Museum of the Moving Image

      During the class trip to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, my group participated in an activity in which we choose the music to accompany a scene from the film Casino. From doing this experiment, I learned that the specific music you put to accompany a scene can greatly affect the mood.  The scene was Robert De Niro gazing at Sharon Stone in the casino.  When we used slow tempo music the scene looked like a love scene. When we used dramatizing music, the scene looked like a revenge scene. We also got the chance to use country music, which made no sense at all with the scene. From doing this experiment I can say that the accompanying music to a scene, can make or break a scene.

         On the computers that are stationed near the flipbook maker experiment, I got to create my own animation by simply moving an object various times. The object given was a bush and the background was what looked like a field. On the computer you would move the bush and take a picture every time you moved it. In the end when the moving images were played back together in sync it looked like an animation with the bush moving through the field.  I never fully understood animation, but from this experiment I got insight into what is done behind the scenes in creating an animation.

   Overall this trip gave me more insight on the ways in which moving image technology has changed the way moving images are created, how they look, and how we experience them.

Relationship Between Shots

One of the most renowned movies of all time is the Godfather. In the ending of the first film of the trilogy, Michael Corleone is seen in a church as the baptism occurs for his sister’s child; he is chosen to be the godfather.  In this dramatic cinematic montage, we not only witness a baptism but the assassination of rival’s families being executed. By editing and combining the two scenes, we get a different feel on Michael from when we first meet him in the beginning of the film.  As the film progressed we saw his evolution and this ending of the first film paves the way for the destruction of Michael in the following films.
       In the background of these two scenes we are left with the church music, which in the beginning plays out in a slow rate. As we get closer to the end of the baptism and the family executions, it picks up. In a way it builds up our anxiety for the horrific action that is about to take place before our very eyes.  The relationship of the different images portrayed in the baptism scene, show that Michael is contradicting everything he is saying in church. He says he renounces the devil, yet at the same time he is the person behind the murders that are taking place as the baptism is occurring.
The shots are organized to go back and fourth from the baptism to the assassinations.  Both events are leading up to their conclusion. We see the priest performance and Michael’s facial expressions and his answers to the priest’s questions play out in the church. Outside of the church in the assassination sots we see the shooters as they prepare themselves for the executions, and later how the executions are performed. In the end as the baptism is over we see numerous shots of the different dead men.  The shots are placed in an establishing order. Both the baptism and execution scenes are built up in the order in which they are presented.
The shots are each held for a short time, but its enough time for the viewer to piece them together with the setting in which they pertain to.  There is not an exact “right” place to cut the scene, but in terms of the baptism we see the actions being performed on the baby and then we cut t the actions performed in the executions and this plays out until the end of the scene which concludes the film. The cuts are not seamless but they are interwoven in a way that drives the film. The cuts are obvious and it’s due to the two different settings that are put together to establish this montage.

Audio Interview