the things we think but do not say

I wanted to let you all know about two movies that have come out recently that have both used motion graphics and informational graphics to great effect. Both are better known for their main content; “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore’s movie about global warming and “Thank You For Smoking”, a movie about a Big Tobacco lobbyist.

“An Inconvenient Truth” is as engaging and compelling as the reviews say it is. For a film/documentary/infomerical that is heavy with statistical information, it told its story very well. The movie is thoroughly peppered with graphs, charts, and diagrams that were clearly designed to be functional, and understandable but more importantly were made a part of the storytelling itself.

When a chart displaying the deep correlation between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and temperature is shown, rather than just simply flatly showing the data, the data is allowed to reveal itself, becoming an ascending jagged mountain range animating from left to right. And for added effect the line continues dramatically skyward when Gore predicts what will happen in fifty years. Simple effective storytelling techniques used for seemingly dry statistical data, used with powerful results. Incidentally, the presentation isn’t using MS Powerpoint but rather Apple’s Keynote.

The other movie that released a few months back was ‘Thank You For Smoking” and instead of informational graphics, the movie’s opening credits featured some amazing motion graphics.

Thank You For Smoking is centred around a Big Tobacco Washington DC lobbyist, Nick Naylor. His incredible ability to be morally flexible makes him a very likeable (if inherently despicable) character. But before you see any of the movie per se, the film’s opening titles left me awe struck. They were just fantastic. Created by Shadowplay Studio, the several minute long sequence so perfectly captures the graphic design elements that make up distinctive cigarette packaging. While I’ve never really paid that much attention to cigarette packaging before, every segment is bang on. From the typefaces selected and colour arrangments I realised that cigarette packaging have such a distintive visual language of their own. Enough even that if you pay enough attention to the references that span decades, you can recreate it faithfully.

The whole title sequence is available here.

Over a tasty, toasted sub, I watched one of the strangest movie to date. I call it a movie since it features a series of still images, played consecutively such that it appears as though the pictures are “moving” and the people are “talking”. Other than that, it’s a movie in the weakest sense as it doesn’t feature a discernable plot, cast is basically made up of Kelly’s mates and the dialogue is sung instead of spoken. In R Kelly’s own words, this movie is in fact a “hip-hopera”.

I had only heard of “Trapped in the Closet” in hushed tones to this point. Hushed tones that quickly develop into giggles once some of the gems of the story get described. (And don’t worry the link at the bottom will take you to a nice collection of clips.) I am only left wondering why it’s so strangely watchable?

Is it the way that R Kelly sings every line of every character with just continuous melody?
Is it that he can manage to make ‘bitch please you must be trippin’ into a softly sung verse?
Is it the way that each chapter comes to a nail biting teeth clenching crecendo?
Or is it perhaps that a character called Bridget is used as a cheap rhyming device to introduce a midget?

But after today I am only left wondering why did he make this film? Why didn’t someone long into the production of this say, “What the fuck is going on? This story makes no sense! Please tell me this is meant to be a comedy!”

All this and more might get answered after the jump.

I just watched a remarkable film, made in 2000, by Marc Singer, called “Dark Days”, with an mood setting score by DJ Shadow (Josh Davis). Filmed in a very graphic black and white, looking like an illustration at times, it tells the story of a number of men and women that lived under Penn Station in New York City. Dealing with the incessant roar of passing Amtrak trains, these people go about there lives in a pedestrian routine that showed me how people can adjust to just about any circumstance.

The reasons for why a homeless person might find themselves homeless one day are numerous and complicated, but crack coccaine playing a factor in these homeless people’s lives, featured heavily in this documentary.

The definition of homeless shown through living example, can mean a number of things. It can be a state of mind. It can be a situation that one isn’t willing to admit isn’t ‘temporary’ anymore. For some, it could just mean not having running water. A notable aspect of the film is the care to which a lot of the people shown took care of their humble surrounding and themselves. They went about their lives, eating, cooking, cleaning; doing common domestic chores as anyone would. Many said that they were glad to have a permanent shelter as they did, as opposed to other homeless that are living exposed, top side, in parks.

The film’s effectiveness at humanising the homeless in the movie was heart felt and it turns out that Marc Singer’s reasoning behind making the film was to provide some means to help directly those that he saw. A first time film maker, he enlisted the help of many of the subterranean Penn Station residents, to make an impromptu film crew of them. Begging favours for access to editing suites and shooting on borrowed 16mm stock, the film does ultimately help those featured. And it’s in the last few mintues of the film we hear with visible happiness, that these people considered those times living underground, to be dark days indeed.