Fisher: Beowulf

This entire movie could have been reedited in my opinion.  It was the first movie that I have seen strive for realism in their animation.  This film honestly looks like all of the budget went into the CGI and they had to rush to finish it, so they twisted the story, skipped a few years and made the dragon his son in order to create adequate enough ending to distract the viewer from the fact that they are watching another Hollywood botch of a literal "epic" tale, not just a classic.  However, the fact that this story was written so long ago allows the producers and directors to play with it and, to my dismay, add their own creative minds into the mix.  In my eyes, this was simply an attempt to make money by taking a timeless Old English epic, bastardize it, and lure in the viewers by tossing a few star names into the digital mix; lets not fail to mention the full digital frontal by the computerized Jolie... that will bring in a crowd of thousands on its own.

Demons wear heels?

All of these were mashed into one movie to produce some form of "finished" product to be presented to the capricious audience that the majority of America is.  If I were forced to pick out one scene in this movie to completely reedit, it would be any scene that they deviated from the original tale, which occurs throughout the film.  However, a good scene to reedit would be the scene when Beowulf goes to kill the demon in the cave.  In the film, and in the book, he takes along his glowing dragon horn that he received from King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and the sword Hrunting from Unferth (John Malkovich).  However, when he enters the cave is where the story completely changes.  In the film, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) succumbs to the seduction of the demon (Angelina Jolie) and bears her a child, resulting in the birth of the golden child/dragon and his ultimate demise. Instead of this happening, they could have stuck to the original tale where he slays the demon of the water with a giant sword forged by titans and returns to the mead hall with Grendel's (Crispin Glover) head.  Then, Beowulf later meets his fate after slaying a dragon that has no relation to him.  Instead, they introduced Beowulf to his "femme fatal" so to speak in the embodiment of a naked, golden Angleina Jolie-demon with some crazy rattail.

Kehoe-Beowulf

The CGI in Beowulf is so poorly rendered that the charters movements and facial expressions appear wooden and unrealistic. This lack of life like qualities is most apparent in the scene where Beowulf fights Grendel. Especially when there is a lot of movement going on, such as when Beowulf jumps up onto the chandelier, the movements seem unrealistic. The physics of the characters movements seem artificial and cartoonish, rather than real world physics. By physics I mean things like how a person looks while walking or running and how a person falls when being hit by a powerful force. I feel that if more attention had been paid to imitating real world physics the film would be much more visually pleasing.

Kozaites: Beowulf's Emotions

In regards to further enhancement of a particular scene, I would have to argue that I would enhance every scene featuring a human, by changing the human character from a computer generated image to an actual person. Furthermore, I believe actual sets and locations would have further enhanced the reality of the story. The use of these graphics are detrimental to the overall film, as it seriously limits the acting range of clearly excellent performers. I understand some of these technological inventions were largely essential for the plot, in order to present the grotesqueness of the monsters and severity of the action, however I do not think it was at all necessary to make the entirety of the film animated. I would assert that the film could very well have been both live action and animated, as was done in Robert Zemeckis’s previous film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’(1988) , to an extent.

In this scene however, Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) is showing Beowulf (Ray Winstone), the mystical golden horn, that serves as a major plot device throughout the film. We our first drawn to Hrothgar’s face, who is looking at Beowulf, who is looking at the horn, which causes us to look at these things in this pattern, ultimately being drawn to the bright horn. Beowulf is the dominant figure in this scene, hovering over Hrothgar. Meanwhile Hrothgar is framed by darkness in the upper left corner, and bright gold in the lower right. All in all this scene suggests that Hrothgar wields a power, that will soon be in the possession of Beowulf, however there is a dark foreshadowing to it.

Falanga, Beowulf Mise En Scene

One particular scene in “Beowulf” which deserves some editing attentions is about an hour into the movie when Beowulf confronts Grendel’s mother for the first time; The dominant is on the golden horn when it should be on the faces of either character, the object is too bright and detracts attention from the important dialogue and confrontation going on. The lighting is very low all around the two characters while the horn creates much of the light on the bottom right of the screen which illuminates much of the two characters on screen. The character proxemics is intimate as we only see from the chest up on both the characters and their heads fill up most of the screen. The camera is about three feet away from the action going on in the scene. The angle of the camera is somewhat tilted up toward the characters’ faces, as if we are looking up to them as they are both legends in their own worlds, giving good symbolic reference to who these characters are. The color is gold for the most part as it fills the characters’ faces giving them a magical quality; while the rest on screen in the background is pitch black. There was no lens/stock/filter change in this shot as everything is very clear and not distorted in any way. The subsidiary contrast is that of Beowulf’s face because it is closest to the bright gold horn, then the mother of Grendel which is at the other end of the screen and not so lit up is the next subsidiary. The fact that neither character is as brightly lit up as the horn makes them subsidiary contrasts. The scene is not very dense because we only have two characters in close proxemics to each other while everything is in darkness. They both fill the screen making it somewhat dense but there is nothing in the background making it easy to see what is going on what to look at. The composition is interesting; the only objects we can see on screen are the two characters, whilst everything else is in darkness making it impossible not to focus in on the conversation and confrontation. The framing is very tight, Beowulf and the mother are close together in a dark cave with only one light source being the horn, and the characters seem to have nowhere to go making a good representation of how critical this plot turn is as it is made necessary through the way it is shot. There is not much depth in this scene because we are allowed only to focus on three things (Beowulf, Mother, and horn) which are all in close proxemics of each other. As far as the character placement, Beowulf is on the right holding the gold horn near the bottom right of the screen, while Grendel’s mother is on the left. The characters don’t look into the camera and only look at each other, the camera goes around the dialogue at hand but they never change positions in the stage position. The problem with the scene is that the horn should not illuminate the screen as much as it does. It draws attention away from the confrontation. The animation and people look awful in this film, mainly because the character’s faces can’t move and express that much as a normal actor could.

Villavicencio--Beowulf

     Before viewing the film, I must admit a strong opposition towards digitally enhanced films such as Beowulf. In past experience, (and later proved by this film), I’ve found it near impossible to connect with the characters, understand their emotions, or feel anyway engaged in their story.
Although countless scenes throughout Beowulf are in dire need of some editing (such those with supernatural characters or gruesome battles), I found one scene that perfectly exemplifies why films made entirely by CGI fail so miserably.
     Around the 70th minute, a man is seconds from his murder when he requests Beowulf himself to take his life. Sensing mockery, Beowulf decides to explain “man with no name” exactly why his energy would be wasted on physically killing him himself. Throughout this short scene, Beowulfs emotions (are supposed to) change from self-content, to offense, to pride, to pity and almost (if possible) sympathy. Unfortunately, his facial expressions hardly portray much more than on emotion (most likely arrogance.) The “nameless” man’s emotions should have moved from terror, to confusion, to extreme fear, and finally intense relief. Instead, however, his cartoon-like shuddering and lack of true emotion from his face to body language are more significantly more distracting than convincing.
     Although maybe not a key scene, this conversation exemplifies why digitally enhancing human characters is a unfavorable choice. The only true way I can suggest to improve the scene would be to use real people.
Fairly successful CGI movies could be Spider Man, The Mummy, and King Kong, however they merged real people with their supernatural co-stars rather than transforming everything. Given the obvious knowledge that supernatural characters are not real, the CGI doesn’t take away from the film as it does when real people are forced into animation.

Phillpott- Beowulf and the Sea Monsters

I chose the scene in Beowulf where he is fighting the Sea Monsters because I think it needed more enhancing. The blood on his chest is unrealistic as well as the ocean behind him. The Sea Monsters also look very tacky and not as scary as they should--I mean they are vicious sea creatures that will eat human flesh! The whole sequence could have done with some more special effects, but I chose this still picture to explain my choice.

The DOMINANT is Beowulf's bloodied body and triumphant face. The LIGHTING KEY in this particular shot is high key because the lightning is showing everything for the audience to see (everything is lit up.) The SHOT AND CAMERA PROXEMIC is slightly from above and personal because we see Beowulf from the waist up. The ANGLE is looking slightly down on Beowulf and we are allowed to see the ocean rocking behind him. The COLOR VALUE is mostly a yellow glow, but the red blood on his body seems to dominate the focus of the picture. The SUBSIDIARY CONTRASTS are the knife in his outstretched hand and then the choppy ocean behind him. The FORM is open because Beowulf is in the middle of the ocean which is natural and not stylized. The FRAMING is loose because nothing is restricting him from moving freely about the ocean. The CHARACTER PLACEMENT is in the center to put all the focus on him as the triumphant hero.

Despite the fact that the mise en scene conveys the message the director wanted to show, there is still more visual enhancing they could have done. Like I said before, the blood on his chest seems unnatural. Also, there is no blood on the knife he just used to kill the Sea Monsters. He has no blood on his face and there is little blood on his body. The Sea Monsters were huge, and a lot of blood came out of them. To make this scene more convincing, there should have been more blood on Beowulf's body. The ocean in the background also seems fake because there is no dimension to it. It is unnatural. If the makers of this movie had wanted to really make this a great film they should have done a lot more editing and enhancing.

Bienvenu: Beowulf: Authenticity of Grendel

When Beowulf first came out in theaters I remember thinking to myself, “Why would they make an action movie completely out of CGI?” Though most action films are heavily based on the use of CGI, their biggest flaws and critiques come from unrealistic special effects and mediocre replications of what we see in our everyday lives. So why take the risk of creating an entire movie out of CGI?

Our discussion in class left me with some closure as to why making a movie in CGI might be a good idea for filmmakers. Money is saved on production (wardrobe, location, etc.), scenes can be adjusted entirely on computer rather than having to re-shoot, it opens doors to a wider range of actors and difficult shots can be taken that a regular camera might not be able to capture. Above all of these arguments stood out the idea of using CGI to “dispend reality.” When given the task of creating an unknown world (due to time period or actual existence), CGI has endless possibilities as well as capabilities. In other words, CGI can take us places we have never been. Since in most cases these places aren't real, we need not worry about comparing them to actual locations. For the most part, Beowulf did an OK job of showing us one of these unknown worlds. For this reason, it's hard to isolate a particular scene that could be enhanced by special effects. Also, the entire movie is in special effects, why would there need to be more?

At this point, my attention is turned to finding a scene where the special effects could have been BETTER, not a scene where there needed to be MORE special effects. Throughout the entire movie the major flaw is uncomfortably obvious. THE PEOPLE. The faces of the characters are for the most part true to their actors but they don’t look real! Save for a few shots, the people look fake in the face, in the way they walk and in the way Grendel throws them about. Needless to say, the creators of Beowulf have not mastered the “rag doll effect” we see done so well in video games. All of these dazzling flaws are showcased in the beginning of the movie when Grendel attacks the meat hall. They can be further discussed with a mise en scene analysis of the screen shot I have provided in which King Hrothgar confronts Grendel.

The LIGHTING KEY of this scene is obviously dark, but it is so much more than that. There are constant flashes of bright blue and white light which add to the chaos and terror of the scene as a whole. The light shines on Grendel's back but shows us the front side of Hrothgar. Even though Grendel is huge and towering over the king, the lights and the whiteness of his cloak make Hrothgar standout, making him the DOMINANT. We are drawn to him and as we see him looking up we find Grendel drooling in agony as the SUBSIDARY CONTRAST. The king says, "fight me!" demanding the attention of Grendel as well as the audience. The CHARACTER PLACEMENT shows Hrothgar located more in the center of the shot while Grendel is off to the left. The ANGLE of the shot is at Hrothgar’s eye level, not at Grendel's. All of these elements of mis en scene tell us that this is about Hrothgar and his challenging of the beast. This is where CGI fails. While looking at Hrothgar we can’t help but think how fake he looks, which belittles his role as Grendel’s challenger in this scene. We know what humans look like, and this is not spot on. On the other hand, we don’t know what Grendel is supposed to look like and we don’t even know what he is. So, in this scene and in the entirety of the movie Grendel is terrifyingly real to us because we have nothing to compare him to.

As I mentioned before, one reason why filmmakers use CGI is because it can create things unknown to us. In this example, Grendel is the mystery that has been created for us. Hrothgar, a human, looks fake and therefore seems unreal and insignificant to us. Therefore, even though this scene is about Hrothgar, the lack of authenticity in CGI humans and the authenticity of CGI Grendel suddenly make this shot about him! How can you not be drawn to the way the light shines on Grendel’s disgusting and festering flesh? We are literally mesmerized by how grotesque he is. This is why making an entire movie in CGI is risky because even though you have a certain message in mind, you can only portray it as well as your CGI looks.

Villacreces, Wolfman Transformation and the Evolution of Filmmaking

VS.

Wolfman (2010)           Wolfman (1941)

It's been 69 years since director George Waggner made the first Wolfman movie. Technology and filmmaking have evolved ever since.  Because of this reason director Joe Johnston remade the movie. There are certainly a lot of differences between both movies, but what strikes the viewers the most is the  transformation from man to werewolf. 

In the 1941 version, you see  Larry Talbot struggling with fear, shame, and uncomfortability towards himself. He hides from people and does not know what is going on. As he removes his clothing, the frame present a change in his feet and nails, when in a different scene you see the changes in his face. the filmmakers were able to present this change by good editing. They changed his appearance frame by frame. 

On the other hand in the 2010 version of Wolfman, Lawrence Talbot has a  different reaction to the change. He fells angry, it seems as if the anger of the wolf is causing this change. You see a sense of unconfortability, but no fear. In the scene in which the doctors are examining what changes the full moon could make him have, he is angry and seeks revenge. The visual effects in the scene are made thanks to CGI. It is all computer animated. The advantage of computer animation is that you are able to see all the changes in his body, starting from his feet  to his eyes. There is detail, and the transformation is more real.

Both portray the transformation of the Wolfman using the technology that each time frame had in their power. The 1941 version could not presented more perfectly that they did. But the 2010 version has too much computer animation, which makes it look a little bit fake. 

The evolution of technology is allowing the filmmakers to do anything, including making a man go from human to werewolf.