Soundtrack

For the soundtrack i wanted something that was repetitive but not too imposing, i wanted it to gradually build but i didn't want the climax too be too big. I decided that using quite high pitched sounds would be the best idea as it wouldn't interfere with the sound from the interviews. I recorded instruments using the inbuilt microphones on my friends mac book and i used garage band to arrange the sounds. I used an old Yamaha portasound keyboard as i like the lo fi tones that are on the keyboard. I used a xylophone to add twinkly notes over the top of the melody i played on the keyboard. I think the sound works well with the footage i got.

Shooting

I started shooting today, I'm using a canon 5D and a canon 550D as i find that being a lot smaller and lighter it's easier to shoot impromptu interviews. My friend Mya is recording sound for the film using a microtrack. Some of the difficultys i'm having are: keeping the camera still enough on the bus, and finding people willing to talk about there experiences on buses.

Richard Kavlar

 

Kavlar deals with looking at the everyday aspects of life and finding something unusual or slightly surreal in them, (in the above photo the barely notable Halloween mask.) I like the idea of looking for irrationality in the mundane, translating the normal and the abnormal aspects of living in a place. There is also something sort of sinister, I find, in his black and white photos.

Jesse Marlow

Street Photography deals with capturing images of the world around in a candid and honest manner, reflecting society in a direct manner and looking at issues with people and places. It is the documentary of the Photography world, however even documentaries these days are often pre-scripted, forced and set up to achieve a certain viewpoint. I am fascinated by the idea that using street photography techniques in film I could capture an image of real life, a reflection of a place that is artistically pleasing without intentionally being so.

Jesse says, regarding his work, “Set in the environment of everyday, this series aims to explore the banality of modern day existence through themes of abandonment, suburbia and daily rituals.” Being a modern practioner, these images ring true to a lifestyle recognised by a lot of people in todays society and so are relatable to a wide audience. The images capture something that is true.

Lift

Recently, director Mark Isaacs created the short film ‘Lift’ in which he set up a camera, and himself, in a lift in a tower block in London. He then set out to film the users of the lift, who, as he was there so long, became to trust, befriend and confide in him. Some regulars react with fondness, others simply refuse to acknowledge he is there.
This is an interesting idea, similar to the concept of street photography but different in that the director is immediately connected with what goes on in the film. For example, he interacts with the life users and is not just a ‘fly on the wall’, asking them particular questions and steering them to talk about various issues. This, of course, makes for interesting viewing. Some participants, however, need no steering. It is interesting to watch the different personalities and reactions, some funny and some slightly heartbreaking. Preconceptions of characters upon first seeing them use the lift are often changed by the end of it, looking at the kind of people that live in this particular place and the prejudice that might tag onto them.
I think the concept of filming from a particular stationary location is a good one, it leaves scope for things to develop in front of the eyes of the viewer and is somewhat spontaneous, a reflection of the area as well as a look at interaction with strangers and even saying something about class, religion, life and death. It is fascinating that all of these ideas can come from a film-maker doing something as simple as sitting in a lift, showing the concentration of different life, ideas, people in any one location.
I think, overall, this is a simple and well executed example of an unconventional short documentary, and something along the lines of what I want to achieve with my short.

You can see that here.

Buses

I've decided to stay with the documentary idea and i thought it might be interesting to do something based around buses. I think public transport offers a better cross section of the general public than anywhere else, you get people from all walks of life that are in a close proximity, it's rare that you would ever sit as close to a stranger as you would on a bus or a train. Also, it's only a hand full something interesting happens on a bus but it seems almost everyone has a story about some sort of conflict or something extraordinary that happened on a bus so it might be a good idea to ask people about things that they have seen on buses.

New Idea

I found out that the show i was going to film is no longer going ahead as a few of the bands that were meant to play dropped out. I need to come with a new idea. I was thinking about a place a could film with a variety of characters. I was thinking along the lines of a bingo hall or a charity shop, im not really sure what i would do with that though.

Cheap Fast & Out Of Control

Cheap Fast & Out Of Control is a documentary film by Errol Morris. The Documentary focuses on four eccentric men that have unusual careers. There's a bald mole rat expert, a lion trainer, a topiary sculptor and a scientist that specialises in robots. Again like with ATP, the film is cut with a lot of old archive footage. What i find really interesting about this film is the way the things these people are saying are given new meaning when different footage is cut over the interviews. As the film progresses you start to see a correlation between these four peoples work. There are two other elements that make this film work in the way it does and they are the soundtrack which is out of control sounding but catches you of guard with moments that are haunting and it really ties in with some of the ideas that are being talked about, and, the way the interviews are shot, the subject is always looking directly into the camera which gives you the feeling you are being spoken to by the subject. I think this is a really effective way to shoot an interview as it gives the viewer the chance to really analyse a character as thought they were having a conversation with them. I think i would try this technique if i were to shoot an interview.

All Tomorrows Parties The Film

All Tomorrows Parties The Film is a film about a alternative music festival called all tomorrows parties that happens at Butlins in the UK and at a similar holiday park in America. The music festival was started by Scottish band Belle and Sebastian and whats interesting is that each year a specific band or person is chosen to curate the whole festival, choosing a line up of artists that have they respect or have influenced them. In 2009 Jonathan Caouette directed a film about the festival. The film is basically a collage of video and sound, There are clips from a lot of different sources including archive footage and footage sent to him by bands and people attending the festival. I think the whole film just flows perfectly and is sometimes very surreal. 

You can watch the opening ten minutes here.

Second Idea

Ive decided that the first idea is something i would like to do but because of the time we have been allocated for this project i have decided that it would be better the leave that idea until i have more time to explore it in depth. Also i think there is a lot of scope with that idea to try different things and the final outcome might not really fit the brief. My other idea is based around these experimental punk/noise shows that a guy called Chaz Hewitt puts on in the top room of a pub called the Wagon and Horses in Digbeth. I want to do a sound driven documentary about the contrast between the shows he puts on upstairs and the audience that attend them and the family pub/local atmostphere downstairs. I have emailed chaz and he is interested in the project and given me permission to film at the show.

Location

I've started thinking about the location brief and I've had two ideas The first idea is to do a narrative based film that's set in a location i found that's in between two main roads, it's basically a big plot of land with nothing on it but small hills, strange looking plants and lots of rubbish. I was thinking that it looked like a little world that was separate from everything around it, i was also thinking that it's not really nice but at the same time it's not horrible. Then i started to think about what it would be like to be trapped there, to just have to live in that same place day in day out, i started to link that idea with how easily you can become trapped, whether it's in a dead end job or living in a place you can't stand and how life can become monotonous. The idea was to have two main characters who were in this location for what seems like forever, never moving and they are constantly seeing the same things over and over again. There are strange recurring characters that pass them by and these characters are almost like caricatures of people you may encounter in working class life. I would try to create a hypnotic soundtrack and explore visual metaphors to create something that as a whole could be seen as a metaphor for how some peoples lives can become tiredly repetitive with them being oblivious to it. I imagine shooting it to look like a western with big wide shots and sections without dialogue to try and build atmostphere.

Editing/Evaluation

 I missed a week due to illness, and when I went into uni Jen, Collette and Liz had completed a rough edit of the video. It was made up of very fast cuts and the pace was interesting however some parts didn't work too well and even reminded me of the awkward cuts in Garth Merenghi's Darkplace. Over the next week me, Jen, Collette and Liz worked on a final edit. This consisted of me trying to slow the cuts down and Jen trying to speed them up which actually worked out quite well as we found a happy medium. We decided to edit the video in a non-linear way as this became very boring to watch and it was a video of two halves. We also decided to focus on the corset as this is a very powerful image. It is basically the same original concept but told in a non-linear way. For the footage in the room, we decided to use a desaturated grade with hints of green to make the room seem grimy and cold. All we did for the dance is crush the blacks. The simple lighting set up created a nice enough effect on its own and by crushing the blacks we just heightened the contrast.
 I think overall it was a successful video as we still managed to get the story accross but avoided boring the audience and we did this by cutting it very quickly to the beat. Also, I think using simple shots of someone in a room opening things, holding things up etc. you avoid putting too much focus on action which can result in something that looks like a bad hollywood film if the action isn't filmed in a correct way. One of the problems we realised when we came to editing was that we hadn't actually filmed enough different things so we ended up with a lot of footage of the same actions from different angles. Also, a lot of the cutaways were too shakey to use. We definately could have done with a lot more footage from around the room but this was before we knew we would be splicing the footage of the room into the dance to break it up. All in all , it has been quite a useful experience; I have definately gained confidence and skills when it comes to producing something that is more professional and working with a group has shown me that not neccessarily working with like-minded people can be very useful when it comes to creating new ideas, having people pull in opposite directions can create compromises that bring new ideas to the surface that you maybe wouldn't have come up with alone, or solely working with like-minded people.

Second day of Filming (The Green Studio)

 

 At the start of the shoot we were a lot more organised than when we were shooting in the Black studio. I think this is because we knew exactly what we had to get, and so when we went in we wasted no time in shooting exactly what we needed. we spent most of the morning shooting what we needed in the room and then at midday we took down the set and just left up the back wall which we covered with black cloth. Matt came by and lit this for us, he used one light from the right at the back which created a channel of light and one light from the left at the front which created a second channel of light so that whenever Liz or Jen walked into one of them they had a brilliant light on them from one side. This gave the impression of movement. We actually ended up finishing a bit early so all in all it was a very successful shoot.

Building the set in the second studio

 

During the week we looked at the footage and found that some integral shots needed to be re-shot so our initial plan of just taking a few flats from the set in the black studio over to the green studio was scrapped and it was decided that we needed to deconstruct the whole set and re-build it in the green studio. After re-assembling the set in the green studio we thought about creating a black back-drop for the dance; we decided to use a large black piece of material that Lee found and just hang it from the flats. However, this would mean deconstructing the set halfway through the shooting day - something we would have to take into account.

First Day of Filming (Black Studio)

We started filming in the black studio, the day began with getting the equipment, we had booked out a Canon EOS 5D to shoot on. We also booked out a tripod, jib, dolly and track and steady cam. Matt then quickly lit the set and also showed us a quick lighting set-up for the dance, just in case we got round to it. The lights looked good, very subtle. We began shooting in a linear way to avoid any continuty errors. Jay turned up a bit late because I think he was stuck in London the night before. This meant that I was thrown in at the deep end and the first hour or so was very slow and very stressfull with all eyes on me (or so it felt). In the afternoon things lightened up a bit and everyone started getting more involved, people also began taking rolls, liz began to direct, collete was logging every shot and kat was re-setting the props, with me and jay opertaing the camera and framing the shots. We didn't really get as much done as we'de have hoped but were definaty on track.

Building the Set

 We started building the set, we decided we wanted it to be three flats x three flats , including one window flat and one door flat with one flat missing. We are shooting in the black studio first so we secured the flats in there and then began wallpapering them. This took quite a while as we couldn't paste directly onto the flats and had to use double sided sticky tape, it was very difficult to mask the gaps in between pieces of wallpaper. After we finished this we put up a curtain rail made out of an old broom handle and put up curtains that Jade had bought in from her grandma's house. We then painted the door, I made some shelves out of old wood and screwed them onto one of the flats. We also painted the floor dark brown and began moving in the props we had collected; these are things like a record player with records, two lamps for practical lighting, a rug to break up the floor, a chair, a beuro and a lot of ornaments and picture frames that an old woman would be likely to have in her house.  Finally, we went around and added details such as a light switch, an ash tray with cigarette butts and ash and a plate with crumbs as well as a half full fish tank with grimy water giving the impression that the previous tenant had died. We also created the effect of damp on the wallpaper using Vaseline, to suggest a neglected house perhaps because the woman was too old to care for it properly.

Props

We are slowly starting to acquire props to dress the set with, and have compiled a rough room plan.

Prop List

 We have walked through the storyboards and thought about everything the protagonist will interact with, and proceded to think about the objects that would be in shot in the room. Also, objects that are aesthetically pleasing as well as objects that say something about the person who lived there e.g medicine bottles - the glass would reflect the light in a nice way and can suggest that perhaps the person was unwell and may have passed away. Here is a list we have compiled of things we need to start collecting:


Chair
Sofa
Rug
Fabric (Lace, etc 1940s)
Trunk
Plates
Mug/Glasses
Sewing Machine
3 Tables (To hold sewing Machine, Telephone, and Gramophone)
Ornaments
4 picture Frames
Gramophone
Vinyl's
Old Magazines (Or New, that we can make look old)
Telephone
Answering Phone (If not built into phone)
Address Book
Medicine Bottles
Table Top Lamp
Tatty Throw-overs
Walking Stick(S)
Umbrella Bucket
Umbrella
Coat
Letters
Chest of Draws
Bin
Doilies
Newspapers
Dead Flowers
Plates for the walls
Old China
Specs
Puzzle Books

Burlesque Dance

 This is an example of burlesque dancing in the stlye we would want to mimic, obviously it would have to be brought up to date but this is a good reference point for costumes and era: Blaze Starr

The Black Swan

The video will end with a contemporary burlesque dance. Luckily, the Black Swan is a film in which dancing is shot in an interesting way that came out very recently. The opening scene of the film is a very dramatic dance routine that is visually enticing. The dance is shot in a black room and I am thinking that this is a very simple and effective way to shoot to a dance scene because you are letting the dancer and the choreography of the dance do all the work. Also the film uses very simple visual metaphors such as having characters dress in either all black or all white to reflect their nature; this may be something to consider with objects or items of clothing.