For the first
week of the film studies tutorial class, our lecturer had brought us a movie to
watch which was called Spirited
Away. From what I saw in the movie, it was a Japanese movie and it was
well-known when the movie released in 2001.
Synopsis
The synopsis of
this movie was there was a family tried to move to a new place in the beginning
of the story. Then, Chihiro’s (the small girl) father lost their way in finding
the way to their destination but entered an abandoned and old Japanese
building. On the street, there were nobody but it fulled with delicious food.
As seeing her parents transferred into pig, Chihiro tried to her best to save
them with the help from Haku and Kamaji (old man with many hands). In the
middle of saving her parents, she faced many challenges gave by Yubaba (the old
greedy witch). Did she survive or she just give up?
There are some theory going to discuss through this movie.
Theory Discussion
(1) Mechanic of the Movies
History of film
As in the
history, the film started in 1895 and there was no any editing during that
time. Also, the length for most of film were at most 1 minute. The film made at
that time was not using digital video like we did in this modern generation but
they used motion pictures to show the movement. We still can see this kind of
movement such as Marvel movie when beginning of the movie.
Film production
For a film, it needs some phases to make a film. For example, they are
pre-production, production, post-production, exhibition and distribution. For
pre-production, it is something that we need prepare before doing the shooting
stuffs. For example, we need to find suitable place according what type of
genres to shoot the film. Also, a script need to prepare to actor and actress
to let them know what dialogue they need to say at that particular scene.
Next, production will be included shooting commences, directing, camera operations, acting, lighting and sound recording. For example, sound recording must be clear so that the audience can hear what the actor or actress tried to perform. Not only that but also lighting is important to a film production because it can increase the feeling of the scene. The most vital is the camera operation which included how the angle of the camera. For instance, Chihiro is crying and the angle used was medium shot because it needs to capture her expression to show how much she wants to go back and save her parents.
Exhibition and Distribution
After that, it will be the post-production where is the stage that
after done the shooting. In this stage, editing will be done not only the cut
scene but also the sound effect is added. Then, there will be exhibition where
it is the process to send the prints to theaters and there will have the
screening for the movie that is done. Lastly, it will be the distribution stage
which the film will make in several way such as DVD, Pay-Per-View TV, Network
Broadcast and so on.
Postmodernism
For what I
knew for this term, it is something related to pastiche and parody. Both of
this word have the same similarity which is they tried to portray something but
one of them is support the society whereas the other is more on opposing in an
attempt to mock. For example, as what you see from the picture, the other
people are more excited than Chihiro. It is the scene tried to show how greedy
people are at that society.
(2)
Mise-en-scene
From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (2013) with page 239 and line 31-32 by Susan Hayward,
she stated it is term means staging and it is very important for the film
production especially in framing of shots. It can be explained what are things
needs for a film. This term mostly used in pre-production and production.
Mise-en-scene has many characteristic which are setting and props, costume and makeup, lighting, actor's behaviour and movement. First of all, setting stands for the flow of the movie and the props is something that can use in the movie. For example, Captain America's shield will consider a prop for his movie.
Costume and makeup is a necessary for a movie. This is because the adding of the costume and makeup will help audience pay more attention to the movie. After that, lighting will help to compliment the mood and tone of the scenes.
Also, the actor's behaviour and movement will represent how an actor walks, stands, sits or talks will convey different personalities and attitudes. The reason why a movie needs these is because it can enhance narrative which means a story can be tell in easy way.
(3) Mise-en-shot
Just like mise-en-scene, it also helps in narration of the scene. The
only difference for this term and mise-en-scene is this term mostly used camera
to give the narration. It has many components where we can see which are camera
movement, camera position, shot scale, duration of each shot, pace of
editing.
For camera movement, it means how the camera moves. For an action movie, it usually follow the actor moves and it is excluded the actor itself which it only show the view of the actor. This is want to let the audience experience the situation and the term of surrealism.
Camera position will be the location of the camera placed. For example, the camera placed over the shoulder when there is a conversation between two persons or more. Besides this, the camera will place higher angle if the scene want to show the scene which actor tries to get something or show the frightfulness.
On the other hand, shot scale is how much can zoom in or zoom out. When the scale value is bigger, the object that shows in the camera will be bigger. Furthermore, duration of the each shot, it will need to look through the shutter speed which how bigger of the lens that let the light enter to the camera. Lastly, pace of editing is how smooth of the scene to another scene and continuity and jump-cut will be used in this component.
Favourite on
this movie
Besides this, I will try to mention about what I liked in this
movie. Although it was made up in 2001, it’s storyline was good and not so
complicated. This will make the viewers more understand what the movie tried to
say. Not only that but also the colour is also the point for this movie made
interesting to me. The colour that the author picked was soft which we can see
the line and light were soft. I believed that this will help the viewers to
have a comfortable condition to watch this movie. Furthermore, it also
touched on how the features of Japanese traditional culture such as their
building, clothes and so on.
The part that also impressed me a lot was braveness of Chihiro.
As you think if you are the one like Chihiro, it is very hard for you to be
like her to face those hardships. Plus, it is sure that you will lost your
confidence when you lost parents like her. However, she never gave up herself
from what obstacles she faced but she always thinking of ideas to solve the problems
that mentioned before in synopsis. After that, there was a part that I was
interested which was the spirit (No Face) tried to give others precious things
such as gold by making them more and more then he will eat the greedy spirit
that who took his gold. It showed us that is no free of charge of precious
thing in this world unless you really work harder for that.
Moreover, it was related to people nowadays which they felt that
money was important that their life. I think that this movie is meaningful
because it was tried to satirize that people should take care their own culture
but not like abandoned building that forgot by others forever in the movie.
Also, it alerted people that should grab every minute or second in their life
so that it will not be too late for you to say those words such as thank you, I
am sorry, I love you and so on.
Conclusion
Finally, I
learnt from this movie that
we need to be strong and brave no matter what we faced because every problem
should have solutions to solve. We also encouraged that we should have step
forward instead of going back because you will not to be success when you feel
afraid. For example, Chihiro showed a lot of frightened in the movie but she
never complains about it but she showed positive thinking that anything is
possible and it depends on you want to or not. Thank you and hope you like this
passage.
Reference
S.Hayward
(2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and
New York.
