Ed Ulbrich: How Benjamin Button Got His Face

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Creating Suspense and more

Steven Spielberg was twenty-two in 1971 when he directed Duel. David Gilmour wrote: Like reading the first pages of a great novel, you sense you're in the presence of an enormous, incautious talent.  It hasn't learned to second-guess itself, to be too smart. Speilberg told an intervewer that he tried to rewatch Duel every two or three years in order to "remember how I did it." Here are the clips from this 75-minute film. Watch one or part of the clip and then choose one sequences in which you will analyze how tension is achieved using cinematic techniques. Indicate the Clip number, the timing and 5 cinematic techniques (types of shots) that are used and then describe in your own words how this achieved suspense.

Clip 1 (4:44)   Clip 2 (6:24)   Clip 3 (5:10)   Clip 4( 6:05)   Clip 5 (5:05)  
Clip 6 (4:59)   Clip 7 (5:26)   Clip 8 (6:21)   Clip 9 (6:55)   Clip 10 (6:31)

For those of you who are not afraid to watch the shower scene in Psycho, how does Alfred Hitchcock let the imagination do the heavy lifting?
 The Shower Scene 

FYI: Dirty Harry: Did he fire six shots or only five?  Magnum Force

FYI: Reread the description of the final scene of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) on pp. 159-160 and then watch the scene. Click here.  

How to Judge Film Editing, Sound Editing and Production Design

The following clips were made for the 2010 Academy Awards. Click on the links and watch the videos. Answer the questions on your hand-out for each one. (Note: each video is preceded by a short advertisement).

How to Judge the Best Editing Oscar (7:05) Bonnie Koehler
What decisions did the film editors make for these nominated films?

1. The Hurt Locker 
2. Avatar 
3. District Nine
4. Precious
5. Inglourious Basterds

How to Judge the Best Sound Editing Oscar (5:25) What is sound design?
Explain the challenges and innovations for each of these films:

1. Avatar: What was the big challenge for this film? What is sound design?
2. The Hurt Locker: Describe two interesting characteristics of sound in this film.  
3. Inglourious Basterds: Explain why the sound is "more accessible."
4. Star Trek: What are the characteristics of this sound recording
5. Up: How are animated films different from other films and in what way do they provide a kind of release for the sound editing team?

How to Judge the Best Art Direction (6:08)  Jim Bissell: Production Design
Bissell outlines these three important elements in selecting the award for best production designer

1. designer who consistently produces excellent work eventually get an acknowledgment
2. historical, science fiction, fantasy films and musicals all highlight the designer's roles  
3. it helps to have spectacular work from the other crafts: great costumes, feature designs and visual effects.

What are some of the characteristics mentioned for these films?

1. Nine
2. Doctor Parnassus
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. The Young Victoria
5. Avatar

Chapters 1-3

Watch this clip called Film Editing Basics and Theory  and then use your list of film terminology to answer the questions below on the clips from 400 Blows and Basic Instinct, the first two films of The Film Club.

 Here is the trailer and the final scene of François Truffaut's 1959 film 'The 400 Blows' (Les quatre cents coups). According to Gilmour, Truffaut was "a high-school dropout, a draft dodger, and a small time thief, but he adored movies and spent his childhood sneaking into the cinema houses that were all over post-war Paris in those days."

Why did Gilmour choose this as the first film he showed his son? Do you think this was a good choice? How would you interpret the boy's expression at the end of the film?





Gilmour says that he chose "Basic Instinct" for dessert. Watch this clip and find at least five techniques that were used in this film that make it so compelling. Use what you learned from the first clip on film editing and refer to your list of film terminology in your response.

Finally, here is the remastered trailer of "A Hard Day's Night"


And here is the scene David Gilmour liked so much when The Beatles burst out of the door singing Can't Buy Me Love.  David and Jesse responded very differently to this film. After watching these clips, how would you account for such different opinions?




If you need to see more to answer this question, here are the first 10 minutes of the film. Watch as much as you need to in order to answer the question:

The Film Club

Meet David Gilmour April 8 at Cinema du Parc   Admission Info

Here are two interviews with David Gilmour and his son Jesse, explaining the genesis of "The Film Club"





Now watch these clips from a speech by Sir Ken Robinson entitled "Do Schools Destroy Creativity" After watching these three videos, reflect on your own experience as a student. What has worked? What didn't work? Why?



In small groups, reflect on these quotations about education:

1. Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
                —Socrates (470 BC-399 BC)

2. A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.
                --Anonymous

3. The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.
               --Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

4. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
               –Mark Twain (1835-1910)

5. Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
               –Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

6. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
               –Will Durant (1885-1981)