Depth of Field

 Depth of Field

In this post, we will cover another aspect cinematography, Depth of Field. I shall show 3 images from both myself and other media to go over Deep, Shallow, and Soft focus.

Part 1: Other Media

Deep focus:

                   

                           The opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan" released on "July 24, 1998".

This shot uses deep focus to allow the viewers to see each solders feelings and actions before they hit the beach. This allows the tension and suspense of when they will hit the Omaha beach to build much more.

Shallow focus:

The "Spider Sense" scene in "Spider-Man: No Way Home," released om "December 17, 2021"

This shot uses deep focus to put the viewer into peters eyes. As he feels this wave of incoming danger and anxiousness, his view and perspective is clouded. This feeling is recreated as everything is cloudy and out of focus aside from him and his shock.

Soft focus:

The final fight scene in "The Mother(2023)," Released on "May 12, 2023"

This shot uses soft focus to show how beaten and hurt the Mother is. As she directly tries to kill the kidnaper of her child after being beaten down by him, she shoots her sniper with blurred and warped vision. This is shown with soft focus as everything is obscured and shaky. You cannot make out anything with clarity just like the mother.

Part 2: My Attempts

Soft focus: 

A battle ensues with Bear Bear and Hagrid, with a solid headbutt dealt from Hagrid to Bear Bear's chest.

Shallow focus:

After Hagrid's attempt, he is knocked down. But he then sees a weapon he can use placed on the ground 

Deep focus: 

Hagrid gets up to see Bear Bear still stunned. They both prepare for another round to grab the weapon

    These photos were not difficult to take, only needing to have some tricks to get. 

    The first one, the Soft focus, needed me to create a video as i could not take a picture while  moving my hand. This allowed me to get a nice, burry shot showing impact and leaving blurriness in.

    The Shallow focus shot took a few shots to get right, as the first few didn't have enough blur on Hagrid to draw the eye to the Weapon.

    The final, Deep focus, shot was all positioning as i needed to get the camera to a position where it did not add a blur. While it didn't take long, it did show the camera's natural inclination to add blur, and where it would add it to.

Media Theory 4: Structuralism

 Media Theory 4: Structuralism

In our fourth round of theories, we tackle Claude Levi-Strauss' theory on structuralism. Our scenes to demonstrate and understand our current theory is Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse: Doc Ock Revealed, and They Live (1998): Seeing the Truth Scene

Into The Spiderverse: Doc Ock Revealed

    - The purpose of the scene is to establish a connection between Miles and Peter, and establishing their relationship as student and mentor. A structuralist interpretation of what this scene means is that a veteran and novice finally comes together and learns from each other. The function of a compelling narrative is what specifically functions in this clip. Miles as the novice looks to Peter for guidance on what to do, as he struggles to web-swing away from danger. Meanwhile Peter can barely focus on teaching him while pressured by Doc Ock and gives him too much advice that he cannot understand. Peter then gives Miles the tip he needs, to not listen to him, and that finally pushes miles to where he needs to be and overcome his trial of web-swinging.

They Live (1998) Seeing the Truth Scene

    - The purpose of this scene is to show that everything in the world has hidden undertones that make influence you to do stuff, and even the people you see may not be real people. A structuralist interpretation of what this scene means is that the protagonists finally sees the villains and their propaganda everywhere he looks, even in the people you meet on the street. The function of creating identifiable character types is what the focus of this scene is. This scene establishes what is the enemy clearly, by showing what the truth behind every word, image, and person means and is. They show what the companies and the alien people what from you, and where to find them in everyday life.

Media Theory 3: Genre

Media Theory 3: Genre

In the third instalment of our series of theories, we will cover Genre Theory. This was Steve Neale's theory that we will cover with 3 trailers, Everything Everywhere All At Once, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, and Electric Dreams.

Neale states that any media's genre is identifiable by just observing it and it's characteristics. Let's find out what genre the trailers we selected is, then I will also show why it's this genre.

Everything Everywhere All At Once: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

    - The Iconography of the trailer shows the genre the best. with the many dynamic, intense shots with action and some with blood.

    - They subvert the genre by changing the audience needs. The trailer shows many different timelines and worlds that are all happing simultaneously that are all interacting with our main character Evelyn.

    - The film also shows hybridity with quick tonal shifts. Quickly switching from comedic to serious to unnerving with the use of different universes to create intrigue and keep the viewers' attention.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE: Comedy, Musical

    - The character driven motifs of each character, as they move and sound very dramatic and animated, with the music as the main thing you hear throughout the trailer.

    - They subvert the genre by using different contextual influences, the context here is that they use music as the drive, so they can use many different diegetic sounds and songs that drive the narrative froward aside from just the drama of it all.

    - They hybridize the movie with aspects of genre piggybacking. It uses the aspects of a mystery film as there is a mysterious man attempting to brutally stop anyone who sing's his music. This makes the movie attention grabbing and attracts people's eyes to the narrative.

Electric Dreams: Romance, Drama

    - They use Audience targeting to show the genre, with many scenes of romance shown with the drama of the new computer getting in the way.

    - They subvert the genre by the contextual influences of the era. As home computers were new and novel, using the new technology as the antagonist for the film created an intrigue with audiences as they asked themselves what the computer could do.

    - The hybridize the romance and the drama genres because they want to expand audience appeal. Adding in the drama of the computer with the romance adds a bigger audience who on one hand wants to see the computer and on the other wants to see a love story. This broad appeal brings more movie goers to the film.

Media Theory 2: Narratology

 Media Theory 2: Narratology

Welcome to part 2 of the media theory series. This post will cover Todorov's theory with a clip from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. 

The shot shows all of the following characteristics.

Proppian characters: 

    - The Hero is Ethan,

    - The Dispatcher is Brant,

    - The Helper is Benjie

    - The Villain is the company transporting the cargo

    - The Princess would be the cargo

    - The Donor is Luthor

Equilibrium: The very beginning with the grassy field 

Disruption: When Benjie pops out of the grass and begins talking to Brant.

New equilibrium: When Ethan is in the plane and is about to launch off with the cargo 

In Media Res: With Benjie not being able to find the correct door to open.

Multiperspective Narratives: How it has both Benjie's crisis to help Ethan and how Ethan is trying to get to the cargo mid liftoff.

    The meaning of this clip is to show how chaotic the missions in this movie will get. We see the equilibrium shatter right in the beginning and only gets solved right at the end with the Helper struggling to aid our hero get the cargo within the Media Res. The Multiperspective Narrative of the scene shows the tension of finding just one little yet crucial part of the entire mission, and tempting us on the action that is about to happen. 

Media Theory 1: Semiotics

 Media Theory 1: Semiotics

This this first post in a series of posts on media theory, I will show you all the media theory of Semiotics. Made by Roland Barthes, it's a theory we will explore in the opening sequence of Punch-Drunk Love.

The clips shows off each of one of these traits, a sign, signifier, signified, denotative meaning, connotative meaning, and a code. Here's what each represent in the scene.

Sign: All the colors around and on Barry.

Signifier: Barry covered and surrounded by blue

Signified: Barry's feeling of isolation

Denotative meaning: It's the color of his clothes and office space.

Connotative meaning: Blue represents negative feelings, like sadness, coldness, and being alone.

Code: His blue suit, blue office, him being tucked in a corner of the room, his mountain of papers.

    This meaning of this clip is to show how everything is about to flip in Barry's world. The clip shows him isolated in a room, alone and calmly doing office work, when suddenly we jump to the warm toned outside and a random car crashes and another one drops off a piano suddenly. Barry is now ripped from his alone and quiet work to a new, sudden situation that he would of never been prepared for.

    

Angle, Level, Height, Distance

In this post, we shall cover Angle, Level, Height, and distance. I have both shots from existing media and my own attempts at it, and we'll go over my trials after I show each picture of our concepts for today.

Part 1: Existing Media

        

        Still From Cowboy Bebop: The Movie                Still from Spider-Man 2, released June 25, 2004      Released August 20, 2002, showing Height.                               This shot shows Angle

   

Still from Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse,          Still from Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 

released May 30, 2023 This shot shows Distance          Released on July 15, 2012, showing Level. 

   

Part 2: My Photos

  

 Photo of Hagrid at a lower Level than normal       Photo of Bear Bear thinking real hard about 

                       showing Angle.                                               something, Showing Height.

      Photo of Hagrid looking off the vast land,          Photo of Bear Bear scarily holding a Sharp 

                      showing Distance.                                        "Sharp object", showing Level.

Part 3: Reflection

    This post was more of a challenge then the last post for me. It was challenging for both taking the photos and knowing what to look for and finding the clips. Let’s talk about the clips first, because my rudimentary knowledge it was hard to find both the height and angle clip stills.

    The photo concepts took a while too, as it was hard for me to get the jest of what it needed. The Angle shot I didn't think I did too great on as it looks more like a straight shot instead of an angled one. Same thing with the distance shot, I could have pulled the camera down to not show the wall and more of the view.

    The Level shot though was a good shot, and easy to do. the angle and level were easy to find and add the intensity that it needed. Mixed with my color correction to make an intense shot. The Height one works as well. It shows how Bear Bear as they're in focus and them looking up makes it seem like their thoughts are in the clouds.

    Overall, I feel that if I studied even more on this assignment I could have done better. The reason why I chose not to go back and change it is because I don't want to hide my losses and show my progress in learning in this course. You cannot learn if you don't fail. I will see you guys in the next posts.

Balancing Mise en Scène

This post will show both stills and my own attempts at balancing Mise en Scène. With an dive into my attempts, sowing how i shot it any my struggles using the concepts of contrasts, color, size, and frontality.

Part 1: Existing Media

Still images from Devil May Cry 3: Special edition, Released May 23, 2006 

                 This shot represents size                                                 This shot represents Contrast

        

                Image of Ghost of Tsushima                                       Image of God of War Ragnarök

                    Released July 17, 2020                                             Released November 9, 2022

                                                                  

Part 2: My Original Shots

        

      A picture of Bear Bear getting a healthy                          A picture of a bottle and a Mocha Pot,

       snack, showing Contrast.                                                  showing Color.

 

     A picture of Bear Bear and Gandalf                            A picture of Gandalf marveling at a huge

     talking, showing Frontality.                                         bottle, showing Size

Part 3: Reflection

    This experience was simple, and not too bad once you understand what you need to capture. Each concept needs it's own, different thing that is specific to it. the Frontality one needed one character to be facing nearer to the camera than the other, as opposed to the Size one, needing the focus to be simply larger. The difficulty of both of them are different too, the size one took some finesse to capture as opposed to the frontality. I had to put the bottle far away from the plushy to make the illusion of size and making it convincing enough to not make it noticeable.

    The other two were also simple, but took a while thanks to me needing to know the difference between contrast and color. I decided to go with color being it compared to a lack of color, and contrast being a difference of colors depending on it's vibrancy and warmness. These are identifiable and did not take long to decide what to do after I realized what to do.

    Overall The main challenge for this were figuring out how to frame the shots, where to position the plushies and what is it that it requires.