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FFM113 : Fundamentals of Theatre and Film Production

Management

LECTURER: RAJA NOR AMINAH BINTI RAJA AYOB

Assignment 1: Film Comparison

NAME Akmal Danish Bin Alipe

MATRIC NUMBER 2022662104

Received by: 10th November 2022

Date: 18th November 2022

Akmal Danish Bin Alipe

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TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE

1. Introduction 3

2. Content – Analysis 4

2.1 Film Comparison 4

2.1.1 A Successful Film 4

2.1.2 An Unsuccessful Film 5

2.1.3 Storyline Comparison 6

2.1.4 Actor Comparison 7

2.1.5 Cinematography Comparison 8

2.1.5 Film Collection 9 - 10

3. Conclusion 11

4. References (Minimum 5 journals or academic articles) 12

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INTRODUCTION

Films are moving pictures that people have enjoyed watching for generations
because they feature likeable characters, incredible action scenes,
memorable music, stunning visuals, and the promise of a good time. People watch
movies to escape reality, and they're fascinated by the variety of genres they have to
offer. However, there can be both good and bad movies, as with everything. Good
movies are rich of memorable moments, relatable characters, and fun writing. Bad
movies are the same thing, except remove everything that makes a movie good.

Films has gone a long way from just series of static pictures captured by an
equipment called Kinetoscope to now typically a full on 2 hours long movie produced
by high-tech equipments The first film ever captured in America is believed to be
‘Monkeyshines, No 1’. It was a series of experimental short silent films made to test
the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope.

 Filmstrip of one of the three Monkeyshines

films produced by Thomas Edison's
laboratory in 1889–90 for the early
cylinder version of the Kinetoscope

However, the first "storefront theater" in America was Vitascope

Hall. It was converted from vacant store bought by Thomas Edison
and was dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures.

Nowadays, films are easily accessible. Everywhere we go there will

always be a cinema around the corner. We should also appreciate
technology that now has allows us to watch films through our
devices. If we show the people from the past like Thomas Edison
that we can watch films while travelling his jaw will definitely drop.

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CONTENT - ANALYSIS
FILM COMPARISON
A Successful Film

MOVIE NAME: Her

MOVIE SUMMARY:
Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, Her follows Theodore Twombly, a
complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other
people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a
new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own
right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet "Samantha," a
bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs
and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual
love for each other.

IMDB RATING: 8/10

DIRECTOR: Spike Jonze
GENRE: Drama, Romance, Sci-fi
ACTORS: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Spike Jonze, Rooney Mara
RELEASE DATE: 18th December 2013
DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures

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An Unsuccessful Movie

MOVIE NAME: The Room

MOVIE SUMMARY:
The Room tells the story of Johnny, a wealthy banker from San Francisco. He is
engaged to Lisa, and they live together in a beautiful home. Lisa is having an affair
with Mark who is Johnny’s friend. Johnny discovers that Lisa is having an affair but
doesn’t know with whom. Johnny becomes mentally distraught trying to figure out
who his wife is having an affair with.

IMDB RATING: 3.6/10

DIRECTOR: Tommy Wiseau
GENRE: Drama, Romance
ACTORS: Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero, Juliette Danielle, Carolyn Minnott
RELEASE DATE: 27th June 2003
DISTRIBUTOR: TPW Films

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STORYLINE COMPARISON:
HER
What I love about Her is that there's so many layers to it. You can take it as a pure
romance, albeit with a weird twist, but one that still feels like a realistic relationship
with real problems. It simply just feels authentic. It also felt a lot like a long distance
relationship to me at times. The story really took me by surprise. No one was cliched
and perfect or a villain. Everyone seemed to have flaws and a real life to lead.
Rather than following a script that lead us from point A to point B, it seemed like we
were seeing snapshots of a life.

THE ROOM
This film was so atrociously bad that it was funny. Most of the scenes are filled with
bizarre dialogues and uncomfortable human interactions. Characters get randomly
introduced in one scene and they don’t show up again for the rest of the film. The
majority of the film revolves around unrelated subtopic and includes at least one
supporting character and are left unresolved because of the inconsistent narrative
structure of the film. One of the scene that was weird was when Johnny talks to
himself out loud denying that he didn’t hit his fiancée, he then proceeds to greet
Mark instantly with “Oh hi Mark!” like he didn’t say the most terrible thing someone
could say before greeting people. All in all, I wouldn’t say the film was cliché per se,
rather I would just call it downright terrible.

ACTOR COMPARISON:
HER
Jonze really did pick a great set of cast for the film ‘Her’. Joaquin’s portrayal of
Theodore really made me forget that he’s just acting. His character was truly a
perfect mash of true loneliness, which I tend to relate to a lot. Scarlett’s performance
as an OS (operating system) really stood out to me because it’s the first time I’ve
ever seen a film executed a complex character like that. Even if she physically
doesn’t have a body, I can project an image of her in my mind whenever she’s
talking on screen. That’s what makes her character so interesting. She is not here
yet it feels like she’s here. The other characters in the movie like Paul which was
played by Chriss Pratt and Catherine by Rooney Mara was portrayed so perfectly as
they all felt human and very realistic.

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THE ROOM
Wiseau’s performance as Johnny was unenthusiastic. It was as if he’s bored of being
there at the set, like he don’t care at all that he’s starring his own film. Johnny’s
character seems like the most unnatural person I’ve ever seen in my life. There are
scenes that the actor’s mouth doesn’t match with the voice that played. It is obvious
that almost everyone in the film wasn’t giving it their 100% when it comes to acting
their part. They simply wasn’t up to it. Wiseau did a bad job of picking the cast and
also did a bad job on acting his own role.

CINEMATOGRAPHY COMPARISON:
HER
The cinematography in this film was emotional and really brought you into some
scenes and out of others. One of my favorite scene is when Theodore was walking
through a fair with his eyes closed and being guided by the OS Samantha.
Throughout the film all I sense from Theodore is gloominess and suffering. This was
when I truly see joy in Theodore’s face for the first time ever. I also really liked the
ending shot. It’s a scene where both Theodore and his best friend Catherine sat on
top of a building, contemplating life. In the scene, they both were going through the
same pain yet they both stayed quiet and try to eat it up . And it hurts.

THE ROOM
The cinematography in this film was plain bad. Unlike ‘Her’ that executed the
cinematography part of a film very well, ‘The Room’ did the opposite. There was a lot
of long and irrelevant shots of San Francisco. Like we didn’t already know that the
story took place around there. A lot of screentime was wasted on pointless scenes
and it made the audience yawn. One of the most common place the story took place
at was the rooftop. What made it bad was that it wasn’t even a real rooftop with a
scene of San Francisco in the back. It was a green screen. To add up, the use of
green screen was so terrible that even the 7 year old me realized that the
background wasn’t real.

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COLLECTION:
HER

Despite having a $23 million budget, the film "Her" made over $48.3 million at the
box office. Numerous accolades and nominations were given to the movie, mostly for
Jonze's writing.
Some of the awards includes:

 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Spike Jonze)

 National Board of Review Award for Best Director (Spike Jonze)

  Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA) for Best Original Screenplay (Spike

Jonze)

 American Film Institute (AFI) for Top Ten Films of the Year (Her)

 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Film (Her)

 Detroit Film Critics Society for Best Supporting Actress (Scarlett

Johansson)

 Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) for Best Depiction of Nudity,

Sexuality, or Seduction Award (Scarlett Johansson & Joaquin Phoenix)


 THE ROOM

The room is a disaster of a film. The budget for the film is $6 Million. Initially, the
film barely made $1,916. That only demonstrates how awful the film is. Despite being
a "box office failure," sales considerably climbed years later due to how awful the film
is that it somehow manages to draw in and entertain viewers. The film now has
gained around $4.9 Million from the box office worldwide. That however, hasn’t
covered the expenses used to produce the film. Wiseau claimed that a large portion
of the cast and crew had to be changed, which made the film relatively expensive.
According to Sestero (portrayed Mark in The Room), Wiseau made numerous poor
decisions during filming, such as building sets for sequences that could have been
filmed on location, purchasing production equipment rather than renting it and filming
scenes multiple times. using different sets. That explains how he unnecessarily
inflated the budget.
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CONCLUSION
In order to produce a great film that is well received by others, the director needs to
have a vision on how the story will play out and they also need to figure out the
process of how to complete the film while still being under the budget limit. After all
the director is the head of a film. Everyone from the cast to the crew needs to follow
the director’s wish. The director needs to learn how to take criticism and improvise. If
the director is as unreliable as Wiseau, of course the film will flop. Directors
nowadays needs to learn from Wiseau’s mistake and not make any irrational
decisions.
The storyline also plays a big role on how the audience will perceive the film. It
needs to have an intriguing concept and not a cliched one. Like in the sci-fi world of
‘Her’, in the near future there are AI (artificial intelligence) device that will do any task
they were commanded to do within their limit. From a cliché standpoint, the AI will
definitely become sentient and take over the world. However, the director of ‘Her’,
executed that concept brilliantly and ended the film with all the AI grew
so advanced that they became self-aware and tries to reach further
length. To learn new knowledge they are leaving their owner, to a place
that’s inexplainable instead of taking over the world. Now that is not
cliché.
Next, the director needs to pick out the right cast to play the right
character. As seen in the movie ‘The Room’ if you pick unprofessional
people to play a character in your film it will definitely be a disastrous
one. Also if the director picks a popular actor to play as the protagonist
in their film, it will obviously pay off since popular actors will always
attract a wide audience of die-hard fans. As example, a few months
back, it was revealed that Ryan Gosling would be playing as ‘Ken’ in an upcoming
movie ‘Barbie’. Yes it’s a barbie story but still, as a fan of Ryan Gosling, I was
psyched out when I first heard of it. I still am waiting for the movie to be screened at
my local cinemas.

The cinematography of a film also needs to be on point with

breathtaking shots and picturesque scenes. These scenes
need to be mixed with the correct color grading to match with
certain moods. Like in the movie ‘Her’ the color grading gives
off the vibe as something with soft passion. It is crucial for
the production team to execute this part perfectly.

All in all, most of the directors in the US have already adapted to their own style
meanwhile in Malaysia we still lack the quality of good filmmaking in the industry.
Almost all of the films in Malaysia ends with predictable story. We are still behind and

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I can see that this will change in the near future as I’ve seen some raw talent in our
industry.

REFERRENCE

 https://ew.com/article/2008/12/12/crazy-cult-room/

 https://www.nola.com/gambit/news/blake_pontchartrain/article_a6f9c41c-
e8bc-11eb-b2d4-c7092eacba54.html

 https://timeinpixels.com/2015/09/cinematography-in-her/

 https://screencomment.com/2011/07/interview-gregsestero/

 https://www.reuters.com/article/film-nationalboardofreview-
idINDEE9B30FZ20131204

 http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/makingmodernus/exhibits/show/history-of-film/
thomas-edison

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