Critical Report – Research
Analyze the Shawshank redemption
“That there are things in this world not carved out of gray stone. That there’s a small place inside of us they can never lock away, and that place is called hope.”This is a classic quote from the film, American director Frank Darabont’s classic The Shawshank Redemption, a wonderful, engaging, meaningful, vivid and colourful story full of art and atmosphere. This film is not only a critique of the American justice and prison system, but also a story of precious human friendship.
Act 1: The Exposition
In 1947, banker Andy Dufresne was accused of shooting his wife and her lover, and Andy was sentenced to life imprisonment, meaning he would spend the rest of his life in Shawshank Prison, imprisoned for the rest of his life on charges of killing his wife and her lover.
Act 2: Rising Action
His first appearance in Shawshank Prison makes the prison’s “big brother” Redding look at him in a different light, as Ellis “Red” Redding is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1927 and is unsuccessful paroled several times. He became the “authority figure” at Shawshank and had the means to get almost anything you wanted as long as you could pay for it: cigarettes, sweets, alcohol, even marijuana. Whenever a new prisoner arrived, bets were placed on who would cry on the first night. Reed thinks the weak, bookish Andy will cry, and Andy’s silence ends up costing Reed two packs of cigarettes, but it also impresses him with Andy. Reed helps him get a rock hammer and a poster of a starlet, and the two become friends. Andy soon becomes a prison librarian and uses his financial knowledge to help the prison officers avoid taxes, which attracts the attention of the warden and he is recruited to help him launder money.
Act 3: The Climax
By chance, he learns that a newly imprisoned thief can testify to clear him of the murder. With a glimmer of hope, Andy approached the warden in the hope that he could get his case overturned, as the prisoner had heard about Andy’s case when he was serving time in another prison and he knew who the real killer was. But when Andy asks the warden to reopen the case, he is refused and receives a severe punishment of two months’ solitary confinement.
Act 4: Falling Action
And in order to prevent Andy’s release, the prison warden engineers the young prisoner’s death. The insidious and hypocritical warden pretends to promise Andy, but behind his back he sends someone to kill the thief, killing his only hope of getting out of prison legally. Faced with the harsh reality, Andy becomes depressed. One day he says to Red, “If you ever get paroled, you have to go somewhere and fulfil a wish for me. That’s where I had my first date with my wife, and dig up a box under a big oak tree there. You’ll know what it is then.”
Act 5: Denouement of Resolution
Disillusioned with Shawshank Prison and its administrators, Andy decides he wants to escape the place. It turns out that Andy had bought a small hammer from his best friend Reed since he was first incarcerated. For twenty years, he used this hammer to dig tunnels in the walls of his room, digging a little each day and then taking the dirt out in the folds of his trouser legs while everyone went to the square en masse in the morning. In this way, he spent twenty years digging a passage to freedom. On the night of his escape, he dropped all the important information when he helped the warden with the paperwork for the tax evasion; and replaced for himself the leather shoes that the warden had asked him to take and polish. On a quiet night when no one was aware of it, he disappeared. By the time the guards found the hole he had used to escape, he had taken on a new identity on the outside and withdrawn all the warden’s tax evasion money for himself, thus making him a millionaire. On top of this, he brought the crimes committed by the Shawshank prison administrators to light to the outside world, bringing down the dark organisation. A plan to break out of prison that had been hidden for decades allowed him to redeem himself and regain his freedom! With his inspiration and help, his old friend Reed also runs bravely to freedom.
“The Shawshank Redemption is like a hopeful flame that can rekindle hearts and save a dead silence. It is a bright light that always gives a little surprise in the darkness, illuminating unknown areas and thus regaining life and salvation. This metaphor could be what happened in Shawshank prison, silently playing out a story of finding a bright light of hope.”
week7 emergent technologies-3D printing
A new report from Lux Research lists 3D printing as one of the 12 emerging technologies to watch heading into 2021. 3D printing has been on the annual list for the past several years and will continue to drive innovation, interest and investment as its capabilities expand.Lux’s annual report identifies the top technology innovations that will have the greatest impact over the next decade. 3D printing (3DP), a type of additive manufacturing technology, is a technology that uses digital model files as a basis for constructing objects by printing layer by layer using bondable materials such as powdered metals or plastics.
The primary condition for printing is 3D design, 3D modeling is one of the items we are learning, modeling mainly includes 3D max, Rhino, Blender, Zbrush, maya, 3D modeling is the use of three-dimensional production software through the virtual three-dimensional space to build a model with three-dimensional data. 3D printing is the use of digital technology, you need to first establish a good 3D model, and then use Different materials with the help of 3D printers to achieve, 3D printing technology involves a wide range of industrial grade 3D printing worldwide is mainly used in transportation, aerospace, industrial equipment, consumer electronics, medical five major fields.
Nowadays, with the promotion and use of 3D printing technology, and accepted and recognized by most countries and regions and industries, it has become an emerging production industry and emerging production technology, which requires our 3D modeling technology to be more mature and refined in order to bring greater contribution to social development.
The Difference Between ‘The Captain’ and ‘2012’Comparison
Disaster films are a specific classification of cinematic genre that takes on the mission of transmitting the culture and spirit of the nation.
2012 is a masterpiece of American disaster films, and after its release in North America in 2009, it created a box office success of $65 million in a three-day weekend and reached $790 million worldwide; while the domestic film Chinese Captain is also a masterpiece of Chinese disaster films, and after its release on China’s National Day in 2019, its box office reached $3 billion.
The audiovisual language of the Chinese Captain movie is well done, portraying clips of passengers boarding the plane to place their luggage, in order to amplify this realism and put the audience in the situation; the calmer it was before, the greater the psychological impact on the audience as the risk approaches. About half an hour into the film, the windshield of the plane’s cockpit breaks and the plane releases pressure, leaving the entire upper body of the co-pilot outside the fuselage. The pressure release also causes the crew to be slow to react and even unconscious, even the captain is briefly in a trance. As the plane continues to plunge into huge bumps, passengers are thrown into a state of panic as the cabin is depressurized and the air inside the cabin becomes so thin that passengers must remain on oxygen to breathe smoothly.
The Chinese Captain brilliantly recreates the crisis scenes, and the viewer is captivated by the film’s plot.
In the movie “2012”, the Mayan fable is used as a clue to show the human race’s doomsday and great catastrophe, which is the embodiment of the worry about the future, the film is visually stunning and psychologically shocking enough to make us unforgettable, pushing the disaster film to another peak. The film focuses on almost all the elements of a sub-disaster film, including super earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, the descent and rise of the land, the inversion of the earth’s magnetic field, the destruction of cities, and the helpless and desperate crowd. In addition to this sensory stimulation and shock, it can trigger the audience to think deeply.
In the movie “2012”, the President tells his daughter.
“The only thing I have to do now is to tell the American people the truth, so at least they can say goodbye to their families when they know …… When the end comes, we should have the opportunity to say goodbye to our loved ones and friends, mothers can soothe their children, fathers can pray for their daughters’ forgiveness… …”
Such a few simple words, but make people cry, such “love”, in the “Chinese Captain” is also reflected. Yuan Quan, as the crew chief, tells the passengers in a critical situation, “Please believe our captain, we will go back together, we are also sons, daughters, fathers and mothers. We are professionally trained. Have the confidence, the ability, to keep you safe.”
Behind the different disasters, there is also a remarkable similarity in the embodiment of love in disaster films, which defies nationalities and cultures and spans time.
Mise-en-Scène
Research Activity 1
Can you describe how the elements of Mise-en-Scène in the following scenes?
- Settings & Props
This video shows a section of four small animals doing experimental scenes, the room is decorated with different experimental apparatus, the walls are covered with drawings of biological deconstruction, plant growth, cell structure, volcanic planing surface, the periodic table of elements, etc., creating the feeling of a laboratory classroom, the laboratory table in front of the camera is also overall placed with different colours of chemicals needed for the experiment, very clear and explicit to show the location in the experimental The classroom.
2.Costume, Hair & Make Up
The animals are also very distinctive in their dress code, they wear goggles like strict chemistry experts, but dress differently, the first fox is clad in a white robe and very strict, the second fox is dressed casually, the other two are dressed in bright colours, which nicely highlights the lively and active characters’ personalities.
3.Facial Expressions & Body Language
In this video, several foxes behave differently. The first young fox is very serious about his experiment, recording data while doing it, while the second, on the contrary, has his hands on his chest and his head turned to the other side, which nicely shows the image of the character’s distractedness. The other two are less rigorous than the fox in white, throwing the apparatus randomly on the table and eventually destroying the experiment, highlighting the character’s personality very well
4.Lighting and Colour
This video has warm colours throughout and the lighting is warm yellow, showing a very warm and welcoming laboratory classroom with colourful laboratory potions and a warm backdrop to show the vitality of the laboratory classroom.
5.Positioning of characters/objects within the frame
The characters are positioned in such a way that the different characters are reflected through the different performances of the four animals in the classroom
6.What role does the shot choice (Cinematography) play in the scene.
This video uses a switch between medium and close up shots, and the details of the characters are clear, showing the physical movements of the characters, and deepening the depth of the image, showing the atmosphere of the environment very well.
Research Activity 2
Anomalisa. Charlie Kaufman 2016
| Can you describe the mise-en-scene in this picture? How are the characters placed in the frame? |
First of all, the picture takes a panoramic shot, with a central composition, which well represents the whole interior scene and the full body movements of the characters, as well as their facial expressions and states, the characters are in the centre of the shot, the performance of the people is simple and clear, which allows the audience to more easily identify the centre of the picture and put into the film with the picture, which can also better create the atmosphere of the environment, and also makes the picture more three-dimensional, and This also creates a better ambience and gives the image a more three-dimensional feel, highlighting the state of the characters.
Watch this scene from Rebecca.
| Watch this scene from Rebecca. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLRMrb6NvmA (Approximately 31mins into the film) Can you describe the relationship between the characters? The film shows the relationship between master and servant, the mistress Mrs. Wenders feels very warm, kind, naive and romantic feeling, but shows a very soft look, and does not have the appearance of a mistress, in the face of Mrs. Danvers arrogant and cold attitude, and did not resist, this Mrs. Danvers, although a housekeeper, but the whole face is expressionless, giving people a cold feeling, to Mrs. Wenders show disgusting human attitude and harsh character. |
Research Activity 3
Hitchcock, A. Rebecca (1940)
Can you describe the mise-en-scene in this picture?
The little girl was panicking in the midst of a crowded crowd in the long street.
What type of shot is it?
Medium shot
What is the camera angle?
The angle of the camera is a flat angle
Where is the character located in the frame?
It is in the centre of the frame
What is she wearing?
Green jacket, and red headband
What is the depth-of-field?
The distance between the front and rear of the focus point, after the camera has finished focusing, to produce a clear image
Describe the colour palette?
The colour palette is neutral, with the little girl wearing a red scarf and a stony expression, which emphasises the character.
Describe the lighting?
In the picture it is daytime, the sky is a bit grey and not very bright
Free Guy
《Free Guy 》 is a sci-fi film directed by Shawn Levy, starring Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Taiga Venditti and Channing Tatum, the film was released in North America on August 13, 2021, the film’s visual effects were produced by Industrial Light & Magic, Scanline, Digital Kingdom and other visual effects companies. For Free Guy Scanline VFX was responsible for the streets that crush the main character as he drives away, as well as the island and all the buildings collapsing into blue squares. This is Scanline’s forte, and they’re definitely a must for any large shattering and particle effects. By the way, they released a visual effects breakdown early on, check it out below.
The main look and layout of Liberty City is based on Boston, where the main shoot took place.Scanline’s asset team created 140 individual buildings, 86 car models, over 140 individual trees and plants, and a library with 284 individual props spread throughout the urban environment. All assets were designed to enable the team to simulate any type of damage simulation needed. Very ambitious scenes with great visuals