Monthly Archives: March 2014

Week_4 Constraint#4_Something defines myself

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Untitled from Kai-feng Wang on Vimeo.

In this video, i use many close-up shot to illustrate my Jordan shoes in details. There are only five shots. It would be a little boring if I only use close-up shot, therefore, I attempt to play some tricks on focal length. Adjusting the focal distance is to distinguish the background and foreground. It would be more aesthetics when I film the things on foreground with blurring background. That is a very enjoyable thing when you see the things become blurring. Additionally, I somehow this visual effect is matching the background music. It kind of works tougher with the quick cut and lose focal and focal image.

Disadvantage: the camera is a bit shaky and the camera movement is awkward because you can see the camera does not move smoothly. I should have a better hand.

Week_4 Constraint#4_ immediate family

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Untitled from Kai-feng Wang on Vimeo.

The task requires me to film an immediate family around me without showing their faces. Unfortunately, I live alone away from my parents. Well, but I found a old picture on my desk . An interesting thing is when you filming a film photo with a digital video camera, this is the moment i would say “Time fast, world changes”

I don’t use other elaborative techniques on this video except for close-up shot. My idea is photo describes itself (birthday cake, candles, hands, feet, old clothes) and I just re-record it. On the other hand, this photo was taken by 1999. I really like the little dusty spots on my family union photo that represents time.

Film/TV_Reflection 3

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Question_3

From the week 4 lecture describe at least two reasons why we ‘shoot to edit’?

Filmmaker is able to generate a relationship among two or more characters by editing. In a tension scene, the purpose is to create a intense and fast images onscreen. It is nearly impossible to accomplish by long take, but filmmaker could employ fast editing to construct the whole scene.

Editing is good for shooting in a limited space, like the sequence of Taxi Driver (showed in lecture). Martin Scorsese is good at using long take for his filmmaking, such as good fellas and Age of Innocence. However, Scorsese considers the condition of space and camera movement in Taxi Driver, the long take would make this sequence awkward by the consistent pushing and pulling camera movement. As if Scorsese uses editing, he derive more creative spaces and editing makes image more dynamic.

Week_4 “MORE THAN 90% OF THE FILMS CREATED IN THE FIRST DECADE OF CINEMA WERE DOCUMENTARIES.”

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Interesting source from moments of innovation

Soon after the invention of the motion picture camera in 1890s, filmmakers turned it on the world around them. Nonfiction shorts, known as “actualities,” were among the most popular films of the era.

Actualities captured the everyday—workers leaving a factory, a train arriving at a station—as well as the unfamiliar. France’s Lumiere brothers established a network of camera operators that shot and sent actuality footage around the globe.

Operational from 1895 to 1928, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company made more than 3000 films, including this actuality short of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. From its founding until 1902, American Mutoscope shot on 68mm film, hoping to avoid patent suits from Thomas A. Edison, who used 35 mm—now industry standard. The results were visually immersive high-resolution images that earned American Mutoscope’s films the name “Living Postcards.”

Week_4 Take Away from Lecture

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Story and Life

In week 4 lecture, we had a big argument about “What is story?”

Some of us might say life is a story because we would encounter different kinds of thing over our life. However, Adrian argues that life is not a story, and we are not stories. Story is a chain of arranged events with cause and effect but life is full of accidents. In shorts, we are just dealing with accident in life.

There is no any cause-effect chain in life because we don’t what would happen next, like “Hit by car on the way to home?” LOL. If newspaper reports this news, they are just describing it.

“A passenger walked down street yesterday and killed by a car. The car driver was drunk and failed on his alcohol test and he will be sent to a jail.”

This is the description of issue cause we cannot take three random thing and define it as a story. The distinction between story and life is cause and effect. That means someone could make up the car accident as a fiction story. Why the car driver get drunk? How come the passenger walked down that street at that point?  Story follows the script. Every single thing is arranged by writer.

According to Bordwell and Thomson, how to make up a three things into a story.

Consider a new description of these same events: “A man has a fight with his boss. He tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so angry that he smashes the mirror while shaving. Then his telephone rings; his boss has called to apologise.

We no have a narrative, unexciting though it is. We can connect the events spatially. The man is in the office, then in his bed; the mirror is in the bathroom; the phone is somewhere else in his home. Time is important as well. The fight starts things off, and the sleepless nigh, the broken mirror, and the phone call occur one after the other. The action runs from one day to the following morning. Above all, we can understand that the three events are part of a pattern of causes and effects. The argument with the boss causes the sleeplessness and the broken mirror. The phone call from the boss resolves the conflict, so the narrative ends. The narrative develops form a an initial situation of conflict between employee and boss, through a series of events causes by the conflict, to resolution of the conflict. simple and minimal as our example is, it shows how important causality, space, and time are to narrative form.

Week 4_The history of camera

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Monday’s lecture, a question be asked

Is there a chance that the accessibility of media nowadays ruins film making instead of ‘liberating it from the old’?

This hot topic is always mentioned in recent day especially in 21st century. Digital and traditional filmmaking biomes a conflict.

I found a source in which we can know how the VIDEO RECORDER
 is being evolved. How the accessibility of media is improved  in the past many years1967_Sony_Video_Rover

 

Here is the PDF: Museum of vintage reel to reel video recorders. Open reel black and white antique video recorders.
Screenshot 2014-03-25 17.25.35

 

Jasmine mentioned the increasing accessibility of camera leads to a low quality production because many people are making a film without professional skills to secure their quality. However, she believes the accessibility wouldn’t be a matter to ruin filmmaking.

Adrian also asserts: we can’t define ourselves as filmmakers cause we film a video with our iPhone. On the other hand, it wouldn’t matter what camera equipment we use because there are lots of uses of video. Adrian gives a example that your grandmother uses a iPhone to film your 21st birthday party. Her purpose of filming is not to make a film but to share with your aunty who lives in US. Filming is as same as writing. We wouldn’t say a person who write 30pages blog post is novelist. What technology influences us is convenient for recording a video.

In my opinion, accessibility is good for creative product because camera equipment becomes common for people and they can film a video at anytime and anywhere. Especially, the emergence of  DV (Digital Video Camera) prompts filmmakers to produce with handheld cameras. In 1990s,small standard definition  cameras began recording  digitally. They were first use cinematically when they were embraced by the dogma 95  movement in Denmark. Thomas Winterberg’s The Celebration was fully filmed by hand-held camera which offers more spaces for their creativities. Filmmakers stylise their craft in an unconventional way.  In modern time, Some films, like Cloverfield (2008), highly employs the notion of DV camera for their filmmaking. The shaky, unstable visual effect begins to become a acceptable way for more people. I would say the video is not ruining the filmmaking but is helping.

 

Week 3_Multiple screen documentary “In the Labyrinth”

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In the LabyrinthbyRoman KroitorbyColin Low&byHugh O’Connor, National Film Board of Canada

A film without commentary in which multiple images, sometimes complementary, sometimes contrasting, draw the viewer through the different stages of a labyrinth. The tone of the film moves from great joy to wrenching sorrow; from stark simplicity to ceremonial pomp. It is life as it is lived by the people of the world, each one, as the film suggests, in a personal labyrinth.

In the Labyrinth was first released as a multi-screen presentation for Chamber III of the Labyrinth at Expo 67. These separate images were integrated into a single strand of film, using a “five-on-one” cinematic technique.

The way of “In the Labyrinth” produced is very similar with Korsakow film which we are gonna do it in this semester. Background music, images and short video create a non-narrative experimental film. Although this film without any commentary, it does create a atmosphere with background music and moving images.  The multiple frame is very fascinating because it create a special perspective. Each frame kind of have a relationship with others. I am very inspired by that. I would like to try it in my sketch film in the future.

Film/TV_Reflection 2

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Question 1

In the film Clown Train how does sound contribute to the atmosphere of this film? Describe what you heard? Can you make reference to another genre film and how they utilise sound to create tension and a unique filmic space?

The sound in Clown Train is very distinctive to form our expectation. Firstly, It is to hear the sound from outside the train,  the sound of the light, especially the horror sound effect. At the beginning, the sound of train generally establish the atmosphere in Clown Train. The director utilises the sound of a moving matching with a black screen. At that point, I clearly can feel scary. Secondly, I consider the director intends to outline characters’ psychology. When characters have a conversation, I can hear very distinctive voice by characters. There is nearly no other non-diegetic sound interrupt audience unless the situation is changed. Finally, the use of non-diegetic sound is rhythmic. It is simultaneous  when camera turns to the Clown we will hear a sound effect. The sound of lighting foreshadows the climax of the story because it repeats a number of times in the plot. The sound effect become extreme once the circumstance is being intensive, especially the scene in which the Clown is whispering to the host.

In the series of ‘Final Destination’, the manipulation of sound is similar with Clown Train. Every time the death is coming to a character, audience can hear the non-diegetic sound to create the expectation. The director utilises everything that can form the tension in his setting. Audience can always see the sound of fire, the sound of lighting or the sound of something else.

Question_2

Select from one of the readings, up to but not including Week 5, and briefly describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you. 

Throughout the ‘Sound Recording’, I pick up some points from there. The technique of indoor recording really interests me. A booming or echo effect is really considerable in sound recording, because I tried recording sound indoor couple times. The solution is having grapes or blunts on the walls and position boxes or soft furnishing to break up the path of the sound waves. Also, another common problem is that the mic may capture 50Hz hum from the electricity in the cables to your portable lights. Keeping  mic cables well away from electrical cable secures the quality of sound recording.

Audio mixer is a big challenge for me because i haven’t used this apparatus before. Although I am familiar with H2n, it would be completely different thing. There are couple advantages when you do recording with a mixer. An audio mixer, which usually have for, six or eight inputs, allows you to mange several sound sources with separate mics. You can fade up and down the volume of different sources of sound so that a sound recorder enabling creating cool sound recording like fade in the music , fade out the clapping via the mixer. It seems to be much flexible than a H2n.

Question 3

In relation to script Character can determine…. “PLOT”

 

Question 4

In the tute we screened a short film called Rolling – a film made in Film-TV1 a few years ago.

In 300 words or less describe what you thought worked or didn’t. At this stage we don’t expect you to have a great deal of film knowledge or language. Don’t be afraid to use your own words. Things you could talk about – script, casting, timing, camera movement, location. You may not remember much detail, if so, it could be helpful to talk about your first impressions, after all this is what most of us are left with after one viewing.
Rolling is still a good comedy, although it has some problems on the technical aspect. The Opening sequence is very interesting as the hero address the camera directly while expressing his feeling from his heart. The traits of a character is very important, this opening shows his personality very fast.  Generally, I can sense his traits from his appearances, body language and expression. These really address me and I can know he is shy and non-confident but polite and neat. On the other hand, the opening sequence is an establishing shot. In the location, audience can realise supermarket stocks and freezers around the main character. This setting forms our expectation that the story would happen in a supermarket.  Nevertheless, the colour on screen is strange because the colour of light is unstable. Due to auto standard of white balance, the camera would automatically adjust the colour of the lighting. At this point, it is strange with comedy theme.
The camera movement is with slow rhythm. Rather using the fast cross cutting, the director choose to utilise a slow cut. Besides the montage in supermarket, most shots take at least 4 seconds. The information is slowly illustrated onscreen. It creates a very relax atmosphere in the film.

Week 3_Take away from Lecture_3

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At the beginning of the lecture, Adrian very concentrated on the concept of taxonomy. He defines taxonomies as a boxes in which formally categories every different kind of thing. How does plant or animal relate to each other? What sort of this or what sort of that. A serious classification. Adrian, however, points out that what is the measure of these kind of thing? Yes, exactly, the measure. The measure that classifies different species by the speciesmen. They make up a example as a centre (standard) and organise the sequence of this species based on their differences from the centre. However, Adrian’s POV just inspires me what is the measure of this measure? Who set up this measure?

A taxonomy is stereotype. It convinces people to follow the stereotype rules. Speciesmen, THEY seems to be a state of authority that set up rules or quality to classify things or people. What groups. However, as Adrian mentioned, what matters is not whether this is a new species or not, what matters is to recognise that gum trees all vary and so what matters is the extent of the variation, not the fact of variation.

What we do is not understanding the definition of a thing, what we do is to observe and think what things function and how they function. Think out of the boxes of taxonomy to think what they do rather than what they mean. Adrian suggests us to approach closely at individual works and systems and software platforms and services individually and specifically. Understanding the varies is to learn the lessons from them.

The interesting webs Adrian provided to us. The web of MIT’s moment of Innovation is a platform for people to share the historic of creative crafts. It tries to get people here to know more about things of technology. The web offers different kinds of formats of medium, video, collective images, music etc.  On the other hand, The online page of ‘The Johnny Cash Project’ runs with a different concept. There is one video of fascinating juxtapositions on the main page. It seems artful and aesthetic. The web encourages people to create. The staff grapes users’ crafts to produce a montage. A collaborative art crafts is done by users.

 

Week 3_Something Slow_Several Shots

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Walking Melbouren 1 from Kai-feng Wang on Vimeo.

This video is not my original idea because i learn from someone on Youtube. I think that is very cool way to illustrate. This time, I choose to use Premiere for my editing so that I can use ‘mirror’ effect to stylise my video. It is pretty fascinating right?

This video is about Melbourne Walking. This perspective is very special. As we all know, Melbourne is the most liveable city in worldwide. Melbourne is a peaceful place with great weather and environment. People feel comfortable here. Above those reason, I realise how Melbourne people would walk.