Portsmouth and Isle of Wight

Some of my photos. Actually, there are about 600 of them, so I was checking them for, I dunno, a couple of hours - in the result it was not very long! I didn't use Photoshop, the photos are fresh and crispy and have just come from the camera. They are calm and peaceful. Well, you know my style: I love to film nature and little things which surround us. Do you actually notice them? Last time I was walking near the Queens park in Brighton - and guess what I found! V, painted right on a box with something. Or have you ever seen a hungry seagull, which is looking what to sneak and moving its head in such a funny way, like justifying it's innocence.
That day I had got plenty of time. Just a few people were walking outside - Isle of Wight isn't a warm place, also it was a bit windy. So in the beginning it was very-very-very boring. Hopefully I had got a camera with myself, so I was trying to catch a good view with my sharp-sighted eyes. Honestly, I practice the spontaneous shooting, but that time was fascinating. Because I wasn't within the framework of time I could move slowly, looking for a picture - but not for a photo. I was trying to find a view, which reminds the audience about paintings. So do you like watercolours?

Portsmouth and Isle of Wight

 

 

Narcissus.

And Echo was asking "who’s there, who's there"...

I don't like yellow. Seriously.  Not the best beginning, is it? But I love flowers. Narcissuses have got a special aroma, and because of it they looks like little suns, but not as simple yellow flowers. They are proud and lordly creatures. And they look very adorable in the green, sitting together in groups. Their little heads with crowns droop in various sides - are they talking? Or, maybe, they are discussing how forest fairies danced under them in the night? Walking under the suns and the Moon. What can be more magical?

And spring.



Brighton.

A little trip to Brighton cannot be good without my camera.
I love to walk in this little city. It's very different from other English towns, with its Pier, birds, sea. Every time you're in it, you're waiting for a fair or a bright event, which will blow the day up and change everything. This city is a little surprise, every time making you rack your brain what you'll see after the next turn. You are going in the centre of the crowd - and everything is moving so fast, that you can't realise where are you, on which planet, but you are making several steps - and you see little houses in calm and peaceful world. Silence and apian noise, pacification and laugh - how this little town can succesfully combine these antipods? Suppose, that is because of the students - oh, we know how to make the world going round! Two big Universities keeping under their wings many different minds, who fill up with their freedom all these streets. Near Churchill square live music is played, the Pier is full of shops and the waves making the best background on the Earth.

Archery.

Archery. For me it's not just a kind of sport, one of the list. It's a special moment, when you take long, light arrow and release it in the air. One second - and it is already in the target. One second for the all audience - an eternity for the archer. You are staying in the right position, breathing before diving into an adventure, holding an elegant and graceful bow, looking in the middle of the round, in the gold, thinking, calculating the best point, which will be aimed. You're remembering geometry, trying to be cunning, trying to be strong... And you'll miss it. You will miss this little piece of wood, which was in you hands just a second ago, you're becoming an audience. You're looking at the target and notice that the arrow doesn't hit the gold. You're asking: "Why?" The answer is simple. The perfect archer always feel his bow and arrow. He doesn't stay in the right position - he feels comfortable. He doesn't hold the arrow - he supports it. He doesn't calculate - he knows where to shoot. Only when you will learn that bow and arrow are your friends - you'll hit the gold. Over and over again. Without any help. Just because you're working together, supporting, feeling, being a part of each their. That's the reason why I love archery - it reminds me about how we're living. Like little islands, near but so far at the same time from the whole world, playing your own music, dance your own dance, letting your arrow go. You're staying with the bow - you're alone, but after you have release the arrow - you are coming back to the world. And understand, that even if you make a mistake, you will always have a chance to try again. And to become perfect.

Le ballon rouge.

 "Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé".
"You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed".

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

 

 

I love short films. When you haven't got a lot of time, you're trying to put everything in these 2-10-30 minutes, all your thoughts, all you soul. Short films have something special inside, they remind me little children, open and naive, who only going to be adults, but already very smart. Furthermore, I adore French cinema, so The Red Balloon is one of my favourites. Made in 1956, this film is full of metaphors and ideas, it shows us that the friendship is one of the most powerful things in the world and that it's very difficult for uniques to live here.
The red balloon is flying during the whole film like a symbol of this friendship. The viewer sees it immediately on the screen - it attracts attention. It reminds me the girl in the red dress in Schindler's List - the same naive symbol of peace, which is killed by grey mass.
The film is not very bright - it's made to show the colour of the balloon. Many views of the sky signifies freedom, streets and windows show the new life. The boy was going to school every day, but the day with his friend is special so the viewer watches the walk in details. The camera moving smoothly, it follows the boy and the balloon, tanning (as at 3.34) is used as well.
French streets, atmosphere, sounds and a big red balloon - every detail shows us the beauty, the life and the love.

 

 

Take care of your friends.

 



Paperman.

- I'm not a puppet, I'm a real boy!
- Five shillings for the possessed toy. Take it away.
Shrek.

 

 

Paperman.

A film by Disney.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTLySbGoMX0

 

 

Honestly, I don't like most of the Disney movies (except of Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, Bambi, Hercules (only because of Hades) and Lion King). They are too sweet for me. Furthermore, if Disney takes an idea from a book it will always change it (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Little Mermaid). And its main heros are always beautiful, while the evils are ugly.

But I'm talking about Paperman.

Have you watched it? Did you feel déjà vu? I have and I did.

And I don't talk about the pictures.

I'm talking about the main atmosphere.

 

 

Do you know this film? The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. It's an amazing one.

If you watch both you'll feel that they are quite similar - the atmosphere. How the books are papers are dancing and the metaphore.

But The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore was born in 2011, whereas Paperman is a 2012 movie. You can say that Paperman is different, but in fact it's copied. Copied Pixar, The Fantastic Flying Books and Disney's films as well. The animation is Disney's (a strong déjà vu - the faces of the main heros reminds me other Disney's movies), but this attempt to make a film with a Big Idea... Remember the Pixar's films - all of them full of great ideas, they are independent. But Paperman has got only a Love Idea, which can be good if there wasn't one thing. I'm not a cynic, but I don't like when Boss is represented as the main evil and the papers are throwing out from the window. Of course, we understand "the metaphore" that the main character wants to go out from this boring building, go to his beloved, but this film doesn't show us this idea as Pixar or The Fantastic Flying Books do.

To sum up, Disney watched a lot of Pixar's films and wanted to make its own clever film. But the attempt was weak. The same character, the same movements, but copied ideas (they couldn't even copy them in right way).

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920).

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them

down a by-street in a busy quarter of London...

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

 

 

The film is brilliant. Why film directors from the past are so gentle and attentive with books' screen versions? Even Dracula by Tod Browning with wrong relationships between characters and absent pieces is full of "the book" more than Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. But I'm not speaking about the book b B.Stoker, although I want to. I'm speaking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is a 1920 horror silent film, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were played by John Barrymore. The film was directed by John S. Robertson.

I didn't find many different kinds of angles or camera high and this makes the film a bit theatrical. But the characters are always in focus and in the centre of the picture, except of this moment:

 

Definitely POV of Mr. Hyde's victim. The director is still using eye-level angle shot, but the face of the main character is below.

 

 

 

P.S. to be continued.



Dirty Harry.

Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.

Hilaire Belloc

 



 

Dirty Harry is an American film by Don Siegel. It's the first part in the Dirty Harry series and one of the best film for ever. The film is about a police officer, who is using dirty methods to protect people from violence. One of the most interesting things is that all his partners keep getting injured or even killed. There isn't any official explanation why everybody call Inspector Harry Callahan "Dirty Harry", but Frank DiGiorgio says that Harry "hates everybody: Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, Niggers, Honkies, Chinks, you name it" and Callahan says that he is doing "every dirty job that comes along".

 



I know what you’re thinking: "Did he fire six shots, or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well do ya, punk?

 

 

 

 

The film is rich with using different types of angles and one of the most famous scenes in this film, when Inspector Callahan is standing on Scorpio's wounded leg, camera is going away, higher and higher, and we still can see them, but they are getting smaller and smaller.

Another famous scene, when Harry Callahan is saying his famous speach, which is stated above, is using two different types of angles to show us different points of robber's and his views. The robber is laying on the ground, but Inspector Callahan is standing near him and watching at him from above. So the first angle is worm's eye one and the second one is high angle. Furthermore the director is using XCU (Extreme close up) when the camera is showing the robber's hand near the gun.

These are two most famous scenes. Clint Eastwood is very good as always and if you used to see him only in western films, you should see Dirty Harry - it's not the same.



 

Winter photos.

Enjoy some winter pictures, which were taken these days.