Monthly Archives: December 2013

My Top 10 (Crime Films)

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A while ago some friends and I were talking about which films we would list as our top ten favourites. Have you ever tried to do this? It is such a hard question. It is a hard question because there are so many different reasons why you like a film. For example it could be that you like the director, actor or the story, production values, special effects or the emotion it makes you feel. Trying to list your top ten is made even harder by looking at the finished list and realizing all the films you like that are not on it. It is easier to name your top ten in a genre like horror or comedy; but even this is complicated by the fact that some genres overlap each other and get blurry as to which category to put them in.

I have been thinking about this for some time and I find it nearly impossible to settle on a final list. Because of this I have been thinking about splitting my favourite films into different groups. The lists below are some of the films I have come up with already. This doesn’t mean that these are the only films I like; they are just the ones that came to mind as I was trying to put together the lists. The more I think about the lists the more films I think of, so it is an ever growing list with new entries being added all the time.

This month I have listed my favourite films to do with crime. There are so many that I have broken them down into different categories, thriller, drama and comedy.

CATEGORY                                                              DIRECTOR                YEAR

CRIME (Thriller)

  1. 13 Tzameti                                                                          Gela Babluani                  2005
  2. Layer Cake                                                                         Matthew Vaughn           2004
  3. Lock. Stock and Two Smoking Barrels                     Guy Ritchie                       1998
  4. Now You See Me                                                               Louis Leterrier                2013
  5. Ocean’s Eleven                                                                 Steven Soderbergh      2001
  6. Se7en                                                                                   David Fincher                  1995
  7. Shade                                                                                   Damian Nieman               2003
  8. Sin City                 Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino           2005
  9. Snatch                                                                                 Guy Ritchie                       2000
  10. The Usual Suspects                                                        Bryan Singer                     1995

CRIME (Drama)

  1. Casino                                                                                   Martin Scorsese            1995
  2. Following                                                                             Christopher Nolan       1998
  3. Goodfellas                                                                          Martin Scorsese            1990
  4. Harry Brown                                                                        Daniel Barber                 2009
  5. Once Upon A Time In America                                     Sergio Leone                  1984
  6. Pulp Fiction                                                                        Quentin Tarantino         1994
  7. Rounders                                                                            John Dahl                         1998
  8. Sea of Love                                                                        Harold Becker                1989
  9. The Godfather                                                                  Francis Ford Coppola  1972
  10. The Shawshank Redemption                                       Frank Darabont                 1994

CRIME (Comedy)

  1. Analyze This                                                                       Harold Ramis                   1999
  2. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery       Jay Roach                         1997
  3. Bad Boys                                                                             Michael Bay                      1995
  4. Bulletproof                                                                        Ernest R. Dickerson       1996
  5. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid                                         Carl Reiner                       1982
  6. Love, Honour and Obey                                 Dominic Anciano/Ray Burdis      2000
  7. Red                                                                                       Robert Schwentke         2010
  8. Seven Psychopaths                                                        Martin McDonagh          2012
  9. The Big Lebowski                                                      Joel Coen/Ethan Coen       1998
  10. The Longest Yard                                                            Peter Segal                      2005

Next month I will add another list but in the mean time I would be interested to know what great films you think I have left off the list.

Framing, Composition and Web Design

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The photographs I took to illustrate “My Journey” have really helped me to examine the way the framing and composition of a shot can help to tell a certain story. With a picture certain signifiers can be used, which on their own do not mean much, but when added to something else can mean a great deal.

One of my photographs is of a magic trick being performed. If I had just taken a picture of a pack of cards and the two hands it could have looked like two people were playing a card game or picking up dropped cards, but by introducing the black and white stick “the wand” it signifies that there is, in fact, a magic card trick being performed.

The use of shot sizes and angles can also be used to give a certain meaning. One example from my photographs is a shot of a newspaper with calendar dates on it. I took a few shots of this and decided to use the one I did because I thought the strange angle gave the impression of it being a very confusing and frustrating time for me. I also learnt that colours are also very important in telling a story. In my two Vestas photographs I used different colours to show different emotions. In the first photograph I used bright colours to show happy times, while in the second one I altered the colours to depict a cold, baron and unhappy story. In another photograph with the wedding rings, to show a marriage, I used a plain white background. The white was to signify a pure and happy marriage (the same concept as a white wedding dress) if I had used, for example, a black background it could lead the viewer to perceive the meaning as an unhappy, impure union.

The focus is another thing I worked on to tell a story. Normally I would just focus on the action but concentrating on what is in and out of focus and what the audience’s eyes are going to be drawn to is also a powerful tool. As in the shot with the diploma and the college in the background, I thought the diploma was more important than the building, so I used the shot with the name of the college out of focus rather than one where the college sign is in focus but the diploma was then slightly out.

Also while designing my WordPress site I had to take into account what could be perceived by the viewer. I wanted to design something that looked professional and looking at some of the designs I thought the designs with the main colour being either black or white had a nice clean look to them. Comparing the two I decided that, to me, the white designs looked a little like they were note pads with words and pictures stuck onto them. I decided to use a black design and after trying a few different ones out I decided to use the Sunspot theme. I liked the use of the different shades of Orange for the titles etc against the black background. These orangey shades not only help the titles stand out but give the site a warmer feel to it than just having it all black with grey letters; thus making it more inviting to the sites visitors. The only thing I changed was the shade of the sites main name. Originally it was the same colour as the rest of the headers but I altered it to a slightly darker shade in order for it to be able to stand out more from everything else.

These are all things that I will be thinking about with my future filming projects, looking at what is being signified in the whole piece, whether it is shot size, angle, focus, colour or even what is being said, rather than just focusing on the action that is happening.

My Film Influences

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In 2010 I started on the BTEC level 2 Diploma course – Media Production, at the Isle of Wight College.  To be honest, I only started it as it looked quite interesting and gave me something to do while I was looking for a full time job. My intention was to maybe finish the level 2, but with the hopes of getting a job and leaving as soon as I did. The problem was as soon as I started the course I realised this was what I wanted to be doing as a full time job. I tried out different roles within a production and I loved all of them. I gave my whole attention to the course and ended with a D* grade. (Apparently I am the only person on that course at the IoW College to ever have achieved that grade.) I decided to stay on and do the two year Extended Level 3 Diploma. I finished the two years with a D*D*D grade. (Again the highest ever achieved!) At the end of the course I had a big dilemma. I had been offered a place at Southampton Solent University on their TV and Video Production Degree course, but I had also been offered a job with Aldi Superstores as an assistant manager. I had to choose whether to carry on my education as I wanted to or take the full time job offer as my wife and family wanted me to. Eventually, with extra coaxing from my college tutor Jon, I decided to follow the path I really wanted to be on and accepted the place at Solent.

In an ideal world, once I have my degree I would like to work as a writer/director, also maybe a producer. I suppose looking at the films and television programmes I like I have many influence, although until now I have never consciously thought about it. Watching films growing up I always liked Gangster films. At the time it was the mafia type films like the Godfather films and Once Upon a Time in America; but I still liked that type of film when they moved forward to films like Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects and Heat. When I analyze the films I like I prefer British films to those of the big US Blockbuster. I think British and European films tend to concentrate more on the story than on how big the special effects can be in relation to their budget. I say this even though Goodfellas is my all-time favourite gangster film; I find films like Layer Cake, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch far more entertaining than most of their American counterparts. Another of my favourite films is the John Dahl directed film Rounders and I guess this could, in part, explain why the first short film I made was a film about a struggling poker player who becomes involved with local gangsters.

Looking at different media professional careers there are two that really stand out to me. They are both writer/directors which is probably why they strike a personal chord.

The first is Christopher Nolan. It is especially his early work that I particularly enjoy from his short, Doodlebug to Following and Memento. I find his work fascinating, especially the element that as a viewer you never really know the full story until near the end. You have to try and piece it all together but you always seem to be as clueless as the main character. For me, all Christopher Nolan’s’ films have an an element that keeps you gripped to the very end; especially with his films like The Prestige and Inception where I have to keep watching because I want to know how everything turns out. I also think his Batman trilogy is by far the best interpretation of a comic book character film that has ever been made. I think the films dark edge is perfect for the bat character and one which many other comic book films will try and emulate but probably never succeed. If I am fortunate enough to become a writer or director or even both and make films that I think are half as good as Christopher Nolan’s’ then I will be a very happy man.

Another Writer/Director that stands out to me is Eran Creevy. He is still in his early career as a writer and director but I think he is going to be a huge name in British cinema in the future. I admire the way he has managed to jump from a relatively small production to making his second film on a much grander scale. Eran’s first film, Shifty is a great story led film that was made with a budget of £100K. Shifty was so well accepted and nominated for a BAFTA that it helped to get the finance for his next film, Welcome to the Punch; a slick London crime caper that had a budget of £5.2million. The look of these two films is completely different and it is a good start at showing how adaptable he is rather than a one trick pony.