Brain Depositary: After 5:00 P.M Slip Brains Through Slot in Door

http://nofilmschool.com/2015/02/how-films-control-your-mind

"I don't care about the subject matter; I don't care about the acting; but I do care about the pieces of film and the photography and the soundtrack and all of the technical ingredients that made the audience scream." -Alfred Hitchcock

You remember those times when you're walking through a long hotel hallway. Now keep in mind, you're in this luxurious hotel with intricate patterns on the rug. You see doors on the sides with their respected number and ever so often you may see a desk with some flowers on it or a painting. You keep walking and you just start thinking to yourself, "Am I going to see two twins at the end of the next hallway, asking me if I want to play with them forever, and ever, and ever..." No? Well, it surely has happened to me, but this just begins a discussion about the one thing that we all have, our brain. My brain immediately associated the empty hallway with The Shining. My fear and suspense is bursting through as my imagination flourishes. The brain makes us think about those movies, while when we watch them the movies themselves has a power to control you. 

Mind Control? Something from Science Fiction right? Recently, there has been studies that coined the term, "Nuerocinema". This is the study to find out which styles of cinema has maximum control over your emotions. An experiment was made in which the contestants were hooked up to an FMRI while they watch a portion of a movie. They found out that each of the contestants had the same brain signals in the same part of their brain. Their eyes watched the same part of the screen too. This scientifically proves how movies connects with us even on a neurological level. 

How do they do this? As Hitchcock said, the technical prowess that inhibits the scene of a movie is used to grab the audience's attention even without the ability of the actors or the impact of the subject matter. How the audience gets immersed into this is by the style of each filmmaker. Hitchcock uses his lighting styles and cinematographic choices with the touch of the placement and blocking of the actors and camera. Other directors use their trademark techniques like Spielberg with his subtle one shots, Scorsese with fast cuts, etc. 

This becomes our conclusion. The way the filmmaker submerges audience in his movies and his styles is the bulk of nuerocinema. This can tell us many things in the future by analyzing which style audiences are conditioned to like rather than others. Perhaps in the future, we can use our brainwaves to control the story and style of a movie. And perhaps the reason we love certain movies so much is the unpredictable surprise of a scene and style. Then again, movies are the memories of our lifetime. 

The Oscars: Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

http://www.inc.com/damian-bazadona/what-oscars-really-tell-us.html

What the Academy Awards really are: a truth filter for moviegoers. By filtering the glut of movies being marketed to us daily with billions of dollars in advertising, the Oscars give us a look at the best of the best


Ever since I watched my first Oscars when I was 7, I always feel enchanted by the atmosphere and the world that seems so far away. I went to sleep wondering and dreaming if one day I can be there. On Sunday, the 2015 Academy Awards are being held. I can tell you who I think can win, or you can read all the other articles about predicting the winners. I'm here to discuss not about the nominees, the winners, the ones that snubbed, but about the ceremony itself. Why is it important and why we still need to recognize it.

Although you can place accusations, and some are very well founded, about the lack of diversity or the other problems that the Academy have, the ceremony is still the most prestigious and biggest night in Hollywood. In my house, it's a holiday. We are excited, we place our bets, and it's like watching the finale of the World Cup. Paul Thomas Anderson said that, "it's a drag when it's turned into sport." That's very true and in retrospect that is the core of the Awards. Showcasing the best of the best with one winner taking home the coveted prize. Everybody's blood and sweat just for a seat in a theater and if your lucky a statue. Do people really care? If studies show that 43 million eyes have been watching, that's a sign that it's a very important night 

It's not an important night for just the awards though. It's important to forge the things we love in the name of story and not sport. Although, the Academy is celebrating the best of the best, it's celebrating the one thing we must stay true to as filmmakers. We need to celebrate the essence of movies. The history, the romance, the conflicts, and the stories that take place when we are watching a movie. My family doesn't just see the Awards to watch who wins, it's to celebrate the one thing that we all love and that is movies 

Is the Academy Awards still important? The answer in my ballot will be yes. We must celebrate one of the most single important inventions and ideas that mankind has produced and has changed society in more ways that it can count. Here is an idea that is given to us, here is the emotions that we get out of it, here is the excitement, here is the wonder, here is the images that fly through our eyes, and here is looking at you, kid. 

Welcome Home, Spiderman

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/details-spider-man-appear-in-sony-and-marvel-movies-1201429039/

Marvel has long wanted to put Spider-Man in its movies, but since Sony Pictures controlled the rights to the charger since 1999, the web slinger has been off limits. 


Look out! Here comes the Spider Man! Spider Man has been brought back to Marvel with Sony Pictures still having distribution and creative rights to character in any stand alone films. Marvel doesn't have to pay Sony for Spidey to appear in Captain America: Civil War, but Sony does get box office revenue for any stand alone films the character appears in. That's a great deal! Despite other significant funding with companies like 20th Century Fox, Sony and Marvel appear to work together. Two big movie companies working together, sounds something that can only happen in a movie. X-Men and The Avengers are at a total loss of crossing paths so much that they cast two different actors to play Quicksilver. However, with the new arrival of Spider Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe(MCU) things can get a little tingling. 

Spider Man is a big part of the Avengers, so it's finally time to take his place. The one thing that is worrisome is the origin story. Peter Parker, geeky high school kid that got bitten by a Spider and yadda yadda Uncle Ben gets shot yadda yadda Mary Jane/ Gwen Stacy yadda explosion, well you get the point. If Marvel wants to adapt Spider Man into their films, they have to change the origin story. Origin Stories have been introducing characters in the same old fashion. Dude gets powers, traumatic experience, evil bad guy, gets girl at the end. Although it is vital for the audience to be introduced, perhaps it can be re introduced in another fashion. The studio can go both ways with this. One, it can keep Peter Parker, but they will need to already establish the origin story. An already established origin story can go right into the action and can catch up with the long established stories of Captain America and Iron Man. The other way it can go is using a different character to be Spider Man, such as Miles Morales. An african american and latino young man that take up the mantle to be the web slinger. This introduces another origin story, but also exemplifies the diversity Marvel needs and mold the new Spider Man into a grittier, suitable character for a world that loves a scary pinocchio song. This gives a question that needs to be answered, How can you introduce a new character that has been already established? Hopefully Marvel and Sony will answer that eloquently. 

In my opinion, I don't like Spider Man as much, but if he has the ability to surprise the new world he has just came into, then he has finally caught my attention.  

Welcome to Sundance

Robert Redford on the History and Future at Sundance

http://nofilmschool.com/2015/01/sundance-2015-robert-redford-history-and-future-film

"Change is inevitable"

For the past week, The Sundance Film Festival is being held in Park City, Utah. The founder and the Sundance Kid himself was there to kick off the event, Robert Redford spoke of the history and future of film. He mentions that "Change is inevitable" and that "the festival is meant to use change to underline the word diversity". With the recent Selma snubs at the Oscars, Robert Redford took time to address the issue. With new films coming out each year from veteran filmmakers, film festivals such as this one give birth to careers and experiences for many young filmmakers. These will design the future and make change happen.

A question pops up that makes a filmmaker's career bleak, "who is going to see your movie?" With many websites offering to screen it, such as Gowatchit.com, some of these don't get distribution deals. Distribution deals is what each filmmaker hopes to achieve. This year we have great news. 85% of the films screened at Sundance has gotten distribution deals. Now, what does this mean?

Last year a number of films got award buzz. Boyhood, Whiplash, Ida, A Most Wanted Man, The Skeleton Twins, and many more. Many directors even started out in this festival. What a distribution deal eventually means is a career path that doesn't become so bleak. While it's hard to see all the films in competition, this year has seen improvement and the change that the Sundance Kid was talking about.

As said by the CEO of the website GoWatchIt.com, David Larkin, "Filmmaking is a fusion of art and fusion and each film is both a business that aspires to be a work of art and work of art that aspire to be a business." New filmmakers are coming and understanding this. Most aren't backing down and hopefully we will see a long awaited change was inevitable to happen.

A story, sun, rain, actors, and yoga: The Trials of the Sideways Music Video

It's a good time to say that this music video has been knocking me sideways. Last monday, we were assigned to create a music video. With a choice of three songs, we had to choose one and we chose Sideways by Citizen Cope. The story was about the thought of an ex girlfriend is distracting the everyday life of a boy. This sensation he gets makes him relive past memories until ultimately moving on at the end. With my group, we got to work. In pre production, we started working on the story and the different scenes throughout. With the different styles and lighting clouding the future of this story, everything became clear after a different take on it. In the words of François Truffaut about Alfred Hitchcock, simple and clear always makes the best movies. This fixed our problem, so we started writing the script. I'll be honest, I was very excited to film it. I had everything planned and the day before I was making the shot list and schedule. I thought it was going to be good and everything will go as planned. I was disillusioned.

Sunday morning started out sunny, but then the clouds came to formation. I was putting everything in the trunk when I first felt the first few drops of despair, or rain in a more literal form. I was saddened by the thought of my day ruined because of rain, which has happened to me a number of times. What makes more pissed of is the fact that it was sunny for the past two weeks and then decides to rain on the day that I choose to film, but I'm already used to that so I had to work with it. Arriving at Markham park, I was waiting for everyone already behind schedule. Then it started raining. Hard. We then changed plans and went to film other scenes. This wasn't the worst part.

On Tuesday afternoon, we went to film at Markham Park at 5:00. Barely having any time to film we filmed fast, but that wasn't gonna cut it. The sun went down and we had to use the lights of our cars to light the scene. After we went to an alleyway. We found the perfect place to film and we set up the lights. Right when we put the camera in the rig, this lady with her towel and sweat came to tell us to move because she was teaching a yoga class. We could't film the other part of our scenes that day so we moved it the next day. Next day was fine and we finished finally, but with the persistant rebellious attitude the actors.

This whole thing taught me one thing I keep being taught. Simple and clear always makes the cut. No matter what you do there's always something. Murphy's law is always imminent and we have to work with it. Filmmaking always is knocking me sideways.

The Usual Suspects: Award season Behavior

20145 Golden Globes Picks 

"For movies, there are no runway favorite," Jordan Zakarin, a writer for Yahoo! Movies, told ABC News. "I think a lot of different movies will be represented." 


In my house, the Golden Globes and The Academy Awards is practically like a holiday. My dad makes a big dinner and my brother gets my dad and me to bet who's going to win. We get very excited and watch from the Red Carpet until the very end. I cheer whenever my favorite nominees win, I'm sad when they don't, and I'm happy for those do win-for the right reason however. 

There have been many great movies this year. A lot to love about this year especially the novel and complexity of content this year has given us. There has been revolutionizing ideas with the mix of inspired and original stories. As award season is coming, there is a behavior that isn't changing. Every year the voters are looking at great movies, but have been nominating the the usual suspects: The Prestige Biopics, The tear jerker drama flicks, 180 minute long epics, and musicals. Granted, there have been different movies being nominated, but just to be there. It's very rare for a science fiction film to win or even an experimental. For Best Picture Drama, 4 out the 5 films being nominated are Biopics. There have also been other acclaimed and interesting pictures such as Unbroken, American Sniper, Wild, and Big Eyes. So why the abundance of the same type of movie being nominated? The Awards want to keep the same type so it distuinguish itself from the mainstream. There have been movies that have won from the mainstream, but why have most of them been shut out. 

This year, out of all the movies I will mention Interstellar. Say what you will, if it is the most overrated movies of the year, if it is long and confusing but it is the most ambitious, original piece of this year. The movie turned around and became a movie of humanity. Why has this movie been shut out? If the awards don't change their ways, "a lot of different movies" won't be represented. Movies are suppose to surprise and make people imagine, that is why the awards should have the same behavior.

I will say this. Interstellar was made and has been captivated audiences with it's core: Humanity. The best thing is, Christopher Nolan didn't do this for award. Jennifer Aniston in a serious role and many of those prestige pics have purposes, but possibly the best purpose is to win an award. Alfred Hitchcock said, "Create a movie not for the purpose to win an award, but to do it because it's a great story."   

2015... Do you mean we're in the future?

2015... Do you mean we're in the future? 

"Attendance hits 20 year low" 

"We caught a lot of great movies in 2014, but it seems many other people did not. Preliminary estimates indicate that just 1.26 billion cinema tickets were purchased in 2014 - which sounds like a lot until you realize it's the lowest number since 1995."

2014 had some great movies. Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy, Birman, Gone Girl, and The Theory of Everything to say the least. It did have blockbusters like Transformers and Mockingjay. What is surprising is though, that movie attendance is the lowest it has ever been since 1995. There are many reasons behind that. With the abundance of digital distribution and a known audience, 2014 barely hit the mark compared to recent years. With sequels being released, what is most interesting is that it failed to rejuvenate the same revenue from its predecessors. So what made this a failure in the box office this year? 

For starters, ticket prices are just to damn high. Many people want to go to the movie theaters, but want to see a movie not a highly renewed opera. Movies are supposed to be an escape, a pastime. This is crumbling the film industry. Prices went from $8.13 to $8.15 per ticket. With the addition of snacks, this is a whole lot of money.  So how about what they're paying there money for? 

Many movies this year, as always were either remakes, adaptions, or sequels. But what made this year different. Has the audience loose interest in these movies or is the time changing? Movies coming out this year have failed to bring in many audiences perhaps that want to see something new. 

There is still hope. 2015 is a big year however. With sequels from a legendary franchises are being released and new films underway, 2015 may possibly be the best year for movies we have seen in awhile. Now, where are the hover boards?!