Final Project

Being a  part of this group was an interesting experience and should be a well celebrated one a that. This is a group that I have had the opportunity to work with twice before on smaller projects, and it seems that we become more cohesive as a group every time we work together. For me, this project was a little daunting. There was a lot of planning that needed to get done and there was a lot of work that we needed to get done and quickly. Once we realized the direction we wanted to go with, the ball started tumbling faster and faster to the finish line. At first, I had a lot of issues conceptualizing what we wanted to see as our final project. But with the help of Natalia and Lucas, all of the pieces began to fall into place. When one of us was unsure of the path, the other two sprung into action to keep the momentum of production. We had an advantage because we had already worked together on two projects at this point in the semester,and therefore we knew where our weak points were and then we were able to use our strengths to seamlessly smooth over the rough edges. With a project that had an extreme amount of work to get done, we managed to make it a really fun and positive experience. I found that this was a project that we were all very invested in and we all collectively decided that we wanted to make a piece that we would all be proud of. We put in lots of late nights in order to keep this a team effort so that we could work together through all of the different parts of production. While shooting the footage, the three of us were constantly involved to try and get the right shots with the right angles and to make sure everything was how we wanted it. In post production, we made it a point to edit together to ensure that we all had a say with what ended up being the finished product. We wanted this project to be something that we were all proud of and therefore wanted to be involved with every part of the creation process. Working with this group this semester was such a great pleasure and I hope to have similar, if not better, experiences in the field in the future. 

Extra Credit Assignment

The image of the screening room with the child looking at film is from a movie called, "Cinema Paradiso", made in 1988; it's original title is "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.

The color image of the two women dramatically looking facing the camera is an image from a movie called, "Talk to Her" by Pedro Almodovare which was originally filmed in Spanish. 

The picture of the filmmaker is of Luis Buñuel. He was a Spanish filmmaker who worked internationally in Mexico, Spain, and France. He was born on February 22nd, 1900 and lived to be 83 and passed away in Mexico City. His work was influenced by Federico Garcia Lorca, Andre Breton, and Jean Epstein. He is identified as working in the Surrealist Movement and is known for his diversity in working across two different continents and in three different languages. He has also worked within almost every film genre. 

THE BLACK AND WHITE IMAGE TALKING TO A SOLDIER IS FROM A MOVIE CALLED "THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS", MADE IN 1966. THE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS "LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI". IT WAS WRITTEN BY GILLO PONTECORVO AND FRANCO SOLINAS AND IT WAS DIRECTED BY GILLO PONTECORVO; STARRING BRAHIM HADJADI, JEAN MARTIN, AND YACEF SAADI. THE MOVIE IS KNOWN FOR THE DIRECTING CHOICES OF GILLO PONTECORVO. HE CHOSE TO CAST ALMOST ALL NON-PROFESSIONAL ACTORS WHO WERE CHOSEN SOLELY ON THE FACT THAT THEY LOOKED LIKED THE CHARACTERS THAT THEY WERE PORTRAYING INSTEAD OF THEIR ACTING SKILLS. GILLO PONTECORVO STILL GOT THE PERFORMANCE HE NEEDED TO MAKING HIS FILM BY USING HIS SKILLFUL ACTING AND ACCOMPANIED IT WITH VERY SPECIFIC LIGHTING CHOICES AND PLACING THE ACTORS WITHIN THE SCENE TO EVOKE EMOTION FROM MORE THAN JUST FROM THE ACTORS PERFORMANCES.