Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - Review

My ticket got damaged from a rough ticket person

Today I went to see the new (and last) Pirates film. I only went to the 2D one as my Mam also wanted to see it and the only 3D one was very late at night. I still really enjoyed the 2D and was a stunning film. It was also nice to see the cinema pretty full (the £5 tickets must be doing the trick), even if the family behind us talked all the way through and thinking Will Turner is Jack Sparrow.

Anyways, the film had some really enjoyable moments. My personal favourite scene was the bank robbery when they intended to take a safe but ended up taking the whole bank. It was funny and oh how I've missed the infamous soundtrack. 

http://imgur.com/r/MovieStunts/HtY2rSP

However, most of the comedy moments were Jack falling flat on his face, which, don't get me wrong, were funny, but a bit repetitive. There were a few jokes I could appreciate such as pirates having "heavy balls", "she breeds donkeys" and also this scene, but it didn't make me laugh out loud. 

http://johnnydeppskank.tumblr.com/

There were a few moments that I disliked or just ruined it for me (apart from *that* death, no spoilers). I don't really like the new cast and were not likeable nor had particularly strong backstories. However I do like the idea of a woman of science being labelled as a witch. I couldn't really feel any sympathy towards them. I also found it annoying how dead Salazar suddenly grew hair??? And also the weird motion of it which just constantly drew my eyes to it and ignoring everything else in the scene (I do understand why it has that motion, but it was still distracting). I also couldn't understand a word he was saying with his heavy accent and I was praying someone else would repeat it or it would become clear in the plot (it did). 

https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/pirate-ghosts

People have been saying the plot was hard to follow, however I found it very easy to follow, even a bit basic. They conveniently solved the riddle very fast, etc, etc. (maybe they found it hard to follow because of Salazar's accent). 

Overall, an okay film. Better than Pirates 4. The ending was left open so I doubt it will be the last one. I also liked Will and Elizabeth's appearances. 

5/10

Minor Ideas

I know, it's probably way to early to start thinking about Minor, but I've had a few ideas I want to write down before I forget them. I also need to look carefully at the brief as I have no idea if it will fit. 

After going to the Kodak Awards last weekend (mostly gatecrashing since I missed out on this due to the different pathway system), we heard that a year previously has done the Kodak briefs for their minors. I asked Mike and Lee if this is a possibility and it looks doable. I would like to look into 16mm and cinematography as I want to be as adept in all formats as possible and would also be nice to enter the awards if they are good enough. I would probably need someone to help me with ideas (as I am not good at coming up with plots and scripts).

My other idea if the first does not get approved is how does camera framing, composition and movement effect a film? I will find a few famous film scenes and change the framing of some of them to see of they still have the same emotional impact. This idea is loosely based on the Cineflix videos on YouTube but it will be more researched and focused on cinematography. I may also put into practice what I have learnt and do different framing edits with a scene of my own.

Level 5 Links

Live Project 2: http://sarahmaherfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/level%205+live%20project%202

Visual Culture: http://sarahmaherfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/level%205+visual%20culture

Professional Studies: http://sarahmaherfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/level%205+professional%20studies

Digital Production: http://sarahmaherfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/level%205+digital%20production

The Heist - Camera B

Completely forgot to put this on my blog. I went down to The Heist filming today. After their first lot of filming went down the drain, they decided to film a short scene. I offered to help out and they said I could operate another camera so they get more filmed in a shorter amount of time. I went down shortly after dinner and they were already set up. I stood around waiting for about half an hour, then asked what I should do. I was told to set up the camera and they asked their main camera op where I should put it. Then I was told not to touch it and he would do it. I tried to argue my case and said it would save time, but they were having none of it. So I took some of their food and drink and left. What could I do? I was very annoyed at the time I wasted there, they could have told me half an hour ago that I wasn't needed or even before the shoot. I did take a few production stills for their blogs and just to say I was there.

Tag - What Have I Learnt?

Even though Tag did get a self contained scene filmed (with a few minor issues), pre production for the whole film itself failed due to a number of reasons which I will discuss in this post and will be as self-critical as possible;

1) Communication. Probably the biggest issue we had. I have no idea why, probably due to this film being our 'secondary roles', we may have lost a bit of enthusiasm for Tag. To be honest, I did, I was getting very tired of actors and locations dropping out (it's never been this bad before). 

2) Drop outs. A LOT of locations and actors dropped out or had issues (e.g. going into surgery and loosing both arms (worst continuity error ever)) The Grand Hotel take paid bookings up to the day before which resulted in a lot of cancelled shoots. So we decided to do the self contained scenes with few but reliable actors and with an easily replaceable location.

3) Indecisiveness. A lot of the time, for actors and locations, the director did not get back to me and did not like a lot of the suggestions. For Oren's apartment, there was 3 places in mind. The first dropped out, and the other two were not good enough so the director cancelled the shoot. I could have took initiative and filmed anyway, but I did not want to take over job roles. 

4) Organisation? Some people may say it failed due to poor organisation, but like I said, I had multiple backups for each location. I also have lots of paperwork on the VLE as proof of all the work I did. I am usually quite organised, but I do get stressed easily (this module was no exception). I even said I didn't want to produce ever again after Bad Luck, but I still gave it my all and ended up doing more for Tag than Circus. 

5) It was still alright on the night and we filmed! The atmosphere on set was great and it was a fun day of filming. I am glad we have still managed to finish something, and we could come back to it next year as a Final Major.

Circus - What Have I Learnt?

Cirque du Muerte has been completed in full and was a success. Even though it did do very well, I will also talk about improvements and what did go wrong.

1) Teamwork. This was very strong in this production, with the director saying she had her "dream team". We are all very organised and got on with research straight away. Me and the director work particularly well together, and coming up with similar suggestions. We has quite a few meetings to discuss shot lists and I would suggest how we could achieve them. I also suggested a few shots, sometimes on the day. My favourite shot of the Hook-A-Duck stall owner as a canted angle (on a slider) was suggested by myself on the day and looks amazing. 

2) Organisation. Even though this worked, this could have been improved. The director knew what she wanted from the actors, but not from the camera. I suggested a few shots of what the director had pictured (we seem to be good at this), but it would have been more helpful if we had finished storyboards so I could see visually what the director wanted. We also had issues with sound equipment over Easter, so communication here would have helped, and we could have avoided recording in camera.

3) Keep pushing! We were going to drop the trombone shot due to how hard and difficult it was, but we still tried, even after the clown dropped out (so we ended up doing it for about 3 shoots). The jib shot was also difficult to execute but we kept trying and did multiple takes at the end of the day until the card filled up. 

4) Continuity. We had to scrap some of my favourite shots due to continuity errors. On a big scale set, one person would be in charge of it, but we left it to the actors and the director, and said to everyone "feel free to go of script, but stick to your words and gestures for the scenes after that". It didn't go well. I'm not sure how we can avoid this in the future (since we are all busy doing our own jobs), we will just have to edit around it.

Tag - Updated List of Festivals

I have decided to update the list of possible festivals to enter Tag into due to the length and nature of the film changing. I will look at the previous ones I have listed and see if they will still accept a film that is around 5 minutes long.

East Coast Film Festival (https://filmfreeway.com/festival/EastCoastFilmFestival)

Submissions: May 31st - August 31st (free for students!)
Location: Skegness
Specifications: Films to be made in or after 2014. 
Awards: Best Short, Best Short Short, Best Trailer
Festival Date: September 9th

FrightFest (http://www.frightfest.co.uk/)

Submissions: July 1st - August 17th (£12 fee)
Location: London
Specifications: Online submission. Under 10 minutes. 
Awards: Can't find any information.
Festival Date: 24-28th August

Feel The Reel (https://filmfreeway.com/festival/FeelTheReelInternationalFilmFestival)

Submissions: May 4th - May 27th (£10 entry for students)
Location: Glasgow
Specifications: Up to 40 minutes. Made in or after 2014.
Awards: Best Student Film (free trophy), also different category and individual awards
Festival Date: May 31st


Other potential festivals:

https://filmfreeway.com/festival/TMFF (very similar to Feel the Reel, £12 entry, same deadlines)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/Sunday-shorts (London, £3 entry, May 14 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/LondonX4ComedyFilmFest-936350 (London, £5 entry, June 19 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/HellfireShortFilmFestival (Kent, £4 student entry, June 17 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/HighPeakIndependentFilmFestival (Manchester, £12 (there is a discount code on the site for 25% off), June 24 deadline)

*UPDATE* I have uploaded Tag into a few festivals but have had nothing but rejections back. 

Tag - Filming!

Today is our first/last day of filming the new self contained scene. One of the actors turned up a little late, but we were still setting up. We were going to put up wallpaper for the fake blood, but it was too distracting and you could tell it was held up by blu tac, so we just made sure it was okay with the location owners if we could use it on the wall and that it was washable. 

I posted flyers and put up posters saying to not be alarmed if you hear screams or noises. I also talked to the dentist next door and they were fine with it and enthusiastic too! I also did catering the night before, but no one seemed to eat the food (sigh, I put a lot of effort into the food, guess that just means for me to eat as leftovers). I also acted today as Rachel which was a challenge. Acting petrified is hard, but I think I did okay and the director seemed happy. The blood was super sticky and I had to leave it on my face just in case I was in shot later on. So all the paperwork is super sticky (sorry guys, but they are all scanned in on the VLE and are significantly less sticky). 

Overall the shoot today went very smoothly. We did leave quite a bit of equipment at location by accident, but we did have a lot to carry, we have picked it up since. We were also using Jack's camera to film at the start, but the battery died and we had to use mine which was a little bit similar. The look of the film may differ because of it, so it was not ideal, but we couldn't really do much else as we didn't have Jack's charger.

Circus - That's a Wrap!

We had a few reshoots to do to make the edit look smoother today (we were very lucky to get the actors back), including one of the knife thrower doing a faster throw and one of Sophie looking shocked/bewildered when the knife hits the board *no small children were hurt during the shoot, but Liam maybe scarred for life* as it looked very orange last time and we weren't sure why. Turns out it was because the gel was too strong and make it look orange on camera, so we toned it down using scrim (hopefully it wont be too much of an issue with continuity). 

We then got the Zoltar card shot and some mannequin cutaways and hands/stumps clapping. The shoot went quite well and was not stressful as we knew what we exactly we needed to help the editor out. And we are now officially wrapped filming on Circus, now I can focus on filming Tag tomorrow and doing my evaluation! 

We also had a small photoshoot with Sophie for the poster which looks terrifying, but I enjoyed doing taking the pictures for it. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Review

I treated myself this week to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2, I've been looking forward to it all week as I haven't had a day off for ages and I deserve a treat! I went to the 3D showing (even though there's only one showing a day at 8pm at Hartlepool which is weird) since James Gunn recommended the 3D version. Talking about the Hartlepool Vue, a lot has changed; there's no free postcards and no tall TV's showing trailers anymore! Anyways, rant over.

Let's start with the 3D. The best part was the new Marvel logo in 3D which was fantastic, but the film itself was also great in 3D. It was very subtle and I liked it, I hate obvious 3D effects as it distracts me from the film. However, I am unsure if the 3D is a must, as like I said, it's very subtle, I'm sure the 2D would suffice. 

http://uk.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/10/first-trailer-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2

Studying cinematography ruined this film for me as I was constantly going "ah nice wide shot, it's very open" or "ew what happened to rule of thirds". But it was a stunning film nevertheless, I tried to enjoy it as much as I could and not think this or look at the guy in front who checked the time on his phone every 10 minutes. 

This film was much darker in tone than the first one. The scale and the risk was larger and we saw lots more planets which I really enjoyed. Kurt Russell was great in the film and some awesome acting from Chris Pratt made their chemistry one of the best things about the film. I would have liked to see more father/son bonding and snarky comebacks, but the plot meant otherwise *no spoilers*. The effects with Pratt as a battery *hard to explain without spoilers* was also fantastic and my favourite effect. I did also like the hyperspace effect.

http://entertainmenttonight.tumblr.com/post/153558184372/guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-update-sean-gunn

However, having said that, my favourite scene in the whole film was the very beginning. ELO is one of my favourite bands and was the best use of soundtrack in the whole movie. I could not stop smiling throughout this scene. Baby Groot stole the show for cuteness but Drax definitely had the funniest lines (there was a lot of adult humour which was also a nice change), apparent in all the trailers. 

https://www.inverse.com/article/28901-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-baby-groot-bad-parents-james-gunn

Looking back at some of the trailers, there are a lot of missing scenes or alternative dialogue, such as when Mantis is hit and Drax says "oh no watch out" in the actual film but says "that could have hit me" in the trailer. And Nebula saying "Gardens of the Galaxy" was cut. I am very excited to see these on the DVD when it comes out. 

https://gfycat.com/gifs/search/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2-trailer

Overall, I would say this is on par with the first Guardians of the Galaxy. A huge emotional trip, with great acting, more character development and thoroughly enjoyable. I was a bit disappointed by the 5 post credits scenes (they were mostly daft with one serious one), but I do like the credits with the hidden "I am Groot"'s and the end statement "no raccoons or tree creatures were harmed during the making of this film". But the film itself was superb and I would happily watch it again.

8/10