The Conventions of Science Fiction Films with Reference to Armageddon and Independence Day
Two of the earliest science fiction stories were Frankenstein and war
of the worlds by H.G Wells. Telling these stories gives directors
plenty of opportunity for special effects. They can use their
imaginations to design aliens, spaceships, robots, cities etc. Science
fiction films are stories about imaginary scientific discoveries,
space travel or life on other planets, they are popular because of
this. People can just escape from their boring lives and enter a world
of fantasy, where the only limit to as far as a science fiction film
can go is your imagination. Science fiction is a popular genre of
film, with a wide range of audiences. People enjoy collecting the
memorabilia, they enjoy the action, the weapons, and the characters.
Most science fiction films are set in the future, this is because the
film can be as imaginative and as serial as you want. One of the most
popular science fiction films ever made was star trek.
Narrative-
All science fictions films follow a Set pattern, there is a peaceful
world at the beginning of the story, and then a problem is created by
a new type of technology, an alien world, or an unknown force. A hero
takes on the job of saving the group threatened, which is a whole
world, a town or a family. Difficulties arise in defeating the danger
that creates tension and excitement for the audience, eventually there
is a confrontation, the hero wins and order is restored.
In Independence Day it starts with a peaceful world, the film begins
with the American flag on the moon, there is then a close-up shot of
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editing creating tension, excitement and suspense are when the
asteroids hit earth the scenes speed up and create excitement, after
the asteroids have hit the editing between the scenes of the
destruction of down town New York and Paris. Then there is quick
editing between lodes of different news stations, and then when they
are preparing for the finial stages of lift off, and when the
spacecraft crashes. All of these create tension, excitement and
suspense for the audience. In Independence Day some of the examples
are when the building get blown up, when the smaller spaceships attack
the planes, when the government nuke the spaceships, and when there
are the scenes of the whole world celebrating after the aliens are
destroyed. Once again all of these create tension, excitement and
suspense for the audience.
Some of the situations may be familiar; we may be able to anticipate the ending. and the characters who should not really be different from everyday. people we meet). Having said this most people today like to see a new story, a new moral. This is a demand that every director tries to fulfilment.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
This film shows his artistic prowess, and helps inspire new film makers daily: creating storytellers that can spin tales that hypnotize audiences for generations to come.
When deciding what movie to do for this particular paper I faced a few issues. I knew what the requirements were, but I wanted something different and something I could have fun watching and writing as well. So, after looking around and pondering movies for weeks I finally decided on a perfect choice The 60’s directed by Mark Piznarski?
Whenever books are adapted for film, changes inevitably have to be made. The medium of film offers several advantages and disadvantages over the book: it is not as adept at exploring the inner workings of people - it cannot explore their minds so easily; however, the added visual and audio capabilities of film open whole new areas of the imagination which, in the hands of a competent writer-director, can more than compensate.
Armageddon begins by showing the destruction of the Earth by an asteroid 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs inhabited the earth. According to the narration, the asteroid is said to have been six miles wide, with the power of 10,000 nuclear weapons. The after effects were trillions of tons of dirt and rock thrown into the atmosphere, creating a blanket of dust that the sun was unable to penetrate for 1,000 years. The narrator explained that it happened once, and that it would happen again, it was only a matter of when.
In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting, and circumstances of the film are totally different from those of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in each respective work.
According to historians like Neil Burch, the primitive period of the film industry, at the turn of the 20th century was making films that appealed to their audiences due to the simple story. A non-fiction narrative, single shots a burgeoning sense
Movies have developed in an extraordinary way. We have learn to tell and display story’s an emotion in ways no one thought we could every do. We went from 15 minute soundless skits, to 2 hour feature films and yearlong TV serious with full sound and color in a matter of just a few years. People when from thinking that film is just a fade that will fade out in no time. To making it a lifestyle. Going to movies every weekend watching a TV show ever weds.
Although this gave away the plot of the film it did not make the film
It seems that watching movies has become the most frequently mentioned pastime that is enjoyed by people from around the world. This is no surprise either, because everyone undeniably enjoys an experience when they can escape the daily reality for a little while, and fantasize about anything they wish or at least about what the movie being watched is offering. To live out these fantasies, two contrasting options are available; a trip to the cinema or staying at home.
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
A narrative film is a film that depicts a story through movement of pictures, sound, and words, it is audiovisual, and has two shapes. A narrative film can have a shape because it can interact with space and time; films mold space allowing the viewer to create perceptions about depth and can condense and speed up time. The two shapes that a film can are linear and circular. A linear narrative is a film in which the start, middle, and end transition smoothly and are unobstructed; the start runs into the middle and the middle leads to the end just like a fairytale has beginning, middle, and end. In contrast circular narratives are varied and can start anywhere in the film depicting flashbacks and transitio...
A great film stems from a great script and in order to generate a great script one simple, yet hard to achieve, rule must be adhered to. The rule is to grab the attention of the audience and to grab it quickly because if the audience is not interested from the beginning they will not dedicate their time to complete reading the script or watching the film. To effectively grab the attention of the...