Tom's Film Blog

              TIM BURTON Timothy Edward Burton is an American Filmmaker, animator and artist. Burton was born in 1958, in Burbank, California. As a preteen, Burton would make short films in his backyard using crude stop motion animation techniques or shooting on 8mm  film without sound. His interest in stop motion can be seen later on his films like Frankenweenie and The Nightmare Before Christmas. In his early career as an animator, storyboard artist, graphic designer, art director and concept artist on films such as The Fox And The Hound, Tron and The Black Cauldron. His first theatrical release was Pee Wee's Big Adventure, a family-friendly, adventure film with a light hearted tone, which is very different to the rest of Burton's work. Burton is best known for is use of Gothic Suburbia and his weird concepts and world building, along with a common use of characters that feel isolated. One of his most famous films is 1989's Batman. The film show...

Deeper Than Water   The story opens with a body floating past shot in the water. The body covers the shot and transitions to the pier 1 hour earlier and shows a couple called Robert and Louise is about who have left their home to go on a walk to the pier. The wife is looking at a phone and reveals that his husband is cheating on her with a woman called "Sam". She grabs a knife and puts it in her coat. There is then a tracking shot of them.  They reach the end of the pier and they sit down on a bench there. They have a conversation which turns into an argument about past relationships and it’s how the husband has cheated before. He walks towards the edge of the pier as the argument continues. As it intensifies the wife pulls out the knife and starts screaming at the husband. He manipulates her to put it down then he walks out of shot she turns around and it cuts to him aiming a gun at her.  He says he planned to kill her and this was his way of saying goodbye before h...

 1) 1920s-30s  2) MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and RKO  3) "The Big Five"had controlling stakes in their own theater chains, which were exempt from block booking. By 1945, the studios either owned partially or outright 17% of the theaters in America, accounting for 45% of the film-rental revenue.  So the studios had a guarantee that their movies would be distributed. But it didn’t stop there: they also controlled the process of making the movies. They usually had the actors, producers, directors and writers under contract, owned the film processing and laboratories and created the prints.  4) It allowed studios to make more films every year, putting more pressure on writers and directors but creating more revenue for the studios.  5)  The decline of  The Studio System  began in 1948 with the verdict in the antitrust case United States vs. Paramount Pictures, inc. This decision outlawed the practice of block booking and fo...

 The classical style of film form in cinema was used mainly between 1930 to 1960. It was composed of five main factors: Cinematography and Lighting: Matching eye lines is important for maintaining continuity in scenes because if the eye lines of the actors don't match it would like they are looking somewhere completely different. For example this scene in Casablanca there are two different shots but the two characters maintain eye contact despite being shot and different times. The 180 degree rule refers to an imaginary line that you draw between two subjects in scene. You have keep all of your camera set ups on the same side of that line, otherwise the scene wont be realistic. For example, if there was a scene of two people looking at each other if their eye don't follow the line, the scene will lose realism and wont look like they're looking in the direction of each other. An example of this is in the movie Heat. You see Robert De Niro looking to the left of the line and ...

The film Portals develops a narrative by using enigmas. Throughout the film, enigma is used in order to develop a narrative where, for example, the gun just appears in the room, which is convenient to the characters aims and is referencing a video game, which is our first hint to it not being real. This is effective because it makes the audience nitpick about a detail that the casual viewer, without knowing it is detail that would effect the rest of the story. Furthermore Portals develops a narrative by developing its main character. Throughout the film, character development is used to develop a narrative where, for example, the character is training every day and manages to escape the prison, which makes it even more tragic when she realises that it is not real and that her journey was meaningless. This is effective because it subverts the audiences expectations of how it would end. Furthermore Portals develops a narrative by using twists. Throughout the film, twists is used to devel...

 HIGH MAINTENANCE TWIST EVALUATION The first twist of High Maintenance is unexpected to the audience because the use of Mise En Scene. For example, the lighting inside the house shown in the film was dim, warm and felt quite intimate. This creates the idea that these the two people are together and subverts the expectations of the audience when the twist. The twist itself of the husband being a robot is surprising on first viewing but on rewatch there are various different foreshadowings to the twist. For example during a scene where the wife is talking to the husband she states that she would be lucky to have some "have some short mechanical sex". This at first may be seen as an spiteful insult about the couples sex life but it is actually  referencing how he (and revealed later on her) are "mechanical". Another example is the husbands make up. He is very pale, unemotional and has perfect skin. This removes humanity from him but it is subtle enough for them not to ...

        CASABLANCA ANALYSIS Scene being analysed -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BztF71vFpnE Mise En Scene One of the first shots of the scene is a shot of only his arm in the background and you can see a chessboard, an ash tray and a glass of some sort of alcohol. The shot then pans up to show Rick by himself playing chess. Firstly, the placing of the alcohol, the chessboard and the ash tray together highlights how Rick, much like the customers, is sophisticated and emphasizes how he is from the upper class. This is furthermore reinforced with his white tuxedo. The colour white connotes purity, suggesting that Rick is the hero of the story. Again, he is playing chess by himself, which maybe suggesting that he is intellectual and maybe isolating. This can backed up by him sitting by himself. Performance The actor playing Rick (Humphrey Bogart) visually emotes someone who is stressed and mentally challenged, which matches the char...