Italian neo realism

Some of the main characteristics of Italian neo-realism is the "emphasis on real lives [...] an entirely or largely non professional cast, a focus on the collectivity rather than the individual [...] solidarity [..] criticism of the status quo". This is all put together to emphasize the idea of escaping from the fantasy typically seen in the movies during ww2 which conveyed "happy endings" when life was not always so forgiving. Italian neo realism showed the audience the dark side of reality moving away from fantasy to reality.

The history behind Italian Neo-realism was the problematic era of ww2 and Italy was under the strict leadership of Benito Mussolini where the harshness of reality was seen in the streets and the people. In 1935 the anti-Fascist journalist, Leo Longanesi promoted the idea of the filmer going into the streets to document the reality of the situations plagued by the people of Italy.
Thus the development of the Neo realism era commonly taking place in the streets instead of sets.

Some of the cinematic techniques that were used in the Italian Neo Realism era involved the idea of music as a way to express the social problems conveying mood and tone for the films. Also the idea of taking filming to the streets to display realistic lifestyle capturing ruins or slums to show depression under the Italian neo realistic style.

Some contributers to the Italian Neo realism movement involved: Cesare Zavattini who was known as the "godfather" of the Neo realism movement. He wrote a guide on the creation of Neo realistic films playing a major role in the production as well as the influence of other filmers to pursue Neo realistic films. Also another key contributer to the Neo realism era was Leo Longanesi who wrote in an anti fascist journal in 1935 telling film makers to take footage of the reality of life in the quote," go into the streets". signifying support towards the idea of Italian Neo realism and contributing to starting the movement throughout Italy.

Some key movies that influenced the Italian Neo realistic style involved "obssessione" by Visconti which portrayed bleak interior and street shots of 3 protagonists heightening the Neo realistic affect and helped establish long takes to convey mood and tone between the characters. Also another film,"Open City" in 1946 showed the link between the Italian Neo realistic style and the resistance movement going on during ww2. This also signified the resistance against the typical "American" movies by the Neo realistic films which deterred away from the American ideas of happy endings and fantasy contrasting the neo realistic films which centered around realism.

student film finalists

The name of the short piece is "job security which has 2 security guards and one is very dedicated to his job, while the other is more relaxed trying to pass time reading "hustler". The 2 differing personas allow the development of the plot, which involves a treasure chest, that is being stolen from the security guards and the more serious security officer goes after the masked culprit.

Here is the monitering room with the serious, "your an idiot" expression portrayed by the security officer and in the background the moniter has an image of the mysterious chest. This character takes his job much more seriously than the other security guard. The picture below is self explanatory for many reasons.

First of all this security guard is much more relaxed and laid back, as you can see by the earphones and illicit magazine in his hand, he doesn't take his job seriously. Ohh by the way this is the scene where a mysterious assailant walks in, who has some sort of shady back ground (wearing a ski mask) and kills the the security officer while he is, ummmm yeahhh....... doing his thing with that magazine, you get the idea. Anyways the 2 contrasting characters make this story somewhat funny with a little bit of horror, as shown in the picture below.

As you can see the masked antagonist walks out of the security monitering room, after depriving that misfit security officer of any dignity left, while the other security guard goes into the truck to check the chest. This is a magor part in the plot of novel where the security officer is whisked away in the back of the antagonist's car into the vacuous depth of the night. A little overly dramatic, but it works.

Solitude

As you can see the trailer for solitude makes it appear as though it will be a horror film. Either that or a really bad comedy. However, there was an amount of skill used in the creation of certain shots.

This shot faded in one of the character's hands to a close up of the phone bringing curiosity not only towards the hand, but the phones consistent noise of being off the hook connotating emptiness and loneliness, thus the title, "Solitude". Also this is an example of a Rack focus as the hand is gradually focused into the shot with the phone.

Here dramatic irony is conveyed as the highschool/college students realize that they are alone. Since I am the viewer I can either be terrified at the fact that they are going to be killed or laugh hysterically at the thought of the overly anxious students venturing out into the world, but meeting with death and despair,.....just kidding that would be completely cynical and crazy to think like that in my opinion, but a lot of my friends have a strong distaste for movies that are based around the typical "students" being terrorized and picked off one by one by some masked killer who is insane.

Yes, the masked crusader looking even more mysterious through the use of lighting and a little light illuminating the "villians" lucious hair. The dark background really adds on the effect of evil maniac trying to kill students who have realized they can accomplish something in their life by going off to college. This dominating "worm eye" camera position really adds to the, I am going to kill students look that the director was going for. Overall the film doesn't look as bad and would probably be somewhat decent and interesting to see.

Reverie

Wow, the ability of the camera to capture the amount of detail/pixels reminds me of an HD Tv or movie theater quality.

Especially the sweat dripping down from the man's face is really defined and vividly seen in the still image i took. Also the reflection of light in the man's eye is extraordinary considering in my camera a tint of red is always seen. Anyways, no part of the still image looks grainy, even the little pigments on his skin are visible. The detail and definition is amazing, for a video, but even cooler since it is a camera changed.


The ability of the camera to take such clear video in low light is symbolic with the effect of a low f stop, which is much lower for cameras than it is for video cameras. I think the cameras ability to show the light eminating from the building was extremely cool let alone the definition made me feel as if I staring at the building except i am staring at a screen, but the point is the definition is great.

I think this scene is really cool mostly because he is wearing shades and the reflection off of the shades is easily seen giving a mirror effect that adds the surreal mood and environment the character is in. Also the character is wearing shades and it is dark outside proving a point that I displayed in "the Hit" that you should be able to wear shades anytime of the day because they look cool.

Edit demo critique

1) Our story demonstrates our concept well considering our shots could have been done a little better. However, Me and Dazzy were able to get the idea of the concepts, point of view and 180 degree rule, to be explained clearly. For example Jr. looking at someone pick up his dollar on the floor in first person point of view, creating conflict followed by Raul and Jr. "fighting" each other using 180 degree rule. This was somewhat difficult because some of our shots could have been placed better, such as a shot of Jr. and Raul walking behind one another to create background and foreshadowing of plot. Also lighting was difficult to control when filming outside and filming seens of characters in door ways where the differing contrast of light flowing through the camera created a multitude of shadows that may have made some of our shots more difficult to see.

2) Our actors were joking around a lot throughout our piece, but that made our piece a lot more fun, considering they were supposed to be mad at each other or at least their characters were. Overall we were able to capture our actors, quite well throughout the film except in the end after the fight, they began to smile, which is a major blunder, or the characters became good friends and couldn't be mad at each other, finally reaching a level of maturation within their young adult lives signifying a desire to do something better in life than fight, but that is (B.S.). Overall our shots could have been better and we should have had more examples of point of view and 180 degree rule. However one good shot that I thought was done well was where the characters are seen through the door way, which seemed unique to me, with the entire school court in the background. Although we were able to portray some interesting shots, we could have done many more things, which really shows the various takes on certain situations that a director or editor can illustrate when creating a film, whether it is 30 seconds or 3 hours.

3) some of the challenges, being an editor involved trivial matters such as learning new ways of manipulating footage to portray individuals and make the film, overall, more interesting than it would have been just playing the original recorded information. Also, the placement of certain clips in areas to convey action seens or continued motion through doors was difficult getting the exact timing. One thing that I had to do to demonstrate my concept in the edit was to do the voice overs to give context and talk to the audience about the concepts, point of view and 180 degree rule. I also had to break down the individual actions of the characters to demonstrate the aspects of the concepts and to slow down the film, such as the scene where Jr. is looking at the dollar through the door way, slowing down the rate.