Raging Bull - You Never Got Me Down Ray

‘Raging Bull’ is a sport drama following the biography of Jake LaMotta, the top boxer of his time. The film follows how his anger violent nature make his life outside of the ring impossible, but inside, gives him an unbeatable edge.

Raging Bull was directed by Martin Scorsese in 1980, following the success of Jake La Motta’s book about himself.  Joseph Carter and Peter Savage helped to re-write it for the film, alongside Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin who were in charge of writing the Screenplay.

In the scene that we watched, we saw how in ‘Round 13’ (of what I presume was some sort of championship) the main character, Jake in a fight against Ray. We witnessed how in this round, Jake appeared to just give up fighting back and instead leant against 6the rails beckoning Ray to hit him harder. The scene was really quite graphic, it showed a lot of blood and other fluids flying out of Jake’s mouth, eyes and even ears and I really disliked this graphicness and had to fight away the urge to look away throughout the scene.

The reason behind watching this scene in particular was because of its fantastic example of a director playing with the audience’s sense of time. Scorsese very cleverly gave the impression that a 2/3 minuet long round, lasted instead 5 or more minutes. However the scene did only last in fact 3m 44s.

The way that Scorsese gave this impression was by using a wide collection of techniques. These consisted off, to start; with the way that the surroundings seemed to slowly distant themselves from around Ray, making him appear to be the only person in and around the ring. He also seemed a lot stronger and menacing than in previous shots.

Another is how Scorsese seemed to have slowed down and blurred the sounds, they all seemed echoed and unreal, and this added the effect to give the scene a very eerie feel.

Lastly, the most noticeable and effective technique that Scorsese uses, is the way that he slows down the actions and reactions of Ray and Jake. It seems as if he creates the scene to be viewed from the perspective of Jake, so that we see the effects that he’s feeling. What I mean by this is this, is that for Jake, it would feel as if Ray’s fist would take an age to make contact with his face, and Scorsese is simply allowing the audience to experience the same pain. All of the effects created add up to give a trance like feeling and allow the audience to get sucked into the scene and lose track of time completely.

The film was a really good achievement in forms of receiving 2 Oscars, alongside 19 wins and a further 16 nominations, and proved to be very popular with sport (boxing in particular) fans. It was also an achievement though forms of clever film making and containing a good array of film methods. However, I didn’t like the film clip that we watched, or the idea of the rest of the film and I would strongly refrain from watching the entirety of the movie.

The Waiting Room

"The Waiting Room"
Our task was to create a single camera production which explored the issues of time, atmosphere and character development. To help create our films, we were given a short peice of text, describing a scene, which were allowed to either adapt into our own story, or follow word for word.



INT: UNSPECIFIED ROOM - DAY/NIGHT
In a room, an individual stares into nothingness. The room contains a variety of objects that somehow relate to that person. In one minute from now, the life of that individual will change forever. But that minute feels like an eternity. The room becomes a prison, the clock a ticking time bomb. sounds are amplified. Further unsettling noises build up. The tension increases as that moment draws ever nearer untill...
CUT TO BLACK.

Shot List

1: Extreme Close up – Timer
2: Close up Pan – Amy
3: Extreme Close up – Timer
4: Mid Shot Pan – Amy
5: Extreme Close up – Timer
6: POV Mid shot – closing in on rails
7: Extreme Close up – Timer
8: Mid Shot Slow Pan – Amy
9: Extreme Close up – Timer
10: Mid Shot > Slow Tracking – Amy
11: POV Mid shot – closing in on rails

12: Extreme Close up – Timer
13: Mid Shot > Slow Tracking – Amy
14: Extreme Close up – Timer
15: POV Mid Shot – closing in on rails
16: Extreme Close up – Timer
17: Long Shot > Tracking – Amy
18: Extreme Close up – Timer
19: Long Shot > Tracking – Amy
20: Extreme Close up – Timer
21: Long Shot > Tracking –Amy
22: Extreme Close up – Timer
23: Close up Shot – Placing phone on wall
24: Extreme Close up – Timer
25: Extreme Close up – Hand tightening on railing
26: Extreme Close up – Timer
27: Mid Shot – Beginning to climb onto railings
28: Extreme Close up – Timer
29: Close up Shot – Kneeling on the wall
30: Extreme Close up – Timer
31: POV Shot – Looking down over railings
32: Extreme Close up – Timer
33: POV Shot – Looking down over railings
34: Extreme Close up – Timer
35: POV Shot – Looking down over railings
36: Extreme Close up – Timer
37: POV Shot – Looking down over railings
38: Extreme Close up – Timer > 00:00:00
39: Cut To Black

Treatment.

We open with the view of a stopwatch, one minute on its face. It moves down one second with a ticking sound.

This fades into half of a circular pan of a girl stood at the top of an empty car park, her hair blowing out behind her. This then cuts to the view of the stopwatch. We cut back to the girl. She starts to walk forward whilst reaching for her jacket as though to take it off.

Once more, we cut to the stopwatch.

Now we switch to a point of view shot in which we see the railing and wall and the buildings beyond the car park.

Once again we cut to the stopwatch.

Whilst walking forward the girl begins to remove her jacket before we again cut to the stopwatch which continues to count down.

The camera pans to a diagonal angle behind the girl who has now removed her jacket and allows it to fall to the ground. All the while she continues to walk towards the edge. We cut to the stopwatch again.

Here we have a second point of view shot of the railing and buildings beyond it steadily coming closer. Once more we cut to the stopwatch.

After the next shot of the girl walking forward, with another cut to the stopwatch following it, there is another POV shot which is the same as the ones before it. Another cut to the stopwatch. Following this shot is another of the girl walking towards the edge and another cut to the stopwatch after.

Next the girl reaches into her pocket and moves to place what she took out of it onto the wall. We then cut to the stopwatch.

Now we see a close up of a mobile phone in the girls hand being placed on the wall. Then we cut to the stopwatch.
This is followed by another close up but this time of the girls left hand tightly gripping the railing, then we once again cut to the stopwatch.

Next is a mid long shot of the girl getting ready, it seems, to climb up onto the wall. The cut to the stopwatch follows this.

Now we have another close up this time of the girls knee coming up to rest on the wall and act as leverage to help pull her onto the wall, followed by the shot of the stopwatch.

Here there are three shots, interspaced by the shot of the stopwatch, of the same thing; a point of view slowly looking down towards the ground below.

Finally the stopwatch reaches zero and the scene cuts to black.

All throughout this short film a piano piece from Amelie is playing and also a heart beat can be heard in the background, gradually picking up in speed. Both these pieces come to an abrupt end when the film cuts to black. The heart beat doesn't play when the stopwatch is visible. All of the visual pieces are slowed down to give the feeling of time passing slowly whereas in real time, as shown by the stopwatch, only one minute has passed.

Evaluation

Our task was to create a short video that dealt with the issues of creating a feeling of time passing slowly, along with creating a tense atmosphere and developing a characters story. Working together with Michelle, we came up with the idea that we could adapt the text into a film about a girl attempting to commit suicide.

We wanted to use this idea because to start with – it felt quite unique and a different take on the description and secondly because it gave us a really good opportunity to create a tense video. It also presented a good situation in which to show time slowly passing and allow a lot of tension to be built up for the audience.

For the side of Character Development, we wanted to portray that this teenager had had a difficult upbringing and was undergoing some form of extreme hardship or sadness which had forced her into this situation of attempting to commit suicide. The reason that we started with a slow, close up anti-clockwise pan, was so that we could stylishly open the film, whilst giving an insight into the girl’s background, from the empty sadness that we tried to show on her face. We wanted to tell the audience of the girl’s sadness before we showed them the location of which she stood, and of the contents that was to follow.

I thought that the entirety of the production process went really well. We reached our final idea quickly and were excited to start planning and filming. To film with, we used a Three Chip Camera with a DV tape, attached to a Fig Rig tripod. We used this so that we could manoeuvre the starting Pan shot smoothly, and then be able to move on to the piont of view shot with a ‘handheld’ camera feel to the scene. We wouldn’t have been able to perfect any of these specific shots with a films tripod.

We were both really pleased with the finished film, and there were only a few minor errors that were pointed out and we would like to have improved on. To start with, we were unable to find a suitable location to film at, we had to use car park behind college which would no way have been high enough to conflict any life damaging injuries from the jump. However, we didn’t know of any higher buildings that we would actually be allowed onto the roof of. This was a simple yet embarrassing complication that was noticed by several of the audience members at the project screening.

Neil mentioned that the film may have been more moving if the clock had counted down quicker though the majority of the film, and then lingered on the last few seconds at the end of the film. This would have made the seconds seem a lot more significant. It would have been a nice touch to include, and both me and Michelle were annoyed we hadn’t thought of it. If we were to make another similar film to this one in the future then we would definitely include this way of using the clock for creating more tension.

Over all, I am very pleased with the way that the film turned out! I thought that it met the requirements but with our own story and stamp on it, rather than staying to close to the text.