Blade Runner And Fifth Element Cityscapes Film Studies Essay

Blade Runner And Fifth Element Cityscapes Film Studies Essay Blade runner greets the viewer with a fascinating opening scene where the camera hovers over a vast industrial mega polis called Hades. The year is 2020 and overpopulated Hades is trying to reinforce itself. The place is filled with corroded skyscrapers which shoot flame and gases into the environment creating a sense of hazy and polluted atmosphere. Also, in this shot and in subsequent shots flying cars, called spinners, are seen moving around the cityscape. The entire Hades cityscape was a forced perspective miniature set with larger miniature elements in the foreground which get smaller and smaller as we approach the horizon. Special photographic effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull and his crew constructed the whole set on a plywood table which was about 20 feet wide at the back and 5 feet wide in the front. The actual horizon on the screen is just 15 feet away from the camera. They designed the table according the focal length of the camera, which provided them the base in accor dance to field of view of the camera. This sort of careful planning enabled them to build the miniatures just inside the field of view without wasting valuable production time and money. Chief model maker Mark Stetson relied primarily on etched brass cutouts as elements to create buildings in the shot. But because these cutouts were two-dimensional, they had to stack a number of them together and stagger them across randomly to create depth in the whole shot. states that by using this technique Trumbull was soon posed with a problem: â€Å"But as we got into putting the thing together, we realized quickly that the etched metal stuff would have given away the trick if we’d use it too close to the foreground.† They overcame this by building foam cast models and put them in the foreground. Those models were highly detailed and separately mounted using C-Stands. They were positioned carefully so that the camera could fly right in between creating depth. Another hurdle was creating the atmospherics in the cityscape. Director Ridley Scott wanted smoke and haze in the distant background to add to the drama of the whole scene. Douglas Trumbull created this effect using studio fans and smoke detectors. He first contained the set using black cloth all around it and set up the smoke detectors to trigger the fans. So when they fed smoke into the contained set, fans powered up and pushed the smoke around creating a natural progression of smoke in the environment. Describing his perception of the Hades cityscape, Mark Stetson states: â€Å"I just had this scheme, I just wanted to do it as a series of silhouette and smoke. I wanted the smoke to really be the light and the light to light it up. Everything about that miniature had to be lights.† The way light was used in this shot to create volumetric effects and reflections played a major role making it look real and credible. About 20,000 fiber optic cables (about 7 miles long) were used to light the H ades cityscape. The light cables were threaded up from beneath the plexi glass, on which the brass etched cutouts were mounted. They also mixed and experimented with a lot of interactive lights like axial, blinking, etc which created variety and helped improve the overall aesthetics of the shot.

Observation of Participational Cinema in Action Essay

Observation of Participational Cinema in Action - Essay Example Dramatic films are generally shot from a third person 'voyeur' perspective, which allows the audience to observe the unfolding events from a distance. In order to accomplish this state of awareness and acceptance from scientific films, researchers spend a great deal of time with their subject population prior to shooting any footage at all. This is meant to encourage the indigenous community to ignore the filmmaker completely and to return to their normal everyday activities. However, this idealized approach - the 'invisibility' of the camera and it's director - raises new ethical, technical, and artistic issues. The foremost argument against this style of filming lies in defining between 'research' film and 'ethnographic' film: the parameter's of the first ideally contain an undisturbed recording of environmental behavior (which can be used to deduce or extrapolate information); the latter classification is designated by it's editing, which is chosen be the filmmaker to create a narrative. Thus, as MacDougall notes, the fallacy of the all observing camera eye is itself misleading, for the camera is ultimately directed by the filmmaker's choice and/or opportunity. The camera essentially decided what small section of reality is recorded. Along similar lines, the goal of a director's self-effacement from the project is a further removal from reality: many of the filmed communities are remote and isolated to pretend that the director's physical presence has absolutely no effect on the subjects (and a feedback effect on the project itself) is ludicrous. Along this principle, subjects reactions t o cameras depends on their level of familiarity with the media itself. Filming Live with the Herds (1972), MacDougall's silent film camera became accepted by the natives on the premise that he was shooting all of the time (and would therefore present an accurate overall account); when he brings out a still camera near the end of his sojourn, his subjects automatically stuck photogenic poses (MacDougall, 1973) A Ghana director named Braun, discovered a similar effect while shooting footage in his childhood village during carnival time: when a girl noticed him shooting from a rooftop, she began to perform. She grew angry when the camera's attention no longer focused on her, leading Braun's narrative to hypothesize about the power relationship between the camera and its subjects (Pink). Cerezo, Martinez and Ranera, three anthropologists recording African workers in Spain, showed some of their footage to their subjects. Because they had access to television, the workers objected to their own images as being ugly and impoverished, which has resulted in the anthropological argument that visual footage cannot be taken without the express consent of the subjects (Pink). Yet MacDougall takes this argument one step further. In requesting permission to film a community while simultaneously denying them any information to the direction of the film of footage that has been shot, the director "withholds the openness" he requires from his subjects. While this may be rooted in the director's fear of influencing the community's behavior, it also denies him the input of the community information which may prove inaccessible any other way (MacDougall, 1973

Withholding and withdrawal of Medical treatment decisions from Case Study

Withholding and withdrawal of Medical treatment decisions from Children and neonates - Case Study Example Parents, doctors, the health care team have a common goal in ensuring good health and sustaining the life of children and neonates. Although advanced technology makes it possible to prolong life, prolonging life beyond a meaningful point in some neonatal and children's cases involves making difficult decisions on when and how life sustaining treatment is to be withheld or withdrawn. The Ethics Advisory Committee of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health (EAC - RCPCH) has defined five categories in which the withholding or withdrawal of life sustaining medical treatment can be done.With holding or withdrawing does not even mean that the child will receive no care. Such a decision is followed by palliative care for the child. The withholding and withdrawing decisions is made by only experienced senior doctors. Clinical situations of these decisions include Non-resuscitation of a baby at birth with congenital abnormalities like anencephaly, making the child incompatible for su rvival; Non- resuscitation of a baby born with a gestational period of twenty three weeks or less making the baby neurologically impaired; withdrawal of ventilation from the baby with birth asphyxia leading to brain damage.The frequency of selective non treatment of extremely premature, critically or mal formed infants in Level III intensive care nursery (ICU) and the reasons documented by neonatologists for their decisions to withdraw or with hold life support has been well documented (Wall, 1997). They reviewed all the medical records of 165 infants who died at a level III (ICN) during 3 years. One hundred and eight infant deaths were found to be due to withdrawal of life support and thirteen deaths due to withhold of treatment. End of life decisions in new born with incurable diseases are difficult for pediatricians. In Netherlands, deliberate ending of life can be acceptable choice if a life full of severe and sustained suffering that cannot be relieved by any other means is expected of the child (Verhagen 2005). During a study for the period from January 1988 through December 1991, of 529 neonates admitted in Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 524 had been found dead of which 28 were due to the disease and 24 cases due to withdrawn or withheld treatment. In 15 of the 24, treatment was withdrawn due to severe congenital anomalies; in 9 of the 24, treatment was withdrawn because of serious complications. But in all the cases withdrawal was done unanimously after lengthy discussions between doctors, nurses and the parents (Hazebroek, 1993). Withdrawal of treatment in pediatric intensive care units accounts for between 43% and 72% of deaths in U.K (Mcmillan 2000). The Law:- All such professional decisions are done within the framework of law. The children Act (England and Wales 1989) safeguard the children's welfare. The Act also introduces the concept of parental responsibility. A number of judgments on withholding or withdrawing life sustaining treatment have proved that there is no obligation on part of the doctors to give treatment which is futile and burdensome and such a treatment could be treated as an assault. They have also given enough scope for the treatment goals to be changed in case of a dying child. These judgments have legalized the withdrawal of feeding and medical treatment In such cases in the best interests of the children. Withdrawal of life sustaining treatment in appropriate cases is not active killing, nor does it breach the article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Decision Making: Initially the medical team must wait for enough information about the clinical status of the child. The decision making process involves all members of the Health Care Team and the parents. In practice, a decision to withdraw treatment is usually a matter of consensus. However such major decisions always require a second opinion, legal as well as clinical.