The Hunger Games Review.

The Hunger Games was a fairly new thing for me. The first time i’d heard of it was when the film was coming out, and I watched the first trailer. I was impressed by the trailer, it seemed to be an interesting film with an interesting idea, but even then it still wasn’t something that I HAD to see. Since then, The Hunger Games has blown up, being considered as the new Harry Potter, even the new Twilight, which in my opinion can only hinder the success of the film. The fandom of this film is a more hardcore version of the Twihards, they want to see some violence in this film.

So entering the cinema, I had a pretty open mind towards the film, only hearing from seemingly ever reviewer in the world that the film was amazing. The hip eon this film is pretty big, probably only close to that of Harry Potter and unfortunately Twilight.

The film centres around a girl, Katniss Everdeen, who is one of the inhabitants of District 12, one of the Districts in a dystopian world called PanEm. In this world, there is an event called The Hunger Games, where two tributes from each of the 12 districts must compete against each other, until only one is left standing. Katniss’s sister gets picked for the games, but in an act of selflessness, Katniss volunteers in her place.

The idea behind the film is a brilliant one, something that everyone can relate to in the idea of reality tv gone mad, but also different enough that people can recognise the fact that this is a different time and culture to our own.  Jennifer Lawrence is simply perfect as Katniss. Having never read the books, I didn’t have a previous idea of what Katniss should look like, but after seeing this film, I wouldn’t want anyone else to play her. Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, the other tribute from District 12, is also very good, if not a bit too angsty for my liking, but that’s fair enough really considering what he is about to go through. The supporting cast all work well, but Woody Harrelson is perhaps a bit miscast as the trainer of the District 12 tributes.

The film had to have 7 seconds cut out of it so that it could be rated as a 12 rather than a 15, but this film still packs one hell of a punch. The lack of blood in the film doesn’t really register, and the kills once The Hunger Games  start  look and feel very violent. There is definite tension when Katniss is about to go up to enter The Hunger Games, I personally felt scared for her as she arrived in the killing field where all the tributes start The Hunger Games.

The director, Gary Ross, does well with the film, but I think that maybe he uses a few to many close ups of characters and too much handheld. There were points in the film where I felt that I didn’t know what I was looking at, particularly when the killing started. I couldn’t tell who was being killed and who wasn’t. But overall, I think he did a good job with the film, the setting worked well and the whole film in general was very good.

I don’t think that this film can be compared to Twilight, the romance in this film between the two district 12 tributes feels necessary, not just there and the focus of the whole thing like Twilight is. I found myself wanting the two tributes to get together, instead of wishing one would kill the other. The emotions that the film makes you feel are also where the film differs from Twilight. When one of the tributes is killed, everyone in my showing was staring at the screen open mouthed and visibly saddened. My friend even started crying at this point, and she had no idea what The Hunger Games was about before we entered.

The Hunger Games is one of the best films i’ve seen this year, although my initial reaction after seeing the film was that it was a bit underwhelming. The around the film is so big that I was expecting some amazing, world changing masterpiece, but instead the film is simply an excellent blockbuster. It’s not going to win any oscars, but the box office is going to pile up. Just like Harry Potter.

rating   * * * *

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 3D review.

So the other day I went to see Star Wars with a friend. Both of us are fans of the films, but I had never seen this film in the cinema. My friend had, so the attraction of seeing Star Wars for the first time on the big screen was more of a pull for me than it was for him, but even so, we were both looking forward to it.

I’m skeptical over 3D conversions in films, in my experience 3D doesn’t add much to a film, even if it’s been filmed in 3D. The only memorable experience i’ve had with 3D was Avatar, but I still went into this film with a fairly open mind, expecting the 3D to make the whole experience more interesting.

Frankly, I found the 3D a little bit pointless. I found myself looking out for it more than just getting lost in it. Maybe because I was so sceptical about the whole 3D thing I was subconsciously expecting it not to live up to the hype, but I found the whole 3D a bit, boring. The only part that I thought actually looked good in 3D, and warranted a conversion was the final fight against Darth Maul. Personally, I didn’t think that the film looked much different in 3D, there didn’t seem to be much depth to the screen, it just seemed that the objects at the foreground of the screen were standing out. It all felt a bit, little for me.

Despite the 3D problems, I still enjoyed seeing the film on the big screen for the first time. I hadn’t watched the film for a while, so it was like watching the film with fresh eyes, being reminded of things that I had forgotten about since the last viewing.

As a film, it’s not the best ever. But as a cinema experience, it’s one of this films where you can get lost in the envoriments, the story, and the fact that it’s Star Wars. Sure, the story isn’t the best, and the pod race goes on for what feels like 56 years, but despite that, it’s a good introduction to people who hadn’t seen the original trilogy first, such as myself, and those who are just coming into the Star Wars universe.

And I like Jar Jar, so I had fun.

 

rehearsing the TV show.

This week was another week of practising in the TV show for when we have to film the show when we come back form the easter holiday. The first half of the show is basically done, it just needs practising on the presenters part, so that they know what they’re saying when they’re saying it. The auto cue helps but they do need to know what’s coming up and what they have to say, and it would be more helpful if they knew there lines so they didn’t have to solely rely on the auto cue, just in case we have technical problems on the day, or something goes wrong. We have good presenters though so that shouldn’t be a problem. The director also needs the time to see if there’s any new camera angle that he wants us cameramen to do. Like I said, the first half of the show is good to go, just needs a bit of fine tuning.

We still need to work on the second half, like actually finding someone to interview. We have a performer but we still need to meet with him and work out how to shoot his performance and the like. This can partly be done over the break, but we’re just waiting for when we get back so that we can focus fully on it without having any big holidays to separate us.

We’ve got the idea for the set, we just need to make that, which we’re all going to work towards over Easter seeing as the person who’s job it was to design the set hasn’t actually turned up to anything for about 3 weeks now.

On Tuesday, i designed a leader board for the challenge segment of our show, one that could be used for the programme or improved on if the director sees fit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s basic but it gets the point across and we won’t be showing it for more than a few seconds so it doesn’t need to be spectacular. I’m now working on the graphics with the VT manager Vinuri, so I now do this as well as being the cameraman for camera 1.

I’m enjoying this module, we’ve got a really good, organised group, those that actually turn up and don’t leave a week early for easter .We’ve got quite a lot done, and know what we have to do to finish the show, so we’re not in any stress currently. It’s all about just refining the show so that it’s perfect and flows right, and doesn’t look really amateur and,  basically rubbish.

progression of the TV studio module

This week has seen quite a bit of progression towards this module. We’ve had two sessions in the TV studio, so I think it’s safe to say that everyone is comfortable with their roles and knows what they’re doing. So far this week, we’ve come up with more of a structure for the show, we’ve come up with the order that the features are going to be shown, what the features are going to be and the timings. Some members of the group are going to write the script so it’s ready for next week’s sessions, and the presenters can practise with the actual script and get used to that, instead of using the rough auto cue we have at the moment.

We have discussed the setting of the TV studio, what it will look like when we actually come to producing the final product. We’ve decided to have the presenters and guests on the left hand side, with a performance area on the right, so that we make the most of the space we have, and also it lets the cameras move around, making the set look bigger, and look like there’s more parts to it.

We’ve also come up with a competition idea for our presenters to do, so that it incorporates social media, as we’ll be getting audiences to vote on which challenge they would do, and also just adds more interest to the show, instead of just having clips and interviews, there’s humour, competition and audience involvement.

Overall this project is still going well, we’re slowly but surely sorting everything out, we really only need to do some filming outside of the studio, write a script, sort the website stuff out, sort a set out and practise more.

161mc-creating a TV programme.

This is the last module of this year, and it seems to be going well. What we have to do is make a 10 minute TV show about  a certain topic, my groups is weird and wonderful. We have to do everything, come up with the content, present it, do all the roles like camera, sound, light, set design.

We’ve only been doing this module for a couple of weeks, but I think that we’re doing well. So far, we’ve come up with what type of show we wanted it to be, not to weird that it would put audiences off, and so that it would fit the border of a watershed audience, but make it different enough that it fits into the category of weird and wonderful. We’ve been looking at different youtube videos, and have found some weird ones from people like Shoenice22, who eats anything he’s asked to.

We as a group liked the fact that it’s weird but not to gross, so it would be better for the type of show that we’re producing, but this still might need to be downgraded a bit, seeing as a pre watershed audience wouldn’t be able to drink vodka like he does in the video.

We’ve also decided on what roles we are each going to do, so that as we go through the process of making the show, wee can all focus more on our roles instead of trying to do everything as a group. My role is to operate Camera 1, basically to get the shots that the director wants. I’m happy with this role, i’ve been on the camera a few times during the practise sessions, so I feel comfortable on the camera, and I feel that I know what i’m doing.

We’re still in the planning stage of this, but we have a studio session booked for monday so we will hopefully get more planning done and further on the progress of the Tv show!

 

 

161mc-tv studio roles

Director Luke Collins
PA Amy Wilkinson
Vision Mixer Adam Hince
Floor Manager Ashleigh Hodgson
Camera 1 Luke Cutts
Camera 2 Dan Hooper
Camera 3 Damon Coates
Sound Matt O’Neill
Producer Emily Horler
VT Producer/Graphics Vinuri Perera
Presenter Tom Woods
Presenter Shannon Clinton
Set Jack Whightman
Lighting Handy Ndlovu
Autocue Caixia Zhuo

Reflection 3 – People To People Completion

We’ve edited our final video for People To People, and I think we are all proud of what we have done. The sound could have been better, but due to some faults with the equipment that we didn’t realise were there until it came to editing, we couldn’t do anything about that.

Whilst editing the video, we did have a look into colour correcting the video, to make it seem warmer by adding an orange hue, or making it look more depressing by adding a blue hue, but we decided that the footage looks alright as it is. We felt that if we added a colouring that was obviously trying to push the audience into a certain direction, then the message of the video would become lost.

One of the hardest parts of the editing process was choosing what parts to include in the final edit. Rachel said a lot of good things that in their own right could have been included in the final documentary, but we cut it down to the stuff that fitted the message that we wanted to get across, that depression isn’t something to fear, and that you can have a successful and fulfilled life whilst suffering from it.

One scene in the documentary that we weren’t sure about keeping was when the cat jumps up into Rachel’s lap whilst she is talking. We really wanted to keep in what she was saying, but we weren’t sure if the cat would ruin it, but when we discussed our worries with Ken, he said that the cat added realism to the video, which is one of the things that we were aiming for, so we decided to keep the cat in to make Rachel seem more relatable. This ended up helping to emphasise our message, that Rachel is just a normal person that normal things happen too.

I think that we’ve been quite creative throughout this project, we chose sequences that aren’t what you would normally expect, and camera shots, like the cat jumping up, that aren’t conventional of a typical documentary. There were things that we could’ve done better, namely the sound, but through the editing we managed to improve it a bit, cutting out some of the background noise and making it more pleasant to hear, but overall I think the edit has come out well.

The People To People project has really opened my eyes to the world of depression. Before making this documentary, I never really thought about depression. I knew people had it, and I knew that it made you feel sad, but I never thought of the way that it makes you feel, that you can’t do anything, that you aren’t worth anything to anyone, that you aren’t important. I think that is what i’ll take away from the People To People project, a better understanding of what depression is, and how it isn’t something to fear, but something you can overcome.

editing the documentary.

As a group, we decided that we would edit our documentary on friday, so that we could spend all afternoon working on it and making it as good as it could be, but things didn’t go quite as we planned.

I was the only one that was in the morning lecture from my group, so I was pretty worried that we wouldn’t be able to edit that day, and that we would have to rush it the next week. Luckily one other member turned up, so we could still edit. We were still one member down, but she was the one who lead us to Rachel in the first place, so she had had quite a lot of imput into the project already.

The editing went pretty well, apart from having to spend some time editing the sound that we had, which had quite a lot of background hum, but through Final Cut Pro, we managed to get rid of some of that, making it more listenable. We picked the sections of our interview with Rachel that fitted the ideas that we wanted to get across to the audience, mainly that Mental Health problems, Depression in particular, aren’t’ something to fear, and that for many people they are a normal part of life.

We kept the documentary quite simple, we didn’t want to make it too flashy and in your face, as that would’ve distracted from the message that we wanted to get across. We didn’t include any music because a) it wouldn’t have mixed well with the current sound of the interview and b) we again didn’t want to overpower both the documentary and the audience.

We selected the clips that we felt fitted the theme of the documentary best, and followed some form of narrative, in that they fitted together. I think that the documentary really tells you a story of Rachel’s life, and lets you understand what she’s gone through, and what she’s still going through.

I think the editing process was the easiest part of this whole module, as we had had a lot of practise through the individual edit in 162, so we knew what we were doing. Personally, i’m happy with the end result, yes it could’ve sounded better, but you can still understand what Rachel is saying, so you can still understand the topic of the video and what we are trying to inform the audience about.

The Woman In Black Review.

So recently I saw the film The Woman In Black, and it’s safe to say that I was looking forward to it. I’d only heard good things about this film, that it was the highest grossing British Horror since records began, and that it scared the living crap out of you. Whilst not being a masterpiece,  the film didn’t disappoint.

I knew nothing of The Woman In Black before I heard there was a film being released, so I had no previous experience of how scary it was, or what the play or book was like, so I went to the film with a pretty open mind, expecting the film to be pretty damn scary.

The film is definitely creepy, the opening showing three eerie, possessed kids throwing themselves out the window. The Victorian setting helps this, with fog everywhere when something ominous is about to happen, and creaky, rusty architecture on every building. You really get the impression that this village has been suffering under the wrath of this ‘The Woman In Black’ for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their was some trepidation when Daniel Radcliffe was announced as the lead of this film, as everyone of course knows him as Harry Potter, but I think that he really makes the role his own. The character of Harry Potter isn’t completely forgotten whilst watching him, how could it be when the films where so huge? Radcliffe does his best at distracting us from thinking throughout ‘Use your wand Harry!’ I don’t buy that he has a wife and a 4 year old son considering he looks about 19 despite stubble and permanently looking tired, but that’s not exactly his fault.

The scares aren’t as fast or obvious as the likes of Paranormal Activity, but this film is playing to a more, sophisticated audience. Instead of just stumping for things being thrown at the camera, the director James Watkins opts for things making you jump from the corner of the screen, a blurry movement in the back of the frame, a flicker of light, the ominous use of shadows. One particular scene involving a rocking chair scared the life out of every angle person in the cinema.

Underneath the scares, there is still a good story to follow. This film doesn’t just rely on scares, it follows a good story that actually justifies the scares. The film also benefits from a brilliant supporting cast, who all feel like real, well rounded characters within their own right. This film could’ve easily been the Daniel Radcliffe attempting to be in an adult film, but the end result is far more than that.

Overall, I really liked this film, it scared me enough so that I wasn’t to put off by the constant threat of something just being round the corner, but they kept my heart racing and my attention in check.

 

rating- ****

Reflection 2 – People To People Progress

My groups People to People project is coming along well, we’ve filmed our subject, Rachel and just have to finsih the edit of it now.

When I heard form Sheila that she would like to film her friend Rachel who had depression, I researched into how people can hide their depression from others, so that they appear more ‘normal’ to the outside world. It surprised me just how easy it is for people to hide what they are actually feeling, in that they can feel so low, but appear just like anybody else on the outside. It made me feel more sympathetic towards Rachel, before I researched it, I knew depression was bad but I didn’t know how much of a constant struggle it is just to not give up.

Both myself and Amy thought that it would be an interesting topic of a documentary to go with Rachel, as we both thought that it was a story that needed telling, how people can keep their depression hidden from the world. Sheila was obviously more than happy to film Rachel, as she was her choice of subject.

During the shoot, we made the decision to have Rachel focus more on the positive things in her life, to show that you don’t have to let the depression rule every part of you. We focused on her modelling career, her qualifications and her life goals, in that she wants to train to be a mental health nurse. During the shoot, I think we wanted it to look a certain way so that the audience would feel sympathy for her, but by making the colours quite grey, and having Rachel sit in a way that suggested she was vulnerable, I think we’ve made her look to much of a victim, which sort of goes against what we wanted to portray, but we can easily change the colours to make them a bit warmer, and in some shots zoom in on her face to make her seem more in control of her own life.