Casablanca is an excellent film that is always remembered and imagined with the look and score of an older film. However, I remember thinking to myself that the final scene needed more explosions. It’s time to change the public’s perception of this film into something most people would consider to be the polar opposite.

In order to convert “Gone Girl” into a Wes Anderson film we had to change a lot of the cinematic  and theatrical elements of the film. We chose to do this by creating a storyboard of the scene where Amy returns home as we felt that it was one of the most powerful scenes in the film. In order for the scene to truly be recreated in Wes Anderson fashion we had to change the color palette. The palette used in “Gone Girl” is a Fincher’s palette which is a lot of blues and yellows in order to set the dreary mood of the film. Wes Anderson uses a pastel color palette and bold colors  in most of his films. So we used reds, pinks, lighter blues and other colors that we felt fit with Wes Anderson’s style.

At the beginning of the scene we get a shot of Nick on the couch looking confused about the commotion occuring outside . Nick is in the first two thirds of frame and we get a side profile shot of him. One trademark in Wes Anderson films is his use of symmetry in his shots, so we decided to have Nick look directly at the camera and make him centered. This allowed us to have Nick be completely symmetrical in the frame. We also changed the couch color and background, as the couch was dull yellow. We wanted the couch to stand out so we changed the colors of the couch to red and blue. We also drew a window behind Nick in order to continue with the symmetry of the shot.

Wes Anderson uses an array of different shots in his films as well, with some of his favorites being medium and close up shots. He uses medium shots to establish the setting of his scenes and uses close ups to convey an emotion of a character. The part with the most emotion in the scene we chose, is when Amy gets out the car wearing a white dress covered in blood and pretends to cry. So we recreated that frame by doing a close up of Amy as she is staring at Nick. Wes Anderson also utilizes transition slides in Films that has Bold lettering. We created our own transition slide where we wrote AMY in bold font and colored it in red, we the slide to transition from a close up of Amy falling into Nick’s arms to a wide shot of Amy in Nick’s arms.

Overall converting a scene from “Gone Girl” to Wes Anderson’s style was not as difficult as we thought it would be. Since “Gone Girl” is a  thriller with a complex storyline and Wes Anderson’s style is more catered to adventure/comedy films. We wanted to keep the general storyline of the film and change more of the cinematic features of “Gone Girl”. Wes Anderson usually sticks to the same trends when it comes to the plots of his films. Where everything ends well for the characters in the film unlike in “Gone Girl” as the movie ends on a bad note.

By Joseph and TK

For our project, we decided to recreate scenes from the movie “Moonlight” using the film and style techniques of director, Wes Anderson. Anderson is an indie movie director who’s most well known movies include “Isle of Dogs”, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Moonrise Kingdom”. Throughout all of his movies, Anderson’s directing style stands out very vibrantly in tone and theatrics. Some recurring cinematographic elements of Anderson’s style include tracking shots, zoom, profile shots, symmetrical framing, overhead shots and whip pans. Some of Anderson’s theatrical elements include warm and cool color palettes, non-diegetic plinking harpsichord music, one or more childish adult characters, smoking, characters explaining elaborate plans, action, violence, stylish attire, foreigners, a vintage/ old timey aesthetic, shots of writing, and an assortment of recurring actors and actresses. We chose to incorporate Anderson’s style to “Moonlight” because we loved the concept of revamping a dark toned movie into something more vibrant and lighthearted. To accomplish this goal, we chose some scenes from “Moonlight” that we thought had potential to be reiterated through Anderson’s directing style. We then looked at Then we drew these scenes and placed them in a storyboard panel. We also were deliberate in our camera angles and essentially eliminate dimensions to give our scenes a very “flat look”.

These cinematography decisions echo Wes Anderson’s emphasis on aesthetic rather than the actual plot. Since Moonlight deals with a lot of important and heavy topics, changing the scenes to make it seem as if they are right out of a coloring book definitely in some ways dilutes the message. The overall design of his shots, including bright color palettes and fixed camera angles helps readers to disassociate from the societal context and instead pay close attention to the story unfolding between the main characters and everything that surrounds their situation. For instance, during the Grand Budapest, the audience was oftentimes too distracted by the bright colors and whimsical characters to remember a war being the backdrop. Even though the storyline was nothing spectacular or ground breaking, the attention to detail truly compensated for a somewhat lackluster plot. At the time of the creation of the  Grand Budapest, Wes Anderson utilized the advent of the anamorphic lenses to capture wide scenes within a single camera frame.

With Moonlight, we decided to use Wes Anderson’s style of directing to take the audience’s attention away from the harsh backdrop that is Chyron’s neighborhood, school, and home life, and instead focus the attention on the better parts of Chyron’s coming of age story. Through color and framing, we used our storyboard to communicate just that. In each panel, we drew pictures that involved vibrant colors and our desired camera angles. We drew a lot of wide/ medium shots, zoom, and made the backdrops pop with warm and cool colors. In terms of positioning characters, such as Kevin, Juan, or Chyron, we drew them face to face to highlight whatever intimacy they may have. Through these changes, we hope to help audiences remember the better and pure parts of “Moonlight” rather than just the harsh backdrop of Chyron’s life.

For our fourth quarter benchmark we decided to convert the hit musical Singin’ in the Rain into a terrifying horror film that will scare you right out of your socks. In order to accomplish this goal, we had to first learn from the best. Starting from all your favorite halloween specials and fright night films, we looked for all the cinematic elements that really made us jump. All the different types of coloring, dark lighting, camera angles, underexposure, distorted music, etc. really pull the film together and keeps the audience interested. While still using the original clips from the film we tried to highlight the below eye level angles, creepy facial expressions, and scenes where the movements played well into the storyline we’re trying to create.

Just like how Alfred Hitchcock's used the technique of knowledge for the audience during Psycho. You need to give the audience information to create great suspense throughout your film. This is something we are trying to incorporate during our trailer but in a different way. We put in clips that would tell the story but not give away what exactly is happening. You seem to understand who the main focus is on and can begin to put your own storyline together.

Along with worrying about what makes a great horror film, we had to find what elements would make a great trailer. Should we focus more on the pop up aspects like The Conjuring , follow a normal life of the people that just suddenly turns bad like in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or walk the audience through every important location like in the Psycho trailer? After looking at each and deciding whether or not we would actually watch the films. We decided to do a happy energetic scene to start off and allow the trailer to get more and more horrifying over time. This way you aren’t just bombarded with scary things popping out but more so a story that just doesn’t end so well.

One of the main things we focused on in this converted trailer is the music. We wanted to continue to use music from the actual soundtrack and just flip it to more distorted scary sounds that will play throughout the film. This way we aren’t pulling too far away from the theme of the movie but still adding that creepy aspect. Also, we included many dissolving edits between the scenes that will allow the images to play through quickly, allowing the audience to be exposed to little parts of the shot.

Most of the shots are either eye level or below eye level. Even through these were scenes from the actual movie, we actually did try to focus on the scenes where the camera was leveled or lower because it creates this thought that the audience is little and the actor is more powerful making it seem scarier. It also plays into the theme that you do not have the power which is usually a common theme in horror films.

Overall, adding all these little changes and touches to this film, I feel we did a great job not only converting it into a horror film but creating a trailer the audience would love to watch.

By: Jessica Guarino and Tia Roberts

The scene we decided to transform was the “Impenetrable Shield” scene from Marvel's The Avengers (2012) It Provided the perfect setup that could translate well into a Western Movie Scene. It has a mexican standoff between the villain (Loki) and the protagonist (Tony Stark) where Loki has a weapon that is a danger to Tony. For our scene we transformed the environment into a Wild West town, the characters into cowboy versions of themselves, and Loki’s Scepter into a magical shotgun.

Our scene opens up with a long shot of the characters in a staredown, smack dab in the middle of a dry, saturated environment. The ground is sand, the sky is orange and black and all the building use hot colors to demonstrate the warmth of the environment.

The second shot is a eye level close up shot of our villain, with the orange sky behind him to keep the dry theme going.  Loki's outfit is a western take on his Asgardian robe from the film. Rather than a low shot looking up at the characters like the original film, we followed the Western trope and brought the camera to his face, showing his emotion clearly.

The third shot cuts to Tony’s face, in the same eye level close us style as the previous shot. Tony is wearing a western inspired poncho with the colors of his Iron Man armor. His facial expressions express the cockiness of his character that he carries with him in all his interactions.

As their staredown continues, our fourth shot is from over the shoulder of Tony. He looks as Loki approaches him with the Scepter. The colors continue to be dry and saturated as a tumbleweed is blowing past in the distance.  

A typical western includes a drunk protagonist. Tony is just that, opting to threaten his opponent while he takes a sip of some alcohol. This over the shoulder shot looking at Tony taking a big gulp of his beverage demonstrate that he is a laid back yet gutsy and reckless hero that relates more to the audience that a know it all, all righteous hero.

As a typical western would have, the “draw your weapon” scene. The sixth shot is a medium long shot of Loki in action, drawing his scepter at Tony. The town building is in the background to keep the audience in the town to keep the environment small but sufficient in this scene. Similar to how the movie takes place with New York in the background but inside of Tony’s penthouse.

The seventh shot is an extreme close up of Loki’s scepter failing to fire. In an intense moment the misfire is a relief to both the protagonist and the audience.

The final frame medium shot of the scene shows Tony looking down at the Scepter pointed at his chest. His attitude provies humor in a time of chaos and concern, making the protagonist even more of a crowd favorite, and lightening the mood of the intensity.

The existing content the movie provided some pre existing western movie tropes. Taking those and going full on western creates a new take on the genre that we are proud to show off.