#sally hill camera angle

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

they’re amazing at this game, work together perfectly, keep talking about how easy everything is, and spend the entire time telling each other anecdotes and facts and giggling and shit talking the characters’ communication skills. genuinely the two worst people to play a divorced couple.

[tripstations]

Readers’ best summer vacation photos

Thanks for the misery, readers.

We mean that in the nicest way possible.

We received more than 2,500 submissions for our annual Summer Vacation Photo issue. Photos are from those who do not make their living as professional photographers.

A group of photo, design, digital, social and word editors recently gathered to decide which ones would appear in print or online.

It’s fun looking at pictures from around the world — fun until someone gets hurt (or their feelings do). Then the party’s over, and it’s time for the hard decisions.

Everybody’s ox gets gored, which means each of us had favorites that didn’t make the final cut. There was no supreme dictator. Everybody had a say, which became a case study in how perceptions can vary.

1/39

Michele Castagnetti from Los Angeles took this photo at Rovinj, Croatia, on Aug. 15, with a Nikon Coolpix A900. 

(Michele Castagnetti)

2/39

David Liehn from Redondo Beach took this photo in Juneau, Alaska, on June 28 with a Canon 6D. 

(David Liehn)

3/39

Allison Kahan from Sherman Oaks took this photo off the island of Lokrum in Croatia on July 10 with an iPhone 10. 

(Allison Kahan)

4/39

Monica Chan from Honolulu took this photo in Yellowstone National Park on June 1 with an iPhone X. 

(Monica Chan)

5/39

Sondi Toll Sepenuk, Los Angeles Sepenuk and her daughter Hazel, 16, were in Nice, France, on Aug. 8, enjoying a perch above a rocky beach. That’s when the elder Sepenuk noticed the pattern of the umbrellas overhead and caught it with her iPhone XR. 

(Sondi Toll Sepenuk)

6/39

Romine Damon from Valley Glen took this photo in Porto, Portugal, on July 12 with an iPhone 8. 

(Romine Damon)

7/39

Jon Dickens from Los Angeles took this photo at Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, on Aug 27 with an iPhone XS. 

(Jon Dickens)

8/39

Daniel Elder from Echo Park too this photo at Hat Creek, Calif. on June 20 with a Sony a7R III. 

(Daniel Elder)

9/39

Paul Alwine from Irvine took this photo at Ring of Kerry, Ireland, on July 13 with a Sony DSC-HX80. 

(Paul Alwine)

10/39

Carol Cohn of Corona del Mar, Calif., and her husband were part of a photo safari group in August looking for leopards in Serengeti National Park. No luck — but they did see this perfectly placed giraffe. Cohn had brought a sophisticated camera and long lens to Africa, but when this moment arrived, the tool was her “purse camera,” a Canon G7 X Mark II. 

(Carol Kunkis Cohn)

11/39

Axel Santiago from Pittstown, N.J., took this photo at Salzburg, Austria, on June 23 with a Nikon D750. 

(Axel Santiago)

12/39

Randy Malone from Camarillo took this photo at Seyoisfjorour, Iceland, on July 22 with a Canon 6D. 

(Randy Malone)

13/39

Rebecca Quan of Los Angeles took this photo in Japan on June 23 with an iPhone 8. 

(Rebecca Quan)

14/39

Austin Lyke from Santa Monica took this photo at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, on Aug. 7 with an iPhone 7. 

(Austin Lyke)

15/39

Steve Leff of Los Angeles took this picture along Seattle’s Lake Union on Aug. 13 with a Samsung Galaxy S9+ 

(Steve Leff)

16/39

Chris Lock from Huntington Beach took this photo at Setsukeian Farmhouse, Nantan, Kyoto, Japan on June 15 with a Fuji X-T2. 

(Chris Lock)

17/39

Timothy Boettcher from West Los Angeles was struck by the colors and shapes of this urban scene in Stone Town, the oldest part of Zanzibar City. He snapped this picture in June with a Sony DSC-RX10. 

(Timothy Boettcher)

18/39

Sandy Davis from Pasadena didn’t travel far on Aug. 2 — just to the Los Angeles Zoo — but he chose his time and place well. While Davis trained his Nikon D800 and its 28-300 mm lens on the tiger enclosure, the big cat posed by a rock formation. 

(Sandy Davis)

19/39

Kevin Zelenay from Los Angeles was snorkeling on Aug. 22 at Maui’s Black Rock Beach with his wife, Diane, left, and her sister when this scene took shape. He captured it with a GoPro Hero 7. 

(Kevin Zelenay)

20/39

On June 5, Sue Bachmann from Long Beach flew from Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro to the Serengeti, then joined a game drive that encountered these two zebras. Bachmann raised her Sony DSC-HX80 and caught their gentle interaction. 

(Sue Bachmann)

21/39

Lucas Lochner Bravo from Pioneer, Calif. and his girlfriend, Emma Lautanen, were on a three-day backpacking trip when he caught the sun peeking over the ridge and Lautanen below. He used his iPhone 6. 

(Lucas Lochner Bravo)

22/39

Steve Giffin, his wife and their teenage daughter were dead tired on June 22 after an overnight flight to Paris. Their hotel clerk prescribed a short walk near the Eiffel Tower. Bingo. “The energy and vibe around the tower really set a great mood for the rest of the trip,” Giffin wrote. 

(Steve Giffin)

23/39

On June 24, Randy Howard from San Dimas was on a photo tour in the Dolomites region of northern Italy. At the Giau Pass, he and a few others climbed about three-quarters of a mile to a vantage point. Then, Howard said, “The clouds started rolling in” and this scene materialized. He used a Canon 5D Mark III. 

(Randall R. Howard)

24/39

On June 29, Kathryn Keeney Jaeger from Pasadena and her family headed on their sport-fishing boat to the Two Harbors area of Catalina Island. While she and her 11-year-old son, Robert, were walking on shore, a breeze caught his towel. Jaeger captured the moment with her iPhone 7. Her fancy Nikon? On the boat. 

(Kathryn Kenney)

25/39

Tiffany Yip from Pasadena was at the Hemis Festival in Ladakh in August when this masked figured turned her way. She snapped with a Nikon D7200.  

(Tiffany Yip)

26/39

Janet Hirth from Laguna Niguel was walking the shoreline of Lake Moraine between bouts of rain on Aug. 31 when she came upon these canoes and turquoise waters. She shot it with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.  

(Janet Hirth)

27/39

Virgilio Go from Chino Hills met these Maasai on Aug. 16 near the Tanzanian border and seized the chance to get a picture of the boldly dressed foursome jumping. He used a Sony a7 III.  

(Virgilio Go)

28/39

Steve Fujinaka from Torrance spotted this polar bear on July 27 on a small-ship cruise. The bear spent about two hours romping near the ship as Fujinakasnapped away with his Nikon D850 camera with a 180-400 mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. Fujinaka liked this image of the bear because of “how comfortable it was being around us,” he said.  

(Steve Fujinaka)

29/39

Major Cay in the Exuma Cays is known for its feral pigs that swim. Mike McDonnell from Newbury Park arrived by boat on June 17 and got this picture with his Sony a7R III. Hurricane Dorian mostly missed Major Cay on Sept. 1 when it roared into the Bahamas.  

(Mike McDonnell)

30/39

Marcio Romani and Clayton Mosher from Los Angeles were knocked out by the scenery at Savannah’s Wormsloe State Historic Site, an 18th century colonial estate with ruins, costumed interpreters and a nature trail. Appraising this watery scene on Aug. 31, the two came up with a plan: Romani would jump on the fallen tree, climb out over the water and strike a yoga pose. Mosher would snap the picture on the iPhone XR. But once Romani started climbing, “It was very wobbly, kind of dangerous.” So he just sat and looked into the distance. Mosher snapped. Nice.  

(Marcio Romani)

31/39

Josh Means from Corona del Mar, an 18-year-old student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, was on a backpacking trip when he set up his Sony a7 III for a long night-sky exposure near Thousand Island Lake. The image, made June 30, gives us a big view of the Milky Way. 

(Josh Means)

32/39

Hazel Sepenuk from Los Angeles, 16, and her mother, Sondi Toll Sepenuk, were in Nice in August, enjoying a perch above a rocky beach. The younger Sepenuk stepped down to water’s edge with her iPhone X. 

(Hazel Sepenuk)

33/39

On a family trip to Japan in June, Chris Lock from Huntington Beach hiked the Kumano Kodo trail network with his sons, Grant, 11, and Austen, 13. After about three miles, father and sons repaired to Kirinosato, a ryokan in Takahara, for a sunset onsen soak. That’s when Lock raised his Fuji X-T2 and got this shot. 

(Chris Lock)

34/39

Lucas Lochner from Pioneer, Calif. and his girlfriend, Emma Lautanen, were on a three-day backpacking trip when he caught the sun peeking over the ridge and Lautanen below. He used his iPhone 6. 

(Lucas Lochner)

35/39

Antelope Canyon, just east of Page, Ariz., is owned by the Navajo Nation, which allows escorted tours. Anita Mauch from Moorpark took one Aug. 12 and discovered these two trickles of sand within the red walls of the slot canyon. She used a Nikon D3400. 

(Anita Mauch)

36/39

Ashlee Okamura from Irvine, 16, found this angle during a fireworks display above the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge area of Disneyland, which opened in May. She used a Nikon D5000. 

(Ashlee Okamura)

37/39

On Aug. 11, Sally Raskoff from Woodland Hills stepped into Sainte-Chapelle, a 13th century chapel that was once home to kings and queens, and saw a picture-perfect view above. “It’s just magical,” she said. She used an iPhone 7 Plus. 

(Sally Raskoff)

38/39

Tina Studier from Manhattan Beach, her husband and two of their children spent two nights at Sossusvlei, including a June 18 stop at the Namib Desert’s much-admired Dune 45. She trained her Canon PowerShot SX40 HS on the slope while others climbed the hill. 

(Tina Studier)

39/39

Susan Gross from Santa Monica and her mother, Helen Gross, 87, on Sept. 3 finally got to a long-anticipated landmark: Niagara Falls. As they approached on foot from the Canadian side, Susan spotted the U.S. sightseeing boat Maid of the Mist and raised her iPhone 7.  

(Susan Gross)

See the online selection

Here’s what didn’t vary: the amazement onlookers expressed at your work.

Several non-Travel-section colleagues wandered by to see why we had hundreds of photos spread across tables and on the floor. When we told them we were evaluating reader photo submissions, they inevitably replied with an unenthusiastic “Oh.” Then they’d look at the talent on display and the second “Oh” would sound an octave higher, the way people react when they realize they have underestimated something remarkable.

Which describes what you’ll see here and in print.

You made these photos easy to love and, in doing so, made our jobs much more difficult. We’re not complaining, though. Instead we are reveling in a photographic journey around the world that has made us appreciate why we travel and why we love it so. Welcome aboard.

Nice, France

2019 summer vacation photo.

(Hazel Sepenuk)

Hazel Sepenuk, Los Angeles

Sepenuk, 16, and her mother, Sondi Toll Sepenuk, were in Nice in August, enjoying a perch above a rocky beach. The younger Sepenuk stepped down to water’s edge with her iPhone X.

Savannah, Ga.

2019 summer vacation photo.

(Marcio Romani and Clayton Mosher)

Marcio Romani and Clayton Mosher, Los Angeles

Romani and Mosher were knocked out by the scenery at Savannah’s Wormsloe State Historic Site, an 18th century colonial estate with ruins, costumed interpreters and a nature trail. Appraising this watery scene on Aug. 31, the two came up with a plan: Romani would jump on the fallen tree, climb out over the water and strike a yoga pose. Mosher would snap the picture on the iPhone XR. But once Romani started climbing, “It was very wobbly, kind of dangerous,” he said. So he just sat and looked into the distance. Mosher snapped. Nice.

Giau Pass, Italy

2019 summer vacation photo.

(Randy Howard)

Randy Howard, San Dimas

On June 24, Howard was on a photo tour in the Dolomites region of northern Italy. At the Giau Pass, he and a few others climbed about three-quarters of a mile to a vantage point. Then, Howard said, “The clouds started rolling in” and this scene materialized. He used a Canon 5D Mark III.

Los Angeles

2019 summer vacation photo.

(Sandy Davis)

Sandy Davis, Pasadena

Davis didn’t travel far on Aug. 2 — just to the Los Angeles Zoo — but he chose his time and place well. While Davis trained his Nikon D800 and its 28-300 mm lens on the tiger enclosure, the big cat posed by a rock formation.

The post Readers’ best summer vacation photos appeared first on Tripstations.

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[madeleinewynnefmp]

Maya Deren; Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

(Still taken from ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’, 1943)

Maya Deren’s pioneering contribution to the vanguard of experimental film-making that erupted onto the American art scene in the mid 20th century defined a uniquely viscerous filmic physicality at once bathed in a hypnotic, oneiric atmospheric development and yet keenly focused on the repetition and resonance of symbolism and singular inanimate embodiment that has retained its aching opacity since her final film, ‘Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti’, was compiled and released posthumously in 1985.One of the foremost influencers of New American Cinema, Deren established the enduring model of independent film production that revolutionised the then male-dominated experimental sphere she conceptually and aesthetically overturned when her first film, ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’, arrived in 1943, envisioning experimental cinema as an alternative, creative and ethical medium made for ‘what Hollywood spends on lipstick’1.Born in the Ukraine to Jewish parents in 1917, Deren’s family fled the USSR during the anti-Semitic pogroms unleashed by the White Volunteer Army in 1922 and settled in Sycaruse, New York, where Deren was subsequently educated and fostered her artistic development amongst the European emigre art scene that at the time hosted such creatives as Marcel Ducamp, Andre Breton and Anais Nin. Alongside experimental film-making she also practised as a choreographer, dancer, extensive film theorist, poet, writer, lecturer and photographer, whilst it is the raw verocity of Deren’s intention to elevate the medium of experimental, technically ‘amateur’ film-making  to one that can ‘manipulate Time and Space’, ‘create experience’ and ‘semi-psychological reality’ and recognise the innate ‘dramatic necessity’ of the snagged moving image in its study of the humanity that itself believes it studies through it, with less a ‘plot that moves’ then a film that runs to the ‘movement of wind, or water, children, people, elevators, balls’ as a ‘poem might celebrate these’, that remains her undying, ever-conceptually generating and pulsing, artistic legacy.

Still one of the most influential of Maya Deren’s, and indeed the wider emerging experimental filmic movement’s work, ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ (1943) provides an explosive artillery to the frontier of the psycho-physical interactivity and pioneer of film as both a medium through which to confront symbol and its visual significance within the ritualistic human sub-reality, and one again to turn back on itself and watch the flinching internal exorcisms of the filmmaker through the lens of their face in a paralleled, but often unseen war of perspective and  subjectivity, that radiates in Deren’s ideological representations. A collaboration between Deren and Alexander Hammid, her second husband and the established experimental filmmaker known for such films as ‘Crisis’ (1939) and ‘To Be Alive!’ (1964) - for which he won an Academy Award  - that, in the words of Sally Berger consisted of the perfect translation of Deren’s ‘poetic visual expression’ and Hammid’s ‘smooth cinematorgaphy’, ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ provided a groundbreaking mastery of atmospheric control and perhaps the earliest examples of a true vivisection of the human conscious from all subjective angles, a film that established Deren’s conceptual practice and indeed artistic prestige as one that could communicate ‘the inner realities of an individual and the way in which the subconscious will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience.’4 Partly inspired by the Gestalt psychological theory she encountered at Smith College whilst studying there for a degree in English Literature, Deren certainly engages with the concept of a devouring response in the subconscious to the significance and survivalist relevance of the domestic and everyday, a shapeshifting weight of unexplained significance radiating from the icons of the artificial and often unnecessary that ‘conspire’ to alter the motives and narrative, indeed tease out the barely recognisable emotive mechanics underlying the conscious that begin to haze the perspective of the central, nameless character portrayed by Deren herself. The film was shot in the couple’s Hollywood Hills home, and, lasting a duration of 14 minutes, follows an episodic, but creepingly connective narrative that, like a psycho-spiritual whodunnit demands that the viewer plumb the twilight potential energy of their own shaded subconscious to connect the dotted household objects like Freudian symbols, although Deren vehemently rejected psychoanalysis and any relation in her works to the ideologies of the surrealist movement and its treatment of randomised narrative in relation to the piece.

Shot on a 16mm Bolex camera, the narrative shakily follows the perspective, or, rather, the conflicting subjective-objective perspectives haunting the central, nameless woman portrayed by Deren, whom, after first appearing in a shadow-form that acts to represent the identity of her subconscious throughout the film, weakly pursues an illusory, ominous figure swathed in black robes and bearing an ovular mirror as a paralleled face, before entering her coolly lit, suburban home. Here she finds herself unsettled by a plotted web of household items - specifically a key, knife, telephone off the hook and record-player- at once familiar and yet rendered suddenly wrought with a disturbed potential, magnetic energy, a trope for representing an entry of the human conscious into the liminal landscape of the abstracted unconscious that forms a central feature of Gothic literature in the form of the ‘uncanny’.

 Eventually settling into a chair and descending into sleep, we experience what appears to be a series of three parallel dreams, each one featuring a fruitless pursuit of the phantom figure and an entry into the space that appears to alter more drastically, and yet still as atmospherically inexplicably,  with each arrival, the tonal exhumation more sinister with each gathering repetition of the past cycles’ failings, until the final dream parallel ends with the central protagonist’s reawakening by a man - her lover- whose aesthetic and physicality mirrors that of the drifting, pursued cloaked idol. Thus begins the dual, doubled-dream ending, as the woken woman hurls the knife originally rested into the loaf of bread and, in the final ’dream’ sequence intended for her sleeping doppelganger at his no-longer mirrored visage, only for the image to shatter, an icy hollowing opening to reveal a porthole maritime scene visited before as the distance traveled by the protagonist as she becomes her own executioner in approaching her sleeping double with the fated knife, shards of glass sifting under the surfing waves.   

 The physicality with which Deren conducts the cinematography of the piece, dragging the lens as she draws herself up the increasingly evasive staircase as the dream sequences multiply and darken, as well as the use of symbol to track a strong, sense of the foreboding ‘uncanny’ is one that I would like to adopt in my own film-making practice as I explore the innately existential, perceived supernatural figures of the witches in my devised experimental short film. Similarly, a slurring of objectivity and perspective highlights a self-vivisection of the limitations of singular human perspective and the human fantasy that is ‘shared reality’, and it is this also that I intend to deconstruct, as I evaluate the innate human confusion regarding the true relationship of the ‘I’ and the body that, when translated acutely into the female experience, is in fact a perfect cross-section of the overdevelopment of an unparalleled mammal identity utterly divided from a biological destiny essential to cyclical biological mechanism. Alterations of the scenic perspective from that of the central witch I intende to portray to that of an omniscient viewer - like the collective sight of her captive sisters-  will perhaps achieve this.

Bibliography:

Deren, M. (2019). An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film. [online] Monoskop.org. Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/3/31/Deren_Maya_An_Anagram_of_Ideas_on_Art_Form_and_Film.pdf [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].

Berger, S. (2019). Maya Deren's Legacy. [online] Moma.org. Available at: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/_assets/www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/learn/courses/MoMA_ModernWomen_MayaDerenLegacy.pdf [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]

[reelbrew]

The Night of the Hunter and the Fear of Christian Antipathy

When director Charles Laughton’s first and sadly final film, ‘The Night of the Hunter’, was released back in the summer of 1955, it marked an irrevocable burden on the mind of one of Britain’s most applauded stage and screen actors. Laughton, who trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, starred in more than 50 works of film, both short and theatrical, before stepping behind the camera to adapt Davis Grubb’s novel of the same name. That burden that caused Laughton to abandon the director’s chair came in the form of critical disdain and audience dismissal upon release of his debut, an outcome that many believed to be caused by little to no marketing. Given the subject matter, themes and tones stalking every frame, marketing it to a wide audience in 1955 would have been a difficult and daunting task, even if we weren’t judging its history through decades of reflection. Though no matter how many lobby cards filled theaters, television spots small screens, or write-ups newspapers, the new Christianity of the Eisenhower era wasn’t ready for such a film.

There’s the stalker, a murderous hand of god that roams the Ohio countryside preaching the cataclysm of sinners, predominately women and their sexual proclivities. The two orphans eluding the preacher along a hauntingly serene riverbed, a sound stage Laughton had constructed as to manipulate sights and sounds. The heavy tones and shadows that layered the film beyond simply another film noir, the lighting bouncing off its expressionistic architecture like geometric thunder.

Sex wasn’t exactly a taboo subject back then, with the first issue of Playboy hitting newsstands in 1953, a mere two years before Laughton made it the focal point behind damnation, but it was years from being deemed fit as table talk. While the world had its Monroe and Mansfield’s, the visual stimuli brushing shoulders with every name in cinema, it also had the one thing that stretched higher than the Hollywood hills; God.

There’s a scene early in The Night of the Hunter that has John (Billy Chapin), our hunted child, reciting a passage from the bible to his younger sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), the light of a kerosene street lamp casting a looming silhouette against their bedroom wall. “Just a man” John says before hopping into bed, the imminent danger not quite apparent. It’s a threat that would slowly and persistently make its way into the children’s lives, guided by a hymnal song – “Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms” - that threatened more than the lives of two children.

This hymn, gaily sung by Robert Mitchum, was written in 1887 by Anthony J. Showalter, who was inspired by a phrase in the Book of Deuteronomy – the fifth book in the Christian Old Testament – that reads “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” It’s a hymn that, like the preacher, considers itself guiding and benevolent, a spiritual observer of the great land that pricks the ears of those lost. The further John and Pearl run, the closer this song comes to being a warning of the self-righteous slaughter that plagues their path, a fear of the hand of god, rising up and striking them down from above.

Under the Eisenhower administration, fearing Russian missile strikes, people turned to the only sanctuaries they knew–theater and church–to relieve the fear for Russian missile strikes and combat the Communistic atheism.

As God moved further into the beliefs of Americans, it too moved swiftly to the aid of John and Pearl, kneeling before Harry’s mighty sword – or phallic switchblade – in the form of cinematographer Stanley Cortez’s angularly gothic shots of rural Americana. Working with deep shadows that highlighted the dark thematic elements, Cortez framed ‘The Night of the Hunter’ with triangular shapes, their three equal sides suggesting what it means to be three in one: the son (John), the father (Harry), and the Holy Ghost (Rachel, an aged caretaker of lost souls, played by Lillian Gish). Each plays their own believed role of God, with the preacher blasphemously masquerading as a false prophet, a bearer of bad fruit that Rachel hints at in the opening credits:

“And then the good Lord went on to say, 'Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them.”    

Laughton and Cortez who also worked on Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons’, employed the use of German Expressionism, a post-WWI movement that explored oblique lines and sharp, heightened angles, often painted on canvas. Combining these gaunt expressionistic lines with the drenched qualities of film noirs shadows, Laughton, along with Art Director Hilyard Brown (Cleopatra), highlighted the many geometric shapes of mid-century American architecture.

For many Christians, the use of triangles symbolizes a sort of spiritual doorway that is considered as a place of idol Worship in the Old Testament – which our preacher embraced through hymn – that saw demonic influences and activities. Equally, sacrilege could be unveiled in a scene that has John and his friend Bernie (James Gleason), an old drunkard with a good heart, killing a fish after scooping it up from the very river that swept our orphans downstream. The idea of the fish within Christian faith distinguished brethren from foe, a marker for like ideologies throughout Greece and Italy. Subsequently, the killing of the fish by John and Bernie can be seen as a rejection of the very faith that was sweeping a terrified nation, one that kneeled before the credence of cinema and faith.    

Perhaps the artistic interpretations turned away audiences, many of whom were clutching Christianity as a substitute for Red Fear. Perhaps it were the impiety that radiated from the script, one that Laughton reworked himself with James Agee (The African Queen). Perhaps all of this is mere speculation, a casualty of coincidence that floundered on the lack of promotion by producer Paul Gregory (The Naked and the Dead). Flourishing decades after its initial release thanks to the preservation by the National Film Registry, The Night of the Hunter faired so poorly in the states that Laughton never returned to helm another film. Ironically, in 1955, the same year of its release, the phrase “In God We Trust” became immortalized on paper money across the country.

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Analysis of Film openings by Charlie Stopler

The Watchmen   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVUDdQS2UxA

Straight away, it is a clearly a superhero film. The opening credits montage set to Bob Dylan’s timeless “The times they are a-changin” is well constructed and sets the nature and tone of the twisted world of Watchmen to great effect. The montage opens by introducing the reality of real-world superheroes in the 1940s with Hollis Mason, dressed as Nite Owl, punching out a criminal as cameras flash around him. Instantly noticeable is the  decision to present the entire scene in slow motion, a brilliant inclusion that, when combined with Dylan’s tune, creates a hypnotic, nostalgic effect perfect for the arrangement, while “warner bros. pictures and paramount present” is above his head in large text. A few shots later, Snyder captures an image of the minutemen posing for a picture in 1940. The costumes and general aesthetic work in these early depictions are authentic and stunning.

Most notably, the montage works to detail the turbulent nature of superhero popularity as depicted in the media leading up to the present-day of the novel. After initial successes and stardom, heroes are shown to be murdered, retire, go mad, and fall out of favour with the public. In sequence, Dollar Bill is shown dead at a crime scene with cameras flashing about, Sally Jupiter is shown pregnant at a party with the rest of the minutemen under the banner “Happy retirement Sally”, and Mothman is shown attempting to flail and fight his way out of the arms of men in white coats taking him into an ambulance. Snyder depicts the rise and fall of the original Watchmen superhero.

Some of the most fun moments of the montage come from depicting bits and pieces of Watchmen’s alternate version of history. The heroes of Watchmen are shown to have had a direct impact on many major historical moments of the 60s. One shot faithfully recreates the Zapruder tape assassination of JFK only to pan away to a hill, revealing the Comedian incriminatingly  holding a rifle, while another twists the moon landing by showing Dr. Manhattan’s face in the reflection of a space helmet, while yet another depicts Richard Nixon being elected for a third term. All these things help to add to the idea that in this film, these superheros have had a direct impact on our past.

Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCvU-91eAo

The great thing about the sequence is the explosive start when a fuse is lit as the music begins. As its lit “Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions present” is shown in large text, establishing the main distributors and producers. This is followed by “A Tom cruise Production”, showing that he is a huge part of the films success.This fuse is subsequently featured throughout the entire sequence and ties the whole thing together, with the camera following it wherever it goes. With burning circuit boards, skyscrapers with graphically-overlaid blueprints, an underwater shot, bullets, missiles and fast cars, the viewer tends to miss the fact that some of the movie ending (such as the circular car park) is featured in these opening credits. The audience also sees this with the props used in the title sequence such as the fuse which is lit (symbolising an explosion), Missiles, Guns/Bullets and even fast sports cars. There are various camera scenes and angles such as close ups, long shots and cinematic/establishing shots.

Overall, a captivating and thrilling sequence. It gives hints as to what the film is going to be about and includes objects and scenes from the film without revealing the story line. Rewatching it after having seen the film creates a whole new experience watching the title sequence as you recognise everything shown. The classic mission impossible theme tune that everyone knows and loves is used, creating nostalgia and excitement from the start. Following the fuse is a clever and innovative idea which keeps us engaged in the action.The "Ghost Protocol" font is very misty and a faded grey giving the audience the feel of a ghost or something quite mysterious. The title sequence shows the Production Company and Producers first, then it goes into the title of the film and the rest of the casts. The font for the title of the film is different to the others, it is much bolder and more attractive to the audience to make sure that they read the name of the film.

Fight Club https://vimeo.com/90519890

The opening starts with a quick sound of an old classical music and after about 2 seconds the soundtrack changes into a loud, full of beat tune and it being low key creates a creepy atmosphere. The movement on the screen is fast paced in dark colours and it is supposed to reflect the inside of someone's brain. The camerawork shows  very precise details and there are sort of electrical impulses running through the brain that can represent different feelings, in case of this atmosphere it is more likely to be fear and confusion. The scale is changed the whole time, so the audience are able to see close ups of different lobes and also medium shots of other brain chords, nerve connections and particles. What is also interesting to notice that as the sequnce goes on the pores seem to be more and more clogged. Overall this represents and shows that the film will have a lot to do with someone's thinking, mental stability and there is going to be a lot to think about for the audience as well.

The credits are going on at the same time and Brad Pitt has one of the main roles, which will attract more audience. As the credits finish the pulling out of the brain fades into an extreme close up of what we discover to be a gun inside someone's mouth. At the same time there is diegetic narration that mentions the name "Tyler Durdan." This establishes two characters for the audience and creates an enigma, as we are wondering what is the link between them. At the same time another enigma is created as the person who holds the gun speaks, but we can only see a close up of his arm and later backside, which creates a mystery of who he is. He mentions the time of "3 minutes" and asks if the other person has any "last words to mark the occasion." This is another confusion for the audience, as we are wondering why he is so specific with time and if the occasion is killing the man or something else.

There is a slight humour to break the tension as the man attempts to talk with the gun in his mouth and when his mouth is free he says "I can't think of anything." This little moment in the opening is a huge enigma, as the film has a non-linear narrative and as it starts at the end, we have no idea what is the story behind what is going on. The antagonist-potential killer and the protagonist-victim are established, as well as the mysterious persona Tyler Durdan. The setting is in the dark and the atmosphere with gun is very tense and nerving, which creates a worrying mood. Just from this little clip the genre of the film can be established as a thriller and there are a lot of enigmas and puzzles created for the audience right from the start.

Shaun of the Dead     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCso753oVfw

This film follows the experience of midde-class English 20 year  olds survival of the zombie apocalypse by hiding in a pub. It is a clever parody of the zombie genre. It can be seen as a zombie-romantic-comedy as the main character Sean (played by Simon Pegg) attempts to win his girlfriend back while trying to survive. The opening sequence shows many people doing their boring, mundane deadend jobs as if they were on autopilot. It gives the audience the impression that they are not yet zombies, but are basically zombified by doing their routine jobs every day with little thought or regard. It questions social norms. Cleverly, at the end of the film the same people are shown doing the same jobs expect this time they are zombies. This is a clever method to show how mundane working life can be.

The first shot is of someone pushing trolleys slowly while “Universal pictures Studiocanal and Working title films” is shown, confirming the producer and distributor. The lighting is bright throughout, unlike most zombie films that use darkness to create suspense and fear. For example, the supermarket during the day shown is an unconventional place for a horror to be filmed. The camera then cuts to people waiting at a bus stop who check their clocks in sync, reinforcing the idea of people turning into zombies by doing the same thing every day. The whole opening sequence is a mid-shot with a slow pan that cuts to the next shot. This shot is repeated which again adds to the idea of mundane conformity zombifying people. It makes the audience feel less involved, like an onlooker.

The next shot is different to the rest, indicating change of pace and story. It starts with a low angle shot of some feet stumbling with a large shadow, accompanied by zombie like groaning. This is typical in horror and zombie films to make someone seem more frightening. The camera then pans up to reveal that it is not a zombie, it is Shaun the main character yawning, stumbling as he has just woken up. This perhaps is a mockery of the usual horror genre.

The next shot is of Shaun and Ed. Their close relationship is shown when they sit next to each other both with their feet on the table. We hear “player 2 has entered the game” as shaun pick up the controller. His instant joining into the game signifies the close bond they share. Ed then says “haven’t you got work?” followed by a voice saying “player two has left the game”. Shaun gets up as quickly as he sat down, reinstating the idea that having to do the same tasks everyday is like already being a zombie.

[jeromenathen]

Lower East Side reaching higher as destination

The Lower East Side, to paraphrase the old cliche, was a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to stay there. Maybe you stopped into Katz’s (scene of “I’ll have what she’s having”) for a pastrami sandwich and an egg cream. [...] you hightailed it back to your uptown hotel — or if you were a bit more edgy, over to Soho. Because unless it was a weekend and you were a twentysomething looking to get as drunk as possible, there was no reason to linger on the Lower East Side. [...] possibly. The Lower East Side has sprouted a slew of new hotels — both posh and hipster-y — as well as a whole crop of fabulous restaurants you’d be more than happy to eat in sober. Add to the mix the always innovative New Museum and the newly relocated International Center for Photography catercorner from it on Bowery. Is there enough justification to hang below Houston and east of Bowery — even if it’s Tuesday and you’re old enough to have seen “When Harry Met Sally” in a movie theater? Is it possible that suddenly the neighborhood where Meg Ryan demonstrated faking an orgasm has become an exciting, real destination in itself? Stop by Orchard early in the day, and you might catch one of the remaining tailors sweeping his steps, morning sun shining on his yarmulke. Walk Canal at dusk, and you’ll be sideswiped by housewives swinging pink plastic shopping bags dripping crab water. Take Sel Rrose, a glamorously decayed bar/restaurant with distressed concrete walls and gunmetal stools. Sel Rrose’s white marble bar is jammed with mason jars filled with sage leaves and blackberries, candied ginger and red peppercorns — destined for the fabulously decorative (and potent) cocktails shaken up by its lush-bearded bartenders. The name refers to the hill-and-dale process — the term for cutting vertical grooves into a phonograph record or wax cylinder — one of the earliest methods of audio recording. Hill & Dale’s signature drink — which is hot pink and served with a flower floating in it — is called the Floozy, and it takes zero imagination to picture a Jazz Age flapper downing it in the brick-walled back room. At Top Hops, the enormous blackboard behind the bar is chalked with each beer’s name, the brewer, its origin, style, date tapped, alcohol by volume, and the date the draft line was cleaned. Top Hops also keeps pieces of soft Brooklyn-made pretzels on the bar for noshing, which definitely makes me not want to drink beer anywhere else. The restaurant Louie and Chan, with one foot in Chinatown and one on the Lower East Side, is so straight out of the early 1900s with its thin-planked wood floors, porcelain light fixtures, and dark brown walls, the three young Millennial women I once saw texting at the bar looked as if they’d been dropped from another planet, not just another era. If somebody spirited your favorite northern Italian restaurant into a space that could best be described as Haute Tenement, you’d have Bacaro. [...] you have to love a restaurant that gives you your own bottle of olive oil for dipping your bread. Fried chicken and Champagne are two things I am 100 percent behind — which makes Birds and Bubbles my new favorite restaurant on the Lower East Side. [...] who cares when they’re pouring you Champagne (of every price range) and serving you teeth-crackingly crisp fried chicken. Ivan Ramen is the Lower East Side outpost of the self-described “Jewish kid from Long Island” who went to Tokyo and became a Japanese god of noodles. The mural of soup slurpers above the counter includes a kid in a Batman mask, a Japanese man in an Indiana Jones hat and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. In NYC, even the ice cream joints get their 15 minutes of fame — and Morgenstern’s deserves at least that much. Last time I visited this bright-blue storefront, a photographer was angling his camera over their New God Flow sundae as if it were Gisele Bündchen. Its animal-friendly collection of bags and shoes for men and women is fashionable enough for even the most stylish leather-lover. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, stop into Kenny Shopsin’s idiosyncratic diner, located in the market. from Travel News and Features http://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Lower-East-Side-reaching-higher-as-destination-10853497.php