Talk Tuesday: That Can't be the End, Can it?

Hey Guys,

We all need something to talk about and discuss, we just like to gossip.

This is the part of the week where I choose a topic to discuss over and talk about; I view both sides of the argument and then place my opinion.

Anybody can join in with the discussion, just post a comment and tell me what you think.

This week we are going to discuss the climax of films. So a slight note before we start.

THIS BLOG WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

Last night I watched Gone (2012) directed by Heitor Dhalia and staring Amanda Seyfried. All together this is a very well thought out and planned film. The Character Jill is a very troubled individual and has obviously gone through a lot.

The story is about Jill and how she is convinced her kidnapper has returned when her sister mysteriously disappears without any trace. The police think that Jill has gone crazy, as she was sectioned and the fact they the first time round they did not find any evidence that backed her story.

So if it was such a good film why are we talking about it today? Well today we are talking about the climax of films and how some can be unexpected and others are not so climatic.

For example in Gone we go through a journey of people that the kidnapper could be, at one stage we believe it’s a neighbour, maybe it’s the cop, she can’t be making it up, etc. but at the end the man is only some guy who saw her in the coffee shop once. This film has taken all this time to build up to the reveal of this kidnapper, and after all that, we’ve not really seen him much or know anything about him.

An example of a good climax, even though not the one I wished for when watching the film, was in Buried (2010) directed by Rodrigo Cortés and staring Ryan Reynolds. This film is about a U.S truck driver, Paul who is working in Iraq. His team get attacked by a group of Iraqis. He wakes to find he is buried alive in a coffin. He does not have many items and it's a race against time to escape.

All the way through the film we think that maybe he might get out, a few times we think it is unlikely, but drawing to the end it is a very close call. The rescue team are on the phone to Paul, they believe they are close and for a moment we feel as if he has been rescued, not for the first time, and then suddenly they tell us they have found somebody completely different. By this time it is far too late.

The suspense and tension that this film builds from beginning to end is outstanding, and they follow it through to the end, there is no anti-climax for this film. It shocks and surprises and I did not see it coming at all.

The point Todays blog is to discuss which films we think are Climatic and worth watching, and which films lead us on but, unfortunately, let us down at the last hurdle. If you have any films you would like to talk about then leave a comment below.

If you agree or disagree with anything mentioned then please comment and share your views.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Movies For Monday: Space, The Final Frontier

Hey Guys,

This is the part of the week where I will be looking into films and reviewing certain aspects or even a whole film. I will be viewing my opinions whilst also asking what you feel about it.

The films I look into may be new releases, or films that I have just watched on DVD.

You may not believe this, maybe you’ll be slightly shocked, but at times I can be slightly geeky! I know a little about certain things and have a fondness for old classics.

So when I watched Star Trek (2009) directed by J.J. Abrams last night, I felt my geeky side come out, as it probably will in this blog.

At first, when watching the opening scene, I was getting slightly annoyed as I thought they were about to kill off a captain that was very important without giving him two looks. I was wrong to think this as the film itself is based around him and his voyage with Enterprise.

The film tells of the story of the Romulans and how they believe Mr Spok to have destroyed their home planet, they start to destroy other planets to get back at the Federation for not saving their planet.

Now I have to say, may include spoilers, that the thought into the time, space continuum was really clever. Basically due to the fact that when future Romulans and the future Spok (Spok Prime) being transported back to the present day, it altered the course of people’s lives and made things change. 

(I told you this might get slightly geeky)

Whilst watching this film it brought back some memories of sitting down to watch Star Trek with my father. I saw almost every captain, almost every commander and knew the basic plot lines.

I was rather impressed by this film, and apart from a few minor CGI moments that were a little too much, the rest was perfect. The story line was clean and came through and they seemed to keep some of the old Star Trek charm in there.

I thought that Simon Pegg as Scotty did a fantastic job, his Scottish accent and his personality was great. To be honest, the whole film was tremendously well casted and all the actors portrayed the original characters as well as possible.

Overall the movie was rather impressive and it thrilled my geeky side to no end. It is worth watching and I don’t know why I have not seen it earlier. Also I was extremely glad to see that at the end of the film, they had the original Star Trek Opening Titles, obviously edited and re-mastered for a newer audience, but just the fact they included it made my geeky side happy.

One small little treat for you guys. J.J. Abrams is in the process of making an Untitled Star Trek Sequel, which will be coming out next year.  We all know how well Abrams is at keeping secrets, so I’m guessing we won’t know much detail until the trailer hits, but I’m guessing from what he has created with the first one it should be good.

If you have any films or film topics you would like me to look into the comment below. If you have any views on what has been discussed this week, also let me know.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Flash Fiction Friday: Simon's New Cape

Hey Guys,

Okay Flash Fiction is a new thing I’ve been told about so let’s see how this pans out and works. Apparently the aim of Flash Fiction is you look at an image of something and you write for an allotted time, or until you reach a certain amount of words. Maybe once or twice I might change these Flash Fiction entries into short films so watch out for them on my film YouTube channel which I have set up for my short films.

This week I have used a prompt book to create my Flash Fiction story. The book itself is The Writer’s Book of Matches by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts, a literary journal.

The prompt I have used this week is the following, in bold, then my story follows shortly after:

A twelve year old boy decides to become a superhero:

It was a cold, early January weekend and Simon was playing with his Christmas toys. Simon loved the weekends because he got to come and see me.

His mother worked on the weekends, and his father was long gone. So he came round and spent some time with me, his one, and only, nana.

Simon loved coming round because I let him play, undisturbed, as long as he was well behaved. I also baked him cakes and cooked him his favourite meals.

As Simon played with his Christmas toys, I watched him from the corner of my eye, making sure he didn’t hurt himself or get too over-excited. At the same time I had the news on the television.

I was watching Simon and listening to the news when suddenly an article came on that grubbed hold of my attention.

The reporter was telling me the dreadful news about a war in some faraway place.

I took a huge a huge gulp and tasted my worry as the reporter continued to tell me that the British army would be getting involved.

I licked my dry lips and wiped my fear stained brow. I thought about my son Jack, who was part of the army. He had been injured a few times whilst on duty and I didn’t want him to be injured again, or worse.

Each time a news reporter came on and informed me of a fight, or a war that needed the British army’s support, the taste of fear and worry would hit me in the back of the throat.

I looked over at my only grandson, hoping that he would stay twelve. Praying that he would stay young and innocent forever and that he wouldn’t end up like his uncle Jack, or divorced and unhappy like his mother, Rebecca.

The sound of clanking toys laid my worries for the child to rest for a short while.

‘Simon.’ I called to him softly. He looked up at me. ‘Would you like a slice of cake?’ I ask. Simon nodded, I was glad of this as it gave me a reason to escape the report on the fighting.

I held onto the sides of my aging armchair and lifted myself out; I walked over to the kitchen counter behind me and reached for the draw. I opened it and pulled out a cold metallic knife.

 I placed the knife on the glossed, wooden surface of the counter and walked over to the fridge.  As I opened it, the light and cold air hit my face and cooled my worried brow. I pulled out the cold china plate which held the chocolate cake that I had baked the night before. I closed the fridge door and placed the cake filled plate onto the counter.

I then placed both my hand on the counter edge for a few seconds, staring deep into the cake, into space, and day dreamed. I was hoping I would somehow find an answer or a release from the pressure building in my pounding heart.

Suddenly I felt a tug on my Knitted cardigan. Surprised, I turned round and looked down. I saw Simon staring up at me, his light blond hair shimmering at me. He was wearing the blue comic-hero cape that his mother had bought him for Christmas.

I kneeled down to see what my little grandson wanted.

‘What’s up dear?’ I stroked his soft cheek as I asked. He placed his hand upon mine and I felt a strange sensation travel from his hand to mine. This sensation then travelled up my arm. I looked at Simon in bewilderment.

‘Nana,’ He looked me straight in the eyes. His pale blue eyes had a certain, special sparkle to them.  ‘I want to help Uncle Jack.’

My fear forcibly built, my heart sunk. It started pounding at the bottom of my stomach. It started racing and forced tears to collect and well up. This was exactly the words I had dreaded.

As my fear built, Simon’s hand tightened slightly and another shoot of the strange feeling somewhat calmed me.

‘You don’t have to worry Nana.’ He paused and smiled. He let go of my hand, letting it drop to my side. He touched the middle of my chest, it felt as if he had extended through my ribs to massage and calm my racing heart. ‘I want to become a superhero.’

I smiled at the little boy’s innocence. He still believed in superheroes and thought that, with this cape, he could become one.

‘You will always be my superhero dear.’ I whispered into his ear, brushing his soft, pale hair behind it as I did so. ‘Unfortunately you can’t help your Uncle Jack or...’

‘I can though Nana!’ Simon interrupted; he stepped back from me and looked up at the counter where I had just placed the cake. I followed his line of sight and wondered what he was doing.

The next thing I saw was unbelievable and incredible. I blinked constantly, thinking I had fallen asleep and was dreaming, yet the tears of amazement that rolled down my cold, wrinkled cheeks informed me that this was real.

The metallic knife which was lying on the counter next to the plate started to rise; it hovered over to the cake and cut through it.

I stared back at Simon in astonishment, wondering what was happening.

‘See Nana,’ He exclaimed. ‘I can help Uncle Jack and become a superhero.’

I looked at my grandson in shock as his smile gleamed at me.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Film Thursday: Stop-Motion Animation

Hey Guys,

This is Film Thursday.

Here’s the part of the week where I will either review a film or talk about how film can affect us in certain ways. Each week I will ask you what you feel should review next or what area of film I should look into.

This week we are going to look into the amazing world of Stop-Motion Animation, a very time consuming but extremely detailed form of animation.

For those of you unsure of what Stop-Motion Animation is, then think back to Wallace and Gromit (1989 – Present) by Nick Park, Aardman Animations.

Basically the way they create these animations is they place the clay models into the potion they need. Then take a few shots. They then stop the camera, move the models by the slightest amount for the next shot.

These stop-motion animations take up a lot of time, as one scene may take the animators a couple of days. So a whole film may take a year or maybe more.

Such Films as: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton, and Buton’s other creation: Corpse Bride (2005) are both stop-motion films and both have a high level of detail and had plenty of time spent making and creating these films.

The reason I am mentioning stop-motion is down to something that I am highly excited about. It is one film I truly cannot wait to go and see, I will be front of line as soon as it is out.

This film will be the work of Director, Producer, and Writer Guillermo del Toro (GDT/ Del Toro).  Del Toro is the creator of such films as: Hellboy (2004), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Orphanage (2007). He has created some very extraordinary creatures and monsters and knows how to play with ‘The Dark Side’ of film.

So when I heard that GDT was rumoured to make a ‘dark’ version of Pinocchio, I was extremely excited at how the creatures would look and what tales he would bring through.

The idea of this film is based around a book that Gris Grimly wrote. Del Toro is working alongside The Jim Henson Company, and there are the first artistic impressions of the film.

If you haven’t guessed already, this will be a stop-motion animation. Which means it will not be released until around 2014, but it is just exciting to have seen some of the pictures from this talented director.

So here, from GDT’s own website, are some of the artist interpretations:

The first two pictures are artist interpretations, and the last one is one of the models they may be using in the movie.

So as you can see, it is a very exciting concept, the blue fairy is rumoured to be the soul of a dead girl and there are meant to be plenty of dark creatures. 

There are also rumours of Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Waits and Luing Andrews voicing some of the many characters.

If you want to find out more about Del Toro then here is his website:

http://deltorofilms.com/wp/

And this is all the information on his version of Pinocchio:

http://deltorofilms.com/wp/category/other-projects/pinocchio

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1488589/

I can’t wait to see more info as it comes in, and can’t wait to see this film in 2014.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Writing Update Wednesday: Remember your senses

Hey Guys,

So you’re wondering how my writing is going? You want to know what I’m getting up to on my stories or what’s going to happen next? Well, let me update you on everything so far.

This week I have been focusing  on the five senses.

All the way through my book Mysery I have been focusing mainly on one or two senses. Yet for this week I have been focusing on adding more of the other senses.

Now I know you probably all know the five senses, but I’m going to place them in just for a sense of purpose.

Senses:

·         Smell

·         Sight

·         Sound

·         Touch

·         Taste

Mainly in books and writing people remember sight and a few smells; and writers tend to forget the other senses until later on, as I seem to have done.

So what I have started doing is writing the rest of my story in the following way and said that when I go through my editing I will start addin the other senses.

The way I have started to write the story is, for every scene, I place the five senses on a piece of paper and the main theme or activity of the scene at the top of the page. Then off each sense I have placed what the character’s senses.

Finally, there should be one more sense. This sense should be feel. This is in the way of how do all these other five senses make the character feel.

So I hope this helps you, it has helped me extreamly and it is my focus of the week.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Tips for Tuesday: Five Top Tips

Hey Guys,

This is Tips for Tuesday. Here is where I give you the tips that I, loosly, follow or think that I should follow. These are either life tips or tips to do with work, maybe even specific tips to something. It may help you with something you’ve been trying to over-come or maybe it will just inspire you to try something new.

This week I'm going to tell you my five top tips that help me on a daily basis, they are loosely linked with work and writing, but they help in all aspects.

Now I'm not saying I follow my own rules, and I'm not trying to be hypocritical or condisending in any sort but I know when i follow these tips it does help.

So here's my tips, some of them may contridict themselves, but lets see what happens:

Tip One:

The way I work the best is to have a set deadline. 

Even if it's not as important as, let's say a university essay deadline, or a work deadline. It is still important to think in the back of your mind: 'I should have finished this much work by this time'

Not only will you get more work done than normal but you will have more time to do other tasks and finish the tasks quicker than normally.


Tip Two:

Enjoy what your doing.

If your not enjoying it? why not, think it over, make it more fun. 

Now for me I like to listen to music whilst working, and also in life, I try and have fun, keep young and not get too involved in situations unless I really have to.

Tip Three:

Base your work on things you know or have seen.

It's going to come to you easier.

Of course you still may stumble on some of the finer details, but there's a difference between writing a story about a character who feels lost when you have, at one stage, felt the same; than writing about a character who is lost and you don't know how it feels properly.

Tip Four:

Don't try and rush into anything, 

don't rush your work, or your life. 

It does not help, if anything standards start to drop and things get a little bit out of shape.

And Finally

Tip Five:

Live for the moment. 

I know how cheesy that is, but you should understand what I mean. 

There is no point in sitting around, compalaining that nothing happens and you don't do anything and it upsets you. 

If your bored, go out, find new friends or join a club. 

If you want to go somewhere or do something, just go and do it. 

I'm not saying drop everything and put other people out by doing these things.

So, as I said, I'm not saying these are the hints and tips for a perfect life, not even saying it may help and I'm guessing you already knew all these hint, but isn't it obvious? 

It's what we already know but we forget them all the time, I know I do, so not only am I trying to remind and help you, I'm also trying to remind myself and keep myself inspired.

If there is any tips you would like to share, or any advice you would like for next week, let me know.

Stay safe,

Matt

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Mull-over Monday: The Use of 3D in Film

Hey Guys,

Welcome to Mull Over Monday, This is the day where I pick something that people discuss and have different opinions about. These things will normally be to do with film or writing or something that obviously affects my life directly.

So this week we are going to discuss the use of 3D in films. Is there any difference between a normal 2D film and its 3D version?

Well I still remember the first thing I ever saw in 3D, it was not a big blockbuster film or anything you would watch at a regular cinema. Instead it was a documentary on at an art/theatre gallery.

This 3D documentary was about fish, and the depth of the oceans. It informed of creatures far in the undiscovered parts.

Now this documentary was probably one of the most realistic, most Three Dimensional film I have ever seen. The creatures and fish seemed to swim, float and glide out of the screen towards the audience.

In places this film even shocked and scared the audience when certain fish and creatures’ jaws splashed out of the screen.

Ever since seeing this realistic 3D documentary/film I have struggled to find 3D entertaining or realistic. Either Directors don’t use enough of it, or they only use it in certain places.

I find that some ‘3D’ films just do not reach the expectation. Certain films say that they are 3D, but instead they have a few minor scenes with depth of perception and not much else going for them.

Think about it this way, why pay around £8, plus your expensive cinema food, for a 3D film which has one pathetic 3D moment in it? That is quite a lot of money for something that doesn’t come out of the screen.

When 3D is done right though, it can be amazing. A lot of people and reviews enjoyed the 3D spectacular Avatar (2009) by James Cameron. Now my own view: The story line; not the best, The Idea: Great, The imagery: Amazing.

Another film where I thought the 3D was great was The Final Destination (2009) by David R. Ellis. Even though once again the story was the same as the rest, just in a different location and with different characters, the objects that killed the characters did actually seem like they flew out of the screen in certain scenes.

So 3D is not always a waste of time and money. Some films are great and spectacular, but I don’t think we are all the way there yet. We need to focus on impressing the audience and making the feel as if everything is flying towards you, Instead of just having the depth of perception.

If you have any opinions of 3D films that were great or others that were not worth the ticket price then please comment below and discuss your views on the growing trend of Three Dimension Films.

Stay safe,

Matt

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