FILM STUDIES & CINEMATOGRAPHY - EXERCISES

13/04/20 - 04/05/20 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Arletta Leviani (0337751)
Film studies & Cinematography
Exercises

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INSTRUCTION

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LECTURE NOTES

Lecture 1: Introduction
13/04/20 (Week 1)

This is our fist week of online classes, for film studies, we are instructed to use Zoom. We meet our lecturer, which is Mr Martin. We start our class with introduction of MIB, then continue of what our projects and final assignment.

After we covered our MIB, we continue with our first week lecture. We learn about art style with which work with which, and what theme of this animation. We were told to watch a few animation that was linked in the presentation and we then discuss them afterwards.

Lecture 2: The Character 1
20/04/20 (Week 2)

Today we are talking about theme and character. We were told that a strong theme can make a great story. We then talk about our own stories that we made, and try to find the theme. Theme is a huge role of a story, but making a new stories sometimes can be hard. Using the word what if can start a story that may make no sense, but it gives us a new way of thinking and eventually giving new ideas.

Lecture 3: The Character 2
27/04/20 (Week 3)

We are learning about character in our own story. We are told to first start describing our character next and discuss them with Mr Martin.

Lecture 4: The Story Structure 1
04/05/20 (Week 4)

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EXERCISES

13/04/20 (Week 1)

Our first exercise is to pick one of Miyazaki movies and analyse the story's theme with proof from the characters. We were told to do it in google docs. I was thinking of 2 movies, between Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, but I decided to pick Spirited Away.

This is my analysis

Theme: do not be greedy

• Sen(Chihiro)’s parents eat food greedily. The story metaphorically changes them into pigs.  
• Sen(Chihiro) doesn’t take extra bat
• When everyone seems to want the gold that is left behind by the river spirit, but Sen(Chihiro) doesn't want them. 
• When the no-face spirit decides to copy the gold to trick others to give him food.
• Haku decided to steal the golden seal from Zeniba, but Sen (Chihiro) decided to bring it back and apologize. 
• Sen(Chihiro) shares her magic herbal ball from the river spirit to Haku and the no face spirit when she can just give it to her parents and save them right away. But because she shares them, she manages to save Haku and 3 of the workers when eaten by the no face spirit. And Haku helps her parents turn back to humans. 

20/04/20 (Week 2)

This week we are talking about character in a movie, how it manage to become so familiar and lovable even with their flaws. For the exercise this week, we are going back to our Miyazaki's movie of choice and see how our main character is. To start the exercise, we need to define our own external and internal first then move on to define someone else's, in our case, our lecturer, Mr Martin. We then move on to Miyazaki's Character.

2A: What if
What if Chihiro and her parents got lost and ended up in a spirit world?

Character
Arletta:
External: tall, skinny, long hair
Internal: perfectionist, moody, ambisius

Mr martin: bald, small eyes, chubby
Internal: curious, humorous, laid back

2B:
External: short, messy hair, small eyes

2C:
Internal: anxious, hard working, honest, selfless

2D:
If Chihiro stuck in an elevator, she would panic. She would press the button several times. She would roll up into a ball saying that this is all fake and it is all a dream.

Love, Death and Robots
1: Sonnie's Edge, someone that seems weak is stronger than you think.
2: Yan, because she’s been suffering through the story and at the end, she’s finally stands up for herself and other female
3: Sucker of Souls, I never thought a dark story like that can fit so well with the art style since most of the style from the series is semi realistic 3d animation

We are then start to imagine their reaction if they are stuck in an elevator. My main character is Chihiro (Sen).

If Chihiro was trapped in an elevator, she would be panicking. When the elevator first stopped, she would freeze and quietly look at the elevator screen which read out of service. She would need a few minutes to register that she is stuck there alone. After everything sank in, she would start panicking. Chihiro would stomped her feet a few times while chanting “this is not real, this is not real!” then running around in the small elevator. She then curled herself into a ball and cry. I feel like Chihiro won’t succeed before she becomes Sen. If Sen were the one that stuck in the elevator, she would panic like before, but at the end, she will find her way out somehow. After working at the bathhouse, she started to develop independence and hard work. I feel like she would not be as panicked as Chihiro would be, so she would notice the emergency button and call for help. If there’s no help button or it is not working, I believe she would yell for help and don’t give up until someone finds her.