Lecture 5.

To quote from the Dogme 95 website, "DOGME 95 has the expressed goal of countering “certain tendencies” in the cinema today". Dogme 95 is basically an idea devised by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in 1995. The film business, they concluded, had become overly dependent on special effects, fancy camerawork, and other techniques of production. Rather than being built on the bedrock foundations of drama - actors playing real human beings in a story - movies were becoming more and more dependent on special lighting, impressive sets, optical effects and all the other modern effects of showbiz. The vital essence of film, dramatic narrative, was in danger of being submerged in the glamour of hollywood. And as if this weren't enough, they also concluded that the cult of personality surrounding the film director was detrimental to making good films. Movies are not the work of a single visionary, they argued, and too many directors spend time making "artistic statements" to gratify their own egos when they should be concentrating on characters and story. From this, they created a movement to try and move way from "hollywood-type" productions. Until now, 19 Dogme films have been made and many more are to come.

Here are the 10 Vows of Chastity:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).

2.The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).

3.The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place).

4.The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

5.Optical work and filters are forbidden

6.The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)

7.Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)

8.Genre movies are not acceptable.

9.The film format must be Academy 35 mm.

10.The director must not be credited.



Dogville, a film by Lars Von Trier is a movie that used very minimal settings to tell a story. The set is basically one big room and to tell the places apart, words were used to describe where everthing is. For example, the outlines of gooseberry bushes have the text "Gooseberry Bushes" written next to them. While this form of staging is common in black box theaters, it has rarely been attempted on film. The bare staging serves to focus the audience's attention on the acting and storytelling, and also reminds them of the film's artificiality.



Dogville is not a Dogme 95 film but it was directed by the same person who started the Dogme 95 movement. Everything was very minimal. The movie was told simply without any special effects. It was heavily focused on acting and story-telling. The movie bored me for a couple of minutes but it turned interesting when I began to realise that it was actually very good! Maybe because I didn't have enough sleep the night before.




I for one agree and support Dogme95 films because I truly feel that movies nowadays are too generic and rely too much on expensive effects to tell a story rather than talent.

Lecture 4.

Storyboarding is essential to establish the look of a film. It helps the director, cast and everyone else who is working on that patricular film to be able to "imagine" how the movie would look like which in turn will make the filimg process a lot easier for everyone. The most interesting part of the lecture for me is the 180 degree rule. I researched and read more about this because I couldn't actually comprehend what it was in the lecture. Basically it is a rule to make sure that the characters in the scene have the same left/right relationship to each other.

Though it was a short lecture, I learnt a lot about the importance of storyboarding.

Lecture 2.

Screenwriting is interesting.

It's funny how everything has a formula. From visualising to scriptwriting to screenwriting. The Screenplay Fomula is particularly familar to me because I have read about it a few months ago and so I was quite ecstatic that it was covered in more detail in the lecture. Before this I have never actually thought about plot points yet they are the most fundamental thing in every movie that has ever existed. Plus, plot points appear more than once in a movie to make it a really good movie. That is certainly something that I will look out for in movies that I will watch in the future.

The lecture also covered abbreviations and how some of it is for camera angles like WS, LS, MLS, ECU, etc. I hope that this will be covered more in later lectures because I find it rather interesting.

Lecture 2.

The lecture in the second week of this course was about Visualisation and Conceptualisation.
Basically, the lecturer talked about how we have to be creative and innovative when we are thinking about making a movie.
We should try and be as creative as possible and the sky is the limit but we still have to think about some limitations like the budget and time.

The lecturer also mentioned a couple of things about scenes. He mentioned how scenes can set the mood for a movie. A movie with many scenes can usually grab the attention of the viewers as it means that there are a lot of things going on but some movies like the movie the lecturer showed us ( the one with Uma Thurman) relied on one scene and really heavy dialogue. But was still interesting. I guess it depends on how good the director is.

The 5 elements for movie making was also very interesting because a good movie usually relies on those elements. I don't think a movie that did not have those elementswere successful and that's something to think about. My goal is actually to find some good films that didn't have some of the elements. Hm.

So the homework given was to name a favourite movie for each genre so here goes:

Action Films: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

Adventure Films: Gladiator (2000)

Comedy: White Chicks.

Crime Films: Requiem for a Dream.

Drama: American Beauty / Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Epic Films: Shakespeare in Love (1999)

Horror Films: The Ring (Original Japanese Version)

Musicals: Chicago.

Science Fiction: The Matrix

Western Films: How the West was Won.

Chick Flicks: My Best Friend's Wedding.

Lecture 1.

The reason why I chose to do Digital VIdeo Foundations is because I have always loved movies. And I am thinking of getting into the Media business hence this subject is perfect for that. I've always wanted to know what goes on behind the makings of every movie. I hope this course will enlighten me further on that topic.

Many people thought that we were going to do some production with this course but I didn't. Partly because I read the course outline for this subject 5 times before actually choosing to do it. So I think I can safely say that I have a brief idea of what it's about.

I'm looking forward to completing this course and I hope I'll learn a lot from it.