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My First Blog Post

Blog Post #1

What did I learn about Marxist theory from the film I researched?

Marxist film theory highlights the struggle that the lower and higher classes have against each other. Marxist film theory very heavily related to the film I specifically picked, mostly because the entire film as a whole highlighted the theory. The film of discussion was Snowpiercer (2013). In the film, the last survivors of humanity live on a massive train after a massive environmental disaster renders the earth frozen and uninhabitable. On the train, you have a lower, middle, and upper-class; the lower class lives in the tail section, the middle class lives in the middle of the train, and the upper-class lives in the front section, a long with the train’s creator, who has absolute power among everyone on the train.

The plot of the film highlights members of the tail section revolting against the front section and it’s leader, Wilbur, the inventor of the train. By the end of the film, a member of the tail section, Curtis, comes face to face with Wilbur, by which Wilbur explains to him that the lower and upper classes must function together in order to survive. As a whole, this film taught me about how the upper-class in Marxist society does manipulate the lower class. Curtis is told by Wilbur that everyone in the train is a prisoner, no matter what class anyone is. This is a clear manipulation tactic used by Wilbur to make Curtis seem equal to him in a way.

Editing

Editing a project itself, with everything intended in mind, can prove to be challenging. When you add in the 2 minute time limit factor, this can add even more difficulty to the project itself. Besides this, however, I wanted to edit the project to have good flow despite the long shot times. I wanted each shot to flow into one another in a way that didn’t feel awkward, and this can be a very challenging feat if you have to manage it under a time limit. Also, with the music, I wanted it to feel like it belonged and fit in to what was happening on screen, which I feel like was accomplished overall.

Music and it’s effect

Music can, in my own opinion, make or break a scene. Music can either add to a scene and what it is trying to accomplish, completely ruin what is happening in a scene, or can be unnecessary. As me and Mauricio were making a horror focused project, we wanted to use very moody music that would add a layer of discomfort to the scene, I chose to used music from the Alien film series. The first track used in the beginning of the project was used on top of the scene where we first see the stalker outside of the main character’s house, shot in the stalker’s perspective. The music used after this scene is much more ambient and plays throughout the entirety of the project. I feel like the music used is very appropriate and works very well, considering the music in the Alien films is very ambient and terrifying.

Lighting Issues

Me and Mauricio had issues coming up with ways to adequately light scenes, as our entire project revolves around darkness. The difficulty of this is that we wanted to use as much natural lighting as possible. Coming up with alternate ideas at first, such as lighting fixtures in shots, we opted to just stick to the natural lighting. In the end this is what we ended up doing. It ended up working pretty well because we easily tweaked with lighting in post to create scenes that were dark enough to add immersion but not too dark to where you couldn’t see anything.

Time Constraints

Trying to make a slow burn, suspenseful horror focused film with a 2 minute time constraint is quite a challenge and an entertaining one at that. Most of the clips filmed by Mauricio were very long; my initial idea while writing the script was to have nice and long shots to add tension on top of music added in post. In the end, some shots did have to be shortened as to compliment the time limit, but the initial focus is still there. Long, brooding shots are used with moody and foreboding ambient music being used on top of what is happening.

Working on the script

Obviously because of the current quarantine situation, locations of the project would be limited. For this reason, I wrote the script to take place only within my house. Although I could’ve made parts of the script take place in my nearby neighborhood park, I thought overall it would be easier to just have it take place in my home alone. As far as actors, I knew for a fact it would only have one actor no matter what. Subject matter and lighting were also predetermined; I wanted to make a horror focused project from the get go. This also meant I needed to focus on having dark lighting to add mood. Overall, the story is manageable under these quarantine conditions. Vidmingo Review

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oc3ulBM7GveANA2Ji9J77iv_pUBPDL6OJSemN_LsOrA/edit?usp=sharing

The Psychological Impact of Light and Color

This article “The Psychological Impact of Light and Color” is a very valuable piece of text. It discuses how light and color and subconsciously or consciously be profound in visual media to the audience. A discussion point of the article that I personally took a lot away from was the section of the article that discussed which colors mean what. For example, the color black can be used in media to portray the feelings of fear and death, while the color blue could be used to show relaxation and calmness. Lighting can be used to a similar effect, dark lighting commonly being used for negative connotation and mystery and bright lighting being used for positive connotation. The ideas expressed in this article helped me write my script with the idea of lighting and color in mind more than in the past. https://www.tcpi.com/psychological-impact-light-color/

Group Communication in Quarantine

As I always have in the past, I am working with Mauricio on this final project. At first there was a little discussion on who should shoot the project, and it ultimately came down to Mauricio because his house was more well suited to the setting of the story. As far as actual communication goes, it has been very steady. The only issue has been finding a good time to communicate with each other over the phone because of differing sleep schedules and having schoolwork to do.

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