Realism - Or Lack Thereof

The last MHC Lecture described how our perception of realism is largely relative, and changes over time.

The first thing that I thought about was something a VFX lecturer had told me earlier on near the start of the year. He described working on a job for the Television show Casualty, where he was tasked with creating an explosion. His point was that by creating a proper true-to-life explosion would leave the audience scratching their heads, thinking that the explosion didn’t seem “real” enough. This seems to be a product of our paradigms as an audience in terms of what we expect such an explosion to look like. Our basis for this reality however, is in the relms of Hollywood films, which seems like a classic example of realism over reality. Much like recoil and impact momentum of bullets in film.

Mythbusters actually tested this “Myth” in their typical BS science style to see how far out Hollywood was. Nobody has but this up on the interents though, so I can’t embed it.

The discussion reminded me of a video I saw a little while ago:

All examples in the video relate to what was considered “realism” at the moment of creation, and clearly shows how our perception of realism in film has shifted with increases in technology.

SIGNING OFF - OVER AND OUT.

Narrative – Looking at the Narrative in Pulp Fiction (1994)

Narrative definition – The telling or re-telling of something true or fictional as a series of related events, recounted by a narrator of sorts.

Plot – the specific events with relate to make a narrative

Story – the overall narrative as a whole

Equilibrium – Disruption – Resolve

Below are examples from Pulp fiction. The whole narrative has many more examples of E-D-R, here are just a few that came to mind.

Equilibrium

1. Vincent and Jules have a working relationship with Marsellus Wallace

2. Marsellus Wallace is established as a leader

3. Butch is naturally getting to the end of his boxing career

4. Mia Wallace is being looked after by Marsellus Wallace

Disruption

1. Vincent and Jules accidently murder an innocent man, and are required to resolve the issue in order to maintain their work relationship with Marcellus

2. Marsellus becomes captured and humiliated by a dishonest policeman and the owner of a shop

3. Butch refuses to lose his “last fight” for his payoff as instructed by Marcellus, and a bounty is put on him, to be carried out by Jules and Vincent.

4. Mia Wallace mistakes Heroine for cocaine, and ODs while in the care of Vincent. (this would potentially effect the established working relationship with Marcellus too)

Resolve

1. Vincent and Jules receive help from a friend, and a colleague in order to clear up the car, after which the incident is forgotten about

2. Marsellus escapes with the help of Butch, and exacts his revenge on his assailants. Butch agrees to never mention the incident again, and Marsellus’ status is reaffirmed.

3. By helping Marsellus escape and retaliate, Marsellus lifts the bounty on the condition that his doesn’t mention what happened.

With the plot crescendos mentioned above, Pulp fiction in terms of Freytag’s Triangle creates an interesting series of slightly staggered peaks before the various resolves. The fractured narrative of the film enabled Quentin Tarantino to keep the events within the confines of the triangle, and create a story that easily holds the viewers attention.

Aporia in Pulp Fiction

At the very start of pulp fiction, the restaurant scene is completely without context, which created a strong sense of entropic aporia. Unlike in a game, where aporia can effectively stop gameplay if it isn’t intentionally placed, the film continues to play and the scene seems to slip into the tmesis category in terms of the viewer. It isn’t until the end of the film, where the scene is played in full (This time with a whole film’s worth of context) that the events make logical sense, and cause epiphany in the mind of the viewer. I personally find this to be a very satisfying and powerful end to the film.

IMDB Rating – 9.0/10

My Rating – 8.5/10

A Homage to Intertextuality

MS Word desperately wants to change it to intersexuality. If there's any of those in this post, apologies. You get what I mean.

The week was about Intertextuality – links (conscious or unconscious) between two different films or other media product.

The first thing that sprang to mind was a nice little example of conscious Intertextuality I found years ago, and documented (to prolong the sense of smugness I gained from noticing). Picture the scene: I walking along in Bioshock, shotgun at the ready, in preparation for some hardcore splicer slaughter. Instead I notice a little homage on the floor, no doubt put in by the game artists.

Ring any bells?

What it is: Most of a full piece of mouldy cheese and some bullet holes.

What I saw: Clearly Pac Man.

So there you have it. If you find yourself playing through the first Bioshock. Look out for the little fella.

The second thing I thought of, was a collection of intertextual references to famous serial killers Bonnie and Clyde, both in Bethesda’s Fallout 3, and the 1994 film Natural born killers Dir: Oliver Stone

Fallout 3 dedicates a whole museum to a pair of characters called Vickey and Vance. A Male/Female killing duo who went on a murderous rampage and received media attention. This in turn is an allusion to the lives of the fictitious characters Mickey and Mallory, in Natural Born Killers, which in turn loosely references infamous crime couple Bonnie and Clyde

As for the subconscious end of the intertextuality spectrum, No examples sprung to mind. I might have a think and get back to that one.

Natural Born Killers

IMDB Rating : 7.1/10

My Rating: 8/10

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Wilhelm scream! How could I forget.

The Wilhelm scream is possibly the most famous example of intertextuality within film. The Wilhelm Scream was first used in the 1951 film Distant Drums, which featured a scene where a cowboy is chomped on by an alligator after venturing too close to a swamp. The resulting sound effect was an over-the-top, slightly comical sounding wail that would go on to be one of the most highly referenced sounds in Hollywood.

Here is a brief timeline of the famous scream in “big” films after its debut in 1951

1953

Charge at Feather River

-        Although not a particularly well known film, this Warner Bros film gave the famous sound its name.  The clip was used when a character, Wilhelm, is shot in the leg with an arrow and falls. Warner Brothers liked the sound and used in in subsequent films, which spread the word.

1977

Star Wars

Time : 01:28:35

1981

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Time: 01:23:57

1988

Willow

Time: 00:53:18

1992

Reservoir Dogs

Time: 00:20:29

1995

Toy Story

Time 00:27:14

1998

Lethal Weapon 4

00:05:06

2002

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Time: 02:15:11

2007

Transformers

Time: 00:53:31

2007

Lifted

Time 00:04:55

2009

UP

Time 01:02:50

The scream has been used in over 130 feature films, and is still a popular addition to modern film, as deference to its rich history.

Cue Compilation - 

Also, I found a great bit of intertextuality a while ago, I've dug up the link. It's about a recurring prop newspaper.

http://www.slashfilm.com/lol-the-reoccurring-prop-newspaper/

It's become a fairly well known example and has certainly done the rounds on the internet, but I remember being amazed at the diversity of the prop newspaper's implementation.

Bibliography / further reading

http://youtu.be/_PxALy22utc - History of the Wilhelm scream

Lee James (2007) Wired Magazine: Issue 15.10

Semiotics – Reading the Characters in Donnie Darko (2001)

This week’s lecture looked at semiotics, and character analysis through “Denotation”, “Connotation”, and “Myth”. I decided to take apart two of the main characters in a much loved film – Donnie Darko. If you’re thinking about watching it, stop thinking and watch it. Don’t watch the directors cut though. Srsly..

DONNIE DARKO

Denotation –

-       Teenage kid

-       Dark clothes

-       Dark features – hair eyes

-       Casually dressed

-       Miserable expression

-       Apathetic look and ‘gate’

-       Slouched posture

Connotation –

-       carefree / slightly wreakless

-       Depressed / Rebel

-       Existential / questioning life

-       Gravely unhappy, unfulfilled

-       Mentally troubled

-       Unsure, nervous, anxious about the future

-       Nihilistic

The Myth –

-       Teenage boys seem to degrade society

-       Troubled people make the best art

-       The purpose behind the actions of others is widely misunderstood

-       The big picture is worth more than all the precedes it

FRANK THE BUNNYRABBIT

Denotation –

-       A person dressed in a large stylised bunny suit

-       A happy grin on the face

-       A silvery surface covers most of the face and the ears of the suit

-       Large exaggerated, distorted teeth

-       Twisted, distorted ears

-       White eyes without pupils

-       Grey furry body with white oval on chest

-       Unnatural facial ripples and contours

Connotation

-       Sinister smile , implication of sadistic personality

-       Unnatural stylised appearance reinforces the idea of frank being an imaginary construct

-       Glowing eye as “all seeing eye”

-       Tall stature – omnipotent being

-       Reflective material seems futuristic, representing tine travel

-       Warped face as a sign of abuse, past tragedies

-       Neat fur, untouchable character, reinforces omnipotence

-       Interest in the greater good, willing to be a destructive force in the short term to achieve morality

The Myth

-       Looks deceive

-       Malevolent philanthropist

-       Kindness as a result of remorse

That's all folks.

IMDB Rating : 8.2/10

My Rating : 8.5/10

Transmitting, receiving, noise, entropy, and redundancy in the Black Swan (2010)

Tonight's film was Black swan (2010) a film I wasn't expecting to enjoy after Requiem for a Dream (2000). I do wish I’d watched the film after a lecture on semiotics, because this film is saturated, and would have made a wonderfully easy write, But I digress. I dutifully sat with my notepad and pen and jotted down bits and pieces I could relate to Ivan’s lecture on the Shannon and Weaver communication model.

The start of the film seemed to be a great example of Entropy, coupled with a little bit of Noise, featuring Natalie Portman dancing with a strange morphing black creature. The creature - a construct of lovely VFX, represented Entropy (Something unfamiliar which conveyed new information to us as the audience) while the dark enigmatic stage and fast paced, tight shot created good visual "noise" which stood between the message and the recipient.

While on the subject of noise, the opposite was true when Natalie's character came to tell her mother the good news of her new part. A very low level of audible noise and a low level of visual noise (She was in a plain coloured toilet cubicle by herself) helped to create a clear transmission of information to the audience. This was crucial given the important nature of the information. 

a little later on in the film was a strange concept that I found difficult to label in terms of the terminology mentioned in the lecture. the scene involved a shot of Natalie's character (Nina) looking down at the caller ID on her phone, which showed a bright pink block colour screen with very large text reading "MUM" dominating the screen. Immediately the entropic alarm bells went off in my mind, but the more I dwelled on the idea the more I could see it as redundancy within the context of film convention. We as an audience are very used to the idea of the huge-text-full-screen-caller-ID on the phone, despite this having no grounding in real life. Just a thought. Maybe I read too much into that one.

it was mentioned in the lecture that Redundancy and entropy are are normally in a 1:1 ratio with one another but within the context of the black swan, the split seemed to be skewed towards entropy – presenting loads of new, unfamiliar, and strange information.

For the record, I didn't really enjoy the film, it felt like Darren Aronofsky had fallen into the same habits that made me hate requiem for a dream; Crazy stylised visuals and symbolism at the cost of character development, and a story told in such a way that you're never really surprised by anything.

I sure do love a bit of clever symbolism and a well thought out shot or two, but I really couldn't give a damn about the protagonist's tragic end, much like in RFAD. I'm pretty sure that's not what he was aiming for.

IMDB Score: 8.3/10

My Score: 6/10