Themes of Cinema


I’ve been researching significant aspects of acclaimed science fiction films and come up with some interesting results about the underlying themes and implications of them and how they influence the audience’s perception of technology and the world around them, and plants questions in their mind about these topics. For example, some common examples are things like how The Matrix causes the audience to take a hard look at reality and question whether they too, are living in a simulation. Blade Runner and The Terminator cause the audience to consider the advancement of robotics and if they could pose a danger to society as we know it I the near future. Alien and 2001: a Space Odyssey raise the topic of space exploration and whether that could become dangerous to humanity.
This recurring theme reveals to me that if a Sci-Fi film is well received, it almost always makes the audience seriously think about and question reality. This is an aspect I fully want to incorporate in my film, specifically the topic of robotic advancement and how we as a society might respond to that. I want my film to really resonate with the audience and for my message to be fully incorporated into every part of my film, so it simply doesn’t go everyone’s heads.
As I consider the theme of my film as a whole, I am still researching and brainstorming ideas and strategies for how to engage that message successfully. I found a passage from the book Developing Digital Short Films by Sherri Sheridan particularly interesting and relevant to my film. The passage listed a step by step process on developing themes in film: have a controlling theme, list positive and negative manifestations of the theme in characters, show main characters changing, use a lot of symbolism and metaphors, use a theme color, original dialogue, lighting and staging, sound, etc. Although I wouldn’t be able to use some of these strategies in a 2 minute film, the strategy of making sure every aspect of the film revolves around a certain theme is something I will definitely keep in mind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Money and Primer

Image
     Our film is going to be extremely low budget, and is somewhat misplaced among the big blockbusters that take millions to compile a futuristic setting, hire a star cast, and more large aspects that would be impossible with our budget, which is close to $0.      I found some interesting advice for low budget movies while researching, though, and I think some aspects would be beneficial to my film. One interesting tip is that "Some 'niche' audiences are large enough to make for a very profitable market, if you can reach them". This is something I will take into consideration when planning, because niche audiences can in some cases make the movie a profit, even if it is very low budget. However I'm probably going to focus on the second piece of advice: "If you're aiming for a more general audience, quality matters. A lot. " I feel like this is how a lot of low budget Sci-Fi films become successful, and a shining example of this is Primer. ...
Read more

First Impressions

Image
         I'm finding in my research that the truly great science fiction movies almost always have captivating and creative openings sequences, because that seems to be one of the most important things for a movie: a solid first impression. Captivating the audience and giving them a positive first opinion right when the film starts is huge, and this is clearly evident in what is considered to be one of the best opening sequences of all time, the scene from the original Star Wars.       Every second of this 7 minute scene is amazing. It starts out with the famous yellow text crawl to set the exposition, with the awesome theme music playing in the background. It then shows a giant star destroyer chasing a tiny cruiser, firing the laser cannons directly at it, with special effects that were years ahead of its time. Then, in the interior of the ship, the scene builds a lot of tension and suspense as the rebel soldiers await the imperial in...
Read more

For the Fame

Image
     At this point in the project I am considering the production and distribution aspects of my film. Even though this is a student made film and I'm not actually paying anyone for this or producing or distributing it, it's still interesting to see what strategies I would utilize in doing so for real.      As for the production aspect, I was researching different companies that produce low budget sci fi films, but sci fi is a genre where it is very hard for a low budget film to succeed, and it was hard to find any companies that actually specifically produce films for a low budget in that genre. However, I would use a small independent production company in order to minimize costs and match the small scale of my film. Working with an independent company would also give me a lot more creative freedom and I wouldn't be limited as much as if I worked with a large corporate controlling company. An interesting one I found was Vibrant Media Product...
Read more