Term 2 - Art Cinema 1

Why do we move the camera?

We've looked a lot at Andrey Tarkovskiy and how he uses single shots and still cameras and what effect it has on his audience. 

In last weeks lesson we looked at Hitchcock and how he used the camera in Vertigo, we watched the scene  where Scottie follows Madeline (for about the 50th time) and looked closely at how Hitchcock moved the camera to show the audience exactly what he wanted to be seen. He uses two different methods to show the audience two different things, first he shows us what Scottie is looking at, Madeline's flowers followed by the painting of the flowers, to do this he tilts the camera up and pans in, next he shows us Madeline's hair followed once again by the painting of the hair, this time zooming in to the painting from over Madeline's shoulder. These two methods are extremely similar but to the audience they mean different things, The first we think that Scottie looks up (as the camera tilts) and the camera pans in to give the audience a closer look, the second time is almost as if Scottie steps towards Madeline, gets close to her, a voyeuristic technique which Hitchcock is famous for. These camera movements are ones that we have grown used to watching, they make sense to us, we know what the camera is trying to tell us along with the editing. 

This week we looked at the film Breathless. Here again the camera is used in a different way, the use of Jump cuts at first can make us feel a little disorientated but here it makes the film an arty 'french new wave' film. An experiment (a successful one). 

The film edits between the conversation of the two main characters however the camera stays in the same place so its as if the background is just randomly changing. For me this style is very different from what I'm used to watching but its extremely interesting,  I would love to use this in my projects as a kind of experiment but with all these methods they can all go terribly wrong. 

Hitchcock made a film called 'rope' which was all filmed in one shot, he himself said he didn't like it and that it was mearly an experiment. So if Hitchcock was experimenting in film then I should defiantly give it a shot. 

Another example of a one shot scene from Breathless (1959)

New Module

In our new module we have all been mixed up so we have all got different people to work with, its going to be good working with different people and having new experiences filming with them.

We talked about what film meant to us and that film can be anything, not just something from the cinema.

Some examples of what film meant to us from class;

"Telling a Story" "Sending a message" "video + Sound" "perception" "interpretation" "Expressing emotions"

We discussed how even an advert or campaign can mean the same things as 'film' does to us. 

Why are we taking film, why didn't we choose 'video' production. We thought about what the difference is between film and video and if there is any difference at all. 

It was an interesting lesson that made me think about why I had chosen film, I love films and making films, but I'm still thinking about what I want from films, I could make anything from adverts to silly youtube videos. I know I don't want to work in Hollywood, but do I need to make feature films even in the uk, especially when there is so much more going on in the film world. 

I'm really looking forward to this new Module as we have a lot more freedom, working in groups of two will mean we can put more of ourselves in our videos and get a lot more artistic, we can experiment, even make animations of just use photos. 

Can't wait to get started with our first project; 'Space'

Brief 6, The Gift

For this project we mixed roles a couple of times but it ended up being; Claire as Director, Sofiane as Camera operator, Adam as lights and editor, myself as sound/props/ story boarder and Francisco as Producer.



This was by far the most challenging project due to a series of unfortunate events.
We hired an actress who didn't show up on the day of shooting,
Francisco our producer disappeared for a month of pre production,
and Sofiane our original director dropped out due to creative differences,

However I'm glade these things happened as now we know what we really need to do to make a successful things. There are many faults with the films, under confident actresses and a couple of dodgy edits, even out of tune music, but now we know the mistakes we have made we can learn from them.
Specific things I have learnt are how to export the movie properly (it seems obvious that if we filmed in frame rate 25 we need to export it so) but I'm still getting use to the mac system and final cut pro.
I learnt that even if the camera operator says the boom isn't it shot, sometimes it still is.
Another thing I learnt from this project is that if you have a problem about anybody you absolutely have to tell them about it other wise the project can be jeopardise.
Sound again was an issue, there is a buzzing sort of sound when the actors or music isn't play and we spend a long time whilst filming trying to sort it out and in the editing suit but in the end had to leave it, theres a DMW blog that we can follow now which has some tutorials so hopefully by our next project we will get the sound to a good standard.

Overall I'm quite proud of this project, I think that we got the message across quite well, but the last scene of the film is a little off due to a lack of shots and dodgy camera work. But I know that me and my fellow crew worked really hard especially on the shooting day and a lot of team work and friendship came out o this project.

Macbeth Retelling

Macbeth:

On a calm early morning, three women unlock the school gates for Cawdor elementary school. As they walked into the school kitchens the women discussed the fate of Macbeth, They suspected they would be seeing him by the end of the day. The dinner lady’s laughed and chucked the turkey twizzles into the ovens.
As deputy headmaster of Cawdor School, George Macbeth always though of himself as an academic man, someone whom others could look up to. His wife, Lauren Macbeth thought he should aim rather higher, why stop at deputy when he was so close to the top, after all, it was Macbeth who had suggested all the changes around here.
George arrived at school early as usual with his best friend Ben,
Duncan was late as usual, he would normally let Macbeth come in first and set up. No need to get his hands dirty before any parents arrived. Banquo arrives with Macbeth and together they go about replying to emails and getting various paperwork done.
By the time Duncan arrives at school most of the hard work is done and the teachers settle for lunch. Macbeth and Ben are the last to be served, and are sent into the kitchens to get their food. Three women stand before them, telling George and Banquo their future in a game show style way, Macbeth will become Head Teacher of Cawdor and Ben’s children and his children’s children will be forever successful.
George tells his wife about what the dinner lady’s had said and immediately she hatches a plan to murder Duncan after the school fate the next evening.
George manages to kill Duncan by stabbing him in the neck with a metal ruler. He leaves Duncan’s remains in a classroom and plants the ruler in some teaching assistant’s car.
Carl Macduff, one of the school governors discovers Duncan’s body and soon starts to suspect George.
Lauren starts to go mad, washing her hands repeatedly, she cry’s at night, George doesn’t see this, he only sees his own pain, Carl notice’s George is not himself and as George gets more and more suspicious he begins to argue with Ben eventually thinking that even his best friend is out to get him. He realizes that if he is going to succeed as head teacher he must kill Ben.
A school disco is organized in honor of Duncan, The children all attend and the money goes to a local charity in his memory, one of which is Bens oldest Son, Danny. Macbeth has it arranged that the father and son will be murder on the way home by the same two teaching assistants, Macbeth tells them that if they do not murder Ben and his son then he will turn them into the police for Duncan’s murder. On this same night Lauren driven mad by the children she sees at school, to her they look covered in blood, jumps off the top of the school.
Driven my madness over this Macbeth says he can see children moving towards him, he begins yelling and screaming, tormented by what he has done, Carl find him in the school kitchen looking for the 3 dinner lady’s, wanting to know what happens next in his miserable life. On hearing George’s confession, Carl stabs George in the neck with a meat knife. The police arrive.
The film ends with Bens wife finding out her unborn child is boy.

Brief 5, Recreation of a scene

This weeks group; Adam, Francisco, Mayang and myself, I was lighting and Camera in this project and I loved it.



For this project we chose a scene from the film, London to Brighton, one of my favourite british films, we chose it because it was real and gritty, and we had the room for it. The scene in the real film is set in a kitchen, but we managed to turn my student bedroom into quite a good replica. Also seeing as most of the shots are extremely close up the audiences attention is barley on the background at all.
Something which really let us down in this project was the lack of a good actor (no offence Thor, we thank you) However in the real version the actor is clearly a real Londoner, a lot older and frankly a good actor.
We had such an actor set up all ready for a shoot on tuesday, unfortunately on that day university decided to break down and we couldn't get equipment, we still had our other actors and decided we would have to change shoot but we lost our lead actor.
Other than that we tried hard on props and costumes and did quite well, getting the cans and bottles and dressing Mundeer in an almost matching costume as in the real film. Luckily the two guys in the other room were topless so they were easy to dress.
Problems we had when showing the film were sound, however the sound is fine on this version and when we edited, so once again we had problems showing in class, looks like we didn't learn from our interview exercise however I'm pretty sure this can't happen again.
I really enjoyed being camera operator for this project as there is a lot of movement that I had to be careful to follow, but because we were in such a tight space it was hard for the director to come and check the frame before shooting.
Lighting as well was good, but as you can see not quite spot on, there are bits where Arielle's face is almost completely shadowed,  which never happens in the actual film.
This project has made me very excited about making films which are entirely our own, our own story, script, it would make us all feel like we have achieved something on our own.

The Sacrifice 1986

Mondays lesson introduced Andrey Tarkovskiy another Russian Director who is known in the film world for his use of long takes (often using a whole film reel), going against 'regular' film rules, such as breaking continuity and having actors look directly at the camera.
The Sacrifice was an interesting watch, one which gave the audience a choice of ending, was Alexander mad, or did he really change the world by sleeping with his servant? Its up to us to decide.
What got me down about this film was how long Alexander would talk for, but then whats interesting about this is that during his long monolougs you tend to go off into your own head and imagine what he's talking about, whereas in the film itself, its just a long take of Alexander talking. After the film, David told us that quite often people will look back on the film and remember scenes that are not actually in the film, but have been made up, for instance, Alex tells a story about how he transforms his mothers garden, what is shown is just his face, but what is remembered is the imagery he describes. This is very interesting, was this Tarkovskiys intention? Or something that happened. And was it because the monolog was extremely good, or just because, in my case, I got a little bit bored and had to get lost in my own head rather than give my full attention to the film.
The style of the film itself was extremely intricate, mainly set in the house, built for the film to the nearest detail made the film lovely to watch, the trees, the fields, the use of art for me made the film quite delicate. And then to see the whole house be burnt to the ground, after getting to know it well was unsettling. It made us wonder if he really needed to do it, or if he really was just a mad man.
Reading about the film after watching it made me realise what hard work went into shooting the film, the burning house apparently failed the first take and the camera ran out of reel. Having to rebuild and reshoot that whole scene must have taken some hardship from the cast and crew.

After growing up with blockbuster films and last term getting to know whats 'normal' and 'right' in the film world this film has somewhat muddled me, but I look forward to seeing move of Tarkovskiys work and some like it and in future making my own projects and being able to 'break' certain con formative rules.