Year: 2012

Gorgeous time-lapse in Forrest Gump

I’ve seen the movie so many times and every time I watch it, there is something new, I haven’t noticed before. Recently, thanks to Mike Seymour from fxguide.com, I’ve discovered another great example of cinematic storytelling.

Time-lapse is a technique of taking still frames at much lower speed, than they will be played back. There are various uses for the time-lapse sequences, for example filming processes that are too subtle to be noticed by the human eye, or, when used creatively, to show a passage of time in a movie.

The time-lapse scene in Forrest Gump takes place between a scene where Forrest and Jenny get married and the following scene, when Jenny is very sick, lying in the bed and knowing, that she is dying. The filmmakers could have used other techniques to forward the time,  for example titles saying “few months later” or some kind of dissolve between the scenes, but they didn’t, they chose the time-lapse, which works perfectly.

I have to admit, that I wouldn’t probably notice it, if I wouldn’t listen to the podcast at fxguide. But that’s why I love the movie so much! There are thousands of visual effects in this movie, but all of them are serving the story. Either by enhancing it, emphasizing certain points, or enabling filmmakers to film something, which wouldn’t be otherwise possible.

Forrest Gump (1994)
Forrest Gump (1994)

Now, let’s look closely at the scene in question. Forrest and Jenny are walking, together with young Forrest, back to the house of Forrest’s mother. The camera starts low and then tilts up and becomes stationary – at that moment, you’ll see that the shadows start to move rapidly across the road – showing thus the passage of time.

Forrest Gump (1994) - Clean Plate
Forrest Gump (1994) – Clean Plate

The filmmakers probably shot firstly the scene with characters in it, then, from exactly the same spot, they filmed a short time-lapse sequence of shadows moving across the road and then composited these two shots together.

The time-lapse sequence in Forrest Gump is a great example of cinematic storytelling and at the same time, a great example of using visual effects to tell a story. Beautiful!

Sounds of danger in The Incredibles

The Incredibles (2004)
The Incredibles (2004)

The movie revolves around heroes with super powers. They are called “Supers”. Once, they were seen as heroes and beloved by citizens, but due to several unfortunate deeds, they were told to fit in with the rest of the public and not to use their super powers anymore.

The central characters are father Bob, his wife Helen and their children Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack, all of them are supers. Bob has a boring job in an insurance company, so when he gets a message from a mysterious woman named Mirage, to stop a raging robot on a distant island, he doesn’t hesitate even one second and takes that job. However, the robot is controlled by an evil villain called Syndrome – lovelorn man, who once used to be Bob’s huge fan.

Meanwhile, Helen realizes, that her husband Bob is in danger and, together with her kids Violet and Dash, goes to rescue him. After they land on the island, Helen tells her kids, that if anything goes wrong, they are free to use their superpowers.

One of the key scenes in this movie is right when Helen and her kids separate. The kids are waiting in a cave, but suddenly there is a huge fire coming towards them and they have to leave immediately.

The Incredibles (2004)
The Incredibles (2004)

They found themselves in a jungle, soon discovered by an alarm system and in a moment, chased by Velocipods.

Randy Thom, sound designer of the movie, knew, that in order to make the chasing scene work, the Velocipods had to sound dangerous.

“The scene doesn’t work unless we think that those things are about to chew them up and spit them out any second.” [Randy Thom]

Nobody knows, how the Velocipod sounds like, but at least, there were some visual clues to that. They look like flying sources, with knives spinning around them – they fly, they are fast and they are life-threatening.

What Randy Thom did was that he thought initially about sounds, that evoke all of those above mentioned characteristics. Consequently, he came up with sounds of F1 racing cars, jet-bys, knives being sharpened and sharp pieces of metal rubbing against each other. All combined together in such a way, that on emotional level, the audience can feel the danger represented by the Velocipods.

Randy Thom is truly a great sound designer, he is focused on using sound as a storytelling device and he is willing to share his insight and knowledge.

If you want to read more about sound design in “The Incredibles”, I recommend you to read these two interviews with Randy Thom:

And if you want to learn more about Randy Thom, read the “Behind the Art” interview at designingsound.org and his articles at filmsound.org, these are golden!

Body language in American Beauty

American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)

However, this changes, when he meets at basketball match best friend of his daughter – Angela Hayes. He fells immediately in love with her. Later at home, he overhears a dialogue between Jane and Angela, saying that if he would work out a little bit, he would be hot and Angela would **** him.

Now, that gives him suddenly a meaning and purpose in his life. Driven by desire to win Angela, he starts to work out. But not only that, most importantly, he starts to live! He finally wakes up from the coma and starts doing things, he always wanted to do. Throughout the movie, we are following his change, from being a loser to becoming a man, who is in control of his life.

All of the acting performances in American Beauty are tremendous, thanks to a great collaboration between actors and director. The great thing about director like Sam Mendes is that he comes out of a theatre, so he knows how to utilize rehearsals, he has a deep understanding of actors and knows, how to shape their performances . Let’s look now, how such successful collaboration looks like.

There are several subtle examples documenting Lester’s change, we’ll look at one of those examples, a dinner scene occurring twice during the movie.

American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)

The first dinner scene is happening before Lester meets Angela. If you look at the picture above, you’ll notice, that there are several things going on, but right now, I want you to look closely at Lester and Carolyn.

Even though the framing looks balanced (Jane in the middle and Lester and Carolyn occupying almost the same space in the frame), it is clear, who is more dominant and superior thanks to their body language. Lester is sitting stooped on the chair and avoids the eye-contact, revealing thus his low self-esteem.

American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)

Now, if we look at the second dinner scene later in the movie, we’ll notice, that things have clearly changed since Lester met Angela. He sits on the chair with his back straightened, looks comfortable and relaxed in comparison to the previous picture. Also, notice the small details like style of his clothing, or the bottle of the beer on the table in the second picture.

These are subtle examples, but subconsciously, they help to tell a story of a man going through a life change. Lets finish this article with one example of before and after (his life change):

American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)
American Beauty (1999)

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