Video #1: Make the Bed

The first video for this assignment that I will be reflecting on is my “Make the Bed” exercise. I found this work to be quite simple, but due to our current situation with our studying, its nessacery for us to in some ways take a step back in order to improvise and do what we can from home. A short clip of one organising their bed and arranging it (moving pillows, adjusting sheets) is very simple, and be very basic. Originally there wouldn’t be much creative control here, so I believed that as the director, it’s my job to push this to the limit and make it stand out, try and turn it into at least something that could be considered engaging.
The first idea for a shot that came to mind was where I would push the quilt towards the camera and it pivot over the lens, immediately cutting to black. This was what I personally considered the most important shot in the sequence, as I knew it would be the one most remembered. What I didn’t know at the time was that most classmates were also thinking exactly alike and replicate the exact same shot for their sequence. When I had completed the video, I had a browse of others work and noticed the exact same shot in many of them, so this took away a lot of the fun and originality.

Fortunately, my bedroom has recently been renovated and has countless posters and furniture inside. I’m glad this was the case because it made the shooting space so much more fun to work in, there were several interesting angles I could get that had other objects in the shot, and I think this just added to making the shots look cool, giving the viewer a reason to go back and notice certain things laying around that might be of interest to them. The sequence itself is very simple, but I shot and edited in a way that it would be quick but engaging, and I wanted it to appear satisfying. Therefore, I decided to include clips of myself moving the pillows, and then ending it with a shot of me diving backwards on it. That shot was essentially the finishing touch, it just puts a small button on the end and gives me a chance to wrap it up nicely.

The editing was clearly the easiest part of the process, as there wasn’t much required, most just assembling and then cutting. Even for such a small video I still like to put as much effort in as I can, and so the final cut is exactly how I want it to appear with no later thoughts or possible improvements. There is no need for a video with this activity to be dragged on, I had the intention of making it short and sharp, but also something that will be nice to look at, and the way I assembled the shots and chose the cutting time was for the purpose of making it look satisfying for the viewer. Usually I would put the finishing touches on but doing some colour grading, but for this one particularly I chose to leave it. I toyed with how the footage would look with some adjustments, but I came to the conclusion that I liked the raw appearance better, and the background and setting suited it more, because a bedroom shouldn’t always looked too glossy, unless it was for a horror film where it would have “cool colours” like blue or look shady.

Video #2: What’s in the Box?

What’s in the Box was a project that allowed us to literally think “outside the box” with how we can follow our current lockdown in isolation situation, but still manage to produce films from our home, and work with each other. Obviously, our resources and efforts are limited, but we still can try and make things and take advantage of our technology that’s in our homes. I think its good that we have the ability to still communicate with each other and collaborate from our homes, and while I am disappointed there is so much we are prevented from doing, it is still nice to be able to get something made and say that we have been attempting new things.

Personally I see this film not as a test of how great of a film we can make, but a test of how we can still work together despite not being together like a real film shoot and working with what we have under certain conditions. Obviously, this film could have turned out a lot better, but I guess that isn’t what it is about. Several complications came with putting it together, particularly the fact that Lili and I had to film individually and make our shots appear as if they were in the same place. For instance, her walls are white and mine are brown, so continuity is out the window in some ways. Aside from this, we realize how important it is to communicate clearly so that we could easily get our shots and they could still work together. We both looked at where each other would be shooting and planned out our shots carefully so we had that trust we knew what were doing.

Our biggest obstacles were finding the right places in our homes to film, and remembering the positions each of us were standing, so that our eyelines would match. This turned out to be more complicated then we thought and wasn’t as easy to execute.
Because Lili was playing Sharon and had more dialogue, we decided to get her shots done first, and I would then review them and shoot my scenes based off hers, sort of like sliding them in between and clipping the branches. I didn’t find the filming too hard, as it was all done off my phone and felt very basic, I guess I just kept telling myself that this was a learning curve considering the circumstances.

When it came to editing, I didn’t have too many problems assembling the piece, and it was only 30 seconds long. I noticed however that our audio tracks didn’t match, there was a weird vibrating noise in my clips and then Lili’s footage did not contain this or any atmos. To make the footage feel more related I copied a snippet of my atmos audio and added it to all the clips, so it was easier to feel like they were all made from the same person and place.
Overall, I am happy with the final result, and prouder of the fact that we had the ability to execute a script and film a piece despite not working in our usual environment with all our equipment. I think a back to basics feel was kind of cool and let us explore our skills in other ways that we aren’t generally used too. I wouldn’t want to do it again but its about working with what we have and showing that under stress we can still work accordingly.

Avengers: Endgame – The Final Battle (Scene Deconstruction)
The scene that I have chosen to analyse is the final battle in Avengers: Endgame (also known as the battle of the universe). The reason for picking this scene in particular is a personal one, as it means a lot to me as a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its 10 years of storytelling, as well as a filmmaker, which I have looked in-depth too and researched on numerous occasions on how it all came together and what’s the directors input is. The film is a narrative conclusion to 22 films and its fitting that the finale is so large, featuring dozens of characters as they confront Thanos and his alien army consisting of multiple villain groups from prior movies all rolled into one. I personally would call it the biggest comic book movie moment of all time, and more climatic than any other blockbuster battle I have seen before.

The scene starts roughly as Hulk uses the Infinity Gauntlet (a collection of known MacGuffins from the series) to bring the dead half of life and the human population back to life. As soon as this happens, Thanos (the films main antagonist) launches a full scale assault on the characters headquarters and they find themselves escaping the wreckage slowly and making their way onto the battlefield, made up on the ruins, to fight him. What I like about how this part plays out particularly is that the moment comes that the audience has waited a whole year, for all the characters to be resurrected, but the film then throws a giant curveball and pulls the focus to the characters escaping a collapsing building and taking care of what’s in front of them. The thought of “where are the fallen?” is forgotten about and tossed to the back of the viewers mind, it’s a very intense scene and you’re focusing on the there and now. That’s why when the dead do eventually arrive, arguably out of nowhere, its more special, because the audience isn’t expecting it and takes them by surprise, it’s a very sudden and instant move.

Any fight or battle sequence in a film can be generic, or tend to be repetitive, especially in superhero films. That’s why this one particularly plays to a different rhythm that the audience is used too, most things about it are different, specifically the format. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo want to make something that is climatic, but also something the fans would want and haven’t seen before. At first it is the original three Avengers – Iron Man, Captain America and Thor fighting Thanos, who basically beats them all, as he is all to powerful for them and its clear they cannot defeat him singlehandedly. When Iron Man is thrown to the floor and Thanos’ hands are wrapped around Thor’s neck, but his hammer begins levitating off the floor, but its clear that its not him. Suddenly it swings away from his direction and the camera follows it, leading to a huge moment where its revealed Captain America can lift it, proving once and for all that he is worthy. This is one of the films biggest crowd pleasing moments, it’s a spectacular moment, and it’s clear that composer Alan Silvestri and the directors knew this would be the case, and worked around it in terms of the films audio, so that when the crowd would cheer and scream (like I did at the premiere and the other 300 people In IMAX), they wouldn’t miss any dialogue, its as if they left a gap for the loud audience to make noise. This is such a huge moment for not only the film but the character, and it had been hinted he would capable of doing this a few films back, and the fact that he is able to do such a thing is a huge step in terms of character development because it shows that he is the person he is meant to be, he is a soldier who is willing to sacrifice himself for others and fight whatever battle gets thrown at him. The hammer realizes this and sees the pureness and the good heart in him, and that’s why he can lift it. Thor lays on the ground and says the line “I knew it”, and its as if he is speaking for the audience, acknowledging our excitement.

A few moments later it is only Captain America still standing, alone. Thanos wounds him and throws him across the empty battlefield as his reinforcements begin to arrive behind him and start exiting the ships. The film cuts to an epic wide shot of Cap standing solo on the battlefield against Thanos and his gigantic hordes of soldiers, and all hope seems lost. (This would be my favourite shot in the whole film, it just shows how brave and courageous Cap is willing to be and that he will never give up, even if he is willing to fight an army of thousands alone and probably die doing it).

Suddenly, with a medium close up of Cap’s face, an orange portal spawns in the blurry background behind him. As he turns around, more portals begin to appear, and the audience sees the return of every character that was killed by Thanos in Infinity War. This was the most emotional moment of the whole film, and it felt very meta in a lot of the ways. The audience had eagerly waited a whole year for this very moment to happen, although they weren’t aware that it would pan out this way, but it’s as if the directors were completely aware of how they felt and know it was hard, but this is the reward for having patience and saying that there would be redemption for the tragedy that occurred in the last film. One by one each character appears on the battlefield, walking out of a portal from where they had died, and eventually, the entire roster of characters stands together for the first time ever. The scene is designed to be seen through Caps perspective, it starts off with only three characters appearing, but it keeps building The film cuts to another wide shot showing both sides lining up facing each other, it’s clear that Thanos who was originally cocky about winning, is beginning to have doubts and knows that it is going to be a pretty fair fight.

The directors carefully ensure what character appears at what certain time, and where they are coming from, this is mostly because of acknowledging established character connections. For example, Captain America was yet to meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, so his reaction isn’t seen when they appear. However, Cap and Spider-Man had already formed a connection in an earlier film, so when he appears, the film deliberately cuts to an extreme close of up Caps face, where he appears so happy, relieved, that he is holding back tears. Character connections is what the audience is keying in on, with such a large roster, they are always remembering who knows who and who worked well with who, and its what they want to be reminded of. Each character gets their hero shot, created in the style of old Hollywood style where characters would step into the shot, giving the audience a chance to scream “he’s back!”, the audience will see a character for around 5 seconds and then move onto the next one that appears, its like a gift that keeps giving.

While this is such a powerful and rewarding scene, not to mention the gigantic scale that it plays on, with over 50 characters appearing together for what will the biggest battle in film history, the element that I think contributes to probably 50% of the emotional weight, is the score, composed by Alan Silvestri. Silvestri’s “Portals” track approaches the scene as a celebratory moment, sounding upbeat, kind of like saying “look what’s happening, their all coming back!”. The theme is similar to the Avengers theme, but its modified and adjusted to go along with the same beats the scene has, it starts off slow as one character appear, but as they begin piling up it becomes more grand, the orchestra is heard more. It builds up further and further before it stops completely as Cap finally says the iconic line “Avengers….assemble”, before continuing with full steam but coming back to the original Avengers theme as they begin charging forward, about to meet Thanos’ army in the middle.

This is the moment that should have happened nearly twenty minutes ago now, but it has a more powerful effect on the viewer because it occurred when they least expected it, happening so suddenly and catching them off guard. Had it happened earlier when Hulk had used the gauntlet, there would have been no surprise and it would’ve had less momentum, timing is everything and when you know an audience is going to expect something, its good to use this to your advantage and do something unexpected, stay one step ahead of them. Avengers Endgame as well as Infinity War are two halfs of the cinematic event of a lifetime, and it is this scene that captures how big the film is and exactly the feeling the audience has been hoping to get before and as their watching the film, its reaching the top of the scale and going as high and mighty as the film can go. I admire this scene so much, as a fan and as someone who wants to make films, I cant imagine the time and work that went into putting it together, with the stunts, special effects, motion capture and the amount of IMAX cameras used in different shots. Its also worth noting that its the first film to be shot entirely with IMAX Alexa cameras, a brand new model recently introduced. Seeing this play out on the big IMAX screen on opening day, I don’t think I will ever get that same experience ever again, truly a once in a lifetime experience

Color Grading

For this clip, I made four grades that I thought portrayed it in different formats, therefore setting different moods, so if this were an actual scene, the color would determine the sort of action or mood that is occurring.

1 – I felt like this would look like something in a Stephen Soderbergh movie, it just suits his style of playing out a scene, usually using warm colors, feeling calm, and where little but crucial action plays out on screen.

2- The “flashback” filter, the brightness along with the blue indicates that the scene is not taking place in the present and has already happened. From what I have seen on TV and in movies when a flashback scene is taking place, various edits to the clips color are made to emphasize that it is not taking place in the current time and separates it from the present scenes. I altered the brightness enough to still see what is going on but also indicate that it could be flashback.

3 – I tried to make the clip appear “edgy”, so to do this I put an emphasis on red to try portray a certain mood through the colors, I think adding saturation indicates violence or rough in a scene, also possibly fast paced. I didn’t want to add too much of it so i created a sort of balance between the image in the color, so the red kind of exists in the background while not taking too much away from the actual picture, but it is still clearly seen at the same time.