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Marvel's Ugly Movies Research Paper

Decent Essays

Essay #5 “Video Essay Review”

Marvel’s Ugly Movies
Being a fan of movies, in particular Marvel’s movies, I always enjoyed the aesthetics of the films, yet I never had a true appreciation for the art of cinematography. I would tend to gravitate to the plot, the characters, and suspense present in the action-packed films. However another fan of Marvel’s movies, Patrick H. Willems, authored a video essay advertizing how unpleasing to the eye Marvel’s movies are, or in his words, why Marvel’s movies look “ugly.”
Willems began his video essay by making the focal point of his video essay about the problem that he had with Marvel’s color grading, or his reason as to why the movies looked so “ugly.” After he explained what color grading was, how …show more content…

First, he used many scenes from Marvel movies, clearly showing the dullness of color in the digitally filmed movies, as well as, move vibrant scenes from movies shot on film. Willems also used Adobe After Effects to show that there weren’t any “proper black values” used in a Marvel scene where truly black shade should be present. This program was also used by Willems to make simple color adjustments to a scene, making the picture visibly more vibrant. During the video essay, Willems used voice-over effectively to explain and analyze his points during the entirety of the film along with the aid of captions and arrows, which appropriately pointed out specifics or emphasised a point. Lastly, images of pages in Marvel comic books were used to draw a comparison between more vibrant comics and duller comics. The comics which were printed with truly black ink were clearly more vibrant than the comics which were not printed with truly black ink. Willems also very successfully dumbed down seemingly complex cinematography practices and explained them in a way that most viewers would easily understand. Because of the effective tools Willems used to convey his points, his argument was supported in a convincing in an easily understandable way. Although there is no doubt that Marvel’s digitally filmed movies are less vibrant than other movies, I believe that …show more content…

Assuming that Marvel’s movies are purposefully less vibrant, I believe that they made the picture duller in order to humanize the superheroes in the films and create a realistic, earthly setting. First, I believe that the muted picture was not an accident in Marvel’s movies. Willems showed one scene cinematographed by John Toll from Iron Man 3 and another scene also cinematographed by John Toll from Jupiter Ascending. The same cinematographer fine-tuned both scenes, even the same camera was used to film both scenes, yet the Jupiter Ascending scene was much more vibrant than the muted Iron Man 3 scene. Therefore, Marvel must be purposefully making their scenes duller. But why is an audience attracted to less vibrant superhero movies? I believe that instead of seeing a bold, flashy suit and overly bright scenes, the viewers are more able relate with realistically colored superheroes and a setting that clearly appears to be on earth. In addition to the visual reality of the film, I believe the duller colored superheroes allow the audience to see the character as more than just a superhero. As an alternative to distracting bold colors and the idea of superhuman powers, the audience can see more about a superhero’s personality and feelings

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