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Jaws Scene Study

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 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...

My Thoughts on Jaws

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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...

My Thoughts on Swiss Army Man

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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 Reality of Making a Short Film

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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 and Acting in Films

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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 ...

My Thoughts on Get Out

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 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...

My Thoughts on Marie Antoinette

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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...