Daily Archives: July 5, 2019

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Film Reel: Final Film role show reel, Film Role 3 (pages / portfolio)

Femme Fatale

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For my third film role , I am a writer and I decided to write a film that was inspired by the classic film noir films – unlike the typical film noir , the main lead in my film will be a beautiful young woman who seemingly conforms to the femme fatale stereotype , but the audience knows that she is a kind person who cares about others and the characters within the film think that she is deceitful due to the mere fact that she is beautiful and they suspect that she killed her grandfather for his money but the audience knows that there was no way that she could have done anything that she was accused of – I have done this in order to demonstrate how demeaning the femme fatale trope is.

I intend to completely subvert the stereotype of the femme fatal , because the characters that fit into this archetype often use their feminine wiles to achieve a hidden purpose but the ‘femme fatal’ in my story does not use her femininity to get what she wants and she does not initially have an agenda and she is actually a kind individual but it is the men who surround her who project their hateful ideas of women onto her and they don’t question them , despite the fact that she is innocent and this links to the idea that the femme fatale is a sexist archetype that turns women into bland, one dimensional characters whose only purpose is to satisfy male onlookers.

comparative essay Section A: Task Components (research & analysis)

Comparative Essay

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The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir that was directed by John Huston and it follows a private detective called Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart ) and it follows his attempts to locate the titular Maltese Falcon , he is impeded by several characters , like Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) , who is the stereotypical femme fatal and Joel Cairo ( Peter Lorre) and the main villain of the film , Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) – they all want the Falcon for themselves and they all have competing motives for wanting to posses the statue. A major theme in film noir is the duplicity of individuals and this is reflected in the way that all of the principle characters manipulate and double cross each other. Furthermore , Spade’s actions and general demeanor reflect the way that film noir “… created the “tough” a cynical way of acting and thinking which separated one from the world of everyday emotions “(Notes on Film Noir , Schrader) and Spade conforms to the ideals that men were expected to uphold in that time period : he is the epitome of cool and collected and he does not allow his emotions to get in the way of any of his decisions , and this is clearly demonstrated when he gives Brigid O’Shaughnessy up to the police at the end of the film.

The historical contexts that The Maltese Falcon and Blade Runner were made in were completely different – The Maltese Falcon was released in 1941 , at the beginning of the Second World War and this influenced the way that the characters in the film were presented , the characters are shown to have duality and things are not as they seem. This chaos reflects the feelings of confusion and disillusionment that was felt by many Americans at the outbreak of the Second World War. On the other hand , Blade Runner was made in 1982 , near the end of the Cold War and it is set in a distopian world where nature has been completely destroyed and this is a reflection with America’s preoccupation with the fear of nuclear war and the deeply held anxiety that it inspired. Both of the films are about social fears that the American people had at that particular point in time.

Blade Runner (1982 , directed by Ridley Scott) is similar to The Maltese Falcon in many respects – it is part of the Neo – Noir movement that rose to prominence in the 1970’s and 1980’s and this movement involved films that payed homage to the classic film noir movement of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Firstly , both Sam Spade and Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) have a cynical outlook on the world and they both quit the police force in disgust due to the corrupt elements in the force – and both characters communicate their thoughts to us through the means of an internal monologue that takes the form of a voice over and “the narration creates a mood of temps perdu : an irretrievable past , a predetermined fate and an all – enveloping hopelessness”(Notes On Film Noir, Schrader) and this also gives us a special insight into what the characters are actually thinking and at times this technique creates a disconnect between what the protagonists are thinking and what they are doing – this is particularly evident in the scene where Deckard first sits down with Bryant ( who is a sleazy and underhanded police officer – this is a reference to the archetypes of film noir) , the police chief , his face is outwardly passive but his interior monologue tells the audience in no uncertain terms , that he holds nothing but contempt for him.

In The Maltese Falcon, Brigid O’Shaughnessy fits squarely into the archetype of the femme fatal , who is a woman who uses her beauty and feminine wiles in order to achieve a hidden goal – this is often done at the expense of the male protagonist and in The Maltese Falcon , she uses her sexual allure in order to manipulate Spade so that she can achieve her own goals , this is seen when she blatantly lies to Spade about her motives in order to get her to help him – she wants The Falcon for herself and her motivations are purely self – serving , according to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey , the femme fatal fits into the archetype of ‘Woman As Temptress” as she tries to tempt Spade away from his goal but in film noir the femme fatale often leads men to their destruction.

Furthermore , Rachael (Sean Young) is initially the archetypal femme fatale , but unlike Brigid O’Shaughnessy in the Maltese Falcon , she turns out to be a good person and she is not the villain in this instance but we do not know that fact initially and in classical film noir , the true motivations of the characters are not immediately obvious and the fact that Scott decided to make Rachael a heroine instead of a villain is a subtle subversion of the trope of the femme fatale – instead of being evil , she is an individual who needs to be protected instead of a villain who needs to be stopped.

In addition , one of the biggest things that differentiates Blade Runner from The Maltese Falcon , if the fact that Blade Runner is a genre hybrid between sci – fi and neo – noir and Steve Neale says that all genres “contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre.” and we have an example of this in the way that Blade Runner cleverly combines the standard plot of a film noir film with high – concept science fiction and this creates something new that the audience wouldn’t expect and this helps to engage the audience with the film. On the other hand , The Maltese Falcon was made by Warner Brothers and it was a studio film that was mass – produced and this film was not unique at the time and it was released at the point that film noir was at its peak of popularity with audiences – it was considered to be cliched by the standards of the time , while Blade Runner takes the old film noir aesthetic and places it into a new context.

comparative essay Section A: Task Components (research & analysis), comparative essay Section B: Compare and Contrast (examples and info)(research & analysis)

Comparative Script (First Draft)

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Question: How does a large budget impact the way an action film is made, and is a large budget necessary to make a film more enjoyable.

Script:

Budget obviously plays a large role in the film industry, but I want to compare whether a higher budget makes a film more objectively enjoyable. Baby Driver (2017, Dir. Edgar Wright) takes a more story heavy approach to a narrative as its lower budget means that it can’t always rely on action set-pieces like much more mainstream and higher budget films like Furious 7 (2015, Dir. James Wan). This ability to use high octane stunts and action scenes is something that many films will use to draw in an audience, especially for the Fast and Furious franchise; with each entry spending more money than the last, it is like each movie is trying to one-up the previous entry. This is where I think a lot of potential is lost for narrative and story development. In Furious 7, every time the plot advances, it just feels like an excuse to move onto the next action scene, where as Baby Driver is much more focused on narrative, character arcs, and plot, with the occasional action scene thrown in to keep the audience excited as well as advancing the plot.

Another incredibly important part of a films budget focuses on advertising, and for a film like Furious 7, advertising was key. Without the massive advertising campaign, the movie wouldn’t have brought in nearly as much money as it did. similarly for Baby Driver, Many people would have bought tickets simply because it was directed by Edgar Wright. Furious 7’s budget also meant that it could hire more mainstream/big-name celebrities, and even though Baby Driver stared slightly more well known actors than some of Wright’s other films, (Which usually star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, both of which Wright thrust into stardom) it’s stars are still much less famous than almost the entirety of the main cast in Furious 7. Baby Driver is also Wright’s 2nd highest budget film, following the $85 million ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs The World’ (however Baby Driver Was more of a success in the box office), In fact, all of the films that Wright has directed thus far cost less than the entire production of Furious 7, with all of his credited films only costing around $155 million in total, as opposed to Furious 7’s $190 million. The whole film industry is focused on making money, which is why there are so many franchises in Hollywood.

David Hesmondhalgh says that the media is being commodified in the cultural industries (which means everything is turning into something that can either be bought or sold). Therefore studios will commission several sequels to films that have done well at the box office.The first film in the franchise usually has a fairly small budget, and if the series continues to have a large box office profit, more sequels will be made with a higher budget in the hope to make even more money than the previous film. At the time of this recording, Baby Driver is still a stand-alone film, however there are rumors of a sequel being discussed, with Wright even teasing the movie early in 2019, saying “A first draft of Baby Driver 2 exists”. Wright has said that he initially didn’t think about a sequel, but after the massive commercial success of the film, (Grossing more than all of Wright’s previous films combined at the box office) decided to go along with the idea. This is an example of the commercial and profit-driven studios of Hollywood. Wrights films take years of careful writing and planning, even before he gets to the filming stage, as all of his films were more or less entirely controlled by him. James Wan on the other hand, has directorial credits in over 29 films; Compare this to Wright’s 8 films, and you can begin to see how Wan makes movies that studios ask him to direct, where as Wright takes a much more independent approach to film making, only making the films he wants to make, and changing some minor details for the studio.

Before Wan was working on action films with gigantic budgets, he was very influential to the horror genre, most notably, he directed the first 6 “Saw” films, as well as “The Conjuring” and “Insidious” Which all have relatively small budget. In total contrast to this, he is currently working on films like “Aquaman 2” Rumored to have a budget of over $200 million. This is completely different to Wrights way of film making, as he carefully crafts Writes, directs and produces his films at the expense of not making as much of a potential profit, whereas Wan is constantly churning out a steady stream of either high budget action blockbusters or very low budget horror films in order to make the studio as much money as possible, which follows along with Hesmondhalgh’s media theory about commodification. Through the use of commodification, Wan has been commissioned to make several low budget films for different studios in order for maximum profit, working with studios famous for this, such as Blumhouse Productions. Wan’s films are typically more successful than Wright’s movies, Giving Wan a net worth of around $50 million. Compare this to Wrights estimated $10 million and it is clear that Wan’s films are aimed at a very wide audience to sell more tickets, where as Wright has a fairly niche fan-base, due to his films being on a more intellectual level that you have to pay attention to to get the most out of them. For this reason Wright’s films are usually given higher praise, as they are targeted more towards film fans, rather than a casual audience. Both directors were born within 4 years of each other and both started their line of work as a director at around the same time in the late 90’s, but considering Wan’s number of films, he was the obvious choice for studios.

The large budget of Furious 7 definitely helped the film become more accessible to a large audience all over the world, however, it was also due to the films BBFC and MPAA classification of the film as a 12A and PG-13 respectively, meaning the film is much more accessible for younger children and families. This means there are a lot more potential profit simply due to the number of people that can access the movie. Compare this to Baby Driver, which is Rated R in America a 15 in the UK and you can see that Wrights film was at a clear disadvantage for potential profit from the outset. films are often filmed as 15’s, and then changed in post production and editing in order to get the film rated as a 12 or 12A so that it is much more accessible to people as well as so it will make a larger profit. Because of this potential loss of profit, most of the very expensive, stereotypical, Hollywood blockbuster films will be rated as a PG-13 or 12A, in order to make back as much of their budget as possible, and turn a profit. This also means that films with a higher rating are typically less successful in the box office, which is why so many of Wan’s horror films have such a small budget of only a few million dollars. This means that Budget is much tighter in a film like Baby Driver, as it doesn’t have an established franchise that will draw people in, or a seemingly infinite amount of money being given to them by the studio, because the studio cannot be sure that it would make the money back in the box office.

In conclusion, Budget can have a huge impact on the way a film is made; from the action scenes, all the way down to the final product that gets made due to the rating it might receive. However, I do not think that it makes a film objectively ‘better’. From the box office sales alone, Furious 7 looks like a much better film because more people went to see it in the cinema, however using data from Metacritic, The 50 or so reviewers found Baby Driver much more enjoyable, giving at an average rating of 86%. Compare this to Furious 7’s 67% and it is clear that audiences actually found Baby Driver to be a more enjoyable film, despite having a fraction of the box office sales.

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Film Role 3: Screen Play for ‘Villains Journey’ (Draft)

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Int-Day-Bar

A Man named Hendrix, look’s like he’s in his Early 20’s/late teens, is sitting in a Bar with a drink in his hand. He pulls out a business card and looks at it, on this business card it has a photo of Hendrix, with his name, and a job role stating ‘Professional Villain’ He sits there alone And eavesdrops on other peoples conversations. A man’s voice can be heard in the bar.

Man 1 (V.O.)

Did you hear about that hero? apparently he saved a princess from the 7 dragons of the land after venturing from castle to castle fighting off demons and-…

while the man is talking, cut to a clip of a man and a woman looking into each others eyes.

Man 2 (V.O.)

Do you know that hero? yea yea, i think his name was Joseph or something right? did you hear that he saved another orphanage from burning down, i think he’s going for the hero record-…

Man 3 (V.O.)

I’m pretty sure he saved a cat out of a burning tree as well didn’t he? What a nice guy, I’m so glad that he’s gotten rid of all the villains-…

Hendrix smash’s his glass on the floor and storms out of the bar.

Ext-Bar-Day

A shot from outside of the bar then reveals a girl looking on towards him. She follows behind him.

Int-Hendrix’s house-Day

Hendrix packs a bag while talking to his farther, an older looking man, 40’s or older. While the voices of the 2 talking is playing, a montage of Hendrix packing his bag plays over the top. He packs water, a sandwich, a sword and shield, as well as a couple seemingly useless tings such as a rubber duck.

Farther

I’m sorry, could you just explain what your doing one more time?

Hendrix

i told you, I’m going on an adventure in order to prove that villains can be successful to, it’s unfair that the hero’s always get all the credit.

Farther

and i told you, what your saying makes no sense. No one is a villain intentionally, everyone does what they think to be right-

Hendrix

I’ve said there’s no talking me out of this, when will you accept that.

comparative essay Section C: Assembly (info about assembly)

Comparison script plan

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Introduction:

Initially identify the area of film focus and the question

Film introduction:

Introduce the two films with basic context and information such as directors and date of release

Point one:

Make a basic point of comparison between the two films. Typically start with a similar way feminism is represented through horror in both films. Use context to back up the idea, and state how it is represented in each film but compare the way it is shown

Point two:

Make another point to compare. To follow a basic structure, typically contrast next by identifying a difference in the way feminism is represented in horror. Use theorists and references to backup the point, explain how context would influence the difference.

Point three:

This can either be another similarity or difference. Typically will be concluding comparison point depending on the length of the comparison study so far. Use all aspects of context about both films to suggest a significant way the films are similar/differ.

Conclusion:

Give basic answer to question, reiterate by referencing most significant point mentioned.