Movie Scene Critique:
I chose to do this movie because, in my opinion, it is one of the most well thought out movies. Not only in it's plot but in the way that they chose to make their decisions. They make you feel the intensity and creepiness when they want to. This clip jumps right into the scene. We start by hearing soft, almost eerie, harps playing in the background. Although this sound is almost unnoticeable to the sound of Missy scraping the spoon against the tea cup, a foreshadow/give away in the movie that this a key component in her hypnosis. The first voice we hear is Missy's. Soft but serious, a close up to keep us focused on her and her intensity. It then jumps to a shot with Chris from the chest up. This is the first position we see Chris in, a foreshadow for next scenes. Although it isn't a close up Chris's face we see the struggle in his face to find the words to speak. It then jumps to a blurry shot of a child sitting on a bed, Chris. The blurriness is to show that it's a past experience in his life. It's dark and hazy, which could be a way for the director to show that it was a dark experience for Chris, or to resemble the time of night.
We hear and see the rain, again, giving it the gloomy vibe. It cuts back to Chris still struggling for words. Then to Missy for more of her questions. It then quickly cuts back to a close up shot of the tea cup to draw back the sound it's making into your head, showing it's importance. The camera then cuts back to Chris, who begins to say some words, although they come out very slow, we start to see him sinking into the hypnosis. The camera stays on Chris for while the two talk. The sound of the tea cup still ringing. The background plain to keep us from any distractions. The camera slowly begins to zoom in, drawing us closer to Chris as he begins to express more emotion. After a couple quick jumps from both the characters. It then jumps back to the tea cup, again reminding you of what's happening and why. The shots then jump back to the flashback we saw earlier, and we know its the flashback because of the lighting and rain we hear. It is a extreme close up shot of a hand with nails scarping against a chair's arm rest. immediately it jumps to a present shot of Chris repeating this movement, to show the idea of similar feelings of the frightenedness. The shots jump between Missy and Chris and the teacup, tears streaming down his face. The teacup again reminding us why he's feelings like this. We then see Chris's face frighten, he whispers the words "I can't move. After a couple more repeated shots Missy says "Now sink into the floor... Sink". We hear a sound effect that resembles what we think a "sinking" noise may sound like. The flashback young Chris that we saw sitting on the bed before, with his back towards us then sinks into his bed, as it switches to Chris now free falling into this black empty space, looking at what seems to be a T.V. The music becomes more intense, louder, deeper. We see a mix of angles. A wide shot to show us how he's slowly freefalling. It becomes a close up of his face, to see that he is screaming, although we hear no sound. The scene cuts back to the T.V. looking vision. Then we jump back to reality and a close up of Chris face and his absolutely frozen, tears still streaming down his face. Then the camera cuts to a new shot, of Missy but a full body shot, she is getting up and walking towards us, the angle give us the idea that we are looking through Chris's eyes. We get a shot of Chris in the sunken place struggling to get out. We then go to a side angle of Chris's face and we see a hand enter the screen and shut his eyes. Chris is fully hypnotized. We go back to Chris, as his eyes close the sunken place becomes darker. And the next thing we know there is a jump cut to Chris suddenly waking up in fear leaving us curious if the whole situation is real or something Chris imagined.
Documentary Review:
I watched the documentary "The Farthest" by Ever Reynolds. I watched this documentary on Netflix, just a couple days ago and it still has me thinking and amazed. It is a 2 hour documentary about the launch of two NASA space probes created to capture never before seen images of the plants in our solar system. It gets into how these plants were gonna be lined up just perfectly enough that we could sent up these probes in one track. This being a rare occasion that only happens once every 175 years, (talk about perfect timing). With the goal of capturing these planets we also were set out with the mission that if there were other living life out there, we would have a way to communicate with them and in a short record, sum up the life on earth, the Golden Record. This left us with a mission to not only to send these big twin space probes into space, but also find a way to perfectly explain our life here on earth. These space probes were the first ever human made objects to ever leave our solar system. Not only did it leave our solar system but it continues to travel farther and father carrying the Golden Record. This documentary walks us step by step through the creation, hardships, struggles, fails, excitements, disappointments, achievements of the launch of the twin space probes.
This documentary starts off with static and very distinct radio chatter, a very smart beginning to catch our attention. It then goes into shots from below, starting with a tree with a voice over. Then we see the man appear, which gives us a sense of comfort as we now are introduced to our first person. it starts with the statement "it is really true that you can only explore the solar system for the first time once, ah, Voyager did that. A great intro into the movie to tell you right off the bat what we are going to be learning and discussing. As I talked about the Golden Record before, As we are switching betweens shots, and people talking there are little noises underneath everything. This is well shot out because you get a sense of the types of noise and music and sound that are on the Golden Record that they are going to talk later about, and it works nicely as being the opening music (really intelligent). As well as the jumping between people is really smart in order. All the people are in different angles of the camera, with different backgrounds. Although all the backgrounds are non
distractive to make us really focus on the speaker and the words. All the B-Roll shots that are on top of these opening comments are all taken from ground level, moving, and most importantly looking up at the sky. When I first watched it I thought, wow very smart, they make us relate to what we are about to learn about because most everyone, no matter where in the earth we are can look up at the sky and to know there is so much more out there gets us curious. Now the clips start cutting to shots, most likely animated, but very real looking, of the voyager traveling through space. The Voyager shots keep going father and father into space, and every time it leaves the frame, we jump to another frame with a total different background and shot of space, each one different from the last. The it gives the intro title letting us know that now we are really getting into the movie, getting into business. This is when we first meet the narrator, who is gonna be our second mind leading us through this story in time, letting us know the information we need to know to continue in the story. I like the idea of the narrator because it leaves us with dates and tells us exactly where we are in time and what people are thinking and why everything is happening. The narrator asking us questions
that get us excited and that are gonna lead us into this mission. People begin to talk about how little we knew about everything out there, how they were also just a little speck in the telescope. This is a way to foreshadow and get us excited for everything we learned through this one mission. The B-Roll in this film is very smart, it is all related and moving and somethings out of focus, making it interesting to look at and keeping us entertained while we get into the start of it all. The music and sound behind these shots are all very smart, they know to play the piano or when to cut it out or fade it out. Another thing I noticed they do, is they emphasize the important information. When it takes about how rare this occasion is that the plants all align enough to send up 1 space craft, they had almost each person in the shot, jumping from one another to really emphasize and say "hey pay attention this is rare and cool and ya we did it". Not only did they make sure to have everyone saying it but they were also smart because
when they put the people in order, they put them in order by counting up so the first person says every hundred something years and the next says just over hundred and the next says one hundred and fifty years, etc. Then further into this documentary we get into the shots that we are seeing that the voyager has taken and we get quick rapid shots of the shots that everyone was seeing and how they were different or developed as they took pictures passing it. All at the same people are talking about these pictures and how everyone came to see them and the excitement everywhere. Then these shots begin to come into color and they tell us what everything means, why they all look like this.
I would highly recommend this documentary to anyone really, but especially those who don't know a lot about our solar system or really anything about the voyager. I went into this documentary and I knew very little about it all, I knew which planets we had but I didn't know much about what they looked like. I especially didn't know about the Voyager or the Golden Record, which was really cool to learn about. I also recommend it because the B-Roll is so amazing, they used real footage and gave us a sense of place, it also made us feel like we were there when It all happened. They walked us step by step through the time line of the Voyager and the Golden Record and the launch and the failures and the accomplishments. The order of all the events and when people said things was never confusing it was easy to follow and they kept you interested. Then they left you with such a sense of amazement to know that there is still so much out there unexplored and could be so much out there that we know NOTHING about, and it's really fascinating to know that someday the voyager could travel and maybe reach someone or something out there.
