Sydney Shreve: 8 Piece Scholarship Portfolio Submission

Concentration

Concentration

Concentration

Concentration

Breadth

Breadth

Breadth

Breadth

French New Wave Era

In 1960, Jean-Luc Godard directed a film along with producer François Truffaut entitled, Breathless. This film along with others such as The 400 Blows, Mon Amour, etc. encompassed the beginning of the French New Wave Era. This type of French filming was formed during the 1950s-1960s exploring the depiction of iconoclasm, which is the desire to shoot about more social issues and experiment further with film. The era, strongly pushed by the talented François Truffaut, was the first uses of realism of narration in film. Godard's film, Breathless portrays the interaction between a french petty criminal and his american girlfriend. Many films of this era followed the idea of common characters and a storyline that is evident in the real world. Another topic of this era was the experimentation in all aspects of film. Experimentation is shown in Breathless as it uses a fairly new technique of film style by using "jump-cuts." The French New Wave was not merely local, many films and their directors influenced internationally with their mass experimental efforts and new storyline ideas.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=peS6ADDysms

Music Video Treatment

Synopsis - Live music video shot in the recording studio. Want to capture the artist's features while they are performing. Multiple shot angles of both the artist and the equipment. Provides a behind the scenes look at what it takes for this solo artist to prepare and finalize an original song.

Main Characters - Artist is the main focus, Suede Lacy. The audience learns about behind the scenes work that goes into creating a song and how the artist is effected while recording their songs.

Story Structure - The beginning will start with a selection of shots involving equipment set up such as the empty studio, microphone, soundboard, etc. As the song builds there will be more focus on the artist and their movements during the recording session.

Style - Casual live action film that provokes strong emotions through many angles and close up shots of the artist. Intend to use dim and warm lighting to highlight the characters.

Film Review: "Stories We Tell"

Sarah Polley, a well off Canadian director takes her skills to the next level with this unique documentary staring her own family. At first, "Stories We Tell" is a family-tree detective story, then a playful and loose movie, then a maternal melodrama. Along the way, it weaves strong feelings through storytelling and truth. That it never behaves as expected is fair warning that you have to see the film for yourself. Polley gathers generations of family members to assemble a portrait of her mom, Diane, an actor who died when Sarah was 11 and, depending on who’s asked, may have been tirelessly or restlessly frustrated. Although you are lead to believe that the film is surrounded around the early death of her mother, Diane, the film slowly turns its attention to how each member of the family portrayed their connection to the story. Overlapping the interviews are flashbacks using videos taken of her mother while she was alive. The shots are average home videos, but really add to the descriptions of the characteristics of Diane Polley. Each interview is casually set and lighting design carefully chosen. As to not give away the plot and life story of the Polley family, I'll leave that part for you to watch. In all, this brilliant documentary showcases a unique type of documentary that keeps the audience captured in its story, humor, and aesthetics.

Film Review: "Tomboy"

Directed by Céline Sciamma, “Tomboy” is a french drama film released in 2011. This particularly short feature film, only lasting 82 minutes explores the life of a young family of 5 who just moved into an apartment complex in France. The main character is a relatively young girl named Laure, who is feeling awkward having just been introduced to a new home with her pregnant mother, father, and younger sister. When you first see Laure you are unaware of her gender (based on her short hair and un-identifying features) until later on when her mother calls her by name and one scene where she and her sister are in the bath. As the first few days pass Laure notices some kids playing outside the apartment and leaves her bed resting mother and sister to investigate. By the time she gets outside the kids are all gone except for one who introduces herself as Lisa. The two talk and eventually Laure introduces herself as Mikäel. Lisa and Laure then explore and join the other children in their activities. Continuing into the film, we see how far Laure can take her ambiguous image to portray herself as a boy without being discovered. The movies cinematography was beautifully done to portray the characters and the vast landscape of the setting. As for casting, stunning choices and excellent acting. The main character Laure, played by “Zoé Héran” was nominated for multiple awards for best drama female lead. Over all the film was very moving and a one of a kind view of a young trans girl in Europe.

Film Review: "The Kids Are All Right"

Comedy and drama, The Kids Are All Right, directed by Lisa Cholodenko premiered in 2010 and starred Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, and Josh Hutcherson as the main characters in a vastly dysfunctional family. The film depicts the life of a lesbian couple and their two teenage children when the donating father enters the picture. Tensions between family members rise and fall through out, mainly surrounding the biological father, Paul. The biggest upset occurs between Paul and two mothers, Nic and Jules. Paul is in need of a redo of his backyard, which coincidentally Jules a landscaper, hesitatingly accepts to design. This duo then begins spending a bit too much time together and eventually end up sleeping together on multiple occasions. This sets the stage for the huge blow up of emotions involving the anger at Paul and Jules for ruining the family dynamic, Paul for being a poor father figure, and etc. Now in terms of casting, the choices for each character were beautifully selected showing the perfect range of emotions and backs up the likelihood of events. For example, Paul's character (Mark Ruffalo) is definitely shown as a socially lost bachelor who has zero idea how to act as a father, making him look like, well...an ass. Which is perfect for his role! Continuing on to plot and storyline, director Lisa was extremely successful in portraying the story accurately and in a timely manor. The only issue with the story I have is the likelihood of a committed lesbian woman (Jules) having sex with a man she barely knows and on top of that knowingly chooses the man who is her children's donating father. Slightly aggravating the way they alter a character's sexuality, but I suppose in the real world one could do that. As a whole the film was entertaining on both a comedic and dramatic level and was brilliantly directed.

Scratch Instrument - New Works

In the past few weeks of New Works we've been doing multiple activities to learn about rhythm. After an introduction we were instructed to create instruments from scratch. The instrument had to create a sustainable pitch and be creative in appearance.
So...
Creative idea - Check
Instrument - Not Check
I honed in on my visual arts skills, grabbed the top of a box, a spiral notebook, paper, and colored pencils.
Bam original scrapper instrument like in the old hillbilly days.

It was a great experience to see everyones creations and show off my own!