It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do, I failed last year (I think) and didn't really know what I was doing. I want this year to be different and became frustrated when I didn't know what to make my question. A resolution for this year is talk to more people and get more insight from others, I did this for my idea and it worked very well. I talked to Vaughn and he helped me gain a better understanding of what kind of question I should be asking. So I decided on a question that I am actually interested in and something that I would like to do:
I am going to explore subjectivity in film, and how it's communicated to the audience. I want to look at how things we feel can be translated to film and how I can use film techniques to represent this.
This week we started with an Activity in class which required us to choose our question, I was absent but a classmate provided me the instructions, which I have written down and filled in below:
Write down the question
How can subjectivity be represented in the medium of film?
What practice is required?
I need to work within my chosen medium (film) and will probably explore the question by making a series of very short, experimental movies, each focusing on just one idea.
What are the main parts of your question (break into parts)?
- How
I am asking a very practical question. It's not why or when, I know why people use it and I know when it's been used (although these will still be factors in my exploration of the question), it's how can I carry it out practically?
It's about the method, the ins and outs - of creating something that has a sense of subjectivity.
- Subjectivity
How do I define subjectivity? It's a very broadly applicable term, I need to be specific with what I mean here.
- Represented
I want to explore how I can represent subjectivity in a way that the audience understands. Books and other mediums have an easier time of representing (or communicating this idea), how can it be done in film?
Might change question to:
How can subjectivity be communicated in the medium of film?
- Medium of Film
What theoretical/practitioners research is required?
There is a lot of information on subjectivity in film to be found on the web, in theoretical books and essays and practical examples from filmmakers who have already incorporated the idea into their work (Son of Saul, Danny Boyle).
Reflect - Is it feasible to address in time-frame/resources available?
I've got about 14 weeks to complete my body of work, I can't start filming anything until the equipment room opens, I also want to research the subject some more first before jumping in feet first.
My plan is to spend the first two weeks purely on research, after which I will try and juggle practical and theoretical. It gives me about 10-12 weeks for filming, I reckon that if I do a short every second weekend, I can produce about 5 or 6.
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Our first assessment is due on the 12th of March, when we will be presenting our Proposals to the class (worth 15% of paper). This is followed with the Body of Work due on the 28th of May (worth 60% of paper) and Documentation due on the 4th of June (25% of paper).
We are able to choose how we want to document our process, my method of choice is the blog, as such this blog will serve as part of the Documentation assessment.
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Research Week 1:
Theoretical:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2008/10/24/categorical-coherence-a-closer-look-at-character-subjectivity/
http://filmtheory.org/subjective-cinema/
http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/frames/editing/Butte08.pdf
In my estimation subjectivity in film uses a language that is completely unique to the medium, visuals, cutting, in general a type of subtext that can support or add to the main story. The specific idea I want to explore is using this third language to place the audience inside the mind of the character.
A bunch of practical examples from Cinefix, what is most interesting to me is how they define subjectivity in film:
Can a camera look past how things look to how they feel - I like the way they describe what I am trying to explore. Subjectivity is about creating the experience of what it's like to think from a characters mind.
I like how they break their lists into different categories, showing there is a lot to play with in this field.
The video below is interesting because it displays what I mean when I talk about the subtext of a film, and how movies can use visuals to reinforce the story (specifically expressive shots segment - 6:17):
I like what he says about using different types of shot to represent the air or relationship on screen; he calls them "expressive shots".
There are two films that I take great inspiration from when embarking on this question, they are two of the films that I saw recently that started me thinking about subjectivity.
Son of Saul
The first is Son of Saul (2015) a foreign, indie movie that takes a very unique approach to representing World War II. Not through it's story, which is interesting in and of itself, but because of the way it's presented:
This clip displays the film's unique style. It's something that this director incorporates into all his work, like his 2007 short film With a Little Patience that serves almost like a companion piece to this. By constraining the frame to 4:3 and adopting a shallow focus, the character feels drawn into himself and desensitized to his reality.
The main character here is a Jew in WWII working under the Nazi's to help kill and burn his own people, so the way he feels is represented fittingly.
This is what I am talking about when I say subjectivity, we are with the character every moment and even from the first scene of the film we feel, in a way, what he feels.
Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Steve Jobs)
A practitioner of this technique who I really like is Danny Boyle, who's films often use editing to represent how people experience memory or how he uses visual metaphors to represent the way a character feels.
The classic example from his oeuvre is the toilet scene from Trainspotting (1996) where Boyle represents the experience the character is having as fantastical. As an audience we are transported into how the character feels more so than what is actually happening. Unlike other directors, who would take a removed, objective point of view, Boyle decides to place us directly inside the character's head.
The clip below is from T2: Trainspotting (2017) which displays how Boyle uses editing to represent how a character experiences memory and how he shows someone's thought process.
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A practitioner of this technique who I really like is Danny Boyle, who's films often use editing to represent how people experience memory or how he uses visual metaphors to represent the way a character feels.
The classic example from his oeuvre is the toilet scene from Trainspotting (1996) where Boyle represents the experience the character is having as fantastical. As an audience we are transported into how the character feels more so than what is actually happening. Unlike other directors, who would take a removed, objective point of view, Boyle decides to place us directly inside the character's head.
The clip below is from T2: Trainspotting (2017) which displays how Boyle uses editing to represent how a character experiences memory and how he shows someone's thought process.
As he talks images from the first film and new footage is inter-cut, some of which we've never seen before. It's what he relates to what he's saying because when we speak we aren't just making it up on the spot, but drawing from years of experience (like the shots from the first film) and everything has a subtext (like him unsatisfied in bed). Again we are inside the character's head.
This is more what I want to lean towards, visual metaphor can be difficult to stage, editing and other film techniques are easier to do but still have a profound effect on the way the audience feels and sees the character,
This same technique is used in another of Boyle's films that I think deserves mention: Steve Jobs (2015). There is one shot during the final scene of the film where it cuts back in time to where Steve is working with his best friend, Woz, out of a garage. It's quick and he just says his friend's name. That's all.
I think it is a Boyle touch because most of the movie is very Arron Sorkin-ish (the writer), it's in these small moments where Boyle shines. This one shot spliced in stayed with me and added a sense of nostalgia and sadness to the final scene.
Shot at 5:16:
My idea needs refinement and I need to be more specific with what angle I am going to approach this from. I didn't have a lot of time this week which is disappointing because I want to get stuck in straight away. Last year I screwed up when I did BVA103, I kept changing my idea and was unable to answer any one of my 15 million questions. The difference this time is that I've chosen something that I'm genuinely interested in, this passion will keep me loyal to the question and help me move forward.
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Brainstorm:
I've come up with one idea this week that I think will work and be interesting to explore:
- Play same scene from different perspectives, or from one character's perspective but in two different points in time
I recently re-watched Moon (2009) and I can't help but feel that there was a lot of missed opportunity there in having two of the same character interact with himself at different points in his life. It's such a rich idea that not only could have been better explored, but which has a lot of application outside the universe of that film.
I think it would be very interesting to see how a character's opinion about an event in their life changes, which could be shown by filming the same scene twice, with different techniques.
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