Film Comments: Beasts of the southern wild(12A)

Time: 26/10/2012
Place: Broadway cinema
Director: Beth Zeitlin
Country: USA

The story is about a six-year-old girl name Hushpuppy who lives with her miserable dad in an isolate island "Bathtub" in the midst of the Mississippi Delta. Hushpuppy listens to the heartbeat of wild animals and share the devotion for this land with his daddy-- although sometimes he is hot-tempered and stubborn, the relationship between the father and little girl is still affecting.

In my opinion the director tried to tell this story by 3 different clues: the environmental concern, simple but raw emotions among people in this island and the courage of going againt any external forces which try to destroy their beloved homeland. The character setting and performance are the highlights of the whole movie, leading the audiences to a enchanting wildworld. On the other hand, horever, the shots were very wobbly, which I personally dislike.

This movie is voted 86% on the 'Rotton Tomatos' website. Here are some reviews:

'Benh Zeitlin's debut feature is part film, part hallucination: a ripe and gamey piece of what you might call Apocalyptic Southern Gothic, ambitious and flawed but sprinting with energy.'


'It doesn't ultimately make any sense at all and, for me, its charm wasn't enough to sustain the whole ramshackle structure.'


'Beasts is an extraordinary, deeply moving film that's one of the best of 2012. When the end credits roll - just like Hushpuppy - you'll feel like the king of the Bathtub.'


                             

Project development 1-- micro-film

"This is the “micro” era. After the appearance of micro-novels and micro-blogs, micro-films are now becoming popular now. Micro-films are the product of the combination of traditional films and online videos, “micro” being the main characteristic. In terms of time span,  micro-films can be anywhere between two or three minutes, to twenty or thirty minutes long; unlike traditional films which can be two to three hours in length. From the production perspective, it does not consume as much time, energy, and resources  as it would to produce a traditional movie. Its production period is short, investment is less and the access threshold is relatively low.Therefore, many grass-roots artists have the opportunity to join in the production of micro-films.Regarding film screening, the difference between micro-films and traditional films is the mode of projection. Instead of film theaters, Micro-films are usually broadcast on the internet and viewable on cell phones or other popular devices, making them more accessible to the general public. " 
                                                                                                                                  ---- artical 'Micro films in vogue' (http://www.myechinese.com/apps/lib/index.php?s=/Topic/topic/gid/12/tid/1243)

This comes to my attention that micro-film could be a good medium for my research topic due to the following 2 reasons: 1; the length of it is relatively short and it is feasible for a MA stage study with limited equipments, budget and crew. 2; with the help of new media platform ( video websites, smart phones, tablets and so on), it provides variety of new channels for reaseaching, especially on feedback collection winthin a broad range of viewers.

This is a good example of micro-film on Vimeo called ' On Wedenesdays' shot in 2 days and be nominated as a Best Lithuanian Short at the National Film and TV Awards, and finally qualified for The Short Film Corner in the International Cannes Film festival. It is 02:53 mins long, no conversation involved and produced with fantastic quality.



http://vimeo.com/43103189

Journey and destination project

Journey and destination project was the first task of this MA stage. The point of this project in my opinion  was to encourage us to think out of box at the very begining and develop creativity and innovation as an art and design student by  telling our own stories and ideas by a varity of new ways. Some of my group members were came from mainland China, Taiwan and some were local students of the UK. Although we were like chark and cheese, when discussed with each other we came up with a lot of good ideas.Instead of boring narrating we chose to perform the story out like kids listened to a bed time story: " Alice in the wonderland ". We made plasticine puppets for everyone in the group, each of us was a character from a fairy tale such as Robin Hood, witch, queen magician and so on. In order to took "our" fantastic journey we took photos for the puppets in attractions and symols of  Nottingham. It was a great fun and memorable moments of us. 

Prezi link of the presentation: http://prezi.com/grxm5rawgazz/group-6/