Joe Gillis: – You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
Film
Welcome to the Triple A Learning blog for DP Film. The most recent blog posts are listed below and you can access the blog archive by following the appropriate link in the panel on the left.
January 29, 2012
January 19, 2012
Film posters from an alternative universe
Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, hopefully normal service is now resumed. Just a quickie for now. A mate of mine shared this on facebook.
Fabulous renderings of posters of modern ‘classics’ transposed into the alternative universe of different times and places, (it seems appropriate that the terminator is included here) with cast and crew from those periods. Really thought provoking, I wonder what the opening scenes from these movies might be like, – a fun karaoke movie making project anyone?
January 17, 2012
Professional development with Triple A Learning’s cost-effective online workshops
There is still time to take advantage of Triple A Learning’s cost-effective online workshops. Over the last three years we have trained over 4000 IB teachers on our IB authorised workshops, at both category 1 and category 3.
Follow the links below to see the range on offer. Our next session begins on FEBRUARY 20th. Do not miss out on these…book now to update your professional training. Our interactive workshops and resources will help take your career to the next level and support your classroom practice. Our courses cover subject-specific and whole-school topics and make the in-service training budget go further.
January 4, 2012
Production Contraints
Production constraints as catalysts to creativity
Thomas Shatz in his book ’The genius of the system’, promotes some interesting ideas about the Hollywood studio system. Not least of these is that the constraints imposed on American film industry by the Hayes committee after 1933 in the Production code was a catalyst for greater creativity in the creative strategies that American film makers were required to employ when addressing adult issues. To take just two examples; the allure of Lauren Bacall’s character Slim’s dialogue in her first encounter with Humphrey Bogart’s character ‘Steve’ in ‘To have and have not’ (Howard Hawks US 1944). Or the stunning sensuality achieved by a simple flick of the head by Rita Hayworth in our first encounter with Gilda (Charles Vidor US 1946)
December 16, 2011
Production constraints as catalysts to creativity
Production constraints as catalysts to creativity
Thomas Shatz in his book ’The genius of the system’, promotes some interesting ideas about the Hollywood studio system. Not least of these is that the constraints imposed on American film industry by the Hayes committee after 1933 in the Production code was a catalyst for greater creativity in the creative strategies that American film makers were required to employ when addressing adult issues. To take just two examples; the allure of Lauren Bacall’s character Slim’s dialogue in her first encounter with Humphrey Bogart’s character ‘Steve’ in ‘To have and have not’ (Howard Hawks US 1944). Or the stunning sensuality achieved by a simple flick of the head by Rita Hayworth in our first encounter with Gilda (Charles Vidor US 1946)
December 12, 2011
Trailer for The Right Stuff
My attention was drawn to this link on Gizmodo this morning. I was struck by how alien it felt (scuse the pun!).
It seems so…, uncritical, non-ironic, even celebratory. Certainly it reveals more of its time than the time is represents. Released in 1983, towards the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term this trailer exudes uncritical self-confidence and not a hint of irony in its assertion of American enterprise and pioneering spirit. I wonder how a trailer for this movie might be made today?
December 11, 2011
Ken Loach and Barry Ackroyd
Last week I was showing Looking for Eric [Loach UK/France/Belgium 2009] to some friends and neighbours, and in my introduction to the film I was struck by how I’ve grown to like Ken leach’s movies the older I’ve become. I always found his films rather preaching in tone, I realise on closer inspection that the politics or social reality of his films, firmly take second place to the drama involving the characters. The difficulties I faced earlier was the discomfort I felt with the level of engagement with the characters that Barry Ackroyd’s cinematography requires audiences to confront eye to eye.
This entry is an adapted version of my personal blog entry which can be found at: http://pandetoomslaws.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/looking-for-ken/
November 24, 2011
Triple A donates new computers to One Laptop Per Child cause
Here at Triple A Learning, we’ve always supported the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) cause. With a mission to “empower the world’s poorest children through education“, who could fail to be moved by its ideals.
What OLPC believes
October 28, 2011
Opening scenes
How many IB Film students begin their movie with the main character waking up to the sound of an alarm clock? Far too many. There are so many creative ways for our students to open a film, but using an iPhone instead of a clock is not one of them.
This got me thinking about how directors open their films – either in terms of the title sequence or the opening scene. I will never go into a cinema where the film has already started. What the director chooses to show (or not show) first is a very important choice. Here are some of my favourites:
June 1, 2011
Film Icons
Just a couple of quick notes this time, about two famous directors Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.
In my classes, students tend to become obsessed with work by Hitchcock and Kubrick, frequently imitating their camera set-ups and narrative devices. Once there was a very clear division between Kubrick fanciers and Hitchcock fanciers in the class, with many arguments put forward about who was ‘the best.’
