Visual Arts and Films Studies - Essay Example

In filmmaking or film production and visual arts development, the directors and the general crew endeavor to make their work look authentic and real to their audience. Habitually, it involves a series of stages such as the original story, the idea through script writing, casting, editing, shooting and screening the finished film to an audience. The development of a film or visual art takes place around the world taking into account factors such as economic, political and social contexts, while incorporating technologies, as well as cinematic effects in the case of film.

The production of some of these products can take as long as several years to complete while others take a few months, incorporating many people. The most crucial part in generating a quality product is during the commission of the idea. This is where the filmmaker ensures that the costume design, its interpretation, technical arts and special effects, set design for screen and theatre design look as authentic as possible. Although the cast contributes a large part to how a film or visual art performance will be received, other factors such as cinematography effects, the costumes and interpretation of the costumes as well other technologies involved, affect how the audience appreciates the authenticity of the product.

Reality and real are two words that make realism a difficult word to explain as well as the intricacy of disputes in art and philosophy, where it is predominantly used. In the arts, realism is the attempt of the artist to embody their theme as truthfully as possible. This paper is going to discuss two American films, The Matrix of 1999 and 300 released in 2006. These films are different in terms of their genre and setting, where the Matrix is a science fiction action film while 300 is an action packed film, set in the medieval times.

Their similarities could be attributed to the struggle of the directors in trying to make the films appear as real as possible. Both films try to bring forward a certain reality to the audience. The Matrix brings out the reality of dystopian future, antonym Utopia, in which reality is cyberspace or stimulated reality called The Matrix. Dystopia appears in works of fiction, seeking to speculate on the future, usually characterized by dehumanization, environmental disasters and dictatorial governments.

300, on the other hand, are set in a medieval age, where a certain king fights against the Persian god king Xerxes. The directors of both movies hard to work hard to make these setting come and appear real to the audiences in terms of costume, dialogue, cinematic effects and other technologies (BARNWELL, P. 187, 2008) Filming is divided into five parts, the Development, pre-production, production, post-production and distribution. The main area of focus when the director is in the moment of bringing reality to the film is the pre-production.

Pre- production encompasses all the preparations made before the actual shooting such as the cast, the film crew, selection of the film location and building of the site. More so, pre-production ensures that every step involved in creating the film is carefully planned and designed. In pre-production of The Matrix, the director, The Wachowski brothers, made sure that all crew involved in the film understood the theme of the film and the requirement of the chosen actors was that they were able to explain The matrix.

All the principal cast and the crew were also required to read Simulacra and Simulation, a philosophical treatise book used to conceal disks in the film. Reeves the main protagonist in the film, said reading the book enabled him to explain all the philosophical jargons involved in the film (MACKENDRICK & CRONIN, P. 123, 2005). For the fight scenes, the directors incorporated a Chinese director because of the growth and intricacy of Chinese action cinema. In preparation of these action scenes, it was required for every actor to train intensely for months.

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