ext1 (0304) - Hitchcock's signature style 2

a lot more notes added to the page, check it out.

few things of note, however..

people dont go to out to see their lives, they go out to see cinema.

here's a bit of context, hitchcock was raised catholic and as a child, feared the priests since they were so strict. as a result, all his works feature human traits that were the opposite of what he was raised to be. "the 11th commandment: thou shalt not get found out" - alfred hitchcock.

he wanted the audience to embrace the darkness, and his villains were often more interesting than his protagonists.

hitchcock in the video used an analogy of a burglar entering a woman's apartment to steal her jewellery after she leaves the place. if she were to suddenly come back, what would the audience think? they would think "get out of there burglar!"

there is a lot of sexual innuendo and sexual connotations in hitchcock's films, since he is mischievious by nature. (mischievious even to the level of having a cameo role in most of his films). he enjoyed putting "cool blondes" into his films, and the "hitchcock blonde" was usually depicted as cool with heat underneath. he personally picked costuming himself (for the women at least) because he knew waht worked well.

from a background of black and white films, he knew how to use colour and sound (things that he had lacked in the past). he would know what colours would be more or less sensitive to see.

silence is a key thing to anticipating shock. and characters should not say the same thing that is already shown on her face eg. a smiling woman wouldn't just say "i'm feelnig happy" since her words would say the same thing that her face does.

key objects and key sound effects are of importance too. a "macguffin" is an object, which the audience may or may not care about, but the characters certainly do, it drives the story. he knows how to put a lot of emphasis and attention on these objects, with ideas such as putting a light bulb in a glass of milk so that it is completely visible even in the dark.

being of catholic background is evident in his films since there is usually a Christ-like character in the films, a sacrifice who is "crucified". and as a result of the strict nature of the priests in his youth, it's as if hitchcock's films encourage some sort of madness amongst society, as his films focused much on the expectations of society.

ext1 (0302) - Hitchcock's signature style

ALFRED HITCHCOCK IS A GENIUS!

i love this guy.. like really.

he invisions everything.. and he wants to put it all in perspective.. put the audience in the charcter's POV/shoes.

he uses the camera subjectively, ie. the camera sees what the character sees.

a famous technique of his.. a close-up shot of the character, a shot of what they're looking at, a close-up shot of their reaction.

then there's the whole building suspense thing, and suspense vs surprise.

THE BOMB THEORY!

imagine 2 people sitting eating dinner and talking about baseball for 5min.. then all of a sudden a bomb goes off! the shock would be there for like 10 seconds.

now imagine the same scene, same people, same dinner, same conversation, but keep cutting between them and a bomb underneath the table. THE ANTICIPATION WILL BUILD UP!

this guy is a genius.. like really.. he is my inspiration.

must watch north by northwest

ext1 (0209) - rear window

the movie was like 40min in already, since we were not here last week, they started without us.

but we had a catchup session, talking mostly about our main character, LB? or JB? jeffreys, i think its LBJ tbh, but yeah.

he's pessimistic and all, i mean he's watching people from a window, he's got this negative view that he won't get better, that his leg wont heal.

that's why he watches lars from his window.

his gf, lisa is more.. realistic, like his nurse stella, who at first, both try convince him it's nothing, before realizing how suspicious lars really is.

ext1 (0201) - production code

see most of the contextual stuff on the 1950s is already written in my book, so i thought i'll just talk about what isnt, the production code.

much like our code of practice, but without ratings. it was just yes or no basically.

it was introduced coz of scandals in hollywood (eg murder and drugs etc, and hollywood didnt wanna give the impression that that's what kind of lives they lead)

introduced inthe 1930s, over the years, it became a system with very catholic values (eg no killing, adultery, drugs, alochol that wasnt important to story, not even the word "virgin")

priests could not be depicted as comic or villains.

hmm what else.

well people started being rebels. since studios had their own cinemas, but once new cinemas began being opened, new appealing independent films began to be shown.

in counter-attack, the "legion of decency" upped the rules even more. in the end it was overruled since film is a method of freedom of speech.

ext2 (1201) - day 6: perspective

y'know i noticed something last night after i wrote my story for this week. i realize that i write a lot of.. reflective things. all these stories i've written so far for ext2, they've all been reflective! i dunno if that's good or bad, it seems bad.. it's like the only way i can get a story that i think is "good" is by immersing myself in it, which usually draws from my own experience, and ends up being more reflective than narrative.

even if its not based on reality, the outcome is still usually something reflective. i also noticed earlier today, that i'm not that great with talking like other people, other personas. everyone i write about generally speaks the same, coz it's my way of telling a story, but i should learn to create other characters out of nowhere. real characters.

hmm how annoying.. today we talked about "the kiss" and "the chosen vessel" and how different perspectives are used there. it works i suppose, whether they be anonymous or highly obvious, but i guess a good character doesn't even need naming if they're identifyable by how they talk and act.

hmm.. damn.. and that's another problem for me coz i gotta get people to act too.

apparently next week (the day of our incursion) we have to hand in our intention statement. i mean.. i knew it was coming.. and i knew this week was week 7, but it didnt hit me that we need to have an idea; a story; a title by now x_x

i sitll have nothing.. sort of.

after my cohorts read and critiqued my script "nostalgia 2" (they acutally liked it, i was surprised, they said it was realistic. i thought it wasn't.. action enough) anyway.. we went on to thinking about a plot for me.

to go with my two-way view thing, i suggested two people are together at the start, then they split up, and we cut between them on their way home, maybe even someone passes a mysterious text message, that'll leave viewers curious.

i dont know the relation between the two characters, but im thinking.. they get home and hit the computer, then shots of the screen and their conversation, where it's finally revealed what it is taht's so big that makes them all.. reflective on their way home.

im thinking.. maybe their parents are getting married, i dunno something big.. but a breakup is lame, and someone dying is overdone.

another idea that came up from someone else, is filming the day of twins, but not revealing theyre twins 'til the end of the day, where they meet and say something like "so how was your day?" *close movie* but it'd be complicated doing that last scene unless we had actual twins acting out.

the thing is though, the point of the movie would be like to show the unidentification of twins, but then their day would get boring to watch, and to make it interesting, even contrastingly different type interesting would eliminate the point of the movie, because they'd be individual characters.

anyway.. i have a week to come up with a story, i think i'll still go with my original idea. i like it. and yeah.. it'd probably be reflective and anonymous, typical of my stories -.-

ext1 (1113) - behind the badge

today we finished watching "hollywood: behind the badge" and so i shall jot down a summary of notes.. (check book for full list)

- early 20th century crime was due to poverty
- 1920s based in new york, busy streets etc
- 1930s had gangs etc, and also asian detectives
- 1940s hardboiled cop and sherlock holmes, different story but same time
- 1950s after WWII, heaps of international enemies, and all-american heroes
- 1960s first car chase, new kinds of cops including black and female
- 1970s heaps of police TV shows, instead of movies, also shows that were more real
- 1980s people started questioning cops.. shows about personal lives
- 1990s included international terrorism, action-heroes and reality, real crimes which scared people

ext1 (1103) - detectives

talking about different kinds of detectives.. should read the stories and go through questions ont he thingo.

but the story that ms sproule read to us, it was surprising to find out that the detective was a woman and not a dude.

coz she full got up hangover style in a crappy apartment and all.. so as a result of this shock.. our homework is to make a 1page intro for a detective for monday

today was just talking about diff kinds of detectives, qualities of detectives, like the pro office guy or the hobby modern lady thing.

read stories it'll make more sense