Jiro Dreams of Sushi

• Use of classical music emulates skills and refinement
• begins with monetage of pictures
• talks about work
• close ups of making sushi
• Food critic introduces us to Jiro
• see him moving about city
• entering restaurant
• Sequence about reservations shows eliteness of restaurant 
• Different way of valuing food - fast food only lasts 15 minutes
• Jiro's son introduced in relation to his father
• Talent vs hard work set up
• Value of repitition - sequence of him on the train, opening up shop - his dedication gives meaning
• Archive photos juxtapose with his normalcy
• Talks about his past on a train travelling right to left, as if going backwards
• See how tough he is on kids then see where the toughness comes from - biography
• Jior centred in frame as he talks about how he wouldn't let them go to college
• Japanese succession
• 'I would make sushi in my dreams'
• Slo motion emphasizes the movement of the hands
• fades emphasize repitition of process in montage
• Interview in car with Yoshikazu
• Cold snow gives mystical feel in slo mo
• When interviewing tuna salesman he talks to Yoshikaza but talks about Jiro
• Repitiion of examining tuna fast paced- ease of an expert
• Drum music makes auction more exciting
• Blue emphasized at fish market
• Old man club - takes a while to learn skills
• Always returns to passing down, and tradition, young vs old
• Show cooking while talking about memories
• Communal tlaking in the kitchen
• A long time before actually show a customer eating sushi
• Talks about the way it is served to customers like art
• Details in CUs are reflective of the details Jiro notices
• Show Jiro seeing the customers out
• Sushi conveyr belt shows spread
• Takes 10 yeas to get big tuna - everything takes time
• Slo motion of fish market dumping rubbish - more of everything, easy to throwaway
• Yoshikazu comes with Jiro to hometown as well
• Comes back to Yoshikazu - started with Michelin but Yoshikazu prepared the fish for them
• The lineage is passed on

Watching Icarus

• Uses video dairies
• Phone portrait footage at wedding of dancing, building to being taken down by WADA
• Telling story through filmmakers interactions with characters
• Use of news footage
• archive pics of Gregory's past
• use of skype - liveness gives sense of urgency
• When the investigation is finished it becomes a different story - politics and danger
• uses phone calls and footage without people
• Filmaker books ticket has him to stay on the phone, produer talking to ed snowdens lawyer
• Gregory in silhouette on phone to wife
• Returns to Orwell htroughout
• Then form changes - sit down interview with Gregory
• Uses animation talking about suicide attempt and mental illness
• Film's legal counsel interviewed
• animation of sochi reconstruction
• shows the stakes and the aftermath
• russian news of hacked
• filmmaker talking on behalf of grigory
• trial in press coverage
• Sad french music as grigory goes into witness protection
• poetic montage with 1984 as voiceover

Wong Kar Wai Techniques

• Telephoto lens with movement in foreground makes character look more isolated
• Coloured gels tocreate unusual coloured light
• Holding on a character doing everyday things
• Actors manipulating props with hands - glasses, toy plane
• Monologue VO - introspection, isolation
• Rain
• 
  

Notes on Locke

• Using fades despite time not passing
• yellow and blue
• welsh accent not perf
• Whilst talking to mistress hand brushes against face - showing wedding ring
• Wife being nice - football, sausages, son answers phone - family
• male voice calming hysterical female on phone
• help for heroes on outside of car - goodness on outside
• police car whizzing past illustrating speed limit
• Ivan corrects 10 years to 9 years
• describing on phone ' im here in the dark in our bedroom'
• Driving away from usual responsibilities
• slip of concrete like his relationship mistake
• when puts hand to his face see wedding ring 
• he supporting her in her weakness fear
• both work and family breaking down
• cant control people
• bethan has gas donal has cider - everyone going out of control, putting themselves in the hands of substances
• instructor pacifier
• angry on his own - never on the phone, maintains around other people
• straight unending road in sat nav
• 'you have a call waiting'
• wont say i love you
• 3 different situations can't be stopped
• uses previous rep
• dad in back seat - a;ways behind him
• only voices not faces
• silence of shock
• his son loves him
• ends with baby cries
• his children end the film - lost everything else

Notes on Love, Rosie

• Use reddish orange light in Rosie's bedroom
• Shines through her hair in her moment of anguish
• Evolution of digital messaging showing passage of time in their relationship
• Soft focus in some handheld kissing shots
• track/slider for LA of Sam Claflin sitting on bottom airport railing?

Notes from 'Dreamcatcher'

• Didn't try to make anyone all good or all bad - didn't oversimplify
• Didn't cut out problematic things characters said eg ex pimp saying he didn't regret his life
• Begins with inner city streets of chicago - gritty dark run down, contrasts with blue pink sunset over skyscrapers - underbelly, beautiful on the outside
• recurring motif of Brenda looking into mirror and applying make up/eyelashes/weave
• Brenda seems so strong then in one emotional scene near the end she reveals how emotional and fragile she still is
• Brenda as link between different stories, different aspects/sides to prostitution
• Brenda asked documentary maker to come and raise awareness
• All girls in the school club had been raped
• Platform to speak out
• Crying behind camera
• Just documentary maker and sound recordist - quiet, easy to get along with
• when getting permission from contributor gave documentary maker's details back and said would keep in touch

Notes on Still Alice

• Use of focus to reflect her deteriorating mental state
• Editor said about taming Kristen Stewart's performance
• End it with mother daughter rather than husband wife
• Kate Bosworth's role was limited
• green childish butterfly necklace - gift from mother, covering self in memories, part of her reverting back to childishness
• Sparse use of music
• not always building to a cut to a different scene
• pulling focus in and out of objects like her mories come back and forth and the comprehending ability of her mind alters
• leaps straight into her first being minorly affected by the disease - editor said audience already knew film was about JuliaNE mOORe geeting alzheimers so had to get on with it

Notes on Harold and Maude

• Head cut off in the beginning - could be any age, specially considering clothes
• Mother's clothes match house
• Mother domineering
• Harold's messy death obsession juxtaposed with neatness of how mother keeps house
• Dark red blood matches with furnishings
• More washed out colours around Harold
• crossed legs of therapist juxtapose with Harold's loose legs - confidence
• Cut after 'I go to funerals'  emphasizes
• Old lady sneezes and eats apple - alive and messy
•  Inside house similar colours and light to still life
• Robotic arm adds dark humour
• Harold has deathly pale complexion
• Symmetry of shots with mother in
• Suicides performed for his mother

Dil To Pagal Hai

Techniques Used

• Begins in clear studio setting with bright light behind setting this bit up as something different from reality - introducing us to the characters and their utterly opposite beliefs
• Cuts out to reveal them sitting on yellow benches - benches then occupied by loving couples for the duration of the title sequence
• Colour shifts completely from yellow to blue
• Jump Cuts in MS during musical number to show frustration between male and female dancer
• Cuts from her to him both doing a similar dance move though in different places
• A shot in which there are two versions of the couple showing the different sides of their relationship; lovers and friends
• Pooja's flash back is illustrated by her turning and an OTS revealing why she must be dutiful to her aunt

Metz's Film Theory

• Metz believed film should be regarded as a language - organizes and encodes material in accordance with a set of cultural conventions
• addressed two problems: determining artifice which qualifies cinema as a language, distinguishing features of films that were common and on which a classification system could be based 

The cinema: langue or langage?

• Langue as spoken and written in linguistic sense, langage as broader term for signs of communication

Used Martinet's Theory:

• language is distinguished form less systematic communicative modes by 'double articulation'
• any linguistic utterance can be analysed into smaller

From 'Feminist Film Studies'

• 'Acentral imaging' understanding character and situation represented and reacting to the thought of it
• 'Central imaging' adopting view and mental state of character

Women's Film

• Doane divides women's film into maternal melodrama (seperation and return), love story (female desire recognised then thwarted), paranoid gothic film (associate female spectator with fear) and medical discourse film (female body as site of disease, submission to male medical control) - all constructing masochistic female spectator
• Basinger - films can be double-voiced, provide female viewres with escape/release then say they shouldn't want it and that its wrong,  but can also offer temporary sense of liberation
• Linda williams sees three body genres - sex/porn, violence/horror, emotion/women's film
• Female friendship films - nearly also positvie about relationship but stopped after Thelma and Louise - had been sentimental portrayals of woman adjusting to fit existing social structure
• Normally produced by men, but was inspired by feminist notions of sisterhood
• Literary adaptation of female novelists helped - often focused on sisterly relations of the past
• Chick flick core elements: femaale empowerment, solidarity amongst women, consumerism, fairy tale elements, old fashioned sentimentality
• Convey notion that women can have it all but renewed acceptance of traditional feminity
• most fall into makeover catergory - change identity and self confidence and enables romance
• Sexual reawakening of women in middle age
• show women's triumph over patriarchy whilst retaining their traditional femininity
• Don't address gender roles, complexities of real women's lives

Lesbian Film Theory and Criticism

• Link between portrayals of lesbians and female bonding - Jackie Stacey - homoerotic component to films about woman's obsession with other women
• Homoerotically charged relationships in films reflect that between female viewer and female star
• Fascination with the idealized other
• female spectator positioned in regard to female bonding which represents intimacy involves both identification and desire

Avant Garde and Documentary making

• In 1970s feminist avant-garde separate form previous male one started
• Early avante-garde filmmakers were all male apart from Germaine Dulac and Maya Deren
• Became seen as a place where women could challenge mainstream images but many male avant-garde films were misogynistic eg un chien andalou
• women seldom reach highest level of directorial pantheon
• Female experimentalist work often challenge avant-garde traditions
• Caught between radical aestithicism and allegiance to women's movements demands for realistic portrayals of women's activities and activism
• realism creates passive spectators from a modernist perspective as it presents a story as truth or reality
• make female characters more than an element of plot space
• often interrogate female body as a cultural and linguistic sign - not just visual image but a subject of inquiry
• destroting pleasure derived from identification, narrative involvement and eroticization of femininity
• 
  

The Actress

• star actress 'construction, a product of culture... prefabricated by men' Gaines
• Denigrate female star's acting ability in contrast to male stars
• work actress puts into her appearance never seen as a skill
• men more likely to be seen as highly trained or skilled rather than succeeding because of their natural talent or physical attractiveness
• emphasis on training and professionalism for men helps them retain roles as grow older - harder for women to transfer from acting to directing and producing
• female stars often shown as having careers managed or launched by powerful male directors or producers
• female actresses more commonly seen as celebrities
• celebrity status allows to continue despite bad performances or lower box office

Feminist Film Studies and Race:

• Classical feminism criticised for ignoring African American and Third World Women - prompted many post colonial critics many of whom were white feminists
• psychoanalysis prompted focus on one kind of oppression - also Freud's theories are not necessarily universal
• Much of postcolonial criticism has been male-dominated so doesn't focus on women's experience of it
• black men led to accept idealized images of their oppressors and to internalize racist notions of their own superiority
• Edward Said's notion of Orientalism - West thinks of the east as th antithesis of everything western men like to think that they are
• Eastern men characterized as weak feminized inferior and welcoming of western domination - Homi K. Bhabba explored how inferiorizing stereotypes used to justify western conquest and domination of the third world
• White racism structuring colonized people's experience of themselves
• Women of colour might see white western women as complicit in their oppression
• Women of colour may feel patriarchy is another learned behaviour from their White male oppressors not natural to their community - challenge to the concept of universal patriarchy
• Doane - white women and black men both embody castration for white male and black female is double threat so is virtually eliminated from the screen or with promiscuous hyper-sexual primitiveness that connects her to natural landscape
• Modleski - WoC shown in stereotypical images that reduce them to their biological functions or as surrogates for white women
• Kaplan - western imperialist gaze, unquestioned sense of white male superiority
• bell hooks - during slavery black people forbidden to look, black male gaze adopts white male structures and takes as its object white women. Black female spectatorship is more subversive due to the erasure of black womanhood from screen, black women not allowed to look or to be looked at, only serving to validate white supremacy
• Lola Young - using pychoanalsis to look at how issues of power control and subjugation have been mapped onto the black female body, white feminists' advocation of abortion and deconstruction of family unit ignores that Black women see family as a source of strength in a hostile world
• Trinh T Minh-Ha - there isn't an authentic postcolonial identity because third world women's sense of self is sahped by fragmentation, hybridity and in-betweeness

The Woman Auteur

• Pantheon of great directors doesn't have any women
• Alice Guy-Blanche directed the first feature film

Interesting TED Talks about Film

Plus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16p9YRF0l-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA

Mise En Scene!

is everything that appears before the camera.

1. Setting
2. Costume and make up
3. Figure, expression, and movement by actors
4. Lighting
5. Positioning within the frame

The Style Scale:

Formalism, Expressionism form over content - how things are shown as most important, beyond a usual representation of reality. Expressionist films are highly stylized with oblique camera angles, distorted shapes, bizarre settings, high contrast lighting, surreal, subjective

Realism -  Content over form - looks like real life, wants us to suspend our disbelief, "the syle of no style"

Setting:

• Where the action takes place 
• When
• The mood
• The characters
• The genre

Mise en scene involves:

• Dominance - where audience's eye is attracted 
• Lighting key - high or low key, high contrast
• Type of shot and distance
• High, low, oblique, neutral angles
• Colour values, dominance and symbolism
• Lens/filter/stock 
• Subsidiary contrasts - main eye stops after the dominant
• Density of visual info and textures
• Composition - segmentation, organisation
• Form - open, closed, window view, proscenium arch
• Framing - tight, loose, characters having room to move
• Depth - how many planes of depth are utilised, interrelation 
• Character placement - part of the frame they occupy
• Stagining position
• Character proxemics

Titles Analysis

TITLES FOR AN EDUCATION:

• Childish motifs like the hopscotch reflect the transition from childhood to adulthood
• Black and white colour scheme connotes drama, sophistication, and that there will be moral issues (good vs evil)
• Scientific motif connote the cold and calculated scheming of some of the characters
• Scholarly diagrams reflect her education. This includes the fact that she is still in school when the film starts, the education she gets from her courtship with an older intelligent man, and what she learns overall in the film
• The crispness of the lines as well as the monochromatic colour scheme shows the monotony and moral uprighness of her life in school, and explain her boredom with it.
• They help the audience understand her character in the beginning of he film, by reinforcing that she is still young and innocent
• Illustrates the juxtaposition between the different types of education she gets in the film
• Names are in capial letters to draw attention to them
• Crisp and clean white font can easily be seen and read, and connotes not just the school environment but her innocence as well
• Titles quickly fade on and off screen

TITLES FOR NAPOLEON DYNAMITE:

• Typically american food like nachos and corn dogs help establish the setting
• The bright primary colour scheme is continued through out the film and reflects its quirky nature
• nature.
• It introduces Napoleon's character as quirky and interesting, as well as informing us that he's in high school.
• Introduces food as a major theme
• Suggest youth and vitality
• Introduces high school setting
• All the titles are incorporated into the mise-en scene
• There is no one font, but many of the titles are handwritten in condiments onto various food dishes
• All the items specially created for the titles use different fonts, but at the same time fit with the quirkiness and the education theme running through out the titles
• The colour of the plate or food matches the surface on which it is placed on
• All the plates have have a definite colour scheme or style that all the food and the method of serving conform to
• All the titles are part of physical objects, so are placed on and taken off in shot
• Some of Napoleon's drawings are featured, which come up again later on in the film
• It is not made clear who's food it is, but Napoleon and his brother eat similarly wacky things through out the rest of the film
• The things in Napoleon's wallet set up his character, building enigma and anticipation
• We see some of his traits, with oblects like the UFO card representing him as a stereotypical geek
• Most of the titles don't include different people's roles in the production of the film, but focus on their actual names
• Some of the meals are rather packed lunch/school dinner like, building it up as a major part of the film

TITLES FOR JUNO:

• Pale blue background reflects the season, and all the font colours are in autumnal colours
• As the camera follows her down the road, she walks behind a tree and as she emerges on the other side of it everything becomes hand drawn
• All the titles come on in different ways, some being unjumbled,
• Juno juxtaposes with the cardboard cut out surroundings, establishing her difference and suggesting that she will not conform to the norm during the film
• Montage editing
• Images that will emerge later on throughout the film like the chair are shoen in the background behind her
• Juno's name flashes differnt colours to emphasize it (it is after all the name of the film) and also to connote her individuality
• Some of the houses are drawn on graph paper, emphasizing her youth and that some of the story takes place at her high school
• Handwriting font reflects her quirkiness and the fact she's still in school
• The titles follow the lines created by the drawings in the background, such as along a fence, in a shop window or following a path/pavement
• Typical american surburban houses establish the setting and explain the reason for her boredom
• The titles colours change depending on the mise en scene in the background, with some matching Juno's jumper and Sunny D bottle/the runner;s outfits, and others matching the falling leaves
• Titles follow Juno around establishing her as the protagonist, and suggesting that she will also go on a journey throughout the film
• Her boyish costume is shown through a series of LSs, which also introduces her as tomboyish and definitely not a typical teenage girl heroine
• The simple colours and lines show the bleakness and boringness of the setting
• The setting looks like a story book, connoting childishness, whether Juno's baby or her own is uncertain
• Juno however, is not handdrawn, again re-enforcing the idea thst she is different and her own person, and that she doesn't have to follow society's rules
• The setting is continually redrawn and reshaped around Juno, but she carries on walking, connoting her strength, independence and nonconformity
• All the title shots feauture Juno in, making sure the audience know the that film is all about, and will be driven by, her.
• 
  
 

Analysis of Pride and Prejudice opening Sequence

Sound -Begins with bird song against a black background -Gentle piano music begins during the first shot as soon as the sun has risen above the trees -Bird sounds grow in intensity -Geese and other farm animal sounds showcase the farm setting, along with water splashing which connotes the naturalness and peace of the setting -The piano music is quite cheerful and playful, and as Lizzie passes the door we discover it is being played by Mary, but as the camera advances towards her we hear her playing a less sophisticated tune -As Lydia and Kitty come down the stairs and into shot the girlishly giggle -Jane chastises/calls them saying ‘Lydia/Kitty’, representing her as more responsible -A dog runs past barking, indicating the chaos of the Bennet house -Mrs Bennet exclaims ‘My dear have you not heard? Netherfield Park is let at last!’ -Mr Bennet dryly replies that ‘As (you) wish to tell me my dear, I doubt I have any choice in the matter.’ As well as adding humour, this reveals Lizzie’s parents as two very different people, and his slight mocking reveals his superior intellect. -Lydia’s giggle is heard off screen

Editing -As the sequence continues the sun rises -The title fades in with the lens flare, and matches the sun ray’s golden colour -Cuts from LS of field to CU of Lizzie and the audience immediately recognize her as the protagonist and are interested in her -Cuts from her reading and walking to a CU of book as she closes it – We immediately see her love of reading, and that she is clever. She becomes even more interesting as we realize she is not a typical rich Georgian woman -The editing is driven by her journey as she walks across the countryside to her house, which not only connotes her as a unstereotypical woman who is not confined to a domestic setting, but also indicates that her decisions will drive the narrative forward. -There is a shot that lasts over 1 and a half minutes, connoting the family’s unity, and showing all the inside working of the family within 1 shot. We meet all the main characters, and already learn the basics about all of their characters.

Mise En Scene -Starts in the early morning, making use of the natural light -First shot is of a pale, misty and dew covered field with the sun rising behind a hedgerow full of trees, and the blue colour scheme grows brighter as the suns bright yellowy orange light floods the shot -First shot of Lizzie is not obvious that it’s a period drama – she’s reading an old fashioned bound book and has her hair in a bun, with her brown dress fitting in with the bright green landscape around her -Domestic and idllyic countryside scene, with farm animals, ivy covered cottages and white clothes and sheets flapping in a gentle breeze – beautiful and picturesque, but not particularly exciting -Her brown dress is practical and quite plain, but the material and cut show that she is not a servant, and is not dowdy. Rather, it is a rich and warm brown everyday dress that matches her hair, eyes and surroundings, showing her at home where she is, and representing her as unmaterialistic. -Mary is dressed in dark clothes and seated at the piano, connoting her studiousness and seriousness. -Jane is dressed in pastel pink and blues, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and is holding some scraps of fabric, representing her as the ideal woman, and perhaps more of a stereotypical domesticated woman than Lizzie -The table is covered in discarded pastel coloured clothes and hats, further indicating the presence of lots of girls -Everything is naturally lit by light streaming in through bay windows -A stone porch indicates that her house is from an older time, and is well made, showing that she comes from an upper class family

Camera -Starts with a LS of a field as the dawn breaks, lasting for slightly less than 50 seconds -As the sun rises there is lens flare -CU of Lizzie reading with lens flare, showcasing her little smile as she reads -OTS CU of the book as lovingly shuts it -ELS with a frame provided by the wide river, and though it could be the modern day countryside the framing emphasizes her long brown dress, and her walking across the bridge is the focus on the shot, indicating that the film will follow her journey -The camera follows her around, presenting her as interesting, and setting the audience up to follow her for the rest of the film -There is a MCU tracking as she walks through the washing, connoting her class, as she does not have to do any actual work -This shot continues even when Lizzie continues walking, tracking through a (servants) doorway in an ELS of Mary until Jane steps into frame -The way the family flow into and out of frame represents their domestic bliss, as they all share the framing, and it also shows all the little dramas going on between different members of the family -Lydia and Kitty burst into shot, running and giggling through the shot, representing them as young, excitable and frivolous. -The camera pauses on Mary for a moment, but she doesn’t stop playing the piano -The camera pans on the dining room table to the porch, and outside we see Lizzie walking again, as she is not involved in all the stereotypically womanly things happening inside the home -The shot tracks her as her walks up the stone steps, and it pauses as we see along with her an OTS of her parents talking through the window, and they are kept inside the domestic setting by the window frame -Lizzie’s smile as she turns from the window reflects the love she has for her family, and the friendship she shares with her father. -The camera zooms out and passes through a one door as Lizzie passes through another, connoting the fact that we are following her again, and it is her POV we will see