R.H.S. from Timothy Prada on Vimeo.

Scene Analysis- True Detective

(Note: embedding of this video is unavailable on YouTube)

True Detective Tracking Shot- Who Goes There

In this shot, the camera follows Officer Rust Cohle as he –while undercover with one violent gang, raids another gang. The camera spends a lot of time on Cohle’s face to convey his emotion: rushed and frantic. With no establishing shot, the audience is left unaware of a lot of Cohle’s surroundings which helps to increase tension in the viewer.

While in the first building, the camera pans side to side which mimics Cohle as he tries to maintain control of the room.  The room is extremely chaotic, and Cohle must make sure that the opposing gang member is complying with their demands so they can make a quick exit. He must do this while surveying his crew and ordering them not to shoot their weapons.

When tensions inevitably boil over, and gunshots are fired, the audio becomes somewhat muffled. The gunshots and yelling sound stifled. This moment marks the situation taking a turn for the worse. The quick second of stifled noise is not unlike Cohle’s handling of the situation: a brief moment of shock and pause followed immediately by action to escape the situation.

At 3:43 of the clip, Cohle is on top of one member of the opposing gang while the camera spins around.  Cohle is surprise attacked by another man that is only revealed in the frame after his baseball bat makes contact with Cohle. The audience was unaware of this man, just as Cohle was.

Another interesting use of camera work was from 4:50-5:00 of this clip. The camera follows Cohle and his hostage as they escape through the neighborhood. To demonstrate how hostile the environment is, the camera continues to follow Cohle’s movement on the other side of a house while showing the gang members that are IN the house .

Concerning Violence

This past weekend I watched Concerning Violence, based on work by Frantz Fanon and directed by Göran Olsson. The film does a tremendous job showcasing how painful of a process decolonization can be and how decolonization will almost always necessitate violence. The film utilized archived footage from the 1960s and 70s that cataloged the liberation of several North African countries from the European colonial powers.

 The film opened with an interesting series of shots that showed European soldiers in a helicopter hovering over, and shooting wildlife in the plains. This scene was the only one in the movie to not portray the relationship (or its effects) between the imperialist settlers and the African natives. After landing the helicopter, one soldier continually shoots one dying animal, with the camera zooming on its dying face. Capturing the animal’s final waking moments followed by dripping blood from the mouth and nose was not done solely for the gore or shock factor; it was presented as abstract symbolism for the intense violence that the audience would soon witness.

One of the most powerful shots used by Olsson was a high shot of African villagers marching towards the camera marching, singing, and clapping in some sort of protest. This stable shot allowed the audience to understand how large the group was. As members walked up to and past the camera, the camera spun and “marched” with the rest of the group. This camerawork made the audience feel more unified with the marching villagers.

Olsson's most interesting use of sound was when a group of women were shown beating corn with sticks. There were four women each taking turns, a very communal activity. As the process went on, the sound of drumming was coordinated with the corn-beating. This sound led to another scene depicting drumming, singing and dancing, another communal activity.

It was interesting to see the shots that Olsson chose to use for the documentary because he was not able to shoot new footage; he strictly used archived footage and edited it in a particular fashion.

Museum of the Moving Image

Throughout our class visit to MOMI, I was continually fascinated, at first by the enormous and/or strange looking antique pieces of equipment to the complicated processes that go into each minute detail of a film or TV production. 

Never before have I realized how complicated the production can be for a regular season, (almost) meaningless Mets game. Because baseball is such a slow game, it is necessary for the production team to fill the time between pitches with shots of the crowd, the next batter, a player in the field, coaches, or anything else. The viewer doesn't take active note of how many different shots are used, perhaps because it just seems natural after years of watching similarly produced games. 

Another case of complicated production used for minute details was made evident when looking at the miniatures, which was probably my favorite exhibit. Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies and to see how incredibly detailed and small  the architecture was astonished me. Unfortunately the miniatures were at the end of our tour, so I didn't get to spend as much time dumbly staring at the sculptures as I would have liked. I plan on going to visit the Museum again soon.

Audio Portrait of Lillian Moshkovich

Soundwalk- West 16th 5:30 AM

For this assignment I chose to head to my job a little bit early to take in the interesting environment between nightlife and breakfast. I was worried that solely focusing on sound at this time would be difficult due to either sleepiness or jitteriness via over-caffeination. 40 minutes removed from my coffee at home left me at the perfect level to relax on this chilly Friday morning.

As I thought would be the case, there weren't many sound signals at this time. While walking to my job, there were two separate cars just blasting Drake songs (Hold On We’re Going Home and Worst Behavior). Without a doubt, these drivers wanted to be heard. This was in stark contrast to the rest of what was going on sonically. I took note that I didn't hear one car horn on my walk. Even the cab drivers were on the same It’s too early-leave me alone wavelength. The outliers to this mindset were definitely the drunken group leaving my job waiting for a cab. They were obnoxious for sure, but I found myself cringing only because I felt they might disturb others. I think I was appreciative of hearing an actual conversation at that time, no matter how over the top. Besides, they were just talking about how much they loved each other; I’d have to be cold to really be annoyed by that.

The most obvious ambient noise that I heard on my walk was definitely the whooshing of the cars speeding past.  I felt liberated for the cab drivers, it must feel so good to gun it compared to hours of gridlocked traffic. Another piece of ambient noise I experienced was the hum of the heater in the breakfast food cart. Obviously, all summer this noise wasn't present. To me it signified how cold it soon would be (if not already). The most ominous of ambient noises was definitely the idling/buzz/hum of the ambulance parked outside of my job. There was nobody outside of the ambulance or any sign of why it was there, which only added to the eeriness.

It was definitely interesting to stop and take in only sounds for a period. I think the time and place that I chose made it especially interesting because there is nobody else slowing down to relax or take things in as I was at that time. Everybody grabs every bit of sleep that they can before they rush to work or wherever they are going, so nobody has the extra time to spare.With that said, there was not much activity at this hour which made each sound even more salient. The sparseness also allowed me to truly consider each sound and how it applies to the environment.

Sense of Space

Mating Madness from Lillian Moshkovich on Vimeo.