(no subject)
I went ahead and wrote up some points on the Rescuers Down Under clip I suggested. Thoughts?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPgTj46X5tg
Cut 1
Radio is down center on a solid black background. This puts all focus on the radio and what it's saying. There is nothing to distract.
When McLeach picks up the radio, the shot moves upstage left, with the radio remaining center, and McLeach is center/back left. The background remains black, casting these two as the center of attention.
The radio is turned away from the audience, giving it a weaker voice and position than McLeach, who remains in the chilly left, emphasizing his heartlessness and disregard for the boy's safety.
As McLeach brags about outsmarting the radio, he and the radio split center, before McLeach overpowers the radio, forcing it to stage right, as he takes the powerful center, emphasizing his dominance over the radio. The Radio is forced over towards the right, which reinforces it's ties to those people who actually CARE.
Cut 2
A background is added. McLeach and Joanna are shown full body. McLeach is center, while Joanna is off down left, something which both hearkens to her coldblooded nature, as well as her sluggish, sleepy appearance.
Putting the radio down, we form a triangle between the it, McLeach, and Joanna.
McLeach shifts back and forth between a full forward and 3/4 face, while his body remains in 3/4. This motion reflects the character's thoughts. He's uncertain of what action to take next, so he looks around.
As he decides upon an action (making lunch) he gets up, and crosses towards the camera, down left, moving back into the cold part of the stage. He is cold and calculating at this point, so he has moved forward, a more powerful position, as well as left, the less heated, more rational position.
As he exits, the perspective cuts off his head, showing him to be MUCH larger than us, the audience. This serves to not only make him an imposing figure, but also helps put us in the position of Joanna, who the next cut is of.
Cut 3
Joanna has stretched herself out center across this cut, though her body falls off the center left side, again, reinforcing her coldblooded, sleepy nature.
When she hears the word "eggs" her eyes pop open, lips frozen for a split second in a silly circular exhale of a snore. She is our comedic releif, so she often forms the comedic circle within her form.
Sitting up, she pauses momentarily at center stage. She has moved AWAY from left, which warms her up, makes her more awake. She does not head all the way to stage right though, as she has not reached any sort of pitch of emotion to warrant it.
Moving in a serpentine, circular motion, she moves around her own body to cross up left, mimicking McLeache's earlier movement, to follow him to the kitchen. Her gestures are overly large and comical.
Cut 4
Leach is far back left, getting eggs from the fridge. The fridge, unsurprisingly, is located stage left.
Joanna enters from down right, and moves far back left (left center in the screen, upstage left in perspective). This motion connects with her exit from the previous cut. She exited using a viewer-right-to-left downward diagonal motion, and she enters using a viewer-right-to-left upward diagonal motion. This allows the line of action to remain unbroken in our mind, connecting these two cuts.
Joanna, despite being a lizard, acts like a dog in this cut, waiting at the fridge door, and wagging her tail. She walks using overly exaggerated bouncing steps that reflect her character's excitement. She continues to move in long, serpentine arcs and circles, which reinforce her comedic nature. She punctuates these fluid motions with extreme positions with large gestures, such as holding her tail and head straight up, which, in comparison to her lizard-build and typical movement, only serve to make her more humorous.
Cut 5
The background is minimal, focusing all attention on the characters. Joanna's head is barely visible above the counter, while McLeach is shown only from the shoulders to hips. The fact that we can see Joanna's eyes make us focus more on her. McLeache's lunch box is slightly off center, to the right. Joanna's coldblooded self remains on the left.
Again, using exaggerated motion, Joanna noses open the lunchbox, and quickly steals an egg. She and the lunchbox split center, setting the lunch box up to be of importance in the coming cuts.
Joanna's expression changes, and she hides the egg in her cheek, making it bulge out in a comic circle, as McLeach re-enters the scene at Joanna's eye level. This is the set up, showing Joanna to be the one in charge of this scene. McLeach has come down to HER level.
A triangle is now formed between McLeach (in profile) the Lunchbox (back 3/4 view) and Joanna (front 3/4 view). Joanna has the strongest body position, reinforcing her position of power in this scene.
McLeach occupies stage right, as he becomes emotional over his lunch.
Joanna overacts her innocence as she tries to hide the egg in her mouth. It is the stand-in-place equivilent of her large goofy movements earlier.
McLeach exits the scene up right by standing up, removing his head from the scene.
Joanna gives us a bit of anticipation, revving up her feet on the counter, before exiting down left, opposite McLeach.
Cut 6
McLeach stands Center stage in front of a minimal background. All of Joanna that is shown are her googly eyes. The Lunch box is established as being the third point in the triangle by Joanna's gaze, first at McLeach, then the Lunch box.
McLeach looks off right as he ponders his eagle problem, but is alerted to Joanna's tricks by the sound of the box. Though we cannot SEE Joanna, we know she is there, because of the movement of the box.
McLeach moves the box far right. His action is straight, showing him to be a serious character, still someone to be feared, but the action is overly exaggerated, which allows the scene to continue building on the humor.
Joanna's googly eyes sloowly rise, watching McLeach and the lunch box. Her eyes do a squash and stretch routine, mimicking the actions of her tail, letting us know that the two are connected, even though we can't see her body.
McLech again performs his straight serious actions in an overly large way. Joanna has a moment of anticipation, which show her to have completely figured McLeach out, as she predicts the outcome of his reactions.
McLeach spends a split second addressing the 4th wall, looking at us, the audience, to let us know that he knows we know what's going on, and he is catching on as well.
Joanna, who has remained on the left side of the action so far, makes her first appearance on the right, as she also displays emotion, having been foiled by McLeach not sending the lunch box as far as she expected.
McLeach and lunchbox become one entity, as he leans on it. The new third point in the triangle becomes the bowl, as Joanna moves it with her tail. He shows he is becoming wise to Joanna's tricks, by looking over his shoulder before reaching out for the bowl. The flat, straight lined expression he makes after hearign the lunchbox again shows he is definitely aware of the situation now. He moves all other distractions off left, and moves away from the lunchbox, setting a trap for Joanna.
McLeach squishes Joanna's fingers in an overly large straight-lined motion. Joanna rears straight up in pain, her body forgoing her usual serpentine shapes.
Mc Leach remains mostly forward, and center, setting up a position of power for himself, as Joanna shakes out her injured fingers stage right, turning to look at McLeach in profile.
A sharp pan right suddenly increases the tension of the scene, as does McLeache's sudden, sharp gesture. Joanna's wiggling tail take the tension down again slightly, as do McLeach's over-acted gestures and rounded shoulders.
Cut 7
McLeach is cut off at the shoulders and hips again, causing all focus to go to the oopen lunch box, which is positioned center. There is a zoom in to the status of the lunch box (empty) to reinforce the focus and point of this cut.
Cut 8
Joanna's backside is seen scrambling under a curtain. She is moving to the emotional right side of the screen, feeling afraid now, heading upstage (perspectively speaking) to try and hide.
Her legs slide on the floor, causing her motion, even as the tension rises, to remain comedic. As a children's movie, you only want the tension to rise SO far, and only when you want it. By keeping Joanna's motions amuseing, they can save the more extreme tension builders for where they're needed, without having already built TOO much tension in previous cuts.
Cut 9
McLeach stands center, facing full back, back lit at the counter. Turning, he remains center, maintaining his position of power.
Through perspective, he is rendered to appear larger than us, and therefor more intimidating.
The back lighting now muchly obscures his face, and facial expressions. Through bodylanguage alone, the tension starts to build, as McLeach moves forward, the camera frame moving to keep him in shot, even though is face is mostly darkened.
Cut 10
McLeach's shadow advances across the floor from the cold left, gettign closer and closer to the emotional right, mimicing his build of emotion.
As his shadow advances, more of McLeach's body is shown (though it's just his shadow.) The more of his body is shown, the more powerful his position becomes. His advance is in a slow, unwavering straight line. Nothing comedic about it.
Even Joanna's comedic gestures are taken back for this scene, as she moves in quick, straight lines to escape McLeach's wrath. Her movement in comparison to her typical movement helps to reinforce her fear of this man, and paint the dangerous nature of McLeach.
Cut 11
Joanna is just right of center, Body standing at straight angles to itself- no rounded comedy here.
A small relief as Joanna takes a large gesture to cover her eyes with her tail, curling in to a round shapes
The background is a yellowish-green rock, the yellow tint in it helping to elevate the level of emotion in the cut. The entire cut is set just right of center, leaning it more towards the passionate emotional side.
McLeach's shadow literally covers Joanna, obscuring her and taking a stronger position than her.
Cut 12
McLeach approaches from down center, growing taller until he's full screen, face up center. He remains back-lit in yellow, the colour keeping the tension high.
As he has an epiphany, the view zooms in to a more portrait -sized shot, his face remaining center.
He is subtly under-lit, now, in a redish-purple, as his eyes turn red. All to emphasize the evil in the character.
WHOOO OVER-ANALYZING THINGS!
Thoooooooooooooooughts plz?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPgTj46X5tg
Cut 1
Radio is down center on a solid black background. This puts all focus on the radio and what it's saying. There is nothing to distract.
When McLeach picks up the radio, the shot moves upstage left, with the radio remaining center, and McLeach is center/back left. The background remains black, casting these two as the center of attention.
The radio is turned away from the audience, giving it a weaker voice and position than McLeach, who remains in the chilly left, emphasizing his heartlessness and disregard for the boy's safety.
As McLeach brags about outsmarting the radio, he and the radio split center, before McLeach overpowers the radio, forcing it to stage right, as he takes the powerful center, emphasizing his dominance over the radio. The Radio is forced over towards the right, which reinforces it's ties to those people who actually CARE.
Cut 2
A background is added. McLeach and Joanna are shown full body. McLeach is center, while Joanna is off down left, something which both hearkens to her coldblooded nature, as well as her sluggish, sleepy appearance.
Putting the radio down, we form a triangle between the it, McLeach, and Joanna.
McLeach shifts back and forth between a full forward and 3/4 face, while his body remains in 3/4. This motion reflects the character's thoughts. He's uncertain of what action to take next, so he looks around.
As he decides upon an action (making lunch) he gets up, and crosses towards the camera, down left, moving back into the cold part of the stage. He is cold and calculating at this point, so he has moved forward, a more powerful position, as well as left, the less heated, more rational position.
As he exits, the perspective cuts off his head, showing him to be MUCH larger than us, the audience. This serves to not only make him an imposing figure, but also helps put us in the position of Joanna, who the next cut is of.
Cut 3
Joanna has stretched herself out center across this cut, though her body falls off the center left side, again, reinforcing her coldblooded, sleepy nature.
When she hears the word "eggs" her eyes pop open, lips frozen for a split second in a silly circular exhale of a snore. She is our comedic releif, so she often forms the comedic circle within her form.
Sitting up, she pauses momentarily at center stage. She has moved AWAY from left, which warms her up, makes her more awake. She does not head all the way to stage right though, as she has not reached any sort of pitch of emotion to warrant it.
Moving in a serpentine, circular motion, she moves around her own body to cross up left, mimicking McLeache's earlier movement, to follow him to the kitchen. Her gestures are overly large and comical.
Cut 4
Leach is far back left, getting eggs from the fridge. The fridge, unsurprisingly, is located stage left.
Joanna enters from down right, and moves far back left (left center in the screen, upstage left in perspective). This motion connects with her exit from the previous cut. She exited using a viewer-right-to-left downward diagonal motion, and she enters using a viewer-right-to-left upward diagonal motion. This allows the line of action to remain unbroken in our mind, connecting these two cuts.
Joanna, despite being a lizard, acts like a dog in this cut, waiting at the fridge door, and wagging her tail. She walks using overly exaggerated bouncing steps that reflect her character's excitement. She continues to move in long, serpentine arcs and circles, which reinforce her comedic nature. She punctuates these fluid motions with extreme positions with large gestures, such as holding her tail and head straight up, which, in comparison to her lizard-build and typical movement, only serve to make her more humorous.
Cut 5
The background is minimal, focusing all attention on the characters. Joanna's head is barely visible above the counter, while McLeach is shown only from the shoulders to hips. The fact that we can see Joanna's eyes make us focus more on her. McLeache's lunch box is slightly off center, to the right. Joanna's coldblooded self remains on the left.
Again, using exaggerated motion, Joanna noses open the lunchbox, and quickly steals an egg. She and the lunchbox split center, setting the lunch box up to be of importance in the coming cuts.
Joanna's expression changes, and she hides the egg in her cheek, making it bulge out in a comic circle, as McLeach re-enters the scene at Joanna's eye level. This is the set up, showing Joanna to be the one in charge of this scene. McLeach has come down to HER level.
A triangle is now formed between McLeach (in profile) the Lunchbox (back 3/4 view) and Joanna (front 3/4 view). Joanna has the strongest body position, reinforcing her position of power in this scene.
McLeach occupies stage right, as he becomes emotional over his lunch.
Joanna overacts her innocence as she tries to hide the egg in her mouth. It is the stand-in-place equivilent of her large goofy movements earlier.
McLeach exits the scene up right by standing up, removing his head from the scene.
Joanna gives us a bit of anticipation, revving up her feet on the counter, before exiting down left, opposite McLeach.
Cut 6
McLeach stands Center stage in front of a minimal background. All of Joanna that is shown are her googly eyes. The Lunch box is established as being the third point in the triangle by Joanna's gaze, first at McLeach, then the Lunch box.
McLeach looks off right as he ponders his eagle problem, but is alerted to Joanna's tricks by the sound of the box. Though we cannot SEE Joanna, we know she is there, because of the movement of the box.
McLeach moves the box far right. His action is straight, showing him to be a serious character, still someone to be feared, but the action is overly exaggerated, which allows the scene to continue building on the humor.
Joanna's googly eyes sloowly rise, watching McLeach and the lunch box. Her eyes do a squash and stretch routine, mimicking the actions of her tail, letting us know that the two are connected, even though we can't see her body.
McLech again performs his straight serious actions in an overly large way. Joanna has a moment of anticipation, which show her to have completely figured McLeach out, as she predicts the outcome of his reactions.
McLeach spends a split second addressing the 4th wall, looking at us, the audience, to let us know that he knows we know what's going on, and he is catching on as well.
Joanna, who has remained on the left side of the action so far, makes her first appearance on the right, as she also displays emotion, having been foiled by McLeach not sending the lunch box as far as she expected.
McLeach and lunchbox become one entity, as he leans on it. The new third point in the triangle becomes the bowl, as Joanna moves it with her tail. He shows he is becoming wise to Joanna's tricks, by looking over his shoulder before reaching out for the bowl. The flat, straight lined expression he makes after hearign the lunchbox again shows he is definitely aware of the situation now. He moves all other distractions off left, and moves away from the lunchbox, setting a trap for Joanna.
McLeach squishes Joanna's fingers in an overly large straight-lined motion. Joanna rears straight up in pain, her body forgoing her usual serpentine shapes.
Mc Leach remains mostly forward, and center, setting up a position of power for himself, as Joanna shakes out her injured fingers stage right, turning to look at McLeach in profile.
A sharp pan right suddenly increases the tension of the scene, as does McLeache's sudden, sharp gesture. Joanna's wiggling tail take the tension down again slightly, as do McLeach's over-acted gestures and rounded shoulders.
Cut 7
McLeach is cut off at the shoulders and hips again, causing all focus to go to the oopen lunch box, which is positioned center. There is a zoom in to the status of the lunch box (empty) to reinforce the focus and point of this cut.
Cut 8
Joanna's backside is seen scrambling under a curtain. She is moving to the emotional right side of the screen, feeling afraid now, heading upstage (perspectively speaking) to try and hide.
Her legs slide on the floor, causing her motion, even as the tension rises, to remain comedic. As a children's movie, you only want the tension to rise SO far, and only when you want it. By keeping Joanna's motions amuseing, they can save the more extreme tension builders for where they're needed, without having already built TOO much tension in previous cuts.
Cut 9
McLeach stands center, facing full back, back lit at the counter. Turning, he remains center, maintaining his position of power.
Through perspective, he is rendered to appear larger than us, and therefor more intimidating.
The back lighting now muchly obscures his face, and facial expressions. Through bodylanguage alone, the tension starts to build, as McLeach moves forward, the camera frame moving to keep him in shot, even though is face is mostly darkened.
Cut 10
McLeach's shadow advances across the floor from the cold left, gettign closer and closer to the emotional right, mimicing his build of emotion.
As his shadow advances, more of McLeach's body is shown (though it's just his shadow.) The more of his body is shown, the more powerful his position becomes. His advance is in a slow, unwavering straight line. Nothing comedic about it.
Even Joanna's comedic gestures are taken back for this scene, as she moves in quick, straight lines to escape McLeach's wrath. Her movement in comparison to her typical movement helps to reinforce her fear of this man, and paint the dangerous nature of McLeach.
Cut 11
Joanna is just right of center, Body standing at straight angles to itself- no rounded comedy here.
A small relief as Joanna takes a large gesture to cover her eyes with her tail, curling in to a round shapes
The background is a yellowish-green rock, the yellow tint in it helping to elevate the level of emotion in the cut. The entire cut is set just right of center, leaning it more towards the passionate emotional side.
McLeach's shadow literally covers Joanna, obscuring her and taking a stronger position than her.
Cut 12
McLeach approaches from down center, growing taller until he's full screen, face up center. He remains back-lit in yellow, the colour keeping the tension high.
As he has an epiphany, the view zooms in to a more portrait -sized shot, his face remaining center.
He is subtly under-lit, now, in a redish-purple, as his eyes turn red. All to emphasize the evil in the character.
WHOOO OVER-ANALYZING THINGS!
Thoooooooooooooooughts plz?