Mis-En Scene

The movie I decided to break down is one that was up for many awards and also brought home a couple in 2015 due to it's lighting, cast, and direction. Whiplash is a movie that very well captures the motif of fear and anxiety through many different vessels. Specifically the vessels I will break down are that of direction and lighting. The movie was able to bring home best supporting actor (J.K. Simmons), best film editing, and best sound mixing. The most underrated facet of the movie was the lighting in my opinion, while being well received by most patrons, it did not catch the eye of the academy voters.The lead gaffer in the movie, Elan Yaari, encapsulated the incessant fear and nightmarish feel with his lighting schematics in the feature. Although the scene comes together primarily because of the script, the lighting scheme is the cherry on top. It seems as though Miles Teller's character is stuck in some sort of musical purgatory led by devilish ensemble instructor Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). The overhead spotted lighting scheme glowing down on the students gives the feel that they are mere test subjects. The movie is very vulgar but does a very wonderful job of being tasteful while keeping a sense of raunchiness.

Director

Although fairly unoriginal I have found that I am most drawn to a couple different directors. Being from Las Vegas and knowing the underlying motif of the mob and it's influence on my home town, naturally I was drawn to the likes of Director Martin Scorsese.  Scorsese being of Sicilian decent also matches that of my background drawing a connection to the director. I've been a Scorsese fan my entire life specifically after watching one of his early documentaries "Italianamerican" where his parents are the main subjects describing their life in Sicily. Moving on to classics like: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed, and even Hugo it makes it hard to not fall in love with his work. Most movies of his depict the life of old school mobsters coupled with heavy violence and writing. Another overlooked aspect of his work in my opinion are the musical scores used in his films. It becomes easy to forget that he directed films like Bob Dylan’s No Direction Home, The Rolling Stones’ Shine A Light, the George Harrison documentary Living in the Material World, and of course, arguably greatest rock doc of all time, The Band’s The Last Waltz. He has a very rich musical background mainly consisting of classic old time rock songs from Ray Charles to Cream, The Rolling Stones, and The Clash.

Here's a taste of some of his work (Don't let the heinous commentary deter you from the wonderful work of the director):

Compose A Frame

I took this photograph in the bathroom of my home at an obvious tilted angle upwards. Although it is very simplistic I enjoy the way the lines of the cabinets, blinds, and shadows draw your eye through the picture. The way the shadow is casted right above the toilet seat is in the location of the bottom left third of the frame making it seemingly the most interesting point of contrast as well as the focal point. Although not the most interesting of content in that third, it still finds a way of doing it's job of drawing your eye.

Here are some other intriguing photos I've taken: