Braeden Roth's Blog

Overall, I enjoyed the class. I originally took the class as an elective because I took a lit and film class in high school and thought that it would be similar. This class focused more on the film and cultural impact that the film had while the class in high school focused on comparing books and films. The material regarding film and filmmaking were very similar so this class was too difficult for me. Going into the class I had prior knowledge about shots, angles, sound, and other filmmaking techniques. The movies in this class were very different from the other class, which I enjoyed. They were movies that I would have probably never gone and seen on my own, so this class exposed me to different types of movies. I would say that my favorite movie we watched besides Cars would either be Get Out or Jaws. I liked Get Out because it was probably the most modern film that we watched in class. The plot was interesting and intense in a good way. It did have a somewhat fear factor to it, whi...

Cars is an animated film that was released in 2006 by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film takes place in a world where everyone and everything is an automobile. It follows an arrogant rookie racer Lightning McQueen, who is about to have the biggest race of his lifetime. Lighting McQueen, Chicks Hicks, and Strip Weathers all tie the last race for the Piston Cup, so the racing comity decides to have a final race winner takes all styles in California in a week. Lighting McQueen and Chicks Hicks are competing for sponsorship from Dinco, the biggest racing company, who are losing their current car Strip Weathers after the final race. Lighting McQueen wants to be the first to California to try and get the sponsorship, so he tells his driver to drive through the night. They both end up falling asleep and Lighting McQueen falls out the back of the car and ends up in a small town called Radiator Springs. He ends up destroying the road and is sentenced to fix the road. All...

 Barry Jenkins' 2016 film Moonlight is a coming-of-age film that follows the life of a homosexual black man named Chiron. It has a unique style, where it broke his life up into three chapters. The first chapter is titled Little and takes place when he is a kid. He meets Juan, a drug dealer, when he is running away from other kids who are chasing him and calling him names. In the first chapter, Juan acts as a father figure for Chiron as he often runs away from his house to go to Juan's house. Juan has a roommate Terresa who is somewhat of a mother figure for Chiron. Later in the chapter, we find out that Chiron's mom is a drug addict. Chapter two follows Chiron when he is a teenager. He still is dealing with bullies and his drug-addicted mother. He spends the night at Teresa's house because his mom told him he had to leave the house for the night. It seems that he would often go to Juan and Terresa's house while growing up. We find out that Juan died and seems like C...

 One scene that stuck out to me was the get out of the water scene. This is after the first shark attack, and no one really knew about the shark. Everyone is in the water and Chief Brody is very focused on the water to see if the shark is at the beach. A group of kids go into and then all of a sudden the shark attacks a kid and blood emerges in the water, which puts the beach into a panic. Everyone runs out of the water and then it turns out the shark killed a kid.  There were a few moments in this scene that stood out to me. There are a few shots where people are talking to Brody, but he seems to ignore them. They are just in his way of watching the waters. These types of shots sort of represent all the obstacles in the way of Brody trying to make the beaches safe such as the mayor not closing the beach, Brody's fear of the water, etc. It just seems as if he has so much in his way. The unique camera angle helped to add some suspense because the audience had a feeling tha...

The 1975 thriller Jaws was directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as Brody, the chief of police, Richard Dreyfuss who plays Hooper, a marine biologist, and Robert Shaw who plays Quint, a shark hunter. The film begins with some college kids on a beach on Amity Island at night and a girl decides to go swimming. While swimming, the girl gets attacked and eaten by a shark. The next morning the police find the body and send the body to the morgue to find out what happened. They find out she was attacked by a shark, so Brody tries to shut down the beaches until they can deal with the shark. The mayor says he can't because the town realizes on the beaches for money and the 4th of July is coming up. Another shark attack happens, but this time a little boy dies. This causes panic in the town, but the mayor tells them not to worry. The boy's mom puts up a flyer giving anyone $3,000 for catching the shark. The fishermen flood the oc...

Swiss Army Man is a comedy/drama film that was written and directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. The movie stars Paul Dano as Hank and Daniel Radcliffe as Manny. The film opens with Hank stranded on an island about to take his own life but sees a body that washed up on shore. Hank goes over to the body and the body starts to fart. Hank then uses the farts to ride the body like a jet ski to reach another island. Hank then carries the body around the island to try and find a way home. They reach a shelter where the body comes back to life but knows nothing. Hank gives him the name Manny and starts to tell him about everything. By teaching Manny things about the world and having Manny experience different emotions and events, Manny gains "abilities" such as being able to shoot things out of his mouth and use his body like an axe. Throughout their time in the wilderness, Hank has Manny live out some of the events that have happened in Hank's life to try and motivate M...

The genre of our group's short film was Western. As a group, we were trying to think of ideas when picking a genre and ended up with Western. We thought that this wouldn't be too difficult of a genre to do as we could do a typical Western stand-off. We went through a somewhat typical process when making a short film. Once we had our genre and a general idea of what we wanted to do, we did some research and found some scenes that were similar to what we wanted to do. We then created a rough storyboard of what we were going to do and drew what some of the scenes looked like. After that, we planned when and where we were going to shoot the film. We obviously weren't able to shoot in a desert or use guns, so we improvised and used the room on res rec 3rd floor and used our hands as guns. We then met as a group and filmed all the scenes in one meeting time, which was very convenient. After that, we spent the next day or so editing the clips together and adding some music/sound e...

Sound is a very important aspect of films. Sound helps to enhance almost all movies. Even films that have little to no speaking still incorporate sound in order to help tell the story. One of the main uses of sound is to help add suspense to films. Many horror films use non-diegetic sound, which is sound that is not a part of the world of the film, to create an uneasy feeling for the viewers hinting that something bad is going to happen. Some famous examples of when sound was used very effectively were during the Rocky training montage and the scene at the beach in Jaws. Diegetic sound, which is sound that is heard by characters on screen, makes movies feel more realistic. It wouldn't make sense for characters in a film to go to a public setting like the park and be completely silent. Another example would be if there was a dancing scene in a movie, the music played from a radio or speaker would be diegetic sound. Diegetic sound makes films more realistic. The most important thing ...

 Get Out is a 2017 horror film that was written and directed by Jordan Peele. The film's main character Chris is played by Daniel Kaluuya. The film is about Chris who meets his girlfriend Rose's family on a weekend trip to her family's house. Everything seems normal at first, but Chris quickly finds out that Rose's family isn't normal. Eventually, he finds out that Rose and her family abduct and brainwash black people and put the consciousness of other people in them. The film was really interesting and very suspenseful towards the last 30 minutes when Chris puts everything together and tries to escape. I personally enjoyed the movie but did not expect that type of movie from Jordan Peele, who became famous for his comedy skits. However, I think the comedy side of Jordan Peele was seen through Chris's friend Rod, who added a comedic effect to the movie. I think this character was really important to the film as he broke the tension throughout the movie. This mad...

Marie Antoinette is a historical film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Kirsten Dunst stars as Marie Antoinette in the 2006 film. The film follows Marie Antoinette as she becomes queen of France and ends with her leaving the Palace of Versailles during the French Revolution. The movie does follow a historical plot but does not feel like a history lesson, which helps the movie. The plot includes her going to parties and having parties of her own, which makes the movie less boring. However, I did not enjoy the movie that much. I think it is watchable, but I wouldn't watch it again. There were times when the movie skipped ahead in time and I didn't realize right away, which made it a little hard to follow. I also felt that there was no real storyline, it was almost a long montage of her life. However, the set of the movie was very impressive due to the fact that the movie was filmed at the actual Palace of Versailles. This resulted in some very impressive shots during the mov...

Covid has obviously changed a lot of things and one of those things is watching movies. With all the streaming services that are available the need to go to the movie theaters has decreased a lot. This raises the question of which is better at-home movies or going to the theater to see movies. Both options have their pros and cons. At-home movies are extremely convenient as you don't have to drive anywhere or worry about getting somewhere at a certain time because you can watch the movie wherever and whenever you want to. However, when you go to the theaters the quality of the big screen and speakers is something that is hard to replicate at-home. The big screen can definitely improve the viewing experience of the movie. When it comes to snacks during the movie, it is definitely cheaper at home than at the theaters. You could always go to the store before going to the theater to get some snacks, but even then, you are still overpaying for drinks and popcorn. Movie theaters have a n...

Rear Window is a 1954 murder mystery movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It stars James Stewart who plays the protagonist LB Jefferies and Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont, the love interest of LB Jefferies. The movie follows the story of how an injured photographer solves the murder of one of his neighbors from a window in his apartment. The movie's unique style of only seeing things through the window or the lens of one of Jefferies's cameras provides an interesting viewing experience. It adds to the suspense of the film and gives the feeling that the viewer is in the room with Jefferies as they only know what he knows. However, I thought the beginning of the movie was hard to follow due to the unique style of the movie, but as a whole, the movie was enjoyable to watch. There were some weird moments in the movie that were caused by outdated editing compared to today's editing abilities. One scene that sticks out is towards the end of the movie when Thorwald is in Jefferies...

The famous shot that has stayed with me is this scene from Avengers: Endgame (2019) directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. The scene is from the final fight scene of the movie and at this moment the main Avengers were fighting Thanos. Then superheroes from all over the galaxy showed up to help the Avengers. In my opinion, this shot is very impressive and complex but not too overwhelming. I think this scene works well because Ant-man on the right side of the screen adds balance to the large amount of people on the left side of the screen. There is not much that I would change about this scene, but if I had to, I would add more light so the scene would not be as dark.   

 1. The essential story is a narrator is telling a story to another man of how a man named Dr. Caligari presented his somnambulism at a town fair. After the fair, people are murdered, and an investigation is started. Dr. Caligari's assistant Cesare is eventually suspected of the murders. It turns out that Dr. Caligari is actually the head of an insane asylum and has been using Cesare, a somnambulist, to complete the murders. It returns to the narrator and the man, and at the end of the movie, it is revealed that the narrator is insane. 2. The film begins in the present and then becomes a flashback to an event in the narrator's life but returns to the present in the end.  3. The use of lighting and shadows helps to add to the horror aspect of the film. In addition, the odd-shaped building helps to add to the eeriness of the film.  4. The final "plot twist" is that the narrator is the insane one is the narrator, not Dr. Caligari. This then makes the audience question...

Hello, my name is Braeden Roth. I am a sophomore majoring in Mechanical Engineering. My favorite movies are comedies and superhero movies. Personally, I prefer the Marvel movies over the DC movies. My favorite comedy movie would have to be Grown Ups. My favorite Marvel movie is Spider-Man: No Way Home.  I decided to take this film class because I enjoy watching movies. In addition, I took a lit and film class in high school and thought it was very interesting, so I am hoping this class will be the same. As of now, I don't plan on doing anything with film or media professionally; however, I will continue to watch movies as I get older.