Cinema Critique #2
The scene I picked is from M. Night Shyamalan's Split where a man named Kevin who suffers from D.I.D (Dissociative Identity Disorder) kidnaps three high school girls. His identities range from a sweet nine year old boy to a top of the line fashion designer. After being kidnapped in a parked car by Dennis, (one of Kevin's identities) they find themselves in an underground bunker where most of the movie plays out. Casey(one of the girls and main character) uses her own past experiences to deal with the situation and make it out.
In the scene I picked, Kevin has turned into "The Beast" or the protector of the other 23 identities is this identity which is supposed to be horrible and eats people who are pure and in way doing natural selection. He has come for the girls at last but Casey is not pure. See his reasoning for eating the girls is that they are innocent and weak and served as his sacred food for his evolution or transformation into the beast. With Casey having troubled experiences with her uncle the beast leaves her alone telling her "The broken are the more evolved" and telling her to rejoice.
In the scene the director gives us the beast popping from behind walls at different times moving closer to the bars that Casey has locked herself behind. Kevin runs out and Casey shoots him twice each time the camera cutting between the shot hitting him and Casey pumping the shotgun. The light in this particular scene gives off the ominous vibe of the beast making the scene more terrifying. After being shot Kevin slowly gets up and walks closer to the bars where the light shining through a grate gives this light effect of the shadow showing up on his body. As Casey looked surprised, Kevin slowly starts spreading the bars as blood drips out his mouth. The intensity in his eyes shows the strive of what the director wanted and makes the scene way more suspenseful. It then changes to a shot of behind his back as the bars are being pulled apart which then goes out of focus and focuses on Casey's face through the bars and over his shoulder. The shot then pans down her body to her "impure markings" and cuts back to his face to show that moment of realization. Cutting back between the frighted Casey and Kevin making assumptions that she isn't pure he finally murmurs, "You are different from the rest." The next shot is pulling out from the scars to reveal Casey's full body. I think her costume designs well chosen to show her markings and make the storyline follow through. The music is very suspenseful throughout this scene until this point where is quiets down at the point of seeing her scars. He then repeatedly tells her to rejoice since he probably doesn't have to kill her since she is not weak or innocent like the other two girls.
The scene starts to dwindle down as the music softens and the camera cuts back and forth from Casey crying and Kevin staring back at her. He slowly walks back out of the light and as the bars stay in focus he does not as he walks away. This scene kind of leaves you hanging wondering what happened to Kevin. Did he die from the gun shots? Does he live on as this one identity taking the weak and innocent out of the world? I think the director kind of left us open with that decision or left it open to build off of for his future movies in a continued storyline.
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Food Chasers- Episode 1 - Sammy's
Our first episode was....rough??? but fun. At a DP stand point and as a member of our crew we weren't prepared and hadn't practiced what we were filming, what we would use to film, and how we would film it. So we did what any other group would do during a Wednesday B block and winged it. Luckily we brought all the equipment needed and came prepared with questions to ask. I didn't really know what I was getting into. Our first issue came into retrospect. We didn't have a right way to mount a camera in my car so we used my phone on a flimsy stand. It kept bouncing and falling most of the trip. We got some pretty good footage with it though and will work on it for next time and practice more. Our next task was knowing what we shoot and where. What footage we were going to capture and what place in the restaurant would look the best. I think we did fairly good with this and picked a very good position.
As DP I came across the problem of using the wrong lens for this in our interview portions so I used it as our second camera that got BTS or B-roll and it actually worked in my favor. I need to work on getting a steadier shot, which I will with practice.
I also feel our approach such as commentary and being ready for the interview went well and with our general overview and thoughts of the project we pulled it all together very nicely for little preparation. Our lighting was pretty decent but when it came to the interview with Sunny I feel we should of used more since it came out orange. I also feel with our approach being exciting and energetic it pulled more attention for it to be quite interesting. In the editing it looked so good and I had a lot of fun and such a great time shooting this episode.
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