Film Review- Splice 2009

 Spice is a Scfi horror movie directed by Vincenzo Natali with a twist. It starts of

you normal horror movie and the last 20 minutes of the film takes a twist that you never saw coming. 
 Splice is that kind of film that is bad but is so good at the same time that you have to watch it. For me this is what made this film so good because it had you attention and got you wanting to know what’s going to happen in then end. “It tells a story that you’d think has been done to death, but approaches it from a new and surprising angle.” Right from the beginning this film has got you hooked with its dramatic opening credits. The sounds effects and imagery gets you anticipation going and you start to build this suspension of what this film had got in store for you.

 Clive Nikolai and Elsa Cast are just a plain scientist couple who are on the break of genetic engineering. Their latest creation are Fred and Ginger a pair of living blobs from which proteins can be used to create medications for diseases. They were spliced together from a number of different animals DNA. There employers want to move onto the next step but Clive and Elsa want to move up to the next level which is introducing human DNA into the project. The scientists go ahead with the experiment and create this living creature that Elsa become attached to and names Dren. Dren matures in a fully matured human/creature and this is when the film takes a dramatic twist and gets the thinking what could happen next and what does happen you wouldn’t believe. “Splice suffers its biggest downfall with the script. Written by Natali himself it’s actually pretty solid up until the final third of the film.”

 "Overall, though, Splice is a creepy, well-acted and memorable film – one that couldn't have been luckier to come out at a time when breakthroughs in genetic engineering and the creation of synthetic life are making news seemingly every week."Splice questions the boundaries of what could happen in the future by questioning science and technology. Splice was realise at the rite time where genetic engineering is in the news and this film kind of gives I glimpse of what science and technology can produce.

“Splice is as much of a cautionary tale about people having kids before they're ready as it is a time-worn tale of scientists playing God.” Like the film The Fly 1986 we watch Clive and Elsa are playing god at it comes with serious consequences which you see at the end of the film.

 They go against all that they now is morally wrong so that they no that it could be done. But they don’t see coming is the way that Elsa becomes attached to Dren and she starts to treat you like her daughter. Though out the film we see why Elsa is like she is because of the way that she was treated by her mother in her childhood and the need of wanting a child of her own. It soon becomes clear to them both that they can not understand or even control the human/creature that they brought into the world. When the reality is that they have to kill Dren we still see Elsa motherly instincts as she decided weather to kill her. This ends up with Elsa losing everything that she loved in that one quick second because of their actions.

 Splice was totally different to the other films that we have watched that’s because of the fantastic imagery and the year it was made. But it does have the same meanings and metaphors for instance playing god, consequences of actions, thinking they have done nothing wrong and much more similarities with the other films. Even thought the end of the film was a bit wired all in all this was a good film about morality and genetic hybrid engineering.

Film Review- The Elephant Man

“I am not an Animal, I am a Man!”

The Elephant man is a beautiful heartwarming film based on a true story of Joseph Merrick who was the real elephant man. Director by David Lynch in 1980 the film looks at the life of Merrick and how he was treated.

Merrick was a 19th-century Englishman who was a victim of an extreme form of neurofibromatosis a disfiguring disease which causes tumors to grow within the layer of skin disfiguring his head and back. Merrick was trapped for years a part of a travelling freak show as the elephant man. Until he was discovered by Dr. Fredrick Treves who is able to free him form a never ending life of misery by admitting him into hospital. Merrick is a major find for Treves, although at first he does not realise just how important he really is then Merrick begins to communicate. Within time, it's all too clear that he's intelligent, sensitive, and above all only too aware of the life of shame that he had to endure for years.

“He was disfigured on the outside, beautiful on the inside.” Lynch made this film so well that you have actually feel admiration for Merrick at the end of the film. The way that he went thought it all loneliness, misery but he found he was through it and become a courageous man standing up to society.  Lynch made it so that you look at the inner beauty of Merrick because at the end of the day he was still a man.

For a film in 1980 lynch decided that this film would be filmed in black and white which made it so different to other films and adds to the story. “The black and white adds to the story in a way that touches the audience much deeper and much more personal.” The scene where Dr.Treves meets Merrick for the first time best displays this with the uses of dark and lighting for a dramatic effect.  We do not see Merrick until a little way into the film and but you do know that something is going to happen because of the use of gloomy music and the dark and light lighting.

“The Elephant Man uses some of the devices of the horror film, including ominous music, sudden cuts that shock, and hints of dark things to come, but it's a very benign horror film, one in which "the creature" is the pursued instead of the pursuer.” This wasn’t like all the rest of the film that we have watched they have been about the transformation itself form human to creature and the way that they are the pursuer. Were as the Elephant man is about how people react to the transformation and the way that he is being pursed instead of the one doing the pursuing. This film portrays this so well it looks at the feelings and emotional of the one being pursed.

This was such an emotional film that tugs at your heart strings when you watch it and I'm glad I was able to.

Film Review- The Company Of Wolves 1984

Neil Jordan’s 1984 film the company of wolves was a reinterpretation of the much loved children’s fairy tale Little Red Riding. For a film that was only 95 minutes long there is so much that Neil Jordon has included from the hidden messages to the symbolism within the film. For me this was such a great film to watch because it was so surreal and this was what made this film so much more than your normal horror movie.

Set in modern time the film takes place within the dreams of a young girl named Rosaleen. Rosaleen dreams that she lives in a fairytale forest in the middle ages that is just outside her window with her parents and her sister. But these dreams slow starts to turn into a nightmare about wolves and werewolves. Rosaleen spends a lot of her time with her grandmother tells her many strange and disturbing tales of what is out there in the forest. “Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man who eyebrows meet in the middle.”

 On the way to her grandmothers she strays from the path and encounters an attractive huntsman whose eyebrows meet. He challenges that he can find his way to her grandmother's house before she can but even after all the warnings her grandmother has told her she does not listen and decides to accept. The hunter arrives at Rosaleen's grandmother's house first, where he reveals his true nature and eats her as what happens in the fairy tale. Rosaleen arrives and discovers that the many she met is actually what her grandmother warned her about. She shoots the huntsman but instead of dying he transforms into his wolf shape. Rosaleen takes pity on the wounded beast by sits down and petting the wolf kindly and tenderly. Rosaleen herself has become a wolf she and the huntsman escape to the forest, joined by a growing pack. It is strongly suggested that the couple have chosen each other as mates.

The best thing about this film is that you actually fell like you are in a dream world because everything that happens within this film wouldn’t make sense in the real world but does in this dream world. This was because Neil Jordan made them so skilfully that they actually pull you into the dreams and you feel like you there. “Unlike other films that employ dreams, the company of wolves actually feels like a dream”. The dreams in this film take up most of it but they are full of symbolism and hiding meanings. The dreams themselves are like she is losing her innocence throughout them and embracing and understanding adulthood.

”The symbolism gets pretty heavy handed in all this, and it’s more deftly handled in Angela Carter’s original prose works, but it’s still pretty compelling stuff.”

The symbolism throughout this film suggest leaving childhood behind and embracing adulthood can be scary it can also be enjoyable. The first thing that we see in Rosaleen dreams is her sister running though the forest which is filled with life like version of her childhood toys I her bedroom. “Childhood playthings are one of the symbols of greatest significance in The Company of Wolves”. The attacking playthings in the woods that were attacking her sister I think represent the suggestion of hanging hold onto her childhood and being forced into adulthood.

Thought out the film Rosaleen is always been warned about never straying from the path and wolves that look like men but are hairy on the inside. Both of these things can be metaphors for several things within adulthood. The path itself can be a symbol of virginity because her mother and grandmother tell her never stay from the path to keep her from being tempted by what’s in the forest. Neil Jordan used wolves in this film to represent just about everything from male lust, lost innocence, pain men can inflict upon a women and the power women have on men. The scene that best shows this is when Rosaleen is sitting there with the wolf and he does nothing but listen to her voice.

For me the best scene was when Rosaleen becomes a wolf herself and escapes into the forest with the huntsman. Because even though she has allowed herself to be turned in a wolf it kind of represents the shedding of her childhood and finally become a woman.

This film was enjoyable to watch because it had everything from bizarre imagery to symbolism, hidden messages and it was based on a classic tale.

More Photoshop

So i listen to Phil's advice about my hybrid and decided to draw my face as accurately as i could and then gradually added the different parts of the iguana face onto mine. I was Hoping that  this would help my hybrid actually look a bit like me from and not what i have at the moment a human sized iguana.

                                                       

                                                         Image 1

Image 2                                                                       Image 3

With the first image i just decided to change the shape of my skull into the shape of the iguanas skull. I think that you can kind of see what my animal is as well as still seeing me in the image. With the second image i decided to just add the spikes that run up the back of the iguana to the image before just to see what it looked like. 

  

 Image 4                                                                          Image 5

With the next to images i found that it was starting not to look human enough when i added the mouth and skin of the iguana. So with the next attempts i decided to go back to image 2 and kind of start again and to try and make it more human.

                           

Image 6                                                                     Image 7                         

     

 I really like the final outcome of these images because you can see what my animal is and you can see that there are parts of human anatomy in there as well. With image 7 i decided to add colour to see what it would look like with colour and i really like this image out of all of them. I am really glad that i did it this way because i could see the transformation is front off when i was doing this. So now that i have got an idea of what i want the face of my hybrid to look like i can combined it with the rest of my hybrid that i have got and go from there.

Photoshop

For some reason i am having trouble drawing on the graphic tablet so for a little bit today i decided to do some practice drawings of random things to help me improve. So i started off drawing my hand i had a bit of trouble but with some help from Simon i was able to produce something that i like.

So for the next step i decided to try something harder so i decided to draw my animal. I didn't find this as hard and  i am quite impressed with the outcome.

So hopefully this will help me when i  improve on my hybrid idea that i have already got. 

Life Drawing Lesson 4

This life drawing lesson i learnt how to use proportion to make my drawing accurate. As you can see form this first task which lasted 30 minutes the proportion is off because the legs are shorter than they should be. This was because i run out of paper when it come to drawing the legs.

With the second task i made sure that the proportion was accurate before i started to draw you can tell the difference between the two drawings.

The next two tasks were quick studies the first lasting 5 minutes and and the lasted by three 1 minute sketches.

 

Maya- Lighting Tutorials

These tasks aloud me to understand that there are many different was you can light your work in maya and the different effects each type of light has on your work. So here where the final outcome for each tasks.

1 Point Lighting - Front

1 Point Lighting - Rear

2 Point Lighting

3 Point Lighting

I think that this task was one i enjoyed making because you can see the different effects that each of the different types of lights i  used have on the same piece of work.

Stylistic Lighting

Early Morning Lighting 

 Midday Lighting

 Night Time Lighting

 Horror Lighting

 Scfi Lighting

 Fire Cast Lighting