Heights Shots

We started shooting today.

We kicked off with shooting our heights segment, just a few shots filmed over the edge of the John Lewis car park roof, with some distant traffic audio to compliment it.

It's not a lot of footage but its a start..

Treatment

Our project will consist of images and sounds that represent and/or invoke people's fears. Using interviews that we will record of a number of different people, will be the basis of our film. The idea is to use just snippets and cut up bits of each interview, that could then be repeated and just heavily edited to change pitch etc, to make it as uncortable and experimental as possible. We will then use ambient sounds and other recordings like creepy laughter etc to overlap with the interviews. They will increase in volume and overlapping throughout the film until a crescendo of sound and images at the end. It's the same with the images, they will start out a steady pace, just clearly showing each fear, and then will start to overlap the images near the end. Our aim is to invoke at least some fear in our audience, or at least an uncomfotable feeling, and to show people's different fears and see their reactions to them.

Segment Scripts

Jess wrote up some scripts for individual segments from our initial planning

Experimental Films in Class

During Class, Martine showed us a variety of films that can be classed as experimental, this has made me feel a little bit more comfortable about our ideas so far, as i was unsure that they would fit in to the genre of 'experimental'. However, i now feel that almost anything can be experimental so long as it doesnt follow the majority of the rules of Hollywood movies.

Ballet Mecanique - Fernand Leger (1924)

This is probably what i previously would have considered as 'Experimental', a montage of a selection of seemingly random objects or characters, all in black and white, with the tempo of the soundtrack quite different to the images
Its not something that i would particularly choose to watch as i dont find it particularly entertaining, however, i do see how, for its time, it was an amazing piece of work, purely for the amount of different techniques involved and played about with, and without pieces similar to this within the period of time that this was created, other pieces of work that i do find entertaining and enjoyable probably wouldnt exist.. i appreciate the work that was put into this piece as a building block for more recent pieces that have been created since, even if i dont particularly enjoy watching this specific film..

Hauschka - Jeff Desom (2008)

I particularly liked this piece, I liked the use of what im assuming was stock footage (however i may be wrong, it could just be various manipulated images). I like the old postcards. It reminded me of September 11th, as the piano falls in slow motion it reminds me of the falling bodies, the paper that must have been thrown from a building reminds me of the ash clouds and paper that fell from the falling buildings. I think the use of music gives it a calm, sombre, emotional feeling. As the shadow of the falling piano fell onto passing trams and cars i was expecting to see something tragic happen to the people inside. Im glad it didnt as i think that would take away the focus from the falling objects. I like how this piece moved me, id love to be able to make something that had that kind of effect on people in the future.
 
Telling Lies - Simon Ellis (2000)
 
 

 
I particularly like this piece because it is so simple an idea. It cant have taken a lot of efforrt to create once the initial idea was created either, which is something that also appeals to me, though it is definately one of those pieces that you cant replicate without it seeming like youve just copied it.
I like how the colour is used to show the viewer the words that are merely thought and unsaid.
 
Fisticuffs - Miranda Pennell (2003)


 

 
I really enjoyed this film. It was obviously created by overlaying lots of different shots and must have been massively choreographed and must have taken so long to plan out. I loved how skillfully the shots were put together. I like the idea of the line dancing metaphor as well, and i think this was what made it so entertaining. Its a fantastic example of non-linear metaphorical narrative.
 
Worst Case scenario - John Smith (2002)
 
 

 
I initially really liked this piece, purely due to the quite interesting artistic shots that were used with black and white lines throughout, however its incredibly long and i found myself getting very bored with it after a few minutes, expecting something to happen, almost willing a 'worst case scenario' to occur, and in the end it feels like nothing has really happened.. I like the use of repetition but i think if i used repetition i would have to use a lot less repetition to ensure i dont bore viewers.

Individual parts of 'Fear'

Exams: this could possibly be too linear in its narrative, will need to run this by Jess and Emma and see if they have any ideas, the aim is for the sound to build up, layering on new sounds of ticking, heart beating, scratching, etc until these sounds and their echos become almost unbearable to hear.. hopefully not too visually boring..

I have quite a lot of ideas for this, however we should perhaps try not to make the images seem to obvious, it may seem too straightforward if they are.. perhaps unusual angles of various objects. Lots of non-rhythmic cuts..

 Just a few extra indeas to incorporate somewhere into the film, a couple purely for visual interest so they might not make it, and a few ideas that would look great if we can work out locations..

Experimental Project Initial Chosen Idea

Met up with Jess and Emma, they both liked the Merry-go-round idea and thought it had a lot of possibilities, We've decided to go for either the word 'Fear' or 'Nightmare'.

We've got a few key fears that we'd like to focus on as we're aware that 5 minutes could be a long time to fill (definately the longest film we'll have created so far). We think that if we cut at non-rhythmic times between the different fear themes it might make the audience feel more uncomfortable, which is one of our aims.

 the balloons would be red and yellow in a darkened room and Dado-lit.

YouTube Research - 'Orpheus'

The filmmaker has used the Greek Mythology associated with Orpheus and linked it to modern life which i particularly like the idea of. The sound on it was really good, using heavy grief-stricken breathing and narration from the dead girlfriend character and building up uncomfortable noises to make the view feel almost on edge. Theres some really good locations that show the character is emotionally in a really bad place throughout his grieving process. I also like how simple the change of lighting is in the final shot to show that there is a flashback.
Its a fantastic piece, particularly for a second year piece, i would love to be able to create something similar while on this course.

YouTube Research - '6 Doors'

here, the filmmaker has obviously used a rubiks cube as her object to focus on for her experimental film. She used blod colours like the ones on the surfaces of the rubiks cube, the 6 doors mentioned are the 6 sides of the cube. I particularly like how she's linnked these together to do what im assuming is an autobiographical film. She has experimented with colour and contrast, which i also find interesting and would like to do if it fits into the initial idea that me and my group initailly plan out.

Initial Experimental Ideas

Brainstormed for the experimental project a little

Below are a few of the interesting objects i thought of..

not really sure where to go from here, there seems to be too many ideas or too many cliched ideas, dont really know how the images will fit together or which is most interesting to do, Ill let Jess and Emma decide..