Asian Cinema-Week 4-Hero
<Hero> is one of director Zhang Yimou’s important works which symbolized he transits from art film to commercial film successfully. As one indispensable milestone, it directly promotes the upgrading of the Chinese film industry. In today’s commercial mainstream era, <The Great Wall> opens the door to the commercial film which made by China and America together, but <Hero> opens the door to the whole world.
This film is mainly about the conversation between Qin Wang, the king of Qin dynasty and nameless who “killed” three assassins. The filmmaker uses five different colors, black, red, blue, green and white to show characters’ inner struggles and feelings.
When nameless walks into the hall, Zhang Yimou uses low tone color — black and centered symmetry composition to show Qin Wang’s majesty, solemnity and mystery, with a large vision which is one hundred steps far expresses the king’s lone. Use the conflict between them to reflect Qin Wang’s emotion that as a king but nobody could know his heart.
In the first part, the use of red is particularly excellent which reflects love, passion, enmity, desire, jealousy and blood.
In the next part, blue as the symbol of sky and sea, in the movie, it can give an expression of generosity which is well explained by the characters Sky and Snow who are willing to use their life to perform a play to increase the opportunity to kill the “tyrant”. After killing Snow, the scene changes from desert to mountains and rivers. The director uses the sudden transformation to make a “scene earthquake” to reflect the great change of characters’ inside emotion. The director also uses the strong contrast between cold which is showed through the dark hall and warm, the candle light, with a high angle to separate nameless and Qin Wang which clearly shows the different camps’ strength. With the swing of the candle light, the king realized nameless’ true purpose, assassin himself.
As a result of that, in the third part of the film, the director uses pure and immaculate white to tell the truth of the events one by one. During this part, when Nameless wants to leave the state of Zhao, Broken Sword persuades Nameless not to kill the King by telling the story of Snow and him. In this story line, the mainstream color becomes green, turquoise mountain and river and emerald green clothes. This peaceful world deeply attracts audiences’ attention. As Snow said, “there is no sword and swordsman but only a man and a woman.” The green here conveys the characters’ desire to return to nature in a sense of heavy mission, and on the other, they are tired of killing and fighting.
Asian Cinema-Week 3-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Li’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is the combination of western thinking spirit and oriental martial arts spirit and the combination of western way of expression and oriental charm, which is particularly interesting, courageous and foresighted. Before director Li, there is nobody in China can make the film fearlessly. Maybe that is the reason why I enjoy this film many times.
This movie’s fighting scenes are extremely excellent which includes fluent editing and gorgeous motion. This film does not only inherit previous martial films’ essential techniques on the action movements but also have the same theme as Taoist style’s elegance. A sequence in the bamboo forest combines bamboo’s firmness and soft and kung fu’s strength and elegance which makes an impression. From the pictures, the success of the whole film is that each dynamic shot is a very meaningful picture of China. The use of the composition of the screen elements well suits foreigners’ impression of China. For example, bamboo forest, inn, cloud-filled mountains, and the traditional ancient Chinese town all conform to the foreigners’ imagination.
There might be some audiences guessing the meaning of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Why the director Li use tiger and dragon as the name of the movie but there are no these two creatures in the film. In fact, they are the name of characters Yu Jiaolong(dragon) and Luo Xiaohu(tiger). in this movie, the main characters Li Mubai and Yu Xiulian are more like costars to make the other two roles stand out.
Instead of the surface of furious fighting, what director Li wants to expresee is people’s inside feeling and desire. No matter how large the force is, it can not resolve people’s inner struggle, which is really complicated. But director Li uses this film to express his idea gracefully and make the prospect logical which can be sorted as one of the best swordsmen films. Some sentences in the film particularly impressed me: there is crouching tiger and hiding dragon in our life which is similar to people’s inner heart. People’s relationship and emotion are full of danger which is the same counterpart in the weapon. Actually, the sentences have already been modernized or it could be treated as art but the movies’ ancient settings, shots and characters’ personalities are such appropriate to these sentences. This world is not a word can be said clearly because of not only kung fu and that ancient era but also people’s inside world.
Asian Cinema-Week 2-Om Shanti Om
Before watching Om Shanti Om, my impression of India is still staying at the exaggerated singing and dancing part. The problem is not hard to understand but too easy to guess the plot which does not have high technology production like in Hollywood films and excited plot changes like in Hong Kong movies. But after Om Shanti Om, I realized that I underestimate India Bollywood film.
This movie has the main theme which is about a man’s reborn, the gorgeous and aesthetic scenes, songs, dances and beautiful pictures. This movie does not only tell the audience about the beautiful love but also show Indian Bollywood traditional and romantic movie style to the viewers. Through the film, audience can have a rough cognition on the Bollywood film production and development status and India’s celebrities which is a good chance for the people who are not familiar with India movies to have a better understanding of Bollywood film.
After watching the movie, I am really impressed by the sequence when Shanti first appears in the film. This is the moment that Om and Shanti first time closely contact. The filmmaker uses many shooting and editing strategies to express this romantic moment. To give some examples that, firstly, the director uses point of view that uses camera to replace character’s view to emphasize the love line between Om and Shanti; next, the director uses low angle to shoot Shanti to highlight the big difference between Om and Shanti because she is a super star who is hard to contact by other normal people but Om is the normal person; the filmmaker also uses slow motion and romantic background music to show this moment in more details. Through the general view of the movie, I think the former part of the film is slightly dilatory but it paves the way of the latter part’s outburst.
There are some sentences in the film that I can not forget. “If you want something with all your heart, God will do everything he can to help you get it.” Like the plot in the movie, life will be beautiful and dream will come true that you will get everything you want with all your heart which will be a happy ending. If it is not happy, maybe because it is not the ending and the film has not been finished. Please take more patience to wait the happy ending.
Asian Cinema-Week 1-Yojimbo
Yojimbo is very similar to American Western movie which depicts a lone hero but what the difference is Yojimbo depicts a Japanese traditional hero — ronin. In this movie, the changes of composition and picture tone are quite special. The movements of long shot can show the depth of the composition, emphasizing the span of space. Because it is a Black-white movie, it also has many shooting and editing strategies such as the high contrast of the midday sun; the interior details of the dark part, but the appearance of the geisha changes the dim picture to bright; the sharp contrast makes the acrimonious indoor conversation create more tension. It can be said that the black, white and gray level scheduling of each frame is beautiful and professional which is worth to be studied and used for reference by other filmmakers.
After watching this movie, the most impressive part for me is that at the beginning of the film, the young man gets rid of the constrains of the elders, shouting:”I do not want to eat a lifetime porridge!” But at the ending of the film, the young man who is forced to stagger into the hopeless situation instinctively shouts cry but he is criticized by the ronnin that eating porridge is better than the death. I think this is like a circle. After a whole movie’s explaination, the filmmaker gives audiences some deep meaning.
The drums of the beginning are extremely horrifying which instantaneously leads audience back to the time which is full of black knife and fire. The gloomy sky and the silence of the crossroads make people silence and make the time chilling. The intermittently witty tone and eyes’ expression make people laugh but they could also make the situation suddenly silent. A classic movie is not what it wants to express but what impressive direction it wants to point to which can lead audience to reach the area that has not been experienced.
The director chooses the actors who are appropriate to the roles in the film instead of choosing some famous and high paid actors which is some nowadays directors’ method to make more money. Because he knows a good movie is not made by the high paid actor but made by the proper and earnest actors. As the result of the director’s struggle and preciseness, the movie Yojimbo could have such excellent achievements and public praises.
800 words reflection
When I first time heard the project brief 4, I was worried about it. Because I never touched the audio part. But after doing the former two projects, I knew this was another opportunity to learn a new thing that I never experienced before. Since I knew this part was about audio, I downloaded adobe audition as soon as possible. In week 9, I had a basic understanding and instruction of how to use this app. Although this is only the foundation part of adobe audition, I realized this app is so powerful and fancy just like adobe premiere. I can make the sound more beautiful and clearer through this app. What the lucky thing is that this project is a group work which means in this assessment, our group members could help each other. The identity of freshman of myself in audio does not mean we can not finish this project perfectly.
My group had the first meeting in the next day when we knew who our members were. I was very lucky that I had Ica and Breanna as my workmates. Both of them are very kind, skillful and excellent people. We talked about what our goal was and the solution that if there was a dispute, how we solve the problem. But during the whole project, we were very happy with each other and collaborated well. We met twice a week to ensure that our progress was going well. And after each meeting, we had individual works which were parts of the project. For example, we needed to think about the main idea of this project after first meeting. And after we decided what our main topic was, we did the research separately because my part was “how did stars in Chinese social media get people’s attention” and Breanna’s part was “how did stars in Western social media get people’s attention”. Only everything was in plan, our project could be in a good progress. I think we did really well in this part that everything was on schedule.
After planning everything, we started to do the things. Firstly, we decided to interview some social media famous stars to ask their opinions of how did they get attention. But after trying to contact them, most of them did not reply us except Breanna’s friend. It was understandable that famous stars were always busy and they must obey their companies’ instruction. So we changed our target from stars to their fans. We could ask their opinions about how were they attracted by the famous people which was another perspective of how famous got attention from fans.
However, after doing the research, we knew that some people buy followers on social media. For example, in the last month, Weibo has detected that some people using illegal ways to obtain a large number of followers such as Kuaishou and Baozoudamanhua these accounts. After detecting these accounts, Weibo managers decided to have some punishments that they deactivated some accounts who made a seriously bad influence on Weibo otherwise they banned some accounts for a certain time. Through Breanna’s and my research, we realized that actually both Chinese and Western famous stars on social media buy followers which was one similarity between them.
Our structure is introduction to news to social media in China to social media in Western countries and finally is conclusion. Ica has found some news as transition which was really helpful in the project. And I have interviewed two of my friends who are Chinese living in Melbourne about their opinions of how they thought Chinese social media. Breanna has interviewed her friend who was a famous person on Facebook.
After every part being ready, what we needed to do is editing these materials. At beginning, we decided that our project should be funny so we faced the problem that how we combined these boring materials into one interesting audio. After the discussion, Breanna has came up with an idea that we could add some sound effects in the audio such as we can use the sound of applause and hand claps when we introduced our interviewer. Meanwhile, because we compared the difference between China and Western countries especially Australia, I chose one Chinese representative song as Chinese part’s background music and same as Breanna.
When we finish these parts, what we left was conclusion. To record conclusion together, we went to Breanna’s work place JOY 94.9. In the conclusion part, we recorded it both in English and mandarin to make the audio more interesting.
After this project, I think my benefits could be sorted into three parts. Firstly, because I need to do a lot of research and express my idea precisely, it improved my English a lot. Secondly, I made two new friends Ica and Breanna. The last one is that I learn much on editing skills.
Week 12 Initial Thinking
Week 12 is our last week in this semester. Our project is almost done except the ending editing. We went to Breanna’s work place JOY 94.9 which is a broadcast studio. This place has many advanced facilities that we can use for PB4. We record our conclusion here by using the devices. It is a really great place. I think this is a job that I can choose in the future. After doing this project, I fell in love with editing audios which is interesting. When I hear the final cut we got, I think every second of time we spent on the project is worthy.
And I want to say thank you to Ica and Breanna. They helped me a lot in improving both editing skills and English skills. Breanna as a professional audio editor taught us some tips and knowledge on how to edit audios which are really helpful to the project even to the work in the future. Also, I wish I can do well in media in the next semester.
Week 11 Initial Thinking
In this week, I have done the research about the social media in China.
Social media’s current situation, feature and future in China
History, Four stages:
1.Early social network – BBS era
2.Relaxation entertainment social network era
3.Micro information social network era
4.Vertical social network application era
Current situation:
1). Dominated social media: Tencent QQ, Sina Weibo, Wechat…
2). Social media users analysis:
1.Users distribution: IM(instant messaging) > Social website > Weibo
2.Users leave
3.Users structure: Social website: older ages; low income; lower education, Weibo: younger ages; high income; high education, Wechat: older ages; high income; high education
3). Special firewall national conditions in mainland of China
4). Develop quickly
Future:
1.Move from PC to mobile
2.Move from big platform to vertical social network
3.Anonymity social media and burn after reading rise
http://media.people.com.cn/n/2015/0104/c392136-26319669-5.html
Week 10 Initial Thinking
When I am doing the research on our topic “how do famous stars on social media get people’s attention”, I found a very interesting Chinese girl who named Papi who is really famous in Weibo. She got more than 23 million followers in Weibo. This is a huge number that I can never imagine. She always posts some meaningful and funny videos. For example, in this week, she put a video which is about she criticizes the people who has discrimination on female on Weibo. She believes that females can do almost everything that men can do. People should not discriminate women just because of their gender. Although this is a criticism, she can use some very interesting words to make viewers not awkward and her this kind of behaviors always can attract new fans. This is really helpful for my PB4. Because it provides one answer of the question “how do stars on social media get people’s attention”.
Week 9 Initial thinking
In this week, as the last project requires us to edit a 7 to 8 minutes long audio, I first time touched adobe audition which is a very fancy and efficient application. In some ways, it is very similar to adobe premiere. The most important function of it is editing audios. Before I use this app, I think editing audio is just cutting and combining different sounds. But when I have a basic understanding of how to use this app, I realize it is much more than cutting and combining sounds. It can edit the audio in almost every aspect you can imagine. Also, I know that what I know about this app is just some basic instructions. I still have a long way to be professional on this app. But when I can use adobe premiere and adobe audition proficiently, I think these apps will bring a lot of fancy things. Meanwhile, I can use this as a skill to find a job.