Acting and Acting Styles “Finding Nemo”

Title: Find Nemo

Year: 2003

Directors:  Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich

Writers: Andrew Stanton

Cast: Albert Brooks (Marlin), Ellen DeGeneres (Dory), & Alexander Gould (Nemo)

Albert Brooks, Ellen Degeneres, and Alexander Gould are three of the main characters in the film Finding Nemo. Each of the actors are classified as specific actors. Albert Brooks is a personality actor. A personality actor is defined as, “at some level, playing themselves (or at least that is the perception). Films with strong personality actors can make it difficult for audiences to differentiate between the actor and the character.” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014) Albert Brooks can bets relate to a personality actor because he usually plays roles that consist of comedy which relates to his actual career as a comedian. Ellen DeGeneres and Alexander Gould can also relate to a personality actor. Ellen Degeneres always plays in films of comedy and usually plays a funny character which relates to her career as a comedian as well as a talk show host. Alexander Gould who was younger during the production of this film can be considered a personality actor due to the fact that his role was to play the character of young clown fish while he was also young at the time and could most likely relate to the treatment he received and the adventurous mind that his character Nemo portrayed. 

Ellen DeGeneres has always been known for her comedy. She has also played a main character in the film “Mr.Wrong” which was also a romantic comedy film. I believe that Ellen DeGeneres will always be placed in the same category. This mainly says that she sticks to the roles that she is best known for, which is her comedy.

References

Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014). Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543/

http://www.movies.disney.com

http://www.thenewsfly.com

Week 3 Blog: King Kong “Kong’s Rampage”

Title: King Kong

Year 2005

Director: Peter Jackson

Writer: Fran Walsh

Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody. etc.

The Dialogue in the scene of King Kong does not contain much dialogue. There is a lot of screaming coming from people. There are many sound effects in this film. Many of these effects are sounds of cars crashing, grunts and destruction from King Kong, and sounds from things breaking. Music is most noticed once King Kong has broken free from his restraint and his capture realizes what he has done. Sound impacts this film by providing support to the action that is taken place. Without sounds this film and this scene would not be portrayed as best as it was. King Kong is an epic monster film which consist of many action scenes. This film is most known for the action that takes place by the epic monster.

References

Youtube.com

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360717/

Week 2 Blog: Halloween (1978)

Title: Halloween

Year Released: 1978

Writer: John Carpenter / Co-writer Debra Hill

Director: John Carpenter

Cinematographer: Dean Cundley

Actors: Donald Pleasense, Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles,  & Nancy Loomis

The movie Halloween is based on the genre of horror. The horror genre is known as, “Films designed to elicit fear and shock in acathartically entertaining manner; often the next step beyond a suspense-thriller, fantasy, or science-fiction film with horror elements” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014) The lighting used in Halloween is high-key and low-key lighting. Low-key lighting is “A lighting design that looks dark overall by comparison. Low-key lighting is often used for intense dramatic scenes, horror films, mystery thrillers, and the like. While, high-key lighting is very bright light over everything with few shadow.” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014)

The lighting techniques used in the film contributed to the theme of the film greatly. The theme of the film is murder. Murder if often found to be frightening and the low-key lighting used at the right moments in the film provide a great compliment to the horror genre that this film consist of.

The horrow genre is is known to be horrifying and scary. The intent of horror films are to place fear in the viewers. The low-key lighting technique in the film makes the film more frightening because the lighting is dark which makes unexpected events more interesting.

The film would not have been best displayed if the lighting technique were to be high-key throughout the entire film. This film is best suited the way that it is with high-key lighting during day the day scenes and low-key lighting throughout out the night scenes that partake in majority of the film.

References

Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014). Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education,

http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/halloween-main-review-e1374555824931.jpg

Week 1 Blog: The Lion King

Title: The Lion King

Writer: Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts

Director: Roger Allers  and Rob Minkoff

Year: 1994

Actors: Jonathan Taylor-Thomas (Voice of Young Simba), Matthew Broderick (Voice of Adult Simba), James Earl Jones (Voice of Mufasa), Jeremy Irons (Voice of Scar), and Moira Kelly (Voice of Adult Nala)

Story: The Lion King is about a Lion cub named Simba who endures the adventurous life of the jungle. Simba is in a learning process of adulthood as he spends a day learning about life with his Lion friend Nala. Simba receives lifelong advice from his Father Mufasa who is king of the jungle. Mufasa is envied by his brother scar who has hopes of claiming the title of king for his own tyrannical purposes.

Plot: The film is starts with Simba being introduced to the animals of the jungle as a newborn cub and his forehead is marked with fruit juices as the animal of the jungle bow down to him being the future king of the jungle. Meanwhile, Mufasa’s brother scar is filled with pity and is envious of his brother and chooses not to be present during the celebration of his nephew simba. Thereafter, Simba begs his father to awake from sleeping so that he may show him around the jungle that he will eventually rule. Mufasa tells Simba that there is a balance to all life which eventually comes full circle; the Circle of Life. Mufasa explains to Simba that he is forbidden to go to a place on the horizon that is covered in shadow and only everything that touches light is their kingdom.

Simba learns from his adventurous mistakes such as an adventure he takes to a elephant graveyard with his friend Nala and the accompany of a bird named Zazu. Simba and his friends are chased down by hyenas that are known the take order from Simba’s uncle scar. Simba and friends are saved by Mufasa who then teaches Simba a lesson about his actions. The next day Scar has Simba practice his roar at a chamelion. The ground starts shaking which leads to a stampede. Scar warns Mufasa that there is a stampede and that Simba may be stuck in the middle of it. Mufasa manages to save Simba and rescues him to safety. Mufasa gets pulled by the animals in the stampede. He gets a grip on the side of a dirt hill and is pushed off into the stampede by his brother Scar. The stampede ends and Simba finds his father dead. Scar appears and tells Simba that he is the blame for his fathers loss.

Simba is chased by Scars hyenas away from the pride land, here he meets a meerkat and a warthog named Timon and Pumbaa. His new friends teach him different things about surviving. They encourage simba to go back to the pride land and face his uncle scar who has taken over the land. Simba goes back to the pride land when he is a bit older and faces his Scar who attempts to kill him just like he did his father. Simba kills his uncle scar in self defense and officially claims the throne as King of the jungle.

Chronologically: This film is presented chronologically as the events in the film follow the same order in which they occur.

This aesthetic choice contributes to the general effect on the audience as the viewers do not know what to expect next.

Foreshadowing is impacted by the choice of storytelling method because there are many examples within the film where there are signs and indications of things that may happen in the film.

Sources:

The Lion King (1994)