Film of the week: Listen To Your Heart

COULSDON COLLEGE: MEDIA TEXT INFORMATION SHEET

TITLE:

Listen to Your Heart

YEAR OF PROD:

2010

TYPE:

FILM

TELEVISION

DOC.

MUSIC

ADVERT

MUSIC VID.

OTHER:

DIRECTOR

Matt Thompson

PRODUCER

Kent Moran, Luke Moran

WRITER

Kent Moran

PRODUCTION COMPANY

Wishing Well Pictures, Rebel One Pictures

KEY CAST /ARTIST

Alexia Rasmussen (Ariana), Kent Moran (Danny), Cybill Shepherd (Victoria).

KEY CREW

Music: Kent Moran, DP: Harvey Rosenstock, Casting: Michael Hothorn

GENRE

Drama, Music, Romance

BUDGET

N/A

BOX OFFICE

N/A

THEMES

Love, conflict, betrayal, defeat, jealously, death, connection, communication, ‘living in the moment’.

AWARDS

6 wins e.g. Action on Film Award (Film International Film Festival USA).

NARRATIVE: The IMDb description: “Danny (Kent Moran) has an apartment as small as his paychecks, no family, and a struggling music career. But with unwaivering optimism, for Danny, "every day is a great day to be alive." It's love at first sight when Danny meets Ariana (Alexia Rasmussen), a wealthy hearing-impaired girl from Greenwich, CT who tragically cannot hear the music she inspires him to write. Ariana is torn between hanging onto the shelter her controlling mother (Cybill Shepherd) provides and fighting for a love that, if just given the chance, might just change her life. When tragedy strikes, determined that nothing can keep them apart, they must trust in the power of their love, and together discover just how important it is to "listen to your heart."” My opinion on the film: This film shocked me because I honestly did not expect it to be so sad. I watched it on Christmas Eve thinking it was going to be a more light-hearted musical but it was not that and the last 30 minutes of it was truly heart breaking which was not good and I probably should have watched a Christmas film instead. Although it was mostly very predictable and filled with clichés, it was still great story-telling and I did not expect the tragedy towards the end. The characters were well developed and of course, the relationship between Danny and Ariana was key and wonderfully performed, it felt real and true. The character of the mother really annoyed me, (which I guess was her role as she is causing a great deal of the conflict in the film) but to an extent where I was not enjoying the film as much and I understand films have antagonists but I feel they are not effective when the viewer is put off the film because of them. However, overall it was good, it is likely to make you cry quite a lot but if you are not into cliché romance films, you probably won’t like it. 7/10.

KEY SCENES: MAJOR SPOILER ALERT ·         Danny first sees Ariana in the café ·         Their first date and playing the piano together ·         Ariana talks in front of her Mother ·         Ariana slaps her Mother ·         Ariana’s Mother kicks Danny out of her party ·         Danny gets terminal cancer ·         Danny’s death ·         Ariana listens to Danny’s CD of music he composed for her.

COMPARABLES: Short film: The Most Beautiful Thing. In Your Eyes

PROGRESSION OF KEY CONTRIBUTORS: Matt Thompson went on to direct Bloodline (2013) and has recently completed a short film called Zombie Talk. Kent Moran has gone on to act in: Down on the Ground (short-2010), Inspiration of the Past (short-2012), Contest (2013), The Challenger (2015) and Regret (2015).

ANY OTHER BUSINESS? “The idea of the movie came to Kent Moran in a dream. He dreamed about the story for two weeks, writing notes each morning, and wrote the first draft of the screenplay in just two days. The final draft is very close to the first.” “Lisa Benner, who plays Marianne, was the only actor that knew sign language before the movie. Alexia Rasmussen and Kent Moran both had to learn quickly for their roles. They did so with the help of Lisa and a sign language interpreter.”

Film of the week: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

COULSDON COLLEGE: MEDIA TEXT INFORMATION SHEET

TITLE:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

YEAR OF PROD:

2015

TYPE:

FILM

TELEVISION

DOC.

MUSIC

ADVERT

MUSIC VID.

OTHER:

DIRECTOR

J.J. Abrams

PRODUCER

J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Kathleen Kennedy

WRITER

J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Arndt. Based on characters created by George Lucas.

PRODUCTION COMPANY

Lucas Film Ltd. Bad Robot Productions.

KEY CAST /ARTIST

Harrison Ford (Hans Solo), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Daisy Ridley (Rey), John Boyega (Finn), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO).

KEY CREW

Music: John Williams, DP: Daniel Mindel, Editors: Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey and Production Design: Rick Carter, Darren Gilford.

GENRE

Action, Adventure, Fantasy

BUDGET

$200 million

BOX OFFICE

$1.161 billion

THEMES

Friendship, betrayal, love, revenge, teamwork, good vs evil, destruction, rage, death, torture, redemption.

AWARDS

NARRATIVE: The IMDb description: “30 years after the defeat of Darth Vader and the Empire, Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku, finds a BB-8 droid that knows the whereabouts of the long lost Luke Skywalker. Rey, as well as a rogue stormtrooper and two smugglers, are thrown into the middle of a battle between the resistance and the daunting legions of the First Order.” My opinion on the film: I had previously only seen two Star Wars films and they never really appealed to me so when Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released, I did not really intend on watching it. However, I did end up watching it and it exceeded my expectations. Before watching it, I had seen so many positive comments on social media regarding the film so I did go in with high hopes. I thought the storytelling was brilliant and I understood it the whole way through which was good as I did not know much about Star Wars and it was great to see some familiar characters such as C-3PO. Personally for me, the cinematography is what made the film outstanding, it was beautifully shot and I was completely transported into their world. There were too many stunning shots and compositions for me to pick out just one favourite but an example is the wide shot of the bridge which Hans Solo and Kylo Ren are standing on- this was shown near the end. So the camera and special effects apartment have done an incredible job. I watched it in 3D which was good to start with but then I got a bit of a headache and it probably would have looked better in 2D but I’m not complaining because it was still great. I would recommend you to watch it whether you are a fan of Star Wars or not. 8/10.

COMPARABLES: All the Star Wars films.

PROGRESSION OF KEY CONTRIBUTORS: Since Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams is working on a lot of projects: Portal (Producer-announced) Half Life (Producer-announced) Westworld (Executive Producer- filming) 11.22.63 (Producer- filming) Valencia (Producer- post production) Star Trek Beyond (Producer-post production) Roadies (Executive Producer- pre production) M:I 6- Mission Impossible (Executive Producer- filming) Untitled Cloverfield Sequel (Producer-announced)

ANY OTHER BUSINESS? “The production had a preference for using real locations and miniature models over green-screens and computer-generated imagery whenever possible in order to make the film aesthetically similar to the original Star Wars trilogies.” “Mark Hamill claimed George Lucas nonchalantly told him over lunch a new Star Wars trilogy was going to be made by Disney, and if he did not want to be involved, Luke Skywalker would simply be written out of the script. However, Hamill immediately agreed to reprise the role. Hamill admitted, however, that he pretended to also be nonchalant about it so it didn't seem like he was excited for the role.”