MYST Q4 #2: Promised Land

The movie that I chose to watch was Promised Land. This film is a 2013 film directed by Gus Van Sant  and stared John Krasinski, Matt Damon, and Frances McDormand. It is about two employes of Global Natural Gas. They are sent to buy up the land from a small farming community in Pennsylvania to use for natural gas. They encounter some strong resistance from one member of the community who knows what can happen when the process of getting the natural gas out of the ground goes wrong.

This film is an independent film, like one of the 1970's, with a strong message against the natural gas companies. Even though I am not sure if I support the message that is given in this film, I would give it a 3 1/2 of 5 stars. It contained many artsy nature shots that are seen in many independent films and gave it a very real feeling. They did a great job of showing the beauty of the country and the small Pennsylvania town where it took place. I also thought that they did a great job of writing the story and it had a great twist at the end. John Krasinski and Matt Damon did an awesome job in this movie. Although Krasinski was playing a more serious role compared to his usual comedic role I thought that he was very relatable.

There were a lot of great, very green shots of the country but one really stood out to me. It is right at the climax of the film when everyone is about to loose everything. They are in the back of an old country home. It starts with an up close shot of two main characters talking. Then pans 180 degrees to show a small pond and garden then beautiful, almost untouched, very green, and hilly farm land. It then cuts to baby ducks on the pond and back to the two main characters. In this scene you here the sounds of nature with the soft voice of one of the characters talking about how the farm has been in her family for generations. This scene allows the film to build up emotion and bring you as the viewer down to the level of the characters in the film.



  

1975 film post: Incubus

Deep in the northern wilderness of California a family is on vacation through the woods. As they are driving around dusk they hit something and get a flat tire. When the family attempts to change the flat, there dog darts out of the car and into the near by forest. They follow the dog and walk further into the woods. They come to a clearing in the woods and see a campfire with a little boy who is playing with the dog. They soon realize that this is the Incubus Cult that a near by community had warned the family about and the terrible things they do. Despite the warnings, the family needs some where to stay and these people seem nice enough. The cult welcomes them and is very nice to the husband and the boy, while they are indifferent about the women. Both of the male characters get trapped in the cult and start to become part of the worships of Incubus. They don't even notice as the women disappear only to never be scene again, and the men join the cult.We made this movie rated R on the MPAA rating scale for violence, language, and some nudity. This will narrow our audience to only people over 17 but is a vital component to our movie. 

This story line will work very well in a 1975 movie era. There were many horror films coming out at this time like The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We went with a stile similar to The Exorcist to make our movie seem very real with minimal special effects. This is a common genre at this time and brought in a lot of money for a relatively small scale production. We used many of the people who worked on The Exorcist like William Fredkin who is our director and Dick Smith as our makeup artist which will be our main focus of this movie. We also used Laurel Group Inc. from Light of the Living Dead as our studio, and Bryanston Pictures from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Devil's Rain as our distributing company. Our cast consisted of Richard Dreyfuss from Jaws as our dad, Julie Christie a popular star at the time as our mom, Melissa Sue Anderson from Little House on the Prairie as our little girl, Jason Baeman as our boy, Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry as the cult leader, and Dustin Hoffman from The Graduate ad a cult member.

I think that our group worked very well together and did not disagree with much. The only thing that I thing that we might have disagreed on was the genre of the movie. I felt that it would have been better if we had done a big picture blockbuster like Star Wars or done a war film. 

FORMAL FILM STUDIE: Star Trek The Motion Picture, Alien, Star Wars Episode IV:A New Hope

    The movies that I chose to watch were Alien, Star Wars IV and Star Trek; The Motion Picture. These films are all the first in their series of space, action and adventure movies. These films are all united by this theme and that they were all made in the late 1970s. 

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, made in 1977, written and directed by George Lucas, is the first made movie in the Star Wars series. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."an empire taken over by the dark side of the force rules. A small group of rebels is forming and with the help of Luke Skywalker they plan to take back the empire and return peace to the galaxy.

Alien, a 1979 space adventure and Horror film, directed by Ridley Scott is the first movie in Alien series. The cargo spaceship Nostromo is heading to Earth when they encounter an alien message and go to explore the source. One of there members, Kane, gets attacked by an alien but they are able to bring both back to the ship. The organism has planted an egg in Kane. The alien hatches out of Kane and terrorizes the ship. 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, made in 1979 and created by Gene Roddenberry and is the first Star Trek film. This film is based off the popular 1970s TV show Star Trek. Sometime in the far future a space cloud/starship V'ger is approaching Earth and will destroy it and everything in its path. The only starship in range of V'ger is the USS Enterprise and they have to stop or destroy V'ger before it hits Earth.

I thought that it was very interesting how these three movies tried to portray futuristic space travel and the future of earth. Most of the scenes of these films were filmed inside of the space crafts. All three movies seemed to have the same futuristic look. But Star Wars and Star Trek seem to stand out as very similar visions of a space craft. they had a very drastic contrast from the "good guys" and the "bad guys". For example the rebel star ships in Star Wars were a mostly white, sleek and modern look but the empires ships were always wall to wall black. This theme seemed to be the same with the Star Trek showing a obvious line of good and evil. I thought that George Lucas did the best job of incorporating that line of good and evil. The greatest example of this was when in Star Wars Dark Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are battling it out in the Deathstar and you can see a clear contrast. Darth Vader is in his usual all black outfit with a black mask and cape and he has a bright red lightsaber. Obi-Wan Kenobi is in a tan robe with no mask and a brown cape, wielding a green lightsaber. This scene really captures that stark contrast that Lucas wants you to see between the Dark side of the force and the Jedi side of the force.  Alien seemed to take the same look of the space ship but they used more of a horror film look. They used mostly dim lighting and shadows to give an eerie feel to this film. I also noticed that Alien would use many unclose face shots exposing much of the background right before something bad was going to happen. I thought that they used this well in building up suspense. 

These movies also used lots of amazing technology for there time. The visual effects are a huge part of all of these movies. Star Trek seemed to use the most post production especial effects with Star Wars following in a close second. These movies are not like other 1970s films because they are huge budget, sci-fi,  event films. They attracted people with there cutting edge special effects and mass marketing techniques.   

FORMAL FILM STUDIE: Star Trek The Motion Picture, Alien, Star Wars Episode IV:A New Hope

    The movies that I chose to watch were Alien, Star Wars IV and Star Trek; The Motion Picture. These films are all the first in their series of space, action and adventure movies. These films are all united by this theme and that they were all made in the late 1970s. 

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, made in 1977, written and directed by George Lucas, is the first made movie in the Star Wars series. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."an empire taken over by the dark side of the force rules. A small group of rebels is forming and with the help of Luke Skywalker they plan to take back the empire and return peace to the galaxy.

Alien, a 1979 space adventure and Horror film, directed by Ridley Scott is the first movie in Alien series. The cargo spaceship Nostromo is heading to Earth when they encounter an alien message and go to explore the source. One of there members, Kane, gets attacked by an alien but they are able to bring both back to the ship. The organism has planted an egg in Kane. The alien hatches out of Kane and terrorizes the ship. 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, made in 1979 and created by Gene Roddenberry and is the first Star Trek film. This film is based off the popular 1970s TV show Star Trek. Sometime in the far future a space cloud/starship V'ger is approaching Earth and will destroy it and everything in its path. The only starship in range of V'ger is the USS Enterprise and they have to stop or destroy V'ger before it hits Earth.

I thought that it was very interesting how these three movies tried to portray futuristic space travel and the future of earth. Most of the scenes of these films were filmed inside of the space crafts. All three movies seemed to have the same futuristic look. But Star Wars and Star Trek seem to stand out as very similar visions of a space craft. they had a very drastic contrast from the "good guys" and the "bad guys". For example the rebel star ships in Star Wars were a mostly white, sleek and modern look but the empires ships were always wall to wall black. This theme seemed to be the same with the Star Trek showing a obvious line of good and evil. I thought that George Lucas did the best job of incorporating that line of good and evil. The greatest example of this was when in Star Wars Dark Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are battling it out in the Deathstar and you can see a clear contrast. Darth Vader is in his usual all black outfit with a black mask and cape and he has a bright red lightsaber. Obi-Wan Kenobi is in a tan robe with no mask and a brown cape, wielding a green lightsaber. This scene really captures that stark contrast that Lucas wants you to see between the Dark side of the force and the Jedi side of the force.  Alien seemed to take the same look of the space ship but they used more of a horror film look. They used mostly dim lighting and shadows to give an eerie feel to this film. I also noticed that Alien would use many unclose face shots exposing much of the background right before something bad was going to happen. I thought that they used this well in building up suspense. 

These movies also used lots of amazing technology for there time. The visual effects are a huge part of all of these movies. Star Trek seemed to use the most post production especial effects with Star Wars following in a close second. These movies are not like other 1970s films because they are huge budget, sci-fi,  event films. They attracted people with there cutting edge special effects and mass marketing techniques.   

FORMAL FILM STUDIE: Star Trek The Motion Picture, Alien, Star Wars Episode IV:A New Hope

    The movies that I chose to watch were Alien, Star Wars IV and Star Trek; The Motion Picture. These films are all the first in their series of space, action and adventure movies. These films are all united by this theme and that they were all made in the late 1970s. 

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, made in 1977, written and directed by George Lucas, is the first made movie in the Star Wars series. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."an empire taken over by the dark side of the force rules. A small group of rebels is forming and with the help of Luke Skywalker they plan to take back the empire and return peace to the galaxy.

Alien, a 1979 space adventure and Horror film, directed by Ridley Scott is the first movie in Alien series. The cargo spaceship Nostromo is heading to Earth when they encounter an alien message and go to explore the source. One of there members, Kane, gets attacked by an alien but they are able to bring both back to the ship. The organism has planted an egg in Kane. The alien hatches out of Kane and terrorizes the ship. 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, made in 1979 and created by Gene Roddenberry and is the first Star Trek film. This film is based off the popular 1970s TV show Star Trek. Sometime in the far future a space cloud/starship V'ger is approaching Earth and will destroy it and everything in its path. The only starship in range of V'ger is the USS Enterprise and they have to stop or destroy V'ger before it hits Earth.

I thought that it was very interesting how these three movies tried to portray futuristic space travel and the future of earth. Most of the scenes of these films were filmed inside of the space crafts. All three movies seemed to have the same futuristic look. But Star Wars and Star Trek seem to stand out as very similar visions of a space craft. they had a very drastic contrast from the "good guys" and the "bad guys". For example the rebel star ships in Star Wars were a mostly white, sleek and modern look but the empires ships were always wall to wall black. This theme seemed to be the same with the Star Trek showing a obvious line of good and evil. I thought that George Lucas did the best job of incorporating that line of good and evil. The greatest example of this was when in Star Wars Dark Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are battling it out in the Deathstar and you can see a clear contrast. Darth Vader is in his usual all black outfit with a black mask and cape and he has a bright red lightsaber. Obi-Wan Kenobi is in a tan robe with no mask and a brown cape, wielding a green lightsaber. This scene really captures that stark contrast that Lucas wants you to see between the Dark side of the force and the Jedi side of the force.  Alien seemed to take the same look of the space ship but they used more of a horror film look. They used mostly dim lighting and shadows to give an eerie feel to this film. I also noticed that Alien would use many unclose face shots exposing much of the background right before something bad was going to happen. I thought that they used this well in building up suspense. 

These movies also used lots of amazing technology for there time. The visual effects are a huge part of all of these movies. Star Trek seemed to use the most post production especial effects with Star Wars following in a close second. These movies are not like other 1970s films because they are huge budget, sci-fi,  event films. They attracted people with there cutting edge special effects and mass marketing techniques.   

Q2 MYST#1: Life of Pie

 For my MYST I watched the movie Life of Pie. This is a film directed by Ang Lee, staring Suraj Sharma and is based of the book Life of Pie. It was made this past year (2012) and is about a boy and his family who are traveling to Canada from India with all of there zoo animals by boat. during a big storm one night the boat sinks leaving Pie, the main character, alone in a life raft with a tiger, chimp hyena and wonder zebra. The movie starts with Pie grown up, living in Canada years after the shipwreck. He talks to a man who wants to write his story and hear of an act of god.

I would give this movie four out of five stars. I thought that they did a great job of making everything seem so real with outstanding visual effects and computer graphics. Almost all of the movie needed and contained these computer animations. I also thought that Ang Lee did a good job telling the story of Pie. Having read the book I noticed a few differences but over all I liked the additions and changes Lee made to the story. In the book there is no back story, but it starts with his family leaving and the ship sinking and ends with his arrival at shore. Lee did a good job of adding and incorporating the story of Pie when he is older and his conversations with the writer. 

My favorite scene from the movie was about half way through when Pie is surrounded by the phosphorescent krill in the water and the whale jumps out and over the boat throwing Pie off the small makeshift raft. The scene starts with Pie waking up to find that he is sounded by green and yellow glowing krill. This makes almost like a glassy blanket over the ocean. The camera angle shifts to a birds eye view zooming in to the water to what appears to be a large whale. The whale turns and quickly mauves for the surface and sky rockets out of the water nearly missing Pie and the boats.  This scene really shows the amount of skill and work that went into making the visual effects of the movie. 

1935 film: Far Away Love

The film that my group made was Far Away Love. This is a romance film for the whole family. This film is set in france during WWI. It is about a young american soldier who when on leave finds him self at the house of a french farmer. He soon falls in love with the farmers daughter. When he must leave to go back to the front lines the daughter follows him without him knowing. She soon finds herself bought in the middle of a battle in no mans land. Our young soldier sees her and steals a white stallion and rides out of the smoke and gunfire to save her. They then ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
We chose romance because romance films are very popular at this time and they are a film for the whole family to enjoy. We went with MGM because they are known for there big budget romance films. Also they had many of the stars and director that we need to make this movie so we would not have to buy actors from other studios.
We chose Victor Fleming for our director because he has directed many successful romance films and he was a good fit for ours. Our lead actor and actress are Clark Gable and Greta Garbo. Altho they are a little older for their roles we are focusing on makeup with William Tuttle, one of the best, to make them appear a younger age. They also fit because they are huge stars at this time and are both from MGM.
The hays code works with our film because we will not show or suggest any explicit romance and violence. We will however show some kissing and you will hear gunfire and see guns but you will not see any one get shot.
I don't think that I would have done anything differently. I liked the way our group worked together and found the best fit for everything in our production of this movie.