Evaluation for Kubrick project

For this project we studied Stanley Kubrick’s films and then made a short film based on his styles. We watched some Stanley Kubrick films including The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. We talked about the films and how they were made. We then started to create our ideas for our short films.

We had to stick to these rules: We had to use only classical music, we had to keep to Kubrick’s styles like symmetry. For my idea I decided to make a story where one part was a conductor conducting an orchestra and the other part was a murderer killing someone.

The first issue I came across was the orchestra as I couldn’t use a real one so I had to come up with some way for the audience to know whats going on without having an orchestra, so I decided to use lighting and a dark room to hide everything but the conductor. doing that also helped it looked like the conductor is on a stage. I did some test shots to try it out. I used Charlotte as my conductor for my test shots and I liked how they turned out so I decided to keep charlotte as my conductor.

     

Test shot                                                                              Final shot

For the music I decided to use Mozart – Requiem the original song was around 9 minutes long which was way too long so I edited it down to a couple of minutes. I decided that the best way to film it was to film the orchestra parts and then plan the murder parts to the actions of the conductor and the music. I wanted to use one of the editing suites as I liked how I could use the space but on the day of filming it was taken so I used the lighting room in the tv studio.

             

Room I wanted to use                                              Room I used

I first wanted to use Troy and Ryan for my murderer and victim but I decided that two taller people was probably not the best idea in such a small space so I kept Troy but changed the victim to Charlie. I think that Troy did very well but Charlie at times didn’t take it seriously which made some shots look dumb. I wanted to take a few more retakes but I couldn’t as it was too hot in the room and my actors were getting annoyed with the situation.

For the editing I started with syncing the music to my shots with the conductor and then edited back and forth with my two stories. I got over halfway and then realised that I didn’t have enough footage of the murder, so I went back to the lighting room and film a few more shots. After that I edited it quite easily. There were some shots from the murder that I didn’t like, but I didn’t have time to reshoot them.

Overall I enjoyed the project but I feel like I could’ve done better with the murder part of the story if I took more time to film.

Forms for Kubrick project

Kubrick essay

 

For my essay I’ll be writing about Stanley Kubrick’s films Full Metal Jacket and The Shining.

The first differences are the genre, Full Metal Jacket is a drama while The Shining is a horror. Both got bad reviews when they first came out but became classics, here are a couple of reviews from the time: “The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric.” (Variety 1979)  “This is a strangely shapeless film from the man whose work usually imposes a ferociously consistent vision on his material.” (Roger Ebert 1987).  One big difference is where the films are set, Full Metal Jacket starts in America and then goes to different places in Vietnam from the armies camp to a ruined city where the sniper shootout happens, whereas in The Shining it happens almost completely in the hotel. There are hardly any characters in The Shining as its crucial for the plot as isolation is key. Whereas through the Jokers story you meet very different characters who react to everything around them.

The Shining is based in the Steven King book of the same name. Stanley Kubrick read many different horror books before finding and choosing The Shining.“Kubrick’s secretary heard the sound of each book hitting the wall as the director flung it into a reject pile after reading the first few pages. Finally one day the secretary noticed it had been a while since she had heard the thud of another writer’s work biting the dust. She walked in to check on her boss and found Kubrick deeply engrossed in reading The Shining.” (Steven King) Full Metal Jacket is based on the Vietnam war it’s also loosely based on the book The Short-Timers.

The key message in Full Metal Jacket is about how the soldiers glorify violence and their place in the war. This is shown throughout the film, like in the 1st part the soldiers lay in their bed with their rifles and recite a poem about their rifles like they’re worshipping them. Later in the film Joker and Rafterman are talking about their experience with fighting and how Rafterman hasn’t seen any proper combat and how he can’t wait to kill. In The Shining the main message is about the darkness in every human and how easy it can be to succumb to your desires. This is shown in scenes like the lady in the bathroom where Jack willingly goes to the lady, and when he asks for alcohol at the bar.  So much of the film is up to interpretation that it’s hard to find many messages.

The Shining started slow when it first came out but after a while it picked up and made a profit. It made $622,337 (at the time) in it’s first weekend. Full Metal Jacket made $2,217,307 on it’s opening weekend and it kept going up and gaining popularity. In 1987 (Full Metal Jacket) popular films included The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing and Robo cop which have become pop culture icons. 1980 (The Shining)  includes  Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Friday the 13th and Cannibal Holocaust.

In The Shining symmetry and open empty spaces make most of the shots in The Shining to help show both Kubricks style and the emptiness and isolation of the whole film. For a horror film it is quite well lit as normally horror films are darker as it adds to the atmosphere, but I think the lighting adds to the film. The props are typical of a ski lodge at the time, the decorations and fashion are also very typical of the age. Some of the rooms shown in the film from the hotel are very well lit and huge but quite empty like the room where jack works on his novel.

This room has quite natural colours and has quite a nature vibe throughout. Jacks desk is put to quite a symmetrical position as hes between two pillars, he also lines up quite well with the chandeliers lined up toward him. The room makes Jack look very small and alone. The lighting seems a bit more natural in the scene as there are big windows to one side.

The corridors were almost always shown like this as it kept with Kubricks symmetry and added to the suspense of those almost always empty hallways. The lighting is quite yellow and fake looking like a typical hotel hallway.

The maze keeps the themes of the film going with the symmetry and just how big and overwhelming it is. The scene where Jack chases Danny through the maze is more typical to horror with the dark lighting and suspenseful music. The lights made only necessary things seen and made shadows and silhouettes of Jack while he chased Danny.

This is how I describe Kubrick’s cinematic signature

 

 

Symmetry is a big part of Kubricks work, he uses it in many if not all of his films. He also likes to use the one point perspective and he was one of the first directors to use the Steadicam.

 

Bibliography: Variety. 1979. Film Review: ‘The Shining’. [ONLINE] Available at: http://variety.com/1979/film/reviews/the-shining-1200424592/. [Accessed 15 March 2018].      Roger Ebert. 1987. FULL METAL JACKET. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/full-metal-jacket-1987. [Accessed 15 March 2018].     Peter Bradshaw. 2012. The Shining – review. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/01/the-shining-review. [Accessed 15 March 2018].   John Patterson. 2010. Full Metal Jacket: No 19 best action and war film of all time. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/19/full-metal-jacket-action. [Accessed 15 March 2018].   Wikipedia. 2018. The Shining (film). [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film)#Post-release_edit. [Accessed 15 March 2018].    Wikipedia. 2018. Full Metal Jacket. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket. [Accessed 15 March 2018].   Box office mojo. 2018. Stanley Kubrick. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Director&id=stanleykubrick.htm. [Accessed 18 March 2018].    IMBD. 2018. Most Popular Feature Films Released 1980-01-01 to 1980-12-31. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?title_type=feature&year=1980,1980&sort=moviemeter,asc. [Accessed 18 March 2018].    IMBD. 2018. Most Popular Feature Films Released 1987-01-01 to 1987-12-31. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?year=1987,1987&title_type=feature&explore=has. [Accessed 18 March 2018].

Test shots

6/3/18

Refection

These are some of my test shots for the conductor parts of my short film. My aim was to make it look like Charlotte is on a stage conducting an orchestra. I tried to keep Kubrick’s  line of symmetry in it, I tried to keep Charlotte’s shoulders in line with the middle line of blocks if you line it up with the rule of thirds. I liked how they turned out but for my actual filming I need to make sure the lights are the same height as otherwise it breaks the line of symmetry. One of my teachers agreed with my thoughts on the lights. I took these with a dslr camera.

Action

I need to make sure the lights are the same height to keep the symmetry.

12/3/18

For my second location I’ve decided to use an editing suite. I liked the symmetry with the windows and how I can centre someone in with the middle window. I took these with my iPhone. The issue is you can see a reflection of the camera person.

Music task 6/3/18

For this task we listened to pieces of classical music and described where it took us and what kind of scene we saw.

Song ideas for Stanley Kubrick project

Song ideas: I want a song that’s intense.

Sabre Dance – Aram Khachaturian

Mozart – Requiem

Mozart – Symphony No. 25 in G minor

Mussorgsky – Night On Bald Mountain

Maybe add some dark humour by using: Offenbach – Can Can Music

I think it will be between Sabre dance and Requiem

I like sabre dance as it has the intense feeling I need and is also quite short which means I wouldn’t have to cut it.

I like Requiem as it’s very dramatic and fits what I’d like very well but its quite long and I’ll have to cut it.

The shining opening

The film opens with arial shots of a yellow car driving through winding roads with forests and mountains. There are many shots of the camera slowly catching up with the car starting from one side and ending up with the road in the middle of the shot. It shows the landscape and one single car showing the importance of isolation in the film. The scenery starts very wooded and ends in mountains and snow. The music is foreboding and gives you a feel of what type of film you’re watching which is a horror.

There is a big sense of emptiness, as shown by the big forests lacking any civilisation and the wide shots showing the cars long journey. There is no other cars on the journey just the one single car.  The car is quite a small one which adds to the feeling of emptiness. The music is quite deep, it has some weird tones and what sounds like voices that add to the spookiness of the scene. All of this hints to the rest of the films subjects of isolation, murder and the supernatural. The credits are simple but are coloured in a bright sickly blue which takes your eyes of the background to focus on the names.

They move slowly from bottom to the top, and show only one role at a time. They’re basic but imposing like the music. All the shots were filmed by a crew on a helicopter. The camera mostly shows the top and the back of the car. You don’t see the person in the car. The scene finishes when the car arrives at it’s destination at a ski lodge in the mountains. The whole scene helps set up the atmosphere for the rest of the film.