Samuel Musgrove Demo Reel

Here is my most recent Demo Reel.

2011 Film Frontier

Jobs are tough and I know. I haven't had a steady job since the beginning of 2009. The market is tough in retail as well as in the creative fields. I started this blog because, I have been working from home and I could occupy myself with something I'm already interested in, Movies. When starting I gave careful thought to the audience I was trying to cater to. In the end I couldn't decide so I write whatever I want.

Currently what interests me is the job market. I am a film student graduating after this semester and I am concerned about finding work like the so many others in America. In 2007 I knew that there was a storm coming. I started working at a local music store, but the work experience I earned was non-transferable and the stereotype musician hung over my resume. I have never played a musical instrument well and I have not had the desire to. I started to study more history of film and was amazed that the golden age of film was during an economic depression. The golden age of film was from 1920s to the late 1950s.

This got me thinking, why? I concluded that it's because people want to be entertained. Especially when there is economic trouble and civil unrest. Entertainment is one industry that is recession proof, not only because people wish to entertained, but the industry changes constantly. There are movies that are not good movies, but they did well because people were demanding them. A good example is Star Wars the prequels. If you don't agree here watch this video.

Now lets get back to 2007. I knew that I would not be able to get work if the old work force was still circulating the job market. So I thought I'd continue school and wait for the economy to destabilize. I graduated in 2008 and began going to a technical college taking entrance classes. I finished there and transfered to Piedmont Community College and will be graduating this May. As expected the government aren't going to help anyone unless it exponentially benefits them.

Now the film industry is seeing the biggest growth in a decade. Film incentives for North Carolina have increased and the new commercial hub has changed from Orlando to Atlanta. Although DVD and box office sales are going down there are still other means of distribution, such as online movies, Pay-per-view, and instant streaming. This is a new frontier for independent filmmakers, increasing income, because there are smaller distribution costs. I think in the coming years we will see the growth of a new independent movement and hopefully a global film community.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey Defeenitly deserves to be in the AFI Top 100 Movies list. The settings and the scenery do not suggest fantasy and are intended to look realistic and not exaggerated, but the characters aren’t. The characters in the film are flat and one dimensional and contrasted by their surroundings. They are emotionless and blunt except for HAL 9000. I disliked the movie’s, pacing it was slow and drawn out, not a lot of dialogue and little action until near the end. After I finished watched it I began to think about the complexity and began to realize the function of the pacing building up to the final moment as if the entire film were Ligeti's Atmospheres. Kubrick’s film is intended to be a look at a probable future and not an exaggeration, BBC television, Videophones, space travel. And dolphin pets in your living room? Well maybe not that one. When I first watched the film I felt that the most important part was when the two men Frank and Dave realize that HAL is Malfunctioning and talk about their options, but after research I concluded that the most important scene is the chess game between Frank and HAL and I’ll explain why later.

Released as a Film and a novel in 1968, The film and the novel were based on short stories written by Arthur C. Clark called The Sentinel. Kubrick’s masterpiece has been scrutinized and discussed by forums and many books written about Kubrick’s interpretations of the future and the influences the film has had on our society. 2001 is 148 minutes long, so I will try not to get into too much detail. 2001: A Space Odyssey begins with no picture. 2001 starts by setting up a very long drawn out Pace for the movie. The Pace is set before the first chapter,

I. The Dawn of Man

The film Valhalla Rising (2009) uses a similar method to diminish the wonder and vastness of the environment by continually showing beautiful images of the mountains, valleys, rivers, clouds, plants, and so on. All of the shots of ancient earth are steady, no handheld movement and no panning. You are forced to think like the apes on screen. All of their screams tear at you and when you awake you see the monolith. The apes begin to scream and one ape reaches out for the monolith. Then an interesting thing happens, the sound gets louder until the apes are drowned out, because the monolith is the object of interest not the apes and their screams go unheard. The monoliths present a challenge for the man apes and “The image of 'reaching out' with an extended finger was directly borrowed by Kubrick from the famous painting found in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel artwork” [2] and symbolizes forbidden knowledge. Soon after the encounter with the monolith, prehistoric man experiences enlightenment. As human nature goes the prehistoric apes abuse their newfound knowledge and kill another ape from a warring tribe. At the end of the chapter the man ape that discovered the tool/weapon throws it into the air and transitions from a tumbling bone to a rotating space station with a match cut beginning the next chapter,

II. The Lunar Journey in the Year 2000

This transition from old to new associates the now Technological Man with the primitive Ape Men. The tool/weapon in the future has now changed shape for man on the frontier of a new expedition. This expedition is to the moon, to investigate a mysterious monolith buried in the surface. In this chapter man is the equivalent of a child in space, being taught how to use the restroom, how to walk, and eating Pan-Am liquefied food. The shuttle arrives and they dock at the station. As they fear the worst part of the mission is over they become lax and less cautious and they begin their walk towards the digging site. “They hypnotically circle around the black object - Floyd bashfully touches it with his thick glove. A photographer prepares a group of them to line up - and pose before the totem-like monolith like typical tourists.” [2]. After the picture the mysterious monolith emits an electronic screeching sound that pierces their ears. Floyd looks up and sees the Earth and Sun aligned over the solar powered monolith. The second monolith acts as a beacon to alert its creators that man has reached a new intellectual frontier and begins the journey of man into space,

III. Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later

2001 is very different in it’s direction and action within it’s own world. Because the bulk of the story happens in space there is no gravity. The second act sees this a little when a hostess takes Floyd’s plate and walks to the front of the cabin, instead of going through the door ahead she walks on the wall and upside down to a door on the wall. The epic scene of jogging on the interior of the ship sets up the confusing orientation also known as Mise en Scène. To keep with the pace of the film Kubrick had to get another angle of the man jogging and attempted a low angle shot of the man. The Steadicam stabilizer system was not introduced until 1976 and the footage is shaky and jumpy. I don’t know if Kubrick intended the footage as it looks now, but my thoughts are it was included only because of pacing, based on the fact that the shot does not match any other shots in the film.

At the end of the jogging scene there is another scene of a man climbing down a ladder sideways, he precedes to walk on the wall down to another shipmate. Then Kubrick completely ignores the 180-Degree Rule and changes angles to an exact opposite of the previous. Not much orientation is given as to the internal workings of the ship and this also confuses the orientation to the audience. Kubrick intended this, because it says that man is without direction in space and the characters are as disoriented as the audience is. Kubrick also uses a lot of asymmetrically composed frames to express the emptiness and the emotion of the settings and the lighting in the majority of the movie is soft lighting, to accentuate the sets and their sterile controlled look. Bowman now the main focus is disinterested in his mission and bored with the monotony of life in space. HAL 9000 the brain of the Discovery displays more human emotion than the crew and takes more pride in his work. Although HAL has a flawless operational record HAL is imperfect. Kubrick suggests this by one small detail.

I am of couse talking about the chess game. Frank Poole and HAL are playing chess and HAL tells Frank that he has made and fatal error and says “I'm sorry, Frank. I think you missed it. Queen to Bishop Three, Bishop takes Queen. Knight takes Bishop. Mate.” [2]. Frank admits defeat and HAL congratulates Frank on an enjoyable game. This is wrong. This game is wrong since queen to bishop three is not a real board designation. What HAL should have said is, Queen to bishop six. “Kubrick, who was a maniac about details, and an expert chess player, could not have made this mistake unintentionally, and that it therefore means something: HAL was testing Poole, secretly rejecting him when he let Q-B3 pass for Qf3.” [3].

HAL is capable of human emotion, but in his eyes he is perfect. Then why would HAL lash out at the crew by killing Frank? Flaws, because HAL, realizing he may be flawed and fully capable of showing emotion, he reacted as a guilty party and got rid of the evidence of his imperfection. Bowman then disables HAL. After reaching Jupiter’s orbit a prerecorded message explains that their mission is to investigate a monolith orbiting Jupiter.

Here is where things get a bit confusing. When Bowman deactivates HAL and continues his mission alone it symbolizes that although man has developed much he is incapable of achieving mental ascension with the help of technology. Bowman continues into the monolith in the egg shaped explorer pod and is sucked into a vortex of colors and images of passing mountains tinted various colors and is given the knowledge of the universe symbolized by the colors of the vortex reflected in his eyes. Then bowman proceeds to a room where he is shown older versions of himself and then becomes that version until he dies and is reborn.

Many people speculate what this ending means, maybe Bowman was shown the alien world, he ascended, or some other allegorical meaning, but whatever is the case we will never know, because consciousness and interpretation of it is relative( and that Kubrick is dead). I will conclude by agreeing with Kubrick when he wrote, “You are free to speculate, as you wish, about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of ‘2001’.”[1].

1. Kubrick2001.com. “The Space Odyssey Explained.”
2. Dirks, Tim. “2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)” Filmsite.org
3. Author, Unknown. “Willi Schlage” http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/schlage.htm 1 August, 2007.

When C47s Attack!!