Storyboarding – Legally Blonde

We didn’t really have any real homework for week six, but I decided to post up a storyboard because I have done many before and wanted to put something different up on my blog. I decided to look up a movie script of a movie I haven’t seen for a while and to draw up my version of a story board for a few shots. I went to the website http://www.imsdb.com/ and picked the genre comedy, which happens to be one of my favourites. I chose the script of ‘Legally Blonde’ because I remember it being pretty funny and it would be fun for me to draw. I probably won’t draw a proper story board, so the shots won’t exactly be smooth or labelled properly, but I will make it just for the visual idea.

Film Review

We were asked to write a film review on a movie of our choice since classes were cancelled because of the Gold Coast show. I chose to write my review on the movie ‘Hostage’ because I watched it with my friends and thought it was a movie I wouldn’t normally choose to watch. I tend to go for funny movies and stay far away from action movies because they are usually too predictable, which makes them boring. But this was not the case for Hostage.

The start of the movie introduces the main character, Jeff Talley, played by Bruce Willis. You find out that he is a hostage negotiator in charge of many police officers. One of the hostage situations goes horribly wrong and he doesn’t manage to save a young boy. We are then taken to one year later, when he works as chief for a small town department.

Three teenage trouble makers break into a family’s house and demand at gun point for the keys of their car. Meanwhile a police officer visits their door and one of the boys shoots her. Talley turns up and tries to save the officer, but she dies in his arms. The situation is starting to get out of control and the other 2 boys panic and one knocks out the father, Walter Smith. A hostage situation is now definitely clear and the whole police department appears and it starts to be all over the news.

Talley manages to hear from the young boy captive in the house and gets some inside information about the house. Meanwhile, another group of people take Talley’s wife and daughter and hold them hostage because they want information on a disk in the Smith household and want Talley to get it. Talley manages to persuade the teens to give them Walter and they retrieve him from the house. The craziest of the teens, ‘Mars,’ then kills the other two just because he wanted to. He then goes after the hostage girl and boy, who manage to lock themselves in a panic room.

Talley breaks into the house to save the innocents as Mars is setting fire to the whole house. Talley and the hostages are making their way to the exit as they are confronted by one of the people who want the information disk. He shoots Talley in the hip before he even has a chance to give him the disks, which he does a moment later. Mars has finally reached them and throws one of his Molotov cocktails right at the mysterious stranger who is set on fire. Talley shoots him and then Mars approaches them from behind the burning man. You assume that he is about the throw the weapon at them, when he pulls a blank face and drops it on himself. Talley and the hostages exit safely.

Now Talley needs the help of Walter to go against the mysterious people who have taken his family and want the information only Walter has. They manage to trick the men and kill them all, saving Talley’s family.

I mentioned before that I normally find movies you would find in the action genre as boring, but this movie had a lot of drama and was unpredictable. There were so many plots going on during the story I think it would be difficult to understand the whole idea after only seeing it once. Even though it was quite confusing, I found this prevented the movie from becoming too boring and predictable. It made me realise that I could watch a movie with action as well as drama and stay interesting from start to finish.

I found all the suspense in the movie to be bearable. For example, usually all bad horror movies I watch have a lot of annoying suspense moments within the movie that drag on for too long and include annoying music. In the case of the movie Hostage, I felt there was no annoying drawn out pauses with the music growing volume. I enjoyed all the parts of the movie that would be viewed as suspenseful because they were presented in a way that wasn’t too in-your-face. I believe that most of the suspense parts in other movies ruin it if you ever decide to watch the movie again, but Hostage would be very easy to watch over again because the plot is not too obvious.

Overall I enjoyed this movie because it had a bit of action, was a bit of a thriller and also included drama that wasn’t too over the top. I felt that the main character was believable because he desperately wanted to help the innocent children inside the house, much like any police officer should want to do. So considering I would not normally sit down to watch a movie in this genre, I would have to say that Hostage was a great movie that I would recommend to others like myself.

Westworld

For week 4 this semester we were looking at storyboards and why they are used. Storyboards help movie makers to visualise what they will be shooting. This process is very important so that the director gets their ideas across to everyone so that they understand what the director wants. Actors could also use the storyboard of a guide of how they will be shot for the movie, which could help them practise their role. We learnt that you don’t have to be a professional artist to make your own storyboards, because they don’t have to be overly realistic. You can easily just draw what you think will get the right idea across.

We found out that you can use arrows to direct where the camera is going to go. This would help because then the actors will know whether the camera will be following them, or if the camera is going to move. Arrows are useful because it is hard to draw movement in images without them. You can add some directions under each frame so that it’s easier to understand what is supposed to happen during the shot.

We watched Westworld which was all about a futuristic amusement park themed in 3 different areas. The sections of the park were called medieval world, roman world and Westworld. The movie focused on the story of two men who decided to pay $1000 each day to experience ‘real’ old western life in Westworld. Everyone except the guests in Westworld were robots, and so were the animals. The operators of everything that happened were real people too. They repaired robots that were shot or had problems.

Peter and John find that they are having lots of fun in Westworld and know that nothing can hurt them. Unfortunately for them, the scientists start losing control over the robots and John is shot by the gun slinger robot. Peter understands that he is no longer safe and he has to run away or he will be killed by the robot. He uses acid to damage the gun slinger’s eye sight and manages to set him on fire and destroy him.

I found this movie fun to watch because it had a very interesting story and it included suspense and drama. I didn’t think this movie would appeal to me at first, but after I watched it I realise that I enjoyed it a lot.