The colour use of Amelie

Colour is a subconcious element in film. Colour could narrate, present the context, illustrate different feeling and symbolization. The colour usage in Amelie is a highlight element which brings people a intensive visual aesthetic.


1. The colour style of film


The director Jean-Pierre Jeunet emphasise the warm tone that combined with complementary colours, that shows oil painting colour style. It is like the heroine’s black pupils compared with her red lips, light up by the Franch standard bright sunshine. This picture allows audiences respect and feel warm to their lives. With the progress of plots, the colour matches with Amelie’s emotion change, reveal the last century’s scenery of Paris. This movie reflects perfect composite of impressionism colour with constructivism colour. The pictures below could represent the classic frames of this film.










2. The relationship between colour and the development of plots.


The time in this movie is happened in current time, however, the real time is last centuary 50s that is the childhood of director. The colour contracture of picture is designed precisely, such as the picture below, the contrast is obviously and the colour was consisted by different part. The classical element is the green in the right side cooperate with the pink jacket is the complementary colour, and the blue on Amelie’s shoes and the yellow wall generate a three primary colours which represent a contrastive and unified visual effects. With the high colour of saturation, it not only deliver the anxious and upset of Amelie’s heart, but the green is brightly appear a special power, that is silent, peace, and hope, it means Amelie will get chance to change her fate.






Therefore, research the colour in Amelie is a way to find the way how it looks different with other film. And it helps me to my further research about how visual effects influence spectators as regards empathetic understanding of story. Colour is the main part of do this research.

The differences between Amelie and Scott

From compare Amelie with Scott, it's easily to find some difference between them. Firstly, Fantasy film tend to use special effects to use some graphics to enhance the emotion of roles.

Such as this picture, the the characters above Scott is imitate the sound of his punching. It made the film lively and strengthen the power of action of actor.

The visual effects in this picture is  make the invisible power visible. 

However, in Amelie, it always use some unrealistic protagonist in film. The use of this role could not only develop the plot of the story, such as the action photo, when the hero was hesitate about if he should find the heroine, the person in the photo suddenly moving and tell the hero to chase the heroine. 

What is more, 3D animation are appears in this film. The aim of these elements is to use the innocent animal to show Amelie's innocent heart.

In conclusion, from compare the differences of this two film, I can find that, fantasy film prefer to use some visible element to show invisible elements. It can enhance the visual effects than only the motion with no addition graphics. Fairy tale film is a genre prefer to use some unrealistic protagonist to drive the plots. The protagonist is the things that very mild and peaceful that children could accept them.

Even though some films have a clear boundary between fantasy film and fairy tale film, but there are still films hardly to classify. For example, Pan's Labyrinth, there are some fairy tale components but also fantasy plots. It is a problem worth to do more research.

The similarity of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Amelie

The similarity of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Amelie
Sounds	Scott Pilgrim vs. The World	Amelie
	1.Use effect sounds as the transition between different shots
	13m00s~13m15s When Pilgrim’s subjective shot transferred from his left to right, the fictitious sounds is used to cooperate with P’s turning.	5m51s~6m04s The shot transferred with effect sounds to outstand Amelie’s scream.
Frames	1.Use graph to show the basic information of characters
	2. Break pictures into two blocks to show both hero and heroine who are doing the same thing. These pictures indicate they are falling in love in the first sight.
	3.  Special effects
	31m20 This special effect is to imitate the power of Pilgrim’s fist.	34m41s~34m45s Orange light around the elder to show his life is suddenly brightened. 38m54 Amelie’s heart beat
	4. Animation effects are similar
	33m50s~34m05s The animation is to explain the completed experience of the woman.	55m23s~55m34s The animals in the painting were moving. 68m51s~69m44s The man in the photo began to talk with the hero.
Editing	Both of these two movies are all used parallel editing, and the main clue runs through the film according to chronological order.

Cinecism of Sweeny Todd

If you are looking forward to an ultimate cruel that enough to make you forget everything in life, just hold your breath , eyes widely open , endure manic heartbeat,  stare at the black, gray and blood red dye all over the screen ; If you need an extreme cruelty into a beautiful , then this symphonic poem is generally Gothic movie is definitely your first choice.

The beginning of the movie, Tim Burton's opening credits in the form of the usual Burton is wisely chosing CG to present whole process of Todd kill people and use it to make meat pie. The song made by Stephen Sondheim match with the bloody screen, create a horrible vision. The black eyes, tightening the brow, with a wisp of white hair disheveled continuation of Tim Burton's style - dark, strange. The characters are invariably shows interspersed with a lot of cut-throat shot, and blood flow all over the floor. It demonstrates the conflicts and repression of Todd’s heart.

I am using "cruel" the word, rather than "brutal." Deep played this gorgeous avenger is not completely heartless. He is lenient when face to man come here with his wife and daughter. Even a little self-deprecating turned backs and do not look that happy nuclear family. On the other hand, he tolerants his own desire for revenge all the time. Every time he talking about the murder that magic name, Joana, the extreme tender create horror emotion. The most horrible thing is not the crazy of his mind, but a clear-headed killer.

This film is a famous fairy-tale film that made for adults watching, it is not a traditional fairy-tale, it consists by the cruel humanity. However, this film reverses the elements that a fairy-tale should be in the past, and also achieve a successful outcome.

Feedback of tutorial

Last Tuesday was the first tutorial in which we could meet our tutor Julius Ayodeji. From discussing with him, I realise the disadvantages in my learning agreement. 

First of all, the research question of master should be more specific than bachelor. For example, "how post-production affects film style?", this question is too general, maybe students from other subjects can also answer this question. Therefore, it should be narrow down, such as "how post-production affects film style associate with a director--Jean-Pierre Jeunet?". However, when this question was raised, there comes out another problem, "why I choose this director?". Personal interest is not the best way to answer this question, it need an academic answer. Thus, Julius recommends me a film named 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' which is used many post production techniques. What is more, the main task of watching this film is making a comparison with Jeunet's film, and I might find answer from contrast, or I may come up with other fantastic topics.

To sum up, this tutorial is a significant start of my project, and it stimulates me inspirations about the research question. I am still watching  'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World', it is easy to feel it was different with Jeunet's film, but I am struggling with analysing the differences in post-production field.

Editor Jay Cassidy, " Into the Wild".

"Into the wild" was adapted for a real story, and the character is Chris McCandless. This film nominated the Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic. The editor of it is Jay Cassidy. In this journal I am going to analyse the editor's thinking about this film. All these information is from an interview of him.

Jay C. believes that film editing is a fantastic progress in film making. For example, "Into the wild" was shot over eight months time to film, but he can make film in editing room. In addition before he had a cut of material, he did not discuss anything with director because of the poor film condition.


In making this film,the film crew went into Alaska and found the real spots which Chris McCandless visited. However, some places are extremly far away, therefore,  many frames of this movie are from similar sites, and use the editing techniques to add geographic and other kinds of Alaska environmental features.

Jay C. did not consider himself as a confirmed signature style editor.He believed that style always appears after film have been edited, to some extent, the editor who create one film  may did not aware the style of it.


In conclusion, the main quality of been an editor is loving film sinsierly. And try to acquire advantages from other films, enjoy them and use them.


Reference

Joanna C., 2008, Jay Cassidy on Into the Wild: The RT Interview [online]. Available at: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_wild/news/1717991/jay_cassidy_on_into_the_wild_the_rt_interview/

An introduction of my favourate director

In my first journal, I want to introduce a film director who I will research in my future project. He is Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In the early age of his career, he worked on TV advertisements and video producing. 

In the year 1991, Jeune cooperated with Marc Caro who is also a famous film director in France, they completed their first film "Delicatessen" and won four César Awards.

Therefore, they continued to cooperate "The City of Lost Children".

2000 is the significant year in his life because of "Amelie From Montmartre". It was a surrealism film and ranked in the top of French box office in that period.

After 4 years, the same producer created "A Very Long Engagement".It was popular in Europe, and Jeunet became well known in the world. He combined tragedy with comedy and the characteristics were theatrical elements and saturate image."A Very Long Engagement" acquire 12 nominations in 2005 César Awards. Finally, this film have won 5 big prizes and achieve 77 Oscar Awards nomination.