Sticks and Stones may break my bones.

I went to see Fast and Furious 6 a few weeks ago and enjoyed seeing the characters back together. In terms of story well, I mean you mainly want to see the action, fast cars, explosions and so on.. so its a pretty basic storyline. As said we want to see the action.. well most of the female audience also something else (can’t deny it ahah); however, the action is usually good when credible.. I know its fiction but its not like we don’t have the technology now to make things seem a bit more real; unfortunately some are just way over the top.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Fast and Furious films but in the last movie there was one particular seen where you’d laugh or say “what the hell” [*SPOILERS throughout the piece*]. The chase is getting even more tense, as Don tries to follow the tank on the bridge in order to save Letty.. and there Don flies out of his car right over the over side and catches her in mid air landing on a car on the opposite side of the bridge. Ok yeah, it doesn’t sound really good, that’s why you should watch it.

It did seem pretty unrealistic.. I mean nearly impossible! It is funny when you re-watch the scene. Probably an impossible stunt. I actually can’t imagine how they manage to do most of the film stunts in general and most really just show that you can fall down some stairs but still get back up, with maybe a few bruises. Just like the fighting scene in the underground metro between Letty and the female police officer.. wow they really fly down those stairs. I can’t even last much when playing with my little sister at the park LOL [clip 9]. However it is still satisfying watching the actual making of most stunts (see video).  The whole scene on the bridge with the tank is pretty amazing, the coordination, the precision you need to achieve the director’s vision.. I guess it is different acting while being in bed, sitting down or standing to begin on a moving car followed by a tank ahah.

But hey if you want a great movie effect you got to get your hands dirty... or cut, fractured and swollen. There is a good documentary on ‘film stunts’ written by William Kronick which gives an insight to the way stunts are per-se performed and guided. Its interesting to see how in various genres stunts differ in danger or effect, for example there is an introduction to comedies, westerns or how the ‘car chase scene’ has become a very recurrent stunt to pull off in certain movies.  It was actually used more due to the fact that you could come up with lots of different ways to articulate a ‘mind blowing stunt scene’ with cars. It must really be tough to be a stunt double, especially for comedies! The comedies where the character repeatedly falls or trips and even though you think “that must hurt”, at the same time you can’t help laughing; but then thinking that they are actually doing so for us (the audience), for our entertainment.. other than the fact that they do it for a living. Most of the stunt men/women interviewees admit that putting their life in danger or even just the feeling is what makes it fun, they’ve experience but know there will always be that one time when you do get hurt, some pretty bad but managing to get back on their feet and start again.

“I felt that if I wanted to make any big money that I was going to have to do something that would put my life on the line”.  -  Hal Needham

AG

Links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgoJafeKo3w  Documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DHO7rOltsI  Transporter 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JZKEN_vpzY  Fast and Furious 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afEB9k2QXlU  The making F&F 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zrr3T4WTeQ Movie clips F&F 6 – clip 9

A very handy documentary.

'The hands are a man’s outer brain'.

                                                                                             - Kant

Finally, a practical module! It’s a great opportunity to be able to produce [your own] short documentary as part of your degree; surly a bonus for a show reel/CV.  I’d been brainstorming various ideas since I first picked the module last year but when this year’s semester began, it hit... no it slapped me! I [randomly] thought about a compliment I had received a long time ago regarding my hands, so I stopped to think about hands in general. What is it that we do (everyday) that doesn’t involve the usage of our hands? Practically nothing and we tend to take them for granted. To be truly honest I initially thought that the idea wouldn’t be approved, but before the pitching I did my research. As I’ve learnt, researching is an essential part for any type of filmmaking and it will help build up a firm argument. The aim is to convince people that it’s a makeable film!

The pitching went well and I am now directing [OMG] a documentary about hands.  Once formed a group and allocated all the tasks, already done the research, it was time to look into more depth on what documentary style I was going to approach. Nichols’s 6 types/modes can be reassumed into:

1.  Poetic
2.  Expository
3. Observational
4. Participatory
5.  Reflective
6.  Performative/Interactive

I must admit that after viewing Pockets, I felt even more confident in proceeding with my idea and decided to take inspiration from its mode: poetic and performative. In some why I actually thank James Lee, the director, for the inspiration and hopefully this documentary Hands can be nearly as good.

• Against the early forms of fiction film, poetic documentaries assemble images of the world, through time and space, “by means of association and patterns”. This fragmented and impressionistic mode made people appear simply as entities.

•  Subjective experience and emotional response are key aspects of the performative/interactive documentary style. “... might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own”.

I then sat down and watched the various documentaries for each mode. These films tend to create a creative connection between music and images (Regen; Play of light: black, white, grey; N.Y, N.Y), some use narration/voice over (San Soleil; Night and Fog) and there is no or hardly any interaction with a specific subject. San Soleil begins with a quote, which foreshadows my idea of starting with two citations, while Night and Fog uses voice over; I considered deviating slightly from the main aspects and involving people [interviewees] so that the audience may share their personal experiences/thoughts. Their statements will potentially be a voice over for certain images; the aim is also to have people reflect upon this neglected body part, make us thing how throughout time society has been able to use hands as “a symbol, a tool and a weapon”.  

AG

Research Paper

http://www.oandplibrary.org/al/1955_02_004.asp

Clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-ysKv9ubXU , Pockets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPD2C0K38jY , Regen