Assignment 2/1

Goals: In this class I would like to...

- See how well my experience with photography transfers to video

- Get my technical skills and knowledge of shooting video and recording audio up to par

- Learn the visual communication of video; how to make a scene feel like I want it to.

- Learn how to work as a crew and how to gather and manage actors and crew members.

- Learn the intricacies of editing video

- Employ some basic visual effects, capitalizing on my experience in after effects.

Group discussion:

So with meeting as a group, we all got to kinda learn something about everyone's interests in movie and films to see who might be interested in working on the same projects. We haven't quite decided on what each person would like to do in a crew, but we also haven't been introduced to the equipment yet. So that'll come with time, but the group I joined has decided to produce Tyler's bfa piece. I picked this group for a couple of reasons: because the story and idea does truly interest me, I wanted to help Tyler get his done in time and have it look good, and lastly because the people interested in it as well seemed like people I could work alongside.

Group Goal statement:

Didn't see this before when we met as a group, so we didn't really discuss it. Though we did kinda all decide to work on Tyler's concept.

Individual Script concept:

I'm still working on what I would like to do for my individual script, but one idea I've been playing around with is for a mockumentary all the rise and fall of one of my friend's highschool bands. They did go so far as to record and ep album and perform a good number of shows, but eventually fell apart. I think it would be interesting to make a really overly dramatic documentary about something that's in the end not all that important.

Movie that's impacted me:

Looking through my movie collection and thinking about all the films I've seen, it was really hard just to pick one. I decided to pick the one that I've watched probably the most out of all of them, and the one that I truly enjoy watching.

The Boondock Saints

According to IMBD the plot goes as is:

"Fraternal twins set out to rid Boston of the evil men operating there while being tracked down by an FBI agent."

A better synopsis from the writer/director himself, Troy Duffy:

"Two Irish brothers accidentally killed mafia thugs. They turned themselves in and were released as heroes. They then see it as a calling by God and started knocking off mafia gang members one by one. Willem Dafoe plays the detective trying to figure out the killings, but the closer he was to catching the Irish brothers, the more he thinks the brothers are doing the right thing."

This movie has drawn me in for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is the use of dual constantly interchanged scenes. I know there's probably a better word for this, but its a great device to show how the FBI agent is tracking the brothers. During any scene where the brothers are involved in a lot of action, the movie cuts between the current actions of the brothers and the analysis of the crime scene by the FBI agent acting what he thinks the brothers are doing.

The FBI agent (Paul Smecker) played by William Dafoe is very animated and listens to opera as he works. He puts on headphones and dances as he analyses the scene. The director also has scenes of current action with the FBI agent in the scene copying the brothers actions as they execute the "evil men."

Another compelling aspect of this movie is the dynamic between the two twin brothers. They both truly care for each other, because they're all they have in the world with no other family. Watching them care for and protect each other is heart warming, but at the same time they are brothers so they give each other shit. Its a very relatable and convincing dynamic.

Although it is an action movie, the film still has a lot of comedy thrown into it. Not that those two genres are mutually exclusive, but its nice to see that its not too serious (though it is when it needs to be). The comedic relief comes in the form of Rocco the eventual third member of their group who always seems to kind of screw things up, and in the form of detective Greenly whose theories about what happen almost always are wrong and is constantly showed up for by William Dafoe. There is tons of comedy to be seen through the movies with other examples such as dynamic of the brothers.

One of my favorite scenes is when they're anaylzing a crime scene and Paul Smecker says "and there were six guys with guns waiting for them." and Greenly asks "what if it was one guy with six guns?" And it does turn out to be that way.

Besides all of the comedy and action in the movie, there are also scenes of intense drama and actually pained me to watch because I had become so invested in the characters. I dont wanna give away anything, so I wont give any examples, but they're there and will pull at your heart strings.

Lastly the movie drew me in with its conflict between morality and punishment. The brothers take their religious and moral views and thrust them upon who they deem as "evil." The movie even has interviews with people to see get their perspective on the brother's act of killing for good.

Here's a good clip from one of the dual scenes between the brothers and the agent: