Marxist Film Theory

What is Marxist film theory?

Marxist film theory is the opposition to traditional Hollywood narrative structures in which it shuns featuring a singular protagonist and promotes group decision making. Essentially Marxist films will promote marxist ideas through film such as far right political views and believe Hollywood narratives promote capitalism.


How I think it has influenced my work.

When reflecting upon my rough cut I found it interesting that I had structered my narrative in a very Hollywood style in the sense it revolved around one protagonist and his represented the story from his perspective. I had also used shots of the character eating the well known "snickers" and drinking "Coke".
Furthermore I used the ultimately original male protagonist... These aspects generally popped into my head whilst brainstorming and I didn't question their relativity.

Initially I generally regarded myself as a independant thinker, whereas this research revealed to me how much my ideas can be influenced by what i've been watching and also as a result of advertising. Hopefully I will be able to consider these factors next time im going through the brain storming creative process, as this was quite a scary revelation.

Shoot 4

This is hopefully my final scheduled film shoot to gather the required footage for my short film.

This shoot included reshooting the panning shot which I felt went well, the only issue I had encountered is that I was unable to get the same SLR camera and had to settle for a slightly smaller version which means I will have to try to mitigate this during post-production.

The filming went well and I felt I was well prepared with props and shooting schedule regardless of the SLR camera issue. I employed the same technique which had worked well in previous shoots in which I prepared a small list of shots I needed and had sketched some of them out.

This helps me to get straight down to shooting the specific shots and angles I needed.

A further problem I had when filming was that I needed a shot of the mobile showing the protagonist receiving a text from his father. When I was filming the close up it was reflecting a lot of light which resulted in not really being able to see the text and also showing me in the reflection. To combat this I may try taking it again with a polarising lens to reduce this negative effect or perhaps I will animate the phones screen into a full screen shot. This would be an interesting extreme close up and should work as it follows a shot of the protagonist taking out his phone and looking at it.

Feedback

I received some feedback on some of my filming:

• A pan on one of my opening shots had a judder about mid way. I could either reshoot it or cut it into two shots. I will try the cut too see what it looks like but I will reshoot the scene in my upcoming final shoot, so I have both to choose from.
• I was suggested about adding in a final shot of wiping away the water from the shop counter. This could symbolise the end of the ghosts existence and is a nice way to end the short with a meaningful shot.