Profile on Saul Bass - Jack

Saul Bass was born in New York City in 1920, and became a graphic designer who became famous in his film work and logo designs. He developed his own style which became easily recognisable and memorable to most people. 

He is famous for his use of geometric shapes and their symbolism, often a simple shape with an important powerful message to deliver with it. The shapes were often hand drawn by him to create a casual appearance but with a much deeper message alongside it. The basic shapes make it even more impressive to most people.

Bass is known for all his work done within the film industry, starting out doing poster design, being hired originally by Otto Preminger, an Austrian-American film director. 

Bass was known to be able to capture the complete mood of a film just through small shapes and images, just like his work elsewhere. Further on in his career, he would go on to work with Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick, designing film posters for movies such as Goodfellas and The Man with the Golden Arm. 

From his poster designing, Saul Bass would go on to produce major title sequences for films such as Psycho and Vertigo. The feeling of animated graphic design maintained Bass' well known style and set a brand for each film. He would continue this type of work further on in his career. 

Bass won an Oscar in 1968 for his short film, Why Man Creates.

His work producing Logos for companies still exist today, Quaker Oats, AT&T and United Airlines to name a few. 

Saul Bass passed away in 1996, but his work is still widely thought of in today's world.

Star Wars Film Review - Jack

On the day of it's release I went to see Star Wars the Force Awakens, the first Star Wars film in 10 years. I have to say that overall, I was very happy with the whole film and not disappointed at all. The film was very entertaining throughout and many different surprising things happened in the film such as..... I won't spoil it.

 I think that all the different effects used throughout the film really showed everyone about the kind of films that can now be created within the 21st Century, it brought a completely different feel to this film that is completely different to the previous films. Camera angles enabled the audience to see clearly all of the things going on and outline the effects used to show things. 

I thought that the sound used was very useful in showing how intense the film was and all the new futuristic areas of the films. I think the different sound effects of robots and explosions were very well emphasised to show the features of the robots and the large nature of each explosion in the film. 

Throughout the editing was very steady and smooth and the film didn't drag on too long so that the audience would get bored. Also I think that the editing enabled the audience to be enthralled constantly and be entertained by what was going all the time.

I was slightly disappointed in the very ending as without stating the ending, I think that it should of been slightly bettered in what was being shown, in a better way. However, I will say that I like the way the ending was shot, with a following almost birds eye view shot of the characters which enabled the audience to see the whole setting and how isolated the area really was. 

Overall Film Rating - 8.5/10

Foley Sound and Voice Over - Jack

Today we created a brief voice over and foley sound for a scene from Blade Trinity. It isn't a complete edit, but the thing itself is quite funny with some of the bits. The editing is quick and the voice overs are accurate to the scene. 

Storyboard Commentary - Kye

           

Independence Day: Resurgence Trailer Analysis - Kye

           

 This week, the first trailer for the Independence Day 2 came out. The first thing I need to say is that the effects simply look stunning. Like really really good. 

 I thought this trailer was very well put together. I like it when half way through the trailer, a motivational speech is played and it shows a montage of clips from the movie. This is the first trailer, so it wont show much of the film. It is what is called a teaser. I like how the speech cuts of right at the end, before the speak says "Independence". From the clips shown the film looks like its going to have a desaturated, dark blue colour scheme, which is used a lot in mainstream movies, most notably in the Transformer movies. Overall as someone who hasn't seen the first one, I'm pretty excited for this film. 

Limitless S01 E11 Analysis - Kye

 This week, limitless has its mid season finale. Limitless is one of the most creative TV shows I've ever seen. This week episode was interesting, because it showed every character's perspective of the day. It used a title card to tell the audience that they were going to show a different character's day. 
 I also liked the montage in the middle of the episode. It is used when four people take NZT and they do various things over the night. It uses lines to show what the four people do.  
 The episode ended with a slow montage of one of the character's morning. The music is slow and clam, but when he discovers a pill on the floor and picks it up, the music becomes heavy rock. The area around his hand is blurred to draw focus onto the pill. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Trailer Analysis - Kye

 Yesterday, a teaser for the Harry Potter prequel came out. Filming has only just begun, which means there isn't much footage that is finished. The trailer opens with the protagonist, who is played by Eddie Redmayne whispering the spell "Lumos Maxima". This spell would be familiar to the fans. This trailer shows a few of the characters. Whoever thought of having Colin Farrell in a Harry Potter film is a genius. The casting for this movie is amazing. My favourite shot from the trailer is this.