Final Refeltion: Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? (2010)
Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? (2010) is a movie of historic proportions. This movie has changed the way Hollywood and Bollywood think of movies. Actually…that’s what we call wishful thinking. Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? is a film parody of The Karate Kid (1984), directed by John G. Avildsen. The Karate Kid tells a story of a teenager who is bullied and inorder to stop himself from being pushed around he learns karate. After being taught by a wise sensei how to defend himself, he is able to defeat the bully. In our (Cliff, Eric, Andrew, and me) movie we use the same story line of The Karate Kid, but without a Disney ending. Instead, my group used comedy to show how The Karate Kid would turn out in real life with different characters. We slowly build up the audiences hope that the main character will win in the end and then quickly destroy their hope by ending the movie with the bully beating up the protagonist for a second time. This movie contains more than another parady. It tells a story of a cohessive group effort, storyline, and incorperation of the knoledge this group has gained from a fascinating and integing film course.
Each group member had a role in Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully?. The actors were Andrew In, Eric Chen, and me. Cliff Fishler was the director and editor. Cliff wrote a brief outline to the movie, but much of the movie was improvised to achieve real emotions from the actors. Every one in the group contributed to Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully?. The person who deserves to win the MVP award, if there is one, in my group is Cliff Fishler. Due to his prior experience and knoledge of movie making he was able successfully direct and edit our film. We all came up with different aspects of the plot and setting of the movie, but Cliff was able to take all our visions and combine them into one jam packed film. My group was coehessive. There were no disputes or discrepencies. We all understood what we had to accomplish and knew our role in the film. We each gave advice on how to improve the film to its full potential. Due to our work ethics we were able to produce a film that had a captivating story line and comedic touch.
The characters in the film are Round Eye (the bully), played by me, Yoshi (the victum), played by Eric Chen, and Master Shoebee (the wise sensei), played by Andrew In. SPOILER ALERT! The establishing shot of the film is of Yoshi (Eric Chen) swinging on the a swing set in Grace Avenue Park, Great Neck. Then there is a cut to a low angle shot of Round Eye (me) who, while walking through the park notices Yoshi, yells at Yoshi and procedes to chase him for his lunch money. After takeling and beating up Yoshi, Round Eye takes his lunch money and throws it in the air with happiness (in other words he made it “rain”). After Round Eye leaves, Yoshi is approched by the wise sensie, Master Shoebee (Andrew In), who wears socks with his sandels. Yoshi begs for Master Shoebee to teach him karate, so he can beat up Round Eye. After short deliberation Master Shoebee agrees to teach him. Then there is a cut to a montage of Yoshi training with Master Shoebee in various locations around Great Neck. Once Yoshi is done training, he decides to confront Round Eye. Yoshi, starts the fight off strong and makes it seem as though he will win, but in the end he is no match for Round Eye. The movie’s closing shot is with Yoshi on the ground passed out. The comedic aspect of the movie is channeled through Yoshi. One example, is when Yoshi is training with Master Shoebee he uses a frozen turkey, might have been Butterball, to lift and build stregnth.
This project has taught me many things about the art of film. The most important of these lessons is the determination and tedious work needed to create a successful film. When a person watches a movie, they sometimes don’t take into account that a scene could take hours or days to film. This is so because inorder for movies to be polished every aspect of scene must be perfect. In producing Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? I had to do some scenes ten or twenty times. Also, the day we decided to film could have been the coldesst day in my life. Everyone in my goup was freezing and anyoed at the amount of takes we had to do for each scene. This experience showed me how hard it is to be an actor or director. The process of making the film was made easier through what we learned in class. For example, we learned that often directors want make characters look mosterous through low angle shots. When Round Eye is introduced there is a low angle shot to portray a monsterous being. We also used our class knoledge to incorperate five cinematic aspects to our film.
One of the cinematic techniques in our film is the montage. A montage is a sequence of abrupt alternating scenes that are used to convey an associated idea and envoke an emotional response from the audience. The montage is used in Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? when Yoshi is training with Master Shoebee. It shows shot after shot of Yoshi running, pushing, and pulling. This montage builds up the audiences hope and convinces the audience that Yoshi can beat Round Eye. It also allows the audience to become attached to Yoshi. Another cinematic technique we incorperated was the stolen shot. A stolen shot is a scence shot without legally asking to film in a location that requires for one to ask for permision before shooting. In Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? the stolen scene is in the montage. When Yoshi is using the frozen turkey as a weight. That scence was filmed in the Walmart of Great Neck. We never asked permision to film in this location and when we tried to catch another shot we were asked to stop or leave the store. The effect of the stolen shot is that often a stolen shot is taken in famous place, such as the capitol or United Nations building. We knew Walmart was well known to our fellow students so we decided to throw in a treat for those who notice it in the movie as do many other directors do in their movies. A third cinematic technique we used was the cameo. A cameo is when a famous person shows up in a movie for a very few moments. It serves as a treat for the audience because if they notice the famous person in the movie they feel rewarded. Our cameo was a director’s cameo. When Yoshi decides to go fight Round Eye the camera shows Round Eye talking with another kid. You might not have known or caught this, but the kid Round Eye was talking to was the director, Cliff Fishler. Another cinematic aspect we have added is the low and high angle shots. A low angle shot is when the camera is at a lower level or ant level and pointed up at an object. A high angle shot is when the camera is above or has a birds eye view and is pointed down towards an object. As I stated earlier in the paper the low angle shot is used to make things appear big and ominous. Round Eye is introduced this way. The movie also ends with a high angle shot. High angle shots are used in Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? to make the viewers feel sympathetic towards a character. The closing shot is a high angle shot that shows Round Eye standing over Yoshi. The viewers end up feeling sad for Yoshi. The last cinematic technique used is the long take. A long take is a shot that is continuous for an extended period of time. The long take in the film is one of the shorter ones I have seen, but never the less it conveys the same message to the adudiance. This technique is seen right before Round Eye and Yoshi battle. The camera starts from Round Eye’s view and travels around Yoshi and back facing Round Eye. It gives the effect to the viewer that they are living vicariously through Round Eye and then Yoshi. Yoshi is showing the moves he has learned in his lessons with Master Shoebee as the long take progresses. This part of the long take shows the audience how much he has progressed through out the film. It also makes the audience feel he has a chance to win this fight, just like in The Karate Kid.
Making Can You Teach Me How to Beat the Bully? was one of the most intreguing experiences of my life. I liked seeing what goes into making movies, but I do not see my self persuing a career in movie making. It was challenging, but fun at the same time.