BSA 234 (Cinematography) Week 13 : Pre-Production

This week we had to produce pre-production materials for our proposed drama project, these were to include storyboards, lighting schematics and location photos.

The first thing I struggled with was coming up with a project at all, and scripting went through mutliple developmental stages:

The first thing I did in preparation for this project was looking for inspiration. I loved working on the Team Noir shoot and seeing their elaborate lighting setups and decided I wanted to do something similar. An odd thought because I had never had any interest in the genre, and even visually it never really stood out as something that I wanted to incorporate into my own work.

Alas I knew that I needed to start from some kind of visual basis because as has been the problem all year - I have no idea what story, or even what kind of story, I want to tell. I also saw the video essay below and thought Orson Welles' style was fantastic:



Of course it isn't all credited to Welles, I looked into the cinematographer as well:



For a short period I was really interested in the man behind the camera - Welles himself. He has such an interesting career and to see him go from the boy genius who couldn't do wrong to the crazy filmmaker out of Europe who never finished his films is very interesting.



But before looking at any of this I rented three of his films with the intention to see what I could pull from them and hopefully find inspiration for my own work, the films were:

Citizen Kane




The only one of Welles' films that I've actually seen, it also happens to be one of the most prominent in the video about his cinematography and for good reason. A lot of what makes Welles' style his own is established in this film and changes later on in his career. The presence of ceilings, the depth in the frame and sheer scale of every shot are all best displayed here.

Touch of Evil



This was a kind of director for hire situation where Welles was adapting something for someone else without much passion for it himself. It is very Noir though, probably the most of the films that he directed.

The Trial 



Movies like this Brazil and The Double (2013) are part of a sub-genre that I really like. The characters are stuck in a system that they can't control but from which they wish to escape.






The best compliment I can give The Double is how it makes sense of things that leading up to the resolution seem unimportant.

In this interview the director says that they had to somehow wrap up the story and come up with an ending that even the writer of the novella Fyodor Dostoevsky couldn't come up with a satisfying resolution.



The novella ends with the main character being carted away to a mental asylum, the kind of ending that technically is a resolution but which feels empty and kind of like the author cheated. Yes the character was crazy all along. The movie does something different that makes the ending feel more earned and plays with the rules of the world. It is a satisfying conclusion because the character had to work for it and overcomes his weaknesses. In the novella the character doesn't get anywhere and doesn't change, at the end he is worse off than where he started.

Link to Novella: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsky/d72d/chapter1.html

It sounds cliche, but seeing a character develop and learn is very satisfying. It's something I think about a lot, and doubt the validity of, but the truth is that when I see a film like The Double I enjoy it more exactly because the character progresses.

To clarify I struggle with the concept of characters changing as being a good storytelling technique because when I try to write it myself it seems obvious and cheap. Why should people care when they know how the story will unfold? Maybe the reason The Double works is because it takes a similar approach as The Trial, with the story seeming not to really go anywhere and almost like a plot twist reveals that the characters do actually change and have an effect on their world.

Dostoevsky is another author I looked at because of how similar The Double seems to be to The Trial and other such stories. I thought that the two authors might have a similar approach to storytelling, it is in researching Dostoevsky that I found he is very different though.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DOSTOEVSKY AND KAFKA

IDEA 1: THE TRIAL ADAPTATION

Kafka's Book: http://www.kafka-online.info/the-trial.html

Watching the first 10-20 minutes of The Trial, the movie I started with, was enough to give me an idea of what I could do for my own work. See The Trial is based on work by Franz Kafka and for that reason there is no real tangible reason to any of the proceedings, the main character is accused and sent to trial, eventually executed, and yet he never finds out what his crime was.

The first 20 or so minutes of the film had me trying to solve this puzzle and figure out what was going on, I came to a theory and excitedly waited for it to play out. Only later down the line did I realize the film had nothing in particular to say or anywhere to go, the set-ups at the start were never going to be paid off.

But I still had my idea of the film that would be in my head and though why the hell not adapt that:

What I found worked so well in The Trial is that the opening scene immediately hooks the audience. A man enters uninvited, far too early in the morning and the main character acknowledges this and yet can extract no information from the stranger. It's a good set-up that would work wonderfully for a short film, especially with one that is limited to two people in a room.

The book is very different to the script as it oft happens, the book is much busier with more people around the apartment and it doesn't have the same line of inquiry about the main character's female neighbour, which was kind of from where my idea originated. For these reason I chose to adapt the script more so than the original book.

Link to script: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/trial-orson-welles-exhibition-paranoia-illogicality-personal-responsibility-take-kafkas-classic/

MY IDEA

When I was watching The Trial I started piecing together puzzle pieces that didn't exist. I thought that the whole thing must be a dream, a dream of someone who obviously has a guilty conscious. The line of inquiry suggests that the man's insecurities and secrets are specific to his female neighbour Miss Bursnar. When I was watching this I thought that it would be cool if the inspector was probing into K's mind to find out the truth of a crime that K is accused of. The actual Trial is happening in the real world and K is under scrutiny after being accused of a crime that he will neither admit to or that can be factually proven.

But what kind of crime like this exists?

Of course back when the film was made I don't know what they would have chosen, but something that is quite prevalent now and something that would fit perfectly with the Inspectors' questions about Miss Bursnar - as well as K's odd relationship with her - would be the accusation of rape. It is a relevant issue now and if it were to say become more serious then in a fictional world people would devise a way to find out whether or not a guy accused of rape actually did it.

So this was the basis of my idea. Communicating this proved immediately difficult. I liked that at the start we don't know exactly what's going on, just as K in the dream wouldn't. There was also the resolution to consider - I liked the idea but wouldn't go ahead with it if there was no where for the story to go. I think I thought of a good conclusion that wouldn't have affirmed or denied whether K is actually guilty - staying true to the source material - but which would still give the story a satisfying conclusion in which the protagonist makes a choice.

The idea is that K is living through the a memory of the day on which the alleged rape occurred and he's been put under close surveillance so that the inspector can confirm whether or not he's guilty. A ticking clock device is present here as the middle of K's day is taken up by work so the deed occurs at night.

The resolution is that when he learns the truth, which he does throughout the day, he refuses to engage in the memory and goes back to sleep. Not wanting to know whether he's guilty. As expected the inspector just sends him back to the start of the day, K refuses to play the game and decides that it wouldn't be the worst thing to live this day over and over again as it really was a pretty good day.

I tried going for bittersweet ending. The enjoyment from his day would come from the conversation he has with his neighbour in the morning and his choice to not find out is because he can't imagine actually being guilty of the things he's been accused of. I think the ending works on other levels - for one it feels like an active choice and ultimate victory for the protagonist, almost a way of outsmarting the inspector.

I found during the creation of this story in my head I incorporated many different artists, not just Welles and Kafka. The concept being not dissimilar to Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I imagined the more surreal segments later on in the film having that David Lynch touch.

Of course the other great thing about the opening scene to Welles' The Trial is that the dialogue is wonderfully written and very entertaining to listen to. It's something present in a lot of old films and this made me realize that this could be a way to go for my scripts. After all why should people talk naturally in a heightened medium like film? The sophistication present in the dialogue of older films (like those from the 50's and 60's) is no longer around and considering it's just a film and considering that actors would love to say these lines I decided to also return to a more classical style of talking in my writing.

OLD TIMEY DIALOGUE





One of my favourite movies is It's A Wonderful Life (1946) which one an Oscar for writing. The reason for it's success is two-fold:

1) It's efficiency

Like all great films the movie is very succinct and every scene has a reason to be there and every detail sees reincorporation in some form. Upon each reviewing of this film I realize just how tightly written it is.

I think the problem with this for me, now, is that all this reincorporation and foreshadowing isn't applicable to the short film format. To write efficiently in this manner one has to have enough space for setup and pay-off and that's something that doesn't happen in just 10 minutes. The outline I had for this first idea was for a 30-40 minute film, still short but certainly not short enough to be done in one scene. And that's one of my greatest problems with this first idea, but I'll discuss that further down the line.

2) It's wonderfully entertaining dialogue



I think one of the effects of having this kind of dialogue is that it becomes fun to say and if it's fun to say then the actors get more enthusiastic and give more to the role. From my limited experience, mainly derived from being on the sets of others, I have found that the dialogue present in a lot of student films would be hard to say for anyone, let alone amateurs. They always feel restrained and non-expressive, the dialogue I see in the films around me represent characters that in these older films would be introverts or social outcasts.

After all this up and down and my inability to decide whether or not I even liked what I had I decided to scrap the idea of this adaptation completely and change course, the problems inherent with it's length and the limitations I had were just not applicable to the story in my head. Of course I tried finding work-arounds, I read Matthew Wilmshurst's script and it was very concise, clear and started and finished within it's seven pages. A resolution was present and this is something I felt my film would dearly miss.

This relates back to the efficiency present in It's A Wonderful Life, I built my story with the idea that I would introduce things slowly at first, relying off mystery to engage the audience, and by the second half I would re-incorporate what I had set-up and provide both a clarity to what had been going on as well as a new direction for the character to head in.

I wished that I could change the story, make it all happen in one room, but the idea I had at the time was too specific and I couldn't divorce from it, instead I changed course completely:

IDEA 2: THE HUNGER ARTIST 

Well not completely, I kept within the genre and subject matter that I had set myself. To look for new story inspiration I did some research on Kafka and his other works.

The first I came upon, and something I had read a long time ago was The Hunger Artist.

Link to PDF: http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/literature/kafka/hunger.pdf

Once again I found myself enamored just as much by the man as, maybe even more-so by him than, his work. Kafka's life was a very depressing one and even though I couldn't relate to him concerning child-abuse, a hated father or being forced into a corporate system, I could relate to his insecurities in his own creative output and hatred of the work he produced.



Kafka demanded his written work be burned once he died because he despised it so much. Which was exactly how I felt at that moment about my previous idea and drafts - I hated them with a passion and they caused me great turmoil, the relief coming only once I had decided to let it die and never have anyone know about it (a standpoint I have since changed).

The last thing Kafka wrote was The Hunger Artist, somewhat inspired by his last days wherein he couldn't eat because of sickness. He died of starvation days after the completion of this story - yeah his life was pretty morbid.

THE IDEA

The idea was very simple - make an adaptation of Kafka's four page short, but set it completely in one room with just two people talking. This type of activity is fun because the story itself has a lot of narration, something that I can't do in a short, especially not one of this sort.

This method of finding ways to communicate the same ideas in such a limited space combined with a bigger focus on the actual blocking and look of the film is what got me excited to take the short in this direction.

What's the symbolism? What am I trying to say?

I had my insecurities about the subject matter and what I was trying to say with it.

No resolution

The resolution I had in mind feels weak and more as part of a larger story, something I wanted to avoid this time around. I wasn't sure what exactly to do with the end and the answer never came to me, people would watch it and even if it was good the ending would leave them asking what the point of it was at all.

Location Hunt

One of the biggest obstacles that this particular story presents is its setting. It just has to be office or room, but the look in my mind fits no space that I know exists in my immediate surroundings or that I have access to. I imagine a cluttered but high ceilinged room with big windows and a desk. This requires far too much work on my part as even if I find the appropriate space it would mean carting props and set decoration in and out and that just complicates it too much. The closest thing I can think of using would be the Dance studio but it's a bit of a far cry from what I had in mind. It would work if I twisted it the right way, I am filming in black and white anyway, but there are even more problems I had with this story that prevented me carrying it through to its conclusion.

Then again Orson Welles said about The Trial and the lack of sets he had: "I had planned to make a completely different film. Everything was improvised at the last moment, because the whole physical concept of the film was quite different."1, so who am I to complain?

Casting Limitations

Who's going to play the starving guy?

IDEA 3: KAFKA FILM

I found myself going back to what I thought of at the start - firstly I'll begin with two men in a room like The Trial and have one of them enter uninvited (a concept that intrigued me so much initially that I thought it would work wonderfully in a short).

The big difference this time would be to better adapt themes from Kafka's life. His work is supposed to make you feel like the characters - confused, ashamed and exposed. I decided to make this one of the cornerstones of my new story - a man ashamed of his writing has a visitor tear it to shreds.

Charlie Kaufman makes another appearance, the film he wrote called Adaptation really shows the mind of a writer and it's very entertaining, and relatable to watch. It is relevant to my work because the character in that film tears himself down a lot and seriously questions what he's doing wrong. These are things I felt during this entire process and something I wanted present in this film, except the words of insult would come from the inspector or overseer character.

The idea here was of course to metaphorically represent the writing process and personify the "don't let the judge in too quickly" idea.

THE IDEA

The idea is actually very similar to my first idea:

A man is sleeping when early one morning someone enters his room without permission. His interrogation immediately starts after making the mistake of assuming his nieghbour would come through the door. This time however we learn that the Inspector character is not a stranger to the man, a regular visitor - just never this unexpected or early in the morning. Something else obviously brought the man there this morning and he is playing it off as a normal inspection. The inspection itself involves a reading of what the man (I'm calling him 'K' still) has written over the past couple of weeks. This day the overseer tears the man's work apart pointing out in detail what's wrong with it and why it's not going to work. The man finds out that K has packed and is planning on going somewhere, with the packed suitcase he finds a bundle of letters - one of them is addressed to the overseer himself. A letter which he finds to be brutally honest. Throughout this conversation K steals the man's key to the neighbours door. The inspector is abusive to K, claiming he will never leave this place unless he writes properly and leaves upset. K, now alone, peers through the keyhole to his neighbour's room. There are more men there, they leave however seemingly done. He uses his key and goes into the apartment finding a rope made from bed sheets and such leading towards the window. He looks down, face turns to horror and sits by the window weeping.

Originally I thought a funny scene would simply be an overseer/judge type character coming into the room and absolutely tearing down the author's work then leaving. A funny, abusive little tale. As I developed it in my mind it obviously spun out in all different directions, still not sure if that was a good thing. The essence of what I was trying to do - the Kafka touch - is what I hope still shines through.

In a way this is what I wanted to do originally, make one small contained scene out of the concept presented by The Trial and not spin it off into something much too large. I think I needed the Hunger Artist buffer between to clear my head and divorce myself from the original idea though.

The weird thing with this one is that when I did this rough outline thing I realised that The Trial script had become essentially seared into my mind and that I was using it as a jumping off point for everything I write now, maybe just to get into the rhythm - I'm not a 100% sure but it might be a big problem as it is essentially plagiarism.

And this is where I hit my first road block:

It's too internal

My immediate reaction to this idea was "no, it's an internal conflict, even personified it's not the type of thing I want to make." There are so many indies that rely on boring stories where the only conflict present is internal, that's something I want to avoid in my work. It's funny that I can pinpoint the things I don't want, but can't decide what I actually want to do.

On second thought it doesn't really matter. I have conflict between the overseer and K and that should be entertaining enough. Also it doesn't matter if I end up not making anything - always better to put something out there even though it's not exactly what you wanted (a lesson I've been struggling against).

It's too personal

More personal preference. There are way too many artsy things where the artist are secretly (or not so secretly) talking about their own experiences and the only thing I could think when I started formulating this idea was that "personal experiences are never entertaining on film". People so often think that their own lives would be interesting to make a movie about and it very rarely, if ever is. I find myself at times thinking that if things in our lives were present in a book (like the fact that our campus is an old bank or that I work across from a prison) that I would find them more interesting than I do in real life. 

The ending sucks

Here is an actual, real problem with the idea, the ending that I have in mind is not satisfying and it's just depressing. If people watch the film they'll forget about it immediately because a deliberately depressing finale doesn't have much of an impact on anyone.

I excuse this however, because Kafka was a very depressed man who wrote very depressing things with no less depressing endings. The Hunger Artist dies after revealing he never found anything he liked eating, the thing in Metamorphosis crawls away and dies when he realizes no one even sees him as human anymore and Joseph K. is executed without ever finding out why.

All of those endings have something to say in some capacity though, at the very least it leaves the viewer thinking. Mine is K finding that his neighbour did escape but fell to her death, so maybe that's good enough. It could reinforce how his dreams are futile - who knows.

Before I move onto the storyboards and schematics and such, I would like to point out that this blog was written completely in hindsight. It took me a couple of days to cycle through these different ideas, I started about Friday last week and it consumed most of my waking moments, so I have to also say in hindsight maybe doing the blog as I went along would not have been the worst idea. We had a class this week where we looked at "active documentation" and maybe that term is perfectly applicable here. These things are present in my mind, I might as well put them on the page.

This blog was written as if a part of active documentation as I find that when I come with ideas and test them out there are thousands of influences from thousands of different places and in this format I have to explain each of them making it look kind of like a mess. One might question whether or not the inclusion of films like The Double and It's A Wonderful Life in this blog is at all necessary, and they might not be but they are part of my process and that's what the blog is supposed to reflect.

I find that the process itself might be more interesting than what I ended up producing, like one of those videos on YouTube where the development of a failed Hollywood project is detailed (e.g. Kubrick's Napoleon epic that never came to fruition or Jorrodowsky's Dune - not saying that my ramblings at all compares).

 Anyway on to the actual deliverables (in which the script wasn't even included):

DELIVERABLES

The artist Thomas Ott served as an inspiration going into my storyboards. The fact is that I am not very good at drawing cleanly and clearly, so I decided that for this project I would try a different style, there are no real rules to how storyboards should be drawn anyway.

   


I chose Ott because I remembered seeing one of his books in the library (The number : 73304-23-4153-6-96-8), thinking it was a really cool style and showing my brother, only for him to say that it wasn't as hard to achieve as it looks or as it seemed to me. Which was perfect for what I needed now, and in the past I found that I form images slowly out of shading when I draw anyway instead of having a clear picture in my head when I start.

The other reason, and the reason I thought of him at all, was because during work on this project I had been trying to find visuals and music that capture the feel of Kafka's work, these graphic novels were one of the ones that immediately came to mind. Ott's work feels oppressive and the way he shows lighting with the cross hatching style is very similar to Noir.

With this style I could focus as much on the lighting I want as I could on the framing and I think that's very important for the project I'm working on. I actually found myself going to my panels and from them designing the lighting schematics.

STORYBOARDS

Link to Final Submission PDF:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N1f_PVj1AXB4nklehRXFfIm7QzWCXli2

Only after completion of these did I realize that my model changes the colour and direction of his cross hatching - which if I did could have mine at least a little better.



LIGHTING SCHEMATICS

I think I completely messed up the lighting schematics. We looked at it way back in Week 5, I still have the draft of the blog I started and I don't remember anything from it. I think we were supposed to use some kind of program or template for the schematics but because I never looked into it I ended up rushing it at the last minute and just drawing them with a pen below my storyboards.

1) https://cinephiliabeyond.org/trial-orson-welles-exhibition-paranoia-illogicality-personal-responsibility-take-kafkas-classic/

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 12 : Blocking

This week in class we looked at the process of blocking a scene. This is usually reserved to the director and his actors, but the cinematographer, and other departments, need to be aware of when it's happening and what the final action will look like.

Again the note needs to be made that Cinematographers aren't always the most keen on storyboards, as Patrick recalls from his own experience, they would rather see the action first before deciding on their shots.

As DOP our job is to watch the action and find an efficient, yet appropriate way to film this.

There are two main considerations that need to be made:

1) Artistry
2) Efficiency

These are the two that are so integral to all parts of film-making, and it becomes a balancing act between them.

As DOP we need to ask "who's scene is it?". This comes back to the subjectivity of the camera, we need to decide who we are following in the scene.

On a side-note, as a director there are some important things to keep in mind when blocking the actors:

WHAT

WHY

WHEN

HOW



This video essay above is something  we watched in class, it pointed out that there are more to blocking than just the movement of the actors, the camera's movement if just as important and maybe this is where the DOP comes a bit more into play.

Which brings me to the second important part of blocking - efficiency.



An example of Spielberg's efficient blocking, here he doesn't move the camera at all and yet keeps the shot dynamic with a moving background and bringing his actors in and out of the foreground. A much better analysis than what I can offer:





I love the blocking in the trailer for this film:



It's weird that the characters don't seem to move at all, I think they make a total of five steps progress in the whole trailer. One of the first things in the trailer is Winona Ryder's character pointing out that Keanu Reeves took a step forward which is pretty ironic.

 I don't know if this is intentional in the film, but I can say that it makes the whole thing feel very sterile and I couldn't help but wonder what other dialogue driven movies do in terms of moving the characters to stop the audience losing interest.

Of course the first series I thought of was the "Before" trilogy by Richard Linklater, a series that really lacks in visual interest because of the way it was filmed and the subject matter it's dealing with, yet it does a much better job of keeping the action interesting. I would like to analyse it properly and see whether my theory holds water but I frankly don't have the time so END OF BLOG POST

BSA 234 (Cinematography) Week 11 : GAMMA

This week we learned about Gamma and colour profiles.

The key to understanding Gamma is to first understand that the human eye does not see the world in the way that it truelly is, and as such we don't perceive the world in the same way that a camera does. Even though the camera has a more accurate representation of the real world, it doesn't look right to us because it's not the way we perceive our world. This means that there are things that need to happen to the video signal for it to look accurate to us.

There are two key differences between how our eyes capture light and how a camera does:

1) Less Stops

Human eyes are more advanced than modern film cameras in that we can see a larger amount of stops, worse the monitors we end up viewing the final product on can display an even smaller amount.

2) Data Apportioned to different areas

Humans have adapted to see more detail in dark areas - the theory of course being that we do this because this is where our natural predators hide. The camera has a more objective viewpoint, so where we apportion more data to dark areas the camera sees it as it is.

The difference is linear vs logarithmic.

The video below does a great job explaining this concept and it's very similar to the way Patrick explained it in class:

BSA 234 (Cinematography) Week 10 : Extra Filming and On-Set Dynamics

Over this week I was part of some shoots outside of my own personal projects, shoots where I had a lesser creative role and was simply helping someone else on set. I did a lot of this last year, especially during the music video assessment, and in my reflection on last year I came to the conclusion that I shouldn't offer my help to so many other people because then I don't have the time or energy to focus on my own work.

And yes, it has been quite hectic. Between the crazy amount of days shooting, class time and work I have found myself desperately seeking an hour here or there to catch up on my assignments, let alone work on my blogs. Shoots start early and go for long periods of time, work starts late and goes late. It's been really hard to fit anything in edgewise and my system has reflected the lack of rest with the adoption of some kind of virus.. Luckily I now have a chance to do some blogs and put some of my thoughts about these shoots and film sets in general into words.

The major fault that I have found with the lesser film sets - those that are less efficient and which end up being boring - is in how many people are on set and how many different roles are filled by different individuals. This was the problem that plagued the third year film from last year and I find it is here again this year, admittedly to a lesser extent.

The problem with the third year group project is that there are a lot of people and because of that there is a lot of waiting and doing nothing, with only the director and DOP being constantly busy. I've come to realize that student films work very differently from professional production and that our sets should not be treated as such. I understand why we're learning it the way we are, but if we're talking simply about our output and workflow a small crew fares much better.

I don't blame the third year group for how their set has gone, I think the presence of so many different roles is in the assignment brief, It does provide an interesting opportunity to reflect on that shoot and contrast it with some of the smaller shoots I've been a part of - the perfect recent example being the Film Noir group project, for which I did sound.

The difference between my role on the third year project (AC) and my role on the Group Noir project is that in one I felt useless half the time and in the other I continually flitted between roles of grip, gaff and sound. From my experience on both I can say that I enjoy the free-flow role much more. There are many times on the third year group project where everyone ends up waiting on one person at a time, because that person is specifically designated to that role and no one else is allowed to step out of their department and help - not that help is needed. To me it feels like we have a very big team, but that the workflow happens compartmentally, like a train - one person doing one thing at a time (even though there are 20 people on set).

This results in progress being made very slowly and the machine that we're trying to build isn't well oiled. A set is much more fun when everyone is busy all the time. The Group Noir project had this going for it, it was a much longer shoot that any of the third year ones (nigh on 11 hours), but it felt much faster because we were constantly busy and multitasking. The roles were not completely defined, because we didn't have the manpower to fill all of them, so we ended up flitting from one to the other. Another thing I really enjoyed about the music video sets (being sound one moment and gaff the next). I've come to the conclusion that for student films this is a more effective strategy. The sound guy doesn't have anything to do for long stretches of time, so why not double him up as grip or gaff as well?

The roles on a film set feel like they are running at different speeds, sound takes a lot less time than Gaffing or DOP-ing for example, and yet all are required for the entire shooting day.

There was a moment on the Group Noir set that really clicked for me, we were about to do the shots outside, and realizing that we didn't need all of us with the camera (there was no sound for example) we could simultaneously start packing up. Which in the big picture probably spared us half an hour or so at the end of the day. On the third year set I find myself waiting around as we collectively waste time. There are distinct examples in my mind where we could easily have gotten shots earlier or have gotten more shots in a shorter period of time on the third year shoot, the professional requirements of the set prevent that from happening and slowly everyone gets tired and lazy.

BSA202 (Audio Tech) Week 8 : ADR & Recording Studio

This week we went down to SIT Sound and got a chance to become familiar with the recording studio there. While we were over there we did an ADR exercise in which we re-recorded audio for the film Triangle (2009). It gave us a chance to become familiar with the setup and work flow of recording clean sound.

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 8 : Light Metres

This week in class we looked at The Zone System and Light Meters - an important tool in gaffing and cinematography.

The first thing we covered was The Zone System, devised by Ansel Adams (also called the Adams Zone System). It was originally intended for photography but translates easily into the medium of film.

What it is:

The Zone System takes the full black and white range of graduation and breaks it down into 11 Zones


Full Tonal Gradation


Eleven Step Gradation

How it works:

Each Zone represents the addition or subtraction of a stop in Aperture, Shutter Speed or ISO - it can also be a combination of two or more of these three factors (they are all considered to be Exposure Values - EV's - so each Zone is up or down one EV).



How we can use it:

The Zone System provides filmmakers and photographers with the information of how bright certain parts of the image should be - each zone representing a certain range of shades we see in everyday life. Adams and his collaborator Fred Archer established what tones looked normal to what objects or features looked normal to the human eye at what shades.

Zone	Description
0	Pure black
I	Near black, with slight tonality but no texture
II	Textured black; the darkest part of the image in which slight detail is recorded
III	Average dark materials and low values showing adequate texture
IV	Average dark foliage, dark stone, or landscape shadows
V	Middle gray: clear north sky; dark skin, average weathered wood
VI	Average Caucasian skin; light stone; shadows on snow in sunlit landscapes
VII	Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII	Lightest tone with texture: textured snow
IX	Slight tone without texture; glaring snow
X	Pure white: light sources and specular reflections

E.g. Middle Gray - Zone 5

Middle Gray is the Range of gradation used for darker human skin tones and is usually what light metres measure for.

Kind of like setting white balance - where you tell the camera what white for the scene will be - with light metering you are determining what middle gray in the scene should be and exposing for that.

Zone 4 is lighter human skin, 8 is detail in the blacks, 8-9 are light sources or sharp reflections, with 0 being pitch black and 10 being pure white.

LIGHT METRES

Analog



Attachments:

- Lumisphere
- Lumidisc
- Lumigrid

Each of these serve a different purpose, the one we will mainly be applying is the lumisphere - used for incidental readings.

Photo Experiments

In class we took out the Nikon D90's and took photos with different focal lengths, ISO and Apertures using the light metres to determine what we needed.

PHOTOS (IN B&W TO FIT THE THEME)

It's pretty coincidental that on the same day we learned this, Filmmaker IQ released this video:

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 7 : Sequence Blocking

Over the easter weekend we did some camera tests on location to get our blocking and camera movement right.

The first sequence we did was Kiarne's, and it's turned into something quite ambitious. Most of his sequence will be one shot - the second shot after the opening establishing shot of the film.

The exciting part about the one shot, and the reason we needed practice doing it, is because it is quite a complicated sequence. We have to meet different set-ups throughout the take, moving the camera from person to person at times, with the shot starting by floating through a window.

Frame Sets

Kiarne decided on the frames he wanted in the one shot, creating the same effect of 5 or 6 different shots in one setup. This means that each of these individual frames can have their own meanings as they would if the shots were static. This is demonstrated especially well in the shot of the mirror, which foreshadows the double as well as establishing the mirror which will be used in one of the following shots.

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 7 : Storyboard Feedback

We got feedback on our storyboards this week:

My (terrible) Storyboards

Things I need to work on:

- Arrows and communicating movement

This was the biggest problem with mine, and funnily enough actually something I seriously considered going in. Which arrows mean what?

Originally I chose to have the black arrows represent camera movement and the white ones represent character, I only realize why this wouldn't work and the reason for this is two-fold:

1. Zooms and Dollies

Since I wasn't really using zooms I didn't consider them when drawing, the first frame was initially interpreted as a zoom by Patrick, while my original intention was for it to be a dolly. Having the literal black and white choices of character and camera movement ignores the fact that there are different ways the character can get closer to the subject.

2. Characters and Camera

Only in hindsight I realize that using the bigger arrows for camera makes more sense, and apparently this is closer to an industry standard (if one existed). When I looked at them with Patrick i realized it looked weird - again look for feedback before submitting. Getting someone elses opinion helps a lot, especially when attempting to communicate something.

- Perspective 

My drawing needs improvement, this is something I've started to focus on a bit more. The fourth frame was especially illegible. I need to focus more on representing the frame accurately.

- Consider Genre

This is one thing that Patrick was very adamant about - consider the genre (here being horror) and consider what would be the best way to make it more like that genre (so for us - how do you make the shot more horrific?)

The example from mine is the close-up, which to make more horrific we'd use a wide lens, to accentuate the facial features.

Horror isn't flat. This was also demonstrated with one of Izaiah's examples, where he had a hand opening a door handle. To make this less flat Patrick suggested the use of a wide lens, accentuating the form of the handle and creating an interesting point of focus.

Facial Features Accentuated

BSA234 (Cinemtaography) Week 6 : Shoulder Mount Test

We tested the shoulder mount over the weekend to see whether or not it would work for the first sequence of the film, wherein there should be a lot of following the character around. With movies like the conjuring this is usually done with a handheld effect, something which we theorized would be present with the shoulder mount, and not say the Steadicam.

BTS PHOTOS

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This behind the scenes photo of The Conjuring displays how they filmed most of it, and like our shoulder mount the camera operator rests the camera on his shoulder while moving around the set.

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VERY IMPORTANT FINDING

 If the talent moves and you shoot with a fast enough shutter speed you can create a photo where it looks like the person is still but looks tense:

We played around with lighting a little bit but can't do much without a lighting kit.

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 5 : Psychology of Shutter Angle and Perspective

This week we looked at the effect of shutter angle on the image as well as the psychological effects it can have on the viewer:

Shutter Angle is something that has bothered me for a long time now, because of the fact that I didn't really know what exactly it did to the image. I understood the theory but found myself unsure in what effect it actually had and subsequently I was incapable of using it.

That changed this week.

I am very happy that we talked more in-depth about Shutter Angle, because I feel like I've got a very good understanding of it, so much so that I can identify it accurately enough and am thinking of using it for our group horror film.

I would like to try this out myself and see what kind of quality image we can achieve with the gear we have access to, I'll probably get a camera out on Tuesday and Wednesday, my least busy days, and play around with the shutter angle then.

The examples we looked at in class demonstrated how shutter angle can help inform the point of view of the characters. We compared the John Woo film Windtalkers (2002) with Saving Private Ryan (1998):

This is the scene we looked at in class, it's a good example of taking an omniscient viewpoint for a war film. This is relevant because to achieve this the filmmakers chose not to change the shutter angle, adopting a standard 180 degree angle, leaving the movement and general style feeling normal.



Spielberg's film chose to use a faster shutter speed of 90 degrees, this gives each frame more detail and decreases motion blur. The effect this has on the audience is that of making the scene feel more jittery, visceral and jarring.

The smaller shutter can make the viewer feel uncomfortable but it is effective in emulating the emotion of war.



This sniper scene does a very good job of displaying the faster shutter, the illusion of movement is more apparent, each frame feeling like a separate image. It makes the scene feel hyper focused.

In general Saving Private Ryan takes a much more subjective viewpoint of the action:

The Omaha Beach scene demonstrates this well as we are always following the American side of the battle, even more specifically Tom Hanks. This is done by slowing the shutter speed, placing us in his shoes by showing what he sees and never showing the faces of the enemy. The shots that we get of the enemies hide them in shadow, serving mainly as a way to establish place. The filmmakers place us in the shoes of the characters by only showing us what they see.

This is opposite to Windtalkers, which in a collage-like fashion shows many different snippets of the battle, usually not relating to each-other. In the example there isn't even a main character that we are following and the two sides are hard to distinguish.

NOTES:

Shutter Speed

Watching the Omaha Beach scene is interesting because it jumps between frame rates quite a bit. Some of the scene was shot over-cranked so that slow-motion could be used for the part where Hanks' character has a moment of introspection. The notable thing about this is that not all of it is in slow mo, some footage is shown as they were shot - with the quick shutter.

This works extremely well in this scene as it emulates the way the character feels, his heart racing, but his mind unable to think.

Vignette

I like the way Spielberg leads the audiences eye, the use of this vignette is a good practice in technique as well as an example of how the film ensures that Tom Hanks is seen as the protagonist. By applying a vignette the film keeps the main character as the center of attention, a vital addition to the scene as this frame would otherwise be very confusing to the viewer.

Perspective is a very important part of film and a lot of the art of cinematography comes from using the camera and different techniques to represent a character's perspective. We've already looked at shutter angle and framing, this week we also had a look at the movement and eye-line of the camera:

BATMAN BEGINS




- Narrative and technical concerns with cutting away

We discussed in length the technique of cutting away from the main character. Nolan does this often in his films, in this scene from Batman Begins we see him using it to cut between Batman on the train, Gordon and the events on the ground and the people in the control station.

To me it has always seemed like a necessity in his films, where many different narrative strands are unfolding concurrently. It gives the audience a larger view of the proceedings and has a certain momentum in and of itself.

Patrick suggests that this could detract from the film overall though, as cutting away from our perspective character makes us take a more objective standpoint, distancing us from the character.

BSA202 (Audio Tech) Week 5 : SFX Replacement

This week we continued with the Robocop task, wherein we had to use provided sound effects to create a soundscape for a scene from Robocop (1987).

My final soundscape:

What I tried to achieve with this soundscape:

- More depth & variety

I wanted to create deeper sounding effects than just what we were provided. This meant layering sound bites and not repeating the same one over and over. While I liked pretty much everyone else's soundscapes, I noticed that they could feel quite empty. I think mine stands apart in this area, it feels more bass-y and textured.

Luckily we had access to a large library of sounds, there were times though that I felt limited in variety of particular sounds (like when the Robot hits Robocop) and there were times when I had something very specific in mind but which I was unable to find in our resources.

- Changing the scene with sound alone

This activity gave me the chance to experiment with a concept I have been contemplating for some time now - the idea that the soundscape can have a big affect on how we perceive the scene, being able to even change the size or amount of people in a room.

I did this to comedic effect in this scene by including applause and cheering, this creates the illusion of an audience and I think it works pretty well.

After class I had a look at the original scene to see what they did:

I was surprised by how underplayed the big robot's footsteps were, I made mine intentionally resonant because I felt that it needed to feel big. The real film gives it a more sophisticated approach, suitable to the high tech creature that the story demands it to be. Again one small change can determine how we see something as an audience. 

Mine also sounds way more worn out.

They also show a great amount of restraint, with not every single thing on screen being given it's own separate sound effect, and unlike me didn't add unneeded sound effects. It makes sense, you only want to point out the important parts of the scene.

BSA234 (Cinematography) Week 4 : Subjective Shot Choices

In class we looked at the subconscious effect that different shot types have on the viewer.

The first thing we looked at was focal length and the difference that can make.

Focal length is the distance between the point of convergence in the lens and the actual film or sensor.

Retrieved from: https://expertphotography.com/understand-focal-length-4-easy-steps/

Retrieved from: https://expertphotography.com/understand-focal-length-4-easy-steps/

The example above demonstrated the difference between lens types, and the way it shifts our perspective on the size and angle of the subject. A big change between the wide and narrow lenses is how far away the background seems,

One of the things that Patrick noted was that horror movies usually choose a wide lens for close-ups because of how it distorts the face. Traditionally close-ups use narrower lenses to keep it looking naturalistic. Romantic comedies use lenses that flatter the actors facial features instead of distorting them - can't help but imagine that a romance in wides would be quite entertaining.

These videos show how changing of lenses changes the relationship between the foreground and background as well as the way it distorts a person's facial features.


- O Tamaiti (1996)

Apparently the New Zealand film  O Taimaiti never shows the faces of the adult characters, placing the camera closer to the eye line of its protagonists - the children.

- Ida (2015)

The 2013 film Ida - which was nominated for best achievement in Cinematography at the Oscars - uses negative space on a consistent basis to represent the theme of God always watching.

BVA203 (Research-Led Industry Practice) Week 3 : Changing Course

At the start of the week I was unable to come up with any ideas and didn't present anything in class. The only thing I was sure of was that I didn't want to pursue my original idea anymore. Originally I was confident in it, but the flaws have since been pointed out to me. Now I am unable to see it from the same point of view as I did at the start and even with help, like how my brother phrased it for me, I am incapable of understanding it completely and my passion has all but dissipated.

This was a hard week with BVA203. I struggled to understand the paper and with how I should anchor my idea conceptually. The entire idea of practically exploring doesn't make sense to me without doing so technically. How are we supposed to make something without an answer already in our heads? At least conceptually it doesn't make sense to me, if it was technical like my original idea then practice based research would work, but we're not supposed to approach it that way. Examples of how it has been successful or more clear guidelines would have been useful to me, everything just seems so vague.

Every other class has criteria that we have to meet, and they make sense within the fields that they are based - like how we film something for cinematography or write something in screenwriting. Even the other half of this class where we write essays makes way more sense to me - you do research, record your findings, break down other people's opinions, and eventually come to a conclusion yourself. At the end of the day you have a cohesive piece of writing. Here we are supposed to have theoretical examples, but also have to explore it practically. The two seem to cancel each other out, if you've already done the research then practically executing it seems like retreading someone else's steps.

The idea of "do whatever you like" is extremely enticing, but last time what I wanted to do seemed to be wrong, so I would have liked to know how to fix it. Class feedback was mostly criticisms of where I went wrong, with very few solutions being presented. The ones that were came from a completely different line of thought.

It's a paper I am having trouble understanding and I have talked a lot of people, none of who could really convince me the purpose behind why we're doing it. I don't think I have the right mindset, and trying to change the way I think is very difficult, especially just for one class.

I have come to the conclusion that my head isn't geared correctly for it, I keep going in circles trying to figure it our and even with external insight I find myself lost. It's like walking in circles except the circle keeps getting bigger. There is so much to keep in mind (like how we need theoretical and practical texts, how we shouldn't know the answer at the beginning but are expected to produce something for exhibition by the end of the paper, how we're supposed to choose a medium and methodology but aren't able to predict what the answer will be, how we need context, concept and technical all of which should be explored simultaneously, how we're supposed to answer a question with art, the list just keeps going) and yet I can't see the connections. The worst part is how undefined it is, anyone can do anything so the paper caters to everything, so we end up with no clear direction. The marking schedule is also very obtuse, everything is a blanket statement so I don't know where to put my attention and at times I don't even know what the criteria means (e.g. Practice based visual/screen media investigation of a specific question/focus developed and resolved in a focused and critical manner - I have to sit down with a dictionary to figure out what I'm supposed to do to meet this requirement).

Worst part is that most people in class seem to understand it perfectly, but I can't see how their ideas are that different to what mine was. I wanted to talk to Ruth after class, but decided against it because I was embarrassed by how little I understood of the paper even after something like five different individuals attempted to explain it to me and a whole year of already having done it.

It's like how I don't think mathematically, it's just not natural to me. I'm dumb at art, who knew. Maybe that's why I didn't study it, hmm...

I'm not the only student who's become frustrated with this half of the paper, this year and last people have been unable to completely grasp it. People think in different ways, some are naturally technical. Film is very technical and practical, animation is very inventive and industrious, Art is neither of those and I can't tell what it is or why it's important towards the completion of our bachelor. Either the students don't voice their confusion or me and a few others are the odd ones out, but it's causing me a lot of stress to think about.

Once I figure it our it will seem silly that I ever fretted over it, or how I could misunderstand. At the moment I can't see a solution in sight though.

Enough venting, the fact is that my idea was too technical and that everything will work out much better if I choose to change it, below are what I brainstormed this week, the final solution is something I'm happy with, we'll see how the feedback sesh goes next week.
_________________________________________________________________________________

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:

Here are some of the other people's presentations that stood out to me and that I thought were genuinely quite effective, I can take cues from what they are doing right in formulating a new question for myself.

Luke

Luke's idea was probably my favourite in the class. It's simple but leaves space for plenty of experimentation and creativeness. His idea was "How do you hype an audience in only a minute", using cartoon opening sequences as his inspiration. These work well to engage the audience and get them excited for the episode to follow.

I don't know how I can come up with a question similar to his, it's so concise and intriguing that it feels like catching lightning in a bottle.

Tyler

Tyler's idea is much more in line with something that I would want to do. His is "What is the director's instinct?", where he wants to explore how to be a good director and how directors know things so instantaneously on a film that they can answer almost without thinking - e.g. knowing how characters would interact even if it isn't in the script or being able to effortlessly make a decision about production design.

What I like about his idea is that it's obviously something that he thinks about quite a lot, and when he talks about it I become genuinely interested because it is real and it feels personal to him. We can have a real conversation about it because there is so little documentation on the subject and yet it is such an integral part of film-making.

I'll take inspiration from him by making my own idea something I think about a lot, something that I can have a discussion about with my peers.

I think this is something that was lacking in the third year presentations in week 1, they seemed superficial, as if the presenters didn't have confidence in their own ideas. Tyler's type of idea is real and you can talk about it passionately. It sure as hell translated in his presentation this week.

Izaiah

Izaiah's idea stood out because he is working on his own personal development and being very practical about the question he's choosing. Izaiah wants to explore how he can improve his style concerning bike videos.

What I like about his idea is that it'd going to work back into his real life, he's using the paper as a way to strengthen his own skills and answering a question that will bear fruit for him in the future. I would like to do something similar, because I think it will provide better drive for seeing it through. Knowing that the skills learned here can be used in my real life is a great motivator and it ensures I'm not wasting my time.

De la Rey

My brother's idea is to explore sequence in graphic novel, how a story is told visually and how what the audience sees informs their understanding of the story. Very akin to Eisenstein and Soviet Montage. The practical example he provided is what really stood out to me, it immediately demonstrated what he is talking about, which has a lot to do with the audience filling the gaps and even how perspective can be used.

I definitely need to provide a good practical example with my presentation, explaining the idea with visual support is a great way to make the class understand.
_________________________________________________________________________________

I have decided to stay positive and just do what I want, even if I fail I'll have learnt something. That's why my final idea is something that I actually care about and want to do, if it's too technical then that's just the way it is. Art is about personal expression, well this is me:

"How can you make a short film feel complete?" / Concept

There is a big problem that I personally have with making short films, I faced this particularly last year when I had to produce a short film script for my first year screenwriting paper. Some people think in short films, some in long form storytelling - like TV or video games - I think in features. It's very difficult for me not to end up spinning a short film idea into a feature, I think the reason why is because features are more complete and cohesive to me. A short feels so limiting and it's rare to see one where it felt like a complete piece.

This question is of personal interest and something I think of when I have time off. At the workshop Ash and James held for the first years this week James said you have to incorporate the things that keep you up at night into your films. While he was talking about story, to me this can be applied to anything, so I'm incorporating something I think of often into my work.

This also happens to be something I genuinely want an answer to, even more specifically than my perspective question, so hopefully that will help drive me to not lose faith in this one. Like Tyler and Izaiah's ideas this is as much about personal development as answering the question, it's something that can have an effect in my own life.

My question will explore this idea, and I will experiment until I find a way to make a short film feel complete to me.

The first step is to define what a complete film means to me:

DEFINE COMPLETE

- Short films serve as a showcase for the filmmakers, more so than a complete product

- Thematically consistent

- Full experience

- Everything is there for a reason

STEPS TOWARD RESEARCH

I've thought about it and decided what research I am going to do, I don't have the time this week but I can do it next:

I can look at some good short film examples, the ones that come to mind are:

- Miracle Fish (2009)

- Pitch Black Heist (2012)

I should find some bad examples too and look at why they don't work, I can't think of any off the top of my head though.

A surprising format that has achieved what I am looking for are movie trailers. I think they have found a way to tell a story in a very time efficient manner and they can still feel cohesive.

A playlist of some good trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saHzng8fxLs&list=PLgstXlPRW6LxB8rxO5uhC_cdZ-FOTa897

I could look at films that are structured episodically, where it is made up of a clear selection of scenes or short stories (e.g. Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting). Some of the scenes in these films - like the end of Pulp Fiction - would work just as well separate from the rest of the film.