The Kings Of Summer

The Kings of Summer, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, is described as a ‘coming of age comedy’. The film is about 3 teenage boys, who are friends and are all unhappy with their home lives. So as an escape from the misery they experience at home, together the three of them decide to build a house in an area of the woods that is very isolated and that no one knows about so their house would never be found by their parents or anyone else. After building the house they decide that they’re going to live off the land, no more shopping in supermarkets or conforming to society. So they try to teach themselves to hunt and they collect berries and make their own fires and other things that connect them to nature. Meanwhile their parents have contacted the police and everyone is searching for them. The three boys living together goes well for around 3-4 weeks until a girl gets involved and breaks up two of the boys friendship.

I found the film to be quite funny with a fairly good story line. It is definitely aimed more at teenages, I doubt an adult would really enjoy it as the plot is quite strange and far fetched. However I did enjoy watching the film, it is light hearted and easy watching for a boring Sunday afternoon. If there is nothing else you can think to watch on a rainy day at home, I recommend this, it is a bit silly but it will make you laugh and keep you entertained for an hour or two.

The Kinks: Sunny Afternoon Musical

For my birthday, I received tickets to see Sunny Afternoon, a musical about a band called The Kinks. On Saturday the 24th of October, the time had finally come for me to head down to London to see the show and I couldn’t have been more excited.                                                                    

Although I’m pretty sure you know who The Kinks are, he’s some background information about them. The band has 4 members, 2 of which are brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, who always had the dream of forming a band. So along with two of their childhood friends, Pete Quaife and Mick Avory, they formed The Kinks. The band formed in 1963 and are regarded as one of the most influential bands of the era. Their music was loved by people across the UK and America. They didn’t conform to the expectation of a 60s rock band and their ban from America after touring there is evidence of this. They wanted to change the way people heard music, they wanted to make a difference and they certainly did.

The musical, written by Ray Davies, the bands lead singer perfectly documents The Kinks formation, their rise to fame, the ups and downs of relationship within the band and how their popularity effected their friends and family. But most importantly the actors in Sunny Afternoon perform the songs ridiculously well, they have clearly studied The Kinks and adapted their own voices and stage presents to replicate the phenomenal band. The musical is so well written and you can just see how engrossed everyone in the audience is. My mum and her partner took me to see the show and my mums partner wasn’t that bothered about The Kinks but he loved it. The atmosphere the musical created within the theatre was incredible. You’d have to be crazy not to like The Kinks and even crazier not to enjoy the Sunny Afternoon musical.

If you don’t think you know who The Kinks are, I strongly recommend you look them up and listen to their songs. You’re bond to know some of their songs, anyone who hasn’t lived under a rock their whole life will know at least one of them. And if you are a fan of The Kinks, don’t hesitate, book your tickets to see Sunny Afternoon now, trust me you won’t regret it!

Spectre

So last night, my friend text me saying she was coming to pick me up and we were going to watch Spectre, with it seeming like I had no choice in the matter, I went and I’m glad I did. I must admit, although it is an unpopular opinion, I’m someone who isn’t that bothered by the James Bond films, they’re not something I would choose to watch, I’d only really watch them if they’re on so I haven’t seen many and was sceptical about seeing Spectre as I wasn’t expecting it to be my cup of tea. However I was pleasantly surprised. As I saw this film a day after its release date and with it being so immensely popular, the cinema was packed with excited James Bond fans.

Anyway, Spectre is directed by Sam Mendes and is the twenty-forth Bond film. And as every Bond film is, Spectre is jam packed with shoot out, explosions, romance, fast cars, helicopters and everything else that is expected of a good James Bond film. And as ever the opening sequence including the new Bond song, Writing on the Wall by Sam Smith, was even better than I was expecting, it was so elegant and mysterious. The opening sequence included a topless James Bond, Daniel Craig, being touched by lots of attractive women because of course that what every Bond film opening needs. However I’m not a big fan of a half naked Daniel Craig. Although the film was incredible, so action packed and thrilling with lots of little plot twist throughout. I mean whats not to love with huge explosions and crazy car chases and everyone secretly loves it when James Bond saves the day against all odds and ends up in love with a beautiful woman who at first hates him.

Bond fan or not, you should definitely watch this film. Although I have heard people say it isn’t as good as Skyfall, I think it is still incredible and definitely worth a watch, it’s so creative and far fetched that you just have to see it.

Common

Common is a television programme that is presented as a film, directed by David Blair and was shown on the 26th of May 2014 on BBC 1. However I recently watched Common on Netflix. The film starts with a young lad, sat in his car clearly waiting for something and the next thing you know a group of 3 lads run towards the car, get in it and shout for the boy to start driving, driving fast because they need to get away. As the boy starts driving, during the car journey, it becomes apparent that something had happened in the pizza place, one of the 3 lads had stabbed someone and run and was now unaware of whether the boy he had stabbed would survive or not. The next morning, the news of a fatal murder in the pizza shop is reported on the local news. So the hound lad driving the car decides to try and persuade his ‘friend’ who is guilty of the murder to go to the police and confess but ends up getting threatened and told not to say anything by the young murderer. Eventually the truth is told and all the boy involved, the driver and the group of 3 lads are put on trial for joint enterprise murder and after the person who committed the murder pleads guilty, the other three are left with the difficult decision of whether to plead guilty to intended GBH and serve a maximum of 6 years or risk serving life but through taking the risk, they could end up with no charges at all.

Common is quite a short film where not much seems to happen, there is he main story line of the murder and nothing else really happens but I suppose this stops it from getting complicated and doesn’t allow for the film to diverge from the message it has about whether life for joint enterprise murder should be allowed to be give as a punishment. Joint enterprise is where under the doctrine of joint enterprise, a person may be found guilty for another person’s crime. Simple association or accidental presence during a crime is insufficient for a charge under joint enterprise. A suspect must knowingly assist or encourage the crime and agree to act together with the primary offender for a common purpose. For example, the driver of a getaway vehicle can be charged with robbery under joint enterprise even if an accomplice actually perpetrated the crime. So therefore joint enterprise murder is where everyone involved with the murder is prosecuted for murder even though only one person commited the actual murder, like only one person stabbed someone but everyone involved in the planning is sententced to life imprisionment for murder.

I think that this film successfully showcases the effects of and issues with joint enterprise murder, as I was unaware of what joint enterprise murder even was before watching this film and now I know and can make my own conclusions about the drawbacks and benefits of it.

Common is a British film that contains a few famous British actors that play their characters very well. The acting is very effective as you really feel for an empathise with the characters in the film. Which give you a more emotional attachment with what is happening and make you consider what it would be like to be in the position of the family of the boys and the boys themselves and what you would do.

This is England: Relationships Textual Analysis

Reservoir Dogs: Planning

We have been given the task of remaking the opening of Reservoir Dogs directed by Quentin Tarantino.

We must remake it as accurately as possible to make it as close to this clip as possible. My class of 18 was split into 3 groups, 2 groups of 7 and a group of 6. First we looked through the clip a few times and decided who would play each character and who would film, I am the person who is going to film. We also planned where we are going to film, the start of the film will be filmed in the canteen and the rest of the clip filmed next to the wall that runs alongside the bus lane. After making decisions about the location, we watched the clip a few more times, as we did this, we took note of the sequence the characters appear in and who else is in the scene when they appear and also each characters costume and their movements and facial expressions as they are shown in the opening.

From this we notified the sequence of shots used and disused how we would recreate them  on our own filming, for example, the dolly shot as they are walking past the blue truck. However we are still unaware of how we are going to achieve this because the other two groups managed to book the schools only dolly before us leaving us without the time to use once the other group had finished. We did however think about using a bike and putting the camera on it, and this is probably what we will do.

Since the planning lessons, we have created a group chat on Facebook that include all the members of our group. On this we have discussed what each person will bring, such as black blazers and ties, candy sticks as cigarettes and who would make a cigar. This has now all been sorted and we are ready to start filming.

This Is England

Over the past two and a half media lessons we have watched This Is England. This Is England is directed by Shane Meadows. The film is set in 1983 and was released in 2006. The film is followed by 3 series that are each set 2 years apart and show the character progression. This is England showcases the many racial difficulties at the time and realistically shows what it was like, for some people, to grow up in the 80s. The film follows the life’s of a group of ‘skin heads’ living in a town in the Midlands. The leader of the gang is called Woody, who sees a young lad called Shaun walking home from school upset and from this Woody decides to adopt him into the group. As the group adapts to having Shaun as a new member and start to like him and accept him, they are disturbed by an old friend of Woody’s called Combo, who returns from prison to surprise Woody. Combo tries to rekindle his friendship with Woody but with them having so much time apart it becomes apparent that they have both changed. However Combo has changed to become very patriotic and ‘proud’ to be British and through this he is a very racist character which upsets the only black member of the group, Milky, and along with upsetting Milky, Combo also upsets a lot of other members in the group creating a group divide. This divide eventually causes a lot of pain and upset and leads to Combo brutally attacking Milky. 

I enjoyed watching This is England and feel it successfully handled the racial issues of the early 80s and provokes the realisation of how much things have changed since then. The storyline to This is England did well with playing with the audiences emotions and made you really empathise with the characters. Since watching This is England in class, I have started watching the following TV series Shane Meadows has made and hope they are just as good as the film. 

Mise-en-scene – Terminology, Definitions and Explanation

Actors

• Appearance – Costume, hair and make-up – Shows social status and wealth.
• Blocking – Where a character is positioned in the location.
• Performance – Dialogue (Delivery/script) – accent/speed etc. Also expression, gestures and posture alongside dialogue convey emotion/power/feeling etc.

Colour pallet

• Colours used in the set (objects, walls, etc)
• Colours in a scene can also so temperature – If colours are quite cold e.g blue, it can give a sad, isolated feeling and if they are warm colours e.g red it can show happiness or anger.

Lighting

• How the artificial colour on set appears.
• Ambiance – The mood the lighting creates.

Setting

• Location shoot – Shows authenticity of the location.
• Studio shoot – Everything is controlled but costs more.
• Props – Use in the location.
• Set decoration – How the location is decorated for the scene.

Editing – Terminology, Definitions and Explanations

  
  
  

God Help the Girl

Recently, I decided to watch God Help the Girl on Netflix. The film is directed by Stuart Murdoch and is described as an ‘indie musical’. The film is rated over 4 stars on Netflix, which is quite a high rating compared to most other films on Netflix, so this is what seemed to persuade me to watch it. However personally I found this film to be just a little too confusing, it seems to be one of those dramas that trys too hard to be all deep and meaningful, where the director try’s to make the film all artsy and creative. Similar to that of Frank, another British drama, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, which I feel also tries to be too deep with hidden meaning but instead I find it ends up falling quite flat.

Anyway God Help the Girl is about the band Belle & Sebastian and the director, Stuart Murdoch was the ‘mastermind’ behind the band. A girl called Eve, played by Emily Browning, starts writing songs that she then sings throughout the film, alone and as part of the band. She writes the songs as a way of sorting through and dealing with some of the emotional and mental problems she is facing. She then meets and boy and girl called James and Cassie, Olly Alexander and Hannah Murray, they are both musicians and alongside Eve, together they form a band.

Olly Alexander and Hannah Murray also play characters called Jakob and Cassie in the popular TV series Skins. Skins is a TV series I throughly enjoyed and found that both Olly and Hannah’s characters were played very well but the characters they play in God Help the Girl are practically the same as their characters in Skins but I feel as though it doesn’t work as well in God Help the Girl. They are sort of unexplainably quite odd in the film which adds to the confusion and the ‘artsy-ness’.

I could understand why people enjoy this film and how it successfully portrays the formation and career of Belle & Sebastian but it’s just not really my cup of tea. Personally I found the best bit in the whole film was when Eve wore a ‘The Smiths’ t-shirt because The Smiths are simply incredible. I feel as though Stuart Murdoch should probably stick to making music rather than making films.