5 Most Valuable Minutes- Taxi Driver

(9:58-14:58)

The 5 minutes of footage that I choose from the movie Taxi Driver was from 9:58-14:58 in part 8 of the movie. In this part of the film, Travis goes to the pimps and kills them in hopes to let Iris free from their games they play. I choose this part of the film because it really emphasizes the anti-hero. Also, we partly see how his character finally comes to action with all the preparation he has been going through. Before we believed that he was going to kill Palentine, but in the end he does it for Iris. 

In these 5 minutes, we see Travis' actions coming to life, whereas before he was just developing his preparation and we the audience became for anxious to how things were going to turn out. Through out the film, we see Travis becoming more and more aware of his surroundings and what is going on with others. This extract relates to the rest of the director's body of work by how we perceive Travis at first. In the beginning we see him as a desperate guy looking for connections with society, but as time goes on we see how he turns to violence because of how society turned on him. But in the end, we see that he was an anti-hero. Not knowingly doing good, but creating good anyways. We see that he kills the pimps in order for Iris to get freedom, but we never expected him to be in newspapers being called a "hero". 

This extract relates to the narrative and plot structure because through out the film, Travis constantly is thinking about killing Palentine and building up his skills in order to do so. In the end, he does end up killing people, but not Palentine. This extract shows the climax and falling action. This extract also helps support the fact that this film has a classical narrative structure. This means that the discrete story teller moves the story forward towards its climax and resolution around the central climax. This is true because without Travis' actions and motivations, the story wouldn't have gone to the places it went to. He doesn't get the revenger he wished for, but he gets revenge for Iris in order for her to be free and go back to her family that she ran away from. This extract relates to the narrative, because it sort of resembles an old country movie with all the shoot downs. Back in the old west movies, the cowboy movies use to always have shoot downs in the end in order for the "survival of the fittest" to be truly known. That is seen in this extract, because of the way the scene is portrayed and how in the end, Travis ends up winning. There isn't much dialogue in this scene, but there is plenty of action which helps indicate Travis' intentions from the beginning. 

In this 5 minute extract, it shows the director's intent by the camera work which was inspired by Hitchcock's The Wrong Man and Jack Hazan's A Bigger Splash. Throughout this scene, especially during the shooting scenes, the camera work is up close in the action. It helps make the audience feel apart of the action and apart of Travis' life. The camera work is constantly on the action and rarely abandons it. Through out the scene, the cutting is fast, especially during the shooting scenes. This helps raise the action and intensity in the scene. The camera work is always so up close in the action because just like Travis's curiosity and desperation to be apart of something, the director makes us instantly apart of Travis' journey. 

Lastly, the extract reveals the genre and historical connections. This movie is historically connected to old western films because of the constant references. The constant reference to guns and gun play shows a connection to modern day/old western films. I also think that his movie may have some connections to the Vietnam war because in the beginning of the movie, we find out that Travis' is a Vietnam vet in the beginning. This would also help us connect to his vast memory of guns and little projects he makes. The reference to these historical connections helps move the story because it helps show who Travis' character is and why he does what he does. 

The American Anti-Hero

What historical factors influenced the rise of the American Anti-Hero in cinema and how does this hero contradict the Classic Hollywood Ideology.


What is an Anti-Hero? Well, the article "The Rise of the American Anti-Hero: The Character that Changed the Way We Watch Movies" states that, an Anti-Hero in today's films and books will perform acts generally deemed 'heroic', but will do so with methods, or intentions that may not be heroic" (1). WWII was a big influence that changed the role of the traditional hero, and between 1945 and 1980 was the rise of the American Anti-Hero. There are four main reasons that influenced the dramatic change of the hero to the American Anti-Hero. One of the reasons was because America was looking for new types of heros in the stories. The second reason was because American's wanted their heros to rebel against "the status quo". The third reason was that American's wanted a true representation within a hero. The article states that Americans wanted a hero that was, "faulty and vulnerable, like American's real life heros" (1). Lastly, Americans wanted their heros to have a true American spirit, wether it was good or bad or ugly. 


A reason why the American Anti-Hero took off was due to the cynicism during and following World War II. Americans started, ".. relating to the hip non-hero who was not involved with in world problems but devoting his time to overcoming his personal problems" (2). The films Duel in the Sun and The Best Years of Our Lives represented that life was not beautiful after the war and there wasn't always happy endings. Garfield was the true creator and promoter of the anti-hero. He made his characters visceral and palpable individuals. He didn't care if he lost his audience in a scene or not. He thought that being true to the character was most powerful. He made his characters much more relatable to the human race which is what Americans wanted in a hero. "The anti-hero was daring the audience to relate to doing wrong or being wrong even for the wrong reasons" (2). Being able to see how someone can do wrong reflects on our own failures. This then lets us learn a lesson. 


During the Cold War in the 1950's, the characters started to embrace the duality in the nature of man. This allows a person to be both good and evil. An example of this was the movie A Place in the Sun. In this film we see that the protagonist is never obviously seen for what they are and we the audience have plenty to think about and weigh in one's head after the film. 


The Anti-hero contradicts the Classic Hollywood Ideology because the anti-hero is more realistic and has flaws whereas the normal hero is pure perfection from what we see. But as time has moved on, films have developed the anti-hero making it more relatable to society. An anti-hero creates a sense of realism through their character. We see that the classic hero does good on purpose/consciously whereas the anti-hero makes good, but sometimes without the knowledge of it. 

Blog Response- Article- Intensified Continuity

According to David Bordell, explain how and why continuity has intensified in Hollywood cinema. Also consider whether anything has been lost with this change.

Please include a minimum of 3 quotes from the article in your response.

According to David Bordell, the author of Visual Style in Contemporary American Film, continuity in Hollywood cinema has intensified. He believed that continuity had intensified because of the 4 stylistic tactics. The stylistic tactics included; rapid editing, extreme's of lens length, close framing in dialogue scenes, and a free-ranging camera. 

Touching on each stylistic tactic, the first one was the use of rapid editing. Rapid editing had increased over the years, starting in 1930 & 1960 at an ASL (average shot length) being between 300-700 shots; whereas in the 1980's it boosted up to about 1500 shots or more. The rate of the ASL would increase more and more with music videos and action movies. As time went on, the cuts were getting faster and faster. Bordell thought that, "... editing rates will soon hit a wall; it's hard to imagine a feature-length narrative movie averaging less than 1.5 seconds per shot" (2). He also touches on the fact that no film is a long action sequence as well. There must be a median. As time gradually moved on, he expressed his relates his findings to Kuleshov and Pudovkin. He says that they pointed out that, "... classical cutting contains built in redundancies: shot/reverse shots reiterate the information about character position given in the establishing shot, and so do eyelines and body orientation"(2). Here he is saying that over time Kuleshov and Pudovking both thought that many filmmakers started to drift away from realism, realizing that it became dull because of repetition. The shorter shots and when establishing shots are brief, the eyelines and angles in a film become more unclear. 

The next stylistic tactic has to do with the extreme of lens lengths. Between the 1910's and 1940's the average focal length was about 50mm (2 inches). The longer lenses ranging from 100mm to 500mm were merely used for close ups (soft-focus close ups). The shorter lenses (25-50mm) were used mainly to create a good focus in several different planes in one shot (great depth of field). Bordell talks about how, "... filmmakers used wide-angle lenses to provide expansive establishing shots, medium shots with strong foregrounds/background interplay, and grotesque close ups"(2). Here he is stating that the wide-angle lenses allowed for a wider variety of shots. Wide angles were able to distort reality by bulging edges creating a sense of exaggerating distances in a frame. Another type of lens that was used was the long lens. The long-lens allowed filmmakers to be far away from an object while still providing an advantage to shooting exterior scenes. The longer lenses helped save time with multiple camera shootings. The longer lenses allowed cameras to stay out of range of one another when shooting an interior scene. The longer lenses also helped with rack-focusing and the "wipe-by" cut.

The third technique of stylistic tactics is close framings in dialogue scenes. "Singles allowed the director to vary the scene's pace in editing and to pick the best bits of each actor's performance" (3). Medium shots and close ups were used to highlight the actors and their performance. A standard tactic used in order to get away from having to reemphasize lines or facial expressions in shots, differentiation in shot scales was considered. But over time, this became less common. Therefore, creating the over-the-shoulder medium shot for dialogue scenes. This created a narrower scale for filmmakers to work with; medium two shot to extreme close-up singles. When widescreens were introduced into the film industry, filmmakers felt obligated to use long-shots and medium shots. But then Panavision's sharper came into play allowing less distorting lenses, which allowed directors to present closer widescreen framings. 

Lastly, the fourth technique of stylistic tactics is a free-ranging camera. "Today's camera movements are ostentatious extensions of the camera mobility generalized during the 1930's" (4). The prolonged following shot was where the camera would track a character moving along a lengthy path. This technique was developed in the 1920's. New technology along the years made this technique more ubiquitous. Same goes for the crane shot, which marked a film's dramatic high point. But today's films it is a casual embellishment. Crane shots can help "enliven montage sequences and expository moments"(4). Also, the "push-ins" build continuous tension along side giving a moment of realization. A way to introduce all the people who are present in a scene is the circling shot. The circling shot would have the camera spiralling around them and may be long takes or brief shots. The free-ranging camera came into play around the 1970's where it was popularized in horror films. The free-ranging camera would give the audience a hovering, slightly shaky camera. This would give the audience a feel for the monster's point of view. 

Cinematographer Phil Meheux stated that,"It's a shame that most films rely so much on tight close-ups all the time, filling the screen with an actor's head like you might for television, when there is so much more than you can show. The style is really just a result of what producers want for video release" (5). The change and usage of different shots can help hold the viewers attention by the constantly changing of the visual display. It makes the audience focus more on the film rather then feel bored because of the lack of differentiation in shot range. 

"Arrival of a Train" & "Damsel in Distress"

In the short film, "Arrival of a Train" it's a long continuous take of a train. The long take is showing a train arriving at a train station and people getting on and off of the train. There is no editing in this short film because it's one continuous take. In this short film, the camera angle is along the railroad, but still showing the people waiting on the side for the train. The narrative is told in a simple matter. We first see a group of people waiting on the side for a train. Then the train appears from the background. People start to inch closer to the train as it approaches the station. The train keeps moving through the frame of the film until it makes a complete stop. When the train stops, people board and get off the train. The short film "Arrival of a Train" relates to Realism because we see a sequence shot of the train in the film.

In the short film, "Damsel in Distress", its a series of cuts between people and events. The camera work and editing is totally different compared to "Arrival of a Train". In "Damsel in Distress" has a various amount of different camera angles/movement. We see that in this film, there is a difference it time portrayed in the films. In this film, the editing between shots is quick as tension starts to rise. Also, in this film, the filmmakers give us different camera angles in order to help tell the story. It's not one static shot. In this film, it goes back and forth between the girl tied down on the railroad track, to the train approaching her, and to the dog chasing to get someone to help her. Being able to cut back and forth between the two help portrays what is going on in the story. For the most part, most of the shots are CUs/MS. The short film "Damsel in Distress" relates to Classicism because this film demonstrates classical  cutting and cutting to continuity. Cutting to continuity is a type of editing that tried to show the fluidity of an event without showing the whole event and condenses the actions. Classical cutting is when cuts are made for dramatic intensity and emotional emphasis. This is portrayed through the evil mad tieing down the girl to the railroad track and then us seeing the tension between the train coming and her needing help to escape.

Advanced Editing Notes- 3. Soviet Montage and 4. Realism

3. Soviet Montage and Formalism

a. What was Pudovkin's concept of constructive editing and how did it manifest itself on film?

Pudovkin's concept of constructive editing was one of his first important theoretical treaties. This theory stated that he believed every shot should make a point. He believed that through the juxtapostitions, new meanings were created. The shots didn't create the meanings. Pudovkin thought that Griffths close ups (CU's) created no meaning. He thought that the close ups were interruptive. On the other hand, Pudovkin thought that long shots were too closely related to reality whereas CU's put together created a unified meaning. It manifested itself on films because many other filmmakers were using cu's symbols, and textures in order to convey expressively the idea underlying the complex jumble of real life.

b. What was the Kuleshov effect and give me an example of how is it used in today's film's?

Lev Kuleshov was Pudoovkin's mentor and also heavily influenced Soviet film makers and the theories of Pavlov. The Kuleshov effect is similar to Pudockin's theoretical treaties. The Kuleshov effect shows that the emotion is produced not by the actor’s performance, but by the juxtapositions. Th Kuleshov effect is for the audience to create the emotional meaning. But this doesn't happen until the appropriate objects are put together by the filmmakers. Kuleshov experimented with this by involving unprofessional actors, who he proved were merely raw material. Kuleshov believed that ideas in cinema are created by linking together fragmentary details to produce a unified action (details can be unrelated in life). 

c. What was Eisensteinian Montage and how does it work in the "Odessa Step" sequence?

Eisenstein believed life was about constant change and this dialectical of contrasting opposites, because all phenomena are in a state of becoming. Eisenstein produced sharply contrasting images (collision montage). These kind of montages can be seen in the "Odessa Step". Eisenstein believed art of film was in the edit. He thought that each shot must be incomplete, contributory rather than self-contained, but not too linked. Editing for him was a mystical process. In the "Odessa Step", we see two different things going on. We see people smiling and waving at one another, but then the next moment we see people running and being killed. Eisenstein definitely shows his idea that life is constantly changing and the dialectical of contrasting opposites and putting them together. Critics of Eisenstein argued that his films lacked a sense of realism. Many critics thought that the problem with his films was that the meaning in the film too obvious for the audience. 

4. Andre Bazin and Realism

a. What were Andre Bazin's frustrations with Classical and Formalistic film making?

Bazin was not a film-maker but an editor of a French film journal "Cahiers Du Cinema". Bazin believed that editing could destroy the effectiveness of a scene. Distortions in using formalist techniques, especially thematic editing, can violate the complexities of reality. He thought that Formalists were manipulative. In comparison, Bazin believed that classical cutting was also seen as potentially corrupting. The technique encourages us to follow the shot sequence without us being conscious of its arbitrariness. 

“Without thinking, we accept his analysis because it conforms to the laws of attention, but we are deprived of a privilege” The privilege of making up your own meaning.

b. What do Realist filmmakers strive for in their work?

Realism in film is accomplished by using long shots, wide screen, lengthy takes, deep focus, panning, craning, tilting, or tracking rather than cutting to individual shots. Realist filmmakers strive for reality and what actually exists in our world. Realist filmmakers were challenged to create a heightened sense of reality. The director must reveal the poetic implications of ordinary people, events and places. Cinema is neither an objective recording nor a symbolic abstraction.

c. What techniques to realists use in their filmmaking?

Technical Innovations in the late 20’s sound, 30’s, 40’s color and deep focus photography, and 50’s wide screen, pushed the medium closer to a realistic ideal. Realists created sound made acting styles more subtle, no intrusive titles, no exaggeration, a few lines of dialogue could eliminate tedious exposition. This would create more realism in films. The deep focus was used in order to create one set up with depth, allowing no sacrifice of detail. 

Short Film Production Portfolio

A. Rationale
The film we made was a movie about cyberbullying and how these type of choices lead to unwanted outcomes by the victim. We wanted to inform people that this is a serious issue that goes on worldwide and it can't just be ignored. Because very day teens are committing suicide or hurting themselves because of what other people say. The audience we were making the film for was mainly teens because this is where the problem is the worst; amoung high school teenagers. This film is used as those teens unspoken words calling for help. Those 3 simple words "I need help" may be the hardest to say when going through this kind of stuff, but in this film we see how Selena, a high school teenager, gets the courage and help needed in order to admit those words.

B. Written Commentary
For this film, my group was just made up of two. We had to give each other 2 roles each since we didn't have other people. My partner took the roles of the director and writer. Whereas, I took the roles of the editor and cinematographer. We both came up with the film concept during the pitch stage. I came up with the idea and then the writer extended the idea and wrote up the whole script. My original idea really never changed when we had to write up our own treatments. We pretty much just added more detail to the story and what not. We had trouble coming up with a prank that was reasonable to our story line and climatic moment. After reviewing our idea with our teacher we finally came up with a prank that involved toilet paper being stuck to her butt.

There were quite a few problems/challenges that arose during the film and editing process. One of the challenges that came across that didn't have to do with my role in general was developing the climatic moment. We needed to show more development to the characters breaking point. I feel like the writing process is where we could of took another day or two to develop these kind of mistakes that we missed.

Another problem that I faced during shooting was the lighting. When I went into final cut pro to start editing, I looked at footage of when Selena is in her room and between two shots, the lighting is different. I wanted to go back and reshoot these scenes so that the lighting and the mood which be constant, but our actresses never had time to re-shoot scenes. What I ended up having to do was to use color correction on the scenes that the lighting looked orange in order for it to match the lighting in the other scenes This ended up working for the most part, but I could still see a little difference. There was 2 other continuity issues that we came across. One was something we couldn't control, which was the weather. During our outside school scenes, we had problems with continuity in weather. One day it was sunny out when we were filming and then two days later when we went to finish filming a scene it was cloudy. I realized this in the editing process. Only one shot was cloudy outside, so we decided to get our actresses together and re-shoot that scene. This scene would of literally took 5 minutes to shoot, but our actresses weren't giving us that 5 minutes to shoot it. This frustrated me a lot because we ended up having to stick with the footage we already had.


Another continuity issue we ran across was a door being closed in one scene and being open in another. The door is closed when Selena walks down her stairs to her room when she first gets home. The door "magically" opens when Tiffany comes running in to help Selena. I don't think many people realized it in the final film, but it bothered me in the editing process.

Overall I thought the film was well thought through for the most past. But evaluating it is where I see all the mistakes that could of made our film better. First off we had a couple scenes that dragged on too long and were necessary. It was mainly the travel scenes that would could of cut shorter. Also something that would of been necessary would of been too add flashbacks during the travel scenes to show how much bullying she has been through. This would of helped showed why she was making the decisions she did. This would of made the climatic moment more realistic.

I believe that our strongest point of our film was our cinematography. I made sure I captured the emotions in each scene and got a variety of different shots to help show the story. There was a lot of good close ups in our film like the mirror scene. I feel like the mirror scene and on is our best footage and editing techniques. Everything is cut good, especially when Selena throws the mirror on the ground. The match action cut used there is perfect! I also like the use of the classroom scene and how we used different camera movement in that scene. In that scene I just did a close up of the first girl mentioning the toilet paper on Selena's butt and then as the rumors kept spreading around, I walked around with the camera showing how the rumors keeping spreading around Selena since she was in the middle of it all.

















We only had one sound effect out of the whole film. The sound effect that we used was the school bell. We didn't have a recording of our actual school bell, so we had to go into the video main folder in our classroom and look for a bell. What we used in our film, was the closest thing we could find to sounding like an actual bell. For the musical side of the film, we had trouble finding a musical score that perfectly fits the movie. We ended up going into Logic Pro, which is like garage band but 1000x better. We ended  up putting together some violins and drums together. We were mainly looking for orchestral music to fit in with the emotions and actions of the film. In the very last scene where Tiffany is running to help Selena and when she gets there, there was already a score mixed together in logic called pendulum. When I heard it, I had to make sure the sound designer/director put it somewhere in our film. After reviewing it with her, we put it in the end of the film. It matched up pretty well with what was happening in the film.

For the most part we didn't have to direct our actors to act a certain way or what not. Our actresses have been apart of the drama class at our school, so they have been involved in plays and acting experiences before. We even told them to improve a little to the way they think it would sound best. In our own mistake some of the script was repetitive because we had our actresses saying something that they were already showing through their actions. This could of been an improvement by taking some dialogue out that wasn't necessary. Looking back on the film as a whole, we rarely had problems with our actresses and acting, but we did have scheduling problems here and there, but we worked around it.

Overall, I think our film was pretty good. I mean we definitely could of taken a little more time during the script part because it would of helped to notice our mistakes in the dialogue. It would of also helped to add more in order to make the climatic moment more intense. These little mistakes do count in the end, because by adding flashbacks, it would of helped developed her insecurities and why she lead herself to the decision she tried to make. In conclusion, I think the film was good and I'm proud of it.

Short Film Trailer- OFFLINE

OFFLINE SHORT FILM TRAILER

2 COLUMN STORYBOARD

Shots	Shot Description/Audio
FADE IN, FADE TO BLACK	A title on the screen fades in saying “CYBERBULLYING: acts done on the internet that are not thought through with unwanted consequences.... Also a serious issue that causes around 4,000 suicides every year”
FADE IN, FADE TO BLACK	Another title on the screen fades in saying “This is where it needs to come to a stop”.
FADE IN TO CU	(INT- CLASSROOM) Close up of a cell phone taking a picture of a girl with toilet paper on her butt. STUDENTS WHISPERING (OS).
WS	(EXT.- SCHOOL) Selena and Tiffany are talking outside about what happened in class. Orchastral music arises at a low volume in the background.
WS, FADE TO BLACK	(INT- Tiffanys room) Tiffany at home on her computer, notices a comment that Selena put on a social networking site. (This shows the climatic moment for the characters).
FADE IN TO ECU	(INT- Selena’s room) Selena is looking into a mirror as she hears voices from people talking about her eariler that day. Tension starts to build as music starts to increase. STUDENTS (O.C.)
CU	Selena’s frustration reaches a boiling point where she throws the mirror on the ground and breaks it.
ANGLE ON	The broken mirror is shown on the floor. ANGLE ON the broken mirror.
SPLIT SCREEN, FADE TO BLACK	Split screen two way shot is shown of Selena attempting to hurt herself while the other shows Tiffany racing to help Selena.
FADE IN, FADE OUT VO	Title fades into black background with VO “Time can only tell...” NARRATOR (O.C.)
FADE IN, FADE OUT	Title fades into black background. “OFFLINE” Music fades out in the background

Trailer Review- Moneyball

1. Narrative
The film Moneyball is based on a true story about the Oakland Athletics major league baseball team. This sports drama is about the Oakland A's manager Billy Beane's attempt to put together a successful baseball team on a low budget. He ends up hiring a computer-generated analysis to draft his players. The narrator of the story is Billy Beane because we see through the trailer that he is the main character. We also see that the film focuses on his side of the story and how he tries to create a winning baseball team. Time is presented in chronological order- first when the problem arises about the budget and then the managers mission to work around the budget in order to create a successful team with the resources the budget allows him to have. Th film is definitely realist because its based on a true story. These event all happened in history. This film shows the struggles of the economy that goes on and how even when money is low, you still can be successful just by using the resources around you to the best of your knowledge.

2. Cinematography

The cinematographer uses a lot of of CU's and LS's to establish the mood of the film and the setting/location. There are a lot of CU's in the film to help emphasize the main characters stress and worry about the team and wether or not what he's doing is going to work out in the end. We also see that in one scene where the manager is sitting in the stands by himself in the empty stadium, that the lighting is low and dark which helps to show his hopes fading away. I personally like this scene shown in the trailer because we see that he is sitting in the stadium alone which symbolizes that he is the only one that has hopes for the team. He stands (technically he sits in the shot) alone. Throughout the film, most of the shots were stationary; there isn't many scenes where it is handheld or shaky. Actually, thinking about it, I don't think there was any shots that looked handheld.

3. Editing

In the beginning of the trailer, there wasn't many cuts because the content of the scenes needed to be expressed but as the trailer went on, things started to slow down. Towards the end of the trailer the cuts between each shot were taking longer to transition because of the mood of the scenes being shown. The shots in the trailer are pretty straight forwards because they give you the information needed in order to grasp the whole concept of the film. The rhythm of the trailer is pretty constant throughout the whole thing. This is necessary so that the audience can react emotionally to the events that are taking place in the film. Towards the end of the trailer the cuts between each shot/scene come more together and not so drawn out because we can tell that the managers work starts to bring everything together.

4. Sound- Score and FX
There are no distorted sounds in the film because it is a realistic film (based on a true story). In the beginning of the trailer the score is up beat from the use of drums and an electric guitar/bass. This shows that their every day life keeps moving faster as the managers job may be coming to an end based on what he can do with the team. Towards the end of the trailer, the sound slows down with sounds from a violin, drum, and an electric guitar. But this time the sounds are lower and not as fast paced. This expresses the mood of the film in certain areas as tensions start to rise between the people and the faith they have in the manager. Through out the trailer, there is constant music and audio being played. There is rarely any moments of complete silence.

Run Lola Run presentation critique

I. Interpretation of the film as it related to your assigned section and use of film language.
My assigned section for the film run lola run was writing. There wasn't many film terms that I could incorporate into my presentation. I mainly focused of the point of view of the film, the narrator's rapport, and the literary adaption. I talked about how the point of view in the film was Lola's and how the director wrote this character to develop a new look on female figures in society. The narrator's rapport is when two or more characters feel like. We see this shown throughout the whole movie between Manni and Lola. Lastly, the literary adaption of the film is loose because of the story structure that the writers wrote for the film. 


II. Strengths of your presentation
Based on my powerpoint and my actual presentation, I would give it a 19. I believe that my presentation would have analysis and good use of examples from the film. This shows a good awareness of the film's genre. Also, because I knew how to use some film language terms but not a whole lot. I thought I went in depth with some of the ideas on in my presentation. My teacher talked about some of the things I could of added in order to make my presentation stronger, which is another reason why I gave my presentation a 19. Some key ideas were left out that I should of added. 


III. Challenges and Areas for Improvement
I definitely have a couple of flaws that I can improve on. For example, I have a hard time with clarifying my ideas and analysis. I've always had a hard time with expressing my ideas in a clear manner. Also expanding on ideas is another thing I need to improve on. Overall, clarity is my biggest issue that I need to improve on from here on out. 

Short Film Treatment- Offline

Log Line: A girl allows other peoples harmful words to characterize herself; therefore leading her to believing that there is only one way out of her situation, and her friend has to beat the clock in order to save her.

Two-way screen shot of two girls walking through a hall way in school. The two girls both look content with their lives. Crowded hall ways, loud voices, posters on the wall; all resembles the usual high school setting.

The two girls finally meet up outside the school and talk about their day. We see their instant connection. We also see that they are both wearing friendship necklaces showing that they are best friends.

The girls names are Selena and Tiffany. Tiffany asks Selena, "Did anything happened today and how are you holding up". Selena responded "No and I'm doing fine... just fine". Through Selena's facial expressions, there seems to be discomfort arising. On that not, Selena quickly says, "I have to go, bye"and gets on her bike and rides away without looking back.

Without any notice, Tiffany ignores the instant goodbye and heads the opposite way.

Selena rides her bike up the driveway of a two story house. As she enters the front door, no one seems to be present in the house. Selena runs upstairs and approaches a door with her name on it. Instantly we know that she lives in this house with her family.

As she enters the semi-dark room, she dashes over to her laptop and turns in on. "Come on, turn on fast you damn computer", Selena says this while anxiously waiting.

The next thing we see is the computer screen on a social networking site. Selena starts to close her eyes in hope that everything she sees will disappear.

As she keeps scrolling down, we see nasty comments being posted about her back and forth among a couple of people.

Tears start to roll down her face without hesitation. Selena's hand slowly leaves her face ,that was wiping away the tears, and covers up her left wrist. She looks down at her wrist with scars on it and then back up at the comments on the screen. Screaming at the top of her lungs, "AHHHH!!!!".

She frantically gets up and goes to the bathroom. "WHAM!" the bathroom door is slammed  shut. The tears from Selena's hopeless soul starts to continue pouring out. She looks up at the mirror, makeup is running down her face.

Broken voices start to fade in and surround her. You’re so ugly. Why are you so fat? You have no friends, you’re such an outcast. You should just kill yourself. No one will care. No one will miss you.

As the voices get louder, the faint images of the people who hate her start to float around, present in the mirror.

Selena starts to breath quickly in panic and she turns around, trying to see if they are really there, standing behind her talking to her.

She turns back toward the mirror and the voices get louder and faster and start to overlap.
Selena shuts her eyes tightly, trying to block them out but to no avail. The faces get closer to her image in the mirror and she opens her mouth to scream.

The mirror cracks in her hands and she opens her eyes to see her own reflection distorted in the different cracks of the mirror.

"The mirror is broken, it can’t be fixed. There is nothing left of it." Selena says to herself in distress. The cell phone in her back pocket rings. She takes it out and sees that Tiffany is calling. She forwards the call to voicemail.

Selena then turns off her cell phone. Tiffany keeps trying to call hoping that Selena will pick up. When Tiffany doesn't get any ringer, she knows something is up because Selena never ignores her calls.

As the tension keeps rising, Selena keeps moving towards her conclusion of ending everything and anything.

Tiffany then notices that Selena deactivated all her social networking sites besides one. And on that one, she posted "Goodbye world".

Tiffany realizes that Selena is going to commit suicide. Tiffany dials Selena's mom number; she doesn't get any answer and leaves a voice message. "I think Selena is trying to kill herself. I'm going to the house! Get help!"

Knowing that there is little time she grabs her keys and heads out the door to her car. She frantically tries to put the keys in the ignition. Once she gets it in, the car’s  battery is dead and won’t start. This gives Tiffany the only choice but to run.


A split screen is used again to show Tiffany running to help save Selena's life while Selena is gathering her last thoughts before she severs all ties.

The tension and anxiety between the two keeps rising. As Selena is literally about to finish what she thinks others wish they could do to her, Tiffany brakes through the door. "STOP!!!"

As Tiffany huffs and puffs, she recollects her breaths and explains to Selena that, "It's not worth it, let the haters hate. So what? All you need is to surround yourself with positive thoughts and people... You need to admit to getting help Selena."

Selena silently looks to down at what lies in her hands.

Momentarily she says, "Tiffany, I need help". She drops the objects, resembling her letting go of the past and hoping to move forward by getting the necessary help.