Special Effects – Constantine

This week in the lecture we watched the movie Constantine which is a story about a supernatural man who is also a detective. We were asked to pay close attention to the special effects and take note on them on our blogs. This is another movie I would not choose to watch at home personally. This is because it is another action/supernatural/weapsons type of movie. Anyway, while I was watching it I found that it did seem interesting because it was sort of a thriller and not too much of a horror movie. Usually I watch horror movies and tend to think all ‘thriller’ movies are just bad horror movies. This however sort of reminded me of the mood of ‘Gothika’ even though the stories are completely different. I connected the mental hospital and the eerie happenings with both of the movies and found them similar in that way.

The special effects in Constantine were more impressive than I was imagining. Because I knew nothing about the story I didn’t know that the main character goes to hell and back. I found this sequence to be very fun to watch, not because it was completely realistic, but because it depicted something I had never seen in a movie before. I also liked how some of the character’s faces would change and the weird creatures in the underworld. I found the wings to be also impressive because I assumed they were completely special effects as well. I thought this movies effects would seem just like any other movie I had seen, but they were far better. I particularly liked the effects when people became possessed and they had the creatures inside them. It really looked a lot like they were just under the skin.

Overall I think this movie used effects really well compared to many others I have seen. I think because the effects aren’t too obvious it doesn’t take away from the story. Constantine allows you to sit back and take it all in without thinking “Wow that really looks like CGI!”. I would recommend this movie to friends after seeing it and its effets.

Editing – Jarhead

This week we watched the movie ‘Jarhead’ and were supposed to pay attention to the editing choices. We already all knew that editing is supposed to be subtle, unless maybe it’s for a comedy movie like Austin Powers for example, but I wanted to notice the editing this time because I was thinking about it. I found that the story was a bit slow. This might be because I’m very impatient and I want everything to start happening straight away. The story start pretty interesting, but as soon as they were no longer in the ‘background story’ part and moved on to the ‘persent day’ it seemed a whole lot slower for me to watch. I found myself losing interest because I don’t really like any movies to do with war and weapons.

I did however try and watching out for editing. I found that it wasn’t noticable at all, apart from some words that were put on for story telling purposes. When I was actually paying attention to the movie without drifting off focus I thought the editing was pretty seamless and made the story seem more believable. If I was really bored and completely comfortable I could see myself watching the movie properly all the way through and being fully envolved in the story. I had actually seen this movie before because I have a copy at home. Perhaps I will watch it again when the holidays start to really be able to focus and watch it properly. I don’t think I gave it enough of a chance because the overall story seemed pretty interesting.

I think I would need to watch the movie again to fully absorb what’s happening and the editing that helps to tell the story. But I found that the editing was relatively invisible and that if I watched it again at home I would probably forget to look out for it because it doesn’t really jump out at me.