For this week's installment of Intro to Film, I am going to be looking at Actor's and Acting Styles. I have chosen to use the following
Barry Pepper
Tom Hanks
Matt Damon
character actors Actors who specialize in playing a wide variety of characters, most often supporting or minor rolesrather than leading roles. (2013)
wild card A term applied to an actor, usually a star, who is difficult to classify as one certain type, an actor who canplay a wide variety of characters equally well without becoming typecast. (2013)
typecasting Casting actors based on their physical appearance or on the types of characters they've most often playedin the past, rather than on an audition that might reveal an unexpected acting range. Casting against type gives actorsthe chance to demonstrate whether they can successfully play more than one type of character. (2013)
I had a difficult time with Barry Pepper but decided to stick it out with him, just to see if I could correctly categorize him. Mr. Pepper most often plays supporting roles in the films he is in. At least the ones I have seen. I just watched him in Saving Private Ryan and thought "I have seen him in a few other shows." Turns out I was right; He has been in a number films I have watched: The Green Mile, Flags of Our Father, Saving Private Ryan etc. Interestingly enough, he also holds authoritative roles in the movies for example in The Green Mile he is a correctional officer and in Flags of our Father he is a Sargeant. I am giving him the classification of being a character actor. Though I think that he is typecasted a lot. Plays the same type of role in a lot of films.
Now onto Tom Hanks and Matt Damon! These two actors are both what I would call Wild Card Actors. They play a wide variety of roles, though, I would say that Matt Damon plays a lot more of the same type of action roles (Monuments Men, The Bourne movies, Green Zone) while Tom Hanks is all over the map (Forrest Gump, Big, Apollo 13, Green Mile).
Focusing on Matt Damon, I would say that he is placed into the same type of categories as I mentioned in the above paragraph. There is also a versitility to his acting. Good Will Hunting is a perfect example of this. Just watch the clip below. He is a phenomanal actor.
Reference
Goodykoontz, B. & Jacobs, C. (2013). Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego: Bridgepoint
Assess how the scene or sequence would play differently if you changed or removed a key category of sound.
This scene is awesome in it's simple complexity. There are a multitude of soldiers standing around. There is any manner of possible noise that could be going on and yet there is silence. PVT Ryan (played by Matt Damon) is giving his speech and there is no background noise to detract from it. If they made it into the typical noise-fest that a military encampment is--it would detract from the sense of desperation to understand why he gets to go home.
Explain how the different categories of sound are being used in your chosen film.
Assess the impact of sound in establishing the theme.
How does the use of sound inform the mood of the scene, or the film overall?
Can you identify specific sounds in your film that allow you to infer a particular genre?
Since each category of sound may produce a range of effects, how might you characterize the effects in your film? For example, realistic and expected sound effects may have a different effect on a viewer than exaggerated or unexpected ones.
The sounds, sparse music, and dialogue make the whole film what it is. You hear the sounds of the gear. You hear the sounds of the weapons, the wind, the walking, etc. It draws the watcher into the film and setting. For there to be so much silence in some of the scenes as the Soldiers scan the horizons and ensure their safety, you feel their tension. The sounds of the weaponry definitely lead the watchers to know that it is an action film. The dialogue and conflict lend to the drama genre.
Reference
Saving Private Ryan (4/7) Movie CLIP - It Doesn't Make Any Sense (1998) HD. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2014.
For this particular blog posting I am going to be writing about the lighting in the above pictured/mentioned movie: Remember The Titans. The directors and all the personnel involved did a magnificent job bringing this movie to production. The lighting used in this movie was alternated between high- and low- key lighting. There also seems to be a little bit of three-key lighting thrown into some of the scenes.
Watch the Leave No Doubt scene from the movie:
The three-key lighting in this scene is phenomenal! All the lighting is on the characters in question with the darker shadows being cast on those in the background. The background characters are just as important to the scene and the overall feel of the movie but all the focus is being placed on those in the bright lights.
Now what Coach Boone's Speech:
The remarkable shadows in the background of this movie are great!! This is a great example of low- and high-key lighting. A high-key lighting design has very bright light over everything, with few shadows and relatively low contrast between the lightest and darkest parts of the scene....A low-key lighting design looks dark overall by comparisons. It is marked by extreme use of deep shadows, with very high contrast between the brightest parts of the scene and the darkest parts, which are obscured in shadows (Goodykoontz, B. & Jacobs, C. (2013)) There are parts of the scene where you can see everything clear as day with no shadows and then there are parts where you get a slightly eery feeling because the importance of the scene is extremely clear.
The theme of this movie was a school divided by race. The school and the white students felt they were being forced to welcome non-white students leading to tensions and drama. These tensions spilled onto the field. The lighting throughout the movie played on those divisions in personalities extremely well. Bringing into focus (and light) the races at different times throughout the scenes but bringing them together on the field as only the lights of a football field can. You feel you are with those actors as they begin to meld into one unit no longer seeing race as an issue but each person as an individual beginning to work as a team.
Having grown up in a state where football is a key element of life (along with ranching/farming), this movie was indeed portrayed in an accurate manner.
References:
Atkinson, Dorsia. (2010, Oct 1). Leave No Doubt. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8vXroMMGdM
christianlty (2008, Jan 20). Remember The Titans: Coach Boone Speech. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_HFCYz4x6o
Goodykoontz, B. & Jacobs, C. (2013). Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego: Bridgepoint.
Writers: Chris Sanders (Screen Play), Kirk De Micco (Screen Play), John Cleese (Story), Kirk De Micco (Story), and Chris Sanders (Story)
Voices include: Nicholas Cage (Grug), Emma Stone (Eep), Ryan Reynolds (Guy), Catherine Keener (Ugga), Cloris Leachman (Gran), Clark Duke (Thunk), Chris Sanders (Belt) and Randy Thom (Sandy)
Story: The Croods (2013) is a story involving a family of cave people attempting to survive during volatile times. The teenage girl (Eep) meets a wanderer (Guy). From then on the course of their lives change. They must use their brains and their brawn in order to survive in a world that is changing in disastrous ways.
Plot: The animation opens with a cave family getting ready to hunt breakfast. The daughter, Eep (voiced by Emma Stone), is narrating the story in the beginning. She is an adventurous spirit seemingly seeking something outside the every day occurrences of her family life. At night she sneaks out of the cave to look off into the distance and wonder about all the possibilities that she may be missing out on. At some point she sees a moving light and proceeds to pursue it. She meets Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), a presumed Neanderthal, thus setting the plot of the movie rolling. Eep's father, Grug, finds her and they proceed back to the cave. As they are headed back to their cave an earthquake occurs destroying their cave in the process.
They find themselves thrust into a situation where they must experience the 'new', which is bad in their eyes. As they make their way through what looks like a rain forest, Eep ends up using a conch that Guy gave her in case of emergency. They are about to be attacked by flesh-eating birds. Guy comes to the rescue to the chagrin of Grug.
They all continue on their way facing multiple challenges along the way that Guy seems to breeze through. Grug is extremely resentful of Guy's perceived 'smarts' as well as Eep's crush on Guy. At one point, Grug tries to come up with ideas of his own in an attempt to make his family look to him for guidance instead of Guy.
In the final minutes of the movie, Grug and his family seem to have to go their separate ways and he throws them to safety as the earthquakes and such move closer. Grug, then, has an idea which reunites him with his family. They continue to face their fears each day.
This film was told in chronological order. This made the moral of the story easier to follow as you watched the characters make their way through new situations and new/changing relationships. This helped the watchers come to realize that though change is most definitely not easy, it must be done in order to be successful.
If this film had not been told in chronological order, I do not think that the viewers would have learned as much about each of the characters as they did. They would not have been able to be proud of Grug's growth as a man, husband and a father.
