Formal Film Studies: Tim Burton

I did my Formal Film Study of Tim Burton. He is a famous film director, producer, writer, and animator.I saw the movies The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice and Wonderland, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In all these movies they have so many things in common, for example, the cinematic elements. He has a signature style that everyone would be able to recognize. Mostly all of his films are animated and if they aren't animated then the editing that they do in the movie make it seem very animated and very big like a fantasy. For example in the movie Alice and Wonderland its about how Alice goes into this fantasy world where you see things that are beyond your belief. He makes it just like a fantasy world so kids are able to imagine and relate to this movie and they want there lives to be. In the movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about a boy who wins a golden ticket and is taken to the chocolate factory where everything in there is made of candy. There is one scene where they go into this room and everything in that one room is candy: the grass, the trees, the river, and even the flowers. It is like an imaginary world that he is appointed to. This relates to The Nightmare Before Christmas because in this movie there are different worlds you can go to which are all the different seasons. In the movie the main character Jack goes into the Christmas world and he realizes how much more he loves Christmas then Halloween. When he goes into this new world it is like a fantasy to Jack because he never imagined anything like it. The similarity between all these films were that they all had different plots but similar ideas where the main character is exposed to a new world that they have never imagined before that could ever be real.

I think the most interesting aspect from his films are the special effects that he uses. I all three films there are so man special effects taking place all the time. For example in Alice and Wonderland all the characters are very interesting looking like the queen with the huge head, the half man half horse, and the disappearing cat. They all are characters that you will not see in real life, but because all of the special effects used they look real in his fantasy world. In the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the special effects that are in this movie are some scenes that involve kids blowing up to huge sizes and floating on a river all made up of chocolate. In the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas it doesn't have as much special effects as the other two movies just because this movie is animated. But there still are some special effects for example it isn't like any other normal animations that you usually see now a days. It looks more like clay figures on the screen. In this movie he makes the effects look more dark and halloweeny to fit the movie. In all these movies they all have very important and a lot of special effects that he uses to make the movies more imaginary and more like a fantasy.

Some messages that Tim Burton is trying to get towards his audience is that no matter how old you are you can still fantasize about the world around us and even though we cant get everything we want in life that there are still things in this world that we have that other people aren't able to have. And i think that he wants us to still be able to imagine life in a different way and in a different perspective.

In all these films he likes to use wide angle shots and big picture shots because there so many different features in all his shots. For example in The Nightmare Before Christmas there is a scene where he is walking in the grave yard and it is a long angle shot of his walking up the hill singing to himself. I think this is significant because  it shows how lonely he is in a big shot and it potrays into that scene because he is singing about how upset he is. In Alice and Wonderland he also uses long shots to get a landscape because their is so much going on in every scene, but he also likes using close ups. For example, the first time Alice meets the disapearing cat it takes a close up on the cat so you can read his emotions of meeting her and how mysterious he is. In Charlie and the Chocolate Facotry he mostly uses normal shots because there is a lot of dialoge and also large shots.

What i discovered was that through out all these three films he has a unigue style of going big with his imaginations and his animations. What i mean is that all his movies are able to take your mind to different imaginary place were you are able to fantasize about everythimg you can imagine.

 

I am able to realize that these movies are very much liked by the critics. On Rotten Tomatos, The Nightmare Before Christmas, got a 96% from the critics, Charlie and the Chololate Factory got an 82%, and finally Alice and Wonderland got 51%. For the most part you can tell that the critics very much like this director and the way he makes his movies. This also goes to show that even though most of his films are made from children, that it can attract all ages.

MIST( Movies in Your Spare Time) Post #2 The Hunger Games

Hunger Games is a movie based on a series of books by Suzanne Collins. It has action, love, and adventure, that's why i fell in love with it right away. It is about a girl named Katniss who volunteers herself to participate in the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a "game" that two kids, one boy one girl, from each district must participate in. The point of the game is to kill other kids from other districts so you can stay alive. That is where it portrays the action aspects of it. During her experience in the game she "falls in love" with a boy named Peta. The most important reason as to why i loved this movie so much was because you don't expect the ending at all and it keeps you on your toes through out the whole movie. 

My favorite scene from the movie was when the judges were ranking her, to see what level she would be, and she wasn't able to get the judges attention so she shot a bow and arrow at an apple from where they were all eating. Since she did that, that could have ruined her chances of being able to stay alive during the games. But they loved her courage and so they gave her the highest score from all the candidates. That was my favorite scene because it made me realize that sometimes people have to have the courage to stand out or else you will just blend in with everyone else. It also made me better understand her character and what kind of person she was. 

I really enjoyed all the cinematic elements that were seen in this movie. For example, the camera angles were great because it showed a love of the scenery which was important because the Hunger Games takes place in a forest. It also did close ups on certain characters to emphasize on there emotion or to something specific that they were doing. I also like the editing because there were a lot of fighting scenes and it made it look real. Another part was when they were getting chased by gigantic dogs and they didn't look like they were fake because the editing was so well done. 

I give this movie a two thumbs up because it is very similar to the book and because i feel that both boys and girls can enjoy this film. I also like the character choices because i love all the main characters. If your the type of person that doesn't like action or any fighting scenes then i don''t recommend watching it just because it is a bit graphic. But besides that the movie is over all a great film.   

1935 Movie

For our 1935 movie we created a movie called Hit or Miss. The plot of the movie revolves around the life of Sara Ruth( played by Ginger Rogers). When she was a child, her father taught her everything she needed to know about baseball. However, she grew up in a society where baseball was only limited to men. She was then forced to follow the norm and eventually becomes a journalist. After interviewing famous baseball player, Henry Andrews( played by Cary Grant), she realizes how much she misses the sport. Hit or Miss is a common romantic comedy filled with inspiring message of quality of women and ultimately the importance of following dreams. Grant and Rogers performances blend to make not only a captivating story but the perfect comedy. This movie will work well in a 1935 audience because major league baseball was very popular during that time and those are the years where people search for the American Dream and it portrays that in this movie. A message i am worried about is that people might think it is strange for a women to play baseball, but i believe that people will soon understand that both men and women can do other works or fields that are from the opposite sex. 

Hit or Miss is a sports romantic comedy and the reason why we chose this genre was because comedy was popular at that time period. Also because Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers both are usually in comedies and have acted together before so we thought they would be able to work well together. We chose 20th Century Fox to produce this movie because they both are signed with the actor and actress that we chose. Also because 20th Century Fox was known for making comedies. Our scale of this movie wouldn't be big but at the same time not small. At the time 20th Century Fox wasn't known for big scale movies but their movies were popular. Also since the actors already worked with this studio we wouldn't have to make trades with other studios for other actors or actresses. Our cast and crew would consist of Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers of course, but our supporting actor would be Chanes Cobuin who will play one of the coaches of the baseball teams who makes fun of Sara for playing baseball. The director that we chose was Howard Hawks because he was a very famous director in this time period and he was very familiar with romantic comedies. We also chose Thomas T Moulton as our sound editor because he also worked with 20th Century Fox like Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers and because he was a famous sound editor. The Hays Code doesn't really interfere with our movie besides the fact that during the love scenes we wont be able to show much and also when Coach Q(Chanes Cubuin) is rude to her he cant physically hurt her. Some choices that our group disagreed with was deciding the movie studio because we needed to decide if we wanted this to be a big or small scale movie. I don't think i would of done anything differently because i trusted in my team members that they made the right choices for this movie.