29.8

Today in class we listened to two presentations of our classmates chosen clip. The first one was on a movie called Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton.

It's a family movie, or rather a movie she would watch with her family. The genre of the film is fantasy because of perhaps the supernatural element to the story. I learned that there was a skeleton shown in the water as the narrator was talking about death, and that's called foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is used to hint or clue in the audience as to what might/will happen later. I think this is a good technique used quite often in movies or books because it adds to the mystery and suspense and it makes the audience wonder. It also grabs at the audiences attention so the audience will want to stay and find out what happens, although sometimes the foreshadowing can be quite subtle. Just like the skeleton in the opening scene of Big Fish, it wasn't very clear as to leave a huge impression on the audience; it was subliminal.

I've never seen the movie and I've never even heard of the movie before today, but through the presentation and the opening clip I find it intriguing, the mystery element has been portrayed very well, especially because there isn't much we see in the opening. The bits of information we are given is by the short narration, building suspense and wonder, and also what we see under water. The choice of camera angles is also important; to show the point of view, to give away information or to present a scene in a certain way.

The second presentation was on Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. It was the scene where we see the most important on of Dom's memories. It's an intense scene. The music and sound effects of the scene is particularly good. The music producer of the film is Hans Zimmer, a very famous music producer. He composed music for The Lion King, The Dark Knight and many more. He is also the head of film music division at DreamWorks studios. I think it's great that he knows how to play the piano and the guitar and other instruments because that gives him a deeper level of understanding and appreciation of the music with first-hand experience, and he would also know how the instrument works. He could use that to his advantage when producing film scores. I also learned a very important fact, which is that it's what you don't see that makes you the most nervous and scared. I guess it's that uncertainty in the face of the unknown that scares us.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." - Casablanca