Scott was Forced to Start a Blog

A blog I had to make for a university assessment. I'll mostly talk about films.

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The Oscars are Basically Nonsense

There comes a time in every film fans life where they realise the Oscars is basically nonsense.

I don’t understand how a film that, according to the academy, doesn’t have the best screenplay, doesn’t have the best cinematography, doesn’t have the best production design, doesn’t have the best editing or sound and so can be considered the best film. Surely if other movies that are also nominated for best picture are more remarkable in these areas, they should be considered better... right?

To clarify I have nothing against Nomadland, like most of the nominations this year I have not seen it, I just can’t wrap my head around the voting process. The Academy thinks other films are better by their own admission surely. 

And what even is best?! How are we judging best?!! Every film is different because the creative decisions from behind and in front of the camera were made to specifically suit the film they were making. Manks cinematography cannot be compared to Nomadland. It’s production design can’t be compared to The Father. All these films did what they had to do in service of the story and themes they were trying to convey. Saying “best” implies all films should look and sound exactly the same.

I know films can be good and bad I’m not trying to suggest otherwise. For example a bad comedy is usually bad because it’s not very funny, its not generally because they don’t look like Mank. That being said my thoughts on the Oscar nominated movies I’ve seen this (or last I guess) year are as follows:

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm: An attempt was made to create an effective satire of America during the coronavirus, but it boiled down to nothing more than surface level Twitter jokes. Wasn’t funny.

Soul: Really beautiful looking animation. Really entertaining and imaginative. Emotionally it didn’t hit very hard.

Mank: Clearly a passion project for David Fincher. It’s boring as fuck honestly, and really hard to follow unless you’re a huge Citizen Kane fan. I love Citizen Kane but I’ve only seen it once.

The Trail of the Chicago 7: It’s typical Aaron Sorkin stuff, but Sorkin is very good at being Sorkin. People like to criticise his visual style like it’s incompetent and I don’t know why.

And I believe that’s literally it. The film I enjoyed most last year was Bill and Ted Face the Music but honestly I’ve barely seen anything from 2020.

TV shows should be nominated. Pixar should get an honorary award every year just to give other animated films a fighting chance. Separating international films and American films is stupid and honestly feels a bit racist.

I think the Oscar are amazing for the people who are nominated because recognition is cool and it makes them feel nice. But why emotionally invest yourself it doesn’t make sense.

(Taken from my own Letterboxd)

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ASSESSMENT: Host: The King of Rubbish Screen Horror

Host (2020, Savage) was kinda the big thing for a while. After Unfriended (2014, Gabriadze) was received a bit mixed critically, I wasn’t convinced we’d see a ghost in a screen film ever again. Then there was a sequel to unfriended and Host came out. Host was well received though. I don’t really know why. 

It has the exact same problems as Unfriended does and I mean the exact same. The characters are unlikeable teenagers, they keep skyping/zooming when they should definitely stop, and the scares are nothing but boring, tacky jumpscares. 

So what sets Host apart from Unfriended? Well first its slightly shorter that probably helps. Bad films that are short are less painful than bad films that are long. But I think maybe its because Host better embraces the digital format. The characters in Unfriended don’t seem to know how the internet works, and the world wide web has this weird artifice to it. The websites are real sure, but the actors don’t feel like they’re really interacting with them. 

Host was literally filmed on a zoom call, so it captures a sense of realism immediately that Unfriended can’t capture. See the actors in Unfriended weren’t really on a computer, so the film feels a little phoney. By embarrassing the digital world, the new world of zoom calls, Host ends up on top. 

The king of rubbish screen horror.

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ASSESSMENT: Ex Machina: Digital as Thematic

The digital vs film cinematography debate is one that runs rampant in the filmmaking community. Some say film is the only way you can get a true cinematic experience, others (often people who come across a bit more level headed in my opinion) think both can look absolutely stunning.

The debate is best highlighted in this video on AlterCine, it’s industry legends Roger Deakins and Quentin Tarantino giving their two cents in the debate: https://youtu.be/a34Ttf_FtE8 

Regardless of whose argument you’re more inclined to lean towards, I think the two forget that cinematography can also be applied to serve the films themes. Something that director Alex Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy remembered when they shot Ex Machina (2015, Garland). 

Ex Machina is a film about robots. It’s about trying to find the line between humanity and computer. So, it kinda helps for it to look like a computer. 

Could you imagine if Ex Machina was covered in film grain? Yeah it would look nice, it might even look more timeless, but it wouldn’t be as powerful. The cinematography in the final film feels like it’s making a statement. When you look at images of people, human beings, trapped in what feels like a house trapped in a PC, with an image created by a camera which is cold and robotic… it’s like the camera itself it’s blurring that line. 

It’s makes you remember: cinematography isn’t just about looking nice.

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ASSESSMENT: Digital Graverobbing

There’s this weird trend in Hollywood at the moment: de-aging. 

See in the past, when Hollywood needed a younger version of a character, a younger actor was hired. It’s how we get amazing performances like Robert De Niro as young Marlon Brando in The Godfather Part 2. 

Nowadays though we don’t bother with that. Now what we do is film the old actor, cover their face in CGI and make them look young again. 

I don’t know why we do this. It’s a more difficult, more expensive process than just hiring another actor, as well as removing all the excitement of watching a new actor's interpretation of a character. On a personal note, I hate watching de-aged performances, because I don’t believe them. It’s hard to believe the emotions on a face, when the face is CGI. It’s why De Niro in the Godfather works, and De Niro in The Irishman doesn’t (sorry). 

But the problems stem further than that. Nowadays we can dig up dead actors with a digital shovel and make them dance in front of the camera. Did you know there’s a new James Dean movie coming? He certainly doesn’t he’s been dead for nearly 66 years. No one asked him if he wanted to be in the film because he’s dead. And some actor who I could believe watching is out of a job. 

I find this very uncomfortable. What if Dean doesn’t want to be in Finding Jack? What if he would’ve thought the script sucked and turned it down? We’ll never know, but we will get to watch his digital corpse get puppeted for our own amusement. 

I think it’s disgusting . 

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ASSESSMENT: The Death of the Camera

I think if Avatar (Cameron, 2009) proved anything, other than blue people don’t make for compelling stories, was that the idea of live action films needing a camera was quickly becoming a thing of the past. 

Whilst that film does have some practical sets and images, and certainly does feature human actors, approximately 70% of the footage is ‘built around CGI’ (source: The technological secrets of James Cameron's new film Avatar | 3D | The Guardian) and yet its still considered a live action film. 

With this in mind, the natural evolution of Avatar seems to be The Lion King (Favreau, 2019) which despite being classified for some reason as a live action film, it only actually features one live action shot in its entire run time (source: Here’s the One Real Shot in Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ Remake | IndieWire). 

It seems that all we need now to be considered anything but animation is the appearance of reality. If it looks real it must be, regardless of it mostly being animated in a computer. I’d argue that stop motion animation is more live action than these CGI films, at least something is being photographed with a camera. 

The Lion King 2019 was a game changer in digital CGI technology, and whilst it has dated incredibly quickly, it’s put us one step closer to not needing cameras to make films anymore. I don’t necessarily mind, but I do wonder if its taking away some of films simple artistry. 

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ASSESSMENT: Is Dogme 95 a Real Thing?

In 1995, genius filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg and the human equivalent of an internet troll, Lars von Trier decided to do away with the idea of traditional movie making in order to do their own thing. 

They penned the Dogme 95 manifesto and the Vows of Chastity, a series of rules with the intention to take power away from studios and hand it back to the directors. 

Basically they decided they didn’t like the idea of studio restrictions and decided to rebel by creating a handful of their own bizarrely ridgid restrictions. I’d like to think at some point they spotted the irony. 

Thomas Vinterberg came out swinging with the beautifully written Festen (Vinerberg, 1998). A genuinely powerful drama about abuse and denial. It's amazing and if you haven’t seen it please do, it's on youtube if you’re interested (not that I’m advocating piracy but I should imagine everyone involved has seen all the money they’re ever going to get from it). 

The problem I have is as follows: This is the creator of Dogme 95’s first film following the Dogme 95 rules… and it doesn’t. 

It follows some of them. It was shot on location, I can’t prove that they brought props from elsewhere. The camera is handheld, it's in colour, and Vinterberg is not credited. All these things would make 1995 Lars and Thom very very happy.

But then the other rules, no superficial action. Well what does that mean? Isn’t superficial debatable? In Festen characters get punched, tied to trees, chased… there's action. Fairly unrealistic action too, I mean people don’t generally get tied to trees

Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (That is to say that the film takes place here and now). Festen has dream sequences! Unless they specifically brought a camera into a dream I’d argue that dreams aren’t in the here. 

No genre films. Well that's vague. What's a genre film? All films have genre. Festen is a drama. Some have described it as a black comedy. It's got elements of horror. This is definitely a genre film. 

Special lighting isn’t acceptable. This means that they can’t bring lights, or cover lights or light sources. But Vinterberg has admitted to doing the latter a few times.

And what does it mean to not be credited. Directors aren’t allowed to be credited, but by conforming to the Dogme 95 manifesto your film is slapped with a certificate at the start with Triers and Vinterbergs name on it! Basically the pair taking credit for all the films including their own. Again I hope they saw the irony here.

And for guys obsessed with the films being formatted on 35mm… Festen was shot digitally. 

So is Dogme 95 a real thing? If they couldn’t follow the rules for movie one I’d argue no. Really it was just an excuse to try something different, a way for indie filmmakers to make movies for less money, whilst potentially gaining press off their own weird vaguely pretentious rules.

It worked too. Vinterberg just made the incredible Another Round (Vinterberg, 2020) which gained critical acclaim. And Lars made The House that Jack Built (2018, Von Trier) which was… well it was something. 

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Scott was Forced to Start a Blog for the Sake of University

So after a full week of procrastination, telling myself this is the day I’ll start the damn blog, I finally started the damn blog.

I’m meant to write about stuff I talk about in lectures,  it’ll be graded. Hopefully I’ll graduate at some point, but I still have to make a horror film and the univerisity are charictaristically harsh on anything I shoot. 

Note for my lecturer, anything I write that relates to the assesment i’ll write ASSESSMENT in the title. This post does not count, this was written for two reasons:

1) I like posting my thoughts into a vaccum I find it pretty thearaputic. I’ll probably continue to use this blog after the assesment is completed. I’ll probably use it during too hence the needed title code.

2) I don’t understand how Tumblr works and I thought it would help to find my blog if I wrote a blog post. I’m honestly that terrible at using a computer, which is pretty depressing for a 21 year old to admit.

Anyway I have a lecture in 20 minutes thats how close to the wire I’m leaving this. I have a massive headache I’m not sure why. The university still haven’t given me a £5 amazon card they owe me for telling them how adequate they are in survey form. Basically I’m feeling a little grumpy.

I love my modules this term. I’m loving horror and digital cinema. I love the fact I can write a screenplay for a disertation. Hoping it’ll all work out.

BYE!