Since it's been a while since I posted any of my prior work on here I thought I'd show some of the films produced last year on the Extended Degree in Media course. These films served as good creative practice that has helped me this year.
"The Policeman and his 'Balls'"
The first film I every made for university was for a project in which we had to produce a film based on an urban myth, my contribution to this film was sourcing the story we would base it on, provided the policeman's outfit (from where I work) and of course acted in it. While at the time it was interesting to work in such a way that we hadn't done previously in retrospect it feels very amateur: The white balance and exposure constantly changes (due to the time of day it was filmed at and the lack of ANY white balancing) due to a lack of audio equipment and the music is too loud, the editing looks amateur (with Windows Movie Maker and a change in aspect ratio), the sound design is awful (the background noise drowns out the dialogue) and the acting on my part is bad as I keep looking at the camera, (the cameramen were snickering the whole time). That being said it was quite fun to do and it was an interesting outing for our first project.
"The Terror Mutant Robots"
This project was produced entirely by myself, the brief was to create something that resembled the style of a particular filmmaker or genre. For this I chose the style of B-movies from the fifties in which a lot of badly acted and written sci-fi films were shot with virtually no budget, rather than producing an entire movie I decided it would be more practical just to make a trailer for one. I watched some trailers for this type of movie (like "THEM!", "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still") as well as the movie "Be Kind Rewind". All the special effects shots were done in front of a blue screen using Dalek models, Star Wars figures and just general bits and bobs, the effects are deliberately bad and cheesy and the use of stock footage and over the top narration only add to the campiness. On the whole I'm personally proud of it. (Even though it looks crap, I spelt 'Mutant' wrong twice!).
"The Times are Changing"
This film was mostly inspired by the opening credits of "Watchmen", we were tasked to make a film about time in some way, being a sucker for history I chose to do it on the changing face of Sheffield, using footage from "Sheffield a City on the Move" and other documentaries I think it shows a good comparison of how much the town has changed, I just wish I could have made some of the shots match up better.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Decided
After a meeting the director has decided to make a film based around the notion that whilst Liverpool was the city of culture a few years ago it has more recently been labelled England's most deprived city, looking at the very best and worst of what the city has to offer at different points in the day told in a poetic style.
I will look at what happened during the time Liverpool was the city of culture and if any special events took place. Once I see the director's treatment I will try and produce a shot list, a schedule and risk assessment as well as print off consent forms for if we have interviews.
The editor and myself attended the production meeting and booked out our sound equipment (our cameraman will be using his own camera for filming).
I will look at what happened during the time Liverpool was the city of culture and if any special events took place. Once I see the director's treatment I will try and produce a shot list, a schedule and risk assessment as well as print off consent forms for if we have interviews.
The editor and myself attended the production meeting and booked out our sound equipment (our cameraman will be using his own camera for filming).
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Documentary ideas
After a meeting with some members of the group we have debated some ideas that we think could be used to make a short documentary about Liverpool or a news story about it.
liverpool-is-england-s-most-deprived-city-says-new-report
Although recently Liverpool was the city of culture and is undergoing redevelohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifpments to improve its image it is still listed as one of the most deprived cities in England, this idea could be used in a poetic style and juxtapose imagery of both deprived areas of Edge Lane and other areas and prosperous areas such as Liverpool 1 and the waterfront and feature interviews with residents offering their views on the city's distinction and notoriety. The different areas could be looked at during different times of day and weather permitting different lighting.
occupy-liverpool-set-up-chavasse-park-camp-in-liverpool-one
The "occupy city craze" seems to be sweeping the nation at this point with morehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif and more people protesting against capitalism by camping in public areas. Making a film about these demonstrators could be interesting as many different viewpoints could be represented with interviews from each side of the argument and we could also ask the locals what they think of the protests.
titanic-ties-that-bound-tragic-liner-to-liverpool
Although the Titanic itself didn't visit Liverpool a lot of the engineers who perished when she sank were from the city. With the 100th anniversary of the ship's fateful maiden voyage I think a slightly poetic and collage documentary would be interesting to do, with clips of the White Star's old HQ, other dockland buildings and the waterfront, there could be interviews with people concerning what they think the disaster means for Liverpool and possibly a look in the maritime museum. The only downside is that the Titanic isn't usually assosiated with Liverpool, there can't be any interviews with survivors for obvious reasons and the premise may not fill 5 minutes.
These ideas are subject to change as more can be bought to the table and existing ones can be adapted on.
I have also set up a Facebook page for group members to make suggestions and communicate without having to physically meet up.
liverpool-is-england-s-most-deprived-city-says-new-report
Although recently Liverpool was the city of culture and is undergoing redevelohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifpments to improve its image it is still listed as one of the most deprived cities in England, this idea could be used in a poetic style and juxtapose imagery of both deprived areas of Edge Lane and other areas and prosperous areas such as Liverpool 1 and the waterfront and feature interviews with residents offering their views on the city's distinction and notoriety. The different areas could be looked at during different times of day and weather permitting different lighting.
occupy-liverpool-set-up-chavasse-park-camp-in-liverpool-one
The "occupy city craze" seems to be sweeping the nation at this point with morehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif and more people protesting against capitalism by camping in public areas. Making a film about these demonstrators could be interesting as many different viewpoints could be represented with interviews from each side of the argument and we could also ask the locals what they think of the protests.
titanic-ties-that-bound-tragic-liner-to-liverpool
Although the Titanic itself didn't visit Liverpool a lot of the engineers who perished when she sank were from the city. With the 100th anniversary of the ship's fateful maiden voyage I think a slightly poetic and collage documentary would be interesting to do, with clips of the White Star's old HQ, other dockland buildings and the waterfront, there could be interviews with people concerning what they think the disaster means for Liverpool and possibly a look in the maritime museum. The only downside is that the Titanic isn't usually assosiated with Liverpool, there can't be any interviews with survivors for obvious reasons and the premise may not fill 5 minutes.
These ideas are subject to change as more can be bought to the table and existing ones can be adapted on.
I have also set up a Facebook page for group members to make suggestions and communicate without having to physically meet up.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Documentary Viewing materials:
As one project is done another raises its head, this time it's in the form of a documentary, to be shot in Liverpool. To give us inspiration we've watched some short documentaries of differing styles and subjects:
Depicting life in Kabul, Afghanistan for a group of young skateboard enthusiasts this film is short and simple, showing an activity that many won't think of when talking about Afghanistan making the film feel unique, it uses this to its advantage, using juxtaposition of the fun loving children against a war torn backdrop, with soldiers, military equipment and derelict streets and surprisingly for a documentary it features likable characters that are distinct and grow on the audience. My only complaint is that it often feels too staged, with some of the things shot it is obvious that they couldn't have just done it spontaneously and some planning must have been required.
Telling the story of an aging man who is instantly likable from his first few lines this film made me want to hear more about what he had to say. Although slightly lacking in focus (a broad area is covered but not expanded upon in great detail) it is heart warming to see what happened during this man's life and although the film ends on a bit of a downer he doesn't seem to be too emotionally affected by it. This is a traditionally styled documentary that features composed interviews and no visable or audable off camera input.
Another film with an upbeat vibe to it; a man who holds the record for time spent laughing visits Britain's gloomiest town and tries to lighten the mood. The man tries to show that problems and difficulties can be overcome with laughter as this man has had some unfortunate events happen to him in the past. Although this film is trying to be charming and it makes most of the time it's given (3 minute wonder) I personally found it slightly odd how someone just goes around laughing constantly.
Depicting life in Kabul, Afghanistan for a group of young skateboard enthusiasts this film is short and simple, showing an activity that many won't think of when talking about Afghanistan making the film feel unique, it uses this to its advantage, using juxtaposition of the fun loving children against a war torn backdrop, with soldiers, military equipment and derelict streets and surprisingly for a documentary it features likable characters that are distinct and grow on the audience. My only complaint is that it often feels too staged, with some of the things shot it is obvious that they couldn't have just done it spontaneously and some planning must have been required.
Telling the story of an aging man who is instantly likable from his first few lines this film made me want to hear more about what he had to say. Although slightly lacking in focus (a broad area is covered but not expanded upon in great detail) it is heart warming to see what happened during this man's life and although the film ends on a bit of a downer he doesn't seem to be too emotionally affected by it. This is a traditionally styled documentary that features composed interviews and no visable or audable off camera input.
Another film with an upbeat vibe to it; a man who holds the record for time spent laughing visits Britain's gloomiest town and tries to lighten the mood. The man tries to show that problems and difficulties can be overcome with laughter as this man has had some unfortunate events happen to him in the past. Although this film is trying to be charming and it makes most of the time it's given (3 minute wonder) I personally found it slightly odd how someone just goes around laughing constantly.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Experimental film: Just about finished.
Well, the experimental film is finally finished and ready to hand in. Overall I would say that this project has been interesting to say the least, working with somebody new and in a genre that is alien to me. However, with the project being of that genre I am unsure of how it will be received and critiqued. I also wish that the film was more technically sound, there is a problem with the aspect ratio due to the fact that the film was shot on two different cameras and an error might have occurred during the importing process (I feel ashamed of this as I think I should be beyond silly technical errors by now).
That being said the production process has provided me with more experience in working with others and I will learn from the mistakes made and critical analysis to make my future films more competent.
Some shots of the editing process:
- Cutting and speeding up the paper shreds to spell "The End" (not the most original idea but interesting none the less)
- Chroma Keying the footage to make the apple stay green while everything else is desaturated (in a similar style to 'Sin City')
After watching the film back again I think there is inadvertently a sort of 1920's silent movie feel to it, with black and white images, some jerky movement and music from that era. I also find it slightly freaky how the music and images seem to sync with each other (in the edit the track seemed to automatically sync with the footage we'd shot).
In terms of what roles we allocated ourselves for the production as mentioned before it was more difficult than I hoped to specialise roles as our group was a man short, that being said I had roles in:
- Camera operating (during day one of filming)
- Writing
- Producing
- Secondary editing (my partner did more than me)
I wish I could have specialised more and will try to do so on the next group project.
That being said the production process has provided me with more experience in working with others and I will learn from the mistakes made and critical analysis to make my future films more competent.
Some shots of the editing process:
- Cutting and speeding up the paper shreds to spell "The End" (not the most original idea but interesting none the less)
- Chroma Keying the footage to make the apple stay green while everything else is desaturated (in a similar style to 'Sin City')
After watching the film back again I think there is inadvertently a sort of 1920's silent movie feel to it, with black and white images, some jerky movement and music from that era. I also find it slightly freaky how the music and images seem to sync with each other (in the edit the track seemed to automatically sync with the footage we'd shot).
In terms of what roles we allocated ourselves for the production as mentioned before it was more difficult than I hoped to specialise roles as our group was a man short, that being said I had roles in:
- Camera operating (during day one of filming)
- Writing
- Producing
- Secondary editing (my partner did more than me)
I wish I could have specialised more and will try to do so on the next group project.
Monday, 13 February 2012
Experimental project: Shot list
The above item is the rough shot list that Jordan and myself conceived, so we'd have an idea of what we were going to shoot, as we thought a storyboard would be impractical and difficult to produce when we weren't certain what we were going to film, instead we got a list of ideas for shots we thought would look interesting when editing to change the motion whether it be slow, fast or reversed and worked from there.
We have also listed what editing techniques we could use later down the line in post production.
Influences for Experimental Film
Finding influences for a film that can be about as much or little as you like is more difficult than it sounds, and in the case of this film I have found it increasingly difficult to find influences for our 'motion' based film as the experimental genre to me seems almost alien and I find it hard to draw on films of that genre to influence what I do. That being said I have drawn on several films and in some instances just clips to help the project.
"Man with a Movie Camera" (1921) was revolutionary when it was first released, created by Dziga Vertov the film tells the story of a day in the Soviet Union using seemingly unrelated shots of static objects, people and daily life. At a time where realist filmmakers who believed editing was corrupting and filmmakers pioneering montage were in heated debates about cinema's future. Vertov disliked the idea of a conventional story, instead shooting this film in the style of a newsreel, this early example of Cinéma vérité is the influence for the non-continual editing style that our film has.
Seeing things happen in slow motion has always fascinated me, where something at normal speed may be mundane and something nobody would look twice at, it almost takes on another dimension and becomes interesting to watch (at least for me), whether a slowed down shot is to show an action in great detail, to let the audience marvel at the complex movement or to empathise an emotion slow motion makes almost anything seem like it has a rhythm to it, and make things that in normal motion are too quick or insignificant to register look all the more impressive.
One way of seeing movement that we'll probably never see without the help of editing software are things going in reverse; everything we do has a different look and style when going in reverse; water, smoke, eating and most notably breaking stuff, seeing objects repair themselves or someone throwing up the food in such a way is facsinating and is garenteed to make the audience react.
For example:
Fernand Leger - Ballet mecanique (1924)
Ballet-Mecanique has been the primary experimental influence on our film, as it features non-continual editing, a variety of different shots with the imagary ranging from conventional to just bizarre, the audeince never know what shot's coming next, if it's one they've seen before or whether it'll be a new one.
"Man with a Movie Camera" (1921) was revolutionary when it was first released, created by Dziga Vertov the film tells the story of a day in the Soviet Union using seemingly unrelated shots of static objects, people and daily life. At a time where realist filmmakers who believed editing was corrupting and filmmakers pioneering montage were in heated debates about cinema's future. Vertov disliked the idea of a conventional story, instead shooting this film in the style of a newsreel, this early example of Cinéma vérité is the influence for the non-continual editing style that our film has.
Seeing things happen in slow motion has always fascinated me, where something at normal speed may be mundane and something nobody would look twice at, it almost takes on another dimension and becomes interesting to watch (at least for me), whether a slowed down shot is to show an action in great detail, to let the audience marvel at the complex movement or to empathise an emotion slow motion makes almost anything seem like it has a rhythm to it, and make things that in normal motion are too quick or insignificant to register look all the more impressive.
One way of seeing movement that we'll probably never see without the help of editing software are things going in reverse; everything we do has a different look and style when going in reverse; water, smoke, eating and most notably breaking stuff, seeing objects repair themselves or someone throwing up the food in such a way is facsinating and is garenteed to make the audience react.
For example:
Fernand Leger - Ballet mecanique (1924)
Ballet-Mecanique has been the primary experimental influence on our film, as it features non-continual editing, a variety of different shots with the imagary ranging from conventional to just bizarre, the audeince never know what shot's coming next, if it's one they've seen before or whether it'll be a new one.
Monday, 6 February 2012
Garageband test
Recently we were introduced to a sound design software called 'Garageband', which can be used to make MIDI files and foley sound effects either not captured on camera or that need to be recaptured for quality reasons. We were given the task of rescoring one of the scenes we had been provided with, I personally chose a scene from the 2002 remake of 'Solaris' as although space is a soundless vacuum I like it because it can be interpreted in a variety of ways sound wise (such as the ballet music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the “Hollywood” interpretation a la “Star Wars”). I opted for a dark, errie and mysterious feel reminiscent of the later scenes in "2001" and in that respect I think it works well, having not seen the film prior (I have since seen the scene in its original form and at the risk of sounding arrogant I think my version is superior, considering what I was given to work with).
06/02/2012: Experimental Film report, teething troubles
Well, with just two weeks to go and several ideas being bounced around I think that my partner and myself (despite not meeting yet and communicating purely over Facebook) have settled on an idea: Making a film composed entirely of still frames or fractions of quick cut film, giving the illusion of a stop motion video. Perhaps experimenting into how a film plays out when there is limited animation between points of interest in a film or just trying out a way of filming which is new to us.
Maybe something like this:
With frames missing or running at a different rate a film can be interesting to watch and will probably be more interesting to try and make.
Also, here's our initial ideas sheet:
Maybe something like this:
With frames missing or running at a different rate a film can be interesting to watch and will probably be more interesting to try and make.
Also, here's our initial ideas sheet:
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Another review: Four Lions.
When a film is set close to home there is automatically a novelty in spotting local areas, this is just one of the elements that makes 'Four Lions' one of the funniest films I have seen in a long time.
Set in Sheffield (or the "Islamic State of Tinsley") the film follows a group of inapt terrorists fighting for Jihad, over the course of the film the group are sent to a Pakistani training camp, plan attacks in several locations and fail miserably at making threatening videos.
These characters, despite their diabolical plans are very likeable and the whitty banter that goes on between them make you sympathize with them and you actually end up ROOTING for the TERRORISTS. Their silly plans for attacks and avoiding detection are accompanies by their occasional use of subtitles when calling eachother explixit names (whilst speaking in their language) which makes for some extremely funny moments.
What makes this film work is that it takes something that many consider a threat to society and not just makes a mock but also makes you care about what happens to them, making it all the more sadder towards the end of the film when they realise what they have to do. The localisation as mentioned prior added to the entertainment value, with Warp Films in charge of production several recognisable locations were featured, from local landmarks to small shops, the characters also speak with Yorkshire accents, again adding to the comedic value.
Four Lions is a fantastic film and a great modern example of satire.
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