Lets Talk about Civil War, not the American one the Marvel one

So I have something to admit to all of you reading this. I am obsessed with comic books. Now for those of you who know me this is no surprise, but it might be to those of you who don't know me. Anyway as the Super Bowl came around Marvel dropped one short, but huge trailer over the upcoming Captain America Civil War movie. Now I know this may seem silly to most of you, but I am gonna talk about all of the amazing film techniques it uses.

Now if we look at the first shot it opens with doors opening. This is an amazing use of symbolism to show the opening of the new era and the start of changes. It also adds a feeling of mystery about the movie as to what those doors lead to and why they are significant. The next shot is Captain America which sets in stone one of the main characters in this movie. The next shot shows Bucky Barnes, which establishes another main character, and the big problem of the film.We then see Falcon which establishes another main character in the plot. This is followed by a shot of what looks like SWAT team taking aim at a target and Captain America protecting Bucky, which can be presumed to represent the overprotectiveness Cap has for Bucky.

This is followed by Cap breaking through a window, like he did in The Winter Soldier, to take down another armed man and an explosion. This provides parallelism to the previous Captain America movie, as well as establishing the explosive nature (Ha get it) of this film. This followed by Wanda Maximoff's horrified face suggests that something uncharacteristic of Cap will happen and that nothing will ever be the same. We then see Bucky walk up the stairs with an angry look on his face which would suggest that he will repeat his violent nature, or another possibility of a HYDRA brainwash. Either way this shot and the following one of him shooting Iron Man's hand repulser instead of his face. This is a deliberate attempt to kill him and is another example of the violence that we can expect from Bucky in the next movie.

The next shot is of Natasha climbing up on crates and watching in horror as other storage containers on the airstrip are destroyed. This destruction appalls Natasha and it shows what might be the reason she sides with Tony. The following shot is Rhody laying motionless on the ground as Tony pulls his mask off and looks horrified at the possible death of his best friend. This shows a major problem that he must handle and something that causes him to fight.

This is followed by a shot of Bucky in winter soldier gear standing in the middle of a snowy mountain scene, which is followed by Bucky and Steve standing their ground. This shows the protective nature they have of each other as well as the leaders of Team Cap. The next shot is Iron Man opening a door and saying "you choose the wrong side". This establishes the major problem throughout the film and the tenseness between those two characters. Now the very final shots establish the teams with Captain America, Bucky, Falcon, Wanda Maximoff, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man on one side. As well as Iron Man, Natasha Romanoff, War Machine, Vision, and Black Panther on the other. This shows the teams that will be at odds in Civil war and wrap up an overall suburb trailer for the exciting movie to come.

I hope you enjoyed my little blog about the trailer and I look forward to seeing the movie when it comes out. See you in the next blog!

Lighting Makes a Difference.... for Horror in Particular. Let me tell you what I like to call my Supernatural Theory!

This week I wanna talk about Supernatural. Yes the popular show on The CW. I know an odd topic for a video blog but hey I had an idea and I ran with it. So lets take a look at the show. Now for this blog I will try my hardest to be spoiler free, but just in case I will post it here in big bold letters POSSIBLE SPOILERS! Now on with the blog. So if you watch the show the you know the premise, two brothers travel the country hunting monsters, ghosts, the whole shebang. This show is horror and  that is evident in many ways just from looking at one episode. Lets look at this scene with Sam Winchester as played by Jared Padalecki.






















This is a pretty basic set-up for a shot. The character is in the two-thirds of the shot and kept along different quadrants if we divided this shot up into thirds. Now that is not the point of this blog to discuss the thirds rule, but I will link it here for any curious minds. Any way this is a very well composed shot and holds all the characteristics of a great shot. Now lets talk about the more specific side of this shot. The lighting that this shot has for example. Most of the shots in this show are lit to a similar darkness and some even more. This intentional darkness of these shots is a technique that the lighting crew added to the filming process. This adds to the spooky and suspenseful feeling that audiences get from the show. This darkness to your brain is the unknown and one of the most basic fears of people. But hey lets look at another horror themed movie to show this some more.



I don't know what video this shot is from, but if you compare the two images both are very dark to what a normal shot looks like. So thats the theory, now lets talk about execution. This was executed in a very professional manner so I am gonna give an overview of how I know to create this effect, but please if you want to recreate this professionally do more research than this simple blog. Now the first step is to remove all uncontrolled lighting. Unless you are outside the lighting could change between takes if you are using uncontrolled sources (like the sun or moon). Nest up is to get the reflectors out because while this scene may be dark, it needs to have the necessary viewpoints. By using reflectors and a soft light this will appear natural without getting too light. Next up is to barely light any other effects in the shot that needs to be seen for the video to make sense. These don't need a reflector, but instead a lower setting on lights. I hope this helped at least a little and I hope you enjoy my Supernatural theory.