BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 3: Year 1 Workshop

This week we didn't have class so that we could attend the year 1 workshop by James and Ash from SIT Pro. We had this last year and I absolutely loved it, naturally I was interested in going again. Unfortunately I couldn't attend as much of the workshop as I wanted to, but here are some notes that I took:

The first day of the workshop was introductions, covering the basics and coming up with a story idea.

Much more time efficient this year

I am impressed by how efficient the workshop is this year, last year we didn't start shooting until Wednesday (I think) and the story wasn't decided upon until Tuesday. This time around they got through all the pre-production stuff in one day, giving them three or four days of shooting, which is a notable achievement.

Good to learn same things as year later

I actually found everything that James said very helpful, which is weird because it's the same things and the same poorly spelled power point, and yet this time around I feel like I'm deriving a lot more from it. I think having a year of experience and going back to the basics shines a different light on those things and you can take more away from it. It was set up by an industry vet anyway, so knowing more about the industry now I can gain a clearer understanding of what he meant exactly when he wrote those things.

It's not bad to go back to the basics or things you've already learned, it serves as a refresher, strengthening your knowledge, and you can see new things that you would have missed before. I'd do this with the other subjects as well, I do feel like I should have a refresher, but I don't know if I have the time right now.

Even though I couldn't attend as much as I desired, the little I got was actually very good at getting my mind running. Below are a bunch of things that I took home with me:

- Make genre list and mix to generate ideas

To generate ideas we started  by listing all the genres we could think of, this helped to give us an idea of which direction to head in and define the limits of what we can work in with the resources available - a musical, for example, wouldn't have been very plausible.

Mixing the genres is a great way to generate ideas, and see what hasn't been done before. For example: A stoner movie mixed with a road trip movie mixed with a musical.

- Tell ONE LIE at the start of the film, this is the limit of the audience's suspension of disbelief.

This is a very well known script-writing rule but one that I think is worth repeating. Again I've heard it before, I'm aware of it, and yet it never properly sunk in. A lot of the time I feel like these great nuggets of knowledge fall on deaf ears simply because we're not in the right part of our life to hear it.

Since the workshop I've found myself noticing and going back to this sentence repeatedly.

- Learn the rules and practice the basics first before breaking or subverting them

This is something I've thought about a lot, I always want to find a new way to do something, but I can't if I don't know the basics first. I'm changing my mindset on this:

I want to learn the basics - the craft - first, before trying to bend the rules. We don't have to do something interesting or innovative yet, that pressure isn't necessary, we just need to focus on making the best vanilla film we can. Like Spielberg or other greats, people who I respect because they show restraint and are able to use the basics of cinema to their greatest potential, I want to be able to make an equivalent of Jaws or The Matrix before moving on to something more experimental.

BSA206 (Screen Arts) Week 3 : Motion Capture

This week we looked at motion capture and the uncanny valley.

Motion Capture is basically just a different name for rotoscoping, a classic animation technique where animators draw over live action footage. Some early examples are:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Disney was always very ambitious and strived for realism in his animated cartoons. His foray into the field of Feature Films demanded a new level of realism for the human characters:

In this documentary about the making of the film, one interviewee describes how the human characters differed from their dwarf counterparts - "One of the greatest challenges in making this film was the depiction of the human characters, the dwarfs were not that much of a problem, because they were really caricature to a great deal and they could be stretched and squashed. (but) The problem with the humans was that they couldn't, they had to be believable"

You can see how the film became less cartoony over time - the design of the queen being the example used in this documentary:

Early character designs for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

 

As said in the documentary:

"In the beginning, in 1934, when they started designing these characters, they looked like silly symphonies characters - a lot of them were comic"

"The early designs refined as they grew more used to this (sort of) European, illustrative look for the characters"

"The witch: the whole design is much more geared toward a realistic approach...they were trying to pull out all the stops and convince you these characters were real"

All this is simply to illustrate that Snow White demanded a different kind of approach than what Disney had attempted before. Achieving this in movement was harder than anticipated, the animators weren't used to these realistic depictions and thus rotoscoping was implemented.

(Above) The designs seen in the final film

Before the release of Snow White, Disney studios experimented with many of the techniques used in the final film through the Silly Symphony shorts. Most of which were steps toward creating more realistic depictions of people, animals and the way we see our world. The Old Mill experimented with multi-plane cameras (great little documentary on this technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdHTlUGN1zw) and with The Goddess of Spring the studio attempted naturalistic human movement:

To get from here to the animation seen in Snow White, Disney filmed actors in live-action, performing actions that would make their way into the final animated film. The artists used this footage as a guide - basically rotoscoping:

The Alice in Wonderland example is cool because it shows what motion capture would go on to do so well - take a real performance and transform the person into something else completely, even a different animal.

Gulliver's Travels (1939)

Two years after the release, and massive success of Snow White, Fleischer studios released their own feature length animated film. Again they faced the same challenge of bringing a naturalistic human being to life in animation with the title character. The Lilliputians, like the dwarfs, didn't have this issue, as they were exaggerated caricatures.

The rotoscoping here is much more obvious than in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in that film it was hard to tell which character was rotoscoped and when - in Gulliver's Travels the divide is much more apparent:

  

Cartoon vs Rotoscope

Fleischer is very important to rotoscoping, some would probably call it a crime for mentioning Disney's influence on the technique before talking about Max Fleischer. This is because Fleischer basically invented the technique. Fleischer felt that animation was too stiff and jerky, and along with his brother tested new ways which would allow them to create more fluid and naturalistic animation. This led to a device he patented as the Rotoscope in 1917.

 

From Wikipedia: Patent drawing for Fleischer's original rotoscope. The artist is drawing on a transparent easel, onto which the movie projector at the right is beaming an image of a single movie frame.

The first rotoscoped cartoon was Out of the Inkwell presents Koko the Clown, which was animated by Fleischer himself.

The video below explores Fleischer's innovation a bit better:

Richard Fleischer, on his father Max: "(He) Really gave cartoons the movement and flexibility we see today"

In the 90's CGI was popularized and suddenly Rotoscoping became much more prevalent, especially in live-action films. Although now it wouldn't be called rotoscoping anymore, instead it became "Motion Capture".

Motion Capture is the same as Rotoscoping in that it uses a real life model as its basis and instead of drawing over it in the traditional sense, the model is replaced with a CGI one.

One of the first examples of this in film is Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, in which George Lucas wanted a fully CGI character in the shape of Jar Jar Binks.

The actor for Jar Jar Ahmed Best said that "I was originally hired just to be the physicality of Jar Jar and then as they were looking for an actor to do the voice over stuff, I'd sent in an audition" - implying that it was originally going to be a similar situation as Darth Vader (where the man in the suit, on set, was not the same man as the voice of the character). It turns out that this became common place down the road for Motion Capture, where actors give a full performance as their characters, later to be replaced with a CGI model that retains all of their acting choices.

Although Star Wars came before, Lord of the Rings was the film that cemented Motion Capture as the next big step forward. The team at Weta created a CGI character that was so fully realized on film that people forgot he wasn't real. That character was of course Gollum.

Back then the performance by Andy Serkis was still used more as a reference, but throughout his career you can see how much the technology has progressed. Compare his performance as Gollum in Lord of the Rings to in The Hobbit. In the latter his performance was captured fully and not as many tweaks had to be made to it from the performance he originally gave to the final product.

The biggest advancement has to be the addition of facial tracking. In the time since the Lord of the Rings the ping-pong ball setup used for recording the actor's movement has evolved to include details in their facial expressions.

 This is now called "Performance Capture" - because it isn't just the movement being captured anymore, it's a full performance.

Traditional Rotoscoping is still used today, but more as a stylistic choice rather than an easier way to achieve 2D animation. Examples of this are:

Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 2 : Depth of Field

Photo Credit : Dillon Kirton

In class we went over two main things:

EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

We went over the exposure triangle again this week because it relates directly to the exercise we did in class. We played with Depth Of Field and the interaction of different camera setting to others. 

DEPTH OF FIELD

 Editing by Sebastian

In class we did an activity where we had to use different settings on the camera until we reached a point where bokeh occurs (which happens when the aperture is the widest it can be). It's a Japanese word meaning blur or haze and creates spots of light in the background.

In class we did this by strictly following instructions on a paper - this sounds worse than I make it seem. We did it so that we could understand at which point, and on what settings, this effect occurs.   

We started close to the subject and slowly moved away, always keeping the subject in a mid shot (waist up framing). 

The further away you are, the more zoomed in, the more bokeh will occur. You can see this in the footage above, where the later shots have a lot more blur in the background - see: the NZCU sign in the footage we recorded. Increasing the distance between your subject and the background is an easy way to achieve bokeh with a higher aperture, this is why it's so commonly seen in close ups.

The shape of the blades in the lens is a deciding factor in the shape of the bokeh, it'll be more diagonal or circular depending on the shape created by the blades.

I found a good tutorial on Youtube:

I like that they demonstrate how important distance from the background is, in our exercise we didn't move the talent, here they stayed the same distance from the talent while moving away from the subject. I like the tips they give for achieving this effect:

- Get close to subject

- Get far away from background

- Keep Aperture wide open

They also mention shooting small light sources, this is the reason I think our experiment went so poorly. We didn't have very small objects and they weren't even lights.

VIMEO

Bokeh is often used in amatuer short films, usually found on Vimeo, because it gives a professional quality to the image and is easy to achieve on DSLR cameras.

Here's a video exploring how it can be used effectively, he also mentions the Vimeo craze:

These behind the scenes images show how the camera is always close to the talent to ensure that they achieve bokeh. 

Bokeh can be used in many different ways, below is an example of someone who likes to emulate this effect to an extreme for use in things like interviews (he places lights in the background knowing he's going to apply the bokeh effect):

We also got our genres this week and I was very happy to get Horror. It was the one I was hoping for, surprisingly it's completely open unlike what some other groups got - e.g. Michael Bay Action Movie. Horror is such an expansive and old genre, with a bunch of different sub-genres and visual styles.

Some visual styles present in the genre:

CRIMSON PEAK/60's Horror

 

EVIL DEAD, BRAINDEAD/ B-Movies

CONJURING, IT/ Modern Horror

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, BLAIR WITCH/ Found Footage

NOSFERATU, CALIGARI/ 20's Horror

 

Giallo Horror 

We are currently contemplating the B-Movie look, mixing it with a psychological horror story. It's something that I'm pretty sure hasn't been done.

BSA202 (Audio Tech) Week 2 : Pro Tools 12

UPDATE:

I find it highly disappointing that we are dropping the power-point assessment, because of how excited I was for it (along with the fact that I already started working on it. In think the blog was added this year and that's why that assessment dropped, honestly I don't know which I would prefer. The only sure thing is that the power-point would have been a lot less work, but then it goes hand-in-hand with a blog. I am conflicted and would probably have preferred to just do both of them.

This week we started our foray into Pro Tools. We learned the basics, the notes below cover that:

How to Open Pro Tools:

Open ProTools12.EXE and then activate with USB. Can't be used without - also no audio when watching YouTube. 

How to Use Pro Tools:

New Project:

We want 48kHz, interleaved and saved to the correct drive. 

Screen-cap of what me and Izaiah did in class (where we took random sound effects and combined them and it actually sounded pretty good)

We also learned which tools to use, how to move and scale tracks, how to import, how to fade in an effect, how to create a transition between two of them and how to adjust the volume with nodes. So far everything in Pro Tools is pretty straight forward, too bad about it's weird accessibility problems and need to for plug-ins for certain features (like slowing down or speeding up a clip).

Soundscape:

We had to use some audio samples we were given to create a soundscape in Pro Tools. I've attached mine below - I have included copyrighted music to help create the scene I was after:

Photo by Danis Lou on Unsplash

Song by Unkle Adams

I tried to create a scene with just the sound, my two main goals were:

1) Create a sense of atmosphere

I listened to what Kiarne did and my favourite part of his soundscape was the atmospheric effect he was able to create. I liked the rain and thunder, it put me in that environment and I found it calming.

For my soundscape I imagined a rainy road at night, the scene sees a car speeding and crashing. A horrible rap song by the almighty 'Unk' playing as the poor victims quietly pass on into the next life.

I think the first half of the video is successful, the crash itself is clunky. I wish I had more time to work on and refine the piece.

2) Illustrate a car going past with music playing

I had this idea when Matthew incorporated a song into his soundscape. I thought it would be cool to hear a car go by, maybe even in the distance, blaring music. This idea snowballed into the crash because of the type of song I ended up using.

Some things to NOTE:

 I really enjoyed the process of creating the soundscape even if it was somewhat limiting. When you are working on it you notice and intend things that will go completely unnoticed by others - especially when played alongside a motion picture. I used the cricket sound to set the scene at the start and then had it disappear as the first car went by. It only comes back when the crash has already happened and the man is screaming. A cow also joins in, signifying how the world moves on.

I expected everyone's soundscapes to end up being the same, after all we were pulling from the same pool of effects. I was impressed with how different each persons I heard were. Kiarne's and Dillon's shared the same choice of effects and created a similar scene, but one presented a full on sci-fi crime city whereas the other was a more of a realistic ride-along.

Going in I wanted to limit my sound effects and avoid the ones I had heard used so often in other people's soundscapes. I decided to go with simplicity and work mainly with wind, thunder and car sounds. I didn't want the police or dogs, setting it on a rural road and not a city was the way to go.

It's clear that I really enjoyed the process of creating the soundscape, and I am extremely excited for the other class activities like ADR and scoring a scene, but I don't know how I feel about Pro Tools 12. At the moment it's very inaccessible and I can't use it in my free time. It seems more hassle than it's worth especially with the other audio editing programs we have (much easier) access to. 

BVA203 (Research-Led Industry Practice) : Visual Journal : Week 2

DAY 1

I found peer review that we did in class this week to be very helpful, it made me more confident in my idea - vocalizing it - and forced me to look for examples to support my argument.

We did an activity in class where we had to act like we were in charge of a class and give them an assignment that would help answer our question. The assessment I set was:

"Read a passage from a book where something is presented that would be hard to communicate in film, without narration, and then adapt it into a short film"

This is definitely one of the things I will do to explore my idea, so my next practice activity is to do the assessment I set my imaginary first years. I will be reading some books and find a passage or paragraph from a book that I want to adapt.

I looked at three books that my brother recently bought when the library had a sale to see if I can find some interesting passages to adapt, they were:

- Macbeth

I think what will be interesting about this is that Shakespeare uses a lot of metaphors and monologues, both of which are things I want to avoid. The question becomes about how do I still adapt it faithfully. I think there is a lot of interesting things in here that I can have an attempt at communicating with film techniques.

- All Quiet on the Western Front 

This is one is the most normal book of the three, it's a simple fictionalized novel told in the present tense. I chose it because it is middle of the line and it would be interesting just to see how to differently translate a book to the screen.

- Raging Bull

This is an autobiography so there should be plenty of opportunity for insight that would usually be communicated with narration.

An interesting to note about all three of these is that they all have film adaptations that I can look at. Macbeth has multiple. I will try and find new ways to communicate small passages from each.

DAY 2

Feedback

This week we had to present our ideas to the whole of the class and I got very harshly critiqued. What I took away from the experience that I need to focus less on the technical aspects of my project and anchor it in conceptual and contextual areas.

This means that I have to be specific with what I intent to do.

Here's how I should break down my question:

- Concept
- Context
- Technical

Technical is only one part of a larger whole, I don't know how to spin it to fit this though.

Development and Rephrasing

I looked for help from my peers and got some good suggestions.

The first comes from Matthew Wilmshurst who suggests that I can look at a film that takes a very omniscient viewpoint and apply a subjective one to it. The example he provides is some of Guy Richie's early films - e.g. "Snatch", "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels".

Snatch is on Netflix I'll give that a watch.

I can pull inspiration from other sources with omniscient viewpoints too, I'm thinking something like Back to the Future.

My brother helped rephrase my question to better communicate what I mean in terms of context and concept:

Concept:

"Humans form languages to gain understanding within any context. Some of these are not formed in speech or written word. Film has a language that is used to translate story ideas into visual and audio that the audience can easily read without being told the information.

My concept is the visual language specific to film".

Context:

"Narration is an element in some films where information is directly told to the viewer. This often relates to the way a character feels. In what ways can the visual language of film be used to communicate this to the audience in a more natural way?"

Practice:

My first practical exploration of the subject will involve taking a piece of writing from a novel that I feel can be interestingly adapted into film and translating it by making a short film, using the language specific to film - the idea I came up with when we did the tutor activity in class.

My first step to achieving this goal is to break down some extracts from novels and brainstorming how I can translate them to film. This will be done with documentation. I will choose the best of these and create animatics or storyboards and make the one or multiple that work the best.

At the moment I feel shaky about my idea, it isn't even as clear in my mind anymore. I am contemplating changing it entirely and getting feedback again before Week 5, idea development is after all what these first four weeks are for.

BSA206 (Screen Arts) Week 2 : Film Analysis

In class we watched the opening of Back to the Future (1985) to practice our analytical skills. There are three main areas in which I feel this scene excels:

1. Plot Progression

I am surprised by how effective this scene is at starting the plot. A scene is interesting when the plot is moving forward, so it was surprising to me at first that the prime example we're looking at starts off so slow. We start with a long tracking shot of a lot of clocks, which is a very nice way to thematically introduce the film. But there is much more to this opening shot(s) than just the clocks, the plot is already moving with the plutonium being introduced and the newspaper clippings of a burned down mansion. These elements create a sense of mystery and keeps the audience engaged.

Overall the scene is extremely efficient, every element has it's place, and if something is set up it also has a pay off. The clocks play a major part towards the end of the first scene, where they are the thing that warns the main character that he's late for school and which kicks us right into the rest of the film.

Even the transition where the main character goes to school is always introducing new things and establishing not only the time period but also the town's layout.

How the scene kept me engaged by always moving the plot forward:

Thematically appropriate clocks > Burned down mansion > Missing Plutonium > Contraptions and abandoned lab > Marty's entrance > Plutonium reveal > Guitar scene and character reveal > Doc calls and sets up a time and place for character to be > Late for school > Into pop song and establishment of setting

2. Character Setup

The second thing that this scene does very well is create a sense of who the characters are. By the end of the scene we already feel familiar with them and even though we don't see Doc we already know what he's like. Marty is a 1985 teenager, introduced with his recklessness, sense of sarcasm and interest in rock 'n roll. Doc is shown to be an unorganized mad scientist.

I also like that Marty, the movie's time traveler, is someone who can't stay on time (Matthew pointed out to me that he has a wrist watch and is still late).

The time period is also very well established, as it is something that is very important to the plot. We move into the 80's proper when Marty goes to school, where we are accompanied with a (then) contemporary pop song as we take a journey through essential period specific iconography.

3. Technical Elements

The shots specifically are wonderful at communicating the story. They are made up of long tracking shots that slowly reveal more information to the audience. The camera floats through the scene, taking an omniscient viewpoint. I like how smoothly it transitions from different kind of shots, like a mid shot to a close up or a long shot to a wide, all without cutting. You don't notice the camera and don't even consider what the set-up must have been like - effortlessly immersive. I like the shots where Marty enters and where he kicks the skateboard. They feel like finished shots and then introduce something new while moving with an object or person in the scene.

Films I want to give a similar analysis treatment:

- TRAINSPOTTING

I want to do a breakdown of the opening scene from Trainspotting (the Iggy Pop bit) because I've watched that scene a lot of times since first seeing it last year without even watching the whole film. I keep finding myself wanting to watch something on Netflix and then just quickly watching the Trainspotting opening scene again.

It's not a long scene but a lot happens. It has such a unique aesthetic and the editing is pitch perfect. Danny Boyle is one of the directors I consider using as a model for my film later in the year, so it would help to start breaking down what he does well.

- JAWS

This is very similar to the Back to the Future example in terms of the technical elements. The generation following the Hollywood New Wave (people like Spielberg, Lucas and Zemeckis) perfected the art of visual storytelling in film, their movies are extremely immersive with their smooth cameras and expertise at the cinematic craft.

I watched a scene from Jaws the other day just for fun and I think it'll be a good one to break down. It's the scene on the raft where the mayor convinces Brody not to cause a panic and the beach where the shark attacks for the first time during the day.

Taking inspiration from these guys for my short film would be great, because I'd be learning how to make the most of the basics of film-making. What inspires me about them is that they didn't need a flashy style or techniques, they used the foundation of the cinematic language to it's fullest potential. It's something I should probably learn how to do before trying to emulate someone like Boyle or Gilliam.

- TERRY GILLIAM FILM

I want to do a Gilliam style film because of how unique his style is and because of how ambitious yet low budget his films usually are. Even if it's just an everyday drama, his signature dutch angles and odd framing will give the film something special.

I recently started watching all of his films, although I haven't finished yet, I think he'd be a cool model. I don't know where I would begin for choosing a scene though.
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We were given a similar task to last year's "Describe a scene or film that scared you as a kid, and one that did so more recently", this time the task was to talk about films that made us sad:

"Two Examples from early memory. Describe and compare your response to them then and now":

I am Legend (2008)

When the dog is killed by the main character. It's a really sad scene when a dog dies, and I remember being especially teary when the dog had to be pity killed by Will Smith in I am Legend. The reason this scene worked so well was partly because of it's content, but also because of what came before. We spend a lot of time with the character and his canine companion before this scene, and get to see their bond. More importantly we get to see how much he means to the main character - who is alone in the world with only this one dog to keep him company. The fact that animals don't usually understand why things are happening or what they did wrong also helps make it even sadder because we feel sorry for them.

Looking back this scene has a lot of layers and I remember actually thinking about it after the movie ended as a kid. The dog turning into a zombie and it trying to kill Will Smith as i's last action is also quite effective.

I haven't seen the movie since I was young, so I don't know how I would react today, but it has stayed with me all these years and I remember the scene vividly. I can't help but think I would feel the same today, probably just a bit more numb.

Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Another sad Will Smith movie, at least I remember it being sad. The part I remember from childhood is him sleeping in a bathroom with his son and playing a game with him to distract him from the reality of their predicament. Someone tries to get into the bathroom while his son lies asleep and he has to cover the boy's ears.

These types of scenes were always effective because as a kid I was always concerned with my parents and how they were doing. This film is told from that point of view and I remember feeling much more empathy for Will Smith's character than his son's. Parents suffering, especially to give their kids a good life, was always very sad to me.

I watched the film again recently and it didn't have any effect on me. Maybe I've become desensitized. I think the saddest part is when they play the game to try and escape their reality. I've come to realize that I find myself feeling sadder when a movie has a facade of something happy with a true sadness lying underneath.

In  general I think happy moments in movies are more effective in making me sad than blatantly sad or depressing ones.

AI (2001)

This is a good example of the happy-sad scene being more sad than a straight sad one. There are two sad scenes in AI and when someone else in class mentioned the movie my mind immediately jumped to one. The first is when the main character is abandoned, the one most people probably think of (and it makes sense, as a kid that would be a very affecting scene), but the one that stuck with me all these years is the end scene where David spends one last day with his mother. This scene is so prominent in my memory that I almost forgot about the abandonment scene.

Again it's the happy-sad combination that makes it work so well.

I haven't scene AI since I was a kid, although I watched it enough to remember it pretty well (we had it on VHS), don't know how I'd react today, but I can imagine that the ending scene would still seem sad to me.

Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Here we are again with a scene that seems happy but has a sad center. The scene I am talking about it the Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride scene (where Stitch goes surfing with Lilo and her older sister). The scene sees Stitch learn not to be afraid of the water, but it's sad because he comes to realize what he really wants. It's sad because he's an outcast and the scene is about him coming so close to something that he truly wants, but that because of his circumstance and genetic predisposition is seemingly incapable of ever acquiring.

I thought about genetics a lot as a kid, how some people are naturally better than others at certain things, and how there are extremes on both sides of what you get given (good at everything and serious mental or physical disabilities). I always felt I was on the lower side of the gene pool and this scene really resonated with me because of the fact that it isn't Stitch's choice how he started or what is built into his DNA.

Another sad scene from this movie has a very similar theme, it's where Stitch overhears the conversation Lilo has with her big sister and he desires to have a family. This type of thing is always sad because everyone sympathizes with an orphan.

Looking back the reason these two scenes work, I think is because they show a character wanting or needing something and coming extremely close to getting it or getting extremely close to someone who has it.

The song adds a lot too, as music often does.


"Also provide two examples from recent memory":

The Wind Rises (2013)

This is a pretty sad movie, a lot of it is spent focusing on a love story that ends in death. We see a lot of the main character's wife and her worsening condition, the saddest scene to me is at the end when he is in his fantasy land.

We see the main character walk over a grass hill, surrounded by broken warplanes - the thing he spent his life creating - atop the hill is his childhood hero. They talk briefly of his life's achievement and the planes he spent his whole life working towards fly past silently, the pilots saluting. They join million others in the sky, his hero says planes are beautiful but cursed dreams. The main characters dead wife tells him he must live, she disappears into the clouds, his hero tells him she is gone now.

The scene is sad because it is such an understated conclusion. Some plot lines feel unresolved, being only mentioned here in passing. It is a beautiful final reflection on the main character's life.

La La Land (2016)

The scene from La La Land is kind of a combination of many of the elements I've talked about.

Firstly it's happy/sad and focuses on what could have been. I find these types of what if scenarios and scenes very intriguing. It's someone looking at what could have been, which is a happy thought, but the reality of the situation is that it isn't real. It's a fantasy that as a viewer we enjoy seeing and which the character enjoys inhabiting, but ultimately it's nothing more. This is probably what I find most sad about this scene, it's about regret.

Regret is probably my greatest fear and I constantly wonder what would have happened if I approached a situation differently or if I lived my life differently, now I find myself incapable of not seeing the future consequences of every single one of my actions. So this scene really resonated with me on that level.

The other thing it does well is the same thing that Lilo and Stitch did, the character comes extremely close to what they want, and in this case almost had, but which they are unable to get.

The smile Ryan Gosling's character gives at the end is bittersweet and the entire scene ends the movie on a high, happy note, but there is the undeniable undercurrent of tragedy.



Inside Out (2015)

This is an interesting example because it tackles the exact thing I've been talking about this entire blog - the relationship between happiness and sadness, and how they need to co-exist.

It's a very smart film that also manages to be very emotionally resonant.
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BSA202 (Audio Tech) Week 1 : Evolution of Musical Scores - The Sound of Cinema

- The Sound of Cinema : The Music that Made Movies (2013)

We started a documentary in class that looked at the evolution of music in film.

The first episode of the three-part documentary, titled "The Big Score", explores the origin and development of traditional film scoring.

The main periods that stood out for me were:

The Silent Era (1895 - 1927): During this time movies didn't have a preset score, it was accompanied by a live orchestra or musician. This meant that the score was more unpredictable, experimental and that you would get a different experience upon each viewing.

This is extremely interesting to me because of how much freedom the musician or musicians are given and how much time they have to refine their score. There is a lot of experimentation that takes place, but it provides an inconsistent experience. One audience could be treated to a wonderful score while another subjected to something terrible. I know auteur theory wasn't a thing with film back then, but I can't imagine leaving the quality of the audience experience in the hands of an unsupervised musician, especially knowing how important music is to a film.

The example used from this era, The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The Jazz Singer (1927): Sound and an original score (that cannot be altered) is introduced.

One of the things that most resonated with me watching this documentary is the strides these people made. Introducing sound and a set score adds so much to the medium as a whole, placing much more creative control in the hands of the filmmakers. I can't help but worry that the medium has reached it's full potential and that there is no more innovation to be done. Even the CGI these days - the thing moving ahead most rapidly - seems like it isn't really improving that much and maybe it reached it's peak around 2009 with movies like Where the Wild Things Are, District 9 and Avatar. It's still improving but not prompting any change in the industry. Plus I personally feel that those advancements are in animation, not film.

The things that seem exciting is the advancement of drones (which could eventually replace cranes and dollies once they become silent enough) and new ways of experiencing film (like 360 degree cameras). Although the latter seems very limited and will probably be considered a new medium altogether as it would be closer to stage than cinema. The strides taken by the filmmakers from 1900 - 2000 just aren't being made anymore, and I can't see how they would be - the medium might have had it's time in the sun.

Other artforms like video games and interactive narrative experiences feel infinitely more expandable. Then again people said that we had invented everything there is to invent by the 18th century, so maybe I speak too early. My personal feeling at the moment is that movies have reached the same place that books had a while ago, it won't go away but it's not as innovative anymore.

The Jazz Singer (1927)

The Jazz Singer is famous for changing the course of the industry with it's introduction of spoken dialogue, a pre-scored film was a reality now, why not incorporate dialogue into the same strip?

Sound was added alongside the video frames on film, this was called a sound strip:

  

Interestingly enough the sound strip was part of what helped change the aspect ratio of film, to make room for the strip the frame ratio went from 1.33:1 to 1.37:1.

King Kong (1933):

The documentary credits Kong as the first film to have a modern Hollywood score produced for it. Where films before it had small pieces of music composed for them, like opening or closing credits, Kong had a feature length score composed by Max Steiner that ran under everything that happened throughout the film. What this means is that movie music evolved to become more like opera or music by the great composers. The main reason for this change is that Leit-Motif had now become a viable option for film.

A leit-motif is a tune or theme that correlates to a specific character, place or emotion. Originally established by Wagner for his operas, Steiner implemented it into King Kong, giving the titular ape his own theme.

In the documentary the theme and it's variations is demonstrated, the example the host uses is how Steiner changes the score to reflect Kong's emotions when taking off the main actresses dress. The music for Kong was so important because the audience had to connect with the monster on some level, something that would have been very hard to do visually at that time.

The scene where Kong removes the main actresses clothing could be interpreted as perverted, the score is what informs us that it's a softer emotion mixed with boyish excitement, a more tender scene.

Adventures of Robin Hood (1938):

Erich Wolfgang Korngold is one of the all time great Hollywood composers, the documentary discusses him and his work on the film The Adventures of Robin Hood. His importance in the history of film music is two-fold:

Unprecedented Creative Freedom

The first is the amount of freedom Korngold was given when working on films like Robin Hood. He was such an important figure in the musical community that Hollywood producers placed him first, if he was to produce scores for movies then he would be given what he needed to make the best music possible. This meant that he was rewarded extra time and to ensure that he produced finished pieces he could request certain scenes to be lengthened or shortened. The music was so important that it could directly influence not just the meaning of the film, but also other departments like editing and directing.

Historical Importance 

Korngold has historical importance because of his Jewish-Austrian ancestry during WWII, his music, specifically for Robin Hood, became a statement more-so than just a piece of art. It was to Korngold, and to those listening, a cry for freedom and opposition to the Nazi regime.

The score is very good and can be fun to analyse, the video-essayist Sideways did a good video on it too:

As the narrator here points out Korngold's sound is also one of those that became the most popular, John Williams taking a lot of cues from his style.

Personally I am very impressed by the Robin Hood movie itself, while I haven't seen it, the action scene really took me by surprise.

The agility of the actors and creativeness use of space makes the action scenes very fun to watch, which is something people struggle to achieve even now. It's a very old film and it's a sword fight, these are two things that in my mind would not make for a very entertaining scene and yet they managed to do it.

The 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves seems to me like it also took some inspiration from these action scenes, with the movement of the characters and use of space being very similar:

Even the 1993 parody Robin Hood movie (Men in Tights) does this. It seems like wasted potential not to stay spiritually true to this style of sword fight with Ridley Scott's 2010 version. Hopefully Robin Hood remake incorporates this type of action scene because it's hardly ever seen. 

This second part of the documentary asks "It is possible to cut out the composer and still make a musically great film?", and it is a very interesting issue to explore.

After Korngold no one really surpassed him in terms of sheer talent, and no one really innovated to same degree as Steiner or The Jazz Artist did again. Music, like all things, simply changed over the years.

The next big advancement, or ethical discussion, became about using contemporary or pop music in movies, the second part of the documentary focusing almost entirely on the use of pop-songs on movies:

The documentary poses the question: "Can pop music replace traditional film scores?"

This video by Sideways discusses some very interesting points (both positive and negative):

I personally don't have the answer, and I don't know if I ever will, but I do know that for this specific assessment it would be better to break down a film with a traditional score. There is a lot more detail that the composer can add and subsequently a lot more to look at. Pop music soundtracks lack motifs which is one of the most important parts of a film's score.

The other issue with pop songs is that a lot of them are very similar, to demonstrate this I edited the end of Django with one of the worst songs of all time (Mambo #5) to show that it still works:

I think it is an interesting side of film music to explore though, because I think pop songs can reach the same level as a tailor made score, all it needs is some tweaking.

My suggestion to fix the pop song problem is to use the songs as motifs and through-lines. This can be done by either manipulating the songs, giving one character or theme a pop song and orchestrating it throughout the film (almost like a musical does with it's orchestral score), it can be done by using a certain sound repeatedly (like a certain era's music to represent a character or theme, almost like how the 80's tunes are used to represent the main character in Guardians of the Galaxy), or even more experimentally, find songs that fit together well and remix them.

You can see this already happening in musical circles, people mixing pop songs (because they are all so similar), usually to comedic effect. 

These are some good examples, if the songs fit as well as these they can be used in tandem like musical themes usually are. Jumping between one and the other, or blending them into one. This could add the depth and meaning back into the soundtrack and I would love to see it happen.

RESEARCH OUTSIDE OF CLASS:

Soundworks Collection is a very good source of behind the scenes on the audio production of films - recommended by Vaughn:

http://soundworkscollection.com/

I'll probably watch some of the short docos, but mainly listen to the podcasts. I don't have podcasts ti listen to usually, because either the subjects don't interest me or the hosts are annoying. This falls in line with exactly what I want so it'll be a new experience for me.

Findings from Library Visits:

Invercargill library: This was the least fruitful of my ventures, I was able to find enough material on film and music as two separate categories but none where they intersected. I considered getting books about each subject, but I feel that the point of Audio Tech and Musical Scoring for films is that it is directly tied into the film itself. The two cannot exist independently. Even though a film score is enjoyable to listen to alone, it doesn't serve the same purpose and doesn't have the same affect. The two are made for each other, so taking one away leaves the other with only half it's impact.

This made me wonder how deaf people experience films. If they can't experience the sound then how much of the subtext do they miss? Does a more effective score mean that people who can't hear will have a worse experience? It's weird that something some people don't even know exists can have such a large bearing over whether or not they'd enjoy a movie. Even silent films had musical accompaniment.

SIT Library and online database had more sources but I haven't had a chance to check them out yet, not properly anyway. At the moment nothing jumps out to me.

Below are some sources I found online that I could use:

- Score: A Film Music Documentary

http://www.screenread.de/doug-adams-the-music-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-films-interview-english/

- Giacchino Interview

http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/michael-giacchino/51899/michael-giacchino-interview-the-art-of-scoring-movies

The libraries were so disappointing in their selection of books in this area that I bought some good ones online of artists that I might look at:

Williams is the essential film composer, this book will give me some great insight into his career, and film scoring in general. 

The one I am most likely going to do is Howard Shore and The Lord of the Rings, it's probably the one I know the most well and with this book I'll be able to get really in depth as it's written by one of his collaborators.



He breaks down specific themes, which is perfect for this assessment.