M. Night Shyamalan

"I see dead people"
This is just one of the chilling lines from "6th Sense". A film which put Shyamalan on the hollywood map in a big way. His style is dark, fluid and mysterious with emotional twists that are remenicent of the late Alfred Hitchcock.

Born in India dduring 1970, Shyamalan first got a taste for movies when given a video camera at just eight years old. Having made his first movie in 1992 "Praying With Anger" it wasn't until 1998 that Shyamalan would make his return with, "Wide Awake" which he also wrote.

But it was in 1999 that he came to great success with his box office smash, The 6th Sense. A supernatural tale starring Bruce Willis and brilliant child star Haley Joel Osment.

Shyamalan uses tension in leaps and bounds to keep his audience guessing as we try to piece the story together. Although his movies are very different from each other, they do tend to seek out something supernatural or push the boundaries of the "What if?" scenario.

Lighting and camera movement stand out as one of his strong points, which he does with ease on every outting, although his basic idea is relatively simple.

The beauty of Shyamalan's movies always show up at the end of the film, where he produces all the magic, when you realise that what you saw, was not really going on at all.

What were you thinking?
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Spike Lee

The end of the 1990's saw the re-emergence of Black Power, not only in the streets,music and fashion, but also on the silver screen.

Spike Lee first came to public attention when he released "She's Gotta Have It". A movie shot in black & white in 1986. But it wasn't until he made "Do The Right Thing" in 1989 that hollywood began to take this young black director,writer/actor seriously, and won himself an academy nomination for best "Original screen Play" and Rick Aiello for best Supporting Actor.

Lee exploded on the film scene with a string of follow up movies like, "Mo' Better Blues" "Jungle Fever" and "Malcom X" while firmly turning himself into a household name, marketing/advertising himself with Nike alongside Micheal Jordan.

Spike Lee tends to hire the same actors/actresses in his films, which seem to give his movies a sense of association to his audience, and it was always a guarantee with his earlier films that there was going to be some kind of controversy!

Spike Lee changed Black Film. Not only did he stir up the call of injustice, he would brings it across in beautiful bright colours and black urban soul as it's soundtrack. Over night Lee became a role model for black people around the world, especially in the Hip-Hop communities.

Although deemed controvertial, Lee has been able to use this to his own advantage. By getting white America to not only see things from a Black perspective, but for White America to actually look at itself!

Rumour has it, that Lee is being tipped to direct the life and times of the legendary James Brown. Controversy?
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John Landis

One of my favourite artists is Micheal Jackson, but nothing brought him more acclaim then his video for "Thriller"


Born in Chicago in 1950, Landis worked as a mailroom attendant at 20th century Fox before coming to the forefront as a director. Infact Landis got called in as an assistant director whilst at MGM in Yuogoslavia during 1969.

Landis made his first movie "Schlock" in 1971. The film was a total flop by indusrty standards, but Landis had something bigger in mind...!

Being inspired by the likes of Monty Python (Terry Gilliam) and Saturday Night Live, Landis made "Kentucky Fried Movie" in 1977 quickly followed by "National Lampoon's Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers", which was a box office hit!

In 1981 he released "An American Werewolf in London". Landis revolutionised make-up on film with his special effects team, namely academy award winning artist Rick Baker.
Landis will always be known as the first to metomorphisise from human to animal/ghoul in bright light, but making the whole transformation totally amazing!

He also went on to collaborate with names such as Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places" "Coming To America" and the not so overwhelming "Beverly Hills Cop 3"

John Landis obviously likes to have fun behind the camera, but at the same time he doesn't demand that his audience take him too seriously. He just wants to make you laugh, while he scares you to death!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOj5H5W

The Brothers Quay

Movement, mood and attention to detail is what first thing that springs to mind with these guys. Identical twins born in Pennsylania, USA 1947, Stephen and Timothy both studied illustration in Philidelphia. The brothers first started making short movies whilst attending The Royal College of Art in London.

The stop motion style and technique used by the brothers is is accompanied by some type of medival period with spooky suggestive overtones. They are not big fans of speech. But the sound in their movies are essential in creating moods with texture. A lot of thier work tends to feature dolls as characters and very often have no eyes, or have half a head. Weird?

Terry Gilliam

Slightly crazy, off beat and full of satire, Terry Gilliam is not an easy customer. He is a writer, actor, animator, director, but started out as an illustrator.
Born November 1940 in Minnesota, Gilliam studied at Birmingham High school and got his first job working for a magazine called "Help" as an assistant editer. Later on Gilliam would leave America and moved to England in 1967.

During 1969 Gilliam was asked by John Cleese to join The Monty Python comdey cast. Along with this Gilliam contributed many pieces if animation and even began taking small acting roles.
His animation is dark and surreal and filled with classic art and pictures. He always seeks to push the boundaries in an attempt to offer his viewing audience just a little bit more...? What he does with pictures in animation is truely amazing and inovative. Humour and comedy is always apparant, even if it can't be seen at first and creates subtle moods with his colours and tones.

Away from the satire & animation Gilliam is credited as a director for films such as "Brother's Grimm" & "12 Monkeys" which starred Bruce Willis & Brad Pitt. He also directed Robert De Niro in another one of his movies "Brazil". The thing with Gilliam is you either love his work or hate it. He is a specialist in his feild...I'm just not too sure exactly what that is? Terry Gilliam is not your average modern Artist.
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Tim Burton

Animator, writer, producer & director, Tim Burton is one of hollywoods biggest talents. Born in California 1958, Tim was alway interested in film as a little boy, and was fond of monster movies.
But it was during 1974 that Tim would choose animation as a career and began to attend The California Institute of The Arts. By 1979 Burton was working for Walt Disney on a project called "The Fox & The Hound"

After discovering Burtons dark & unusual style of drawing, Disney gave Burton a chance to produce his own animation "Vincent" a personal tribute the the late Vincent Price, one of his childhood heroes.

After scoring a hit with his first movie "Pee Wee's big Adventure" Burton went on to direct Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Planet of The Apes, Beetle Juice, only to be called upon again for Batman Returns.

Burton clearly has a taste for horror & goth, but you can also see a child-like thread in all of his work wether as an animator or director. Just to name a few: Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, The Night Before Christmas & Sleepy Hollow.
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The Environment

Did you know that the highest grossing movie in history, featured a natural phenomenon?
The film was "The Titanic" and it's star role was played by, yep that's right "Water"

Water along with the trees, the rocks, the soil, the air, and the raw vegetation are all part of the natural environment. These resources help create the earths atmoshpere, which further goes to create our climate.

A lot of trees provide raw materials for everyday life, for example wood is cut down for furniture, and yet another tree can be used to produce fruit to sustain life.

Would life be any different if there where no electrical charges beneath the earth? Or an ozone layer which helps to protect human life? Once we focus on these natural resources we can recognise that man has little or nothing to do with the existance of the natural enviroment.

After many years of study, scientists from around the world realised that chemicals we had been using released gases into our atmosphere and began to cause a whole in our ozone layer.
This lead to many of us around the world to make a concious effort to reduce co2 and other harmful chemicals that will ultimately destroy our ozone layer.

Imagine life without the simple pleasure/luxury of air? Is air a natural phenomenon? Why does the thunder crack? And why does everybody love the sunshine?
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Postmodernism

One would take it that "post" represents the "after of" And modern to be what we would say is of "the now" or up to date. But is that what postmodernism is? Is the end of an era the point in which we meet postmodern? Is modernism imposed upon us? Constantly thrusting us away from our origins and natural way of being? So how modern are we? Are we modern because we have internet access and can download unlimited mp3s and watch movies for free? Or are we postmodern by doing those very same things?

Whilst researching this wonderful gut-wrenching topic, I found a great video giving a basic idea of processing to the concept of postmodernism:



This theory can be brought into many forms such as Art, Film & Television, Religion & Politics even through well made marketing schemes. No thing is really what it is. What it is, is what we term it to be at the time ,so that you and I can establish a relationship, towards building something else that we have learnt from a modern world, in which we now live. Postmodernism will always eat itself in the way of contradition. It will constantly challenge the absolute and consistantly push the boundaries on fact.

Semiotics

What is Semiotics? Semiotics is the study of signs. Not quite an "ology" but still a science in itself.
So what is so special about Semiotics that it should be an "ology" or a science? Well, we all see signs everyday of our waking life. There are signs that we are use to and signs that we naturally look for, and very often there are signs that we ignore too. But there is a reason for this.

Through the work of Roland Barthes (inset) during 1960's, Semiotics was now becoming a major part of cultural studies in britain. This didn't put semiotics into a small bracket of seeing and reading. It also ment that semiotics could also be found in any language, including sound and sound patterns, drawing and paintings, art or even body language. Linguistics.

For example if we take the word "Cat" this creates a sign for us to offer some indication as to the object, but the word is not quite the object itself. Furthermore, this word "Cat" would also have no meaning to someone in another country who speaks a different "language". So for most people to understand this, we may produce a picture to draw upon association to establish the object.

Semiotics can be found in many forms in any language and has three basic forms.
1) Icon
2) Index
3) Symbol

The most common way of looking at semiotics is the traffic light. We understand the language of these three colours, Red Amber & Green. None of these colours actually say in "text" that you should slow down or stop or even go. What they do is create a sign or an idea to those in that enviroment of how to proceed or process the nessecary information.

If you would like to know more about Semiotics,