Sunday 11 November 2007

Orson Welles: Actor and Director.


Orson Welles, actually his birth name was George Orson Welles, besides of being the protagonist of "The Third Man", acted in many movies and directed some others, but this was a consequence of his life.

He was born in May 6th, 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA. His father, Richard Head Welles, was a bussinessman and an inventor, and his mother, Beatrice Ives, was a piano soloist. No wonder why he became an artist too. Welles' mother instructed him in different art areas, such as painting, literature, music and drawing with the help of Maurice Bernstain.

He was the youngest child of this couple, but his brother was in a mental institution, so Orson was kind of only son. At the age of 9, his mother died of Ictericia, and because of this, Orson was under the custory of his father, who turned into an alcoholic.

Thanks to Bernstain, Orson recovered his lost interest for music, and Barnstain also encourage Welles to continue studying and go to Tool School of Illinois.
Unfortunately and as a consequence of the drinking problem, Orson's father died when he was just 15 years old.

Just 1 year after his father's death, Welles started to work in a theater in Dublin, Ireland. Soon after, he went to New York and debuted on Brodway when he was only a 17 year-old-boy.
Orson Welles's acting career grew rapidly, with the foundation of the theater company Mercury Theater, then he represented on the radio an adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

Because of the inestabily in Europe, the Nazis, and all the historical context of 1939, he sensibilized and that also helped him in making movies regarding this situation.

His fame continued going up, and when he was 24 years old, and having learned more about technicalities of cinema, he made his biggest and most important movie: The Fourth Commandment (1942).

Orson Welles was a very commited participant of the world of cinema. He was a producer, director, screenplayer, writer, actor, editor, and his works travelled all around the world, making him on of the greatest cinema performers.

His works are so much that we would never end telling you everything that he has done, but in this opportunity, we mentioned him because of "The Third Man" movie, where he was the leading actor and writer.

Orson was married to Virginia Nicholson, but their marriage only last 6 years, from 1934 to 1940. After 3 years, Welles got married with Rita Hayworth, aother very well-known and excellent actress, but unfortunately this marriage lasted less than the previous one: just 5 years. He remained single until 1955, when he got together with Paola Mori, his last wife.
Welles died in October 10th, 1985 in Los Angeles, CA, USA. form a heart attack. In the next year, his ashes were buried in Antonio Ordoñez's hacienda, in Ronda, Malaga, as a last wish of Welles when he was still alive.
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1 comment:

Erika Wilckens said...

Hi girls,
I see you've done a great work here!!

We don't have much in common besides "Language: English"...I hope you liked what you've done.


See you tomorrow.

Kiki

Sunday, 11 November, 2007

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Film Terminology

As we studied today in class we would like to talk about Language Film according to our movie.

Mise – en – scene:

1.- Setting, set and props: everything in front of the camera, decoration, objects but without people, only material things.
2.- Acting: People even animals.
3.- Costumes: Clothes, everything that the actors wear.
4.- Lighting: Key light, important light in the scene.
5.- Make Up: Decoration on the face and also hair style.
6.- *Print: any word that you can see.
[* Diagetic: The audience and the character can see /
Non-Diagetic: Only words that audience can see]


In our movie the Third Man the setting is in Vienna in the late 1940’s after the Second World War, regarding decoration we can see at the very beginning that the city was destroyed because of the war. The shots made in close space for example in Anna’s room everything was set up and well organized.
The acting is all the people who appear on the movie from Mr. Martins, Mr. Lime, Ms. Anna Smith...etc.
Lighting in our opinion was excellent because the movie was made in black and white so we think than the director tried to illuminate as much as possible so in some parts of the movie you can really appreciate the differences between day and night and some times we forgot that the move was in black and white.
Regarding make up on the actors is soft even in Anna who is the main female character and the hair style was according the time where the film was made.
The last point, print; in diagetic we only see the name of the countries which were in charge in Vienna in that time at the very beginning and also the name of the club where the characters met; and in non – diagetic print, we have the presentation of the people who made the movie at the beginning and also the credits at the end.

Sound:

1.- Music: all kind of music in the movie.
2.- Dialogue: Only actor’s words.
3.-Noise
4.- Use of silence
5.- Narrator: we have two types of narrator :
Voice Over: A character who tells us the story, we can see his or her face on the screen and Off Voice: We don’t see his or her face.


In our opinion music was the weakest point in the movie because sometimes it was a little bit monotonous, specially the central theme of the movie which makes us think about "Spongebob SquarePants" because of the instrument used ,the Vienesse zither , so we think that the use of that music was sometime too moving when it was not necessary.
Dialogue is every word that we could heard in the movie, regarding the use of noise through the movie, the director use the silence in the climax of the movie when police tried to catch Mr. Lime in the sewer.
The type of narrator that we can identify in this movie are the two kinds: we have both at the beginning.:Voice over when a male voice introduce us in the historical context in Vienna and Off voice when Mr. Martins told us about what he was thinking or seeing.


Editing:

1.- Cut (What the director says to end the filming of a shot)
- Fade (in/out) : A transition from a shot to black where the image gradually becomes darker is a Fade Out; or from black where the image gradually becomes brighter is a Fade In. Fades are done at the lab in the printing phase, but prepared by the negative cutter, who cuts in an overlap of black into the A&B rolls

- Cross fade: Combination between fade in /out and dissolve

- Dissolve: a transition between two shots, where one shot fades away and simultaneously another shot fades in.

- Jump cut: Basically, two similar shots cut together with a jump in continuity, camera position or time. Usually French directors use this technique the cut doesn’t have any sense.

-Cut: Simply kind of cut. (copy and paste).


2.- Time
- Raccord: Continuity (Shoulder/ Over shoulder) - The seamlessness of detail from one shot to another within a scene. Continuity refers particularly to the physical elements, rather than to the choices in coverage ( coverage is used to describe the architecture of breaking down a script into the shots that will allow the scene to be cut together. Although coverage addresses the bare-bones question of getting shots that will cut together smoothly, it is important not to be too distracted from bigger aesthetic question of getting the right shots for the scene to work) that can result in a lack of seamlessness. Elements of continuity include any actions of the actor, the placement of props, the lighting, the costumes, and so on.

- Forward : Go ahead
- Ellipsis: It doesn’t go step by step
- Flash forward: A segment of film that breaks normal chronological order by shifting directly to a future time. Flash forward, like flashback, may be subjective (showing precognition or fears of what might happen) or objective (suggesting what will eventually happen and thus setting up relationships for an audience to perceive).
- Rewind: a) Flashback segment of film that breaks normal chronological order by shifting directly to time past. Flashback may be subjective (showing the thoughts and memory of a character) or objective (returning to earlier events to show their relationship to the present) b)Racconto a long passage to the past
-Virtual: a) Ralentti = slow motion b) Fast camera all character move fast c) Freeze none moves

Regarding editing it is quite difficult to analyze step by step but in general the cuttings in our movie are extremely simple, just simple cut. About time features we have raccord shoulder and over shoulder.

Cinematography:

1.- Camera angle: High/Low/Straight /Areal (panoramic)
2.- Camera distance:
- Extremely long shot, from one point to another.
-Long shot, general view
-Medium shot, from the half body up
- Close up shot, from the neck up
- Extremely close up shot, just one part in isolation
- Deep Focus (While a lens focuses on a single plane of depth, there is usually an additional area in focus behind and in front of that plane. This is depth of field. Depth of field increases as the iris is closed. There is more depth of field the wider the lens and less the longer the lens. There is a deeper area in focus the further away a lens is focused than there is when a lens is focused close.)/ Shallow Focus (one object or character clear and the rest not).
-Zoom

3.- Camera Movement:
- Tracking, when the camera follows the character
- Panning, when the camera moves from one side to another side.

4. - Framing
- In (sounds in the scene) / out ( sounds out of the scene)
- Split screen, division of the screen

In our movie regarding cinematography we identified almost everything, camera angle, camera distance, camera movement and also framing. After watching the move when we started to analyze it we were very surprised because the shot where extremely simple but that wasn’t an obstacle to do the film interesting. The close ups, the deep focus, shallow among other makes the film faster and also that makes us to appreciate the film in a technical way.
Even though the film was made in 1949, when the film industry regarding special effects and shots was in its infancy that wasn’t a barrier to success.
This successfulness in our opinion is due to the story by itself because was very original for the time, the director and also the actors.

What do you think.... Does our blog need something more technical regarding the movie?, we really appreciate your opinion.

Check this site of us with more pictures of the film

Wolcome to The Thrid Man site