverts as silhouettes which I like and the backdrop colours change simultaneously from one to the other. I like the simplicity of this video- the colour draws the attention of the silhouettes making them stand out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k70OczvX45k
The 2018 video, this piece I like how she’s on the train acting like a normal human- to then suddenly enter this room with magic powers almost like Mary Poppins how whatever she touches moves and changes colour almost like the kinetic colour follows her wherever she goes.
Here is 140 characters of each video put together: the videos hotline & iPod- colour in the backdrop brings out the silhouettes & transmissively changes from one to the other where as the other one changes colour and follows the lady as she moves and when she avoids the area the colour cuts out & fades.
This entry consists of short and brief reviews from Alex Todd's section of our unit, looking at visual theory- reason as to why I am making an entry for this is for research purposes and to show my development and understanding with what to look for and pick out in video footage.
Tuesday 21st may 2020
Week 1: Task 1
"Morning all,
I hope you’re all well and safe.Firstly, thank you for all of your short reviews. It’s been great reading them. Please see below the links to three films (or, parts of films). This week, they all use a form of montage. Montage is a method of film-making that slices and re-stitches moving images to expand, focus, or advance the narrative of a film or animation. The first clip is from an early film by Sergei Eisenstein – an early theorist of montage – and uses montage to draw connections between two acts of violence (this clip has very violent scene, so please avoid this clip if you’re not comfortable with violence against humans or animals). The second clip is from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, the final film in Sergio Leone’s western trilogy, and employ montage to build the tension in the movie’s final standoff. The third and final clip is from Pixar’s ‘Up’, which uses montage to rapidly move through time, and guide the viewer through the marriage of its principal character. Please select one clip and, once again, write a review of 140 words by the end of the day (21/04). (Alex)
Up the marriage scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjAFMNkCDo
My Review
For this review I’ll talk about the marriage scene from up. This scene is at the beginning of the film and is one of my favourite scenes from the film, because it is very symbolic, emotional and very meaningful. I love the translations of the story in the scene. How quickly the motion changes from happy to sad within a few seconds. It shows a standard relationship between man and woman. Showing how they grow together, spending everyday together till the very end. I love the fact there was no speech in this section of the film as the animation did the talking. I think that worked well and had some clever sections within the animation using a traditional and stop motion animation and how they’ve edited the animation example there was a lot of symbolism in that scene with babies in the clouds- to convey they want a family together for instance.
 |
| Up the Marriage scene |
Tuesday 28th May 2020
Task 2
"Evening all, I hope you’re all well and safe.Thank you for all of your short reviews last week. Please see below the links to three short films (or, parts of feature films). This week, they all use a single shot technique. Unlike last week’s clips, which focused on how frequent cuts can be used to focus or reshape time in a piece of moving image, this week’s clips will focus on a technique that, instead of slicing time into small sections, opens it up into longer segments.The first is the opening shot of ‘Touch of Evil’, a feature-length film directed by Orson Wells. This tracking shot begins with a bomb being placed in the rear of a car, and ends with the car exploding on the US side of the American/Mexico border. This single shot introduces not only the main plot of the film (the explosion) and its context, but also the film’s principal character, the Mexican agent Miguel Vargas, played by Charlton Heston." (Alex)
BirdMan
My Review
 |
| Bird-man
Tuesday 5th May 2020
|
Task 3
"I hope you’re all still well and safe, and that your projects are progressing well. Please see below links to four short films. This week, they all use the technique of stop motion: a method by which objects (or people) are repositioned in individually photographed frames to give the impression of autonomous movement. This is a very popular technique, and there are numerous examples I could have shown this week, but I’ve tried to show only short (and thus complete) films. I would, however, suggest a number of recent stop-motion feature films. I’ve included links to the trailers here, as I’ve not been able to find them online – but, if you can, they’re well worth your time. Charlie Kaufman, Anomalisa, 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQkHA3fHk_0); Shengwei Zhou, S He, 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RjdB8tWMgY); Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, Loving Vincent, 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDSTw6mNwY) – this last one is on Netflix, and while it isn’t technically stop-motion, it is an interesting adaptation of the technique. The first short film is titled ‘Neighbours’, and was directed by Norman McLaren in 1952. Unlike most instances of stop motion, which uses the technique to animate static objects, McLaren animates both objects and the actors. This short, produced in the years following the Second World War, is a reflection on the futility of war. Norman McLaren, Neighbours, 1952
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_aSowDUUaY The second is a music video directed by Michel Gondry for the American band the White Stripes. Gondry’s video uses lego pieces, which are built and rebuilt, to imitate the band performing, moving through several levels of detail. Michel Gondry, I Fell in Love with a Girl, 2001"
Fell in love with a girl
(Michael Gondry)
This task is handy and convenient because I have looked at this artist and seen this video and heard the song!!
My Reviews
This task is handy and convenient because I have looked at this artist and seen this video and heard the song!!
My Reviews
 |
| Fell In love with a girl
Tuesday 12th May 2020
|
Task 3
"Good afternoon all,Apologies for the delay in sending out this week’s links. Please see below three links. This week, we’re looking at the use (or absence) of colour, and the ways that it has been employed in film and animation to shape the viewer’s understanding of mood and atmosphere. Colour is one of the most important tools that an image-maker has in their toolbox, and there several instances of its subtle use in the history of film-making, from Hitchcock’s use of opposing colours in Vertigo, 1958 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95o-QM-lz8g), the single moment of colour – a young girl’s red coat – in Spielberg’s otherwise black and white Schindler’s List, 1993 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG22XNhtnoY), to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, 1987 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBUbmT8cCkM) in which the colour is slowly drained out of the film, mirroring the emperor’s rejection of the opulent tradition that we see in the first half of the film. This week, though, we’re going to look at three less subtle uses, outlined below. The first is a feature length film by Robert Reinert, titled ‘Nerven’ (Nerves). The film follows a dispute between opposing political ideologies, encapsulated in the film’s three main characters, Herr Roloff, Johannes, and Marja. Reinert made ‘Nerven’ in Weimar Germany in 1919, and uses a range of colour filters to convey the political instability of the period and the shifting emotions and political allegiances of its characters.Robert Reinert, ‘Nerven’, 1919 (watch from 52min – 57min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3I5X19r1xsThe second link is an advertisement for the iPod, first released in 2003 and produced by the advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day. These ads, which feature a black silhouette, carrying a white iPod and dancing against block-colour backgrounds, ally the iPod with the vibrant colour of early 2000s fashion and popular culture. A similar technique can be seen in Drake’s 2015 music video for ‘Hotline Bling’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpDa-c-4Mc). TBWA/Chiat/Day, iPod Silhouette advertisement, 2003 – 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHUz99l-eoPS – Since the early 2000s, Apple have released several noteworthy ads, including this one for their 2018 Apple HomePod, which also uses colour – as well as an elaborate hand-built set – to distinguish between the drudgery of the commute and the vibrance of home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k70OczvX45kThe final link is for a clip from the feature-length animated film ‘Persepolis’, which tells the story of a child, Marjane, during the Iranian Revolution. Here, an absence of colour is used to accentuate the binary politics of the revolution – with black often being used to represent a fear or fundamentalism. In this scene, we see Marjane being engulfed in the black Chadors of two women, in which all of Marjane’s white items – that is, secular objects – are obscured, leaving only the black of Marjane’s headscarf and the women’s Chadors. Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, Persepolis, 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1LPToZPf5cI’m be running office hours again today, until 4pm (Zoom link below). If you can’t make that, but have questions and/or concerns, please send me an email or message me on here. Very best,
Alex"
My Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpDa-c-4Mc
Hot line:- The way the designers enforced use of colour for this video is by using pattern and recursion in the colour- changing from one colour to another in a transformative way with the backdrop when we see drake rapping away. I can also pick out the silluetted sections in the videos where they’re very transmissive from human colour to cut out blackened silhouettes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHUz99l-e
Hot line:- The way the designers enforced use of colour for this video is by using pattern and recursion in the colour- changing from one colour to another in a transformative way with the backdrop when we see drake rapping away. I can also pick out the silluetted sections in the videos where they’re very transmissive from human colour to cut out blackened silhouettes.
 |
| Drake Hotline Bling |
The iPod one, now this has a simplistic way of using transmissive colour change- by keeping the people in the adverts as silhouettes which I like and the backdrop colours change simultaneously from one to the other. I like the simplicity of this video- the colour draws the attention of the silhouettes making them stand out.
 |
| Ipod ad 2003-2008 |
The 2018 video, this piece I like how she’s on the train acting like a normal human- to then suddenly enter this room with magic powers almost like Mary Poppins how whatever she touches moves and changes colour almost like the kinetic colour follows her wherever she goes.
 |
| 2018 Apple home ad (Images on the right) (IGNORE THE LEFT HALF!) |
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