The way of the shepherd is not necessarily an easy one, but what lies at the end of the path is surely worth the pain.

I was requested to make a trailer for the upcoming seerah seminar that will be taught in Toronto conducted by AlMaghrib. The request came, only less than a week before I was to leave for hajj. My computer was in limbo at the moment (recovering from a system crash), so I attempted to make it on the house PC (not the best computer for editing). To my luck I ended up losing the project file.

Upon returning from my trip, I took another stab at it. Got about halfway done, only to have my hard drive crash on me! This brought me back to square one. If it wasn’t for one of the Toronto city coordinators I probably wouldn’t have finished the project.

Getting myself together, and spending about 15 hours on the audio track, throwing different video clips and and images together…I ended up with this:

Video not working? Try Google Video

Lessons:

• When you setup a backup schedule for your hard drive, make sure you activate it.
• Before embarking on a project, make sure you have someone hounding you to get it done! (In an encouraging manner that is)

     

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Alternatives to Classical American Filmmaking

Hitchcock was influences by German and Russian filmmaking. Some of the alternatives filmmaking that existed were Soviet Expression, German Expression and French Avant Garde.

Soviet Expression films were known to express the internal and subjective nature of reality. Basically expressing what is going on in the character’s mind. One of the way’s they would do that visually was to show bar-like shadows on the character’s face to show that he feels like he’s in prison.

German Expression films were known for displaying the psychological life of characters.

Frech Avant Garde (aka French Experimental) films hit on things such as art, culture, and politics.

In contemporary films you will see moments of expressionism. In Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” with Robert Dinero, there is a scene where hes driving, but everything has a red haze, as if hes driving through hell. This is to show that is how the character feels. Departed is also known for this, where Jack Nicholson’s face is almost always half in shadow to signify that he is two charactered.

     

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Alfred Hitchcock is one of film history’s most acclaimed directors. He was popular and commercially successful. He was known as the “Master of Suspense”. He stated that, “Films should offer the highs and lows of a roller coaster. They should shriek with delight.” When making his films he was very much like a craftsman. He would carefully plan each of his shots.

He started in England during the silent film period. He believed that the most important means of telling a story was the joining of shots (editing).

In the 1950s French film critics started to evaluate Hitchcock’s work. These guys were auteur critics (as opposed to genre critics). They would compare his films to his other films. He was a strong personality and was able to transcend the whole assembly line thinking. His films had a lot of recurring elements, as well as a personal style. One thing he used a lot in some of his popular films was POV editing. He was able to make the audience identify or at least sympathize with the main character. Even if the character was a killed like in the movie “Psycho”

One of his movies that used POV editing a lot is a 1954 film “Rear Window“. Its about the nature of watching. Its a “reflexive” film because as an audience we tend to make assumptions, and thus we feel involved. We project our own fears and desires onto the screen. If you wish to watch the movie “Rear Window”, search for it on Google Video. You will find it in segments.

     

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