Month: February 2017

Doctor Strange (2016)- Extended Film Review

Marvel GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Marvel’s latest offering is one which is sure to impress some and confuse others immensely. A story centred around life itself and spirituality, encouraging us to think if we really are just a piece of matter or the soul itself.

Your probably thinking “well isn’t this all very deep for a Marvel movie”, with films such as Iron Man, Captain America and many more under their helm. The answer is “it is”, but you won’t be surprised how a lot of the elements from Marvels previous movies have been constructed formulaically to appear in their latest centre piece (not surprising right?). Putting all of this aside, upon close inspection ‘Doctor Strange’ certainly is “strange” but in a very euphoric way. A film heavily elevated by stunning visual effects (the best in my opinion of any Marvel film, alongside ‘Guardians of the Galaxy of course) and a very intricately woven story line, Marvels D.S certainly pushes itself passed its many cliches and predictable character arcs (to an extent).

In short, the film follows Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), being involved in a serious car accident. More arrogant than he is polite, Cumberbatch’s character (as ‘Doctor Strange’) certainly doesn’t make things easy for himself upon being in recovery. But what can he do? The one part of his body he feels he needs the most is ruined, he used his hands for surgical operations, for discoveries, for life-saving operations. To him they are his asset, he is self-assured and very intelligent but he’s stuck in his ways, in one viewpoint without seeing the bigger picture.

Enter “mysterious figure 1” and many others with ‘unique’outcomes, leading to a battle between one’s self and the world. Without giving too much away, a lot of the film focuses on this notion of having a soul and understanding one’s self completely to appear as different versions of one’s self in this universe and the next, rather than just being present in one. It certainly makes for an intriguing watch, with science and Vedic literature (touched on briefly) by its side.

One particular highlight of the film, alongside its stellar cast would have to be the VFX used in Doctor Strange, as it most certainly ranks as Marvels best yet and of course the best for 2016 in terms of action superhero films.  You can check out the following video on the VFX/CGI used in Marvels Box office hit ‘Doctor Strange'(2016) right here:

Official trailer: 

My Rating: 9/10

Boosted by a fantastic lineup, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton. ‘Doctor Strange’ is certainly Marvels best thus far. Entwined with science, spirituality and deeper meaning, ‘Doctor Strange’ should not be missed for one second! Get ready to immerse yourself in some of the best visual effects of 2016, and open your eyes to the true meaning of ‘the self’ and our karmic actions, to the way in which we herald our own ships. Buckle up and prepare yourself to be moved and truly transcended through time and reality, remembering not everything is what it seems.

Doctor Strange (2016) is now available on Blu Ray and DVD (from the 24th of February 2017/March 2017)

Bibliography

1) BBC Click (2017) Doctor strange: Visual effects revealed – BBC click. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZZ2pThpyc (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
2) GIPHY (no date) Marvel GIF – find & share on GIPHY. Available at: http://giphy.com/gifs/beckychung-marvel-doctor-strange-3orif7N2qBUUJ2hUK4 (Accessed: 20 February 2017).
3) Marvel Entertainment (2016) Doctor strange official trailer 2. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSzx-zryEgM (Accessed: 20 February 2017).

201MC: Denise Horsley Collaboration (mini)

Within the next coming weeks, I will be working with Denise on a short collaborative project. This project will highlight various emotions, through particular body movements. Further utilising the following moving image elements, such as 360VR and stop motion. Thus bringing each particular routine to life within this way, further accompanied by stills reflecting ‘muscle’, ‘tone’ and ‘feeling’.

As for inspirational media behind this project, Denise herself showed and studied the following music video, playing close attention to editing, the style of dance and the cinematography of the piece (which I touched on more prominently once I viewed the music video).

Another means of inspiration included my collaborators friend/photographer ‘Simon Richardson’. A photographer who specialises in movement and dance, with key interests in these fields and more.

Official site:Simon Richardson Rhythmic Skin

One particular page on Simon’s page includes his project ‘Rhythmic Skin’, which is one that I’ve sought inspiration from (after being introduced to his work by Denise). For me, these pictures which focus on muscle, skin and movement are really raw and captivating. They are even thought provoking and visually engaging, further creating a narrative of identity and bodily love. This is because each movement is pro-annunciated by a particular body muscle, further embossed through the type of lense and also angle, really adding to the final photographs themselves.

Madonna- Celebration

Upon starting to take inspiration, from Madonna’s music video, I started to capture moving images of Denise and stills. Further emphasising on emotion and feeling by encouraging Denise to improvise some routines. This helped me to really capture the raw emotion of ‘expressional dance’ as it gave me time to film Denise moving from various angles, further merging in 360VR and also moving image (in order to reverse and fast forward in post). One other element which was explored including utilising the ‘burst shot’ function on my Canon 700D. This helped me to document the whole routine in a few seconds, in order to view images back and forth as a ‘moving piece of film, also known as stop motion’.

Upon reflecting thus far on this particular collaboration, I would say that I am very excited to be documenting “feeling and emotion” through dance, with Denise as my subject. This is because she knows her craft inside and out, but is very free flowing in terms of how its distributed and even captured. Thus is further open to utilising modern mediums of technology (i.e 360VR) to really flourish and grow each particular movement.

Bibliography

  1. Madonna (2009) Madonna – celebration. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWTDR6ztcnQ (Accessed: 6 February 2017).In-line Citation:(madonna, 2009)
  2. Kikuchi (2017) Rhythmic skin (Simon Richardson © 2017). Available at: http://simonrichardson.org/rhythmic-skin/ (Accessed: 6 February 2017).

Artefact Building

Upon looking over all footage, I wanted to start off with recreating some of the images into mini videos (also known as gifs). In order to hone in on movement and craft, in this way.

Example 1: DH Gif 1

Original Images: