N. Wirstrom

This chapter of the cinematic storytelling book revolved around the use of props, which serve a very important and sometimes pivotal point of the plot. Props can be used to speak visually and set off important points of the plot for the audience to ponder on. The text explains a scene from Raging Bull  in which the main character, who is slowly losing his touch on reality, is trying to manipulate the signal on the tv. The image sputters to represent his slipping sanity, and when he does lose control the tv display goes crazy to recreate the feeling. Props, when used correctly, can convey as much, if not more, emotion that the actors who appear on the screen. Props can also be repetitive, like a costume in a film. The recurrence of a particular prop will cement its importance and ground the audience to a particular concept in the film. Some films are unique in picking a particular prop like clothing or vehicles as a motif throughout the film. Props play an extremely important role in an

Nelson Wirstrom John Carpenter’s “The Thing” Bennings death scene analysis “The Thing”,  directed by John Carpenter in 1982, was a thrilling horror film well known for its stunning and gruesome practical effects. This film was an adaptation of the film “The Thing from Another World”, directed by Christian Nyby in 1951. The film centers around an arctic research team who are attacked by an unidentifiable organism that can consume and impersonate other animals or people. The Thing quickly infiltrates the crew and they must adapt to the ever changing foe in order to survive. I will be analysing the Bennings death scene, which takes place about halfway through the film. In this particular bit the Bennings character is found being consumed by the Thing, and Windows runs outside to get the others. Upon returning they cannot find him, and see that the Bennings Thing has escaped through a window. They chase it outside, and after seeing that the creature is definitely not Bennings,

This was very strange. It reminded me of another animation I had seen recently, "The Little Match Girl", which was a very early Disney animation. It's a story about death, just like this "Bunny" animation. It describes an old woman rabbit who lives alone, her husband apparently having died some time ago. She is irritated by a moth who I think represents the soul of her dead husband, which eventually leads her into the oven an into the light of death, where she can be with her late husband forever. The thing that I'm not sure about in this short was whether or not the old rabbit is simply passing from old age, or if this sequence represents the woman committing suicide in an oven so that she can rejoin her husband. All in all, an interesting short film.

1) Who is the main character? Give a brief description. Our main character is Oswald, the the sword Excalibro's owner. He is a clumsy knight and a traveling adventurer, who cannot seem to do anything right. It is Excalibro's goal to better this knight at his job. 2) Who, if any, are the other principle characters? Give brief descriptions. The second character is a talking longsword named Excalibro. He belongs to an extremely clumsy and ineffective knight. 3) What does the main character want? Excalibro's only real want is for blood. He drinks blood through his blade , and his favorite is the blood of his enemies (which is directly related to whomever hi's wielders enemies are.) 4) What is getting in the way of what he/she/it wants? The ineffectiveness of his owner is what prevents Excalibro from attaining the blood he so craves. Oswald cannot kill an enemies, and only narrowly escapes most situations alive.     5) What is the central conflict of the sto

This chapter of the book discusses lighting, in all of its forms. First is discussed Rembrandt lighting, which emphasized the shadow and contrast to light and dark. I enjoy this approach to lighting, as Rembrandt is one of my favorite painters and his lighting style is moving. Type the second, is TV lighting. This essentially describes a lighting akin to any usual tv show set. The lighting is bright and captures all angles, eliminating shadow. This is described using the "I love Lucy" parody from Natural Born Killers . Next it goes on to underline candlelight lighting, which causes soft features and warm glow. Motivational lighting is light that clearly has a purpose, but is generated at some logical point, possibly on screen. Next is the unmotivated light. This is my favorite of these examples, as it has been used to such power. It is a light of unexplained origin that helps persuade the audience one way or the other. The text describes a scene from The Professional , a film

Conflict is the most important thing in captivating your audience. Of course. This text explains that conflict is the most primal part of any good story, since the beginning of time.It then goes on to explain how difficult it is to properly create this sort of conflict. There are two kinds of conflict, internal and external. The internal conflict is the conflict inside  the main characters head. This is the path of his mental evolution and character change as he grapples with his own beliefs and fears. The external conflict is the events which drive and force the character to advance the plot, and also do this self searching that was mentioned in internal conflict. Most conflict needs an antagonist, but that does not necessarily need to be a particular person. It could be a place or a thing. An antagonist should be a good opposite of our protagonist, our hero.  The story should be littered with small obstacles, as I mentioned in the previous blog entry. These will help shape the char

This discusses the Three act Structure. This is the basic idea that I have always heard referred to as the "rising action" curve. Displays the way a basic story should have a basic setup, after which confict is created. After the conflict the curve rises until the action climax, the point at which the story peaks, the stakes are at their utmost highest. Following this the curve returns quickly back to the original point, all loose ends are tied up and everything seems to have been resolved. This is the falling action or 'resolution'. The text makes a good point for this of "Finish your story and get out", as the audience will quickly loose interest. It then goes on to discuss character arc and story structure. The character must begin by resisting change. I have also heard that a character in this position, no matter how unlikeable, should have some sort of redeemable or relatable quality in order to help the audience care about the character. The characte

This animation was very bizarre. The characters were designed to be unusual misshaped caricatures, usually distorted in some grotesque manner. It shows a man assembling an animation comprised of images of soldiers who have fallen to their death, rendered to appear to be dancing. This walks an interesting line of morbidity and humor, creating a strange and silly film from the images of corpses. It calls to mind the question of how many soldiers were tossed to make the film, what is the purpose of the film, ad who is the man assembling it. None of these questions are answered, but it instead ends with the cycle being repeated again, as if the process will go on into infinity. The machine that was being used to create the animation bears some small resemblance to the Multi-Plane Camera system created by Disney Studios in the 30's. There seem to be an interesting amount of self-referential material, the whole animation revolving around the idea of an animation. Perhaps its a reference