The Lumiere brothers

The Lumiere Legacy

Assigment Two

Ausguste and Louis were two French engineers who invented the cinemography process and gave the first public film projetcion in 1895.

  

Auguste Lumiere was born in 19/10/1862 at Besançon (France) and died in 10/04/1954 at Lyon (France).

Louis Lumiere  was born in 05/10/1864 at Besançon (France) and died in 06/061948 at Bendal (France).

At this period in their country they haven't Royalty but have a President, since 'Révolution Française' in 05/06/1789.

The films are about the simple event of the life like "Workers leaving the Lumiere factory' ( Lasortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon ) of 46 seconds;"The Sprinkler Sprinkled" ( L'Arroseur Arrasé ) of 49 seconds or " Baby meals"( Repas de bébé) of 41 seconds.

These films are very shorts because they are 

Narrative theory: Opening scene

Today, I am still going to speak about the narrative theory but this time on the opening scene of this beautiful movie 'Amelie Poulain'.

 


  To introduce the character in the opening scene, that starts with the voiceover who has a really important role in this movie. This voiceover start to speak about a precise like the time who is detail by the hour, the minute and the second. After he starts to speak about people who lives in this city in a specific district and finally he speak still in detail about the birth of Amelie Poulain.
After the generic who give some detail about how is this girl, the voiceover start to describe her father and her mother and at last Amelie.
In this film there no villain, no donor, no false hero just an heroine who is like the tile said Amelie Poulain.




  The Equilibrium in this film reflect more something sadness than happiness. The voiceover speaks two times about a death -firstly the old man who lost one of is friend and the death of Amelie's mother- and just once about the birth, who is the birth of Amelie Poulain but in all this sadness they always are a touch of humour. But enough quickly this voiceover give to the audience the time when the disequilibrium going to arrive, like he said :"We are the 29th August and in 48h the destiny of Amelie Poulain is going to titled.". Thats give the intrigue and captive the audience. We want to know what is going to chance in her life for he told us that so early, and put the audience in this film.




  In this opening scene, the voiceover did clearly the binary opposite in using 'like' and 'dislike' for describe Amelie's parent.

Talking head: Amelie

Talking Head: Amelie

Unit 26: Film studies
Assignment 1: Analysing Films
Philippine Moreau

Intro

  Amelie Poulain is a French film produced by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 2001. This romantic comedy is writting by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurent with for the role principal Audrey Tautou.

 The title of this film describes really well what story we are going to see. It is the story about her life, all the wellness and help she wants to give, and how she is going to find herself.

 The director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, realised his films in mixing the fantastic and the absurd shift to a representation of reality in various proportions, creating dream worlds from everyday elements and in the case of ‘Amelie poulain’ it highlights the elements of chance in everyday, always in using a share of childish humour.

 

  For this film, Audrey Tautou plays ‘Amelie Poulain’ the heroine. I find, she is the perfect actress for this role, with all her face expressions. It is with this film she became famous around the world.

 

 I choose this film because it is one of my favourite films. I saw it when I was young and I am never been bored to watch it again and again. I find it really interested how is it filming with this third voice that is really important for all the story of ‘Amelie Poulain’. And the music who plays an important role and carry us through third the film.

Opening scene 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTMHE5Poxu0

 This scene has two main locations where the action happened: Montmartre and Engain-les-bains. They happened in the interior and exterior of this place. For a romantic comedy film the beginning can start by a lot of possibilities. For this film it starts by all the childhood of Amelie. That’s unfolding in the 20s and exactly in 1973.

The props –objects- are the dominos, glass with water to produce a sound, a glass, a coin, strawberry sweet, red fish and old camera. These props are all the description about the childhood of the heroine, most of them represent her attraction, but some like the red fish has a connotation of loneliness.

 The lighting and colour are used stylistically. The lighting –key light and fill light- is giving an eccentric effect. In all the film they are using red lenses and saturate colour, to accentuate the colour, which give a warm effect to the audience.

 The costume are just some normal clothe from this period and they characterise the French style, the colour of the clothes are principally red and green, who characterises the Amelie’s emotion with the connotation of passion, nature, warmth and energy.

  The facial expressions when the voiceover makes the description of Amelie’s parents provide a clear indicator about the parents’ feeling, like when the voiceover spoke about the Amelie’s mother and we saw her eyes moving to indicate her weak mental, it is describing to make laugh the audience, personally I find that very funny how he describes it.

  When the red fish jump out of jar and Amelie start crying the body language of her mother describe her feelings, she is really worry and it is too much for her about this little thing, that shows her weak temper.

  The position in the frame when Amelie and her mother go to liberate the red fish gives a feeling of sadness to the audience, both of them look in the river to see the fish leaving with the camera who show after that the fish leaving and the Amelie’s sadness seeing her only friend going away.

  For this opening scene the extreme close up are used in the generic to show what Amelie is doing with the entire object with eccentric angle to give a strange visual.

For the Parents’ description, it is started by a long shot then a mid shot and finish by a close up, which is going perfectly with the voiceover during this description, and give an effect of we know them better.

  The main sound use for this first scene is non-diegetic sound and it is a musical score created by Yann Tiersen. During the generic when Amelie make sound with a glass with water or she breath in leaf that is a diegetic sound which are sound effect add after during the editing. But the most important thing I have to speak is this voiceover that has a real important place in this movie, if it isn’t there all the film should be boring and not funny, like it is.

  The main editing is realised by a straight cup in most of the case. But when they describe the parents again they use fade or wipe, which give an effect of continuity.

The Equilibrium in this film reflects more something sadness than happiness. The voiceover speaks two times about a death -firstly the old man who lost one of is friend and the death of Amelie's mother- and just once about the birth, who is the birth of Amelie Poulain but in all this sadness they always are a touch of humour. But enough quickly this voiceover give to the audience the time when the disequilibrium going to arrive, like he said:"We are the 29th August and in 48h the destiny of Amelie Poulain is going to titled”.  That’s given the intrigue and captive the audience. We want to know what is going to change her life.

The voiceover shows clearly binary opposites using 'like' and 'dislike' to describe Amelie's parents.

 Final scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4SJD-DWM1A

   In this film the beginning and the ending is organised in the same way. The character roles stay the same.

  In this movie the heroine 'Amelie Poulain' is herself the dispatcher because she gave herself a goal to find help people and find this man.

The helper is this old man who gave her advice about her life and what she needs to be focused on.

And like I said the figure paternal -her father- not really helps her during all her life, it is she again who is helping him, like she is doing during all the film.

The new equilibrium in 'Amelie poulain' is happier then how the film started. Like we see in this final scene, she finds the man she searched during all the film. Some of other characters she helped are happy. The poet is happy because for once he see his sentence on the wall so that means someone remembering his sentence, the other man has a moment with his grandson, so that means he speaks again with his daughter, the old man has finally finish his drawing and her father has decided to stop complaining and go to travel the world. 

   The action in the final scene just is full of love and happiness. We can see her and her man on a scooter so happy, she is behind him, the way of how it is filmed is really interesting and gives a smile to all the audience. Even the city looks happy.

  The binary Opposition is represented by Amelie and the man but although by the happiness and the sadness.

 

  The main setting for this final scene is in Amelie’s home and Montmartre. We see the principal colour in her apartment is still red, every room have this strong red colour if is not on the wall is on the carpet, drapes or door, always to show her personality.

 

 The Tv, the phone, tape video player and moped are the representations of the period. The moped with Amelie and her man are a good connotation of the freedom and it is like their coach if it were a film animation.

 

When Amelie snatch the entire photo on her wall, her body language shows to the audience her discontent and frustration. After that when she stay in the kitchen preparing something to calm herself, and she start crying and thinking if this man come to her house and in the same time she ears beard curtains move in the same time she is imagining he is in her house to make a surprise, we saw her deception on her face, who makes her sadder. But when she returns about her cooking with always this beautiful music score in a back and suddenly stops, when the ring bell, her facial expression shows the surprise and creates an interrogation to the audience.

 Disequilibrium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly2pLQ-XgVA

 This scene is the second disequilibrium of this film. I choose this one because is the moment where Amelie is feeling, she is falling in love.

 In this clip, the movement of the camera are really specific to give at the audience this effect of moving with Amelie.

When she slept in the photo booth they use a dolly to finish on a mid shot, to show at the audience where she slept.

After this we have an extreme long shot where we see all the train station with a pan movement.

Then the camera take an extreme close up on the Amelie’s feet with a pan movement to show to the audience where she is going to stop on. And at this moment the audience meet this man, she is going to fall in love.

To show how she falls in love the movement use is a dolly that stops on her heart, and at the same time is with a diegetic sound of her heart pulse.

Her expression looks shock to meet someone like that, she is so shock than when he is going to run she is going to follow him and finally she is going to have a mission to find him and give him his bag. For this scene they use a track and aerial shot.

Cinematography: Camera shots/ Angles/ Framing/ Compositon

  Amélie Poulain

This is a French film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet with the talented actress Audrey Tautou. In 2001 , this film seen the day.

 Today , I am going to speak about the cinematography of my favourite film: Amélie Poulain. I am going to choose a clip from this film and describe all the camera shots,camera angles and camera movement .





In this clip a lot of close up are used to show the emotion of Amelie, like when the grocer spoke bad to his employee and she doesn't like how way he speak to him , we show on her face how she isn't happy, or when she arrived in his apartment and change everything she looks happy to revenge him. A extrem close up too when she open the door.
The midshot of use when she did an action in his apartment like when she finally arrived in his apartment.
The extreme long shot is used to show when the men open his shop the audience know actually then he wake up too early but he didn't that give an humorists moment to the audience.

A lot of strange angles are used to show when the men is wake up and with the movement of the camera that gives a real effect of the morning when people just wake up and thy are really tired, the audience are in the feeling of this character. 



Narrative Theory: final scene

  Today I am going to speak about the key narrative theorists to the ending of 'Amelie Poulain'.

    In this film the beginning and the ending is organised in the same way. Propp's character roles stay the same especial that of Amelie.

The heroine 'Amelie Poulain' who is played by Audrey Tatou is really well interpreted by her. The title of this film describe really well what story we are going to see. It is the story about her life, all the wellness and help she wants to give, and how she is going to find herself.

In this movie she is herself the dispatcher because she gave herself a goal to find this man.

The helper is this old man who gave her advice about her life and what she needs to be focused on.

And like I said the figure paternal -her father- not really help her during all her life, it is she again who is helping him, like she is doing during all the film.

 The new equilibrium in 'Amelie poulain' is more happy then how the film started. Like we see in this final scene, we see then she finds the man she searched for during all the film. Some of other characters she helped are happy. The poet is happy because for once he see his sentence on the wall so that means someone remembering his sentence, the other man has a moment with his grandson , so that means he speaks again with his daughter, the old man has finally finish his drawing and her father has decided to stop complaining and go to travel the world. 

 The action in the final scene just is full of love and happiness. We can see her and her man on a scooter so happy, she is behind him, the way of how it is filmed is really interesting and gives a smile to all the audience. Even the city looks happy.

The saturated colour use in this film give an effect of warm atmosphere. A lot of red and green are used to show the emotion of the heroine. She always wear this kind of colour to show to the audience her warmth, energy, passion and love. That reflects her life and mood. 

 The binary Opposition from Levi-Strauss, is maybe just represented by Amelie and the man. But in this film there isn't really a big opposition. It is just a romantic comedy film who speak about this girl who try to discover her identity and the way of love. 

Mise en scene power point

Sound-Music: Touching the void

Touching the Void

Today I am going to speak about music analysis of the film 'Touching the void' I need to speak about :

• The images that i can see
• The type of music that I hear
• Voiceover - what is said

From 1:00:18 to 1:03:48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBJ31YnURg8

1. The first image that we can see is Joe struggling to escape from the crevasse at he start of his climb. The type of music that we heard gives a mood of suspense. The music start with slow tempo who increase during his climbing of the crevasse. During this climbing, we heard the fast breathe whose is a diegetic song.
2. After, there is a sudden cut from joe's climbing to the mountainous landscape. The music change totally like an explosion whose gives an effect of hope. The audience can make the deduction that he going to go out of this crevasse.
3. When Joe lies on the snow, after escaped from the crevasse, the mood again changed with the music it is used. The music is more calm and peaceful, we have a feeling of liberty that he finally business output.
4. But after we saw picture of all the glacier around the character. The camera stop it on him and we heard his voice on voiceover. He said something really important :' I look the glasses and I though I haven't stated mate, it is miles and miles to grow'. The music change again in something more worrying. The music go with the filming of all this panorama who give now nota feeling of something beautiful and peaceful but more another challenge who he has to achieve.

Glossary

 Still with the first 6 min film 'Sherlock Holmes' , I am going to use the sound glossary to use the appropriate media terms.

1. Diegetic: It is what we can heard and see in a frame at the same time, like the hoof of the horse or the shotgun
2. Non-diegetic: It is what we heard but can't see in the frame, like the music in the background here it is the piano and all the orchestra that following.
3. Ambient: It is when the sound inform whats happened at the moment that give an atmosphere, like in 'Sherlock Holmes' when the tempo in the music in progression to show the action is going to be .
4. SFX: This is all the sound effect. In the frame we can think the sound is record in the same time that it is filming, but to put more effect the sound is done after and add after too. Like when we heard the hoof of the horses is just two coconut strike one against the other.
5. Mood: The mood is the sound who describe more the feeling of the character.
6. Tone: The tone is more used to give a rhythm and a feeling to what can happened in the next frame. That can give a feeling of fear, romance, action or drama. 
7. Genre: This is the genre of music, like classic music, dancing music, etc...
8. Themes music: This is genre of the sound characterises what kind of film the audiences going to see. For example in a horror movie with can heard a specific kind of sound or just listen the shotgun give an idea of the genre of film.
9. Voiceover: This is when in the film people talking but we can see them in the frame or when the narrator speak to explain what people do or to explain a situation. For example in the film 'Amelie Poulain' the first minutes we see a lot of situation of people but it is just the narrator who speak.
10. Musical Score: The musical score is a original music created for the film and plays at different points throughout the film, like in 'Titanic'.
11. Synchronous sound: This is included all noises whose origin can be seen on-screen, like in 'Sherlock Holmes' the sound of the flame.
12. Asynchronous sound: This is any noise whose origin you can't see.
13. Contrapuntal: This is al the noise or sound effect which doesn't in agreement with what we seen on-screen, that is give an effect of the film.
14. Silence: It is use to give more importances about the other sound on-screen, when in a movie we haven't sound we are more focalised on all the other sound. Like in the film 'Hunger' we are more focus about the door opening, when we heard about the medicine test  or to listen a kind or breathe.

1. Selective Sound: This is used to emphasise key sound elements within a frame.

1. Sound Bridges: This is the sound who help to pass of one sequence to another.

Sound in Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

 Today , I am going to speak about the sound in the first 5 min of the film 'Sherlock Holmes'. This is a film by Guy Ritchie adapted by the book of Lionel Wigram.

 In the first 5 minutes we can heard at the beginning the piano who start with a clam tempo and accelerates when we heard the hood of horses. The music in the background start to be more dramatic. It is in agreement with the sound of the wheel of the horse carige. After that still on the principal sound we can heard the shotgun, the sound of the raven, the running, the door opening and the broken glass.


 Diegetic sound are:

• the hood of horse
•  the wheel of the horse carige
•  shotgun; raven
• the character running
•  the door opening
• broken glass

Non diegetic sound are:

• The piano at the beginning
• The orchestra who progressively accelerates  

 The theme music of this clip is totally dramatic, who introduce the character running to escape the other character who follow him to kill him. That show the atmosphere we are going to watch in the hereinafter.

Film Language: Mise-en-scene 2

Peaky Blinders

It is a serie created by Stephen Knight. That speak about  a gangster family epic in Birmingham at the end of the World War 1(1919). This serie is inspired by a the true historic story, the story of Peaky Blinders gang. 

Today, I am going to describe the 'mise-en-scene' of the first 4 minutes of the first Peaky Blinders' episode.

Setting and Props

• The setting is perfect because that represents exactly the period of the real Peaky Blinders. This is filmed on location so in Birmingham, we can see the 'custard factory'. The genre is explicit and we directly see that is a drama historic series.
• The presence of the horse, red powder, the misery and dark places, old chinatown location, smoked, old buildings, the fire, boats on the street and miriness on the floor show clearly than all the story is situated in the past. The horse's presence gives a  superior connotation between the poor people walking on a dirt floor poorly dressed and this men looking powerfull sitted on the horse with the fancy oufit. So they show the social difference at this period. 

Lighting and colour 

• This is a natural light who is used in this clip, so a sky light of the day. This is a an low intencity , who create the atmosphere gloomy, poor and dirty. 
• For the colour it is used a cold grey.

 

Casting

 

 

 

 

• Cillian Murphy is the main character who play Thomas Shelby. He is the second eldest in the Family Shelby and he is the most ambitious and the leader of them. After the World War 1 he was decorated like a hero. His family is everything and he want to make their business legitimate at any cost.
• Annabelle Wallis who plays the role of Grace Burgess. She is the beautiful and mystery barmaid who come from Ireland at The Garrison's where the brother Shelby come to drink.
• Sam Neil who plays the role of Chester Campbell. In this series, he is the Chief Inspector Campbell from Belfast who is going to clean up Birmingham. He is a brutish man completely committed to his job .
• Helen McCrory as Aunt Polly. She is the matriarch of Peaky Blinders, she looked after them since they were children.
• Charlie Creed-Miles as Billy Kimber. He controls the legal and illegal bookmaking sites at racecourses all across England, which has made him one of the country's richest and most powerful gangsters. 

 

 Costume and make up

 

• The costume are perfect to show where we can situated us in the period. This 3 piece suits represented exactly that. But the most important Peaky Blinder's costume is the cap, it is in this cap , they put blades to cut the face of their enemy. 

 

 

 

 



 Movement

 

• In this first scene , the most atmosphere who is create is the fear. Just look the old Chinese men when he ask to the other men where he is going to bring the girl. That body language is all the game of the actor.
• Another scene when the main actor arrived on his horse and everybody just run to hide of him or they know something strange is going to happen. We see the difference between this men who nothing frightened compare to all this people . On his face, he is looking really on him. We can guess by all his body language who is going to be one of the main characters.

 

 

Diegetic sound

 



 

• The voices of characters show the accent of Birmingham especially when the police men said: "Hello , Mr Shelby".
• We can hear the horse's hoof, people talking in the street , the sound of tool and the fire That's add to the meaning of this frame a feeling of old period when people was working with the coal and could walk on horse, but that give too an atmosphere of poverty.

 

 

 

Frame and composition

 

• A lot of thing has been included in the frame, like they boat on the street , this old panorama of the city of Birmingham.
• On this frame, everything is positioned in terms of Thomas Shelby the main character. We see his viewpoint.
• He is all time in the centre of the frame in all the scene, who show again how he is important in the series.



Film Analysing: Mise-en-scene

  The Exorcist

This film is a cult William Friedkin's realisation. Starred in 25 december 1973,  this is an  adaptation of the book written by William Peter Bladdy, and inspired by a true story.

Today, I am going to discribe what the 'mise-en-scène' is in this horror film.

 

Setting and Props

• The main scene are situated in this isolate family house -for this period- specially in the girl's bedroom, where everything is going to happened. This is an unusual code of horror film for this period.
•  The props are represented by the Priest 's cross, 'holy water', the vomit on the girl clothe, contact lenses and glass infusion. Some of the props that could reference to good or evil.

Hair and Make-up

• The haircut in the first video shows the period where the audience can imagine the time. It is exactly what the women had before. The young girl had a long and curly hair who looks not dirty on the first video, but on the second we can see how the thing worsened, because her hair look dirty and oily.
• For this horror film we need a specially effect make-up. The girl possessed was needed a really terrifying make up, with all the scar to have a scary face.

Facial expression, body language and movement

• On the first video, we can see all the terror and the fear in the eyes of the mother and her assistant. They did a really good acting, who give to the audience the same feeling. The girl have a scary facial expression, she was an incredible actress in this movie her body language was so frightening, who give really some chills.
• One of the most terrifying thing in this film are her movement, on her bed she move exactly like she was possessing and look like without articulation or without bones inside her body, that's look absolutely crazy. She can also go in the air who representing she hasn't gravity.

 

Lighting and colour





•   By using low lighting it puts the idea in the audience's mind that something could happened in the storyline later, this is because by using the low lighting it creates the connotation of danger in the audience's mind because the night is associated with crime and with spirits/ ghosts.
• The clothes colour are a lot of connotation. The girl wear always some bright dressing gown, who makes references to innocence. And show more at the audience how much now she is possessed.

I choose this frightening picture of this movie, because it is the moment where we saw for the first time really the devil inside this young girl. To see her with all white eyes and scream give to the audience the Goosebumps.





Independent Scotland, or not...

 On the 18 September 2014, the Scottish people are going to have a big decision about their independence. Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland, wished to make a referendum on the independence of the Scotland. After two referendum, the first on 1/03/1979 and the second 11/09/1997, they chose to make another one now. Why now? Scottish people, are they ready to be independent?


The BBC Panorama , presented by Allan Little, explored what has happened during the past four  decades. He explained that the Scottish people feel abandoned by the United Kingdom and don't feel British anymore.
Tomorrow is going to be a decisive choice for all Scottish people. If they say 'YES' they can't go back. But if they say 'NO', they will have to be confident with the United Kingdom like their parents and grandparents were.

After watching this video with my Class, my teacher asked two questions. The first was: "What do you think Scottish people going to vote on Thursday?". Out of seventeen students, nine said 'NO'. The second question was: "Should they leave the Union?". Just three students said 'YES'.

The websites of the two opposite camps are really different. The website of 'YES' is really encouraging - to be independent - it has a really good video where they explain clearly why you should vote 'YES'. Everything on this video  convinces people to vote for  independence. The slogan is "Scotland's future in Scotland's hand", to show to the people it is their decision on the future of Scotland.

 The website 'Bettertogether' is more conventional, it is 'already seen' -deja vu- and strict. They just try to show to people, if they say 'NO' it is for the security of the country,  don't take any risks. For example to speak negatively about money they posted a picture of Alex Salmond on the coin.

On the website we can see all the comments of some Scottish people and the celebrities who support this camp, like David Beckham or JK Rowling.

 The tension between the two camps is getting stronger. In the newspaper "The Times" they spoke about 'intimidation' of the national camp. All the media show is how the 'YES' camp started to attack all the people who support the other camp. This is a violation of the right to free speech.

The other interesting point is about the reaction after the result tomorrow. The result is going to come at 2 am, so people will wait in the pubs and the tension will be high. Some pubs like 'Golden Rule' in Edinburgh asked to stay open till 6 am . In the Dailymail the police found this decision really 'absolutely crazy'. 

 In conclusion , I think the vote is going to be more for 'NO'. Despite their boring website , the Scottish people should vote 'NO'. It is really risky if they leave the Union. Just  think about their money, the place they will take in the EU. The opposite camp imagine a perfect independence but if this doesn't work like they think, they can't go back. 

  

First Week in Media

            Welcome on my blog,

  My name is Philippine , I am 19 years old and I am french. In France, I studied Chemistry and I passed my Bachelor's degree. But i didn't really like it, I would like to learn about media. So after my degree, I came to the UK to Birmingham and I started to learn English to be bilingual and continue my study. This years I found the opportunity to go in South and city college of Birmingham to learn media.

 This week, it is my first week in media. I was a bit scared because it is a new college, new people, everything is different compared to the french system, but finally I lost my fear and I thought it is really good for me, my english is getting better and better and I am going to learn something I am really interested in.

 I like all the stuff about media, but I still don't know what specifically I want to do in media. I will appreciate to learn especially everything about cinema and photography during this year and I hope to find exactly what I want to do.

Happy to share that with you and see you soon.