For my next project I am definitely going to start preparing earlier. I need to write an entire script/storyboard/summary and I need the motivation to work hard on it.
I'm considering creating another video using all the extra footage. It would be good practice for other projects.
I really enjoyed having a definite role on this project; however I'm not sure I executed it 100% correctly as I don't know what the defining characteristics of my role were.. however I attempted to embody the role as best I could, and we did get everything done in time, so I can't have done too badly.
I'm looking forward to seeing the video with the sound completed tomorrow, as well as seeing what all the other groups have done; the brief had such a wide scope I am expecting a bunch of really interesting videos!
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Thoughts on Editing
Today I've been in to see how Poppy's been getting on with the editing. She's constructed a five-minute piece that does work, in my opinion. It flows well, it looks nice, and it keeps the spirit of the piece.
If I had edited it, I would have probably included different scenes, however, Poppy is the editor and so it's her decisions and her style that goes into our piece. While there are things I would have done differently, I am pleased with the result.
Peter also showed me some of the sounds he had recorded, and sequences he had edited, and I have to say they are very good. The sounds are very clean and fit with the theme of the piece very well - and the ones that needed to be funny are funny. I left him in peace to finish the rest of the soundtrack laying.
If I had edited it, I would have probably included different scenes, however, Poppy is the editor and so it's her decisions and her style that goes into our piece. While there are things I would have done differently, I am pleased with the result.
Peter also showed me some of the sounds he had recorded, and sequences he had edited, and I have to say they are very good. The sounds are very clean and fit with the theme of the piece very well - and the ones that needed to be funny are funny. I left him in peace to finish the rest of the soundtrack laying.
Post-shoot Thoughts
We shot over two days, in my flat. We had lighting equipment on hand to make up for the terrible quality lights, and used Peter's DSLR, which gave us a really nice quality video/photos.
We filmed a lot of scenes and I'm not sure we'll be able to use them all. Since Poppy is the editor she will now have free reign to use whichever shots and scenes she likes, while Peter will go off and record the sounds to accompany them.
We filmed a lot of scenes and I'm not sure we'll be able to use them all. Since Poppy is the editor she will now have free reign to use whichever shots and scenes she likes, while Peter will go off and record the sounds to accompany them.
Opening Sequence Storyboard
This is my storyboard for the opening sequence. The mug is going to be the object that links the human world and the object world, by having it's features appear after the flat's occupants have left.
Idea development
We decided to develop the film from a series of short sketches involving everyday household objects. After a production meeting, we came up with a variety of ideas:
- Shot glasses getting drunk
- Stationery scattered around a history textbook recreates war
- Unused object attempting suicide in a variety of ways
- How headphones become tangled
- Where your keys go
- How socks become odd
- Why your food disappears from the fridge in a shared flat
- Why your bed is always messy and unmade
- Objects that have fallen down the back of the sofa
- Threatening hairdryer that blows other objects away
We expect to film some of these and others that we come up with at a later date.
Stop Motion thoughts
After attempting to make a short video with cut paper, I realised how long it would take if we tried to use it for our film; I became so frustrated I had to stop long before I had finished. However, I do still like the idea of stop motion, and I have come up with an alternative idea.
I found these stickers in a pile of creative stuff in my room, and they gave me an idea; what about showing what our belongings get up to when we aren't in the room? After talking it over with the other members of my group, we decided to go with this idea.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Experimental Film Tutorial 1
Prior to the tutorial I had spoken to Peter and Poppy (the other members of my group) who had told me they would prefer to do sound design and camera/edit respectively. This works out great because we can all take on the roles we wanted to do!
In the tutorial Dom told us to have fun with ideas - basically do whatever we liked, and spend time forming an idea. He suggested using animation for part of or all of our film, which gave me an idea...
While I was at art college I spent a long time finding that particular "style" or "technique" that I was really good at, and on my very last project I must have found it because I achieved an A grade rather than the Cs and Ds I'd picked up on all the other projects. It was a technique based on the work of Rob Ryan (examples below):
I used his work as an inspiration for my own, which is shown in pieces I made (these are based on his pieces, which you can probably tell):
My own work developed on from this, more into intricacy and away from cartoons:
In the tutorial Dom told us to have fun with ideas - basically do whatever we liked, and spend time forming an idea. He suggested using animation for part of or all of our film, which gave me an idea...
While I was at art college I spent a long time finding that particular "style" or "technique" that I was really good at, and on my very last project I must have found it because I achieved an A grade rather than the Cs and Ds I'd picked up on all the other projects. It was a technique based on the work of Rob Ryan (examples below):
I used his work as an inspiration for my own, which is shown in pieces I made (these are based on his pieces, which you can probably tell):
My own work developed on from this, more into intricacy and away from cartoons:
I want to try and incorporate this technique with stop motion for film (I wanted to do something like it before but I never got round to it). I'm going to try this out with a simple papercut of a leaf/branch. I plan to stick it to a window pane and use my camcorder as a test run - I will roll it up, frame by frame, and then reverse the shots so it looks as if it is growing. I think this will take a while though so I might do it this weekend - I also might play with stop motion with simple objects to find out what I can achieve and how long it will take.
Experimental Film Seminar 1
Most of this session was spent watching experimental films (just in case nobody had researched them properly. Which was a fair assumption). I struggled with most of them because I simply kept writing them off as "weird" - things about them were putting me off watching them.
Ballet Mechanique - Fernand Leger
Mentioned in the article we were given to read, this is regarded as one of the first experimental films, and classed as something new and brilliant in it's day. Needless to say, I really didn't like it at all. It was an assault on my senses - I felt like it was trying to beat me up. It was very abstract and repetitive (I've always hated repetition in films; even when I watch documentaries I subconsciously pick out repeated clips and scoff at them). The music added to the chaos and made it even more nauseating.
Star Guitar - Chemical Brothers
In this music video, the footage is all gained from shooting from the window of a moving vehicle (mostly trains). The visuals match the audio - a key note or beat is marked on-screen by the image of a lampost, power line, etc. I liked this much more than most of the other films we viewed. I thought it was clever, however I think it needed more elements adding to make it more exciting and engaging all the way through (instead of until you have worked out the rules the visuals are following).
An Optical Poem - Oskar Fischinger
Similar to the Chemical Brothers' video, the visuals match the audio in this too - the cutouts of coloured shapes are meant to provide a visual representation of the music. I quite like this because the shapes and movements changed at various points, keeping me interested in what would happen next - it was also aesthetically pleasing.
Om - John Smith
This film has a simple concept - it begins with who we assume to be a monk, meditating. We see him in orange monk robes and smoke drifts from somewhere offscreen, purporting to be incense. He is humming "om", the sound we associate with monks and meditation. The context then changes, as a pair of hands with electric shears appear on screen and begin to cut his hair. The "om" sound we heard before now is attributed to the shears - while the sound hasn't changed, we now pinpoint it to be coming from the shears rather than the man. In the final part of the film, the barber finishes cutting the man's hair, and then removes the orange "robes", which turn out to be a hairdresser's cloak, and are covering a man in typical "skinhead" garb - fred perry polo shirt and braces, similar to the costumes in Shane Meadows' This Is England. We also discover that what we assumed was incense was actually a lit cigarette.
I found this film particularly engaging because of the way it changed the meaning of simple things through context - sounds and costume morphed into almost the opposite of what they had meant a moment before. I think this would be a great concept to play with.
Fisticuffs - Miranda Pennel
This film is centred around a brawl in a working men's club. Those involved in the brawl appear to be invisible to those around them, who are going about their business in spite of the destruction around them. I loved the use of overlaying clips in this - it created the scope for the action to be much snappier and more mind-boggling than it would have been otherwise.
Ballet Mechanique - Fernand Leger
Mentioned in the article we were given to read, this is regarded as one of the first experimental films, and classed as something new and brilliant in it's day. Needless to say, I really didn't like it at all. It was an assault on my senses - I felt like it was trying to beat me up. It was very abstract and repetitive (I've always hated repetition in films; even when I watch documentaries I subconsciously pick out repeated clips and scoff at them). The music added to the chaos and made it even more nauseating.
Star Guitar - Chemical Brothers
In this music video, the footage is all gained from shooting from the window of a moving vehicle (mostly trains). The visuals match the audio - a key note or beat is marked on-screen by the image of a lampost, power line, etc. I liked this much more than most of the other films we viewed. I thought it was clever, however I think it needed more elements adding to make it more exciting and engaging all the way through (instead of until you have worked out the rules the visuals are following).
An Optical Poem - Oskar Fischinger
Similar to the Chemical Brothers' video, the visuals match the audio in this too - the cutouts of coloured shapes are meant to provide a visual representation of the music. I quite like this because the shapes and movements changed at various points, keeping me interested in what would happen next - it was also aesthetically pleasing.
Om - John Smith
This film has a simple concept - it begins with who we assume to be a monk, meditating. We see him in orange monk robes and smoke drifts from somewhere offscreen, purporting to be incense. He is humming "om", the sound we associate with monks and meditation. The context then changes, as a pair of hands with electric shears appear on screen and begin to cut his hair. The "om" sound we heard before now is attributed to the shears - while the sound hasn't changed, we now pinpoint it to be coming from the shears rather than the man. In the final part of the film, the barber finishes cutting the man's hair, and then removes the orange "robes", which turn out to be a hairdresser's cloak, and are covering a man in typical "skinhead" garb - fred perry polo shirt and braces, similar to the costumes in Shane Meadows' This Is England. We also discover that what we assumed was incense was actually a lit cigarette.
I found this film particularly engaging because of the way it changed the meaning of simple things through context - sounds and costume morphed into almost the opposite of what they had meant a moment before. I think this would be a great concept to play with.
Fisticuffs - Miranda Pennel
This film is centred around a brawl in a working men's club. Those involved in the brawl appear to be invisible to those around them, who are going about their business in spite of the destruction around them. I loved the use of overlaying clips in this - it created the scope for the action to be much snappier and more mind-boggling than it would have been otherwise.
Experimental Film - A Hole In My Heart
Before I begin this - is didn't watch this whole film. I turned it off halfway through because it was too weird and was making my insides feel all slimy and dirty.
This is a Swedish film, and it has a narrative, but it has a lot of experimental conventions - at one point there is a sequence where the camera follows the lines and corners of the doorframes on the set with no apparent narrative element or reason. There are also sequences where the characters depict themselves in scenes using barbies and action figures, providing the dialogue via impressions of each other.
The plot follows an amateur porn film being made in someone's flat. The conversations between the characters were odd, and I wasn't sure if they were imagined, actually happened, or where somewhere in between. The nudity wasn't the tasteful or implied nudity I'm used to in films and I have to say it really turned my stomach. I felt it got in the way of the storyline and was too over-the-top and try hard. But then, that's just my opinion.
I've got a copy of this but I'm not sure I'll be watching the rest of it.
Inspiration; Editing in Music Videos
Over christmas I was listening to a lot of new music and came across the video for Skream & Example's Shot Yourself In The Foot Again. It's a dubstep track and has a lot of bass to it. The video is about a bloke going out drinking with is mates on his birthday, seemingly oblivious to his girlfriend sitting at home with a pile of presents and dinner cooked for him.
After watching it a couple of times I suddenly was drawn to the way they had edited it. It's almost like the editor was trying to merge music video editing with stop motion animation. As with most music videos, the visuals follow the beat, cutting in time with the music. However, in parts of the video, the beat is quite fast and loud, and scenes are edited with jump cuts - the movements of the actors jump forward faster than real time, giving a jerky, urgent feel.
I think this style of editing works really well with the song and is a really interesting way of editing, as well as being quite experimental. I'm not sure it will help to shape my project, but it's a good example of a different approach to editing.
After watching it a couple of times I suddenly was drawn to the way they had edited it. It's almost like the editor was trying to merge music video editing with stop motion animation. As with most music videos, the visuals follow the beat, cutting in time with the music. However, in parts of the video, the beat is quite fast and loud, and scenes are edited with jump cuts - the movements of the actors jump forward faster than real time, giving a jerky, urgent feel.
I think this style of editing works really well with the song and is a really interesting way of editing, as well as being quite experimental. I'm not sure it will help to shape my project, but it's a good example of a different approach to editing.
Experimental Film - Article
As part of our christmas break work, as well as reading over the brief, we were given an article about the experimental film genre to read. I must admit I found it really hard going and it took me several weeks to read it properly.
The main inspiration I take from the article is the point that experimental film really can be anything. I have found it quite hard so far to get my head around this concept, especially because I enjoy good narratives so much; I have been concocting stories in my head ever since I was a small child so the concept of anything without a storyline or plot is mildly mind-boggling. When I was told that experimental film is usually praised for not having a narrative, I pretty much could not understand how it works.
But according to this article, once you take away the narrative, you just replace it with an entirely different set of rules. For example, filmmakers may wish to explore the technicalities of the medium itself; the article mentions using pickling agents on negative film, using shots only a few frames long, or shooting until the camera runs out of film. It also talks of using any kind of images, like old newsreel footage and other found images (very much like "found object" art installations).
As I started this project I was apprehensive about not using a narrative, as that is how I tend to look at film (although I also appreciate some of the aesthetical beauty that can be found in films). However now I have read through this article I have a better understanding of the genre and am far more comfortable with the concept.
The main inspiration I take from the article is the point that experimental film really can be anything. I have found it quite hard so far to get my head around this concept, especially because I enjoy good narratives so much; I have been concocting stories in my head ever since I was a small child so the concept of anything without a storyline or plot is mildly mind-boggling. When I was told that experimental film is usually praised for not having a narrative, I pretty much could not understand how it works.
But according to this article, once you take away the narrative, you just replace it with an entirely different set of rules. For example, filmmakers may wish to explore the technicalities of the medium itself; the article mentions using pickling agents on negative film, using shots only a few frames long, or shooting until the camera runs out of film. It also talks of using any kind of images, like old newsreel footage and other found images (very much like "found object" art installations).
As I started this project I was apprehensive about not using a narrative, as that is how I tend to look at film (although I also appreciate some of the aesthetical beauty that can be found in films). However now I have read through this article I have a better understanding of the genre and am far more comfortable with the concept.
Experimental Film Project - Initial Thoughts
This project is marginally different to all the others I have attempted before, so before I begin to gather ideas, I decided to read over the brief carefully and make notes to ensure I did not miss anything.
Groupings
This is the first project which is required to be made in a group of 3. For this each group member will have to choose a role to fulfil - this is a great relief as I assume each member will then be marked on how well they attempted that role, and complications other group members may have will not necessarily impact on their grade (I have encountered this problem before on briefs throughout college and university). Looking back on the various shoots I have been involved with in the past, I tend to take a more authoritative role, so while I do enjoy editing and inventive camerawork, I think the role that would best suit me is the Director/Producer.
Brief Requirements
Groupings
This is the first project which is required to be made in a group of 3. For this each group member will have to choose a role to fulfil - this is a great relief as I assume each member will then be marked on how well they attempted that role, and complications other group members may have will not necessarily impact on their grade (I have encountered this problem before on briefs throughout college and university). Looking back on the various shoots I have been involved with in the past, I tend to take a more authoritative role, so while I do enjoy editing and inventive camerawork, I think the role that would best suit me is the Director/Producer.
Brief Requirements
- Experimental film
- 5 minutes in length
- Based on single object/single word/single poem
- 5 minute critical presentation on hand-in
I hope to base the film on a single word or a single object rather than a poem.
Some initial ideas for a theme:
- Bringing a 'boring' everyday object into a new perspective
- Giving an inanimate object a personality
- Using a shocking word in an unusual context
- The desensitization of swearwords
- The history of a word (e.g. words like "fuck" and "shit" are curse words now, but they are actually the original anglo-saxon words for "sex" and "excrement")
- Stop-motion animation
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)