musambhalaticreativedev

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Tokyo Story (1953) Review

Tokyo Story is a simple story following an old couple visiting their children in Tokyo. The film follows the old couple as guests in their children's homes and shows how they all interact with each other. The film focuses on the normal everyday interactions the old couple has with their families and explores the relationship dynamics between the family with the different personalities within it. This film is definitely a slow burner, no big events or plot twists happen in the film but it is filled with little small moments which in the end we only realise the bigger picture. This film won't keep you at the edge of your seat and personally it was a bit of a tough viewing experience but I appreciated it a lot more at the end. The characters resemble the types of personalities that we can recognise in our own lives and we project this onto the screen. This makes the film extremely relatable as it deals with questions of love, life and death that we all experience in our realities.

Director Yasujirō Ozu’s approach to the cinematography of the film is also interesting. He chooses to keep his camera at a low position, slightly lower than the eye level of a japanese person sitting on a tatami mat. This technique is known as the Tatami Shot. Ozu uses the low angle shot to decrease depth in the shots and makes them look more two dimensional. He does this to enhance and let people appreciate his composition with his careful use of lines and blocking in his scenes which are carefully planned to work beautifully in unison. Ozu also tries to avoid camera moments and when it is really done it to make it feel natural to humans rather than to showcase skill in cinematography.

Tokyo story is considered as one of the great films because it is timeless. Made over 70 years ago the matters that it discusses touch us deeply and they play out in our own lives just like we see on screen.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Yeelen 1987 Film Review

Yeelen is considered to be director Souleymane Cissé’s masterpiece and the film has been called the “best African film ever made”. I can testify that watching the film was a really great experience. Personally, what stood out to me and what I think makes the film a classic is the way that African history and culture is represented so beautifully, in a way that you rarely get to see in other African films.  The production design in particular is brilliant in the film and it really gives the view insight on what life was like in Malawi in the 13th century. Personally what grabbed my attention was the way the world was set up more than the actual narrative. After watching the film you feel like you just travelled back in time and got to live and experience what Africa was in the 13th century.

Yeelen is a film set in the 13 century in malawi. The film which is based on a legend follows Nianankoro, a young man who goes on a spiritual journey to acquire wisdom to harness the full potential of his magical powers before battling his sourcer father who's out to get him. The film also carries political undertones dealing with patriarchy, misuse of power and the price of resistance. We see examples of this whe Nianankoro’s father uses his powers to destroy villages when looking for his son and when King Rouma Bol asks Nianankoro to help one of his wives conceive a child and he ends up sleeping with her. The king then gives his wife away to Nianankoro. Yeelen is a great film film that will give you great insight into african culture and history.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Wild Strawberries film review

Whilst in hospital filmmaker Ingman Bergman wrote the script for his famous Wild Strawberries, a film that explores the themes of Loneliness, dreams and childhood.

The film follows Isak Borg, a 78 year old doctor who is near the end of his career. Isak, a well respected doctor goes on a road trip to receive an award celebrating his successful career, during the film he has dreams and encounters with people that make him revisit his past memories and takes him on a journey of self reflection.

What makes this film a masterpiece is that as Isak reflects on his life we as viewers also ask ourselves the same questions and look back into our lives to try to understand who we are and why we have become the people that we are today.

The themes of loneliness and self-reflection probably came across so well in the film as Bergman drew inspiration for the film from his own life and failures writing from a lonely hospital bed. Although the film was made in 1957 it explores many relevant topics like religion, love, careers and family which are things that for most people seriously affect their levels of satisfaction and happiness in their lives.  This film also hold up so well because the past present and future merge in the forms of dreams and visions in Isaks life and makes us think about how our past and current situations will always affect our lives and how we see things in the future. The symbol of the clock with no hands represents his life and it having no hand shows  how in our past, present and future are intertwined and how they form his identity and this can also be seen in the cuts from his visions from the past, younger people he meets and his current life in the film.

Although it was made in 1957 Wild Strawberries is a comedic, drama film that explores topics that holds up in today's time as one of the greatest films ever. It will leave you wondering about everything that was, is and is to come in your own life

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Gotta Go

After 6 weeks of blogging finally here we are at the end of the race. The journey that Creative development has taken me on this year has been pretty interesting. For creative development to happen, one person would really need to dabble in a few different things they are unfamiliar with to expand the mind, Have a bigger and wider perspective on the activities you are doing and also to just add a few other things to your list of skills. This subject and in particular this blogging experience has really gotten me outside of my comfort zone firstly I do not document any of my actions and not did I usually do any of the activities that I’ve blogged about in the past few weeks so it was definitely an interesting journey. I have definitely learn a lot and now also have a new outlook on the way that I live my life and also on any other creative activities that I’ll take part in. Documenting the past couple of weeks of my life has been a really enjoyable experience and hopefully one day in the future I’ll be able to come back to these blog posts and remember what my life was like( is currently like) and read about all the fun things I used to get up to. I really hope that I can take all that I’ve learnt throughout the year and apply all the knowledge to my future endeavors. It has been a really pleasant experience.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Comic Dome

Hello this week I was wss faced with the task of having to create a comic strip. I planned on and did, draw and work on the drawing on photoshop by myself . It was very interesting because I had never done anything like it before. It was a totally new experience and nothing like what I am familiar with. I am not a great drawer nor do I even ever draw at all so the task was going to be challenging. But I took it on head first, so first I obviously had to develop a concept and a story for this comic and so I first started by creating my main character “Ella” a young laidback, weed smoker and care free person. She was very interested in nature and art history and in the comic I take us though a journey from where she goes from being a care free student to being a person who plays an important role in her world as she helps people survive in a harsh, post apocalyptic environment. So the story was all done and now came the difficult part which was actually drawing this comic, when I first started drawing it was a bit though but as I continued it got better and the next process was finishing up the drawings on photoshop and making illustrations. This project really got me outside of my comfort zone and taught me a lot of new drawing techniques and got me a lot more comfortable with photoshop, with this projects done I’ll definitely be better equipped to deal with upcoming school projects in the future

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Sensei Musa San

On Sunday the first of October I was with a family friend who was helping me with an assignment. She was helping me create a costume that I designed for my end of term project for production design. We’d been working together for the past few weeks planning and drawing out a partern for the costume to later on sew it. I had never sewn before so it was pretty exiting getting to learn. So first was safety because well that is the most important thing, she showed me how to hold the material I’m going to use to sew and and tapping on the pedal to to actually stick the materials together. I first practiced on some extra pieces of material left from what we had cut out, which was easy. I thought that the process of making my Kimono would be fairly quick bu but I had a very long and exhausting day. We started seeing the top of the kimono which was the harder of the the 2. It was a very complicated process and first we started with the back of the shirt stitiching it together then next we’re the sleeves. Later on the next day we worked on seeing the pants the process was really time consuming. I really enjoyed learining how to sew for my project and I’m also really happy with how my kimono looks this creative exercise taught me to try new things out even if I know abosolutly nothing about them and expand my horizons.I do not plan on sewing again anytime soon but if I ever need to then I know that I’ll be comfortable in that situation. It was really great learning this new skill. Knowledge never hurt anybody.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

24 October

Open the doors

On the 24th of October I woke up with a packed schedule ahead of me. First was to do my work, so I go to my desk and work on my production design project with some nice calm music as my background. I spent a long time struggling to find some new ideas to add to the project but I was interrupted by my sister, who is currently on high school holiday. She comes in my room and we play with our dog. I then finished working and started to work on a birthday gift for a friend who has to celebrate their twenty-first birthday. I left the house ready for a fun day of playing Fifa and going out with my boys, we chilled an now it was time to go watch the big game, we out to to have a few drinks but most restaurants in our area weren’t showing the game so we travelled to a few different restaurants till we found the right one and eventually watch the most boring game ever. Going out with my friends to watch the game and seeing the different restaurants really showed me how diverse the world is, every location looked different and attracted very different types of people.I learnt how to broaden my perspective about life and even the type of art I expose myself to, from music, films and etc. the more you know then more possible outcomes can come from the things you do and decisions you make in your life.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Swing

This week i took part in two interesting creative activities. Early this week on Wednesday I met up with a person to get a design I’ve drawn to get down into actual clothing. I got to see the process of drawing patterns to make a piece of clothing. The process took longer than I expected but it is important to the process that you pay attention to detail and take your time to make the best use of the materials available to you. This creative task really broadened my thinking in allowing myself to always try out and experience new things and see what I can do. The second activity I took part in this week was shooting a short film with my friends. me and my crew had the whole weekend to shoot. Shooting a film is always hard and reallystressful, but the experience I had working productively and hanging with them was really amazing the experience really reminded me about always having fun when taking part in

any creative activity. Everyone on set was having fun while still managing to be productive even if the project doesn’t come out to be the best, but I definitely have an experience that I can carry for a life time.

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Madness

this week me and a few friends have our first photo shoot since the lock down had started. we started working at 13:00 i was very exited, of course to see some of my close friends in a long time but also to get some creative work done. it had been a long time since i modelled for any shoots. the crew was getting the set ready and the models were getting dressed and getting our makeup done. i had a few pictures taken of me and then i started helping around taking some pictures. i am not a photographer so this was somewhat anew experience for me it was really interesting learning about compositions and trying to get a good photo. as an aspiring filmmaker i learnt a lot about what goes into taking a good picture, from different camera angles, colour schemes and everything else that is visible in a frame. the shoot ended a bit early simply because we just wanted to chill. we cleared up the set and had a few drinks. this experience really reminded me of how important it is to have when doing creative work. if you don’t have fun then everything else just seems pointless. 

[musambhalaticreativedev]

Soil and Dust

Earlier this week i met up with a few old friends to play football. I was extremely exited, the last time had played was in February before the lock down. I’d been playing football on my own and jogging, preparing myself for a day like this. It was my time to shine. we were separated into 3 teams of  6 with 2 playing and the other team waiting to verse the winners. we started playing and i was quickly out of breath due to the intensity of the game. i spent a lot of time running up and down the pitch trying my best be help the team on and off the ball. we won the first game from a penalty i scored but i felt no where near fit enough for the second game. we played the second game and we lost because i couldn't keep up with an eight year old kid playing against my team. It was very interesting seeing someone half my age being able to compete with me and my friends. We spent a few really good hours playing and watching the others play football. Playing football competitively requires a lot of focus and energy and when on the pitch nothing else matters except the direction the ball is going. Developing skill, fitness and knowledge to play football at a high level takes a lot of time and practice just like being a good filmmaker. playing football also helps with collaborating with people in different roles for one common goal, everyone has a part to play and its vital to the team on set or on the pitch to be in tip top form.