Mole A bad guy who pretends to be a good guy. The audience assumes they are a good guy until the sudden revelation, after which some degree of Ret Con is inevitable. If well-done, catches the audience out. If especially well-done, it can be the climax of a Wham Episode.
My Explanation These two are the same in my eyes. And there are so many examples out there that I don’t know where to start. Those wrestling fans out there need none, but for those lame ducks a fair example would be in Battlestar Galactica. It happens many times but the main one is Boomer pretending to be good only to kidnap Hera and take her to Cavil .
P.S. I warned you of my inconsistencies with posting.
What it means During a film’s climax, the audience may experience a purging or cleansing of emotional tension, providing relief or therapeutic restoration.
My Explanation highlight spoiler to view It’s when the main character, the one the storyteller wants us to relate to, gets the good news or when they finally have the epiphany that draws us in emotionally. We have been on this journey with them over the last 120 minutes and we too need closure. Depending on the genre, we may laugh a belly laugh or cry a river, but we leave the theater cleansed.
My cathartic movie isImitation of Lifewith Lana Turner and Juanita Moore. It begins at the end when Mahalia Jackson sings and Sarah Jane runs into the procession and declares that she has killed her mother. I am all tears. If ever I need a good strong cry that will leave my eyes puffy, heart heavy, and my soul cleansed, this is the movie.
I’ve been asked to create a Word-A-Day for film and television. Since a lot film and TV terms are comprised of multiple words, I’m going to call it Term of the Day. Each day (Who am I kidding? It’ll probably be more like once a week if you’re lucky) I’ll post a new term or phrase that pertains to the film and/or television industry. Some months or weeks will focus on certain aspects of the process–like January Genres.
This week’s theme is Plot Techniques.
Here’s the first:
Deus Ex Machina courtesy of wikipedia.com
Literally, in Latin, “god from the machine,” it’s a plot device where a previously intractable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved, usually with the contrived introduction of either characters, abilities, or objects not mentioned before within the storyline. It is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique because it undermines the story’s internal logic.
My Explanation
It’s like the hand of God reaching down into the on-screen world and righting all the wrongs. A guy needs $2million for an operation? Boom, he finds a lottery ticket worth $2million on the street.
For instance, in Weird Science the guys have this fantastical party that trashes the house and the kitchen is blue. Lisa, with her god-like abilities cleans the house, pacifies the grandparents, avenges Wyatt w/ Chet, and gets rid of the cars–all in time for the parents to walk through the door. Deus Ex Machina.
Examples:
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, in the final scene, the main protagonist buys the company he competes against by secretly investing into the company prior to the competition. The chest of money is brought to him bearing the label “Deux Ex Machina.”
Donnie Darko, in the scene where Gretchen has been run over by the car Frank drove, Donnie says to himself “Deus ex machina.”
Beerfest, the deceased character of Phil “Landfill” Krundle is implausibly replaced by his brother Gil, who possesses many of the same qualities as his brother and is given the same “Landfill” nickname. He is also played by the same actor.
Prince Caspian, the driads of the woods come alive to save the day at Aslan’s roar.
Here’s an interview with Giles Timms, Director of Deal All Along. But first a blurb from his site gilestimms.com:
Giles Timms is a director, animator, illustrator, and filmmaker.
Inspired by Russian Cut-Out Animation, Comics and Expressionism, Giles has cultivated a distinctive technique that is textural, stylized and painterly. Using history and its motifs, Giles creates pop surreal worlds that are grounded in the real – 3D worlds in a flat 2D paper style.
Giles’ films have won several film festival awards and have also been featured on such notable sites as Boing Boing and Cartoon Brew.
MTI How did you pick the song? GT Ceri Frost and I both decided it would be a fun song to animate.
MTI How did you come up with the concept? GT Well, I knew I wanted to tell a story, even though the song was just under 2 minutes. I provided Ceri with 2 short treatments for the ideas I had and then worked from there with his input.
MTI How big was your team? GT Umm, it was just me…so not very big MTI What was your biggest obstacle? GT Fitting a story into a 2-minute song.
MTI Did any obstacle surprise you? GT Well, I’m not sure I had any obstacles really. The hardest thing about the project was the challenge I set myself to create a story for the short song. The story evolved through the course of the project, so there were minor stops and starts, but no real obstacles as such. MTI How long was each phase of production? Pre? Post? In? GT I work somewhat atypically for animation, so pre was a few days at most, production was about 98% of the work, and I used about a day for editing. MTI Did UCLA have any guidelines? GT Mostly they wanted me to push the story, other than that, not really. MTI If so, what and did you find them limiting? GT No, I think that the limits they set (that the music video should tell a story rather than be a series of images tied strictly to the lyrics) helped me. I find limits a good thing, in general. MTI What are you working on next? GT Just finished a few more treatments for some new music videos, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Performed by Ceri Frost, cerifrostmusic.com
Film by Giles Timms, gilestimms.com
The music video is set in a hand drawn pen and ink world inspired by Edward Gorey and animated in a cut-out style. Compositing and animation in After Effects.
Made at the Animation Workshop at UCLA’s Department of Theater, Film and Television, 2009
Just what is ADR? ADR is Automatic/Alternative Dialogue Replacement. ADR is used when a production’s on-set soundtrack of the dialogue can’t or won’t be used. It is also known as Looping or Dubbing.
According to IMDB:
The re-recording of dialogue by actors in a sound studio during post-production, usually performed to playback of edited picture in order to match lip movements on screen. ADR is frequently used to replace production track of poor quality (e.g., due to high levels of background noise) or to change the delivery or inflection of a line. ADR can also be used to insert new lines of dialogue which are conceived during editing, although such lines can only be placed against picture in which the face of the actor speaking is not visible.
Here is a behind the scenes video from King Kong’s (2005) ADR session:
Flickhart.com is absolutely addictive! A site where you simply choose the best of two options for you favorite movies. i.e. A Beautiful Mind or Memento. Hands down (for me) A Beautiful Mind wins every time.
I’ve already spent half an hour on the site without noticing. Go get an invitation and see what your top 20 will be then come back and list them here in the comments.
So I did a double feature last week at Regal Cinemas at New Roc City. The theater is nice, staff is halfway decent, pricing as per other cinemas. But they do have an IMAX.
First up was Obsessed starring Idris Elba, Beyonce Knowles, and Ali Carter. Elba is a successful businessman with a young wife (Knowles) and son when Carter begins to temp for his office and becomes obsessed with the niceties that Elba dishes out. It’s an obvious take on the tragic story of a woman getting the wrong idea a la Fatal Attraction. It not a total ripoff. There’s no bunnies in this one.
I did found myself talking at the screen (as I did not have a movie mate that night) due in most part to how believably crazy Carter’s character was and Elba’s character’s naivete. As for Knowles (the reason I wanted to see the film), her character left something to be desired. I’m not sure what it was. I think it was the way the she was written. She played jealous very well but I think there’s a part of the script that was left out. I can’t go into too much detail, but I wish they would have explained the motivation for her lack of trust. What they did offer would not have been enough for me to distrust my husband. But this is all my opinion.
All in all it was a bit of a disappointment. C-
Now the next movie is one I viewed after reading the book for a book club. I’m not sure I would have gone to the theater to see if I hadn’t read the book and didn’t have time to kill after Obsessed, but I saw it nonetheless. Steve Lopez is a writer for the L.A. Times who come across a schizophrenic homeless man playing a 2-string violin. That man is Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, formally of Julliard.
A relationship ensues after Lopez writes an article on Nathaniel and he is weighted with getting Ayers the proper care. That is the central theme of the book and the movie. However, there are many aspects of the movie that differ from the book. I found the movie’s characters to be one dimensional. Lopez is a character you hate when for being selfish and Nathaniel’s history is different in the movie – practically incomplete if you’ve read the book.
Downey and Foxx do great portrayals of their characters but I didn’t believe them. I think I biased because I’ve read and loved the book. I’m actually going to stop here because I can’t say much more without merely comparing the differences between the page and the screen. I’m sorry I can’t give you more than B-
Posted by Shay on February 10th, 2010 (0 comments)
The Mole (Fred Savage in Austin Powers)
