Pan's Labyrinth

Image depticting the danger of 'Pale Man' and his tendency to eat children.

Ofelia under the tree in search of the Toad, as instructed by the Faun

Ofelia still further fixated by her book, regardless of her surroundings.

Pale man in pursuit of Ofelia, after already eating two of her fairy assistants. He horrifyingly extends his hands to enable his eyes to see his target.

Ofelia approaching the entrance of the Faun's labyrinth, implied by the emblem at the center of the arch.

Ofelia fixated with her book, often ostracized within the film's beginning for this reason.

The Pale man seated at his banquet, which is his  trap for any visitors.

Ofelia with the Faun (left) giving her tasks to fulfil before the next full moon.

Pale man in an inactive state, as Ofelia enters the room. His eyes can be seen on the plate.

Ofelia approaching the tree where the toad resides.

Pan's Labyrinth Review:

Guillermo Del Toro's perfect marriage of limitless fantasy and brutal realism was a successful combination in Pan's Labyrinth. The film starts with a young girl Ofelia of 10 years old and her pregnant mother Carmen being chaperoned to reunite with her new husband Vidal, a black-hearted captain of the Spanish army in fascist Spain during the 1940's. Within the first few minutes it is easy for the audience to establish that Vidal is not the most humane of characters, showing his clear disdain for Ofelia, his character shortly emphasized and solidified by bashing the faces in of 2 farmers protesting their innocence after being suspected for rebels. This scene is brutal and graphic, and prompts the audience to empathize with the two poor men, and immediately gives Vidal villain status within the movie.
As the film deepens we are introduced to the Faun, this fantasy being, with a deep powerful voice coaxing Ofelia into fulfilling tasks before the next full moon as to maintain her purity. She was sent to feed a toad special stones in order to gain a key, feed a mandrake that was a mirror of her mothers health, when Vidal detected the Mandrake under the bed it was subsequently thrown into a fire, with her mother consequently worsening in condition and dying during the child birth of Ofelia's baby brother. With Ofelia's mother gone it was only her and Vidal, with only a semblance of care from Mercedes, a maid in the house with rebel ties, later detected by Vidal. Ofelia was also instructed to retrieve a dagger from Pale Man's sanctuary. Pale man was a particularly disgusting being, with gaunt yellow skin, a thin body and an eyeless face, with the palm of his hands being the home to his eyeballs. The Pale man is sat at a table dormant, with an attractive looking banquet of food and fruit surrounding him. Having already been forewarned not to take anything from the banquet, Ofelia took two grapes anyway, awakening Pale Man who then devours two of her fairy assistants, in a narrow escape, Ofelia survives and is given a final test, which is to take her baby brother to the labyrinth and to shed a drop of his blood in order to open the entrance to the underworld. Ofelia flatly refuses. While there is a great deal going on in the fantasy world, in the real world there are political rumblings, and a bitter war ongoing between Vidal's men and the rebels. After encounters with them Vidal goes in for the kill, mercilessly disposing of people, even his doctor for sympathizing with the rebels. Vidal's ruthlessness proved to be his own undoing, after Ofelia steals her brother after drugging him, he pursues her, retrieves the baby and then shoots Ofelia. By this point Vidal's number is already up due to the rebels tactically moving in on his compound and Mercedes emerges with her rebel brother and a larger mob of rebels. Mercedes then takes the baby from Vidal, and Vidal is murdered before being told that his son would know nothing of his existence. As Ofelia lays bleeding to death the audience is brought to the underworld, where she is reunited with her rightful parents, the King and Queen of the underworld as it is revealed the task of drawing blood from her baby brother was actually a test of her own purity. As she lay dying, Mercedes cradles her and delivers a spine-chilling lullaby. The plots and sub-plots of fantasy tied in with the brutal uncompromising realism creates a winning balance, with the cinematography beautiful even in its brutality. Magical sounds used enforce the whimsical effects of the fantasy world, this is one of the best films I have ever watched. I am now prompted to watch a previous Del Toro work, "The Devil's Backbone".

Insidious: Chapter 2

Josh's mother attempting to awaken him from his Astral projection in a retrospective scene.

Parker Crane's mother, a twisted and evil apparition that haunts the Lambert family.

Dalton explaining to his mother that his bad dreams were back - indicative of other spirits pursuing his body as he enters "The Further" during sleep.

Josh in "The Further" - in a room full of murder victims of Parker Crane. Each spirit having their heads covered creates a sinister air of mystery, along with the blue hue of the environment and the non-diegetic sounds accompanying the scene.

After possessing Josh's body, Parker panics at the revelation that Josh's body is weakening and decomposing the longer Parker inhabits it.

In the further, Josh and Dalton travel back in time and are brought to a scene from Parker's childhood, and his evil mother whose shrieks are alarming on the ear for the audience.

Elise's friend Carl in the frightening scene where they explore the abandoned hospital where Josh's mother previously worked. Incredibly dark scenes, the group were entombed in darkness and silence.

Parkers room is creepily child-like with handmade rocking horses and old wallpaper. The floor covered in a shroud of mist creating an air of mysticism to the environment.

One of the film's more tense moments, as Parker is out to kill the Lambert family from within Josh's body. Dalton (right) is trying to avoid being found by Parker.

Specs and Tucker, the 2 assistants to Elise monitor the situation as Carl is inside the Lambert house alone with Parker. The pair carry over the undertone of comedy they brought to the first installment, they were annoyingly consistant.

 

 

Insidious 2 Review:

The Insidious sequel continues the story of the Lambert family in the aftermath of the first movies' madness. The audience is shown Josh's wife Renai in Police custody being questioned after the death of Elise. Renai protests her husbands' innocence and the audience is immediately shown that she is unaware in her husbands sudden change of actions and didn't witness the murder. The waters get muddier when Josh adamantly claims he cannot remember the events leading up to or during Elise's death. During the film the audience learns of Parker Crane, a cross-dressing serial killer who is haunting the Lambert family along with his horrifyingly evil mother who pressures Parker into killing others. The veiled 'woman' from the first installment was later revealed as Parker as the audience learns that it is Parker inhabiting Josh's body, with Josh's spirit still being in 'The Further". ' "The Further" is the name of a place where all the bodiless spirits inhabit and roam, in eternal limbo/torment and eagerly waiting for the chance to return to a human body and re-live life.  This film focuses heavily on the concept of Astral Projection, and I have previously been interested in that subject. As a result of this, I was immediately drawn in to the first film and was engrossed from start to finish. The 2nd installment answered more questions that were left with the first ending. The high strings crash the audience's eardrum in trademark insidious fashion during the opening scene, and the loud wails of the reverberated strings don't fail to grab the audiences' attention during a chilling/tense moment. - The use of diegetic sound creates realism (piano playing with no-one visibly seated) and plays on perfectly realistic examples of people that have spoken of encounters with the supernatural. I am of the personal opinion that horror films do themselves a lot more favours keeping the monster off-screen rather than on it, with the audience's imagination being a lot more horrifying than a depiction of a scary figure in my experience. The Insidious films have the balance of the off-screen monster (Moving objects, blank figures) which plays into my own personal fears, but they also have created horrifying apparitions that genuinely had my heart racing. I enjoyed this sequel, and put it on par with the first installment despite other reviews/articles.

Tate Modern : Room 3 - Arte Povera and Anti-form

My quick sketch of Giuseppe Penone's 'Tree of 12 Metres"(1980)

Long shot of exhibition room. In Shot: Giovanni Penone's 'Tree of 12 Metres" (Far Centre), Giovanni Anselmo's "Direction" (Centre) & Kishio Suga's "Ren-Shiki-Tai" (Immediate Centre)

Susumu Koshimizu's "From Surface To Surface" (made in 1971 & re-made in 1986)

Kishio Suga's "Ren-Shiki-Tai" - Angle 1 (1973 then partly re-made in 1987)

Kishio Suga's "Ren-Shiki-Tai" - Angle 2

Robert Morris's "Untitled" (1967-8 then re-made in 2008)

Giuseppe Penone's 'Tree of 12 Metres'- Angle 2

Photograph taken of Lynda Benglis's "Quartered Meteor" (1969, cast 1975)

Side angle of "Quartered Meteor"

Seung Taek Lee's "Godret Stone" (Date Unknown)

Tate Modern Room 3 Review:

Zero to Infinity is the name of the exhibition currently residing in the Tate Modern since 2001, with all the works within belonging to the Arte Povera group. The Arte Povera group is a collection of artists that create modern art and were active from 1967-1972 throughout various cities in Italy. The Arte Povera movement were mainly assembled as a result of taking radical stance against government and industry in Italy at the time. Art critic and curator Germano Celant is credited for coining the ‘Arte Povera’ term initially and the movement consisted of artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giovanni Anselmo, Giuseppe Penone, Pino Pascali and many more. Simply translated ‘Arte Povera’ means ‘poor art’ and one of their points of emphasis was to create art by using ‘poor’ /everyday materials and creating beautiful art. The exhibition is located on Level 4 of the Tate Modern in London. The theme of this exhibition is to explore the ever-changing physical states and to break the mould of the previous ideas of art, sculptures and what materials should be used and included to create fine art. The exhibition was curated by Mark Godfrey and Helen Sainsbury, and is a retrospective exhibition with the works originally made during the 60-70’s and some subsequently re-made due to some of the works naturally degrading with time. I personally did not particularly enjoy visiting this exhibition but did enjoy Giuseppe Penone’s ‘Tree of 12 metres” and marvelled at this piece, not being able to make head nor tail of how Penone achieved this piece, but modern/fine art is not my field. Overall I found this whole process quite tedious, it failed to do much for me as I didn’t see a single thing that was beneficial for me personally and my own work.

Film Project: Part 1 of 2

Basic explanation of 180 degree rule

Seb explaining basics/rules of filming.

Quick sketch explaining 180 degree and 30 degree rules for my sketchbook.

Breakdown of story elements and explanation of the importance of story.

Analysis of chase sequences, watching various movie excerpts from recommended viewing.

Segment of ideas for chase sequence within our group.

Notes from Final Cut Pro tutorial.

Brief breakdown of sounds needed and tasks necessary for production of our chase sequence

Story breakdown of our chase sequence story, with scripting drafts and shot breakdowns included.

2nd story draft, after speaking with Tom and Seb during Friday's interim crit.

First draft storyboard of our chase sequence, created by Valter.

Interim Evaluation:

For our final project during the exploratory stage we have been given the task of creating a 60 second film chase sequence. For this task we were told we could be in groups and I believed this would be beneficial as everybody could adopt a role within the group, so we can all pull our own weight and work on specific aspects of the film. I volunteered to create/edit/record the sound for our project and also have scripted the chase sequence. After some initial group brainstorming we opted to go for Valter's idea which is revolved around a teenage boy/young man receiving a phone call from his girlfriend and learning that she is pregnant. We then decided to add comedic undertone but still maintaining the seriousness and realism of such a situation by exploring a plot twist where the boy attempts to escape his responsibilities, but due to one big obstacle is unable to do so, and ultimately decides to man up and face his responsibility. Our chase is metaphorical in which the boy is running away from his own fears as well as physically running but has nobody physically pursuing him. After talking with Tom and Seb we were told we had no obstacle within our story and after further drafting have added a big obstacle that the whole group are happy with. I have enjoyed creating and ellaborating on an initial idea within my group, but have my concerns over the actual filming process. I have also agreed to be the actor within the piece which is not my strong point but I would rather get the project done than have to rely on other people to volunteer for such a role. I also have concerns over our equipment (or lack of) as Ravensbourne do not appear to have any cameras, digital recorders or lapel microphones available at this moment in time. This factor has impacted on my level of enthusiasm, as although Seb has clarified that the story element is of paramount importance rather than what recording equipment is at our disposal I will find it hard to take pride in my work if I am only filming this chase sequence using my iphone.

Berbarian Sound Studio

Opening sequence, Black and white colour scheme with heavily shadowed face looking scared. Creates sinister mood for film.

Further imagery from the opening sequence. This image looks almost Satanic.

Sound recording team with microphone set up ready to create sounds for the movie.

Watermelons used to create sounds for the movie - very interesting.

Watermelons sliced and mangled directly in front of/under the microphone - the squelching noises synthesize the texture of human flesh being lacerated.

Gilderoy (left) clearly alarmed by the nature of the film he has been brought to work on.

Shot 3 of watermelons used for recording.

Actress singing in the booth for part of film.

Gilderoy's written timeline of sound effects for film.

Gilderoy and Vincenzo overlooking the recording process. mixing desk in shot. Vital for sound editing.

Vincenzo directing the vocal actress using talkback with the microphone.

Analog equipment used within the filming and editing process (film set in the 70's)

Playback enabled.

Timeline of sounds used for movie

Gilderoy receiving letter from his mother, after reading he seems homesick.

Gilderoy using a blender in front of a microphone to create a "chainsaw" sound for movie.

Another vocal actress making faint whispers in latin, extremely sinister sounding.

Marrow dropped on the floor with microphone present, creating a 'splat' effect.

Gilderoy manipulating the actresses' song, decreasing the sustain.

Gilderoy snapping vegetable stems in front of microphone to create a snapping noise for the horror movie.

Bubbles blown through a straw with water in a cup underneath microphone for water scene in horror movie.

cabbages bobbed and ruffled underwater in front of the microphone, sounding like movement in a lake/pond etc.

Actress with another attempt at scream for film, after rehabilitating her throat she is able to deliver a blood curdling horrific scream, perfect for the film.

Actress in the booth delivering authentic screams and yelps as she is in pain due to Gilderoy notching up the levels in her headphones.

Gilderoy cranking up the levels while the actress is in the booth

Gilderoy is very cold and numb at this point of the film in comparison to how earnest and timid he was at the beginning of the project.

Berbarian Sound Studio Review:

Berbarian sound studio is mainly focused on Gilderoy, a meek, mild mannered sound engineer who arrives in Italy to work on a horror film called 'Equestrian Vortex'. The audience first gets a glimpse of Gilderoy after the tense opening sequence, with black and red themed shocking & edgy imagery, along with a harsh provocative piano based soundtrack which immediately sets the tone and sets an anxious undertone for the audience. The audience is shown Gilderoy's tasks  assigned to him throughout the film as he reluctantly gathers and creates sounds, manipulates audio to create new effects and shows off various techniques. As this is set in the 70's all of the equipment used in the audio editing process appears to be analog. As the movie progresses, Gilderoy went from an isolated Brit in a room full of Italians whose kindness is taken for weakness, to a hardened, Italian-speaking sound engineer with all reservations gone on creating a horror movie, which he initially was incredibly uncomfortable about. There are some elements of drama within the film, (with the actress telling Gilderoy how Vincenzo abused her etc.) but the audience is predominantly shown Gilderoy's life and tasks as a sound engineer with various interesting techniques unveiled, which is golden information for somebody such as myself who is interested in joining the BA Sound Design course.