Art Film Brainstorming

BRAINSTORMING

My Favourite Parts
My favourite part of Battle Potemkin are the several scenes of the horrified man's face. He appears several times, looking as if he is peering around a corner. He wears rounded glasses. You can truly see the pain and agony through his emotions.
My favourite part of Metropolis is the building exploding because I like the use of special effects, back in the day.
My favourite part of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is when the man boards the train, there is toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe. It's very amusing because it's a satire.

My Loose Story
For my movie, I would like to show the feet leaving the train from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Then the man will enter and look at the documents. After I will show scenes from Potemkin of people struggling outside and the runaway baby. I will show the man with the documents once more and then the man with the newspaper. From Metropolis, I will use the man who screams, "MOLOCH!" The runaway baby is there and from Metropolis and Potemkin, I will use the men who runs towards the camera. Then the man with the documents will leave and then the building will explode. Then he will sit down and using a stock footage of a man with a child.

My Art Story
For my art movie, I will show a man who looks like he is plotting. Looking at documents and reading the newspaper, as if he's trying to blend in. Overlayed on the document scene, there will be a faded layer of a person flipping through a book, as if he's trying to 'look' for something. All the scenes are going to be weaved between inside and outside, so one scene is the man and the next is what's happening outside. There will be glimpses of a lighter, but it's not being lit. Then you will see the havoc with the people and the beginning of the runaway baby. The man inside is started to walk away, searching for something. Outside, there are several men who are reaching out in despair for the child. Inside, the man with the news paper is following, and overlayed on top will be the subtitle, "MOLOCH!" (This will leave the viewers wondering what Moloch is, a name, a label, etc). Then the man will pleasantly board the train. There will be a stock footage of the lighter being lit and the building outside will explode. Then we use the stock footage of a man holding a baby, as if 'Moloch' has taken the runaway child. The timing between the man and the explosion will be differentiated, the man will be fast and the havoc outside will be slow, thus emphasizing both parts.

Lighter stock footage: http://www.videvo.net/video/lighter-being-lit/2675

How is Hero an Art Movie?

How is Hero an Art Movie?

1. By looking at the explanation of an art movie above, please describe at least three ways (three sentences) that you think Hero could be considered, at least in part, an art movie.

Hero could be considered, partly, an art movie because the movie does not have an obvious, blatant, definitive meaning. Thus, making the viewer focus on the movie and interpret the movie in their own opinion. Hero is also an art movie because the movie does not follow a very clear order. As the movie casually progresses, the movie becomes quite abstracted and confusing if the viewer is not paying full attention. Lastly, Hero is an art movie because the movie has a serious 'plot' and is clearly focusing on the thoughts/ideas of characters.

2. How does the director also make this a movie for everybody, so that it’s not too artistic or alienating for the average viewer? Please explain in at least three sentences.

The director made this movie for a wider audience, so it's not too artistic or alienating for the average viewer, by applying a story-line and the martial arts. Most art movies do not have a clear, well-presented story-line, but the director added a story-line to the movie. The story-line is quite obvious, however he still adds an artistic component by allowing the viewer to think about the story. The director also added martial arts for the film to become a wuxia film, which involves martial arts and swordplay. By adding the martial arts, adds the element of action which will entice the average viewer in their seats. Therefore, Hero is not a far left art movie or a far right blockbuster film. The director added key elements from both film genres, to create an artistic, yet entertaining movie.

3. Did you like this movie? Why or why not? Please explain in at least four sentences.

Yes, I liked this movie. The reason I liked this movie was because it's not an everyday movie that you would stumble upon on Netflix. The movie is also not mindless entertainment you would again, find on Netflix. The movie was a refreshing view on my taste of film genres. One of my close friends refers to me as, 'The Movie Buff,' because my past-time is watching movies from any genre. To watch an art movie, and watching it for the first time and being aware that it's an art movie, really helps you focus on the artistic elements. I'm so used to watching movies and having no idea of what the purpose was, or exiting the movie on Netflix without an opinion. Thus, making me quite glad to have paid attention to the film because I can interpret my own opinion of what the different artistic elements are supposed to represent. Overall, Hero was a great movie which can be breathtakingly beautiful and still enticing a viewer to sit on the edge of their seat.

4. Sequences in the film are ‘colour coded’, enabling Zhang Yimou to offer his
audience ravishing and memorable images which enhance his action sequences. Write
three sentences about how Zhang Yimou has used colour to emphasize or enhance
aspects of the narrative.
Select one of these sequences
• the fight in the rain
• the Golden Forest
• the attack on the calligraphy school at Zhao
• the Library
• the combat at the lake
• Broken Sword and Flying Snow’s attack on the King

Throughout different sequences of the movie, the director- Zhang Yimou uses colour as an artistic element which enhance the action scenes. The sequence that I have chose were the library sequences. The three sequences of the library had red, blue and white. I believe that Zhang Yimou had used the three different colours to represent different point of views or 'ideas' of the story. The red sequence showed Nameless presenting to Flying Snow and Broken Sword the sword of Sky and said that he would need one of them to meet him at the Qin army encampment next morning. I believe that the red was used to describe Nameless' faux description of the story. The blue colour was used to depict the King of Qin's retelling of the story. Lastly, the white colour was used to depict the truth/the reality of the story.

STEM Logo

Light Painting

Photography Photos

Colour Pop

Black and White

Black and White

Black and White

Black and White

Black and White

Colour Corrected

Photography Contact Sheets

Photoshop Montage & Reflection

Through Elijah's Eyes by Sofia Tiu

Photoshop CC - February 20 2015

TECHNICAL
I used many technical steps during my photoshop montage experience. One of the most common technicalities I faced the variety of size of all my images. Using the transform tool and adjusting the size of my images was simple, but challenging for my mind-set. I also experimented frequently with a variety of layer blends, my images layer blends range from darken to vivid light. I also fiddled around with the opacity/fill settings, deciding how transparent and opaque I wished the image would be.

I also learned how to use the cloning stamp, patch, and content aware tools. The cloning tool allows you to pick a certain distance and will copy whatever is within distance. The patch allows you to select a patch of the image and drag it onto the surface of what you wish for it to blend into. The content aware tool allows you the have the background to be programmed into what it is around it, which can be very useful for large grass or greenery backgrounds.

One last thing that I learned to do was free transforming images and warping them a certain way. Experimenting with certain filters in class, I was able to warp my images so they can be transformed to look a certain way. I warped the footprints, shadow, skateboard and swing set in my montage. All images were very flat and I warped them to look like they were at a certain angle or position, i.e. I warped the shadow so it looked like the shadow was truly on the ground, not as a shadow directly behind the people.

IDEA OR CONCEPT
The ideas that I eventually used in my montage were: the focus on the people and all the images were related to Elijah's likes and dislikes, as a warped perspective of a child's eyes. Even though I tossed away some of my previous ideas, I knew for certain that I wanted to keep the idea that the montage is centred around Elijah's likes.

As I said previously, many of my ideas were tossed away and I thought of some more, but they never made it to the final product. One of my ideas that I didn't use was the background was supposed to be a swing and as it stretched through the canvas, it disintegrated into my many objects which I was going to place on the other side of the canvas, opposite swing. I decided to not to pursue this idea because I wasn't sure how I would have accomplished it and I assumed that it was much too complicated for my skill level in Photoshop CC.

INFLUENCES
In all honesty, I was not influenced by any professional artists. I did not take influence of famous montage work, however the idea seems very appealing now! If it counts, I did take inspiration from my fellow classmates who are amateur media artists, where they did help inspire me to put continuous effort into my montage.

COMPOSITION
The type of composition I intended to have was asymmetrical. On the left side, there is one to three images, meanwhile on the right there are many more images. About nine to ten images are on the right side. I intended to have an asymmetrical composition because I wanted to emphasize the people on the left and make the images seem like they're what the child sees as he walks by.

My intention for my eyes to move was more like a square or a rounded movement. My focus is the people and the blue swirls lead the eye movement upwards. Once the eye hits the bright green eye, the crayon border and the subtle white birds in the background will lead the movement towards the right. Once headed towards the right, there are images of child's doodles which will continue moving the eyes towards the right. Once reaching the very right, the crayons begin to fully form and the tips of the crayons lead downwards. Once going downwards, it leads towards a swing set. On every swing, I connected a separate image as if the swing were like ropes that attached the image to the movement. I also added a layer blended white outline of a car, which faces downwards which also helps with the downward movement. Once following the line of books, sports balls, hands, it leads to a skateboard and footprints. Following the skateboard and footprints, it leads back to the main focus of the people.

MOTIVATION
My personal motivation for the work was to reflect upon the summer-time experiences. On a very personal note, I'm an extremely sensitive person. I believe the Chinese folklore of the, 'red string of fate,' not to the exact literal sense. The red string of fate is a folklore where people believed that you were attached to your soulmate by an invisible red string. The red string could not be broken, but simply stretched or tangled. In a sense, I believe that Elijah and I were connected by fate. By no means do I mean that Elijah and I are soulmates, but I do believe we were destined to have encountered one another. By reflecting on how much of an impact he's made of my life, it definitely helps believe that our fate always surprises us to no end.

CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
The most successful part of my montage that I believe are my technical abilities for each of the image. I believe that I successfully blended all of them into my background with a sense of unity and smoothness. I also believe that I have a great colour scheme as well. As I emphasized the blue sky, I also added some orange texture at the foreground because they're complementary colours. This way, the orange and the blue can emphasize each other which also unites the montage.

The one thing that surprised me the most was how difficult this assignment was going to be. I'm not a completely artsy student, but I have learned some artistic abilities in Grade 9 Visual Arts last year. I didn't expect myself to struggle a lot with this assignment, but I genuinely did. I also find that it's extremely difficult to alter the sizes of the images to your own personal liking, but also blending it into the montage. I found that I automatically made the images generally the same size, which greatly affected my montage.

With additional time, I would have greatly changed my work. Also, I believe that with additional time and more experience with Photoshop CC, I would have had a more quality montage. I believe with more experience and more time, I think I would have accomplished more of my ideas that I wished to pursue. I also believe that I couldn't find the ideal images that I wished to have used. Many of my images were the most ideal out of the image search, however they were not the ones I would imagine to have used.