Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino 2012)

On Friday evening I sat and watched yet another incredible Quentin Tarantino movie. He never fails to impress and even though its quite a long film, at no point did I loose interest!

I noticed that Quentin Tarantino likes to use the same actors in his films, like christoph waltz who is Hanz in Inglorious Basterds. Samuel L Jackson who is also in Pulp Fiction. Leonardo DiCaprio also stars in this movie, ensuring it includes only the best actors.

The film Django is set in Texas in the year 1858 and follows a slave named Django who is set free by an English-speaking, German bounty hunter posing as a traveling dentist (Christoph Waltz), named Dr. Schultz. Dr. Schultz buys Django and promises him a life of freedom if he helps him find and kill three outlaws (hiding in the south, working in the slave trade). Schultz has never seen them therefore he doesn’t know what they look like, however Django has, as he has been subjected to trafficking and the outlaws have been involved in it. Dr schultz also teaches Django bounty hunting and promises to split the bounties with him if he continues to help him through the winter. Django makes one condition and it is that Schultz helps him find his long lost wife who is under cruel custody of Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Schultz agrees.  The film follows their travels and plans to find the outlaws and kill them, then track down Djangos wife and save her from her cruel owner.

The way Tarantino has filmed this is exceptional, he uses his usual technique of using closeups on certain objects in the room, for example when Schultz and Django are in the bar and Schultz is pouring himself a drink the camera goes in close on the beer pouring from the tap into the beer mug, then foam on the top is wisked away with the wisker. The effect of this is excellent, making it that little bit more real, the use of the camera is supposed to mirror the human eye, and these shots of the things around the characters and the things they are doing capture the scene like you are there yourself. The sound of the running beer, and the tap of the wisker on the side of the glass after its taken the foam off the top, these little details play a big part in making the scene that much more enjoyable to watch.

The gore and blood, which always is included in a Tarantino film, is to an extreme especially in the scene where Django is shooting all of Candies henchmen in Candieland. Again, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino film if it didn’t include blood.

Overall I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this film and it kept me on the edge of my seat and completely absorbed into the world of the film. I had never watched any Tarantino films until this year and I must say, I have been missing out, he is a terrific Director and I think anyone who is making films can learn alot from him as his films only seem to be getting better and better!

Practice Make up on our actor

My sister Grace is going to play Daisy in our film opening. I decided that I would do some practice makeup on her, but I wanted to keep it subtle because the character is shy so her makeup should be natural looking. Here is a photograph of her:

As you can see I have put her in minimalist clothes. She is wearing a grey skirt and top, a cardigan, black socks and green shoes. I think this looks good for a shy character as the patent colours keep the look subtle.

I have also used a shot from our storyboard and taken a photo of it in real person just to see if it was achievable, here it is:

 

I also experimented with making tears and I just used water and dripped it onto my sisters eye corner, here are some photographs of the effect:

 

I also experimented with shots from the storyboard taking stills of what it might look like, here are a couple of the face which we were planning on doing:

 

Character profiles

Daisy: 

Daisy is a quiet and subdued person and she is incredibly shy. That is why this show where she is singing, is such a big deal.

She is quite girly, wearing a skirt and cardigan however she is is not in with all the mega popular, girly girls. She keeps herself to herself and doesn’t even try talking to the popular girls or even try talking to boys. She hates the limelight, but she was forced into doing this talent competition by her mum who is concerned about her daughter. Daisy has a stutter condition but when she hears music or listens to it she can talk fluently as her mind is at ease from the sound of the music she loves. This is why, when she plugs her earphones into her head she becomes calmer and not so upset from her stage freight.

Nasty girls:

There girls wear lots of makeup and snigger at anyone who they believe is underneath them. They are freaks of fashion and thick. The laugh at others misfortunes to try and feel better about themselves.

Kick Ass (2010 directed by Matthew Vaughn)

Kick Ass is an American action superhero movie set in  New York, it was released on the 25th  March 2010 in the United Kingdom and on 16th April 2010 in the United States.

The film is about an ordinary teenager called Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero for the city, calling himself Kick Ass. He meets serious superheros Big Daddy and Hit Girl and finds himself involved in a much bigger fight to bring down the drug lord Frank D’Amico.

The whole film is like a comic, with comic strip transitions of shots etc and storyboard like animations displaying the past where Big Daddy explains why Mindy (Hit Girl) has no mother and how he was put in prison.

Here is the trailer for the Movie:

The thing I love about this film is how many twists it involves in it. So much happens along with the main story about Dave becoming Kick Ass. There is also lots of humour included which makes up for the gore. It is quite violent and the film was critiqued for  having generated some controversy for its profanity and violence performed by a child, however received lots of good comments aswell as it is definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Animation of our Story board

Today I animated our storyboard using the programme Final Cut pro. To do the animation I simply scanned the two sheets of storyboard and used the scale button to zoom to each shot so that it’s one shot in each frame at a time. I put them in order so that the storyboard was like a comic strip almost. I then used key framing to pan out and use movement in the shot to convey our camera movements.

I manages to get the hang of being able to make the image move, I was showed how to use key frames and this meant that I could move the shot around to mirror the camera angles that we wanted to use.

The animation was uploaded to Vimeo and this is the link to watch it:

We also used Final cut to produce another version of our story board which doesn’t include movement within the shot, but is displayed in a different way to the first one. We also put music over it and used a cork board background animation connecting the shots. Here is the animation:

Prop List for our film “Daisy Chain”

For our Film opening we are going to need:

• a Microphone 
• Headphones/earphones 
• Water (for sweat) 

 

 

 

 

What we need for filming:

• a camera
• a tripod

Interms of actors we need:

• an audience
• the nasty jealous girls
• our main character Daisy

The clothing of our main character Daisy:

• Skirt
• Cardigan
• Black socks
• Green shoes
• Daisys hair: up in a bun, not much makeup

The clothing of the nasty girls in the audience:

• Heavy makeup
• Drawn on eyebrows
• Blusher, lipstick
• Pink clothes

Inglourious Basterds- OH MY GOD!

Last night I decided that I would watch the famous Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. I have to say I was taken away by the amount of gore and bloody action and even covered my own eyes at times when it was extremely graphic. I didn’t realise it was an 18 until I started watching it, and by then I was already intrigued.

I wanted to see this movie for a while because in class when doing research on film openings, Sir showed us the opening of Inglorious Bastards, I was hooked! I’m not usually a fan of gore films, as that is how I would describe this one. However, I have to say I really enjoyed it, Quentin Tarantino is an excellent director and his technique of filming shots was so slick and fresh!

The plot of the film is about a Jew, Shosanna who, in 1941, witnesses the murder of her own family by ‘Jew hunter’  SD standartenfuhrer Hans Landa and his men, and narrowly escapes her death. She escapes and flees to Paris where she takes a new identity as a cinema owner and her friend who is black helps her in this business. He is the only other person on the planet she trusts.

The Basterds are a group of Jews who hunt the Nazis and kill them as they have incredible hatred for Hitler and his Nazis. In the Bastards, there is the leader  Aldo Raine who recruits  eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission behind enemy lines, telling them they each owe him 100 Nazi scalps and will take no prisoners. For the Nazis he frees and doesn’t kill, if they have told him the Nazis plans, Aldo carves a Swastika into the forehead of the men, displaying how if they have worn the uniform, they will always be a Nazi as its imprinted on their skin.

In 1944, Shosanna adopts her new identity as  “Emmanuelle Mimieux” and runs her cinema with Marcel, her lover and friend who is black. She meets Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film in which he stars. She hates him, however it is clear that he sees her as a possible lover and keeps trying to see her and visit her. He has no idea she is actually a Jew and she has to act completely calm at all times even though her hatred for him and anger towards the Nazis grows. Attracted to Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere at her cinema. Shosanna seizes the opportunity, as her and Marcel devise a plot to burn down her cinema and kill the top Nazi leaders at the premiere. 

During the screening, Zoller slips away to the projection room to see Shosanna, who rejects his advances and he becomes angry and seems to take a violent approach but then has Zoller lock the door which he does instantly as he thinks hes going to get some. He closes the door with his back turned, and she fatally shoots him, however he is not dead and he manages to turn and fatally shoot her as well. They both lie motionless on the projection room floor. Meanwhile, Ulmer and Donowitz, Aldo’s Basterds, manage to kill the soldiers guarding Hitler, as they are at the premier to try and end the war aswell, and kill the top leaders of the Nazis.

A clip of Shosanna’s cackling in the cinema film informs the audience that they are about to be killed by a Jew. She and Marcel decided that they would do this to manipulate the Nazis and inform them of their defeat by a Jew. Marcel, having locked the cinema with the audience inside, ignites a pile of extremely flammable nitrate film behind the screen of the cinema, which quickly sets fire to the screen leaving the audience in a screaming mess. Ulmer and Donowitz (two of the Basterds) burst into the screening as it burns and machine gun Hitler, Goebbels, and the trapped crowd, until the bombs go off and destroy the cinema killing every person in it.

Aldo and his recruit Utivich were not in the cinema when it was burned down as Hans had kidnapped them to make a deal, yet they take advantage of this and kill Hans’ radio operator and has Utivich collect his scalp. Hans is left angry and vulnerable, Aldo is  unable to accept the notion that Hans might go unpunished for his career as a Nazi officer, so he carves a swastika into Hans’ forehead as a permanent reminder of his crimes against the Jews. Proudly inspecting his handiwork, he smiles and says to Utivich that “this just might be my masterpiece”.

The camera work in this film is terrific, using panning, zooming, close ups and symbolism in filming to display character emotion.

Here is the trailer for anyone who is interested in  German-American black comedy war films. Do take in that is is an 18, so it is not for the faint hearted and is quite distressing to watch at times.