Week 1 response & week 2 response

Visual Arts and Film Studies Visual Arts and Film Studies Week Camera techniques, lightening, sound effects and background of a film stimulates feeling and conscious of individual taking them closer to the real life. This critically analyzes the screen of the film Videodrome (1983) in response to the week’s reading ‘ Film Art: Chapter 4’. In this film, a short scene in the starting 30 minutes in which Max (character) was being questioned about the type of things he shows; the vision of the character is and the ideas that cultivate in his mind and the way he turns negative things into positive is just beautifully shown. Analyzing the scene it can be observed that the director has made use of a very attractive setting. The behavior and expression of the character reflects a confident personality. In addition, the costume of the character is well dressed and classy that depicts the character as the focus of the film.
The direction of the camera is overlapped with the various angles to give dramatic backdrop to the action of the character. The camera revolves around the character starting with a stylish way the character carries his cigarette and answers the question to the interviewer in an upright manner. The background of the scene is manipulated with the props were smoke of a cigarette. I believe that the filmmaker has focused more on the character and his style to make him an attractive and desirable character. All the camera techniques and focused on the character, whereas the background of the setting is dull and less attractive than the clothing of the character. The techniques that the filmmaker has used for developing the scene allow the audience to get a closer look of the character. He makes use of tampopo examples to elaborate the colors of the character’s dressing in order to enhance his personality.
Week 2
The film in week 2 was Safe (1995), a horror film about a woman living alone suffering from a disease. The main character of the film revolves around a lady named Carol. In film making, the costume, light and makeup makes the character to be realistic and portray a real life character. I believe that the character Carol of the film Safe (1995) lights, makeup, costumes and setting gives a perfect touch to the character (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 113). The setting of a film set and soft makeup of the character can reflect character’s emotional state of mind. The color of the costume is brighter than the neutral colors in the background setting that makes the character appear soft while attractive. However, the costume of Carol is strong, and her body is fully covered to ensure that she is protecting herself from the harmful toxins in the environment to prevent the disease.
The makeup of the character is to be noticed as it showed how the things which she assumed to be chemicals in the atmosphere were affecting her heath, whereas some of the other scars and wounds on her face and blood coming out from her nose reflects the harmful effects of the disease. The makeup in the beginning scene of the film can be compared with the later scenes that develop a realistic image in the mind of the audience. The scars and wounds in the film shares the pain and the harm that character faces due to disease. I believe that the makeup and expression of the characters contribute much to create mise-en-scene, which is most important thing required to make a character or a scene of the film and make it shine in the film.
Reference
Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2010). Film Art: An Introduction. New York City: McGraw-Hill.