Week 3 Scene Description, Techniques and Storyboards

Scene Description

The scene I chose to describe is the “Hard Knock Life” scene from Austin Powers Goldmember. The scene is approximately two minutes long and takes place (mainly) inside a prison cafeteria. The two main characters in the scene, Dr. Evil and Mini-Me enter the cafeteria, just recently having been “caught” by Austin Powers, and tell the group of prisoners that they have to create a distraction so the duo can escape out the front doors. Dr. Evil’s explanation then takes the form of a music video, where he and Mini-Me sing “Hard Knock Life.”

The scene begins with a low-angle, long shot of Dr. Evil and Mini-Me walking into the cafeteria. This is to represent their supposed “power” over these other “average criminals. It then straight cuts to a reaction shot of the criminals. These action/reaction shots continue as Dr. Evil proposed his plan. Most of them are eye level shots now, and alternate between long shots, medium shots, close-ups, and over the shoulder shots.

The “music video” portion begins with a low-angle, long shot of the entire prison brigade walking towards the camera, swaying back and forth…also, the background music begins, and Mini-Me and Dr. Evil provide the lyrics. A combination of quick edited long, medium, and close match-cut shots give the intro to the “music video” its up tempo feel, and is presented almost as a montage of shots. As it proceeds, a wide variety of shots and editing techniques are employed, including wide angle, fast zooms, and jump cuts. These techniques somewhat distort the picture and place the characters in unrealistic situations, adding to the humor of Dr. Evil’s rap lyrics. The music video reaches its peak of over the top hilarity when Dr. Evil and Mini-Me are cross-cut from the prison into stereotypical rap music video situations; complete with hydrolic cars, hood attire, bling bling, Flavor Flav clocks, Cristal, and as Dr. Evil refers to them…be-hotches.

Prior to the ending of the “music video,” all the shots had been straight cuts, but the video concludes with a wipe, bringing the viewer back to the reality of the situation. Also, it looks like the montage of justification worked, because all the criminals now see things Dr. Evil’s way.

Overall, the wide variety of shots, and the quick edits were used to entice humor. They put the characters in positions and situations that they physically could not have been in in real life. The music and dialogue served the same purpose.

Teaching Film/Editing Techniques

I believe that the techniques that were outlined in our two text – books gave great examples of how to teach film and editing. Before students are able to take a hands on approach, they need to understand exactly what it is they should be doing or looking for. I like what is presented in Kruegger and Christel about having them view a clip from a film and asking them to “analyze” it before informing them how to go about doing it. That way, you can see exactly how their minds are working when they are asked to analyze film. I also would integrate traditional “texts” in with the film studies, as was mentioned in the text. By matching a literary piece with a film that has the same themes, students would be able to easily recognize the different but equal effects the written word and moving images can both have, and how they are brought to life in different fashions. After the students have been taught the basics of film and editing (i.e., definitions of common terms, and shown numerous examples of how these terms are implemented), I would start some hands on approaches. One that I particularly find interesting is the “Soundscape” exercise, where students have to create a scene with little or no dialogue. With the power of moving images, people sometimes forget the importance of sound. I also liked the idea for collaborative works, where this “Soundscape” scene is then given to another student to produce a storyboard. This way, the original student would be able to see if their sounds had portrayed what he or she was hoping they would portray.

Storyboard

FedEx Superbowl Commercial - http://www.ifilm.com/superbowl?htv=12

Audio = A
Video = V

Shot 1 A
Wind blows, some kind of “squawking” sound is heard in the background. A quiet, ominous music plays in the background.

V
The camera begins to zoom into a medium one shot of a “caveman” dressed in fur, carrying a stick, walking up a hill. Snow covered mountains are seen in the background.

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Shot 2 A
Wind, squawking, and music continue.

V
Shot dissolves into a panning long shot of a dry, rocky, wasteland. The same snow covered mountains are still in the background.

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Shot 3 A
Wind is howling louder. The flying dinosaur let’s out a loud “squawk.”

V
Cut to a medium two shot of a large flying dinosaur and the caveman walking up the hill towards it.

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Shot 4 A
Wind, rustling.

V
Cut to a close up of the caveman’s arm tying a bone to the flying dinosaur’s leg.

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Shot 5 A

Wind, rustling.

V
Match cut to a medium shot of caveman’s upper body, kneeling down, tying the bone onto the dinosaur’s leg. Only its legs are visible.

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Shot 6 A
Wind, squawk, wings beginning to bat the air.

V
Match cut to a wide two shot of caveman beginning to stand up next to dinosaur.

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Shot 7 A
Wind, wings beating the wind.

V
Match dissolve of caveman “kicking” dinosaur to send it on its way.

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Shot 8 A
Wind, wings beating the wind.

V
Match dissolve to medium over-shoulder shot of caveman watching dinosaur fly off in a straight line away from the camera.

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Shot 9 A
Caveman yells a high piched “ohhhh…ohhhhh”

V
Cut to close up of caveman.

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Shot 10 A
Wings batting the air. T-Rex growls and teeth chomping.

V
Cut to tracking shot of flying dinosaur as it flys with the mountains in the background. Another dinosaur’s, (T-Rex), head comes from off screen below, and eats the flying dinosaur right from the sky and off the shot. Shot left with only mountains in background.

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Shot 11 A
Growls and rustling.

V
Cut to medium shot of caveman looking surprised and confused

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Shot 12 A
Loud growls.

V
Dissolve to medium shot of T-Rex tearing flying dinosaur apart.

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Shot 13 A
Growls, bone “clanks” to the ground.

V
Quick dissolve to high angle long shot (T-Rex’s perspective) of caveman, who watches the bone he attached to the flying dinosaur’s leg fall to the rocky ground beside him.

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Shot 14 A
Growl

V
Cut to low angle close up of caveman looking up towards T-Rex

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Shot 15 A
Caveman speak. “Oh, uh, woo boo”

V
Jump cut to over-shoulder medium shot of caveman walking into a cave. Another caveman sits with his back to the camera. The cave is dark, but the cave opening is lit by outside light. Words appear on bottom of screen; “Package didn’t make it.”

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Shot 16 A
Caveman speak. “Uh, wahay”

V
Cut to medium, eye level one-shot of second caveman, who looks very similar to the first caveman, sitting on the cave floor. Words appear; “Did you use FedEx?”

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Shot 17 A
Caveman speak. “Nunga”

V
Cut to over shoulder, low angle, medium shot of first caveman who shakes his head. Words appear; “No.

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Shot 18 A
Caveman speak. “Nu yuh uh”

V
Cut to medium shot, this time from the side, of the second caveman, who looks up. Words appear; “Then you’re fired.”

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Shot 19 A
Caveman speak. “High pitched squeals and clapping hands”

V
Cut to over shoulder, low angle, medium shot of first caveman who is visibly upset. Words appear; “But FedEx,” First caveman jumps and claps. Words dissolve into “doesn’t exist yet.”

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Shot 20 A
Caveman speak. “Nu, uh wah nay, unga”

V
Cut to high angle shot of second caveman. Words appear; “Not my problem.”

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Shot 21 A
Scoff, sighs.

V

Dissolve to over – shoulder, low angle, medium shot of first caveman who turns to his left and scoffs. Then turns in a circle to walk out.

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Shot 22 A
Footsteps, rustling.

V
Cut to long shot of first caveman standing outside of the cave entrance. Second caveman can be seen sitting in the background. A small dinosaur runs across the shot.

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Shot 23 A
Footsteps, rustling, thud of the kick. Small dinosaur squeals. Loud “bang” as caveman gets squashed.

V
Dissolve to even longer long shot, match cut of caveman walking away from the cave. He kicks the small dinosaur and then is crushed by the enormous feet of an unseen dinosaur who comes from off screen left.

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Shot 24 A
“Next time, use FedEx”

V
Cut to white screen with “FedEx” log in center.

This commercial used a combination of straight cuts and dissolves to help the sequence of events move forward. The over the shouldar medium and close up shots helped show action and reaction between the two cavemen. The overall theme of the commercial is humor and surprise. In two or three shots, large dinosaurs came from off the screen and added a humorous element of surprise.