Special Effects in 2001: a Space Odyssey

The same applies to a dramatic scene where the music may be deep and frantic to convey to the audience the feeling of anticipation. A scene i would like to focus on is the scene in which Garry and his father have a final ‘showdown’, if you will, at the front of the house. The scene consists of the father imposing himself on Garry and proceeding to continually beat him down time after time only for Garry to rise up and face his father on each occasion. This scene evoked a feeling of pride and admiration from the audience as to Garry’s courage and determination to convey the message to his father that he is ready to stand on his own two feet and defy him. This is a very powerful scene within the movie which initiated powerful emotions within the audience. All of this was accomplished with the notable absence of music of any form. The omission of music in this scene created an atmosphere in which the dramatic affect was amplified due to the silence.

‘The Dawn of Man’ sequence is based in a prehistoric time period and the most important theme of this sequence is nature. Kubrick shows the two stages of nature before showing us as the audience how humans evolved as a species. The various shots of land are staged in altered settings within different time zones, which express the Earth as a large place. With no characters and no type of dialogue, the non-diegetic sound of birds chirping is a representation of nature. The sound of the birds in this sequence created a natural atmosphere and made it believable for the viewer.

Even though the film is essentially a visual experience, the use of sound has become extremely important in modern film. The modern viewer hears a complicated soundtrack that is as meaningful as the image on the screen. Three elements comprise the film's soundtrack: the dialogue, the sound effects, and the musical score. The proper balance and mix of these elements produced the essential emphasis required, which created the desired effects. As explained by Joseph Boggs and Dennis Petrie,

The cinematography of each film was thought out and tells us the story. So dialogue was not really needed, you could read the movies by listening to the music and watching the shifting patterns of light and shadow. Alfred Hitchcock was famous for using point-of-view shot, it is most noticeable in Notorious where Alicia in lying

The novel 2001: A Space Odyssey written by Arthur C. Clarke applies many literary devices and stylistic features to humanise one of the main characters, Hal. Some examples of the literary devices and stylistic features used in the novel are the atmosphere and mood, characterisation, dialogue and diction, repetition, analogy, the point of view and the overall plot of the story. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a story of evolution, the future of mankind, space exploration and the thirst for knowledge, technology and Utopian society. The novel was originally written as a film script, however in the 1960s it was adapted into a novel.

The cinematic language that we know of today would not be as it is today if we had synchronous sound recording from the beginning of film. Cinematic Language is the systems, methods or conventions by which movies communicate with the viewer. A few examples of cinematic language are; montage; mise en scene, the use of long takes, depth of field shooting in order associate people or objects; Expressionism, the use of lighting techniques, severe camera angles, and elaborate props, to name a few aspects; and realism, a technique to make the action seem as true to life as possible. The list of techniques and styles of cinematic language go on, and can only be limited by the imagination. Early films, and early sound films both had something in common; they lacked many elements of the cinematic language. The reason sound films reverted back to the same pre-cinematic style of early films, was due to the fact that they had technical difficulties, that required them to fall into the style of the old ways. I do believe that if filmmakers would have had sound from the beginning, with the same sense of movie direction they worked with, they would have used sound as a crutch rather than an enhancing element.

Another example of sound is Hitchcock's use of voice over. For instance, as Marion drives away with the money she ha stolen, she imagines conversations between the people she has left behind and their reactions to her faults. Hitchcock also uses sound, which doesn’t complement the image that we see. Whilst the on screen

Along with background music, sound effects play more of a role on the way we feel than many moviegoers think, and "although the function of sound effects is primarily atmospheric, they can also be precise sources of meaning in film" (Giannetti, 225). When the

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

Sound and editing are quite possible the two stand-out aspects of all Edgar Wright’s films. The two go side-by-side and are an essential aspect of delivering a satisfying experience in modern day cinema. Wright’s films push the boundaries of what someone would consider the standard function of these two elements. Edgar Wright is one of the only people working in the visual comedy genre using a full range of what is possible and because of that, he can find humour in places that other people don’t look. Wright directs his scenes with a method that referred to as entering a scene later and leaving it early. He does this by using his trademark close up montages. These montages take a scene that would normally be up to 30 seconds long and reduces it to 3. It also falls into his style of visual comedy, taking mundane tasks and extenuating them with quick cuts. Another efficient way Wright tells his stories is with the clever use of background action. Instead of blankly exposition, he lets the visuals tell the audience everything they need to know. In Shaun of the Dead, there’s a scene where Shaun is going to the convenience store and is completely oblivious to the zombie apocalypse. He ignores people running for their lives, doesn’t look at red hand prints on the cooler doors and even slips on blood without even noticing. Nobody has to say anything. That’s because Wright trusts that his audience is smart enough to pick up on visual cues. Wright is also big on repeated dialogue

Recently, our class read the book and watched the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The book is written by Arthur C. Clarke and the movie was directed by Stanley Kubrick. The book was written as a framework for the movie, so the two are mostly the same. But, while there were similarities, there were also some major differences.

The Dawn of Man. Four simple words introduced what is remarked as one of the greatest films of all time. There is no spoken dialogue within the first 25 minutes and the last 23 minutes of the film. “2001: A Space Odyssey” is an ambiguous film. The broad range of audience captures various interpretations of the film. The main theme seems to be about the evolutionary process of mankind interwoven with elements of a higher or extraterrestrial entity guiding this evolution. There are some film theories that suggest this movie was all propaganda used in conjunction with the space race that occurred during World War 2. Some even go as far as to say that the same set used in “2001: A Space Odyssey” was used to fake the moon landing of 1969. However, theories with more evidence suggest that the iconic monolith doesn’t represent aliens or “God”, but instead represents the cinema screen of which we are viewing. The artistic importance of “2001: A Space Odyssey” is derived from its ability procure various conclusions.

In the science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The director, Stanley Kubrick, portray his masterpiece in an ambiguous understanding where he examines topics such as extraterrestrial life, the dealings with technology and the human evolution. Throughout the movie, Kubrick depicts the facade, monolith as an instrument in awakening intelligence. Moreover, the protagonists go through a drastic change of struggle to explore on the idea of technology and extraterrestrial life.

The first film that showed early signs of a rise in the quality of technology was the Western “The Great Train Robbery.” When this film first came out the audience were so amazed at the fact that they could watch something on a TV or at the cinema. Although this film was very good for the 1900s it still lacked some key features that make films much easier to understand such as dialogue, sound and camera shots. The one feature of a film that developed the quickest over the period of time was sound. Sound was introduced in October 1927 in the film “The Jazz singer”, which had three song numbers and a few lines of spoken dialogue. Apart from these few songs and words, the rest of the movie was silent, but the audience still thought that it was amazing that words had been spoken in the film, they used to call it “the movie that talked”.

When Making a film a director wants to draw the audiences emotions to the film to make them interested in what is going to happen. The director wants to make sure the audience is putting their emotions into a particular character or event. They can use this to give items importance and help us see who is an important character or if an event is serious or not. They basically tell us how to feel in a situation. They do this with the perspective/focus, lighting, and with the audio.