Standard Operating Procedure

Standard Operating Procedure (S.O.P) is a doc from 2008 that sets out to unbiasedly inform about the abuse that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The film was directed by Errol Morris a documentary filmmaker that prior to S.O.P had made other documentaries that highlight corruption and war, such as The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line (not about war but it focuses on police corruption in the US)

The film itself is comprised mainly of 2 elements, interviews and reconstructions/evidence which are cut between to create a linear narrative from the prisons beginnings to the eventual closure of the facility. The interview portion of the film interviews the actual members of the military police that had first hand involvement in the abuse at Abu Ghraib, whether they took part in the actual abuse, watched, or took photographs; these interviews are filmed mid-close with the interviewees looking directly into the camera, the lighting is from all sides as their faces are fully illuminated and clear with a high quality camera used to preserve every detail with them against a blue background, they are answering questions and just generally talking about their experience at Abu Ghraib which is used to give their side to the situation and instead of just having a faceless evil as it could easily have been portrayed it gives a more human aspect to the whole thing and helps to understand the culture surrounding it and the whole aspect of military behaviour and what is expected of them. On the flip side of this is the reconstructions and the evidence that is shown (this includes photographs and videos taken by the military police at Abu Ghraib who committed the abuse) and this is used to counter the interviews and allow for the audience to know the whole story as opposed to just being shown either side of the story. The reconstructions in the film are done stylistically and effectively with them mainly providing a shocking backdrop to the words of the interviewees to help audiences put a picture to the stories being told and this is further backed up by the actual evidence used against them in trials.

To keep track of the timeline throughout the film they also use cgi to explain how the images were ordered by time and explain metadata while also using it to create a linear narrative to allow for audiences to coherently follow the film (this is further backed up by the reading of letters sent by interviewees during the situation which allowed for the information to be triangulated with the images.)

Overall I think this is a fantastic documentary especially in terms of creating a piece that is unbiased but also provides ample information to allow audiences to make up their own decisions on the incidents in a detailed and informed manner as opposed to just picking pieces from different situations.

Kevin Smith Supporting Catalogue Draft

Statement:
Exploring the evolution of Kevin Smith as an indie filmmaker.


Items:

Item 1) Clerks (1994): Kevin Smith's first film, funded via 10 credit cards, store credit from selling his comic book collection, a family donation, and paychecks from the Quickstop / RST video that he was working at, which is also the set of the film.

Item 2) Dogma (1999): Kevin Smith's fourth film, his first real 'Big Budget' feature with a budget of $10,000,000

Item 3) Cop Out (2010):

Item 4) Red State (2011):

Item 5) View Askew Productions:
A production company founded by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier that they used to produce Clerks and take to sundance, the films under View Askew Productions are generally set in the same universe (known as the View Askewniverse) and feature recurring characters. However he also used the production company to help produce projects of his close friends including Malcolm Ingram and Bryan Johnson ("Steve Dave" in Mallrats)


Item 6) Dialogue: $26,685 - John Pierson interviews Kevin Smith, specifically about the budget of Clerks.

Item 7) Extract from Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks (need to upload from my dvd as the clip isn't online)

Item 8) 'Art' vs. 'Business', Clerks significance and popularity which Kevin Smith wrote, directed, edited, and paid for out of his pocket as opposed to the significance and popularity of Cop Out which he was hired to direct.

Item 9) Box Office figures for Clerks:

            Domestic Total Gross: $3,151,130  Production Budget: $27,000  Profit Percentage: 11670.85%

Item 10) Box Office figures for Cop Out:

        Domestic Total Gross: $44,875,481  Production Budget: $30,000,000 Profit Percentage: 149.58%

Item 11) SModcast Podcasting Network:
Kevin Smith started a podcasting network with producer Scott Mosier (produced the majority of Smith's films) to talk about the film industry and it has lead to the production of the films Tusk and Yoga Hosers as Kevin Smith said he'd given up on filmmaking but through podcasting he rediscovered what he loved about film.

Item 12) SModcast Pictures:
Kevin Smith founded a film and television production/distribution company after making Red State to try to differentiate Red State from his View Askew films as the subject matter is completely different that also has a quota for distributing up to 12 independent films a year in the US and Canada with the 4 best films being taken on tour around the country in the same way he toured Red State.

Item 13) Red State Tour:
After the flop of Cop Out he decided to go a completely different route and made the horror film Red State but decided he wanted to do the distribution and production his own way and founded SModcast Pictures and toured the film around US and Canadian cinemas charging around $60 per ticket and having Q&A after the film and recording a live podcast with people involved in the film.

Item 14) 

The Impact of 9/11 on American Society and Film

The September 11th attacks (9/11) were a series of attacks coordinated by the Al-Qaeda terrorist group upon Manhattan and Washington DC. Four passenger airliners were hijacked by 19 members of Al-Qaeda, two of those airliners were crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan and within hours the towers had collapsed. The third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon (the United States Department of Defense headquarters) which led to a collapse in it's western side. The fourth airliner was targeted at Washington DC but the passengers fought and tried to overcome the attackers which caused the plane to instead crash into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

These attacks had an huge impact on society and film, primarily, but not limited to, in the United States as the attacks caused massive security flaws to become identified allowing for countries to strengthen their security and also as it showed that the United States wasn't invincible. The attacks on 9/11 showed the citizens of the United States that they weren't as safe and impenetrable as they presumed which caused a widespread fear of destruction and terrorism amongst them. An offset of the 9/11 attacks was a huge media bias towards people from the Middle East, with sweeping negative generalisations and a large sense of xenophobia.

All of this in turn had a large impact on American film largely in the Disaster genre as they had had an experience similar to what is seen in Disaster films and it also made a lot of film concepts largely taboo for example the film The Towering Inferno (1974) would have been in extreme bad taste and have caused a massive public uproar if it were created post 9/11. The 9/11 attacks also seem to have strengthened the sense of patriotism in American cinema as it has become all about strengthening themselves as a nation seemingly uniting to stand in the way of any threat and largely comes about invoking the sense of 'The American Dream'. Thematically what comes from this is large senses of family orientation, freedom, liberty; pretty much propaganda to keep the American society from fearing any threats and to make them strongly believe in America despite the panic and anxiety initially shown.

Written Analysis Second Draft

The film that I have chosen to analyse is The Thing directed by John Carpenter, 1982. The basic plot of The Thing is that a body-snatcher-esque alien parasite is assimilating (consuming and taking over) members of an Antarctic research facility.  The basic theme of the film, being a sci-fi horror, is fear; which leads to the main stand-out theme of paranoia which causes uncertainty in both the narrative and in the audience. A brief summary of the extract I have chosen is; MacReady (Kurt Russell) who was thrown out into the tundra returns with a flare and dynamite which causes Norris to have a heart attack, the group take him to the doctor who tries to resuscitate him using a defibrillator but Norris has assimilated and his chest cavity opens up and bites off the doctors hands, Norris' body mutates and MacReady takes charge and kills it with a flamethrower; throughout the whole extract there is an underlying sense of paranoia throughout the characters due to the parasite being able to manifest in whatever body it chooses.

The Mise-En-Scene in the film is used to create a sense of isolation and paranoia for the characters that reaches out to the audience. This is partly due to the harshness of the setting as the research facility is in the middle of the nowhere, this makes the audience see that even if escape becomes possible the character wouldn't have anywhere to go and would more than likely die of exposure. A way that the setting constructs paranoia is that it's an unfamiliar setting for audiences as Antarctic research facilities aren't exactly a common film setting, this allows the film makers to manipulate the setting as at that time the audience didn't really know what to expect from the setting. This is opposed to if it was set in some backwater town in the middle of America in which the audience would have some expectations of the movie prior to watching and wouldn't be watching it with the same uncertainty as they would in the Antarctic setting. The lighting in the scene is used to give a sense of dread, specifically the lighting from the flare as it causes a large part of the mise-en-scene to get flooded with red lighting which provokes a worried response from audiences as it's almost as if it is signalling an impending doom or being used to represent blood. Aside from those connotations it also reflects MacReady's anger as it causes his face to be lit from below which is commonly used in horror films (specifically older horror films) to reveal the monster or evil character as the audience associates the connotations with the person being lit. Another aspect of the mise-en-scene that provokes a feeling of isolation is the positioning of the characters in the frame, specifically at the beginning of the extract as MacReady is on the very edge of the frame in the bottom right whilst the others are close to the centre and at the top left corner of the frame but as the scene progresses they go through a door in the centre of the frame and MacReady edges towards the centre of the frame. A way that this framing shows paranoia is that in the extract at 0:31 there are 3 men in frame who are shown to be "allied" as they don't outright suspect each other but the framing of the shot shows that they are paranoid which constructs a level of doubt within the group due to the man on the left who throughout the shots edges away from the group without saying a word. This also shows use of space because that shot is being used to give a backdrop of a new location as a transition from the tight storage room that the extract begins in. The use of props in this extract greatly constructs a sense of paranoia, particularly within MacReady as he doesn't trust any of the others and would be willing to kill with the flare and dynamite. This provokes a response from the audience that he is likely not assimilated as if he were 'the thing' he wouldn't be threatening them with dynamite, he would just transform and start killing them. The use of props further shows paranoia with MacReady and also his isolation in the surgery room when he has the flamethrower. He stands isolated in the corner of the room whilst aiming the flamethrower around in all directions due to paranoia and his distrust of the other people. MacReady isn't the only character however that shows paranoia through the use of a prop, at 1:41 in the extract you see a character pick up a scalpel in case MacReady gets close but then 'the thing' transforms on the table and the character keeps the scalpel due to his paranoia and distrust.

The setting is used to provoke a response in the extract again when they are in the operating room as it looks like a standard blank room that has been turned into a makeshift clinic with the help of some medical equipment and what appears to be a lot of shiny, sterile-looking metal furniture which, whilst giving it the look of a clinic/surgery, also makes it look like a cold and unwelcoming place, provoking the audience to feel like something important is going to happen in that room. The use of costumes and make-up is also done well to construct meaning and provoke an audience response; the costumes are a big part of making the Antarctic climate a believable setting (despite the filming location in Canada) as the characters are wearing actual clothing that an Antarctic Researcher would wear, such as the huge winter coats; the make-up in the beginning of this extract (the ice frozen onto MacReady's face) is also used to reinforce the idea of the Antarctic climate whilst also constructing isolation by showing the effects of exposure which were caused by him being isolated from the group, almost killing him and causing him to feel a large amount of paranoia and anger towards the group of people that isolated him and threw him out into the tundra. The final aspect of mise-en-scene in this extract that I am going to be writing about is the use of special effects. Specifically the work of Rob Bottin the designer/creator of the animatronics and effects. In this extract specifically the special effects are used to provoke many different responses from the audience as they get to see a glimpse or a scene featuring the grotesque creations that are causing the whole trouble; it also allows audiences to understand the assimilation concept easier as 'the thing' unique and different each time, often manipulating parts of its host during the transformation which provokes the audience to respond with intrigue, fear, and possibly even disgust which puts them in the position of the characters, allowing audiences to empathise with the characters and further develop them. The special effects create a sense of paranoia as they show the audience what the assimilated characters could turn into at any moment without indication which helps convey that the characters don't know who they can trust but it also makes it so that the audience doesn't know who to trust either as any of them may have assimilated.

The cinematography of the film constructs meaning and provokes a response through the use of camera, a key example of this from the extract I chose is at 1:41 when the character picks up the scalpel, the camera has both the scalpel in someones hand, and MacReady in the same shot which shows the characters paranoia towards MacReady and also that he intends to use the scalpel on MacReady. Another large part of the cinematography is the colour, John Carpenter generally is using warm colours in the cold, frozen environment to make the base look more homely which helps to amplify the sense of horror as it makes the environment seem like less of a typical horror movie scene. Carpenter also uses colour as poetic fallacy with the use of cool blues to show isolation and loneliness with the flare then being lit to create a harsh bright red that cuts through the blues and which almost foreshadows the danger of the following scenes.

Reflective Analysis

For my creative project I chose to make a film sequence of approximately 2 minutes that used between 10 and 25 shots. The film sequence isn't a short film but it is the end sequence from a longer film. I worked on my own so I took on all of the production roles. The genre the film is supposed to be is a zombie thriller. My intended audience is males aged 18-29 as they are statistically the highest demographic for zombie movies. The technical aspects I focused on during production were camera, editing, and sound. For camerawork I feel that I used a wide range of shots, in terms of framing I had shots ranging from an extreme long shot to close ups whilst also using a range of different camera movements and angles throughout the project. With the mise-en-scene I chose framing that would give the shots a sense of isolation and abandonment, I also used lighting in the final scene to frame the main character; in terms of make-up I had applied zombie make up but due to the time of day that the zombie scenes were shot and the low lighting in them it's not clearly visible. With sound I have used a non-diagetic piece of music to set an overarching tone for the project whilst also having a large focus on diagetic noises and sound effects, I purposely chose to have no dialogue in my project as I feel the lack thereof creates an isolation within the project that is helped with the use of sound effects and diagetic sound as it makes it clear that it isn't just a silent movie with music that has no dialogue but that there is no-one for the character to have dialogue with due to the 'zombie apocalypse'. With the editing of my film I have made the lines of action each unique by changing them visually to give them some sort of effect or changed the colouring, I also feel that in editing I used transitions to create some consistence in the film such as with all of the scenes in the second line of action they transition with a cross blur and have an 'Old World' filter applied to them which is appropriate as they are set in the past. With editing I also feel that the range of long, slow paced shots accompanied by some faster, shorter shots works well. I feel that my primary of this project has been the editing as throughout the project there are 3 lines of actions that I feel are woven together appropriately and in the end they all come together. I feel like my project may not reflect that well on the target audience as there isn't that clear of a narrative due to the fact that it is a sequence from a longer film but I feel that it may appeal to the intended audience due to the aesthetic and atmosphere created through the use of editing to cause visual effects such as desaturation, by choosing locations that at the time of filming were empty but also that look quite somber almost giving a sense of poetic fallacy with the attribution of character and theme onto the environment. I feel like this helps the film to reflect upon it's stylistic influences such as 28 Days Later, specifically the scenes with Jim walking through London on his own after he comes out of hospital as this was my primary inspiration for the themes of isolation and abandon and I think my project captures that quite well.