Assighnment # 6

The director clearly fallows all the rules for framing in the first 5 scenes of “For the Birds”. The first scene stars with a pan shot from right to left; this is used to establish the location of a power line along a long and lonely road in the planes of what I assume to be western United States. The camera then stops on a small piece of power lines where our first main character fly’s in and they begin pecking at each other. I consider the entire group of birds to be one character because they act the same and do the same thing. The camera zooms out much more than 30% ending with a wider scene of all the birds fighting, and then suddenly stopping at the insertion of a strange noise. The camera jumps greater than 30* to introduce the second character in the film. The camera then goes to a 1^st person shot just inside the 180% line to show the reaction of the birds. The short fallows all the rules of camera positioning, the 180 rule, the 30* rule, and the 30% rule. And it’s easy to see why, the entire short takes place in front of a power line, meaning all the action is going to take place along that line, causing the 180 degree line to never move. The location is very open and vast, and the camera has plenty of open space to move around and establish shots, even thou there is very little to establish in the middle of nowhere. The director did not really need to break any of the rules for this short, and everything can be explained with only a handful of camera angles and shots. However if the director was to break any of the rules, it would be easy to do because of how simple the scene is set up. We would immediately know what was going on.

Assighnment # 5 Song Deconstruction

Listening Phase 1

Tempo: Both songs move very fast.       

Source: The rhythm of both songs come from the drums.

Groove: Rock, Metal

Listening Phase 2

Instrumentation: Guitar, base and drums for both songs.

Structure/Organization: Each song uses reaping rhythms, with a solo act interjected in the middle.

Emotional Architecture: The songs both build and build until the end.

Listening Phase 3

Height: Terran up the night went higher and lower, while murlock mostly stayed high, but not as high as Terran up the night got.

With: Neither song really pans from left to right a great deal.

Depth: both songs use the same 4 instruments because both songs are done by the same band.

I enjoy both of these songs, created and played by a lesser known band which call themselves lv 80, ETC. both these songs are fast and rock, and are cleaver and quite entertaining to watch. The instruments used by the band are a drum set, a guitar, and two people playing on base guitars. The first song is the older of the two, “I am Murlock, I am Death”, and is really cleaver and quite funny, thou its would only be understood by individuals which have played warcraft. The second song, “Terran up the Night”, is their newer song which was written to go along with the release of Starcraft 2.   

                “I am Murlock, I am Death” is the shorter of the two songs, and it fallows a very simple rhythm lead by the drums. However the height of this song varies much greater than “Terran up the night.” The song uses a series of verses which it repeats 3 times through out the song, in between the verses are musical verses, or other sayings created by the artist. The song begins and ends with the sound a murlock makes, which I find to be halerous.

                “Terran up the Night” however, is a little softer than “I am Murlock” but does not change its height as frequently as the other song. This song also utilizes verses and a rhythm throughout the song, switching between a repeating phrase, a rhyme, and music without any word. “Terran up the Night” is more structured than “I am Murlcok, I am Death” and that is probably because murlock was made early in their musical carrier, while “Terran Up the Night” is one of their newer songs.

                Neither song utilizes a wide range of frequency and have very similar quality’s. I would say the pitch for both songs are about the same as well, however despite this both songs have about the same intensity of very intense. They are both very lovely songs but I have to say I like “Terran Up the Night” more than the other. I say that because it is more varied and more interesting than “I am Murlock, I am Death”.

Assighnment # 7 Animation

The two images I chose are from “Toy Story 3” and the first one is Woody and Buzz talking to the rest of the toys in a box, which I well from hence forth call image 1. The second image is at the end of the movie, with the toys new owners standing in front of her house with all the toys, and we’ll be called image II.

                In Both images color is used very effectively to draw the eye, in particular, brightness of color. In image 1 the color of the box and our figures are much brighter and saturated then the dark background of the car, leading our eye to look at the characters and ignore the background of the car. Woody is also framed in the window, helping us to draw our attention to him. This is also used in image II of the light shining throe the tree’s on the little girl and the toys, again drawing our attention to her with bright saturated colors, while having us ignore her surroundings by using darker and more desaturated colors. The brightness created by the sun also help frame this picture by creating a box around our characters using the light, the walls and the front step of the porch.

                In image 1 the name of the locations our characters are going to is written on the side of the box, Sunny side. This is definitely a symbol for the location they are going, as it suggests someplace happy. In addition, everyone in the image is happy with the exception of woody, the only one not touching the box, further suggesting that Sunnyside is a happy place. However the black letters on the box and all the brown tones suggest that Sunnyside is not as happy of a place as we first imagined it. While in image II the girl has a more neutral face, but the background of yellow suggests that this place really well be happy because yellow is the same color of the sun, which references Sunnyside. This is also further reinforced by the plants in each corner of the image, and the sunlight shining down on our characters in the frame.

Blog #8 Sceen Deconstruction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7luMp6lb9M

The Theme of the movie “Dude Where’s my Car?” is two guys trying to do something really simple, like finding their car, however it is far more complicated than that. During the course of the movie our protagonists have to deal with bully’s, a homicidal hermaphrodite, cults, and even space aliens, all just to find this car. This scene of them ordering some breakfast is a perfect example of the entire movie over the course of 2 minutes, as they are simply trying to order a meal, but cannot overcome the drive through attendant despite what they try to do.

The scene uses Space to help reinforce the scene as our protagonists are trapped inside the back of a little car during the entire scene. Even the little dog gets to sit up front while they are stuck in the back, they have no power, and appear very weak because of their size in relationship to their space in the backseat, while the driver is in a more decent sized space, not too big or too small, making him appear to be the stronger. The voice box is the strongest in this regard because it is very open and has a strong shape, the voice box even gets its own close-ups because it is the one controlling the scene.

  The characters movement is also reinforces this and work with the space. The protagonist’s move a lot within their cramp space, while the driver moves very little, and the voice box does not move at all, yet has all the power in the scene. The protagonists, while frustrated, have no place to move to express this frustration but try anyways, further emphasizing their frustration. The driver and the dog move very little, and are just relaxed and not caring, While the voice box has all the strength in this scene by its unnecessary to move. The voice box’s strength in not moving is created by our weaker characters movement on interacting with the voice box, by this method they give strength to the voice box and thus take it away from themselves.