Equipment and Production meeting

For this project we needed to make sure we attended the production meeting at stores to make sure we could book everything out that we needed, in the end no one else was available to go so I went and took a list of the things we had decided upon taking:

Equipment List

·         Video camera – Sony PD170

·         Tripod

·         Rifle mic

·         Tie-clip mic

·         Marantz 660

·         Boom pole

·         Headphones

·         2x XLR cables

·         Stills camera

·         Tapes x2

Me and Clarice both have decent SLR cameras so we will take our own so we can take lots of photos to add in as cutaways. We didnt have Marantz in our original list but on the day I decided a Marantz would be useful for recording any background or ambient sounds as it would be easier and more efficient then having to keep plugging the mic into the camera if we only wanted to capture sound.

Liverpool Documentary

Our next assignment is based around documentary which is to be based on an article about the city of Liverpool as that is where we will be going to film it. As soon as I think of Liverpool there are a few obvious things that spring to mind like the Football club, The Albert Docks, The Beatles and many more so there will be a lot of things for us to choose from hopefully.
We have got into groups of 5 and I am working with Alex, Clarice, Jen and Sophie and today we have started discussing a few topics we would like to cover which are the Docks - Museums/Galleries, The Beatles, and the concept of 'Desperate Scouse Wives' which would include fashion etc and how people view Liverpool in those terms and how they view themselves.

Experimental Project - Sound Editing

Sound was a difficult one as we weren't too sure what sound effects to record and once we had them we didn't really know how to use them so in the end we didn't really use them too much which was mainly down to the fact that we kind of though our piece was quite good without sound and we were scared that sound might take away from it rather than enhance it or would just make it a bit too mad and take away from the seriousness. In the end Natalie found some royalty free music that had quite a weird sound to it so we decided to use that alongside a less weird sounding quite simple beat. The point of this was to use the more simpler, nicer sounding music at the beginning and as the stranger stuff starting happening and building that we'd gradually introduce the weird music a bit at a time to try and fit in with the images. The only other sounds we really used was a harp sound I put it at the beginning to go with the eye movement and some traffic noises where there was traffic and where the door close multiple times we added in a door slam. Again we didnt want to add an awful lot of sound, we wanted to keep it as minimal in terms of complexity because visually there is a lot going on so we didnt want it to get too much. If we get more criticism for sound I will understand as this was left a bit last minute compared to the rest and also in some ways I think it can be harder as sound effects can be created and dialogue recorded but when it comes to music if you can't make your own it's harder to try and find something that fits perfectly with what you want and that isn't copyrighted.

Experimental Project - Final Edit

After the tutorial I spent the next few days editing until evening as I seem to be able to concentrate better the later it is. I found with the editing that you've got to think outside the box a bit and I've learnt from other projects that sometimes the footage that you capture before or after a take, accidentally or what you don't think can be used can come in handy if you just think of other things you can do with it. The problem I had with some of the footage was there were things in the background I didn't like or the shot just wasn't interesting enough but I managed to find ways around it. One particular shot was the girl walking to the bathroom opening the door and then letting it close behind her, there was a fire door sign in the background so firstly I cropped that out (I had to zoom in quite a bit to make sure it wasn't in shot but because we wanted grain the fact the picture quality was reduced luckily wasn't a problem). To try and make it more interesting I played around with the speed of the door closing, making it fast then slowing it right down just as you thought it was meant to slam; I then repeated this shot many times but rotated the door so it was in a different position everytime, it was a bit weird but I liked it as the rest of the film also included shots where the angle and position of images had been changed so it didn't look out of place and I felt was inline with it being 'experimental'. There were also shots of Sophie (who acted in it) laughing which were just bits inbetween takes but I decided I really liked these as they were good for showing this 'dark' side and helped in making her look a bit mad and out of control, at one point using the opacity I layered this image with that of her drinking and just repeated it which made her look a bit crazy and uncontrollable and most of all it made it seem more dream like so it looked like this girl was seeing this image in her head and not like it was actually happening.
From start to finish I tried to keep in my mind that this was meant to build up so I tried to keep the shots of her in bed at the beginning juxtaposed with images of the dark side and then gradually as it went on I introduced shots of her getting out of bed then walking to the bathroom and while doing this I kept introducing more and more different shots and cutting them together quicker so that as time went on the madness and thoughts in her head grew and got worse, I also cut these with images of traffic moving faster and going backwards etc to also help symbolise and reinforce the madness. At the end we decided to bring it back down again so I used an image of her 'good' self looking in the mirror and then her 'bad' self doing the same (at that point also cutting any music off so it was silent) I wanted this to try and represent her analysing herself and maybe coming to a realisation that she knew her identity and excepted that. To show this I used 2 shots of her rubbing out the word identity from herself and her ripping up the word identity and reversed them so it looked like she was putting the word back together. In regards to the use of black & white and colour we decided to keep most of it in black and white apart from the shots of the traffic outside (to show this is something happening outside her room) and some of the shots that were juxtaposed together looked good with the contrast of B&W and colour because we thought it showed the conflict between the good and the bad and added to the confusion of it all.
Overall I am happy with it because I have put so much time and effort into it, there are definitely things that I am not too sure about, like if I have managed to make it tell some sort of story or if people are just going to be too confused (some confusion is good as that's what the film aims to create - an audience that can feel what the girl is going through) but I want them to understand the point of the confusion at the same time. There are also some shots which I wonder do they fit in enough, while still having an element of randomness like the handprints and some other shots which I can't think of at the minute. As long as people find it interesting and understand the basic story I think I'll be happy.

Experimental Project - Tutorial

I was quite glad of this tutorial as I had a few things I wanted to bring up. Esther seemed quite happy with what we had done so far but suggested we give it a bit more of a narrative or story as it was just a bit too random and was lacking direction which I agreed. Esther also mentioned some of the effects as we had done most of it in black & white with a bit of colour so she said we should think more about what we wanted to achieve with that and also picked up on the grain on some of the pictures (due to scaling and making them larger) and said it was alright as it brought something to it because of the mood and feel we were trying to create with the piece but that we could maybe try and incoporate that more throughout. The main thing she said that made me think was what do we want people to take away from our film. I brought up the fact I was unsure about the footage and after using nearly all of it did she think we could create 5 minutes out of what we had and she said yes which was promising. Esther also gave us some tips of what to do about sound, for example using sound effects like traffic as we had some shots of the traffic outside the window. Due to all this I came out feeling a bit more positive about what we were doing and me and Natalie booked out some sound recording equipment straightaway.

Experimental Project - Editing

We started off by going through the footage and picking out the bits we liked while trying to put it in some sort of order. We didnt know exactly what we were going to do with it but agreed we should build it up and by doing that we should use the same sort of shots for the beginning and repeat them in different ways and then as the film builds to bring in more shots to show how her mind is becoming more confused with there being more images and them being cut together quicker. We all had goes at editing but as it progressed I became the main editor as I had a few ideas. Before the tutorial we managed to edit about 2 minutes of footage and at that point I did feel like I was struggling a bit because I had already used most of the footage captured in creating those couple of minutes and we hadn't really progressed much with the sound either. I deccided it would be better to try and get the majority of the visual editing done first so we could then add on any music, dialogue or sound fx that fitted with the images when we knew exactly what we had and what we were trying to achieve with the piece.

Experimental Project - Filming

When it came to filming on Thursday and Saturday in Natalies room, although we weren't leaving it til last minute, we weren't as prepared as I'd hoped we would be as we didnt really have a meeting beforehand to discuss what we would film and how it would go so despite feeling we had a solid idea we were going in a bit blind and I think it showed when it came to editing as I felt we were lacking on footage a bit. Some of the things that we had planned to do also went wrong, like using the same person in the same shot we knew how it worked but not enough thought was put into thinking the best place and way to do it so the things in the shot that should have been kept completely still and the same weren't so I had an idea that coming to the edit things might not quite work out how expected. We also wanted to do a shot of putting make-up on in the mirror but I didnt think it looked right as there was too much stuff in the background like the kitchen and other objects that I think took away from the feel I wanted to create. I felt this with a few of the shots we did as it was all in the bedroom and things were in view in the shots which I don't like as I think it makes the framing look bad sometimes and it can make the work looked a bit rushed if not much effort is put into designing or preparing the location or what's going to be seen in the background. We did manage to get a few things filmed though so I felt the day had been progressive overall and we tried to overcome the setbacks as best we could.
Before we filmed on Saturday we decided to keep all the filming in the location of the bedroom because we thought it would help keep the film simple and the idea clear, I'd be lying if I said it wasnt anything to do with it being easier and the fact that it was freezing cold and snowing outside which would have made the conditions for filming uncomfortable and a bit more risky with the slippery paths.
When we started filming on Saturday we hit a bit of a brick wall again as the realisation hit us that we probably weren't going to have enough footage to make a 5 minute film but with a bit of iniative from all of us and thinking of ideas off each other we came up with a few more things to try out using things like stop motion with photos and words.

Experimental Project - Equipment, Locations and Props

Equipment List:

• Camera: Sony PD170
• Tripod
• Marantz 660
• Rifle mic
• Tapes
• FinalCut Pro
• SuondTrack Pro
• Garage Band (possibly)
• x2 DVD-R Discs

Potential Locations:

• Bedroom
• Town centre
• Park

Props/Clothing/Make-up:

• Lamp/torch
• Dark make-up, lipstick
• Photos
• Dark & light clothing
• Vodka bottle
• Cigarettes/lighter

Cast:

Sophie McNamara
Possibly extras

Transport:

We will be walking as much as possible and anywhere that is too far we will use public transport (tram/bus) and I also have a car if needed.

Experimental Project - Shooting Schedules

Thursdays Schedule:






Saturdays Schedule:

Experimental Project - Influences and Inspiration

Unfortunately I was not well so missed the first seminar back so Natalie and Sophie had to explain our initial idea and I missed the films shown but was still able to watch most of them on Youtube. ne of the films shown was Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon and luckily I had already watched that film along with At Land and A Study in Choreography for Camera because Maya Deren was the focus of my Approaching Research presentation. I watched them again though as they're not the easiest films to understand and I thought they may help with some inspiration when thinking about how to create a film that is experimental. After researching into Maya Deren previously I also have a bit more of an insight into what she wanted to create and achieve and for me one of her most interesting points is that experimental film isnt about filming what's already there in front of you but doing something different with it by using things like camera and editing techniques (which today is practised a lot but in the 40's when she was making films and writing was seen as quite a new and adventurous thing)

'Meshes of the Afternoon' Maya Deren (1943) - This is quite a strange film and took a while for me to get my head around and even now I'm not too sure of what it's about but I can appreciate the many techniques she has used in it. There is a lot of time and space manipulation (which Deren was very big on) and you can see that for example when the woman is chasing after a weird hooded person but it appears she is not getting any closer despite the fact the cloaked figure is not moving very fast and the woman herself is running but still seemingly to be in the same place. There are also times in the film where there are multiple figures of the woman (played by Deren herself) so it looks like she is sat at the table with herself but infact these women are all playing out a different moment in time and a different outcome but they are happening parallel to each other so you see them all at the same time ( this is my interpretation of it anyway). Because the same thing keeps happening, within a slightly different way or with a slightly different outcome, there is a lot of repetition throughout the film and it is in black & white which gives a very monotonous feel to it and the repeated eerie music over the top just adds to the strangeness of the whole thing along with many other elements in the film.

'Ballet Mecanique' Fernand Leger (1924) - This film didn't really hold my engagement and after a few minutes I'd already lost interest in it although there were some elements that I did like. In this short film there are lots of different images juxtaposed together and repeated many times throughout, it's very centred around movement and its literal name would be machanical ballet so I think it's aim is to show how the movement of machines and other things being repeated over can mimic that of a ballet, all the swirling, turning and swaying movements are meant to represent the movement in dance. I think to remind us that it is being compared and contrasted to that of peoples movement there are also images of a girl on a swing and a girls mouth smiling and then going back to normal and the woman walking up the stairs is repeated and by doing that we can see that if our own movements were repeated in the same cycle like that of a machine that we would also begin to look mechanical. There are also images that you are seeing through a prism and also looks a bit like looking through a kaleidoscope in particular the womans face which I think may have been done to take away the human quality and symbolise that of the machines e.g. the pistons used in one shot are all working together and there is nothing special about them, they're all doing the same thing at the same time and all look the same and by using the glass prism you create multiple images of the woman that all look the same. 

The Chemical Brothers 'Star Guitar' directed by Michel Gondry - This music video is much more modern than the short films above so did appeal to me more, despite the fact of it being decades newer it still held on to the principle of repeating the sames things throughout and the video is also kept very simple with this train journey all the way through. The fact it never stops moving also reminds me a bit of the ballet mecanique because they too encorporate movement as one of the main elements as the shots (even if they are stills) are edited in a way that keeps them moving all the time so you never get a break or chance to have a rest. what stood out to me most about theis video is how the pictures are related to the music e.g. when a part of the song came on when there were voices the train would then be driving past people at a station and that same sequence would be repeated until the music changes, so when the beat changes or a particular beat or sound comes in the images on the video will move and match that so the picture is edited to fit the music really well.

What I've learnt from watching experimental films is that although seemingly to be made up of sometimes quite random shots that there is actually a pattern or specific idea behind them and that repeating the same shots or the same shots but edited differently is something quite common throughout. To mirror that the music always tends to be quite repetitive as well and although the notes and beat might change to go with the images they tend to stick with the same piece of music through the whole film, using the changes in notes and beat to highlight certain parts and help it flow. From watching these films I am now leaning towards using black & white for all of or predominantly throughout my piece as I think it looks very effective and especially if you are going to play around with lighting and shades it makes it simpler if you keep it in monotones. A big inspiration for me is Maya Deren's thoughts on camera and editing techniques, but mainly the editing as this is something I enjoy a lot and I love playing about and discovering new effects and ways of editing so this is something a really want to get stuck into and will probably be my favourite part during the process of making our experimental film. 
 Sound is one thing I have not really thought about in as much depth as the actual images and this has made me think about it more now. We did come up with ideas of it being recorded with no sound and then maybe having a bit of internal narrative over the top of the 'dark' side saying things to torment the 'good' side now and again but we didn't really have many ideas with regards to music so I think we need to start considering that a bit more now and searching for things that we could use.



Experimental Project: First group meeting

Before our first lesson back me, Sophie and Natalie met up in the Library so we can discuss a few ideas each of us may have come up with over the holidays. I had an idea about using a mirror therefore focusing our project on an object, my idea was basically the mirror is in a girls room and that it sees everything that goes on that other people do not get to see, so when she's happy, sad or angry etc and it also witness her biggest dreams or her darkest secrets so that the audience would get a real sense of seeing something that they should perhaps really not be. I thought maybe the girl would be addressing the mirror directly as well throughout like when shes doing her make up, cleaning her teeth etc so that we know how she's feeling and we're also witnessing her at her most vulnerable because it's when we're alone and in our rooms that we can truly be ourselves and not ut on a front for others and our emotions can come out safely knowing that we're not being watched. Because I thought it would be set solely in a bedroom to make it look more interesting and also a bit dark I thought about playing around with lighting a lot e.g. use of natural lighting, main lights, lamps, torches and maybe even coloured filters so when she's feeling angry use a red filter and so on. I also wanted it to be quite jumpy and unexpected so one munite she might appear happy but then all of a sudden it cuts to her talking angrily or sinisterly into the mirror.
Sophie and Natalie both liked the idea of the mirror but after talking we started to go down another route but still thinking about using either the mirror or the idea of a girl who had 'problems' as a main idea. Sophie remembered a music video she liked so showed us it, it was about a girl who's fedup of home and walks out and the video documents her journey through London and that at the end the realisation of all the bad things she has done, I liked it because it had some really interesting and large variety of different shots like angles form above and below looking at the girl and then long shots of recognisable places in London and it was cut together quite quickly so had a jerky fast pace to it.
In the end our idea was to focus on a word (we had a few on our minds to start with like depression, schizophrenia, personality, conflict and changing because we were thinking along the lines of maybe someone with 2 sides or personalities and then possibly them being torn between the 2 sides) After a lot of thinking we came up with the word identity and it being about a girl who's unsure of her identity because she has these 2 personalities as such - the side of her that likes being bad and is always there tormenting her goodside. We decided wherever this girl was (in her room, in town with friends, at the park, etc) the darker side would always be there waiting to get out, we thought about showing this in reflections like mirrors, water etc and also this dark side would effect her life and how she was with people. Natalie also came up with the idea of using the same person in one shot to show these 2 sides so that is something we will need to consider when filming.

Experimental Project

Our next project is to create a 5 minute experimental piece in groups of 3 and it either has to focus on a word, an object or a poem. I think this project will be quite interesting as I feel we have quite a bit more freedom, in a sense, compared to the previous projects as to an extent with experimental anything goes. Although I do realise freedom isnt always as a good thing as I'm not good with having too much choice and it can be hard to come up with a solid idea and stick to it as there are so many possibilities and it's easy to go off on a tangent and then realise there is no real main focus or idea behind what you've done. With this I am hoping to come up with and plan in a lot of detail a main idea so hopefully there will be no margin to go off the point too much and it will make sure we have a direction that we can follow closely so not much can go wrong.