Thirteenth Post- From One Second to the Next

 

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Four stories are revealed in Werner Herzog’s From One Second to the Next short documentary. The first story involves a child named Xavier, nicknamed “X” and “X-Man” by his family. X-Man was in his sister’s, Aurie, hand as the pair were crossing the road at a stop sign. X was very active in his youth and loved football. His mom always wanted to cheer him on in sports. Now, she will never get the chance. X is paralyzed and has no legs, as his wheelchair serves as his legs. He has partial use of his right hand, is on life-support, and his mom spends most nights on the couch listening to her son’s ventilator (Herzog). Her son cannot simply go play in the yard without his suction machine, ventilator, etc. Aurie and X were walking across the street as a lady who was texting and driving ran a stop sign at a four-way stop and hit X. The camera visited the scene of the incident as Aurie explained the driver ran the stop sign due to texting and was speeding in a school zone.

The second story is titled “A Letter from Martin” and involves a man named Chandler Gerber- who has a wife and a kid. He explained how running his van into an Omish family on a horse while texting and driving felt “like a dream” (Herzog). The camera returns to the scene of the accident and recounts the last text message he sent: “I love you.” A police officer described the scene and details how three people were killed. The officer responded to the call and explained how the accident occurred. Chandler overtook the Omish bug and hit it from behind, as all Chandler could think about was “What have I done?.” Bodies ended up in ditches and the horse was wounded. The officer showed pictures of Gerber’s vehicle and the chaos of the crime scene (Herzog). The youngest child in the family killed was lying face down in the ditch and looked asleep but had injuries to his face and broken legs. Chandler got a letter from the father of the children killed in the accident. The writer hoped for good health and cheer for Chandler and said his family tries to make the best they can of the situation. The father wished the best for Chandler and his young child and said God is always present for him and his family. Chandler wishes he could have waited to text until he was done driving and didn’t realize texting and driving is so dangerous until after the crash.

“Our Sister Debbie” is the third story and is about a woman who lost her balance, arm mobility, ability to see well, and is unable to leave her front yard without assistance from others. She can’t see, can’t remember anything, and is now dependent on her family and friends. She used to work 60 hours a week and loved traveling and working. Debbie was going to take her dog out before bed and was going to get the mail while she was struck by a teenage girl texting and driving. Carried on the hood of the driver’s car, she was ultimately found by neighbors. Swollen in the hospital, her right eye shut, face swollen, neck and arms and ribs broken, and nursing a broken ankle and broken leg, Debbie survived her coma. The teenager who struck Debbie got 30 days in jail, five months of house arrest, and 500 hours of community service. Debbie’s dog, Charlie, was killed by the driver. As with the other experiences, the camera conveyed Debbie’s brother at the scene of crash recounting the event.

The last story is “Reaching for the Stars” and is about a daughter, Megan, whose dad was killed at the hands of a texting driver. Megan and her dad bonded over telescopes and stars as he was a scientist. Reggie Shaw was the driver who caused the accident. A police officer was at the scene explaining the incident. Two engineers are heading one way and the texting car is going the other way. The texting car brushed the other car and spun the car with the engineers into the path of oncoming pickup. The pickup could not stop in time as the two engineers perished. As Reggie went across the center line and hit another car, he doesn’t remember the text message he was sending at the time. He remembered his windshield glass breaking and the skidding of the car he hit. The skidding car collided with the truck driver, and the truck driver hit the passenger side of the car with the engineers. The truck went halfway through the car and forced the car into a ditch. The responding police officer showed pictures of the truck and of the blue car with the engineers. Completely smashed, the blue car is unrecognizable and both engineers passed from being in the car. Reggie can only think about the families of the two men while looking at the picture, and he really regrets texting and driving. He calls his decision selfish and is emotional in realizing he killed two people. Megan has nightmares about the accident, in which she is standing on the side of the road unable to help her father. In her dreams, she has been the one who caused the accident and been the driver of the truck who t-boned her dad. Reggie knows his accident was preventable and the two men could still be alive. He says it’s as simple as putting your phone away when you drive, and he wants others to say “I don’t want to be that guy” when looking at him. Megan hated Reggie in the beginning, but then the two got to know each other. She said she knew her dad had forgotten Reggie and knew her dad wouldn’t want her to be mad at him for the rest of her life. Megan and Reggie hug and he feels forgiveness from Megan.

Herzog’s message regarding the dangers of texting and driving comes to life through testimonials given by both people doing the texting and driving and people affected by the decision to text and drive. With the prevalence of cell phones today, the message of waiting to send a text and keeping your eyes on the road is of the utmost importance.

Citations: 

From One Second to the Next. Directed by Werner Herzog, 2013.

Twelfth Post- Different Directions of Short-Film

 

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A chair served as the spotlight character in our film. We used several shots to depict our relation to the chair, including coverage shots of us sitting near the chair. An establishing shot at the film’s beginning helped identify the building we filmed in. The vending machine in the lounge served a great purpose in lighting since we turned out all the lights in the room for certain scenes. We could have used more artificial lighting. One of the only scenes we used additional lighting was when one of us walked up to the chair (looked dark, but a phone light positioned in an open ceiling tile attempted to shine light on the chair) and then was killed off. Maintaining the room lighting by not shutting the lights off in the vending machine scene would have given the action less of a horror-feel.

We could have taken a few more low-angle shots of the chair to convey the chair’s power over the victims. The lighting on a few of the shots showing the chair could have been a little brighter to emphasize the dominance of the chair against our characters. We could have had another extreme wide shot isolating the chair all by itself to denote disconnect and distance (Sharman). One alternative ending to our movie was to have all of us fall victim to the chair. Instead of having two people attempt to take the chair out and throw it away, every person would have been killed off by the chair. The chair got the last laugh anyway, as it appeared in the same room at the end of the film as in the beginning. Jump cuts could have emphasized passage of time during scenes we were trying to figure out how to get rid of the chair. The same characters could have been in frame in the same positions, and multiple similar set shots could be juxtaposed in lengthening the passage of time.

 Another alternative ending we considered involved getting rid of the chair for good, without the chair reappearing in the film. We could have left the chair in the location of the garbage bin. The chair could have taken its victims to a special location, with the camera finding the chair and all the captive individuals near the film’s end.  Showing the film in color versus the decision to use black and white may have given the film a different feel than the horror genre we were striving for. Black and white, as evidenced by Sharman, is good for bleak and dreary subject material. Reality is sharpened with black and white, and colors cannot distract viewers as easily (Sharman). Utilizing color would have made the chair easier to see in a few scenes, but the chair shape and size in contrast to the other chairs eased the burden of deciphering the focus of the film. Overall, I liked the plot line of our film and thought the final product turned out great.

 Citations:

Sharman, Russell. Moving Pictures. University of Arkansas, 2020.

Eleventh Post- Swiss Army Man

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Swiss Army Man (Kwan and Scheinert) begins with wind-blowing and an ocean shot depicting a juice box with the words “Help Me” inscribed on top. A little sailboat serves as a template for the message “I don’t want to die alone” (Kwan and Scheinert). Hank is humming while trying to hang himself on a cave by the beach. A close-up of Hank’s face highlights the rope around his neck. The corpse of Manny washes up on shore, prodding Hank to wish Manny was not dead. Hank hopes for a friend or for someone to save himself from committing suicide. The flatulence of Manny caught Hank’s attention and Hank explains to Manny how he never got to go to parties or find a lifelong partner. Hank goes back to the cave to re-attempt suicide, but Manny’s flatulence brings him back to the corpse. As Manny starts to leave the shore and head into the water, Hank hops along and rides Manny as a jet ski. Different vocalizations characterize the jet ski experience, with loud and soft and fast and slow tempos. Hank and Manny arrive on shore, leading Hank to find a bag of cheese puffs and the camera to utilize a point-of-view shot of him looking at the lock screen on his phone. The pair wander into the forest and into a cave due to rain. Hank, in an apparent coping mechanism, is humming while he is reflected in a bluish light. He exhibits desperation in the cave due to believing Manny is dead, but Manny’s eyes suddenly move as Hank is about to give up hope. Manny begins spouting water and Hank uses a cup to gather and drink all the water he can. Both characters’ faces are dark, but the background outside the cave is relatively bright. The light on Hank’s and Manny’s faces changes after Manny groans for the first time, showing a sign of life visible to Hank (he couldn’t see Manny’s eye movement earlier). Manny sings Hank’s “Crazy” song and leads viewers to wonder how much of Hank’s talking from the beginning of the film he heard. The Daniels use a double shot to convey the conversation between Hank and Manny when the two discuss the meaning of home and trash. Hank explains anatomy to Manny by showing Manny the body and the brain. He calls Manny his “multipurpose tool-guy” and tells Manny he is special (Kwan and Scheinert). The two converse about happiness and love, with the topics leading to conversation about sex. Manny sees Hank’s phone lock screen with a picture of a girl Hank has never talked to but has dreamed about talking too. Hank starts to have flashbacks to the girl, named Sarah, and Manny believes he too has seen Sarah previously.

Hank constructs a bus in the forest to stimulate a real riding experience for Manny. He explains to Manny the normal behavior on a bus, including listening to music, keeping to oneself, and staring out the window. A picture slideshow glides by on the bus’s “window” for Manny to view. Hank claims: “Every day you ride the bus and count the minutes hoping you’ll see her again.” In conversing with Manny about longing for more time with Sarah, he was remembering his own emotions while staying silent every day Sarah walked by his seat on the bus. Hank recounts the “strange tingle up the back of [his] neck,” the smiles, sweat on forehead, and feeling like “the luckiest man in the world” (Kwan and Scheinert). He tells Manny, “You could talk to [Sarah].” Manny, exactly like Hank, believes Sarah is too beautiful and does not want to say something stupid. When asked by Manny about the action he would take as Sarah walked by his bus seat, he admitted: “I would wait and watch her get off the bus.” He would go against his own advice. Swiss Army Man expresses the importance of connection and the importance of living in the moment. As Hank explained, life is too short to ride the bus alone (Kwan and Scheinert). If a person likes another person or wants to get to know another individual, the time to act is now.

The pair discuss making the woods a new home, but ultimately continue to wander into Sarah’s backyard. Slow music plays as Sarah is shown in-person for the first time. Low-angle shots convey Sarah’s dominance in relation to Hank, as he is sitting on the ground looking up at her. She questions why he is in her backyard and if he needs any help. Hank responds with head gestures, nodding yes to a question of needing help and nodding no to a question of if he is okay. Police are called by Sarah, and the officers see her as the lock screen on Hank’s phone. Hank, reluctant to let authorities take Manny away to a morgue, hijacks his body and leads authorities on a chase through the woods. Officers see all the structures Hank had built for Manny and are left in awe. As Hank explains to Manny how he “wanted to give [him] everything in life,” the camera zooms out from the two discussing on the beach shore to a shot with the officers, Sarah and her family, and the news crew standing behind the pair. Hank pleads for Manny to show a sign of life and he responds by jet skiing away into the ocean.

I thought Sarah and Hank would end up together in the film, even if she did have a husband. I neglected to realize he had never introduced himself to her on the bus. She was probably more disturbed than intrigued about being the front screen on Hank’s phone.

Citations:

Swiss Army Man. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, A24, 2016.

Tenth Post- Survive and Advance

 Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yjMElE5Se8

In 1983, the NC State Wolfpack Men’s Basketball team won the NCAA Championship. The documentary Survive and Advance (Hock) describes a bond the players shared throughout the run, the belief the team’s head coach, Jim Valvano, instilled in his players, and the importance of playing basketball for more than oneself. Dereck Whittenburg, who was a guard on the NC State team and a main talking figure in the documentary, had the idea for the film after the death of one of the team’s players. Lorenzo Charles, a center who had caught Whittenburg’s airball in the waning seconds of the championship game and slammed home the game-winning dunk, passed away in July 2011. Whittenburg, known as Whitt, told the team if they did not get together once a year, everyone would only be coming back to each other’s funerals. The film interviews team members and staff using close-ups. Other scenes depict the whole team sitting at an oval table in a restaurant, reminiscing about the magical run through the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) tournament and through the NCAA tournament. Whitt and another teammate on NC State, guard Sidney Lowe, went to DeMatha Catholic High School in Maryland. Whitt’s cousin had won a basketball championship at NC State in 1974 and Whitt dreamed of following in his cousin’s footsteps. An establishing shot showed the DeMatha gym and pictures of Whitt and Sidney hooping for the team. Norm Sloan, who coached Whitt’s cousin, ended up recruiting Whitt and Sidney to play at NC State. The two high school teammates would team up with Thurl Bailey, a 6’11 recruit who was also a freshman in the fall of 1979. Sloan would leave after Whitt’s, Sidney’s, and Thurl’s freshman year, staging the entrance for the New York-rooted Jim Valvano.

Survive and Advance (Hock) introduces Valvano through a talk on stage he is giving years after the team won the national championship. He has a spotlight on him and casts no shadow against a black background. As is typical of Valvano, he was joking around about arriving at NC State. He later joked about how he played hard to get, telling the athletic department he would accept a multi-week contract (Hock). Whitt explains Valvano, known as Coach V by his players, was a dreamer. From day one, Coach V discussed winning the national championship, even proclaiming, “I know I’m going to win the national championship.” Thurl remembered: “The more [Valvano] spoke, the more we listened.” The film then flashes to Whitt’s, Sidney’s, and Thurl’s senior season, the championship 1982-1983 season. NC State started the year with 7 wins and 2 losses, but an injury to Whittenburg against a mighty Virgina sidelined him for some time. Before discussing the team’s response to Whitt’s injury, Survive and Advance cut back to Valvano on the stage discussing the belief his dad always had in him. Valvano would call his father when making the NCAA tournament, even at his previous school before NC State, and the call would become a ritual between the two. “My bags are packed… I’m gonna be there when you win the national championship.” Valvano quipped: “The gift my father gave me…was he believed in me. My father believed in me.” Valvano maintained belief in the team’s talent after Whittenburg’s injury. The team fell to 9-7 during Whitt’s injury and lost the first two games after he came back. Whitt held a team-only meeting and was yelling at all the players about playing with motivation and the urge to win. Coupled with Valvano’s belief in staying positive and inviting players into his office to discuss anything, the speech sparked a nerve with the team. The coach told his players winning the ACC tournament championship was the only avenue of reaching the NCAA tournament.

The “Survive and Advance” moniker came to symbolize the string of closely contested ball games NC State would win. In the first round of the ACC tournament against Wake Forest, NC State won 71-70. Wake Forest was attempting to hold the ball for three minutes as the game was tied at 70. Valvano had the idea of trapping the Wake Forest players, leading to a NC State steal and a foul to send Lorenzo Charles to the line. Charles made one of two shots to give NC State the one-point lead and eventually the win. NC State then faced North Carolina, whose roster had future NBA players Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan. The game was tied 70-70 when Perkins attempted a game-winning three, with the ball rimming in and out to send the game to overtime. Down six points in overtime, NC State began fouling North Carolina players to put them on the line in hopes of a miss. The strategy worked, as multiple players missed free-throws to keep NC State in the game and allow them to climb back in. The Wolfpack took down Jordan’s team 91-84. In the ACC championship game against Virginia, the team NC State was playing the day Whitt got injured, NC State squeaked out a narrow win 81-78. Valvano used a triangle-and-two defense on Ralph Sampson, a 7’4 Virginia center who required two defenders around him.

Valvano had one practice every year involving cutting the nets down. No balls were dribbled or shot, only a ladder was brought out to allow Coach V to practice cutting the net down with his gold scissors. After beating Virginia in the ACC tournament championship, Valvano climbed the ladder and cut down the nets exactly as he had envisioned with the team in practice. Survive and Advance (Hock) panned to ESPN’s revealing of Valvano’s cancer diagnosis in June 1992. His wife revealed he had a year to live after the diagnosis if chemotherapy worked (if chemo did not work, then only ten months to live). The film follows the cancer announcement by flashing back to the start of the 1983 NCAA tournament. NC State, fresh off wins over North Carolina and Virginia, was not too concerned about playing Pepperdine in the first round. NC State, despite being down six points with a minute to go in overtime, squeaked out a 69-67 win after implementing a strategy of fouling Pepperdine players and hoping for missed free throws. In the second round, NC State took on a 28-2 UNLV team led by future NBA player Sidney Green. Green had made a comment in the paper prior to the game about how he was unimpressed with Thurl Bailey. Bailey took Green’s comments personally and had the game-winning rebound put-back, securing a 71-70 NC State victory. Following the game against UNLV, Bailey referenced a story about a woman whose husband was in a coma. She wrote to the team explaining how her husband is a big NC State basketball fan and she is not. She turned on NC State basketball games for him on the radio and began to follow the unlikely run the team had been making beginning in the ACC tournament. Bailey stated the lady explained: “[NC State basketball] has given me a reason to believe.” The team knew their run symbolized hope and was more than solely about winning games. The theme of hope continued with a flashback to Valvano’s cancer treatment conversations with former Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Coach V wanted to win his fight with cancer and thought of the idea of leaving a legacy through the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. NC State defeated Utah by 20 points in the Sweet Sixteen before an Elite Eight rematch with Virginia. Valvano once again instructed his team to foul in a tie game. A freshman from Virginia made one of two free throws to give the Cavaliers a one-point lead, before Lorenzo Charles canned two free throws enroute to a 63-62 NC State win. The Wolfpack furthered the run after defeating Georgia 67-60 in the Final Four. Before highlights from the NC State and Houston championship game in 1983, Survive and Advance (Hock) recounted Valvano’s speech at the 1993 ESPYs. Coach V emphasized three crucial things to do each day: laugh, think, and cry. He announced the motto for the Jimmy V Foundation as “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

On April 4^th, 1983, NC State defeated Houston in the 1983 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship by two points, 54-52. At the 10-year anniversary of the 1983 team, Valvano and his players assembled at one of NC State’s home games for a ceremony. Valvano, with months to live, explained to fans the lessons the 1983 team taught him. The team taught him about hope and the betterment of conditions despite adversity. His players taught him the importance of dreaming, as every goal begins as a dream. Lastly, his players taught him about persistence and the importance of loving one another.

Citations:

Survive and Advance. Directed by Jonathan Hock, ESPN Inc., 2013.

Ninth Post- Jean-Luc Godard and Breathless

 Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsKkFIsus1I&t=120s 

Jean-Luc Godard portrayed his film Breathless in a laid-back light. Godard’s main character, Michel, portrayed by Jean-Paul Belmondo, is a criminal on-the-run in Paris. The clip from Moving Pictures depicts Michel driving on an open-road and is shown through an over-the-shoulder shot. Michel states “Nothing [is] like the countryside” as the camera pans to an extreme wide shot of the countryside and view out of the car’s passenger window. He further asserts his liking of France, and, while wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette, stares into the camera and proclaims: “If you don’t like the shore, if you don’t like the mountains, if you don’t like the city, then get stuffed!” (“Get stuffed” conveys a sense of anger and can be used to tell someone to go away). Never one to turn down an engagement with a woman, Michel then approaches two hitchhiking girls on the side of the road and confides in the camera he will “charge a kiss a mile.” Despite the remark, Michel passes the two women by and continues to drive. The camera reverts to the over-the-shoulder shot, allowing us to see the steering wheel Michel is behind and the road ahead. Michel discovers a gun in a compartment and begins pretending to shoot the gun.

Godard frames Michel pointing the gun to the passenger’s side window. The passenger-side window shot is followed by a shot of the outdoors and gunshot noises. Viewers never see Michel pull the trigger or the direction of the shot. Trees and gun noises are the only elements in the shot, resulting in the viewer having to draw inferences about the object of Michel’s shooting. Michel, driving a stolen car, can be seen becoming more and more impatient as roadwork and slow drivers are impeding his progress. As he makes a move to pass a truck, police officers on motorcycles begin chasing him. He drives down a side road and loses one officer, with the other officer eventually approaching Michel as he stops down a little way on the side road. Michel, framed in a jump cut, is seen with the gun in his hand as the cop says, “Hold it right here.” We see a close-up of the side of Michel’s face, followed by a close-up of the gun in Michel’s hand. The gun goes off, but we only hear the noise. Godard intentionally eliminates the viewer’s ability to see who Michel was shooting and the direction of the shot. Following the shot of the gun in Michel’s hand (and gun noise), the camera shot is of a man falling backwards into trees. Michel can then be seen running across an open field, signaling Godard is letting us interpret how the shooting played out without showing all the details. Michel meets Patricia (portrayed by Jean Seberg), an American woman selling copies of the Herald Tribune in the streets of Paris (Heller). She and Michele fall in love and the love reaches a point of her believing he is the father of her soon-to-be-child. Love turns into reality as Patricia learns Michel is on the run from the police. She turns Michel into the police.

Breathless was filmed in the streets of Paris. No sound studio or elaborate outdoor set design built for a few weeks or months was necessary. Cameras were hand-held, and lighting was natural from the shooting locations in Paris. Godard utilized the spontaneity of everyday life (Heller). Michel and Patricia can be seen smoking cigarettes, discussing philosophy, and not taking a care to the fact Michel could be taken into custody by the police (Collins). Breathless featured a small film crew and equipment lineup. Godard created the idea for a scene the same day as the scene was shot and would use notes he took to sketch the set design (Heller). Evidenced by the hand-held cameras, shifts and shakes occur when Michel and Patricia are in Patricia’s room. The two are seen washing up, discussing music, and teasing each other- all everyday activities common between two people romantically involved (Heller).

As Sophie Collins explained in Breathless: How Jean-Luc Godard’s Movie Changed Cinema Forever, Godard arrived as a leader in the French New Wave film style. Elements such as handheld cameras, little-known professional actors, and natural lighting and location shots all appeared in Breathless (Collins). Camera movements and techniques took priority over the plotline. Jump cuts, continuous shots with a portion of the middle frames cut out so the beginning and end frames are juxtaposed together without the intent to match, were a staple of the movement and a staple of Godard. He believed in speeding up the action, only filming necessary shots to keep the plot in motion.

Citations: 

Collins, Sophia. “Breathless: How Jean-Luc Godard’s Movie Changed Cinema Forever.” MovieWeb, 30 May 2022. https://movieweb.com/breathless-jean-luc-godard-movie-changed-cinema/. Accessed 01 Apr. 2023.

Heller, Nathan. “Go See Breathless.” Slate, 08 Jun. 2010. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/06/how-jean-luc-godard-s-breathless-reinvented-the-movies.html. Accessed 01 Apr. 2023.