AGWHAAT: The Dance Scene

From the beginning of this clip Sheila Vand who plays ‘The Girl’ (a vampire) looks quite poignantly like a fish out of water as she wanders around this modern apartment with its ridiculously decadent yet tacky decor, such as the glowing fish tank which she stands aside at the beginning of this clip. On first appearance ‘The Girl’ feels like a pastiche of Count Dracula (Dracula, 1931), Patricia (Breathless, 1960) and Mathilda (Leon: The Professional, 1994). But it’s her movements that take on a distinctly non-human quality that make her feel more like a serpent waiting to strike, than any kind of pre-used character archetype. ‘The girl’s’ slow turns – keeping her head so upright it feels almost tilted slightly back and striking black hood – that drapes softly over her body – make her appear like a cobra arched upright, slithering slowly through Saeed’s (Dominic Rains) apartment. We watch ‘The Girl’ watch Saeed as he listens to music, snorts coke, smokes a cigarette, counts his money, lifts some weights and dances provocatively. As ‘The Girl’ watches Saeed fulfil a number of gluttonous and self-obsessed human behaviours she aligns herself with a snake watching it’s prey. She’s uninterested in what he does, or why he’s doing it, the only reason she is watching him is to to keep track of his physical body as she waits to strike.

Saeed unaware of her ulterior motives is parading around the room like a walking testosterone advertisement, indulging and feeding his own ego. Unawares to him, is that he is also indulging ‘The Girl’, wetting her appetite as she prepares to literally feed on him. As ‘The Girl’ strikes one of the drum kits cymbals – hitting a discordant note, Saeed walks directly to her as if beckoned by this ancient sounding chime. With her back to Saeed ‘The Girl’ appears as the typical victim, about to be done in or sexually assaulted by this young, huffed up, drug dealer. Saaed approaches all beady eyed and eager, reaching out to ‘The Girl’s’ basilisk shaped hood, and in keeping with her cobra inspired mannerisms she turns her head and body around slowly to face him – neck and body moving as if one solid formation. Saeed strokes her face and places his finger in her mouth, unaware that the balance of power had in fact shifted even before this scene had begun. ‘The Girl’ then reels back and strikes, biting his finger clean off, Saeed staring at her in disbelief.

The films title ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ makes much more sense after viewing this scene, as it suddenly becomes apparent that the title is not to be read as the usual ‘A girl walks home alone at night – potential victim trope’, that statement is intended to be read as a warning. No longer is ‘a girl walking home alone at night’ scary for ‘the girl’ involved, but rather it is scary for the people who run into her, becoming one of her victims. As this scene portrays the girl appears like the typical victim – petite and superficially submissive, but behind that delicate (however stone cold) exterior is a cold blooded killer.

Until next time,
Louise Alice Wilson

Colour Me Confused:

This colour grade exercise was both and enjoyable and frustrating. As someone who loves regularly taking photos and editing them, I’m keen to learn more about how to do the same with my videos. However one major frustration that cropped up during this exercise, was the serious lack of image quality for video files, which leads to a serious lack of nice looking colour grade options. However, you gotta work with what you got. Below is a video that features multiple examples of various colour grades, plus a breakdown of each colour grade used.

Colour Grade Video: Rosie Being Rosie

Colour Grade 01 – Original Colour Grade – Unedited

This is the original colour grade of the video footage, completely unedited.

Colour Grade 02 – Pink Hue

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction

Temperature: +30

Tint: +12

Contrast +30

Highlights: -70

Shadows: +54

Whites: -9

Blacks: -17

Colour Grade 03 – Film Style

Lumetri Color > Creative

Look: Fuji F125 Kodak 2393

Intensity: 50%

Faded Film: +20

Sharpen: +20

Saturation: -4

Colour Grade 04 – Blue

Lumetri Color > Creative

Look: SL Blue DAY4NITE

Intensity: 100%

Colour Grade 05 – Sharp Yellow

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction                                      > Creative

Temperature: +149                                                                      Faded Film: +25

Tint: -106                                                                                           Sharpen: +100

Contrast: +30                                                                                  Vibrance: +70

Highlights: -10

Shadows: +27

Whites: -8

Blacks: -3

Colour Grade 06 – Beaut Edit

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction                                         > Creative

Tint: +2                                                                                                   Sharpen: +99

Highlights: -38                                                                                   Vibrance: +70

Shadows: +7                                                                                        Shadow Tint: Red/Orange

Whites: +11                                                                                         Highlight Tint: Red/Orange

Blacks: -8

Overall:

Getting to experiment with different colour grades was pretty cool and it’s nice to get more comfortable with Premiere Pro’s color correction software. I think overall I like my ‘film style’ edit and ‘beaut’ edit the most as the look the most natural, however the ‘sharp yellow’ is pretty sick also. I often like colour edits that are either hyper natural or super extreme, so it makes sense that I like those three. If I had to pick one I’d probably pick the sharp yellow cause its a bit wacko.

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Step Into The Light:

In this exercise we tried to utilise lighting present within our environment to light our characters in specific ways. I decided to utilise the dappled lighting present outside the RMIT buildings on Ceyda as she read through our script. The epiphany I had whilst working through this exercise, was that it is extremely difficult to consciously notice light and therefore be able to utilise it. Unlike framing, which once displayed on a monitor is generally quite easy to decipher and thus adjust, lighting remains elusive. It seems that from a young age were often encouraged to decipher why a certain painting is good, or what you like about a particular photograph. This deciphering often includes references to things such as framing, subject, use of space or angles utilised. However, unless you are speaking to an art critic you are unlikely to hear someone say I like this painting because of the way the artist has depicted the light. This lack of experience in consciously noticing light, seems to lend itself to an inability to read it when required. Even whilst I had Ceyda physically standing in front of me, it was quite difficult to work out the best place to position her, to use the light in the way I wanted. I’d say move to the left and rotate your head to the right more, then realise I’d pushed her in the complete opposite direction to what I wanted – framing generally isn’t this hard. I must say however, that the most difficult exercises are generally the most enjoyable. So often you feel like your going through the motions whilst learning the ins and outs of filmmaking. That when you are truly challenged you suddenly have an eagerness that wasn’t never present whilst you were sitting well within your comfort zone.

The second epiphany I had whilst working through this is exercise, was that Ceyda is a great actor, even though she vehemently stated that she wasn’t! Lesson learnt: trust no (wo)man. Even if someone states that they’re a terrible actor you may be pleasantly surprised and they may even bring something to the character that you never even thought about.

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

How to shoot a script for dummies:

If you ever need to shoot a script just call “1800-who’s-that-weird-lady-in-the-background?”

This was meant to be a post about how to shoot a script, because that was technically what this class was about, but I’m definitely much more interested in that weird AF lady in the background. She was the best (because she’s given us this solid gold footage), but also the worst (because she ignored me trying to shoo her out of the frame) (but I’m actually the worst, because I should have had enough foresight to realise, “hey, this is some good ****”).

I was originally going to edit together a string of shot reverse shots as an example of how we intended to complete this exercise, then discuss it. However, after reviewing the footage and remembering the weird lady in the background I realised that it was actually more poignant and revealing to display this excerpt as it’s own unedited stand alone piece – that which reveals a moment in time. Giving insight into our learning process and the hurdles/joys of filmmaking.

This is the annoying part where I talk you through the video you’ve just watched: I like how this video begins as ‘sound’ is being called, making it obvious that we’re only privy to this unfurling scene because someone pushed the record button. As the scene moves along the visuals are also  introduced as we hear ‘video’ being called – and we get to watch the scene slowly play out. We then see this woman enter frame, which no one seems aware of except the director, who then waits til she leaves to call action. Then as the clicker snaps down, the elevator doors open almost instantaneously after.  The scene plays out and the visuals end, but we get to keep hearing the scene until someone eventually presses the record button once more, disabling us from being privy to this scene for any longer.

I had a few major epiphanies after watching this video. The first being the realisation that when your ‘filming’ something or planning to film something your often so caught up in what you ~ should ~ be doing. That you fail to notice the much more interesting things that are unfolding in front of you. This not only disables you from being truly creative, but inhibits the work from being as interesting as it could possibly be. My second epiphany was that you can create a much more interesting scene by having multiple actions occurring in the same scene at once. And you can also relate these seperate actions by timing each action, to work well with another in the frame, suggesting some kind of relationship between the two. My third epiphany was that drawing attention to how highly constructed filmmaking is, can be extremely interesting and it doesn’t necessarily destroy the audiences relationship to the onscreen action, but can actually deepen it.

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Sussing out that ‘shot-reverse-shot’:

Learning how to create a shot-reverse-shot is – I guess – super important, considering it’s utilised in (most likely) every film you’ve ever seen. Not only would it have been utilised in every film you’ve ever seen, but it’s probably been utilised a butt load in every film you’ve ever seen. The reason that the shot-reverse-shot is so prevalent in mainstream filmmaking is because it’s one of the easiest ways to establish the location of characters and their relationships to the objects and people around them.

I’m sure there is an art to creating a smooth shot reverse shot, that feels ‘real’ and ‘natural’ but what most surprised me about this exercise is how easy it was to create shot-reverse-shots that smoothly went together. When you shoot an exercise like this you think, “omg how am I gonna piece this **** together”. Then you get to the edit suite, bang the clips side by side and voila, your scene actually seems to makes sense. This was a pretty major revelation to me, but keeps in line with what Paul’s been speaking about since day one; which is that filmmaking is more a process of getting things done, rather than some mythical creative endeavour, only achieved by those who are truly gifted.

My second major revelation was how amazing of an actor I am, I was honestly just truly blown away by my own performance. Especially that killer death scene at the end and my ability at maintaining ‘dead eyes’ throughout that dramatic pan. If you ever need an actor?

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson