With Pick Up on South Street being a crime film there was of course quite a bit of violence.  In order for the directors to pull of these graphic scenes they used different editing techniques as well as special effects.  It was filmed in Brooklyn, New York as well as Los Angeles.  

    When it comes to filming fight scenes there are two popular techniques: improvised fighting or choreographed fighting.  In an improvised fight scene the actors are told when and where it should start and end but everything in the middle is up to them.  This technique can make a fight scene look more realistic, however, it does put a lot of pressure on the actors to get it right without having to redo the scene too many times.  Choreographed fight scenes come with their own challenges as well. These take time to plan and take a lot of practice since each punch or kick is perfectly planned. A choreographed fight can also be done in multiple shots which gives more freedom to using special effects like fake blood (shutterstock).  While Pick Up on South Street had a great deal of violence in it the fight scenes were never very complex. It seemed that specific tracking shots were used heavily to emphasize certain scenes.

    There is a very long list of possibilities when it comes to camera angles while shooting a scene.  In Pick Up on South Street they use close up shots during scenes where you might miss details otherwise.  For instance, when Skip was on the subway with Candy the camera zooms in incredibly close on Skips actions while he subtly folds up a newspaper and uses that to steal Candy’s wallet.  Then in other scenes they used a wider angle in order to incorporate the action being shown. An example of this is when Joey is beating up Candy for not retrieving the films. The camera is in a fixed spot and has a perfect view of the whole room.  The fight between Joey and Candy travelled all over the room and a decent amount of damage was done. After the fight scene they show Candy in the hospital with significant bruising. This was done with special effects makeup.

    Not everyone was a fan of the violence shown in Pick Up on South Street or that the theme at hand was that an American could give up secrets against their government for the right price.  Even the FBI tried to object to some of the scenes (senses of cinema).

    A good amount of the film is shot on the waterfront near the East River.  There were also some scenes shot in Los Angeles but dressed up to look like New York.  An example of this is when Candy goes to give the FBI the film they want so badly (scoutingny).  They chose a spot on South Grand Avenue in Los Angeles that had some buildings that had a New York feel to them.

 

http://sensesofcinema.com/2014/great-directors/samuel-fuller/

 

https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/production-tip-film-fight-scene

 

http://www.scoutingny.com/noir-york-the-filming-locations-of-pickup-on-south-street-ny-youve-changed/

 

To convey suspense and tension in the Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero arouses expectations and subverts those expectations with uncertainty utilizing editing and sound. Continuity editing is used in most shots of the film but there are some analytical edited scenes spaced throughout the film as well,  such as the graphic matching in Night of the Living Dead. It occurs around 11:36 when Barbra entered the farmhouse and walked around the room. When her eyes move toward the walls, the shots shift from the heads of different animals individually. This employs a graphic matching editing that relies on the similarity of the compositional shapes from one shot to the next to bridge the cut smoothly (P227). This use of graphic matching shots helps create a sense of tension and horror for the whole story.

There are also some other edited scenes throughout the film as well. This is shown multiple times throughout the film, described as when characters are schemed on by the ghouls. The reasoning for this type of editing is to create as many questionable and anticipated scenes or suspenseful scenes. Once the actual terror is visible to the views by the look on the characters face leads the audience to wonder what’s going to happen next. With the assumption of the ghouls attacking the protagonists. Sparse analytical editing was also visible when the ghouls attacked. Cameras would zoom up close of the character being mauled to bring more dramatics to the scenes. The film director chose these editing methods while shooting this film to complete the suspenseful feeling of the film. The scenery of a farm plays an important role because it emphasizes just how close the enemy may be to actual life at that time.

Around the 22-minute mark, Barbra surveys the house after a reassuring conversation with Ben. Ben’s consolation is not only received by Barbra within the parameters of the film, but it breaks the fourth wall in consoling the audience—just enough words by Ben to put the audience at ease. As Barbra walks through a doorway, ominous music ramps up and takes away the comfort that Ben initially instills. Barbra fixates her vision towards something, using the music box as the variable for the transition. While the music box plays an innocent melody, a shot of Barbra with the music box out of focus parallels the dispatch to the audience of the focus towards Barbra. As we see the movie, we noticed that the soundtrack was given not continually. For example, when there involve dialogues between characters, there is not sound or music at the background but the real voice of the characters. The sound and music occur when there is some kind of signal for danger or threats. In 17:00, when Ben is fighting the ghouls around him and Barbra is facing several ghouls inside of the house, the sounds and music are incredibly creepy and thrilling that makes the audience feel so nervous. The way of using sound and music helps pave the way for the whole story and create a sense of tension for the audience.

https://www.soundboard.com/sb/night_of_the_living_dead

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/565

 

This Film can be seen as Horror. This is evident as the characters are being attacked by zombies creating an intense feeling of fear and shock, expression(s) shown throughout the entire entourage. The Story has a specific plot, as the base characters get an inital glimpse of the upcoming issue.  The characters then come together, attempting to rid of the issue. Finally, the issue gets a hold of the characters, ultimately making the characters zombies. Its told this way and not in another way, because this plot creates the most suspense, making the viewer thirsty for what comes next. It supports the horror genre as fear is displayed throughout the entire plot. All performances are suited to give the viewer a horror or fear type feeling. The performers act on different roles as Barbra is seen as the initial main, then Ben takes immediate command of almost every decision, displaying how the story creates an emergence of any character to take leadership regardless of fear, to take down the antagonist(s) (Zombies).

The physical performance examines the horror genre overall. The members of the group run, hide, and battle with the living monsters while the living monsters pursue, kill, and eat the living people. These are a sharp difference between good and evil in physical performance.

The actors like Duane Jones who cast Ben is an unknown state actor while Judith O’Dea who cast in Barbra is a commercial and stage actress. Besides these two, most of the actors are non-professionals in this film. In this respect, Ben is depicted with a calm and brave performance while Barbra is depicted with dramatic stunts in emotional and physical movements. The whole performance is expected to be more ‘realistic’

https://www.thefourohfive.com/film/article/scene-dissection-night-of-the-living-dead-1968-george-a-romero-145

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/565

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

 

 

 

Totally, the story is told in a nonlinear narrative in which the story is broken up with the plots having parallel developments. The Night of Living Dead can be categorized as a horror movie. More specifically, Todorov defines it as a “marvelous” horror film, is explained as “the bizarre events of the story can only be explained by reference to another level of reality. First of all, this film is a black and white film style. The contrast between black and white highlights the mysterious and horrible atmosphere of this film. Second, the movie is full of scary elements. People are always afraid of the dead and the grave, and this film starts from the cemetery, with the dead as one of the main characters. The film also shows a lot of bloody horror scenes, such as the zombie cannibalism, the end, the little girl cannibalism and other scenes. This story is told in a nonlinear narrating way. As noted in Film Art, “nonlinear systems, permit random access to the entire store of footage” (68). Bit by bit, the film has to give information about the origin of the living dead. The actress ‘body movements and some background music perfectly present the intense scene, the plot’s advancement and the character’s psychological changes. There was no line, but anyone could intuitively feel Barbara’s fear. The actors stars are unknown because of budget issues. But it’s an unknown actor who makes this movie a success. It’s easy for audiences to form fixed mindsets about famous actors, associating them with their most famous roles.

https://www.thefourohfive.com/film/article/scene-dissection-night-of-the-living-dead-1968-george-a-romero-145

https://ew.com/article/2005/04/11/rating-versions-night-living-dead-we-wade-through-various-dvd-editions-and-pick/

 

The Night Of The Living Dead is a suspenseful movie, including multiple major segments. The first most important segment would be “They’re Coming to get you”. As Barbra and her Brother Johnny are at a graveyard, Johnny begins to joke around ” They’re Coming to get you” he says multiple times.  As Barbra tells johnny to knock off the obnoxious jokes, she runs into an actual zombie. She then screams for johnny’s’ assistance. As he attempts to rescue his sister, he is ultimately knocked unconscious and Barbra is left to defend for herself.  Another important segment is when everyone is stationed at the safe house, As Harry, Tom, Ben, and Barbra. They all are informed on the situation and have a better understanding. Two attempt to flee in a vehicle but die, due to engine flames. Everyone is ultimately bit and turned into zombies. These segments are situated this way to create the most suspense as possible, keeping the viewer waiting for scenes to come.

This Film can be seen as Horror. This is evident as the characters are being attacked by zombies creating an intense feeling of fear and shock, expression(s) shown throughout the entire entourage. The Story has a specific plot, as the base characters get an inital glimpse of the upcoming issue.  The characters then come together, attempting to rid of the issue. Finally the issue gets a hold of the characters, ultimately making the characters zombies. Its told this way and not in another way, because this plot creates the most suspense, making the viewer thirsty for what comes next. It supports the horror genre as fear is displayed throughout the entire plot.

The Night of Living Dead can be categorized as a horror movie. More specifically, Todorov defines it as a “marvelous” horror film, being explained as “the bizarre events of the story can only be explained by reference to another level of reality. First of all, this film is a black and white film style. The contrast between black and white highlights the mysterious and horrible atmosphere of this film. Second, the movie is full of scary elements. People are always afraid of the dead and the grave, and this film starts from the cemetery, with the dead as one of the main characters. The film also shows a lot of bloody horror scenes, such as the zombie cannibalism, the end, the little girl cannibalism and other scenes. This story is told in a nonlinear narrating way. As noted in Film Art, “nonlinear systems, permit random access to the entire store of footage” (68). Bit by bit, the film has to give information about the origin of the living dead. The actress ‘body movements and some background music perfectly present the intense scene, the plot’s advancement and the character’s psychological changes. There was no line, but anyone could intuitively feel Barbara’s fear. The actors stars are unknown because of budget issues. But it’s an unknown actor who makes this movie a success. It’s easy for audiences to form fixed mindsets about famous actors, associating them with their most famous roles.

https://brightlightsfilm.com/night-living-dead-reappraising-undead-classic/#.XTUvzxT7SUl

https://www.thefourohfive.com/film/article/scene-dissection-night-of-the-living-dead-1968-george-a-romero-145

 

Broadly, the mise-en-scene the films mostly featured is in rural Penneylvania, where the audience are allowed to get where the story is happening.  The purpose of this mise-en-scene is to convey the message about where the story was told. The woods, the rural landscape, and the graveyard were framed facilitate the emotions and tone of the whole story.

The most important stage was acquired in the early twentieth century. It becomes a kind of language with which the director speaks with the audience. Actors must stand on the stage in accordance with the scenery, as well as the plot, which at the moment should be played on the stage. In addition, theatrical lighting begins to play a role in staging. It contributes to the creation of a certain artistic effect, and also helps the actors to get used to the role and more realistically transmit the events of the dramatic work.

Lighting: Throughout the movie, the lightning gives the zombies a low-key lighting that isn’t as intense and is sifter in order to make the zombies look darker and portrayed as negative and the true monster. Whenever another character was killed off, the lighting on them would also become softer and less intense with more shadows to represent that they transformed into a zombie.

Costumes: zombies wore raggedy clothes to represent how they had risen from the dead and the fact that they wore old corpses. Those who were alive wore clothes that represented middle class ordinary citizens.

Setting: The setting takes place in a cemetery which is where the dead arise from as well as a barn where the protagonists take shelter from the living dead.

Thus, the Mise-En-Scene is intended to serve as a connecting chain between the actors, the spectator and the plot of the production.

If mise-en-scene frames the narrative of the film in a vacuum, then George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead encapsulates the tone and theme of it in the introductory scene of Barbra and Johnny visiting their father’s grave. Immediately, the audience arrives at a graveyard introducing the central motif of death. The two are alone yet not quite—assuming that the bodies around them count. Throughout the film, Romero teases the audience of solitude and desolation, only to be surprised that the characters are not so alone after all. The graveyard captures this recurrence—what is below and above ground is alive or dead.

As they walk around in the graveyard, a shot at the four-minute mark displays them alone, only to be accompanied by the gravestones. A wide shot gives the audience a full perspective of the vastness of the graveyard with silence consuming the scene only to be disturbed by the rustling leaves. Romero’s choice of camera position to display the two introductory characters extends the tone of loneliness throughout the film.

https://www.whitelight.ltd.uk/white-light-brings-night-of-the-living-dead-to-life/

http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Mise-en-sc-ne-ELEMENTS-OF-MISE-EN-SC-NE.html

 

 

Did You Mise-En-Scene?

If mise-en-scene frames the narrative of the film in a vacuum, then George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Deadencapsulates the tone and theme of it in the introductory scene of Barbra and Johnny visiting their father’s grave. Immediately, the audience arrives at a graveyard introducing the central motif of death. The two are alone yet not quite—assuming that the bodies around them count. Throughout the film, Romero teases the audience of solitude and desolation, only to be surprised that the characters are not so alone after all. The graveyard captures this recurrence—what is below and above ground is alive or dead

Mise en scene can be described as the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play /the setting or surroundings of an event/action. Referring to the way actors and scenery props are arranged; as its usage expanded into other narrative arts. These certain scene stood strong with a purpose and is used to put emphasis on certain parts of the play. Some choices they made were to have the house, graveyard , and nature relating to the current traditional lifestyle. The Film stages a narrative which mimics the countercultural social life within time of production, giving off a  massive horror-like, fear-inducing challenge to normal life in the form of an assault by the infected.

The most important stage was acquired in the early twentieth century. It becomes a kind of language with which the director speaks with the audience. Actors must stand on the stage in accordance with the scenery, as well as the plot, which at the moment should be played on the stage. In addition, theatrical lighting begins to play a role in staging. It contributes to the creation of a certain artistic effect, and also helps the actors to get used to the role and more realistically transmit the events of the dramatic work.

Lighting: Throughout the movie the lightning gives the zombies a low-key lighting that isn’t as intense and is sifter in order to make the zombies look darker and portrayed as negative and the true monster. Whenever another character was killed off, the lighting on them would also become softer and less intense with more shadows to represent that they transformed into a zombie.

Costumes: zombies wore raggedy clothes to represent how they had risen from the dead and the fact that they wore old corpses. Those who were alive wore clothes that represented middle class ordinary citizens.

Setting: The setting takes place in a cemetery which is where the dead arise from as well as a barn where the protagonists take shelter from the living dead.

Thus, the Mise-En-Scene is intended to serve as a connecting chain between the actors, the spectator and the plot of the production.

Great Movies with Mise-En-Scene

* Songs from the Second Floor (2000) – Roy Andersson

* Paths of Glory (1957) – Stanley Kubrick

* Ulysses’ Gaze (1995) – Theo Angelopoulos

* Tokyo Story (1953) – Yasujirō Ozu

* Playtime (1967) – Jacques Tati

* Throne of Blood (1957) – Akira Kurosawa

* The Conformist (1970) – Bernardo Bertolucci

* Rules of the Game (1939) – Jean Renoir

* Stalker (1979) – Andrei Tarkovsky

* Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock

Three Sources:

1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/magazine/jacques-audiard-french-scorsese-sisters-brothers.html (Links to an external site.)

2) http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Mise-en-sc-ne-ELEMENTS-OF-MISE-EN-SC-NE.html (Links to an external site.)

3) http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2018/10-great-movies-with-the-best-mise-en-scene/

http://screenprism.com/insights/article/how-did-night-of-the-living-dead-create-the-idea-of-the-zombie-as-its-known (Links to an external site.)

https://brightlightsfilm.com/night-living-dead-reappraising-undead-classic/#.XT47V_JKjz0 (Links to an external site.)

https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4107&context=gradschool_theses (Links to an external site.)

 

 

Genre, Drama, Narrative, Performance]

 

The physical performance examines the horror genre overall. The members of the group run, hide, and battle with the living monsters while the living monsters pursue, kill, and eat the living people. These are a sharp difference between good and evil in physical performance.

The actors like Duane Jones who cast Ben is an unknown state actor while Judith O’Dea who cast in Barbra is a commercial and stage actress. Besides these two, most of the actors are non-professionals in this film. In this respect, Ben is depicted with a calm and brave performance while Barbra is depicted with dramatic stunts in emotional and physical movements. The whole performance is expected to be more ‘realistic’

The actress ‘body movements and some background music perfectly present the intense scene, the plot’s advancement and the character’s psychological changes. There was no line, but anyone could intuitively feel Barbara’s fear. The actors stars are unknown because of budget issues. But it’s an unknown actor who makes this movie a success. It’s easy for audiences to form fixed mindsets about famous actors, associating them with their most famous roles.

Three other sources:

Newby, Richard. “The Lingering Horror of ‘Night of the Living Dead’” Hollywoodreporter. Retrieved from

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/why-night-living-dead-is-more-relevant-ever-1145708 (Links to an external site.)

Thomas, Kristofer. Scene Dissection: Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero).

https://www.thefourohfive.com/film/article/scene-dissection-night-of-the-living-dead-1968-george-a-romero-145 (Links to an external site.)

George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Retrieved from

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/565