The Legend of Brendan

Hello Tori! It’s me! Your biggest fan! Brendan Xu. This is my final response, dedicated specially to you! As always, you are an amazing person Tori and will go very far in life! This may very well be the last time I can respond to your posts. I’m sad to see us part ways! Truly, I am. But enough of this emotional babble. Let’s get into the meat of your post, shall we?

(I have absolutely no animosity towards you. I avoid engaging in personal attack and insults, as they essentially tell the general public that I am incapable of rational discussion.)

You reviewed a short film titled “I Miss You,” a video boring the unmistakeable signs of a standard love story. Ahhhhhh. The typical cliché of an idea found in most average tasteless romance films. Let the men and women of the Internet rejoice and feel the love! YES! THE LOVE! Tears are to be shed and hearts are to be touched.

Your posts always are the most interesting. It’s not interesting in the sense that it is absolutely revolutionizing the way we all think. Rather, it is interesting in the sense that you seem to demonstrate great passion about your views and opinions, even going so far as to use absolute terms to state your claims. You say that you “definitely” would not have noticed elements such as cinematography, sound, and lighting if it hadn’t been for Mr. Cote to save the day. There was absolutely no way you could have noticed the unmistakeable voice of a narrator talking or the music in the short film “I Miss You.” No. These elements were all invisible until your eyes met Mr. Cote’s gaze and the pages of the ‘Film Art’ Textbook. Are you seeing the issue here? You are basically articulating this message that you haven’t learned much from the course. In other words, you are suggesting to readers of your post that you haven’t gained much more knowledge about film than you knew prior to taking ENGL245. You point out specific film techniques and conventions used in the short film and then briefly discuss the effect these techniques potentially have for the audience. This in of itself is perfectly acceptable and does seem to corroborate your implication that you have learned something from the course. However, when you look at the full context of what you’re saying, things just don’t add up. You talk about camera angles, sure. You mention techniques like “medium-close ups” and “straight-on angles,” which are arguably the most commonly used types of camera angles. You know, the type of angles filmmakers use when shooting films a whopping 85 percent of the time! What’s so interesting about the camera angles? What makes these the most attention-worthy out of all the other film techniques used? My only conclusion can be that you just found a very obvious example and hoped that the terms alone would convince people that you acquired a huge amount of knowledge from taking film. I was hoping that you would connect these terms and talk about what effect the camera angles have on the film. You did, but I had a hard time understanding what you meant. You call it, in your own words, “a documentary-style effect that is most appropriate for the story that it’s portraying.” How is an approach used by directors of informative and real documentaries “appropriate” for a love story. That does not make ANY sense, Tori. I’m sorry. I cannot comprehend a common link between a documentary and a (rather short) romance film! The sheer and utter perplexity this has caused me is giving me a headache! You continue to go on about the camera movement, stating that there is a lack of “severe angling or distancing.” What does severe angling or distancing constitute? How does it portray what is occurring in the frame? What is severe angling/distancing anyway? I don’t recall hearing about this in the textbook. I’m about to get another massive headache because I am confused by the vagueness of this statement. Where are you getting these terms from? I hope you create a bibliography and give credit to the person who coined those terms if it didn’t come from your own brain. I’d hate to see you receive an “XF” for this course after all the hard work you put into the film course and most importantly this blog. Anyway, you talk about how the lack of “severe angling and distancing” somehow makes the film significantly “more candid” and creates a very uber-realistic experience for the audience, almost making it seem as if they were watching it in real time! WOW! So you’re basically saying that because the camera work for this film gives it the vibe of a documentary, it makes it honest (that’s what candid means) and makes the audience feel like they are experiencing it as if they were there. Holy cow! You come to the conclusion that the camera in the film allows the audience to see what is happening in real time! So what’s the big deal here? Well, for starters, isn’t that what a film camera already does? It captures actors and actresses in real time! Surely there is no need for a qualified intellectual to explain this! These are the utter basics of understanding how thing work. Camera’s are meant to capture events in real time so that whomever watches the footage generated from the camera would feel like it was occurring at the present moment even it it tangibly wasn’t! I’m sure most of use wouldn’t have figured out that a film camera presents footage as if it occurred in real time. You state that other than an eyeline match between the boy and the girl, there hasn’t been any other “drastic editing choices.” You seem to be forgetting the use of transitions in the film. You know, the way scenes shift to other scenes. If there weren’t transitions, the film wouldn’t be a film. Rather, it would be a rather rough set of moving clips juxtapositional to each other with a rather unclear sequence of events. I think this is a crucial editing choice: the use of transitions! You somehow overlooked something very essential to a film’s success, the way scenes turn into other scenes! Transitions were an integral editing technique in the film, yet you seemed to have noticed just one eyeline match instead. The transitions are just one of many editing techniques found in the film. I don’t know about you Tori, but I found the Kuleshov effect, flashbacks, and flashforwards. Just to name a few of the many I spotted. But I guess it doesn’t matter to you. I guess you only noticed the eyeliner match between the guy and girl because you wanted to believe in a fantasy where you are that girl staring into that sexy, smoking hot guy’s intense fiery eyes. After your rather brief discussion on editing (or the lack thereof, according to you), you begin to talk about sounds. You claim that there are “various forms of diegesis.” In the context of sound, it is either externally diegetic or internally diegetic. That’s the whole shtick! 2 different types of diegesis sure is a variety to me! This is another example of your forceful and deliberate attempts to demonstrate significant knowledge and understanding of film conventions by simply throwing out vocabulary words that were covered in class. You point out instances of diegetic and non-diegetic sound, but then use these examples as a corroboration for your claim that the film makes “good use of sound diegesis to demonstrate interplay between various forms of diegesis.” That statement sounds very paradoxical, don’t you think? Especially considering that you seem to think there are more types of diegesis floating out there, even though we are talking strictly about diegesis in terms of sound. Let me remind you again. When talking about diegesis in terms of sound, it is either externally diegetic or internally diegetic. That’s all there is to it! There is no “variety,” assuming that you re strictly talking about sound. I am honestly quite baffled with that statement. I have no idea what point you are making here. The examples you cite are adequate, but without a comprehensible claim, they are irrelevant to your argument.
Anyways, you seem to more greatly appreciate cinematography, lighting, and sound more after taking the film introduction course. As long as you feel like you gained something from the course, I am a-okay with it! Anyways, have a good one Tori. And for your sake, try to be more clear and articulate about your views and arguments in the future okay buddy? Peace out. ☮ ✌