A) The first trailer I decided to watch was for a film called “The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair”. From what I could tell from the trailer, the film is about the war in Iraq and how many people from Baghdad were stereotyped into being terrorists when in actuality they were not, and in this certain film it focuses on one man who was falsely accused of being a terrorist. A lot of the information from the trailer about the film comes from the interview that is overlaid throughout the trailer of the man, there are also plenty of visuals and photos showing what was going on in Iraq. Along with the interview from the man from Baghdad, there was also another interview shown from a soldier who served in Iraq who I’m assuming was one of the soldiers designated to the prison camp looking area showcased in the trailer. The three moments that stand out to me in the trailer for this film would be the interview with the Baghdad man throughout the whole trailer because for a “terrorist” he sure seemed quite innocent and actually quite humorous. The next stand out moments in the trailer would have to be the transition slides that seem like they were ripped out from a comic, which actually provide a nice way of being put into the shoes of some of the Iraqi citizens. Lastly, my third top moment from the trailer would have to be the part where they claim the man was found with “bomb making material” but in actuality it was shampoo, or at least the trailer was cut to make it seem that way.
The second trailer I looked into was for a documentary titled “The Corporation”. The take on the trailer that the film makers is one of my favorite types of trailers to be honest, It’s very subtle and you’re not sure exactly whats going to happen in the film, but it covers a very controversial topic, the corruptness of corporations. The trailer provides information by showing clips of corporation “higher ups” on the news for whatever controversial reason surrounding them, all of these clips accompanied by a “digitally-generated sounding” voice that is discussing the fact that though big corporations provide a lot of wealth, they also do a lot of harm. There’s not a lot of moments to really choice from since we only see glimpses of news reports and what not about the “higher ups” but I do think that all of the clips provide an insight for whats to come. Also the montage of people saying “Bad Apples” provides a very interesting dynamic to the trailer since it’s usually accompanied by dialogue about getting rid of bad apples. I guess my second moment would have to be the narration of the trailer because it provides a very ominous presence to a perhaps, dark topic. Lastly I would have to say that the clip of the robotic arm picking apples off of the tree. This scene just added to the ominous tone that the narration provided and really made me quite uncomfortable since some of the shots of the arm were sped up, which I will say was a quite effective strategy by the editor of the trailer.
B) The full documentary I decided to watch was “Hoop Dreams”. The documentary followed the lives of two African American high school basketball players. If I had to split up the documentary into parts, it would have to be into five parts, each part representing each grade in high school, and the last part would be what they went on to do. The transition points for each year were shown in the documentary by a brief black background with some white text indicating what year of high school it was for the players.
C) The shots in the film were a lot of action shots, so they were quickly paced since it usually was a basketball game or practice. The interviews used more close up shots that were slowly paced and focused on emotion. These interviews were used a lot as a narration for the basketball games because it showed the audience what was going on inside the head of the players as well as showing the life of these players outside of the basketball court, primarily in Arthur’s situation when he was in a dangerous urban area.
D) The perspectives of “Hoop Dreams” were the differing lives of two basketball players with very good talent but many adversities. Arthur had to deal with the environment he was in and trying to avoid becoming a statistic meanwhile William had to deal with injuries and having a child meanwhile both of them had problems with school and playing to the expectations that people expected from them. I believe that this people filming this would fall under the category of “Observer” because we never hear or see the people filming or in charge of production and meanwhile they don’t interfere with the lives of the players or their families so they’re just observing the lives and document all that happens. As harsh as it is, I think there were a lot of proper things done in the production of Hoop Dreams. For example, when Arthur’s family was going through a terrible economic crisis, the film production company most likely could’ve probably helped out and paid the bills but then there wouldn’t be any real crisis in the film and then also there would be interference with the player’s lives so it would be more of a staged documentation. Instead the production team never really stepped in at all and just interviewed the players and families to get their stories and thoughts to the audience.
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