Intentions:
To shoot the following scenes, ensuring continuity:
Scenes 15, 19, 22
Filming Description:
Tonight we shot the last few exterior shots for the film. We began from scene 15, where we see Melissa walking out of the house and then we see a car (a very nice BMW Z4, thanks to Marie Gallagher for letting us borrow it!) pulling up near the house. This scene was shot from multiple angles, both handheld and static, employing zooms and focuses. After this, we re-shot the scene where Melissa leaves the house and walks down the stairs, as the original takes were not lighted correctly.
We travelled to Melissa’s house to shoot the final exterior shots, where we see the car pulling into the street and into the driveway. We see Melissa leave the car and the final shot is of Melissa pacing around in her house, on the phone, leaving a message on the answer machine in their house.
Success:
This evening’s shoot, again, was a success with no problems occurring.
Friday, 17 April 2009
Production Diary Day 3 – Tuesday 14th April
Intentions:
To shoot the following scenes, ensuring continuity:
Scenes 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21 and parts of 22.
Filming Description:
Tonight we shot the remainder of the interior shots for the film. We began from scene 13 where we see John breaking down after Sarah walks out of the house. The scene is crucial to how the film develops to the climactic ending and Matt really needed to get into character, which he did very convincingly. This scene employed mainly handheld shots with sporadic zooms and focus. We also shot the ending to the film, where we see Matt leaving the house after a very shot intensive scene where he finds Ben’s address in Sarah’s diary. This involved a lot of ambient lighting as Matt was rushing from room to room and I needed to ensure the continuity between scenes and rooms. Scene 16 and onwards utilised handheld shots more exclusively and the shots were designed to convey the mood of the tension building up.
Finally we wrapped up all of the interior shots for the film and began shooting the exterior shots; because of the time we wrapped up the interiors (1am), the streets outside were quiet and empty of both people and cars.
These shots show Matt leaving the house and, as we perceive, going to Ben’s house to get Sarah back and because of the time we shot at, this allowed the shots to convey the sense that the timing was accurate and realistic.
Success:
This evening’s shoot was a great success as we were all prepared for how rapid the shoot would develop, while using the time with the cast as productively as I could to make most of the time we had to shoot. By this stage, I was trying to follow my creative intentions as closely as possible and it was during the shoot where these intentions really started to come across in the footage.
With all of the exterior shots finished, I just had a few exterior shots to shoot. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Production Diary Day 2 – Monday 13th April
Intentions:
To shoot the following scenes, ensuring continuity:
Scenes 1 – 9, 11 – 13
Filming Description:
Tonight we began to shoot the film in chronological order of the script: we shot the opening sequence using a variety of shots and angles, including some of the more unorthodox POV and voyeur shots. I tried a variety of takes to get the best out of the cast, which I feel I achieved well. The methods of lighting worked really well and provide the audience with an insight into a dark, moody atmosphere in which John is currently living in – this reflects in his thoughts and imagination.
We then moved onto the more dialogue intensive scenes where we are introduced to the antagonist, Sarah. The believability of these scenes was crucial to the film’s naturalistic intentions and through a variety of ‘dry runs’, and once the cast got fully into character, I was able to capture true anger, frustration and fear. The setting reflected the cast and the scenario seems believable and I hope that will translate across to the audience.
The shoot went on up until the build up to the end of the film, which will be shot over the course of the next few evenings. This shoot went without any hiccups or blunders and the HD quality equipment I’m using is capturing everything in crystal clear quality which I’m really excited about editing with.
Success:
This evening’s shoot was a success as the whole cast and crew were really engrossed with the storyline and were beginning to explore their characters and make them their own. I came up with some interesting shots on the fly and shot them in conjuction with the shots I had already created in my storyboards and shot list.
The shoot was long (8pm – 4am) but the fact we were shooting at night just further added to the authencity of where the story was unfolding. Stay tuned for the rest of the shoot!
To shoot the following scenes, ensuring continuity:
Scenes 1 – 9, 11 – 13
Filming Description:
Tonight we began to shoot the film in chronological order of the script: we shot the opening sequence using a variety of shots and angles, including some of the more unorthodox POV and voyeur shots. I tried a variety of takes to get the best out of the cast, which I feel I achieved well. The methods of lighting worked really well and provide the audience with an insight into a dark, moody atmosphere in which John is currently living in – this reflects in his thoughts and imagination.
We then moved onto the more dialogue intensive scenes where we are introduced to the antagonist, Sarah. The believability of these scenes was crucial to the film’s naturalistic intentions and through a variety of ‘dry runs’, and once the cast got fully into character, I was able to capture true anger, frustration and fear. The setting reflected the cast and the scenario seems believable and I hope that will translate across to the audience.
The shoot went on up until the build up to the end of the film, which will be shot over the course of the next few evenings. This shoot went without any hiccups or blunders and the HD quality equipment I’m using is capturing everything in crystal clear quality which I’m really excited about editing with.
Success:
This evening’s shoot was a success as the whole cast and crew were really engrossed with the storyline and were beginning to explore their characters and make them their own. I came up with some interesting shots on the fly and shot them in conjuction with the shots I had already created in my storyboards and shot list.
The shoot was long (8pm – 4am) but the fact we were shooting at night just further added to the authencity of where the story was unfolding. Stay tuned for the rest of the shoot!
Production Diary Day 1 – Saturday 11th April
Intentions:
To have a dress rehearsal of some key scenes with the full cast and to film a collection of experimental shots, which will form part of my preproduction exercises.
Filming Description:
I dressing the set for the duration of the filming on this night; it was here that I put my mise en scene planning into action. This involved making the house look natural and lived in, but stylised in a minimalistic fashion. It took a few hours to get the house ready for shooting but I feel the house looks more authentic now.
After running through some key scenes with John (Matt McComish) and Sarah (Melissa Gallagher), we then had a dress rehearsal of the opening sequence of the film. This allowed me to experiment with shots that I want to include in the final product and allowed me to review the footage in my editing suite to see if I needed to make amendments to lighting.
Success:
I’m happy with our progress tonight; it has given me a good indication of how the shots will translate to film and how the chemistry between the actors works. Unfortunately, the HDV cam was set to ‘date record’ meaning all the footage that I shot has timecode emblazoned over it. D’oh! Not to worry, some careful letterboxing will enable me to use this footage in the pre-production exercises.
That’s all for now! Stay tuned for day 1 on set!
To have a dress rehearsal of some key scenes with the full cast and to film a collection of experimental shots, which will form part of my preproduction exercises.
Filming Description:
I dressing the set for the duration of the filming on this night; it was here that I put my mise en scene planning into action. This involved making the house look natural and lived in, but stylised in a minimalistic fashion. It took a few hours to get the house ready for shooting but I feel the house looks more authentic now.
After running through some key scenes with John (Matt McComish) and Sarah (Melissa Gallagher), we then had a dress rehearsal of the opening sequence of the film. This allowed me to experiment with shots that I want to include in the final product and allowed me to review the footage in my editing suite to see if I needed to make amendments to lighting.
Success:
I’m happy with our progress tonight; it has given me a good indication of how the shots will translate to film and how the chemistry between the actors works. Unfortunately, the HDV cam was set to ‘date record’ meaning all the footage that I shot has timecode emblazoned over it. D’oh! Not to worry, some careful letterboxing will enable me to use this footage in the pre-production exercises.
That’s all for now! Stay tuned for day 1 on set!
Friday, 27 March 2009
Illustrated Essay
Intention
My creative intention is to produce a film about the breakdown of a relationship. I will employ an inner monologue given by the protagonist, to create the impression of someone who is verging on mental instability. The story climaxes to a point where we then learn that the antagonist has realised the error of her ways, but is it too late?
Influences
Film makers and artists who I am influenced by are directors Christopher Nolan, Ken Loach, the ‘kitchen sink’ drama movement and social realism movement. This combination of influences means that my creative intention is to blend a fusion of styles not previously integrated before and to create a more stylised take on 21st century realism cinema.
British-American director Christopher Nolan began his early film career with his father’s Super8 camera and began film-making at the tender age of seven. Nolan is "… a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid, Alien, Blade Runner just blew me away…”; Nolan’s desire to create a sense of another world with narrative threads that bind reality and hyper-reality together in unison can be seen in his first short film ‘Doodlebug’. The influence behind the film was to “…show the preoccupation with narrative boundaries” which Nolan would later explore in his feature films such as ‘Insomnia’ and one of his most popular feature films ‘Memento’. .” I want to make use of Nolan’s interesting narrative work, I want to develop my own version of narrative flow to go against the conventional narrative styles available in cinema; by toying with the rate of exposition involved and giving the audience an insight into the human subconscious, this has inspired me to push the boundaries in how I present my narrative to the viewing audience.
Nolan’s early beginnings in cinema allowed him to learn conventional film techniques. However, one of Nolan’s signature techniques is prevalent to his use of unconventional narrative structure; an example of this is in Memento, which shows Nolan presenting events in reverse-chronological order and then in chronological order. Using this technique, Nolan forces viewers into the mentally-impaired, skewed protagonist's position – which also displays disoriented events within the film’s narrative. Nolan had developed this cutting technique in Following, by presenting the structure in which the three acts are cut together, whereas Memento presents two linear timelines — the primary one running backwards, and an entirely previous timeline running forwards — which are cut together and which meet at the end.
This crossing-over is signified by the transition from black and white film to color as the timeline transitions from forwards to backwards. This use of colour constrast will form the basis for my transition between the reality and the skewed, somewhat dark imagination of my protagonist – as this will act as a visual code for the development of the character’s mental activity in tandem with what is actually happening in real life.
Nolan has been quoted explaning his method of exposition; “…I try to tell a story the way a conversation naturally unfolds. Or the way newspaper stories are written. It's not chronological. It takes about 20 minutes to get into a story. I attempt to teach the audience the structure…for me; you need to give people time to find their footing before you start jumping around”. Because of the limitation of time for my short film, naturally my exposition will need to be more rapid but I do want to retain the element of the unknown right up until the climax of the film – this will help let the audience make their own assumptions of the film’s plot while maintaining a sense of perspective. I am also inspired his method of story exposition; this sense of a world ‘inside of somebody’s head’ is the basis of my film and one of the strongest narrative themes present.
Nolan’s visual style is somewhat more conventional by using classic cinematic devices; a number of Nolan’s early films were shot in black and white, and because of his colour-blindness, he found them very visually appealing. “Yes, I'm colorblind, so that would be nice. Actually, I think it has to be the right story. If you do some color and some black and white, I think your appreciation for black and white is always being refreshed“.
Elements of my short film will be shot in black and white because of my personal fascination with the style, as well as the use of contrast between colour and B&W to show a difference or development in the narrative.
Another director I am influenced by is kitchen sink drama director Ken Loach whose works exposed the reality of socialistic problems such as homelessness, poverty and the exclusion of the working class. As a young man he directed a live television drama for the BBC, Diary of a Young Man, which enabled him to see the possibilities of breaking the conventions of film, by getting out of the studio and onto the streets – this allowed the use of handheld cameras and the lack of a script. British filmmakers like Loach channeled their anger into film using relatively less expensive 16mm cine-cameras. This resulted in a recognizable visual style and quality to the film produced and when shooting my short film, I want to reference the use of consumer video camera products like the original ‘Angry Boys Movement’ used in their iconic films, to further portray the realism elements.
Loach’s Diary of a Young Man also used non-naturalistic elements, such as stills sequences, cut to music with narration, in its attempt to achieve a new kind of narrative structure and I intend on including similar elements in my short film to bridge the gap between reality and production.
Loach became a pioneer of the British New Wave genre and is still held in high regard. Loach profiles part of the biggest influence behind the development of my story, to create a 21st century homage to Loach’s style; his use of ‘as real as it gets’ filmmaking makes the characters believable and in turn, relatable. Loach’s work is characterised by a particular view of realism, in which he strives in every area of filmmaking to portray genuine interaction between actors, to the point where some scenes in his films are completely unscripted. To further the realism Loach commonly casts unknown talent than method actors, as he prefers unknown talents who have had some of the actual life experience of the characters they portray, or subject they are exploring through the film’s narrative.
Examples of how this is used include in his film Bread and Roses, where he cast the two leading actors because of their background of living as an immigrant in the UK. By filming the story chronologically and occasionally not being shown the script until a few minutes before the filming, this allows for spontaneity within scenes which can make somewhat trivial scenes poignant and bring a whole new meaning to the simplest of tasks. This is a method of direction that I may try to implement in the shooting of my film, to create a sense of spontaneity and to try to obtain genuine interaction from the cast.
Loach commonly tells only some of the actors will know what is going to happen in a scene – in a bid to encourage the others to express genuine surprise or sadness because they really are affected by the events of the scene.
Two examples of this include in Kes, where Billy Casper discovers bird at the end, believed that the director had actually killed the bird that he had become quite close to during the filming, where in fact he had used a dead bird found elsewhere – and in Raining Stones one of the actresses visited at her house by a loan shark had no idea that he was going to force her to take off her wedding ring and give it to him as part payment.
This style of emotional manipulation means that the characters are believable and are more easily connected to their cast and in turn, the viewing audience. It is crucial to my film that my characters are as real and believable as possible, other wise the realism element could be somewhat redundant. It will be this, accompanied with my intention of a unique visual style directly influenced my Loach, that will form the epicenter of my short film. An example of Loach’s work that is influential in its method of conveying emotion is one of the opening scenes in Ken Loach’s Kes, where we see the protagonist Billy Casper dealing with his mundane childhood in a small Yorkshire town, where Billy is destined to a life of work in the coal mines as underachiever in school and a general delinquent; delinquent with a heart as he discovers an unlikely passion for falconry. His life involves smoking cigarettes, swindling money and a paper round - where he steals milk from milk floats. His life is somewhat normal for a boy of his age and of his class and the way Loach portrays this is through the bleak backdrop of the miner’s town in which he lives. In a scene after Billy is seen talking to a milkman, we see him walking onto a part of hilly wasteland over-looking the mine that his brother is currently working in. This dark, industrial image is then filled with colour when Billy begins to read a ‘Dandy’ comic; this iconic image shows the reality of his life – childish joy overshadowed by an impending commitment to work for the rest of his life. This particular sequence conveys the grim reality of the realm he lives in, exactly what Loach wanted to achieve.
I am influenced by Loach’s method of conveying a sense of emotional reality and from this I want to pay homage to the method of displaying the reality of Billy Casper’s life, by showing my characters for what they are in front of a backdrop of day-to-day life to ensure that the characters are believable, approachable and the scenarios liveable.
British New Wave is the name given to a style of filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s which had a direct link to social realism and kitchen-sink drama. The trend is a development of French New Wave, the term first applied to the films of directors such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard amongst others.
Their political views were initially labeled as radical and sometimes even anarchic, and they described social alienation of different kind. This involved art being non-superficial and a complete contrast from, for example, classic Hollywood style cinema – as social realism portrayed real life situations and the underbelly of some of those situations, where as traditional cinema would shy away from such negative attributes.
This movement would then later transpose and develop because of artists such as John Bratby, who founded the ‘kitchen sink’ style. Bratby's expressionistic style became known as "kitchen sink realism" after a painting of his which depicted a kitchen sink. David Sylvester, a British critic wrote an article in 1954 about trends in recent British art and Sylvester argued that there was a new interest among modern painters in domestic scenes, with stress on the triviality of life. Bratby went onto paint several kitchen subjects, often turning practical utensils such as sieves and spoons into semi-abstract shapes. His style forms the basis of the majority of the mise en scene I intend to feature in my short film, but with a 21st century modernisation to the traditional genre; day-to-day life with normality and triviality in mind, no detail too small to highlight.
Conclusion
Each one of my influences has elements of their work that I am influenced by; from Christopher Nolan I want to take his unique storytelling techniques and his use of using visual and graphic differences between his ‘real’ world and his character’s imagination.
I then intend to combine this with influence from Ken Loach, where I will be utilising some of his methods of creating realism within a film. This includes his technique of filming, from the quality of film he uses to his camera angles and techniques (including static shots, continuous tracking shots etc.); all of these will play an influential role in stylising my short film to create a 21st century version of how Loach’s films could possibly look today. As social realism art has influenced me as well, the mise en scene of my short film will be important in order to convey to the audience that where the story is situated is believable and naturalistic.
These three influences, combined with the British New Wave movement being an influence in the sense of trying to create a film that tries to retain as much reality within cinema, set me in good stead to create my film and tell its story.
My creative intention is to produce a film about the breakdown of a relationship. I will employ an inner monologue given by the protagonist, to create the impression of someone who is verging on mental instability. The story climaxes to a point where we then learn that the antagonist has realised the error of her ways, but is it too late?
Influences
Film makers and artists who I am influenced by are directors Christopher Nolan, Ken Loach, the ‘kitchen sink’ drama movement and social realism movement. This combination of influences means that my creative intention is to blend a fusion of styles not previously integrated before and to create a more stylised take on 21st century realism cinema.
British-American director Christopher Nolan began his early film career with his father’s Super8 camera and began film-making at the tender age of seven. Nolan is "… a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid, Alien, Blade Runner just blew me away…”; Nolan’s desire to create a sense of another world with narrative threads that bind reality and hyper-reality together in unison can be seen in his first short film ‘Doodlebug’. The influence behind the film was to “…show the preoccupation with narrative boundaries” which Nolan would later explore in his feature films such as ‘Insomnia’ and one of his most popular feature films ‘Memento’. .” I want to make use of Nolan’s interesting narrative work, I want to develop my own version of narrative flow to go against the conventional narrative styles available in cinema; by toying with the rate of exposition involved and giving the audience an insight into the human subconscious, this has inspired me to push the boundaries in how I present my narrative to the viewing audience.
Nolan’s early beginnings in cinema allowed him to learn conventional film techniques. However, one of Nolan’s signature techniques is prevalent to his use of unconventional narrative structure; an example of this is in Memento, which shows Nolan presenting events in reverse-chronological order and then in chronological order. Using this technique, Nolan forces viewers into the mentally-impaired, skewed protagonist's position – which also displays disoriented events within the film’s narrative. Nolan had developed this cutting technique in Following, by presenting the structure in which the three acts are cut together, whereas Memento presents two linear timelines — the primary one running backwards, and an entirely previous timeline running forwards — which are cut together and which meet at the end.
This crossing-over is signified by the transition from black and white film to color as the timeline transitions from forwards to backwards. This use of colour constrast will form the basis for my transition between the reality and the skewed, somewhat dark imagination of my protagonist – as this will act as a visual code for the development of the character’s mental activity in tandem with what is actually happening in real life.
Nolan has been quoted explaning his method of exposition; “…I try to tell a story the way a conversation naturally unfolds. Or the way newspaper stories are written. It's not chronological. It takes about 20 minutes to get into a story. I attempt to teach the audience the structure…for me; you need to give people time to find their footing before you start jumping around”. Because of the limitation of time for my short film, naturally my exposition will need to be more rapid but I do want to retain the element of the unknown right up until the climax of the film – this will help let the audience make their own assumptions of the film’s plot while maintaining a sense of perspective. I am also inspired his method of story exposition; this sense of a world ‘inside of somebody’s head’ is the basis of my film and one of the strongest narrative themes present.
Nolan’s visual style is somewhat more conventional by using classic cinematic devices; a number of Nolan’s early films were shot in black and white, and because of his colour-blindness, he found them very visually appealing. “Yes, I'm colorblind, so that would be nice. Actually, I think it has to be the right story. If you do some color and some black and white, I think your appreciation for black and white is always being refreshed“.
Elements of my short film will be shot in black and white because of my personal fascination with the style, as well as the use of contrast between colour and B&W to show a difference or development in the narrative.
Another director I am influenced by is kitchen sink drama director Ken Loach whose works exposed the reality of socialistic problems such as homelessness, poverty and the exclusion of the working class. As a young man he directed a live television drama for the BBC, Diary of a Young Man, which enabled him to see the possibilities of breaking the conventions of film, by getting out of the studio and onto the streets – this allowed the use of handheld cameras and the lack of a script. British filmmakers like Loach channeled their anger into film using relatively less expensive 16mm cine-cameras. This resulted in a recognizable visual style and quality to the film produced and when shooting my short film, I want to reference the use of consumer video camera products like the original ‘Angry Boys Movement’ used in their iconic films, to further portray the realism elements.
Loach’s Diary of a Young Man also used non-naturalistic elements, such as stills sequences, cut to music with narration, in its attempt to achieve a new kind of narrative structure and I intend on including similar elements in my short film to bridge the gap between reality and production.
Loach became a pioneer of the British New Wave genre and is still held in high regard. Loach profiles part of the biggest influence behind the development of my story, to create a 21st century homage to Loach’s style; his use of ‘as real as it gets’ filmmaking makes the characters believable and in turn, relatable. Loach’s work is characterised by a particular view of realism, in which he strives in every area of filmmaking to portray genuine interaction between actors, to the point where some scenes in his films are completely unscripted. To further the realism Loach commonly casts unknown talent than method actors, as he prefers unknown talents who have had some of the actual life experience of the characters they portray, or subject they are exploring through the film’s narrative.
Examples of how this is used include in his film Bread and Roses, where he cast the two leading actors because of their background of living as an immigrant in the UK. By filming the story chronologically and occasionally not being shown the script until a few minutes before the filming, this allows for spontaneity within scenes which can make somewhat trivial scenes poignant and bring a whole new meaning to the simplest of tasks. This is a method of direction that I may try to implement in the shooting of my film, to create a sense of spontaneity and to try to obtain genuine interaction from the cast.
Loach commonly tells only some of the actors will know what is going to happen in a scene – in a bid to encourage the others to express genuine surprise or sadness because they really are affected by the events of the scene.
Two examples of this include in Kes, where Billy Casper discovers bird at the end, believed that the director had actually killed the bird that he had become quite close to during the filming, where in fact he had used a dead bird found elsewhere – and in Raining Stones one of the actresses visited at her house by a loan shark had no idea that he was going to force her to take off her wedding ring and give it to him as part payment.
This style of emotional manipulation means that the characters are believable and are more easily connected to their cast and in turn, the viewing audience. It is crucial to my film that my characters are as real and believable as possible, other wise the realism element could be somewhat redundant. It will be this, accompanied with my intention of a unique visual style directly influenced my Loach, that will form the epicenter of my short film. An example of Loach’s work that is influential in its method of conveying emotion is one of the opening scenes in Ken Loach’s Kes, where we see the protagonist Billy Casper dealing with his mundane childhood in a small Yorkshire town, where Billy is destined to a life of work in the coal mines as underachiever in school and a general delinquent; delinquent with a heart as he discovers an unlikely passion for falconry. His life involves smoking cigarettes, swindling money and a paper round - where he steals milk from milk floats. His life is somewhat normal for a boy of his age and of his class and the way Loach portrays this is through the bleak backdrop of the miner’s town in which he lives. In a scene after Billy is seen talking to a milkman, we see him walking onto a part of hilly wasteland over-looking the mine that his brother is currently working in. This dark, industrial image is then filled with colour when Billy begins to read a ‘Dandy’ comic; this iconic image shows the reality of his life – childish joy overshadowed by an impending commitment to work for the rest of his life. This particular sequence conveys the grim reality of the realm he lives in, exactly what Loach wanted to achieve.
I am influenced by Loach’s method of conveying a sense of emotional reality and from this I want to pay homage to the method of displaying the reality of Billy Casper’s life, by showing my characters for what they are in front of a backdrop of day-to-day life to ensure that the characters are believable, approachable and the scenarios liveable.
British New Wave is the name given to a style of filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s which had a direct link to social realism and kitchen-sink drama. The trend is a development of French New Wave, the term first applied to the films of directors such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard amongst others.
Their political views were initially labeled as radical and sometimes even anarchic, and they described social alienation of different kind. This involved art being non-superficial and a complete contrast from, for example, classic Hollywood style cinema – as social realism portrayed real life situations and the underbelly of some of those situations, where as traditional cinema would shy away from such negative attributes.
This movement would then later transpose and develop because of artists such as John Bratby, who founded the ‘kitchen sink’ style. Bratby's expressionistic style became known as "kitchen sink realism" after a painting of his which depicted a kitchen sink. David Sylvester, a British critic wrote an article in 1954 about trends in recent British art and Sylvester argued that there was a new interest among modern painters in domestic scenes, with stress on the triviality of life. Bratby went onto paint several kitchen subjects, often turning practical utensils such as sieves and spoons into semi-abstract shapes. His style forms the basis of the majority of the mise en scene I intend to feature in my short film, but with a 21st century modernisation to the traditional genre; day-to-day life with normality and triviality in mind, no detail too small to highlight.
Conclusion
Each one of my influences has elements of their work that I am influenced by; from Christopher Nolan I want to take his unique storytelling techniques and his use of using visual and graphic differences between his ‘real’ world and his character’s imagination.
I then intend to combine this with influence from Ken Loach, where I will be utilising some of his methods of creating realism within a film. This includes his technique of filming, from the quality of film he uses to his camera angles and techniques (including static shots, continuous tracking shots etc.); all of these will play an influential role in stylising my short film to create a 21st century version of how Loach’s films could possibly look today. As social realism art has influenced me as well, the mise en scene of my short film will be important in order to convey to the audience that where the story is situated is believable and naturalistic.
These three influences, combined with the British New Wave movement being an influence in the sense of trying to create a film that tries to retain as much reality within cinema, set me in good stead to create my film and tell its story.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Illustrated Essay Progress..
As I developed the idea for my short film, I researched some of the influences behind the idea – including inspirational directors, cinematographers and artistic visual styles that I would like to pay homage to.
These include:
- Director Christopher Nolan
- Director Ken Loach
- Social Realism and it’s relationship with British New Wave drama
- Realism art
- What influenced these filmmakers?
British-American director Christopher Nolan began his early film career with his fathers Super8 camera; Nolan found an interest in botany (the study of plants) early on until he found his father's camera. Nolan began film-making at the tender age of seven using the camera and his toy action figures.
"I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. Alien, Blade Runner just blew me away because they created these extraodinary worlds that were just completely emersive. I was also an enormous Stanley Kubrick fan for similar reasons.”
Despite what Nolan went onto achieve in the world of film (such as the box-office hit ‘The Dark Knight’), he started off from a relatively humble background. While studying English Literature at University College London, he shot his first short film titled ‘Doodlebug’.
The influence behind Doodlebug was to “…show the preoccupation with narrative boundaries” which Nolan would later explore in his feature films such as ‘Insomnia’ and one of his most popular feature films, ‘Memento. Nolan is quoted to have said "I've always loved films…I never really thought about doing anything else. What I love are films that create their own particular geography, a particular world and emerse you in it for a couple of hours.”
Kitchen sink drama director Ken Loach was influenced by social taboos portrayed in day-to-life.
Many of these became the pinnacles of some of his key work, which exposed the reality of socialistic problems such as homelessness, poverty and the exclusion of the working class. After studying law at St Peter's College,
Diary of a Young Man also used non-naturalistic elements, such as stills sequences, cut to music with narration, in its attempt to achieve a new kind of narrative structure.
Later, Loach made his debut kitchen-sink drama documentary Cathy Come Home, portraying neglected subjects such as homelessness and unemployment, both of which were prevalent in 1960’s
The outcome presented a powerful and influential expose of the workings of the Social Services within the United Kingdown which lead to Cathy Come Home to being hailed with critical acclaim.
- What filmmaking techniques are being used and why?
Leading on from Loach’s development into a socially-aware documentary director, the inclusion of naturalistic elements became a feature of all of his works – ranging from film, TV drama and plays. His film work is characterised by a particular view of realism, in which he strives in every area of filmmaking to portray genuine interaction between actors, to the point where some scenes in his films are completely unscripted. To further the realism element of interplay, Loach commonly casts unknown talent than method actors, as he prefers unknown talents who have had some of the actual life experience of the characters they portray, or subject they are exploring through the film’s narrative.
Examples of how this is used include in his film Bread and Roses, where he cast the two leading actors because of their background of living as an immigrant to the
Loach commonly tells only some of the actors will know what is going to happen in a scene – in a bid to encourage the others to express genuine surprise or sadness because they really are affected by the events of the scene.
Two examples of this include in Kes, where the boy actor discovers bird at the end, believed that the director had actually killed the bird that he had become quite close to during the filming, where in fact he had used a dead bird found elsewhere – and in Raining Stones one of the actresses visited at her house by a loan shark had no idea that he was going to force her to take off her wedding ring and give it to him as part payment. This style of emotional manipulation means that the characters are believable and are more easily connected to their cast and in turn, the viewing audience.
Christopher Nolan’s early beginnings in cinema allowed him to learn conventional film techniques. However, Nolan’s use of technique really shines in his use of unconventional narrative structure. An example of this is in Memento, which shows Nolan presenting events in reverse-chronological order and then in chronological order. Using this technique, Nolan forces viewers into the mentally-impaired, skewed protagonist's position – which also encounters disoriented events. Nolan had developed this cutting technique in Following, by presenting the structure in which the three acts are cut together, whereas Memento presents two linear timelines — the primary one running backwards, and an entirely previous timeline running forwards — which are cut together and which meet at the end. This crossing-over is signified by the transition from black and white film to color as the timeline transitions from forwards to backwards.
“I try to tell a story the way a conversation naturally unfolds. Or the way newspaper stories are written. It's not chronological. It takes about 20 minutes to get into a story. I attempt to teach the audience the structure, even with "Batman Begins." For me, you need to give people time to find their footing before you start jumping around”
British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s which had a direct link to social realism and kitchen-sink drama.
The trend is a transposition of French New Wave, the term first applied to the films of directors such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard amongst others. There is considerable overlap with the so-called "Angry Young Men" movement, such as John Osborne and director Tony Richardson, who challenged the social status quo with their dramas about working class life. Their political views were initially labeled as radical and sometimes even anarchic, and they described social alienation of different kind.
- What visual style does the work have (quality of light, colour and texture, composition and movement)?
This involved art being non-superficial and a complete contrast from, for example, classic Hollywood style cinema – as social realism portrayed real life situations and the underbelly of some of those situations, where as traditional cinema would shy away from such negative attributes. This movement would then later transpose and develop because of artists such as John Bratby, who founded the ‘kitchen sink’ style. Bratby's expressionistic style became known as "kitchen sink realism" after a painting of his which depicted a kitchen sink.
David Sylvester, a British critic wrote an article in 1954 about trends in recent British art and Sylvester argued that there was a new interest among modern painters in domestic scenes, with stress on the triviality of life.
Bratby went onto paint several kitchen subjects, often turning practical utensils such as sieves and spoons into semi-abstract shapes.
Other artists associated with the "kitchen sink" style include Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith. Kitchen-sink drama is drama that relates to the art form and depicts the real side of life and is usually political and socially motivated. They illustrate the writer’s view of society’s downturn and often these dramas use the working class as characters in their stories, acting as working class heroes. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the United Kingdom's working class were often depicted stereotypically and kitchen sink dramas emphasized the lives of the urban working class.
British filmmakers such as Ken Loach channelled their anger into film using relatively less expensive 16mm cine-cameras.
Christopher Nolan’s visual style is somewhat more conventional, using classic cinematic devices; a number of Nolan’s early films were shot in black and white, and because of his colour-blindness, he found them very visually appealing. “Yes, I'm colorblind, so that would be nice. Actually, I think it has to be the right story. If you do some color and some black and white, I think your appreciation for black and white is always being refreshed. “
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Treatment v.1
Title:
TICKTOCK
Duration:
6-7 minutes
Main Characters:
John –
Male, early 20s, the protagonist. A young man who is struggling to cope with his relationship with his girlfriend Sarah as she begins to show signs of suspicious behaviour and John feels like he is losing control. This leads to insomnia induced paranoia and the exploration of his subconscious mind and the demons that lurk within.
Sarah -
Female, early 20s, the antagonist. A young woman who is putting John through emotional turmoil by showing her true colours; she begins to spend less time with him and more time with another man that John fears may lead to her straying from their relationship. We see her loyalties deteriorate as she leads John into a state of intense paranoia.
Ben –
Male, mid 20s, the complication. A work colleague of Sarah’s, who has shown significant interest in Sarah. His enigma is the cause of John’s mental spiral and he isn’t even aware of the effect he’s having upon them.
Synopsis:
One of the influences behind this short film was from the lyrics of ‘Insomnia’ by English electronica band ‘Faithless’, as portions of the lyrics explore insomnia and mental process because of a lack of sleep and how the person in the song deals with it.
Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light
Pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle, fight dark forces
In the clear moon light
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep
I used to worry, thought I was goin' mad in a hurry
Gettin' stress, makin' excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, greasy
Insomnia please release me and let me dream of
Makin' mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearin' off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks
Since I last slept, kept takin' sleepers
But now I keep myself pepped
Deeper still, that night I write by candle light
I find insight, fundamental movement, uh
So when it's back this insomniac take an original tack
Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack
I gets no sleep
I can't get no sleep
I can't get no sleep
I can't get no sleep
I need to sleep, although I get no sleep
I need to sleep, although I get no sleep
In this short film, John is dealing with insomnia because of an argument he had with his girlfriend Sarah because of his demand to have a sense of control and his suspicions of infidelity, and her tendency to do what she wants, where she wants – with whoever she wants and how a sense of distrust develops between the couple. This is all told in the form of a flashback which shows the development of a communication breakdown which leads to arguments, violence and eventually mental breakdown.
Beginning:
Its 1 AM in the morning. John can’t sleep as he tosses and turns. His eyes are heavy and bloodshot. He’s pacing around his room as the sound of rain pitter-pattering against the window accompanies the tick of a clock; time melting away. John’s vision is drained of colour as his mind torments him.
Conflict:
John walks to the kitchen, where he opens the fridge – to find there’s
nothing in it. As he closes the door of the fridge, a picture appears to be attached to the fridge with a magnet. John rips the picture off of the fridge. He sits down at the kitchen table.
FLASHBACK: Sarah and John sitting at the table. “Why are you doing this to me?” John proclaims. “Doing what exactly?” screams Sarah. “You know EXACTLY what I am talking about. What time did you get in last night, where were you?”
“I was with people than give me my own space, unlike somebody…”
Sarah leaves the room.
FLASHBACK: Sarah and a man in a café. John walks past the window and sees the two of them. Sarah waves. John walks.
BACK TO KITCHEN: John stares at broken glass on the ground and the puddle surrounding it.
FLASHBACK: Sarah comes into the kitchen. John is staring through the window. “I’m leaving; I don’t know what time I’ll be back. See you sometime, John.”
“If you walk through that door, you’re throwing everything away.” John speaks softly, while clutching a glass. The front door slams. John screams and throws the glass of water at the kitchen door.
Resolution:
John starts pacing around the kitchen. He’s angry. He sits down and he stands up. He can’t stay still. His heart is pounding in his head. He sits down at the kitchen table.
FLASHFORWARD IN JOHN’S IMAGINATION: The front door slams. Sarah walks down the house’s path and through the gate. She gets into a car with Ben. “I thought you’d change your mind…”
John is sitting on the stairs. He is drained.
FLASHFORWARD IN JOHN’S IMAGINATION: Sarah is sitting with Ben in a bar, sipping drinks.
John runs upstairs and starts looking through his wardrobe. He suddenly pauses and he leafs through Sarah’s bedside drawer. He finds a book, rips a page out and throws it on the bed.
John runs downstairs and slams the door.
The phone rings, it’s Sarah. She leaves a message; she was never at Ben’s. She admits she was wrong and if Ben picks up she’ll knows it’ll be ok to come home.
We see Ben’s page in her address book missing…
Soundtrack/ Score:
Score:
Ambient and foreboding soundtrack, to reference claustrophobia and tension.
Foley:
Key elements of the mise en scene; clocks, doors, the rain etc. – all used to reference the cacophony of sound that is available in every day life, but because of John’s overactive mind – every pin drop sounds like a tree falling.
Creative Intention:
A social realism take on the breakdown of a relationship and the inner monologue of the protagonist, to give the impression of someone who is verging on being mentally unstable, induced by paranoia and broken trust. The story develops to a climax where we then learn that Sarah has realised the error of ways, but is it too late?
SFX:
- Use of black and white to show comparison between reality and imagination.
- Washed out colours
- Use of contrast to reference being uncomfortable
- Letterboxing to show point-of-view
- Quick inter-cutting of key characters
Sunday, 25 January 2009
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