Meirelles as Autuer

Meirelles as auteur

Background :

Fernando Meirelles was born November 9, 1955 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His father is a gastroenterologist who travelled to Asia and North America often allowed Meirelles to have experience of different cultures. At 12 he was given a movie camera as a gift, and the hobby continued ever since.

Other films :

• City of God
• The constant Gardener
• Blindness
• Maids
  

Critical acclaim :

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director in 2004 for his work in City of God also was nominated for a golden globe best director award in 2005 for the constant Gardener.

In 2004, at the Cannes Festival, city of God received four nominations: Best Director (Fernando Meirelles) - Best Adapted Screenplay - Best Photography - Best Editing.

City of God - research task

What type of county is Brazil ?

What is it's demographic ?

The population of Brazil is approximately 190 Million

The country is predominantly of Roman Catholicism faith and has the world's largest Catholic population.

The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.

What is it famous for ?

Brazil is most famous for football with the most world cup wins ever currently standing at 5 `

What do you know about it's past ?

It was formally owned by Portugal and is the only Portuguese talking language in the whole of the Americas

What is the capital of Brazil ?

Brasília or Brasilia(common English spelling) is now the capital of Brazil taking over from Rio de Janeiro which translate to 'River of January'.

Brasilia is the fourth largest city in Brazil and is listed as a worlds heritage site it also host 123 embassies

Short film Urban,power,poverty

We created a short film showing the power and poverty we live with each day in our urban society.

We decided to break the film in to three sections instead of having a montage of images to emphasise the importance of each way of life.

Throughout the film we added numerous quotes which related to what we was trying to show on screen these quotes came from poets and authors from different backgrounds with different up bringings, at different stages in history, connoting that their is always a struggle between poverty and riches no matter the society.

We started with a close up of the postcode of our area denoting to the audience straight a way that we are in a urban well built up area followed by a panning shot of a road giving the audience a sense of location. For the music of the urban section we chose a hip-hop beat as this is often associated with Urban,city life and we felt enticed the audience into the film as it was very up beat and energetic. This was thrown into contrast as we quickly swapped to the poverty section through a fade out with a quote in red over the fade making it stand out and almost forcing you to read it. The music was also changed to a more heart felt track, we picked this track as we felt it made the audience sympathise with what was being shown making them connect with our film more. We also used realistic locations such as an estate and a bridge to help show that poverty is all around us and we can't just ignore it. For the final section we decided to put power there and start it by showing expensive cars as power is often linked to being wealthy then later moved on to authority figures in society with a met officer and ambulance being shown connoting the power of the government since they have a say over anything we can or can't do. For the music we chose a track by Kanye west titled 'power' as like the title says its all about power so it was perfect for this section and hits out at people having too much power which unfortunately is often the case in the real world. We ended the film on a quote saying 'At the end of the match the king and the pawn go back inside the same box' leaving the audience thinking about the meaning of this which for me shows that no matter your authority or power in the end were all still the same.

If I could pick a aspect of this work to improve I would choose how the music interlocks with each other as its quite blunt and for me brings the quality of the piece of work down.