12 ANGRY MEN

12 Angry Men.

I watched the 1957 Classic 12 Angry Men a few nights ago. I love watching old movies, usually ones from the 30's and 40's, but i'd have to say the 60's was the best decade for films. 12 Angry Men sits in the middle, i've known about this film for sometime, but never had the chance to watch it. I recently bought it for £2.99! bargain.

12 Angry Men was nominated for 4 Academy Awards and had a famous cast. The film is about 12 Jurors and 11 are convinced that the defendant is guilty. The 12th man has no doubt that the defendant is innocence, and he tries to turn the others conclusion.

What I really love about this movie was besides 5 minutes at the beginning and end the majority of the film is set in one room. It doesn't do anything special with it camera work or editing. The film relies on it's good script and powerful performances. Proving you don't need to have big special effects to make a entertaining film.

Speaking to my tutor she said sometime people get too involved with filters and effects and forget about the real skill of editing. Years ago we didn't have plugin effects and filters it was Film, a Razor and Tape. When I think about that I realise how lucky I am. I have equipment and software at my finger tips that film makers of the past wouldn't be able to imagine, and sometimes I still moan!

12 Angry Men is only a hour and half long, which is a perfect length. 

Magic Bullet

Magic Bullet.

I have downloaded the trail version of Magic bullet Looks, it is absolutely amazing.

Magic Bullet is user friendly, even if your not good with computer it is still easy to navigate around. There are already good presets to use, but you can create your own. 

I have been using it on last years short horror film Fallout, and the results are fantastic. The only problem is... it costs around £300, which isn't that dear when you think what your getting, but far too dear for the amount i can afford right now.

There is a Quick Looks (which is a cut down version) for £80, i've downloaded that trail as well to see the difference. And, you can't edit the presets or create your own looks. That is o.k if your not wanting to use it professionally and your only using it to make home videos, weddings, that sort of thing look better, but its not for me.

I have tried to get my head round Color, which came with FCP studio. However it is much more in depth, that isn't a bad thing, but you have to spend more time to achieve your look.

Color is more for colour correcting, as for Magic Bullet Looks is for colour style. I imagine if you combined the two you have a powerful force.

Colour Correction.

Colour Correction.

I'm not sure if get colour correction yet. I've dappled with Color software a bit, but i've explored it more in Final Cut. I download the new Wolverine trailer from itunes to have a play around.

Here are a few screen shots (below). I was reading the Color manual and it was saying you should use colour correction to recreate what you could see on set. Sometimes bright lights can make your skin look alike it has a green tint, this is where you should colour correct it back to normal skin colour.

As you can see in my efforts i have made them much more stylised, bringing the darks and whites out, and desaturating the whole image. I personally think this looks better, but would a whole film look good like this?

The only thing i can do is keep experimenting, the Color software as a load more options than Final Cut. Final Cut only has a three way colour correction, once i get my head round Color i bet there are amazing things you can do.

Originals on the left, mine on the right.

Films like Sin City, No Country for Old Men, O'brother were out thou, City of God, even Australia (there the film of top of my head) have really nice colour grades. I find these really inspiring. Sometimes colours can say more than words. 

Final Cut Studio

Final Cut Studio 2.

I've just purchased myself FCP2 and it arrived today. Took sometime to install, but i can't wait to use it. Never used Color, Motion, Soundtrack... well any of it besides Final Cut. I've been watching the introduction DVD, and i love the way Final Cut is like the port hole and the other software works within it, there is no exporting, you right hand click and send the clip or whole sequence to which ever software you desire.

Can't wait to teach myself all the ins and outs. Watching the DVD I feel good, like i can go ahead and make short films comfortably to a very high standard.

Recent movies

This year I made many new year's resolutions and i plan on keeping to them, unlike any other year. One on them was to go see more films at the cinema, at least one a week. A year or two back I had a Cineworld pass and it was great, now i'm a student I get to go pretty cheap, so I may as well take advantage.

Over January so far i've seen four films.

Most recent The Wrestler

I found out about this early last year, when i was younger i was a massive wrestling fan, and probably still am deep down... Anyway, i was well and truly excited. 

Directed By Darren Aronofsky (think thats how it's spelt) made that little more special, because he usually makes strange, dark, bleak films. After seeing early pictures of Rouke in his light green tights and dyed blonde hair, i thought "wow, he looks like a mixture of The Ultimate Warrior and The Texas Tornado, this must be anything but bleak". Then reading the plot i found it was a really nice tale of an 80's/90's (my wrestling years) wrestling superstar who has fallen down to wrestling in school gyms for next to nothing (a little like Balboa). It was filmed almost like a documentary in certain scenes, showing you him preparing for fights, getting his hair dyed, going to the sun beds for a fake tan, shopping for props. The stuff you don't see and don't expect wrestlers to do.

Mickey Rouke grapped himself a golden globe for this role and he truly deserved it, he looked, sounded and fort like a wrestler. I also think Aronofsky should get massive praise, the film looked fantastic and some of the shots in the ring were superb. Plus he was completely out of his comfort zone and proved he is more than a art house director. Although his next project is called The Fighter... he might end up pigeon holeing himself.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a great simple story, one that when you say it out loud to explain it sounds quite lame. Danny Boyle did a fantastic job to keep this film interesting, to the point were he has made a great film.

I also like the fact there no recognizable faces, it's very rare you see a film of this size and not have one major name in it.

Danny Boyle is growing as a film maker, his last film Sunshine (i hasn't a big fan of) was a much bigger budget, special effects movie, which were not use to seeing him do, but brought a new side to Boyle.We are use to his really gritty British flicks. Slumdog Millionaire is more like his previous work, but looked really beautiful. I think his filming of the slums was heavily influenced by City of Gods, the shaky cameras and the colour. The style of the film was much more Hollywood, but with his own twist on it.

There were some shots that looked remarkable and the cinematographer did a super job, i can see why they did so well at the golden globes.  There were many levels to the film, from the fast action of the slums, to the mounted tension of the Who wants to be a millionaire studio, and the whole film is built around a love story.

I've also seen Australia and The Spirit.

The Spirit is one of the worse films i've ever seen. I did even have high expectations for it, but it was still awful. The acting was bad, even from Scarlet Johannson who usually think is pretty decent at acting. Sam Jackson was appalling. I thought that even though the film will be poor it will look good... but it did even look good, nowhere near the standard my Sin City.

Australia was average, if not a but long. It ticked all the boxes for a pleasant viewing. Some of the post-war scene were really nice, even though they were obviously fake they still looked good. The drover (i think they call it, when they travel the cattle across Australia) scenes were very exciting and shot beautifully.

I have also seen a few dvds. Eden Lake, a gritty Brit flick about a couple that go away for the weekend and get terrorized by hoody, chavs. The film could have been a really good, but the bad acting and poor dialogue let it down. The idea though is very interesting and current, playing more on people's fears than actual scary moments. Eden Lake is very bleak and i'm not sure whether i liked it...

Pineapple Express, stupid comedy, but absolutely great fun. It's not the big funny moments that are suppose to make you laugh, it's quite silly comments you know the actors have made up on the spot.

There are more, but that will do for now.