April 28th, 2017

These days I watched some experimental films and read some papers about the experimental films. In this blog, I would talk about a bit my research that I did in this week, it was very basic but it does help me to get through what is the experimental film.

Experimental film is a very special form of the film, there is no specific expression of a specific framework. Personally speaking, the traditional film is about to tell the story of the audience to understand, yet, experimental film is more emphasis on the expression of the filmmaker. And now in the movie market, films has become more and more important to show the director thought, rather than simply cater to the public tastes. So I think the impact of the experimental film is to let the filmmaker found that the film can let the audience has their personal thinking, not just the public entertainment.

In the historical, artists, musicians, poets, anyhow is a variety of artists, they made the experimental film.

Here are two experimental films that I’ve seen:

Ballet Méchanique (1924, Fernand Léger, France) The style is a Post-Cubism. What is the post- cubism? Cubism had deconstructed conventional perspective in the early twentieth century and opened new possibilities for conveying reality. Incorporating a variety of idiosyncratic techniques, Post-Cubism constitutes the subsequent exploration of semi-abstraction. For example, my favourite artist, Pablo Picasso, his arts belongs to the cubism. Generally speaking, in the Ballet Mechanique, there are many of the items derived from the shape of the life and composed together, repeat it in the editing to get a beautiful cubism world. Many of the same periods of the experimental film also affected by Dadaism, the overall trend is to use unrealistic way to express the reality.

Un Chien Andalou (1929, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, France) One of my favourite experimental films. The film clearly belongs to the surrealist, because the film without a logical story is a manifestation of surrealism by the dream and unconscious, and the release of sexual desire and subconscious criminal psychology are Dali wanted to explore the theme. Dali used the new visual expression, the film, to explore more thing he wants to express that the painting experience can not give it. The meaning of its symbol is not repeated here, everyone has their own views. I was feeling the same as with the dream, all sorts of weird dreams appear abnormal phenomenon to be present. For example, the shot that the moon through the cloud, and the next, the people’s eyes cut by a piece of sharp metal. See below screen shots

Besides, most of the experimental film don’t have the dialogue and the plot, the reason is that most of the experimental film director is interested in visual and forms of innovation, not the film content. Before the American film structure came to the table, most style of the film is according to the period corresponding to the visual art genre, is not absolute, but most will be affected by the period. Such as Dadaism (Dada), including Marcel Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema and Rene Clair Enter ‘acte. For example, Surrealism, the famous works include The Seashell and The Clergyman (Germaine Dulac,1928), and Un Chien Andalou (Dali 1929) that mentioned above, the Structural control-insistent pang affected by the Minimalism, the main research object of the film is the form, like as the mechanical things. Speaking of Structural control-insistent pang,  it has raised a name, the Canadian filmmaker, Michael Snow, Snow’s film research on space and time these two parts. His most famous films, where (1967 film), an hour length, most of the time the camera fixed to shot a huge studio,  then used zoom in to finish the film. He did not cut the film, used the real time making a movie. Different from the former experimental film and mainstream narrative film, this film only has a film form, without any content, but also lead a trend, it against the plot and the illusion.

Reference:

Ballet Méchanique (1924, Fernand Léger, France)

Un Chien Andalou (1929, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, France)

https://youtu.be/054OIVlmjUM

The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928 Germaine Dulac )

April 30th, 2o17

Yesterday I re-order the shots and cut it again to get a new clip. It consisted of the very simple shots and the concept, Surrealist film that relevant to my experimental film. This blog would demonstrate that my editing experience and the concept, surrealist, how it applied to my experimental clip.

Firstly, the recut is hard, but the most obvious thing that I discovered was the advantage of re-order and re-cut the shots. I learned that challenge is the key to success in breaking my original mind when time and resources are limited. The surrealist film, a modernist approach to film theory, criticism, and production with origins in Paris in the 1920s. It mainly to use the image in creator’s mind with the illogical arrangement and irrational, or absurd imagery to present the state of the human subconscious. In my experimental clip, I mainly focus on the spatial relationships in composition and editing, which also used the absurd imagery to present the situation of the time and space. Secondly, I discovered that even the simplest things on earth could be turned into something amazing if I explore myself on my film. I found the re-cut process itself helpful, as it ensured the main element, spatial relationship. Compare to my last version, my new clip had the same material. The difference of that has I changed my background music, and in order to compose the visual and the listening better, the recut shot was appearing by the music beats. Then, the color grading is much dramatic than the last one, the contrast of the black and white are much stronger. It appears that the time in my clip was not in a reality. At the beginning of my clip, it is a rotating the space in the frame, it shows the space movement blur the line between the real and imagines. It also has the black screen between the shots. The reason why I added it in that it could help the audience have a white space on their mind to have a think what happened in previous cuts. Besides, the part of shots composed by jumping cut with zoom in, it looks like a maze which fit in my experience. Furthermore, the second last shot is running shot in the alley. Low shutter speed helped the frame to get the blur effects. Due to the camera movement with low shutter speed, the light changed the shape, given the audience the escaping atmosphere. In the end, the last shot was a rush to the end of the alley, it definitely closer to the exit, but it stopped because the mind changed, the world upside down. Because it has been stuck in here for a long time…

To sum up, all the shots relied on my personal experience and this clip helped me to express my real thought and my feelings. I like it because it is the way of me to explore the film form.

 

May 5th, 2017

My plan in this week is doing a practice. the idea that is original from a Structural films,  wavelength, which directed by Michael Snow. He set up a camera in a large studio in an hour and finished by gradually zooming in the shot. And also it did not cut in the editing. I would try this form as well. As we know, the time in the modern film is not a real time, it is a film time. It could be the past, it also could be in the future. but in the Wavelength, this form is focused on what happened at the moment. And also, after the time and space changed, each zoom in could get a new frame, and the elements in the frame changed by zoom in.

 

May 15th, 2017

In last few days I finished my practice shooting, the referential form of the structural film, Wavelength that directed by Michael Snow. I set up a camera with a tripod without any pan and tilt in 10 mins. This blog would reflect my experience of shooting and how it looks like in final.

I did two clips, the first one is similar to the wavelength, but because of my issues, the clip data broke. The second one looks better. The location I choose in the docklands, at a small wooden building close to the Yarra River, through the window of the building you can see what happened on the huge bridge and the sky changed by time. My lens is 28-135mm f4.0 with Sony a7rii. I set up my camera in front of the wooden building, starting with the window with my maximum 135mm, and gradually zoom out 13times during the 10mins.

As we can see, the visual is starting from a close-up shot of the bridge, it can not recognise shot through the window. And After 13 times zoom out, the bridge gets looks small and far away from the eyes, no longer see the thing happened on that bridge clearly. It is a time of the sunset, but because of the cloudy, the sky was getting darker quickly. You can see the both side of the frame were dark, it can not see in anything, also after the sunset, the bridge with Sky also get to be darker until the end. The reason why I picked up this time to shot is that I express my mood, as we can see, in the camera, in the clip, the time and space changed, the bridge looks much smaller and darker, far away. Actually, in the real world, I am standing in front of the building, my eyes watched the real world gets into night time, the distance between me and the bridge did not change a bit. The time changed the objects on the bridge, the time changed the sky. Sometimes people feel the thing look like the same in the camera, they see and care about something important like as the bridge, it seems they can touch and talk with it, such as a relationship with their lover or their friend of parents. The close-up shot of the bridge represented of it. They watch it and consider as a big thing. But after the time files. They thought this relationship are no longer closer as before, or the thing does not happen as their expect. The both dark sides of the frame have represented the feeling of the heart, cold, no bright. Sometimes, time changed a lot of things, diluting something you thought that important, someone you cared about. Each quicking zoom out represented the struggling result of the inner world. But it does not mean it is a truth, all is your imagine, all is my imagine in the head.  In the reality, the bridge is the bridge, the distance is the same whenever the sunset or sunrise. People always live in a world that they imagine by themselves. The background music is an atmosphere from Pool Bautista, it just helps the audience pay attention to watch the clip because my original soundtrack has a lot chatting noisily.

How would I do it better? After I finished my shooting, I just realised there has an issue. I think for some people, it is too long to watch it, my clip is nearly 9mins, in some way audience might think it is a boring and long clip, people might lose attention when they watch it. My previous thought is that could help the audience to think about my express. I believe when the people pay attention to watch 9mins, they can feel something instead of boring. And another thing I want to have a change during the shooting, that is the zoom out, in my clip, each zoom out were quick and short, it represented a harsh effect of the change of the mentality effect. But how about if I change to zoom out slow and gradually during the whole clip? It can not recognise when the audience watches it. And, that I mentioned before, in my opinion, a quick and short zoom out represented of a struggling, a hash feeling. Then the slow and gradually zoom out could consider as the emotion changed without noticeable. Then after a period, people realised the time changed anything. I prefer this one.

The thing I would like to express is in this structural clip, it is necessary to understand the film is actually based on the director emotional. Experimental film study kind of a thing that expresses mood to myself, using the image and sound to express what I want to say.

 

May 17th, 2017

Here are my shot list and my shooting schedule. But the film might have some change, it based on the footages.

Shot 1.     Fade in

wide shot, wave, 10s wide shot with the zoom, see the girl was a little in

the sea / or tilt camera from the sky to the sea?

Shot 2.   wide shot of the whole house

Shot 3.   the girl with lipstick and earring ， close up shot  hand -held

Shot 4.   faucet pours water， high angle closes up.

Shot 5.   pants off

Shot 6.   wave

Shot 7.   high angle the girl get into bathtub

Shot 8.   clock running

Shot 9.   pouring.. mid shot

Shot 10.  get less water  close up shot

Shot 11.   mid shot, bath tub，water start to get full, but not cover the face

Shot 12. abandoned railway， wide angle

Shot 13.  mid shot, water in the bath tub had covered the half of the face

Shot 14.  the girl walking through the kitchen, milk passed by a hand, she refused

Shot 15.  bath tub， milk pouring  slow motion

Shot 16.  the girl’s face close up shot not so clear.  sea

Shot 17.  the girl nearly sink into the tub，

Shot 18.  phone rings, the door knocked，

Shot 19.  straw and fish tank

Shot 20. put a fish in the fish tank

Shot 21.  straw in the fish tank and blending    slow motion

Fade to black 5sec

Shot 22. water stop

Shot 23. the girl with a clear face on camera. 头发湿了。

Shot 24.  fish and the girl in the bathtub

Fade to black.  show to film name

Director name  Actor name  Music credit

 

Schedule

June 2nd, 2017                  Experimental short film reflection report.

At the end of this semester, I shot an experimental short film. This film doesn’t have any storyline and script. The idea was coming up by myself and based on my experience. Now I would explain the context of my film and why I would make this film in my last university life.

The film content is about a girl who had strongly negative thought in her mind, she refused the world, ignored the helping. She lives in a world which was created by herself. There are some symbols I used in the film. To demonstrate clearly, I made a list in below;

1. The abandoned rail in a brush represented as the inner world, cold.
2. The tub represented as the place that the girl thought is safety
3. The sea, water represented as the girl’s emotion
4. The milk and the hand represented as a warm from the reality
5. The umbrella represented as a protection
6. The fish tank represented as the reality
7. The water in fish tank represented as a thing she against
8. The black straw represented as the way she against to the world
9. The goldfish represented as the warm that accept the girl.

In regard to the cinematography, I also designed by myself. Firstly, the shots that the girl walking on the outside were using the wide shot. See below examples,

 

 

Why I used the wide shot? In my opinion, I believe the wide angle give people a distance. It could be considered as a sense of distance between the character and the real world as well. Another way to explore the sense of distance the shots included the character without any clear face. I think it successful to create the atmosphere. Which were deep and depressing.

Hand-held

Almost shots I used hand-held. On the one hand, making the frame have breathed, the character did not have much action in the film, but her inner world did not look peaceful. On the other hand, the hand-held technique could express the character, an uncertain state, a fuzzy inner world. For example, the scene, the girl in the bathtub, I used the hand-held shot, although she did not have any action in the bathtub, the water is getting full and covered her face, I used the hand-held, slightly moving. It expressed the girl’s inner activity. I think it looks good and successful to bring the inner world to the audience.

Camera-fix， stable shot

There is one shot I used a tripod to complete it. That is, the girl walked through the kitchen, refused the milk. I use the stable shot for it because I want to the audience know she had a cold and hard inner world when she ignored the warmth from the reality. So there is a strong contrast between no camera movement and the girl’s physical action. In my opinion, I think this shot is good, showed exactly what I want.

 

Composition

The shot that the girl walking in the railway with a reflection on the ground is one of my favourite shot. Because I am not expecting the audience would see the girl’s face clearly at the beginning of my film, so I figured out a lot of angles to explore the atmosphere.

Besides, the shot that the girl had an umbrella standing in the abandoned railway also is one of my favourite shot. The eyesight followed the shape of the railway and focus on the girl’s position. I think it enhanced the atmosphere and growing estrangement of the girl from the world. The f-stop I used 1.8, the thing behind the girl was blurred, in this way to explore she actually doesn’t have any support in her inner world, this shot created the loneliness.

 

And also I have some close-up shot and mid shot in my film.

For showing some details and strongly visual effects. I used the close-up shots, for example, The fish and the fish tank, the shot milk pouring next to the character’s face.

The colour grading I used the blue and green with a cinematic Lut. I believe blue and green matched my film because of the mood. The word blue has two meaning in English, one is the colour blue, another one is a moody, blue. So in my film, I used a lot of blue elements in it.  To match each shot has the similar colour grading, Then, I also added green colour. The green colour in my film had adjusted, it was flat and light green, I adjust to the deep green which matched the deep blue. The saturation declined, the curves declined as well. All my shots look dark and deep, but I don’t think it is underexposed.

 

The scene I really like it that is the milk poured to bathtub after she refused the milk from the fridge.  Why did the milk pour into the bathtub instead of the girl’s face?  The milk that I mentioned above, it represented as a warmth of the outside world, it may the mother to wake you up in the morning by a glass of milk. But the girl refused the tenderness. Milk sprinkled on her side, surrounded her. Like a mother accompany, and forever.

Another scene I like it that is the girl used the straw to drink the water from the fish tank. The fish bank that I mentioned above it represented as the reality, the water in fish tank represented as a thing she against, the black straw represented as the way she against to the world, the goldfish represented as the warm that accept the girl. I recorded this shot and did reverse in premiere pro. So in the video, the longer she drank, the water did not diminish, yet, more and more come to the fish tank. It such as when you against the something or someone who wants to accompany or care about you, then you refused and strongly against. They do not retreat, forgiving you with no condition love. This could be the turning point in my film, also the girl’s life. That is why the goldfish with the girl in the bathtub in the end of the film. The goldfish gets into her inner world, she accepted the warmth.

 

What exactly I want to express through the film?

This film made by myself. In some way, the girl is me in the past time. And I made it for my father. Due to the impact of the growth environment, I suffered a lot of things that made me feel disappointed to this world. I against to my father because he always makes me feel that I was superfluous in this world. The relationship between me and my father are really awkward.  We meet each other when I was 18, in that day we did not talk. He such as a stranger to me although I have his DNA in my genre. He also has the new family, his second kid. We don’t have much connection although we have the phone numbers, we have the many social networks could use in this century. I treat my father as a stranger because I don’t like him, in my mind, he never cares about me, even he never said happy birthday to me on each birthday. I felt all he focused on is his new family. But the situation changed in this January. I had a dangerous surgery in January. I told him by my mum’s phone when I arrived China, the ridiculous thing is that he can not recognise my voice. I was wondering if I dead, he might do not care about because he has a new family. My mum messaged he when I was during the surgery because my mum had bad news from my surgeon doctor. I saw him arrived after I wake up. It is my first time to see him with me. One day we talked about the surgery result. I said, don’t worry about it. I still could live as a normal person. He replied me, how could I don’t worry about it? You are my daughter. My birthday was in a few days ago, he sent me a message said happy birthday. I was wondering what should I say if he said happy birthday to me? Because he never said it before. I had wanted to ironically, oh, you knew that it is my birthday today? But I didn’t do it, instead of that, I said congratulations! Today is your 24th years to be my daddy.

My father and I such as the girl with the fish tank, water and the fish. He is that fish. I ignored him in the fish tank, I only pay attention to the water, which was his new family life, his world, the way he treated me. He also is the milk from the fridge, milk is cold, but milk is kind of warmth he wants to give it to me. It just expressed in an inappropriate way. I know that fish belongs to the fish tank and that water he lives, but also he had pleasure time in the bathtub. I just realised this man doesn’t know how to express himself, so do I….

What challenge I had when I was filming it?

Well, speaking of the challenge that I faced during the filming, I would say the reflection issue. As we can see, the shot included the fish tank was made by a clear glass material. At the beginning, I realised the reflection on the fish tank, so I figured out the way to deal with this issue. That is, change an angle that is not straight to shot the fish tank, borrow the angle and light to avoid the reflection. It does not so hard to fix but if I saw it on the screen, then I don’t think I could fix this issue. Besides, the shot, the girl crossing the kitchen and refused the milk. We can see there is an oven in front of my camera position, I definitely could see the reflection of myself with the camera standing in front of it. This time I can not change my angle, so I figured out to find something hide the part of the reflection. And I must hide under the table after I push the recording button. In this way to kill the reflection and keep the angle correct. See the pic.

Another issue is that a few shot had the quality issue after I did color grading. I can not fix it unless I delete my color grading. I can not figure out the why but I would try to understand and do some research about color grading, in case of this situation happen in next time. See below ( quality issue, the frame and the color have bad quality)

 

Dealing the location issue

Another thing is the location issue. I found the place at the point cook, the owner was agreed me to use his house for shooting. Before shooting, he refused it without any reasons. In fact, I never have this problem during these years, but in order to reduce the risks or something that I can not predict, I also have a backup place in advanced. So it doesn’t affect my schedule. So I think it is important to have a backup.

In Conclusion, although my short film has some defects, I think this experimental film expressed what I want, and I am satisfied with it so far. The composition, the lighting, the color grading and the meaning behind the shots supported this film. It is a fresh experience for me. Some of my friend watched the film, but they don’t understand it, but it doesn’t matter.  Because it is my way to explore the film and its form. I would try it better in the next time.

 

June 2nd, 2017                  

                     Experimental film research summary

In this semester I researched about the experimental film. Starting from the history of the experimental, then get an understanding of the concept, applied to my clips, practice it. Finally, I made an experimental short film by myself. This report I would sum up my thought, and answer my question, how to make an experimental film.

Experimental film- Generally refers to the shooting style and production methods with those mainstream commercial and documentary discrepancies or even opposing, or in a new audio-visual grammar, or new types. When people talk about experimental films, it is often described as “pioneer”, and earlier people also use the “underground” so vague and broad definition to try to summarize this unique style of the film. In fact, the “experiment” in the word “experimental” is a good description of the film some of the salient features, such as unconventional narrative order, deliberately distract the audience from the film shooting skills (like lost focus on purpose, fast cut), not synchronized sound or even no sound processing and so on. The purpose of all these “experimental” shooting and production methods is that the director wants the audience to have their thought when they watched the film. Back to the last century 60’s and the ensuing years, a lot of experimental film art aesthetic orientation and the mainstream culture at that time runs counter to. Most of these films have very low production budget. And sometimes, the director is the only crew in the production team.

Firstly, I think if you want to make an experimental film, you must understand what is the experimental film. In my opinion,  it is a special form of filmmaking, which was a form to express something that the creator want to say to the audience. And it could be without content and dialogue – almost of the experimental film like it. Personally,  I like to use my experience and using the symbol to express my thoughts. Such as my previous clip, the one I made in the lane with black and white color grading, the structural film study and my last experimental short film. It is useful, and I don’t like to feed the spoon to audience’s mouth. Let the audience have a guess, what I want to express? what do you think? Sometimes, the meaning behind the film is hard to guess, but sometimes it is easy. It all up to the audience. Such as you go to the gallery and look at the painting on the wall.

Secondly, I think whatever the film form you want to make, the most important element in the filming is the cinematography. In my opinion, a good composition could make the video looks better, also it much easy to catch the eyes. And using the lighting with color grading to create the atmosphere that you want.

Thirdly, trying to use something you never did it before, using creative thinking to find something difference and interesting. Most of the experimental films don’t have dialogue and the plot because most of the experimental film directors’ interest lies in the visual and the form of innovation, not the content.

Collaboration and Directing

How to work with the actor? I asked myself in these years, especially in this semester.  Sometimes I need to face the problem about talking to the people. It because of my language issue, it also caused by my personality, because I am not a talkative person. But this time, I think my actress and I worked well. Why?

When I wrote this film I had a clearly image about what kind of people could act my film. Then when my actress come and had the audition in an afternoon. We discussed what kind of feeling I want to express. I did not tell my actress what I want to make, no script, no screenplay. The only thing she knew is to listen to me when we were shooting. The reason is this film is to express my feeling instead of the character’s feeling. In order to get better footages,  I told my actress kept hungry when we were shooting. In my opinion, people look sleepy after eating the meal. My actress did it. It was the pleasure to work with her. And why I don’t tell her the film content? I made some short films before. Those films have the scripts, and the actors understand the film content, they worked well but I always feel it is not exactly what I want. So this time I tried the new way to do it. That is why I don’t tell my actress the content. I showed her the trailer, she surprised the way of the film came out. Then I just realised I get what I want, the exactly what I want.To sum up, there are many ways to make an experimental film. But the thought you want to express is the key to making a good experimental film. Surrealist, I really like it. It is the way of me to explore the film and form. All shots served by the director’s thoughts. This is my last semester in the university, I really enjoy this studio and my research project. I tried what I want in this studio. I think this project is a turning point in my life, I never thought I would have experience of making the experimental film.