Group: Two.
Film: Hunter.
Upon entering this module, I felt restored; lectures with Ryan took me back to when I did Film Studies as an A-Level and wrote film reviews for a blog. It was refreshing and a way to warm up before entering this assignment.
In the end, I studied “Hunter”. Out of all the films, I thought it was one of the more difficult ones to investigate. There was little to say about who made it – especially in English, as the production company is Russian – and finding any Behind The Scenes material outside a handful of websites was scarce.
I joined Group Two, which included George, Asia and Scott – and after the icebreaker class, which included a pop quiz about Disney Concept Art, I formed the Discord Server for the Group.
I got it started with my first analysis (above). But then I considered that the story being told is an important area to investigate – or at least the one that I was most comfortable talking about.
I asked basic questions that need to be asked about every main character in a story. When I presented them to the group I received a few answers: “The Chameleon wants the fly. He is pursuing it with a chase. He wants it because it is either valuable or can give him pleasure. Lastly, he got eaten for all of his effort”. I was also investigating Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots, and came to the conclusion that this was a Tragicomedy – a term that doesn’t appear in the book itself, but could be linked with the black comedy. It has a dark ending, but a light journey that is fun to watch. We can also suggest Rebirth through the golden fly.
Early on, we considered structuring the presentation so that everybody would speak for just over two minutes each. Then we were presented with an alternative approach, to which the whole team was on board with the idea. The idea being for two members to research and the other two to present the slides. We agreed that we didn’t need to focus on individual characteristics – but rather, we are to say what we thought was interesting about the film. With this in mind I began to script it with the hope that we could cover everything in ten minutes or less.
I attempted to write a script with a formula similar to the movie reviews I made for some years. Here’s an example of one: https://aclementsillustration.wordpress.com/2020/11/16/perfect-blue-1997/
When George uploaded slides outlining titles for artistic analysis – I once again updated my approach to encampass this.
Shortly after I wrote the above entries, the others started to bring in new information, and some of these older ideas were left behind. Asia presented information about the film’s Artistic Direction and this was combined with the information I had provided.
I thought Scott and George managed the presentation went well. It was a day of heavy snow – but thankfully everybody in the group arrived. During the rehearsal we found that we needed to condense the presentation to keep it within ten minutes. We knew that Scott and George would deliver an engaging presentation playing to the strengths of the team – not just present the findings.
Below are the Slides I created, which George edited to suit his presentation style. Some extra annotation has been applied for this post:
To get high or seek pleasure. His appetite is his god.
He changes colour like the dilation of pupils.
The fly explodes in the background. The Chameleon’s first victim.
A long shot – showing a lack of other wildlife.
A play on metaphors to emphasis the role.
An extreme close-sup shot. “Ecstasy Of Gold”, inspired by the name of Ennio Morricone’s musical score for Sergio Leone’s The Good The Bad and The Ugly
The end of Act One. Now begins Act two
I originally designed this to be three slides, but after the rehearsal, it was edited down.
A comparison between a creature who is happy where he is and a creature who has gone out of his environment to claim something. The snail becomes his second victim.
A sign that the blue chameleon is expressing interest.
We can also point out how the 2 Chameleon’s heads resemble the shape of a heart.
These last six slides were designed to be presented in rapid sequence.
Looking back, the 10 minute presentation meant that we did not include information on the Sound, Cinematography, composition and misc-en-scene but we concentrated on what we found interesting. So, I will give my analysis of the sound here:
The sound design of Hunter is a unique blend. The opening theme could be described as a jungle-themed piece, loosely inspired by “Peer Gynt – Morning Mood” by Edvard Grieg. While the music playing over the Chameleon-Kiss scene near the end reminds me of “Two Worlds” from Disney’s Tarzan (1999). The visuals are of the Jungle, but some of the diatonic sound is more urban in nature, with the use of machine noises and vehicles to convey movement. The film can be appreciated by a universal audience by using “Show, Don’t Tell” with no dialogue being used.
Reflection
I think we benefitted from this project in realising that group forming is a challenge when working remotely. Considering the fact that this group was formed a few weeks ago we managed to collaborate to finish successfully. It allowed me to work with people on a research piece, and it created opportunities to think outside of the box during the communication challenges.