Formative Assessment Week 6-13

During our production of our Documentary, I familiarised myself with the sound recording equipment, mores specifically the clip mics as I had never used them before this project. After we finished filming and moved onto the post production stage of the project, my role of sound technician became less relevant, so I gave feedback on the film during the editing stage.

Co-Writing an essay.

For the final assessment of Recording Reality, we had to co-write a two thousand word essay on one documentary theory types and how it applies to at least two documentaries of our choice.

At first we created a small power-point presentation on out chosen theory and presented it to the class, along with video examples of how out theory applies to it. Afterwards, we were tasked to create an academic essay about said theory, so me and my partner each chose a documentary and researched it, learning how our theory could apply to it and how it compares to the other's documentary choice.

We then began to write the essay separately, becoming experts on our individual film and once we had finished, we put our essays together and worked on the introduction and conclusion, along with the bridging and comparison paragraphs to ensure that our individual essays linked together.

After getting feedback, we worked to improve what we had. The benefit to working with someone on an essay is its a little easier on each person as they would only have to research one documentary each rather than two on their own and the bridging paragraphs were relatively easy to make. The problem with co-writing an essay is repetition where both partners had written the same thing or used the same example, but this is easily fixed by proofreading the whole essay and changing the similarities, using different examples instead.

Reflexivity and "Bowling for Columbine"

Jay Ruby states that reflexivity is to not only be self aware, but to be sufficiently self aware to know what aspects of self are necessary to reveal so that an audience is able to understand both the process employed and the resultant product and to know that the revelation itself is perposive, intentional and not merely narcissistic or accidentally revealing.

At the beginning of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), he shows us a series of American people doing their job as Moore narrates "the farmer did his chores, the milkman made his deliveries, the president bombed another country whose name we couldn't pronounce." Moore uses humour in the juxtaposition of the farmer and milkman's mundane jobs and the destructive nature of the President's actions to  make a statement about America's tolerance to violence and how it has become mundane.

Later we are shown an advert from the 50’s – 60’s for replica toy guns and how they “feel like real and sound like real”. We are then shown home footage of Moore as a child with his “first gun”, while he narrates about how he couldn’t wait to go outside and “shoot up the neighbourhood.” This is meant to show parallels to Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the notorious Columbine High school massacre, and how they were “children with guns”, commenting on how even children are brought up with guns, whether they are real or not. Moore paints himself to be the “average American” while also pointing out the flaws in his own culture. 

Ruby says that one can find sustained reflexive elements in comedies in the form of satire and parodies, which Moore uses throughout his documentary to comment on the state of America when it comes to gun control and violence.

Documentary Synopsis.

My Dad's Army Days

My Dad sits down to recall his life in the army. He's back home in Algeria, the year is 1971 (January) and he is 18 years old. He gets a letter informing him that he is to enlist in the army for mandatory service, and he is exited to go, wishing it will toughen him up and make him more responsible. His older brother stays behind to help out their father with his work, and my dad leaves to go to the army base. As soon as he arrives, they shave off his Afro, measure him, give him his clothes, boots and a rucksack containing another pair of boots, converse, two more uniforms (one being ceremonial) and a water canister. He gets divided into his section and begins his 6 months of gruelling training.

Everyday he and the other recruits train with and learn how to clean weapons, do mechanic courses and first aid, along with obstacle courses consisting of the standard netting, wall and rope climbing, and the hardest task, crawling through the gravel, which grinds and slashes away at the skin on his knees and elbows. He endures and looks forwards to his months of service after training. Those who fail or slack off during the training are either whipped with a belt or are forced to crawl in circles in the gravel, which would reduce the toughest of men to crying messes.

During the role call, my dad laughs because of the drill Sargent's funny accent. The Sargent inspects each soldier and questions who laughs, and because no one responds, they are all forced to crawl through the gravel for 15 minutes, which causes my dad to laugh even more as he crawls. This continues every night for a few days until my dad decides to hide in the toilet for every role call to avoid laughing.

During the mechanic course, my dad and a few other men work on an armoured jeep, and as per the Sargent's instructions, the men start to push the jeep. The wheel makes an unexpected turn and rolls onto my dad's leg, pinning him to the ground. He is quickly taken to the medic, who removes the crushed boot, puts a cast on my dad's leg and sends him home, recommending that he gets discharged. My dad refuses as he is determined to finish his service and returns a few months later to finish his service.

He becomes a Sargent and works through several different sections, starting off at the sports section, then moving onto logistics and eventually becomes the manager of the kitchen, becoming responsible for ordering the food for the chefs and managing waste. He finishes his service on December 1981 and returns home a disciplined man.

              

Formative assessment 3

Room 237 (2012, Rodney Ascher)

The documentary starts off like a film as seen by its composition of wide shots to close ups, POV angles and even the choice to hire Tom Cruise.

Compares "the wave of terror" mentioned in the marketing of the film to the colonisation of the white settlers and uses a shot by shot comparison of a settler chopping logs with and axe with a shot of Jack Nicholson chopping down the door with his axe. "The wave of terror" followed by a shot of native Americans running towards the camera.

Tracking shot of Tom Cruise walking down stairs towards the movie theatre, followed by a panning shot of the seats as the narrator talks about how he remembers the the seats they sat in when they first watched "The Shining".  Visually imaginative shots are used, lots of red shown throughout this sequence, which was a motif throughout "The Shining".

The shots match what the narrator it talking about, reenacting his memories of him walking out the theatre in a daze, heading towards the underground car park.

Zoom in on Tom Cruise's face as he thinks to himself about the film and his realisation that native american culture is sprinkled throughout the entire film, accompanied by scenes from the film, and black and white cowboy film scenes of Indians riding their horses, archive pictures of natives smoking peace pipes.

Narrator realises that the film is about the genocide of the native Americans, which is said as we see more footage from westerns of cowboys firing cannons at the natives.

Talks about duplicity, which the twin girls represent, he talks about the broken peace pipe treaties while we see a shot of Calumet baking powder cans behind Jack Nicholson's head, all turned in different directions to represent the failed treaties.

Formative assessment 2

Character description:
Young, unenthusiastic, a bit of a shut in, yet compassionate and loyal. Has his own problems and mental health issues but listens to others during their time of need and tries to help out.

Questions:
- What are your interests?
- Why do you choose not to go out often?
- when did you first find out about your mental health?
- Does it affect your everyday life and if so, how much does it?
- Why do people come to you when they need help?
- Do you like helping others or do you feel obligated to help when asked?

Documentary Proposal

For my documentary proposal, I had the idea to make a documentary about home businesses and the effort one must go through to make sure their business succeeds. The main character for this documentary would be my older sister, who is someone who has started up many different home businesses over the years all centred around crafts and fabrics, whether that be fabrics for others to use in their projects or hand made accessories.

The documentary will follow my sister on her day to day routine as she prepares her products and ultimately sets them off for shipping, all while talking about the process of starting your own business and the hardships she faced while starting up her different brands.

 I propose to represent the subject as a story of hope by showing the trial and error process that all businesses go through and how to push through these problems to achieve your dream. I plan on using mostly action shots where we interview my sister while she works rather than a simple sit down interview. I plan on keeping the overall tone of the documentary quite light which an be done through the use of a faint merry melody in the background and a moderate pacing that cuts between interview and action shots.

Performativity

Feminist theorist and philosopher Judith Butler described performativity as "that relative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains." She applies this to her study of gender development. Butler sees gender as something being rehearsed and that people come to perform in the mode of belief, and believes that the key to performativity is repetition. An example of this would be a father teaching his son to play football, and through repetition, the son would learn to love football.
                                          
Whilst this isn't exclusively a male thing to do, most of the time it is a male figure who introduces you to the sport, whether it be your father or a sports personality, like the character Jess Bhamra from "Bend it like Beckham" (Gurinder Chadha, 2002).
                                                 
                                                   
Judith Butler also believes that performativity also applies to sexual orientation, with heterosexuality and homosexuality acting not as fixed categories, but as a conditioning through repetition.

                   
In Butler's definition, performativity is seen as an authoritative voice, enforced by laws or views of social norms, and that our most personal acts are being scripted by society, with the difference between private and public being a fiction designed by an "oppressive status quo".
                                               
                                                     

Rothwell's Interviewer roles and my accident.

Rothwell's "mode of address" is used to establish the role of which the interviewer adopts, in relation to the film and the events that they are describing. These modes range from participant, giving us a first hand view of the events, to artist, using metaphorical or symbolic interpretations of the event. I will be retelling the events through the perspective of a "guide".

When I was 15 my friend convinced me to try to learn how to skateboard with him during the summer holiday. After creating a Frankenstein like skateboard out of second hand and store bought parts we set out on our quest for fun, learning from scratch with him acting as my guide and mentor. For the entirety of the summer holiday I learned how to cruise and go down hills and bumps, eventually leading us to go to my local park where they had a course for bikes (no one actually took there bikes there so the local skateboarders used it instead). Here I practised my ollies and kick flips, honing my skills on the cement hills that filled this little corner of the playground.

With a new school year approaching and an accident free summer, I was called out on the last day to skateboard some more. What could go wrong? after a few more hours of practice with my friend, i figured I should go home and get ready for school. However, my friend insisted that I go down the big hill one last time before I leave. I had a bad feeling about it but I figured I had gone down the hill enough times to be confident enough. As I stood on top of the cement hill, friend by my side saying words of encouragement, a football flew by and knocked my skateboard out from under my foot, shaking my confidence all the more before my decent. After a few more seconds to compose myself, I took a deep breath and leaned forward, propelling myself down the relatively small but steep hill. As I got to the bottom by front wheel hit a pot hole, trapping itself in place and sending me flying forwards. This is it. I landed on my front, twisting my shoulder and slamming my chin on the concrete floor. I heard a crunching sound in my mouth and spat out what I assumed was a small stone I must have accidentally gotten in my mouth during the fall. I spat out a shard of tooth. I stood up and popped my shoulder back in place and as I sat down, my friend and the other skaters ran to get me some water, tissues and a plaster, which at that point I had no idea what that was for as all I did was break a tooth and dislocate my shoulder. I hold the tissue against my broken tooth assuming it was for that, at which point my friend said "No dude, that's for your chin." I held it against the underside of my chin and wiped away a large amount of blood, which looked darker as my vision had started to go blue from the adrenaline.

After I had gotten home my dad and sister had decided to accompany me to the A&E to get stitches. My dad was in a particularly bad mood as this was his day off and he assumed my mum was over reacting to my gash and after the 3 hour wait I was finally seen by a trainee doctor. After my dad saw how bad the gash actually was he had an argument with the young doctor, who simply wanted to glue it shut and after a second opinion from a more experienced doctor, they proceeded to take out the anaesthetic and sewing needles. After I dealt with one of my biggest fears at the time (needles), I told the doctor about my shoulder and she assured me that I was fine and I went home feeling a little shaken up. The next day I went to the dentist to get a filling for the broken tooth (which broke two weeks later and had to be replaced), and a year later my shoulder started falling out of the socket. After a month of physio my shoulder was practically good as new (minus the odd clicking sound).

Open Voice and "Rough Aunties"

"Open voice" is a narrative style theory by Carl R Plantinga that follows a character centred,  episodic style that typically observational, reflexive yet ambiguous, leaving the viewers with open questions/ answers. Plantinga said "Where the formal may be said to explain, the open voice shows, provokes, and explores. The open voice exploits the abilities of cameras and microphones to observe and show, record and play back."

"Rough Aunties" is a 2008 documentary by Kim Longinotto that follows "The Bobbi Bears", a group of South African women who have devoted their lives to helping and rescuing children and young people from sexual abuse and neglect.

Plantinga's "open voice" applies quite well to longinotto's emotionally powerful documentary because it portrays the very sensitive subject of wild abuse, something that is very hard to overcome and takes time, which results in the film showing episodes in the lives of victims as the Bobbi Bears come to give their support. Due to the nature of the subject, Longinotto stays strictly observational throughout the entire filming process, providing little to no input to the events taking place.

An example of the film's episodic nature is when the Bobbi Bears meet a young girl who has been beaten and neglected by her grandfather. At first, the ladies question and console the girl, all working to to learn about this girls's troubles and better her better her life. Later on in the film we see the Bobbis confront the grandfather about his actions, which he denies ever doing. at the end of the film we learn that one of the Bobbis took the girl into foster care and after a long discussion with her husband, they adopt the girl.

Throughout that entire episode, several questions are left unanswered, which works well as it portrays real life, which is all to often ambiguous and depressing.

Poetic Documentary of my local area

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYnOSdE_Ewk

Ethical Issues in Documentary and March of the Penguins.

Bill Nichols stated that there are two kinds of film, the documentaries of wish fulfilment and the documentaries of social representation. documentaries of social representation are referred to as non fiction and represent the world we live in, making social reality visible and audible.
Nichols said that in non fiction, people are treated as "social actors", where they conduct their lives in more or less the same way as they would without the presence of the camera, so this essentially means that the film maker is nothing more than an observer, who's soul purpose is to capture the events that unfold with little to no interference. This however can raise some ethical issues as the film maker is forced to allow certain events to unfold, events that they could have stopped or changed the outcome, yet this would go against the idea of realistically representing the world.

"March of the Penguins" is a 2005 feature length documentary directed by Luc Jacquet and narrated by Morgan Freeman. The film follows a colony of Emperor penguins as they try to cross the south pole to get to their breeding grounds at the end of the Antarctic summer, and the struggles they face, whether that being environmental factors or predators like the leopard seal.

In one scene, several young penguin chicks perish during a storm, eventually leading to some of the mothers trying to steal chicks from each other, and some parents die while searching for food, dooming their chicks back at the breading grounds.

Director Luc Jacquet and the other members of production had to observe and refrain from interfering as this was the natural struggle the penguins went through on a yearly basis, and interfering would be disrupting the natural cycle of life for these animals and the predators that hunted them.

"Cornetto Trilogy" and Seriality

Seriality is the concept in which the process of occurring in a sequential manner; a serial manner; a succession. When talking about seriality in terms of films, this essentially means  how a film begins a series and can even apply to transtextuality and how said films have been referenced in or influenced other films and media.

The "Cornetto Trillogy" is a nickname given to the series of films created by English director Edgar Wright starring comedic actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The trilogy consists of "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), "Hot Fuzz" (2007) and "The World's End" (2013), which are all interestingly not related to each other in a canonical sense, but rather different characters played by the same characters who go through similar circumstances, but in different genres.

"Shaun of the Dead" is a horror/ romantic comedy with zombies (lovingly dubbed "The RomZomCom") which revolves around Shaun (Simon Pegg), an electronics store employee who lives with his deadbeat childhood friend Ed (Nick Frost). Shaun's life starts to fall apart when his girlfriend Liz leaves him because he lacks commitment, his other roommate, Pete, threatens to evict Ed and a zombie apocalypse just so happens to break out. Shaun gathers his friends and family and try to survive by making it to the only save haven he knows of, a local pub called The Winchester.

"Hot Fuzz" is an action/ crime comedy with a murderous cult which revolves around Police Sergeant Nicolas Angel (Simon Pegg), who has just recently been transferred to the small village of Sandford where he meets and befriends the constable's son, Danny (Nick Frost).  His girlfriend had left him because he is too dedicated to the job, his new colleagues don't like him because he is too serious and he happens to come across a conspiracy involving leading members of the community who kill those they deem "nuisances" all in order to make Sandford  "Town of the Year". Nicolas and Danny gathers their fellow officers and fight to rid the town of the murderous cult.

"The World's End" is an action/ Science fiction comedy which revolves around Garry King (Simon Pegg),  a depressed patient who decides to relive the greatest day of his life by gathering his old estranged school friends Andy (Nick Frost), Paddy, Martin and Eddy and head back to their hometown of Newton Haven to complete the pub crawl they never finished. Unfortunately they discover that everyone in town has been replaced with androids by aliens and now have to fight their way to the last pub on the pub crawl, The World's End.

This mixed genre comedy trilogy amassed a cult following which has lead to references in other films and tv shows, comics and action figures. However, most of this wouldn't have happened if it weren't for a tv series that aired in the early 2000's by Edgar Wright which also featured Simpon Pegg and Nick Frost as the main characters, with the third episode being the inspiration for "Shaun of the Dead". While "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End" were well received, most of the transtextuality has come from "Shaun of the Dead", which was the only film in the series to receive its own comic book adaptation and had the characters Shaun and Ed cameo in the "Phineas and Ferb" episode "Night of the living Pharmacists", which was also a comedy of the zombie sub-genre. 

Ndalianis talks about how franchises can influence the media and entertainment industry and makes reference to Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" and how it spawned numerous sequels, games and theme park attractions. It goes on to say how the advancements in technology have broken down boundaries and have incorperated the film style, genre and actors into the space of said media.

This could never happen to the "Cornetto trilogy" in the same scale as "Jurassic Park" as it was intended for a more mature audience and filled a niche role in the film industry.  

"Talk to Her" and Neurophenomenology

"Talk to Her" is a 2002 Spanish drama by Pedro Almodovar about Marco Zuluaga, a journalist/ travel writer, and Benigno Martin, a nurse, who form a friendship while looking after the women they love who are both in comas. However, Marco finds out that his girlfriend, Lydia, had gotten back together with her ex weeks before her accident and Benigno's obsession with his patient, Alica, grows stronger and more delusional.

Neurophenomenology refers to the neuroscientific explanations of embodied experiences. This means that actions, emotions and sensations of others are mapped onto the observer's own sensory- motor and viscero- motor system. This simply means that we mirror the emotions and actions of the characters we witness on screen, from their emotions to their blinking or breathing. This is done through the mirror neurons which are motor neurons that discharge when the motor act is observed.

Elsaesser and Hagener's "Cinema as Skin and Touch" states that "we take in films somatically, with our whole body, and we are affected by images even before cognitive information processing or unconscious identification addresses and envelops us on another level. " When watching "Talk to Her", we grow to like these characters. We imprint ourselves on Marco as he seems closed off at first, similar to us as we are unfamiliar with the characters, but he soon opens up to Benigno who is shown to be  kind, caring yet awkward. Through his interactions with Marco we open up to him. After Marco leaves to travel, we are left watching Benigno when we learn that Alicia is pregnant, and Benigno is the prime suspect. When we first hear the implications of rape, like Benigno, we stiffen with shock and tension. We hope it wasn't Benigno despite the fact that he is infatuated with her, to the point where he openly talks about wanting to marry her. He is finally accused of the rape and like Benigno, we sink with sorrow, mirroring him as he slides down his chair a little. We are disappointed with Benigno for what he has done and once Marco hears about Benigno's actions and imprisonment,  he mirrors us as he too shares our emotions.

"Departures" and the representation of Culture.

"Departures" is a 2008 drama by Japanese director Yojiro Takita that explores the representation of certain cultural traditions, more specifically the traditional work as a nokanshi  (Japanese ritual mortician) and how it is perceived by modern society. The film itself is loosely based on "Coffinman" a memoir by Shinmon Aoki.

Richard Dyer's work on stereotyping states that "A system of social- and stereotypes refer to what is, as it were, within and beyond the pale of normalcy". This is clearly seen in the film when the protagonist, Daigo Kobayashi (played by Masahero Motoki) answers to an advert for a high paying job simply called "Departures". He soon learns that he will be working as a ritual mortician which horrifies him at first but he soon learns to love and take pride in his work, using it as an art form similar to his years of playing cello. Despite him finding beauty in his morbid work, the small town in which he resides in, along with his wife, have grown to despise and shun him for practicing a near forgotten tradition involving death and see it as him taking advantage of the families of those who have departed. Society eventually learns to accept and respect Diago after he performs more and more funerals for them, proving wrong their mis-beliefs and prejudices.

Hall's work on representation states that "Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture."  This is especially true considering a representation could change society's views on the matter of what has been represented. "Departures" helped change the views of people and managed to bring respect back to the tradition of nokanshi, making it popular and used more frequently for funerals, and even led to a sharp increase in people taking up the profession. The popularity of the film has lead to tours and attractions at sites connected to the film, and adaptations for various media such as mangas and a stage play.

"Character and Emotional response in the Cinema" and "Kingsman"

"Altered States: Character and Emotional response in the Cinema" by Murray Smith explores the theory that films can manipulate our emotions through responses such as empathy, emotional stimulation,  motor and effective mimicry and autonomic responses such as the startle response. I will be specifically looking at his model of "recognition, alignment, alliance" in which the spectator identifies with the character/s through 3 separate categories.

 "Kingsman: The Secret Service" is a 2014 action/science fiction film by Matthew Vaughn that follows the story of Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (played by Taron Egerton), a young man from a south London council estate who discovers that his late father was a spy working for the "Kingsman" secret service and is then recruited by Harry Hart (Colin Firth), A respected agent who worked with Eggsy's father.

We are first introduced to Harry who adopts the mentor role and father figure for Eggsy in  the future. We See Harry and Eggsy's father on the mission that costs him his life when he nobley  sacrifices himself. Harry is sent to give his condolences to his family, which is where we are introduced to a young Eggsy, who we then recognise as the hero of the story as Harry hands him the medal of valour his father earned for his sacrifice. This is shown  after his mother breaks into tears and the field of view shifts to Eggsy, bringing him into focus as Harry approaches him. The scene then transitions from Eggsy holding up the medal to observe it to the title. We later get a close up of the medal on a necklace as it pans out to show an older Eggsy living in poorer conditions with a negligible mother and an abusive step father. This leads us to align with him as we are visually glued to him and see how his life has turned out after the death of his father. After stealing a car and getting into a car chase with the police, we learn that despite being a hooligan, he still has the right morals as he would rather crash his car than run over a cat and then creates a distraction, allowing his friends to escape as he gets arrested. the spectator evaluates what kind of person Eggsy is and that leads to them creating an alliance with him.

In conclusion, we recognise Eggsy through the use of a jump cut to signify the passing of time and the use of focus to bring him into attention during his introduction, we align with him by learning how his life turned out after the death of his father and the abusive relationship his mother is in, and we form an alliance with him when  we evaluate what kind of man he is and how he turned out despite the unfortunate events that have happened to him.

Narratology and "The Guest"

Narratology is the study of Narrative and how meaning within the narrative is created, not the meaning itself. I Will mostly be looking at David Bordwell's constructivist and neo-formalist approach that focuses on Fabula (Story), Syuzhet (Plot) and Style (grammar of particular medium). I will be using this to analyse Adam Wingard's 2014 film, "The Guest".

Bordwell describes the fabula as "a chronological, cause and effect chain of events occurring within a given duration and spatial field, a pattern that perceivers of narrative create through assumptions and inferences. At the beginning of "The Guest", David (played by Dan Stevens) arrives at the Peterson household offering his condolences to the family of the man he served with in the army. Mrs Peterson quickly takes David in and he is treated as part of the family, forming a bond with them, more specifically to Mrs Peterson to whom he becomes a surrogate son, and Luke, Mrs Peterson's troubled son who David befriends and protects. From his interactions with Anna (the daughter of the family) we are led to believe that there may be possibilities of a budding romance between them, however we later see David while he is all alone, which at this point he drops his facade ever so slightly to reveal that he may be more sinister than he appears. From this we begin to question who David truly is and what his intentions are. Our suspicions are eventually confirmed by the end of the film where it is revealed that David was part of a government experiment and as a result has become mentally unhinged and superhumanly resilient, thus destroying the family he has come to care about.

The Syuzhet is the actual arrangement of the plot, including style (mise en scene and editing, cinematography, etc). Most of the film is from the perspective of David as he is the main protagoinist/later antagonist, at which point the focus shifts to Anna and her brother. This helps shift the tone of the film from a drama/thriller to a almost 80's horror film as David becomes the unstoppable killer hellbent on their demise. This is best seen at the end of the film in the School's haunted house maze where, like Anna and Luke, our vision is obstructed by not only dense fog, but also camera angles and cuts, restricting what we see.

Hypothetical Abstract- "The Neon Demon"

Hypothesis/Thesis Statement
Nicolas Winding Refn's film is a social commentary on how modern society overly relies on its standards of beauty and forces those who do not fit into it to drastically change themselves to keep up, thus creating a cruel cycle of chasing beauty yet never being able to catch up or end up destroying themselves in the process.

Scope
An article by the Mic. Network explores "The Disturbing Effect Our Beauty Standards Have On Women Across The World." This article states that the number of women suffering from anorexia in India has increased between 5 and 10 times in younger women in the last 10 years, along with the rise of plastic surgery in Lebanon to keep up with beauty standards and even society itself as many jobs state that women "must be beautiful". "If tomorrow women all over the world looked in the mirror and if they liked what they saw reflected back at them, then we would have to reshape capitalism as we know it.

"The Neon Demon" explores this by representing the modeling industry as a dog eat dog world (quite literally) where everyone claws for beauty, yet our protagonist naturally possesses these standards of beauty and as a result, rises through the industry at a rapid rate, leaving the others behind. She eventually lets this gets to her head, which leads to her downfall.
"I am dangerous. I know what I look like,what's wrong with that anyway? Women would kill to look like this. They carve and stuff and inject themselves. They starve to death, hoping, praying that one day they'll look like a second-rate version of me."

Methodology
Ideology: Reoccurring image of a triangle, could represent the Illuminati, or the industry itself. Criticizes western ideology for its beauty standards and use of media to manipulate.
Realism and Formalism: Some scenes of the film contain slow, long takes more reminiscent of a realist film, which helps makes the film's issues and commentaries more grounded in our reality, but is then thrown out of the window by the director's stylistic choices and dream sequences similar to a formalist film.

Chapter Structure
Chapter 1: Negative effects modern standards of beauty have on women. (rise in eating disorders and plastic surgery)
Chapter 2: Capitalism and its manipulations of these standards. (Models are used to sell products, which then make younger women in society want to buy the products in order to conform to the standards advertised to them.)

Key Readings
https://mic.com/articles/111228/how-western-beauty-ideals-are-hurting-women-across-the-globe#.Yebx0cvAx

Film and Ideology and "Drive".

"Film and Ideology" by Maria Parmaggiore and Tom Wallis explores the way films present ideologies and defines it as a system of beliefs, values and opinions. "Film and Ideology" states that ideologies derive from deep seated feelings about the world and about human society, and therefore they are not necessarily bound by the rules of logic. "Ideologies provide the philosophical threads that weve a community together, guiding the actions of individuals, groups and even large societies. " A belief can be powerful enough to define and shape a nation, and can often be seen in their films, like Bollywood's representation of a Universal God, family, duty, responsibility and Karma, or Hollywood's ideals created by the American dream, the idea that anyone can succeed. This has given rise to the idea of indevidualism and the representation of the underdog.

"Drive" (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) contains these tropes and ideologies but twists them, giving them a more realistic portrayal. Because of this, "Drive's protagonist is represented as an antihero, someone who does the right thing but for the wrong reasons or in the wrong way. This is done to make the hero imperfect, like real people.

"Drive" follows the theme of individualism that is commonly seen in Hollywood action films. the idea that one person can rise up and make a difference, but Refn changes this slightly by showing that our hero isn't invincible and that his actions do have consequences, as shown by the Driver not winning the girl by scaring her away with his violent nature and malicious actions against his enemies, and even though he saves her and defeats the mobsters who were after them, he rides off into the night alone, broken, bruised and bleeding out, his only satisfaction being the safety of his love interest even though they can never be together.

Realism and "The Shawshank Redemption".

 For decades there has been arguments about the "essence of cinema" (as Stam would call it in his work on "The Phenomenology of Realism") between the "formative" theorists who believed that film should be radically different from reality, and the "realist" theorists who believed that film should be a truthful representation of everyday life. Personally I agree with the uses and gratifications model, more specifically, escapism, the idea that we watch films to escape from our everyday lives, as a way to explore different worlds or connect with unique and complicated characters.

"The Shawshank Redemption" (1994, Frank Darabont) is an adaptation of the Steven King novel by the same name. The film contains aspects of formalism through its portrayal of larger than life characters such as Clancy Brown's character "Captain Byron Hadly", a sadistic prison guard, or Morgan Freeman's "Ellis "Red" Redding" who narrates most of the film, giving himself an almost omniscient role in the film. Other than that, the film mostly relies on realism as shown through its long shots and portrayal of mundane tasks such as the roof tarring scene where we see a long take using a mid shot of a small group of inmates drinking beers in the sun as if they were, as Red put it, free men. Even though the scene is romanticised through its use of music, narration and scenery, it still portrays a real life moment in all its glory, a moment most people cherish. Another example of realism is when Tim Robbins's "Andy Dufresne" locks himself in the warden's office and plays opera over the speakers. This scene offers no relevance to the plot itself but is instead used to show what kind of a man Any Dufresne is, someone who will do anything to make life in prison feel normal for himself and his fellow inmates, no matter the consequences. 

    

Formalism

One or more aspects of formalism could inspire my work through stylistic choices and symbolical meaning taken from Russian formalism, German expressionism and  French new wave. 

"Formalism" by Katherine Thompson-Jones states that "the defining characteristic of any formalist approach is its theoretical and critical emphasis on film form" and also states its denial of the aesthetic aspect of the form as it encourages "extrinsic" criticism, thus assessing the work on its surface qualities like its social, political or psychological  themes rather than on its own terms, as art. While this does help the film maker create a film with more substance, I believe that the aesthetic qualities are just as important as it can make the film have a larger impact on society at the time of its release. An example of this would be the birth of certain sub genres in horror to play with the social anxieties of the time like the public broadcasting of the violence and atrocities of the Vietnam War and Hollywood's response with the rise of slasher films, or even to question the conventions of its own genres like the portrayal of races or lack of in westerns as shown through Tarantino's "Django Unchained".

I also agree that a film is not distinguished by it using technical features but that the features are used in a certain way for a certain purpose. This gives the scene a deeper meaning. I could act on this by experimenting with soviet montage in my work to create more visual cuts and sequences while also emphasising what is being shown. I'd most likely use a metric montage in my film as I quite like how it is used to suppress time by following a specific number of frames. This style of montage has been used in films such as Edger Wright's Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's end), all films that I feel utilise it well and excel through cinematic and visual comedy.