Sound Treatment

 One nerd kid named Ernie is bullied by two mean guys at his school for the past few months

The third month of school Ernie never shows up and is said to have committed suicide.

The two bullies hear of this news but don't seem to be  phased by the news until the fourth month.

Soon enough the two guys start feeling like they are being followed by somebody but they can never turn fast enough to catch that person... who really isn't there.

What they don't know is they are being haunted by Ernie's ghost.

Soon Ernie starts really messing with their heads by moving stuff they set down to different spots in the room.

The bullies are really starting to worry about themselves because they think they're starting to go crazy.

Ernie starts showing himself to the bullies to start scaring them. Which ends up working and has the two guys begging to be left alone and sorry for what they had done.

The following day the boys don't seem to be being haunted and feel relieved until the night time when Ernie kills one of the bullies by possessing him and stabbing himself.

The other bully hears of this and comes to conclusion that he is next on Ernie's list and ends up killing himself.


THE END

Part 2 Oral Exam

II. Historical and Institutional Factors

     Some institutional factors in making the movie 300 directed by Zack Snyder was having the proper team that can get into old combat warfare. Props such as swords, shields, war uniforms etc. would be needed in order to make the movie as realistic as possible at the time period it took place.

    This film takes place during the Battle of Thermopylae in the year 480 B.C. during the reign of Xerxes and the Persian Empire was at its most strongest. The movie has a huge historical background that tells of the 300 Spartans lead by King Leonidas chose to stand up to the powerful Persian Empire to show how Spartans will not surrender or bow to any man no matter the conditions.

III. Socio-Cultural Context

    The people of Sparta were thought to have been descendant's of Hercules himself because of their expertise and drive to fight in battle. Unlike all the other countries during the this time period, Spartan children were taken from their homes and trained to fight, to never back down, or to feel pain. Some would say after seeing this movie that it was very close to being considered extremely barbaric. At birth a man would closely examine the baby and if it were misshapen in anyway shape or form it would be discarded and left for dead. The lifestyle of Sparta was to be as ruthless as possible, this was how Spartans were raised to think in battle. The movie was made to entertain all kinds of audience, old, young, and those that are just really into blood and gore. During the production of this movie Zack Snyder had to do some research on the history of the famous Spartan 300 at the Battle of Thermopylae.

IV. Narrative

    The movie is broken down piece by piece with the narrator explaining what is going on during the movie to those people that may not understand whats going on or what the characters in the movie are thinking or feeling at that moment. The narration in the movie goes plot by plot and while all of the narrating the scene is really slow and kind of gets the audience on the edge of their seats wondering whats going to happen next. During this movie you wonder whats going to happen to Spartans and if they're going to wipe out the powerful Persian Empire. The longer you watch the movie the closer you feel to the characters and it almost feels like your there watching the battles happen right in front of you.

V. Film language and Representation

    When you think of the characters in the movie you think of shields and will power to fight for their people. At the beginning of the movie when the messenger from Persia shows up to Sparta he pulls skulls from past kings that failed to fight off Persia to show how powerful they are. This fore shadowed how the movie would end and how a war between the countries would start a large retaliation. The actors were really into character and played very good warriors. During the production of battle scenes, the director would speed up a part really quick and slow it back down to show the power of the swords cutting through the Persian soldiers. This made the movie even more interesting and got some audience members engrossed into the movie. When a battle scene is about to start, you look at the background to see the kind of landscape the fight is taking place. Its completely different from an enormous amount of troops going right into a town and killing everyone in their path because both sides are aware casualties will happen. Editing in a movie like 300 really helps to intensify a battle scene such as when King Leonidas is charging toward enemy soldiers while slowing down and speeding up from one enemy to the next slicing of limbs and what not. All the lighting in the movie was different throughout the movie from battle scenes to nights before battle.

Textual analysis and the Oral Exam

Part 1

I. Genre and Audience

The genre for 300 is action, drama, and war. This was the point from the directors of this movie and they hoped to get attention for the film. If these 3 genres weren't part of this movie it wouldn't have been as big a success as it is today. 

The scenes in the movie relate to war as well as action. The determination of the Spartans to not give up their land to the Persian Empire and killing the messengers from Persia causes the Spartans to go into battle and fight for their land also to show that Sparta bows down to no man.

This film can be related to the Gladiator. Both films demonstrate the will power of one man and fighting for what they believe to be true. In the movie 300, King Leonidas goes into war with the biggest army in the world at the time to show he will fight for Sparta's freedom no matter the price. In the Gladiator Maximus (Russel Crowe) fights in arena's for the entertainment of Rome but what the people don't know is he is fighting for the freedom of him people and to restore the honor of his name.

This epic film was directed by Zack Snyder. In the movie 300 Snyder worked along side his wife (Deborah Snyder).

Its really interesting to see these guys are into action packet blood and gore movies. Snyder wanted to make the Battle of Thermopylae as close to the historical event as possible. Zack Snyder cared for the film and didn't want to give the movie an unrealistic ending unlike some movie directors.

Zack Snyder is all over the place in genres when it comes to movies. For example he directed 300 but one of his most recent films in called Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole which was mostly for a younger audience which was one of the only movies not relating to death, zombies, and superheros like Dawn of the Dead or Watchmen.

The 300 movie was based off of Sword and Sandals which usually refers to earlier times in history where savagery was the way to survive modern day life. Like in 300 how the Spartans fight for the safety of their people and will fight to the death to defend it.

Documentary Prepro-

Purpose: The love for soccer/ Inspirations

Contacts: Dad, Mom, Little brother, Leroy Miranda, Naomi Tuite.

Interview/Questions:
 -Who got you into playing soccer?

-How long have you played soccer?

-What challenges did you have to overcome?

-What position did/do you play?

-If you had the chance to pick any team to play on, what team would you play for?

General Flow: It'll start of with a couple pictures of soccer balls. Then I will start on asking the talents questions about the sport. Put some B-roll in with some soccer clips and trophies and medals etc. End can be of a LS of an empty soccer field and me saying something inspirational like "and now the dream for me has begun to go and have the knowledge of three skilled players and put it to the test."

Shot List: CU for interviews. CU on trophies and pictures. LS of a soccer field. CU on a soccer ball to show what piece is about.

Scripts: Soccer is an internationally played sport and I know three people that it has really impacted and absolutely love to watch as well as play the game. Now lets hear a little bit about them and what got them into the sport of soccer...

Intro: Soccer ball sitting on soccer field

Closing: Soccer ball at rest then swift kick off screen 

Baraka Film Questions

1. I think the film was named Baraka, a.k.a. "breath" because it shows all the different environments the people in the film live in. For example one place was in a jungle environment which is a lot different from a city landscape like New York.

2. The film shows how civilizations and the changes half the world have done in order to be modern to the 21st century. It also shows how religion/ beliefs have kept other indigenous tribes and groups the same as they have been for thousands of years.


3. I get the feeling that the director of "Baraka" was trying to show how people try making the world a better place for others by making technological discoveries or better businesses to evolve the human race. On the other hand there are civilizations that feel they must evolve with the earth and wait for it to reach its own perfection instead of trying to do it themselves.

4. The body language, expressions and tribal chants were able to do something words can't explain, life. Baraka was able to show different environments throughout the world and how people live today whether or not they live in tropical landscapes or in cities that never sleep.It also made you wonder where the producers were filming.

5. When the film would go from a tropical environment to a city environment it made me think of how humans have destroyed landscapes filled with the lives of animals and can easily make new buildings for big corporations whether or not the land belongs to somebody. The indigenous tribes have learned to live within jungles and it would seem to them we're pretty spoiled.



6. A possible interpretation of the monk and the cigarette factor is how things are different in other countries. Cigarettes kill people and monks treat every living thing with the respect of as if it was an actual person. The monks religion and spirituality makes them appreciate the small things in life, which is also another reason I think the film directors named the film "Baraka".

7. It makes the modern day civilization think of how much we actually have and the opportunities we have like school for example. A lot of kids in other countries don't have the ability to go to school and kids that go to school complain about it.

8. The chants really stood out to me because it made me realize how all the different countries have different religions and beliefs as well as rituals they have to their god or gods.

9. I think we watched Baraka so we can look at all of the transitions and get a good look at really smooth editing as well as the idea of all the different groups of people in the world. I think my editing would have eventually gotten better overtime but I think i got a better idea of advanced editing. Yeah this film really makes me want to travel because I'd like to go and see all the differences that are between the United States and other countries.

Short Comedy Critique

  Script/Narrative/Story
A. The story shows a good kid that gets so caught up in helping people that he forgets to do his homework and has never been in the situation of being in trouble. He must write on the board as a punishment and sees the teacher choke near death. He walks out and starts his journey of helping others once again. 

B.The video gives you that sense of how someone gets so involved in helping people that by the time he realizes he hasn't done his homework, its already too late to start. The issue makes you feel for the character because he does nothing but do good things that hes over punished by a teacher which ends up choking and for once in Willy's life he just doesn't care and walks out of the classroom.

C. Willy is a very good kid, but as the story shows he is helping people and forgets to worry about himself which leads to him getting in deep trouble with the teacher. I feel the story goes step by step leading up to his "date" with trouble.


D. There was no dialogue in the video because it was too much trouble having to worry about what to say so instead we had the characters just express it. Gestures helped us get the audience understand what the character was thinking or how he/she was feeling.

E. The climax is quite interesting because the character always helps people but since the teacher was mean to him he doesn't worry about the teachers fate on whether he survives or not. 


  Casting 
A. The actors are pretty well matched with the characters and it also makes for a little fun video to see a big tough guy crying or a tall guy walking without a care in the world. Putting these little details in makes the video funny to watch and not boring.

B.The actors do a very good job in playing there parts and get into character very comfortably on camera. But it wasn't very easy to get into character when some of the actors only had to act for about 10-15 seconds.

C. Each character in the story has there own problems to deal with and Willy goes around helping everyone he runs into without hesitation. You can see the characters know what they are suppose to do on camera and make it look pretty easy.

D. No, all the characters look completely different and can't be easily confused in any way shape or form. They wear different clothing and have their own personal traits that defines them from the other actors.

  Acting

A. Willy has the ability of making the audience feel sorry for him because all he wants is for people to be happy and they can depend on him to make their day better. When Willy is punished by his teacher you can tell he made an honest mistake forgetting to do his homework. In the end you see Willy not care much for the teacher and just walks out peacefully.

B. The characters are able to play the parts but not get totally into character except for Edward who played Willy. The other characters just had a 10 second part and didn't have the time to get into their character.

C. Willy is able show his emotions and gestures to show the audience how he feels or what situation hes in. The other characters are able to make gestures as well and are able to show how Willy's kindness helps them feel better.

D. There is no dialogue in the video. The music and gestures pretty much does it all for the audience and shows them the emotions of the characters that are acting in the film.

E. The editing was pretty easy after we got all the shots in and the characters to help shoot in the video. There were two mistakes I spotted in the video like when Deejay drops the binder in the hall way there are two doors that were open and when the camera goes back out for a LS the doors are closed which gave me a little problem.

F. No make-up was used or needed to be used for the filming because it was just for a normal day at school. Make-up would have made the editing a lot more complicated because we would have had to worry about the wardrobe change if we didn't finish shooting in one day.

G. The only costumes were the clothes that the actors had on. School was the scene so it wasn't a problem worrying about how the actors should dress up. There was no needed uniform in the video which was really helpful in editing the video.

H. No make-up was used for any of the shooting. The make-up would have cause a problems because if we needed to continue a shot from the previous day the editing would have been delayed from different uniform change.

  Music and Effects

A. There weren't many sound effects in this video, only music that got the audience into the characters feelings and showed the emotions they were in.

B. The music isn't a distraction from the video at all, it goes along with the story so it wasn't much of a problem to edit into the video.

C. Like I said, the music helps for audiences to feel for the character and act like they know him/her and feel sorry for him/her if something bad were to happen. Like how Willy is harshly punished for not doing his homework for one of his classes.

D. The music gets the audiences attention and gives them a feeling of happiness and joy when the character helps out other actors in the short film.

  Staging and Props

watch.

B. The lighting was from our surroundings and we didn't have to worry about it. We did try our best to keep everything in the shot the same but the doors closing was something we were unable to fix.

C. The surrounds didn't affect the attention from the actors or anything so that wasn't too much of a problem to deal with.

D. The separation from the talents, wardrobe and set element isn't a problem to figure out. The depth in the shots separates and eliminates this problem.

E. The homework scene was easily visible for the audience to see and helped to pull of the scene for Willy to help with the homework.

  Lighting

A. There were no big changes in lighting in any of the shots. It was pretty constant, an the changes in lighting weren't very visible.

B. The lighting showed some parts like the expressions on both Willy and Mr. Olsen the teacher. it helps the audience get in the mood of good and bad.

C. Shadows were not at all a problem in the shooting of the film. The low lighting that was in the shots and the angles we filmed didn't pick up any back shadows or anything to give us much of a problem in editing the video.

D. The shots were all taken around the same time of day giving us the perfect lighting to seem like it was one whole day that the happy Willy helped all the other students out.

  Titles and Credits

A. The titles are standard from final cut pro for the making of the video and are really easy to see, not at all fancy or hard to read.

B. On a low resolution TV it wouldn't be difficult what so ever to see the titles and credits in the video for all audience members.

C. The credits are after all the video so there is no interference in the video from the credits and video.

D. The credits move at a fast pace and are for more fluent readers that won't have a problem being able to read all the names and credits for things and people that were in the filmed video.

  Camera Operation

A. The filming is really down to basics such as close ups, long shots, getting depth into the shots. The shots could have been worked on some more to make the film even better but we were running out on time and needed to start the editing soon.

B. We used tilting a lot to show a lot of details in the film. The zoom was used to show Willy's expression when he realizes he forgot to do his homework for his 7th period class.

C. When Willy walks over to the choked out teacher i jerk the camera a little bit an don't give him enough head room which makes the top of his head look like Frankenstein but without the bolts in his neck.

D. We planned the camera shots before hand and were able to do the necessary adjustments to make sure we had little to no camera jerks or anything that the audience would easily catch when watching the video.

  Sound

A. We didn't have problems with any microphones because we didn't plan on putting any dialogue. We just planned on gestures to show the emotions an feelings of the characters instead of having to plan on what the actors would have to say during their part.

B. I didn't catch any awkward or weird sounds during the editing of the video. There aren't any sound spikes in the audio or music that's playing throughout the video.

C. Audio in the video is crystal clear and can be heard by any audience that is watching or listening to it.

D. There is no filming equipment in the film. We made sure everything was out of sight before filming and double checked it. Sound wasn't a problem because I cut out all the audio during editing and just put music to set the right emotions of the film.

E. The editing was pretty smooth throughout the entire film and I watched it a few times before submitting it to the achieve. I used a cross dissolve only once to show that time had passed in the time Willy walked up to the bored until he started writing "I will do my homework" over and over again so I wouldn't waste time filming.

  Editing

A. The cuts and transitions I used in the editing made the video flow a lot smother then it would have if the transitions weren't added in to it. I used cross dissolve to show time passing by instead of having to recording the whole time with wasted time.

B . The filming goes from a shot to the character walking and make sure to have the character shown before going into a first person point of view or an over the shoulder shot of the character.

C. There was a lot of editing for me to do to make the film flow extremely smooth without making any mistakes or the possibility of confusing the audience as well as me when i was doing the edits.

D. As you watch the video you can start to see what is going to happen next even if you haven't seen the video before. Like when DJ drops his binder you see Willy in the background and you already know he is going to run over to help him and pick the binder up for him.

E. The shots in the film are like something you would personally view from your own eyes. The shots were easy to do once we had a script to follow.

F. The editing makes the film very smooth and is something you could expect from a good short film production. Editing this film was also sort of a challenge because we got shots in sections because we didn't get all the shots in one day. It was spread out through a week so we had to figure out what we were going to put next in the final version of the film.

G. Jump cuts weren't put into the film because they are really difficult to work with at times and are also unnecessary in certain videos or films. Jump cuts make things very choppy and don't look good when your trying to show somebody that goes around to help people with problems. Its easier to speed it up so it gives the main character an image of liking to help people out.  

H. Editing is smooth and is hardly noticeable throughout the entire video. The edits skip from one point to another to show time passing and Willy helping out person after person until he has to try and help himself.

I. All unnecessary shots from the video have been edited out so the story makes sense and doesn't confuse the audience or myself during the presentation of the video or the editing of the film.

J. The story is pretty easy to grasp and you can follow along pretty easily. The story doesn't move that fast, its like a summary of someones day but only shows the important parts. We also decided on not making the video too long to the point of boredom. 


Now please enjoy the video!

Treatment

Willy is a 14 year old who has just moved to a new town. He’s always been the weird kid on the block and has never been able to have ever made a real friend. But something about this town gives Willy hope because animals seem to love him and follow him everywhere.

A dog named Whiskers seems to take the biggest liking to Willy. Willy seems to have made a friend that actually likes to hang out with him and isn’t shy to be with him in public. They hang out everyday and do everything together, play, eat, sleep and so on.

But one day Willy wakes up to find his room a total mess. His pants are all over the place and Whiskers is no where to be found. He goes outside in the backyard and finds Whiskers outside eating the bag of cookies he had left in his back pocket.

Willy becomes very sad and has lost his only friend... or had he thought. Willy goes to look up and sees Whiskers walking toward him. Whiskers sits down and stares at Willy. This time Willy doesn’t have cookies in his back pocket and has found a true friend.