When filming Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock intended for the film to have the effect of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each take used up to a whole roll of film and lasts up to 10 minutes. Many takes end with a dolly shot to a featureless surface (such as the back of a character’s jacket), with the following take beginning at the same point by zooming out. The entire film consists of only 11 shots.

This film is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as a single continuous shot through the use of long takes. In film-

making, a long take is a shot lasting much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement and blocking are elements of long-taking, and elements used in the film “Rope”.

Favorites

• Best picture: Logan (James Mangold)
• Best Director: Edgar Wright (Baby Driver)
• Best Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
• Best Actress: Uma Thurman (Kill Bill)
• Best Soundtrack: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Oscars

• Best Picture: Get Out (Jordan Peele)
• Best Director: Jordan Peele
• Best Actor: Garry Oldman (Darkest Hour)
• Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards…)
• Best Original Screenplay: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

I find that a “good” film has a balance of many different elements throughout. For instance, a film can be directed incredibly, have amazing cinematography, impeccable sound design and talented actors, but if the writing is awful, it brings the whole film down, and this is interchangeable with many of the micro and macro elements of filmmaking.

As well as this balance, there also must be a reason for people to want to watch your film; this could be due to a unique but recognizable editing style, like that of Edgar Wright’s films, or Quentin Tarantino’s writing and directing style of extended dialogue and non-chronological storylines. The style of a Director will attract different audiences to see different films. It is also important for a “good” film to include things that many audience members will take for granted, like sound design and editing. In my opinion, these elements are some of the most important as they can really immerse the audience into the film, and help the director get across what they want the audience to feel.

In connection with this to this, there is the cinematography of a film, and while it is a slightly more obvious part of filmmaking that audiences will likely notice more than sound or editing, there are still many people who will take for granted the way a film is shot. For instance, when I saw ‘The Revenant’ for the first time, I took the incredible sweeping shots of the forest and natural lighting for granted, but after researching it, finding out how it was shot and how there was no artificial lights used, it made me appreciate an entirely different side to the film that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

The narrative of a film is shown in many different ways; most obviously there is the narrative through dialogue and characters, however using visual elements to convey the story, when used effectively, can produce a much more realistic and immersive world for the audience to get involved in.

In conclusion, a “good” film must have a balance of all the key micro/macro elements, as well as a style to distinguish it from other movies and directors, making your film recognizable, without people necessarily knowing whom the director is before hand. However, I find the most important characteristic of a film is to get the audience immersed in the film using all of the micro and macro elements.

I also chose suicide squad for this one too because in one scene after the Joker jumps in the vat to save Harley Quinn, you have Joker and Quinn in that disgusting green fluid. Beautifully, you have the red paint around the joker, and the blue around Quinn. It almost looks like a red/blue yin-yang.

I chose suicide squad as an example of good composition. In one of these shots, you see Joker lying on the ground, with all these knives and weapons pointed to him. Funny enough, it looks like he is some Jesus savior figure. The camerawork is great, it pants outwards and turns. Also note the laptops and baby clothes in the top-right corner. Perhaps his dreams of having a family with Harley Quinn (his love interest) You can see the roses, around the guns.

I agree with Spike Lee’s opinion on films staring black people must be directed by a black person to some extent. I think that Spike Lee has the right to be critical of people misrepresenting or misappropriating black culture or black individuals, however, I personally don’t believe that ONLY black people can create an authentic experience of a black character in film. Most directors,no matter their race, want to convey a good story, and i believe that if there has been proper research and planning carried out, especially in a film about black people in the past, that directors should not have to limit themselves in terms of how they cast and portray a character. Just because films like Django Unchained(Tarantino, 2012), or Detroit (Bigelow, 2017) star black people in leading roles, does not mean that their culture or race has been misrepresented. To conclude, I believe that it is understandable that Spike Lee thinks that his race is being misrepresented, and i do believe that there are a lot of films out there which do misappropriate black culture, however, just because a director is white, it should not limit them from the kind of films they should make, and similarly i believe that black directors can use white actors to portray characters in their films.

Film Stock and Aspect Ratio Example

Hair and Make-Up Example