Dystopian Trailer Critique

Never Let Me Go. Mark Romanek. R. 2010

In an alternate history, Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Kiera Knightley), and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) are students at Hailsham House, a boarding school for clones. At one point they are told that their existence is merely defined by transplant patients, as they were created and raised to be organ donors, destined to die, or "complete", in early adulthood. Never Let Me Go is a coming of age story of love, loss, and truth, as the three face their grim fate, posing the question: What makes us human?

The trailer for the dystopian film, "Never Let Me Go"

The trailer for "Never Let Me Go" clearly exemplifies a dystopia and is effective in sparking interest in viewers by utilizing tasteful editing, convincing actors, and establishing a clear background for the plot. In this trailer, the director, Romanek, uses a voiceover done by Mulligan while scenes of the three children grow up are shown in a montage, establishing the premise and themes for the film. Romanek also uses simple white text. The editing is minimalistic and does not overwhelm the viewer, while still presenting the necessary information, such as explaining the role of clones in this alternate dystopian history. One of the most compelling scenes shown is of Tommy (Garfield) getting out of a car, howling in frustration and distress, his face contorted in pain. The actor's convincing portrayal of the character contributes greatly to the overall quality of the trailer. I plan to use the same minimalistic yet effective editing style for my group's trailer and also hope to convey the emotions of the characters to the best of my abilities. A voiceover will probably used as well. There are many aspects of "Never Let Me Go"s trailer that I plan to incorporate into our project.

"five by five" she whispered.

five by five

five by fiv

five by fi

five by f

five by

five b

five

fiv

fi

f

first clip: that's a lake.
second clip: that's a loud water flowing thing.
third clip: that's a diseased plant/fungus I think. who knows.
fourth clip: that's my bike.
fifth clip: that's a view of grass.

I filmed each clip using Dengi, my nikon d3100 and edited using iMovie. Overall, I found the editing for this project simple and quick. I'm quite pleased with the result seeing as this was my first time editing video on my own. Perhaps next time we should have a film project where we must tell a story through 10 scenes each 10 seconds long, without dialogue.

that would be interesting.

okay bye

Almost Famous (2000)

FILM REVIEW; With Sympathy For the Devil, A Rock Writer Finds His Way by A. O. Scott

Scott commends director Cameron Crowe for not just using rock music as a decoration to his film, Almost Famous, but as more of a window into the souls of his characters. Scott gives some context to his review by describing Crowe's film style and immediately highlights music as one of the main themes in the film. He gives a synopsis to the plot and outlines the main characters. Although not much critique is given on the staging and costuming, themes and motifs are discussed abundantly. Scott writes with a light tone and is very matter of fact, viewing the film with a fair and unbiased eye. I think this is very important when critiquing literature. The ending of the film is not given away and Scott ends the review by saying that the film could have been better, but it is nontheless remarkable and a sex and drug filled film that you would be happy to take your mother to see. 

The structure of this movie review was easy to understand and overall organized nicely. I think that in class we should take elements of it and incorporate it into our own writing styles, but I do not think that there should be a format engraved in stone. We should be allowed creative freedom. However, with that being said, there should be a few rules such as:

1. not giving away the ending

2. including basic points such as plot, characters, motifs/themes, and recommendations

3. critical yet unbiased critique of cinematography, acting skills, and other aspects of film

photo cr: to owner


Movie Review:
http://diigo.com/0sv94

Tardigrades

This is a post about tardigrades, one of my favorite animals!

Tardigrades, also known as "water bears" or "moss piglets", have recently been discovered as the first species of organism to be able to survive the conditions of outer space. Also able to withstand extremely low and high temperatures, water bears live in places ranging from the Himalayas to the deep sea. They have 8 legs and are called "bears" because when they walk they kind of plod about just like a bear. The fact that they can survive in the vacuum like conditions of space leads me to speculate that perhaps these animals originated from space. Anyway, I hope you appreciate this animal as much as I do.

bye bye and may you have an interesting day