What makes a great film?

 Give me at least 3 attributes with examples for each and of course include screen shots were applicable!!!

awwwww snap. 

     Oh no! It's that time of year again where film students come together to write fascinating blog posts. We rise to the occasion and begin our daunting challenge with the question: what substitutes as a great film?      I'm a firm believer in focusing on a selective genre and sticking to it throughout the film. I've chosen to do romantic comedies because I really enjoy making people laugh as well as creating suspense and twists within the context of a plot. That certainly can't be applied in certain genres in the genre spectrum. I've see lots of student films  and all of them have done well to attach itself solely to one or two genres. For every film, it is important to apply genre research before starting pre-production on the movie. Here's an example of a thriller horror entitled "Pandemic" which was the gruesome tale of 4 college students students being attacked by seagulls. 

HANGERS!!!!

What went wrong in this film was that I didn't understand if I was supposed to be afraid or find the whole scenario crazy hilarious. For goodness sake they're fighting birds with hangers (the weapon of champions) with distracting bird squawking loops.  Had they done a little research before on thrillers and maybe take the time to find a creature that spooks the audience, develop a soundtrack to create suspense, and incorporate more shot variety than maybe the film could have been salvage. It's always important to take note of the conventions of a genre before starting anything else.

      In addition I did mention in the previous paragraph how essential the proper usage of music is within a film. Sometimes music makes the film as you can probably see in musicals, Disney films, revenge thrillers, action films, and other countless genres that use digetic and non-digetic sounds to add a specific tone to the film. Take for instance this mash-up video of Psycho featuring the infamous murder with and without music. You'll obviously notice how when the music is added you can get a sense of dread, fear, and anxiety when you hear throse shrilling noises . In comparison to the other scene where you only hear the screams it seems rather lacking. In itself. The scene is actually so well done that it could be made with or without music and still look scary; however, the mixture of discordant violins and pure screams of terror create a beautiful combination in art of horror films. 

Finally I would like to take the time to acknowledge my sort of biases right now, call me sentimental person but I love movies that make you ponder even after the movie itself is over with. I want to feel that emotional impact so hard that I fall to ground and cry. Okay maybe not to that extent but I am definitely looking for a movie that has some deeper theme underneath all of it. For example let's consider "Enchanted" and the scene where the main character finally realizes she is in love with the wrong person. The entire story builds up from the beginning hinting that Jazelle must find someone "who must sing to her" and that they would be her only true love.

I just love her face: a mix of sadness and regret. 

After being transported into New York she manages to find her prince and grows unhappy with him. In the scene where Dempsy sings into her ear within the song, it's just a little subtle clue to the ending of the story. How she realizes that he is her one true love, and that's what I love about cute animated films sometimes. They find a motif and expand upon it until it becomes something much more symbolic by the end.