Final Project- Hanukkah (3 Movie Posters)

 

For my final project I decided to do three movies posters for this hypothetical movie, Hanukkah, I made up.  I thought it would be cool to do a romantic comedy based of the movies like New Years Eve, Valentines Day, and Love Actually where there are a lot of characters and they take place on or around a specific holiday.  I obviously picked Hanukkah and also had my characters range from young to old.  I got all of my pictures off google, including the credits at the bottom.  This is strictly for my project and I don’t plan on actually producing this movie.  It’s funny because I did have some issues with photoshop.  Of course my trial ran out the day before I was about to start working on this so I decided to buy it.  Turns out after you buy it, it takes three days to process so I ended up having to go to the computer lab anyway.  Photoshop difficulties included cropping – which took forever; and getting all of those little square pictures the same size.  After a while I realized you could set a scale and it took half the amount of time.  I really did have fun producing this project because, when i’m not having technical difficulties, I really do enjoy using photoshop.  I learned a lot the past couple weeks working with it and I plan to do some more editing in the future!

 

 

 

Rene? He Had it Coming.

This is our picture to life assignment starring Olivia Wons, Philip Piombino and Caylee Watson.

Produced and Filmed by Helene Combes and Caylee Watson

 

In this short video, Phil and Olivia are dating and look to be very much in love.  However, this turns out not to be the case once Olivia spots Phil looking a little too comfortable on the couch with some random girl.  Olivia in furious but instead of talking to Phil about it, she devises a plan.  She decides to cook up some poison apple pie in order to destroy Phil to try and cause as much pain as he caused her.  Unfortunately, (but not really for Olivia) Phil also shares the poison muffin with his lover.  The two sadly die before Olivia’s eyes.  

We included: Wide shot (ws) and very wide shot (vws) in the field poisoning scene.  Close up (cu) at the end with Olivia portraying the painting.  Cut in (ci) of the apple falling off the counter and rolling away and high angle shot when she was taking the muffin out of the oven. And lastly we included a lot of two shots and medium close up shots throughout the entire thing.

Some moves used: pan left,  truck in, pan down and zoom.

 

Portrait Review- Night in Bologna

Night in Bologna, by Paul Cadmus is not one of the more modern installation pieces at the American Art Museum.  Instead this painting is part of the Modern American Realism movement.  At the Museum itself, there are about 70 paintings and sculptures from the 1910s to the 1980s that capture the movements socio-political, psychological, surrealist and satirical emotions. Night in Bologna is actually a pretty creepy painting.  The scene is of two men and a women; the woman turning around and not paying attention, the soldier in uniform is secretly staring at her, and the man at the table with a suitcase (maybe he is a traveler) is witnessing the solider looking at the women.  I think I was drawn this this painting in particular because it tells a story.  I know a lot of paintings tell a story, but with this one the viewer is able to really think of something complex because there are three characters in the scene – all doing different things.  For instance, we can think about the women and what she is doing in this dark alleyway all dressed up.  We can think of the life of the traveler and his past- where he has been and what he’s planning to do. And lastly we can think of the he solider and what he plans to do.  The entire thing is extremely mysterious.  If you think about the colors used one can think that the characters are each represented in different colors of light.  For example, the soldiers in red for lust, the women in yellow for greed, and the tourist in green for envy.  You can also tell the mood of the scene is very dark except for the highlight on each of the characters.  The colors are so dark in the alleyway you can hardly see anything.  Also, with the colors, he definitely uses a primary color scheme.  There are very many yellows, reds and blues.  Line is also a very important part of this picture.  The buildings and even the wrinkled lines on the soldiers clothes draw the eye to something.  This picture above all else, really provokes thought within the viewer.

Self Portrait Photoshop

I once saw this done and thought it was a really neat idea with photoshop.  I messed with the brightness levels of different layers and also added black and white effect.  (Along with crops and other functions of photoshop)

To be honest taking pictures in different poses was harder than the editing on photoshop; and this is the lame thing I came up with.  I used the invert color change effects as well as changing the hue and saturation and render clouds.

I know this picture may be the creepiest thing ever nevertheless, I used distort for my head to make me look like an alien as well as lens flare for the light coming out of my hand in the bigger clearer picture.  I also messed with the hue and saturation and brightness and contrast as well as messing with the pixellete crystalize tools.

Starbucks Website Review

http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility

Starbucks’ website is a great example of a good way to do web design.  If you look at Starbucks as a company, they actually can’t sell anything on there- it’s strictly for advertising purposes. However, we all know that Starbucks is known for their advertising accomplishments on Facebook and Twitter.  How else would they get us to buy $5 coffees?  Not only is their web design visually appealing, but it is very easy to navigate through. I find it nice that website does a great job of not looking too busy.  At the top you have the nice and simple logo, and to the left you have main topics such as the menu,  contact information, and a place to register to earn benefits at the actual store.  On the home page they also usually have a video on the screen that people (myself) can’t help but clicking on.  The entire layout is very simple and elegant- easy for the visitor to know what they are doing.  Right on the home page they also have quick and easy links to their Facebook and Twitter pages.  Also when you hold your mouse over a menu option it goes black and you can see your options related to that item even clearer with the green wording.  They were very clever in using the colors that everyone identifies with the company.  Lastly, I think the reason why Starbucks continues to expand as a company is because they take on a lot more than the sole concept of making money.  For instance, they have a responsibility tab in the menu options and there it expresses the company’s value and responsibilities and goals it has to promote our world. They go the importance of the community, the environment, ethical resourcing, and lastly its global goals. When you click on one of these options in big bold letters Starbucks has “Being a Responsibility Company” as soon as you get to the new page.  Especially these days people love companys that arnt selfish- and starbucks website does a great job as presenting itself humbly with its simple design aspects as well as its content.

Word photo- contrast

I always love how the lights in my room reflect onto the pictures on my wall. It also gives off a nice glow. Therefore this week for contrast I took a picture of it. I think the different color lighting really does a good job of it.

Seven- Opening Title Sequence

I chose to do the opening title sequence on one of my favorite mystery films.  Seven, written by Andrew Kevin Walker is an interesting thriller as two detectives, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman try to catch a killer (Kevin Spacey) who uses the seven deadly sins as his “modus operandi”. However, this was more than just a good film, the opening title sequence is really well done!

The beginning opens with a close up book and the credits fading in very slow and creepily.  In fact, the entire thing has a very dim lighted, eerie effect all going along to the Nine Inch Nails music.  The beat of the music works very well with the images.  As it almost screeches, there are motions and camera angles going along to them.  Transitioning from scene to scene, or part to part they have the credits fade into the completely black screen until the next part comes in.  What I also thought was cool was the words that flickered along to the music.  Again, makes the theme of the movie known and the audience a little more excited/scarred to watch.  The rest of the title sequence gives clues to what the movie is about while using cool editing techniques.  For example, obviously the murder or “someone” in the movie is doing his thing- not the killing part- but setting up and planning his actions.  This is made even more creepy by the editing.  Double exposure, different colored lighting, and blurriness is used purposely to make the movie seem scarier and the actions more thrilling.   The combination of slow motion and quick motion also add a little something to this opener.  For example with some of the background song, there is quick action like with a person holding a blade.  However, when there is a delayed or longer sound in the song, a page would get turned very slowly, making it look like the maybe the wind blew it over.  Random images also flash on throughout the sequence to add effect. I usually hate watching title sequences; they may look cool but they never seem to continue to keep my attention, however this one did.  The creator made an atmosphere that perfectly coincided with the creepiness of the movie.

Movie Poster Review- Django Unchained

This poster of the 2012 box office hit, Django Unchained, has many elements that draw the intended audience in interest. I think the best part of this poster is that it is eloquently simple.  They used only three colors: black, white and red.  Besides the fact that in bright big red letters the poster says it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie, just this color scheme alone tells the audience that the movie is going to be dark or violent.  In fact there are blood splatters in the background.  I like the simple theme, the words are different sizes to emphasize the difference between the actors and the movie itself, however they didn’t need to use any differing in perspective or layout (hanging off the page).  I particularly like this because it kind of goes along with the older time period of the movie.  The movie is supposed to take place in the 1850s and so the simple 3 men just standing there looking dangerous with mostly normal text is fitting.  However, contextually, this movie poster and parts of the movie actually received some criticism. The movie is about Jaime Foxx rescuing his wife from the brutal slave owner played by Leonardo DiCaprio, yet Kerri Washington is completely missing from this poster.  Some ask Tarantino, “where are the women”?  However, some may also argue that visually three main characters were enough to display on a movie poster; especially with such a heavy cast such as DiCaprio, Fox and Christoph Waltz.  The way that Jaime Fox is front and center is not by accident either.  The fact that he is the main character (the movie is even named after his character) makes him the most important and powerful and therefore font and center before Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz. The quote at the top also gives the audience a little clue to what the movie is about: dark violence and vengeance.  One last thing I thought was visually clever was the names of the actors font looked to have a splattered affect as well, like the blood.  I thought those words in that font, in white looked very cool and visually appealing.  So besides the women thing, I think this movie poster accomplished what it needed to.

 

Word photo-negative space

This apple represents negative space well because of the color contrast between the apple and the brown table. The obscure overhead angle and the lighting also gives the apple neat shadows.

Commercial Review

Audi’s commercial at the Super Bowl this year was a comical one.  It’s suggested to make a new breed of dog and eventually the idea is determined awful as the “doberhuahua” goes on to terrorize everything and everyone that gets in its way.  There are a lot of visual choices that make this commercial so great.  For example, the design of this fake breed of dog is great.  It mirrors an image in my head of the evil Scrappy Doo in the Scooby Doo movies.  When the idea of the dog first comes to mind, you get a low angel shot of a woman stomping down the sidewalk with adventurous but suspenseful music playing to her strides as the camera moves quickly to the horrifically ugly picture of this new bred dog.  Afterwards the rest of the commercial is in rhythm to the fast paced suspenseful music as many of these doberhuahua dogs go crazy; all of the scenes to which are hilarious.  There are many close up shots of the obscure, snarling, vicious looking dogs, and many wide shots of their crazy actions.  Slow motion is even used in one scene to dramatize when the dogs are chasing a little boy on his bike. It isn’t until all sense is brought back into the commercial that the suspenseful music comes on and the couple who originally were the ones looking for the dog are brought to their senses, sitting in a red AUDI, that they should adopt a dog from the shelter.  I think this commercial was so good because it was so creative. It’s safe to say many people have never thought of making such a breed of puppy, let alone putting it in a commercial…about a car.  It even used a pun from the sad Sarah Mclachlan shelter videos that many people in the audience could probably relate to watching, but would never think of referencing.  The connection you have to think about; compromising to breed two dogs instead of buying the one you want is a scary thing.  However with an… AUDI, you can trust it not to be a scary, vicious snarling, and slobbery doberhuahaua.  And THANK GOD for that.  I want to buy an AUDI now just because I think they have a good sense of human and are creative; I just wish I had the money.