THE JOKER- played by Heath Ledger

'Why so serious?'

The Dark Knight Director - Christopher Nolan The Joker is more of a surreal character in comparison to Chris Gardner and various other characters. He is portrayed as the villain in 'The Dark Knight' Being bought up in a harsh background explains the dark, threatening personality of the character. Heath Ledgers remarkable talent left the audience on the edge of their seats as they watched this made up character seem so real.

Clothing/appearance - With no doubt, Heath Ledgers strange make up made him seem mysterious and unknown. His pale white face stood out in stark contrast with the deep red lipstick engraved against his cheeks: Making him look 'forever smiling.' I love the Joker’s makeup as I thought it created such a big impact to the character, believably reflecting how a disturbed person would apply makeup: smeary and chaotic. His always greasy, long hair simply added to his unpredictatble pesrsonality. Although is face looked in need of mantainance, he dressed smartly (wearing suits and waistcoats). This made him look professional in what he did. Personality - Psychioathic, freakish, mass murdering, depraved, witty, intelligent, powerful, eerie. Many describe him as a 'schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.' I can't help but cringe when thinking of the irritating, constant licking of the Jokers' lips. Furthermore, he always turned his head so sharply, as if something had always caught his eye. These habits simply added to make the character a real person.His constant chuckles and humorous personality made his darker, murderous side seem somehow, more deadly and sinister. Lines such as 'Why are you always so sad' and 'Why so serious?' gave the character a bazaar, unexpected personality, as the audience question, how a murder can ask someone why they are looking so sad. The characters' posture was always hunched to go with a deep, primitive voice. Heath Ledger was a gifted person with great acting talent. Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously. May his soul R.I.P.

CHARACTERS

CHRIS GARDNER - played by Will Smith
'If you want something, go get it. Period.'
The pusuit of happiness
Director - Gabriel Muccino
Chris Gardner - A 51 year old man with a wife and son. He was born in Louisiana and lived through a difficult childhood. He lived with an abusive stepfather who beat his mother.Chris Gardner has faced some obstruction; those are lack of understanding from his wife, financial problem and his education background He is a real life character played by Will Smith. Will Smith, a famous actor, made this character come back to life.
Clothing/appearance - During the opening scenes of the film, Will Smith is dressed in poor quality jeans and a top. From this early clothing style, the audience already know he is a low quality man who finds it hard to pay off his debts. As the film unfolds and Will Smith is determined to make his way up to become a stock broker, he wears a suit. The same suit, every single day. Again, this makes the audience aware of his lack of income. His stubby beard and grey hairs make him look aged and feeble. It gives him a sense of vulnerabilty, yet his top botton done up and neat tie give the audience the impression of him being an organised, determined character. His big glasses gives off an 'old fashioned' yet intelligent sense from the character.
Personality - Caring/loving, determined, selfless, intelligent, punctual, preserving, intiative, self-confident and motivated.Chris Garden is a caring character, who deeply loves his wife and son. After splitting up with his wife due to money problems, he refuses to let his son go. Through his harsh days he manages to spend time with his son aswell as putting his all into his work. His determination and strength makes him an inspiring character. The audience sympathise with him as we know what he has to go through every day. Being such a strong character, makes it heartbreaking to see him cry when times have come to the worse, and he is forced to sleep in the toilets. His lines and morals in the film gave him his inspirational personality.

CRANE SCENE - spiderman 3

Spiderman 3,2007
SAM RAIMI
I chose this specific shot to analyse, as the crane scene in Spiderman 3 in my opinion, is one of the best shot scenes I've watched. The variety of shots creates both tention and suspense.
The photo i chose is a long high angle shot from the scene. In the foreground we see the characters hands grip tightly onto the bar which is keepin her alive, and in the background we see the high rise buildings, the busy roads and the fast cars.
The characters expressions are very important in this shot. As she screams for her life, the audience empathise and sypathise with her. They are taken above the scene to see exactly how far the fall is. As the audience watch the character hang from the bar they urge to help save her. If this shot was taken any differently, the impact on the audience wouldn't be as great as they wouldn't be able to see through the character's perspective. The audience feel her tention as they wait for spiderman to come to the rescue.

PSYCHO, 1960

ALFRED HITCHCOCK
An inspiring, influential, 1960's film maker and producer who specialised in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After watching Psycho, I realised why Alfred Hitcock was highly inspired by many. Psycho left the audience in suspence through out the whole movie. What I love about Alfred Hitchcocks' movies are his use of shot types. There are a few excellent shots in Psycho which create a big impact on the audience, making them feel part of the shot and empathise with the characters. One of the shots which inspired me the most is where Marion enters the creepy house where 'the mother' stays. She sees Norman running to the house and runs to the basement stairs. The camera here is in the corner of the room, showing both Marion looking through the bars on the stairs and Norman entering through the door. This long shot emphasises on how close the two characters are yet neither of them can see the other one. We can see both characters and therefore feel nervous and empathise with Marion, hoping she is not caught my Norman. This shot is very well done, and creates a perfect eerie sense to the film.

Some behind the scene gossip! In the famous 'shower scene,' Hitchcock used chocolate instead of ketchup, in place for the blood. The ketchup was too thin and therefore they needed something more visible and thicker- chocolate! Because the movie was in black and white, the colour of the blood didn't matter.

CHARACTERS
Anthony perkins - Norman Bates
Janet Leigh - Marion Crane
Vera Miles - Lile Crane
John Gavin - Sam Loomis
Martin Malsam - Milton Arbogast

LOCATIONS

The house where the mother lives.
This building follows the conventional horror elements: A detatched, creeky, wooden, decripit looking large house. We only see the outside of the house untill past half way through the film. This makes the house seem more mysterious. The audience always hear 'the mother' screaming from the house every time Norman enters it. Towards the end, we see 'the mothers' bedroom, where everything is left preserved the way it would if someone was still living in it.

sounds, shot types, and editing

Looking into continuity editing

Batman - the dark knight
Christopher Nolan, 2008
Starting off with a longshot of the truck we know where the scene is taking place. As we see the joker point his gun at the second truck we are lead to an inserting shot(where we see who/what the gun is pointing to.) This helps the audience follow through and understand the next shot as they see the bullets come through the other side of the vehicle. If the audience didn't see the bullets hit the outside of the truck, they wouldn't be clear as to where the bullets came from.At 0.28, one of the characters say 'What is that? A bazooka' This leads to a shot of the joker firing at the car (this is the insert shot) which takes the audience through the scene step by step to when the car is blown into the air. This shot contains many sudden changes of shot from one viewpoint to another. This helps, not only to build up an image of what is happening in the scene but is also deliberatley done to shock the audience, create tension and fasten the rate of the scene, keeping the audience engaged with every character throughout.

LOOKING AT SOUNDS, SHOT TYPES AND EDITING

Primeval
Michael Katleman, 2007
Starting off with a crane of the woodlands and the wildlife makes the sudden darkness in the next shot unexpected and frightening. The sound emphasises the eerieness from the whistling and tweeting of the woodlands, to the thunderstorm. The short extreme close ups create enigma as the audience are urging to know what the objects in the trailer are and what relation it has with the serial killer. The black scenes between each individual shot break up the continuity, speeding up the rhythm of the trailer. The blurry shots at 0.35 make it hard to make out who the characters in the film are. It makes the trailer more horror like as we are left unknowing who is who and why they have blood drippin down their face. The screaming in this section also emphasises on the sinister approach to the movie. The low angle shot in this section makes the character seem more dominant and controlling yet in the next shot we see rescue helpers carry dead bodies. This creates enigma as the audience have no idea how the character was killed. The forward tracking at 0.52 gives us a good look at the characters expression, making it obvious the serial killer is approaching her. She is left speechless, exaggerating her emotions. Finally, after a minute into the trailer sequence, we are introduced to the serial killer for the first time where his appearance is made even more disturbing with a close up. The long lingering darkness at 1.19 leaves the audience in suspence and thrill as they urge to know what's going to happen next. They are greeted with a shocking close up of someones mouth and a scream in the background. 1.40 is an establishing shot as we are introduced to the mise en scene and character as he directly addresses the camera. The sound differs with great extent from the 'drop' of the blood into the water to the 'RUN.' The different sound volumes and effects, shot types and fast snappy shots create an unexpected feel of the movie.
The Commentary/voice-over narration is used to introduce particular parts of the movie. The voice over starts with reading what is on the screen, yet follows on to add extra information which is not evident from the picture (it anchors the shot). We are told 'He is real, but he is not human' before we see the serial killer. Giving us a moment, to imagine what we think the serial killer will look like. As a whole, the voice over links the different shots in the trailer together.The commentary confers authority on a particular interpretation, in this case, the voice is a deep males voice: adding to the horror theme of the movie.

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Step up 2

Directed by John Chu, 2008

For research we were asked to pick a scene of our choice and analyse the continuity effects. I chose a scene from step up 2, as I absolutley love dance movies and I found it a great scene to analyse. The scene opening starts with the characters walking towards the stairs.This long lingering shot stands in contrast to the following short snappy shots. The camera is on the male character (Name: Moose) as he talks. Then there is an over the shoulder shot facing Andie, the female character. This shot reverse shot is also a reaction show as you see Andies reaction to Moose's ringtone. The next shot is the master shot of the scene. It is an establishing shot following on from the MCU of the previous shot. However, this time it gives the audience a greater view on the mise-en-scene. As we see Moose climb up the stairs in the master shot, we are taken into another over the shoulder shot in perspective of Andie, where we still see him dancing as he walks up the stairs in around the same place on the staircase. The continuity editing is very well done taking the audience through the scene step by step in different angles. However, at 0.44 seconds in, the camera returns back to the master shot and Moose drops his bag and lets it fall down the stairs out of the shot. Yet, at 0.50 the bag is placed back on the stairs further up then he dropped it- continuity error! Futher into the scene, as the girl walks out the door on Moose dancing the camera takes another shot at Andie before focusing back on Moose. The new character in the scene is still holding the door open as she stares at him. As Andie walks up the stairs the camera is behind her. As it swaps to an over the (Moose's) shoulder shot she is still climbing up the stairs. This is a perfect example of continuity editing