April 2014 archive

Collage

This week’s reading from David Shields is written in a partial style, numbering different phrases. It is written in this way as the Shields demonstrates his opinion that narrative and plot is boring and should be obsolete, while media makers should be focusing on the interesting, exciting and more ‘true’ form of collage making rather than traiditional film editing.

His observation of the law of mosaics as being “how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes” is relevant to how Korsakow films are made. It is similar to collecting various clippings and then deiciding how they will be arranged together to create something. It reflects the way in which clips in a Korsakow film are linked through the keywords the makers choose, giving them meaning.

Shields discusses a lot of things that I believe to be true, including that our minds aren’t unified and systematic, rather they are chaotic and there is no real boss controlling your thoughts. This idea relates to how narrative, and cause and effect, as has been taught so prevelantly at film and media schools are not in fact ‘truth’. Combining various clips by way of meaningful keywords reflects the chaotic nature of the world we live in. As Adrian has consistently said, there is no narrator of your life, things happen at random and your life is not a narrative whether you want to believe it or not. By filming and making media products (and more specifically Korsakow films), in a more organic way such as a mosaic or collage, we can create a more interesting and personal product.

As Shields points out the main question that a collage artist faces is how do you go about arranging the interesting material you have found? This is very similar to the main question that Korsakow films pose for makers. Filming your clips is probably the easiest part of the process, it is when you must sit down and analyse what you have filmed, and try to find meaningful keywords that link them together that it becomes quite a challenge. Approaching this question can be quite difficult, and I would argue that no matter how much planning you do before you shoot, you will most likely change your keywords once making your SNUs as you would discover different and new patterns you didn’t expect.

The Cinema Experience

Cinemas blaming piracy for increase in ticket prices.

The price of a ticket to the movies is set to increase to an average $20 per person. With the price for an adult already at an average $18,  concession prices around $16 and kids at $14 the price of going to see the latest flick in the cinemas is already expensive. Booking tickets online adds another surcharge, as does films in Xtremescreen (Hoyts), 3D, and other ‘luxury’ cinema experiences. Then if you want to add some popcorn and a drink it’ll set you back another twenty odd dollars.

Going to the cinemas is becoming a luxury, and with the proposed ticket increases, they may even become obsolete in the near future. There are many issues that cinemas (and the film industry) need to address rather than worry about increasing their profits. Cinemas are blaming the price increase on piracy as Australia is one of the worst countries in the world for ‘stealing’ films and TV programs. This just seems like a bad excuse as cinemas already take on average 60% of ticket sales with distribution companies taking about 30% and only 10% actually reaching the pockets of the hardworking people behind the film. If caring about the filmmakers, screenwriters, editors, and production crew is the priority for cinemas, you would think they would change the percentage of their takings to pay the creatives more. Thus, I don’t accept that piracy can be a claim made by cinemas in a bid to increase their profits.

Investing your time and money on a film is one of the many reasons why people don’t go to the movies as often anymore, as they try and weigh up which film they want to see the most. Often, by the time they’ve seen a few TV spots and trailers through the media, they decide that the film is worth watching only to realise that they are too late. Films are more and more being given short screening periods, with the available session times after a couple of weeks not fitting the average worker’s schedule. From my experience, choosing a movie to spend your time and money on can be quite difficult, especially when you have competing reviews and opinions from friends. A lot of the time, people would just rather prefer to watch something in their own time and in the comfort of their own home, and not have to deal with people who don’t turn their phones off or talk loudly in the cinema. Usually, by the time I get a chance to go to the movies, the film I want to see is no longer in Xtremescreen, and at my local cinema that means that it’s in a dodgy theatre that is half the experience it should be.

As somebody who wants to work in film and TV production in the future, it is disappointing that piracy is so prevalent in today’s society. Criminalisation and fining of people who download illegally hasn’t proved to be successful as a deterrent. Downloading content illegally has become so common that people have surprised reactions to others who don’t participate in the behaviour. The mentality is that ‘everybody is doing it so why can’t I?’ While there isn’t a clear and simple solution to the issue, one suggestion would be to implement a similar system as Netflix or iTunes which could either be a subscription service, where you pay monthly and are allowed to download as much content as you like so long as you don’t reproduce it. Or it could be more like iTunes where you can buy an episode or pre-order a whole series for a discounted price, so that each new episode of your favourite series is downloaded automatically and you have paid for it. Films could also be purchased in this way. There are some devices being introduced currently, similarly to Foxtel, however, they aren’t at a standard where it appeals to the masses. They are devices that must be purchased and installed, unlike a program like iTunes which can be accessed by anyone who creates an account, and content can be easily connected and viewed on TV’s, computers, and mobile devices.

The major issue of course is, so long as it is available for people to download content illegally for free, they will continue to do so. The solution then is to create a large program that allows people to download content at a cheap price, whilst also shutting down illegal free download sites.

Rather than blaming piracy on the dwindling numbers of people going to the movies, cinemas should focus more on incentives to go and watch a film. Better deals at the candy bar, upgrading the theatres that currently exist, making Xtremescreen the standard for all theatres, and promoting more cheap nights would create more incentive for people to go to the movies. Hoyts has created the Hoyts Rewards program which is a points accumulation system where customers can eventually redeem points for a movie ticket or candy bar item. While it does create interest and an incentive, you have to buy the rewards card for $10. If you register your card within the first month, you receive a ‘free’ movie ticket – except you really just paid $10 for it. You need to accumulate thousands of points before you are able to redeem any – it kind of reminds me of going to the arcades when I was little and no matter how many tickets I thought I had, the only thing I could get with them was a bouncy ball and not the cool toy I wanted. Hoyts Rewards members do get promotions like the $10 movie of the week and special premiere screenings. While the $10 movie of the week sounds great, the majority of the time the film has been out for a while and you are likely to watch it in one of the dodgy theatres.

Better quality of theatres, lengthier screening times and more frequent screening times, cheaper ticket and candy bar prices, and ACTUAL savings for being a member would create more incentive to go to the movies rather than the proposed ticket increase which is just a ploy to increase profits by cinemas.

 

Lenny ‘The Box’

https://vimeo.com/92206462

Last week, my group and I filmed our ‘Lenny’ script in an hour. It was a challenging experience but we learned a lot from the issues we had to face on the day.

Even though we had our pre-production completed before the shooting day, due to some miscommunication we hadn’t organised reliable actors for the day. In the half an hour before class, we all contacted our friends, and luckily enough we managed to secure one of my work friends and her friend who were at Melbourne Central on their school holidays. They are both quite shy so for them to participate for us was really nice of them, even though the acting wasn’t the best, we still really appreciated that they took time out of their day to be in the ‘Lenny’. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have been able to film on the day.

The weather also caused another issue. It was drizzling and raining on and off all day, and so for a time before the tute, Tom, Phuoc and I went around looking for some interior locations we could use. When Michael arrived at the tute, he suggested that we use the exterior location he suggested previously, as the rain was holding off at that time. No doubt, the location looked amazing, especially in contrast to the duller interior locations we thought we would be stuck with. As it did continue to drizzle during our shoot, we had to be wary of keeping our pre-production sheets and continuity shot list dry. We also had to cater for the actors who had to sit on a wet bench by finding things that they could sit on to prevent them from getting wet.

The short period of time that we had to shoot, meant that we had to cut shots out of our shooting schedule and ensure that we filmed the minimum amount of shots, with some variety, of each scene to ensure that we could have a complete ‘Lenny’ and not one with missing scenes.

On the day, Michael and Torika shared the role of director, and they both worked really well together. In the future, it would be best if they had more of a chance to discuss pre-production and the shots they want rather than communicating just on the day, but with saying that, they chose and prioritized really good shots on the day.

It was a bit frustrating for me on the day as I had organised the shooting schedule which was barely looked at. In hindsight, this is understandable as we didn’t have much time and had to make quick decisions, however at the time I did feel like I went to the trouble for nothing.

Phuoc’s camera work was remarkable as shown in post. Despite the language barriers, he communicated with all of us well to ensure that he got the shot that Michael and Torika wanted, while also at times directing the actors in their positions and ensuring the box was in shot. However, Phuoc didn’t tell me that the slate wasn’t always in shot when we were calling the shots, which is something that we realised towards the end of the shoot. We have both discussed this and will in future, make sure we communicate better.

As I was camera assistant, I also filled in the continuity shooting log. In the beginning, there was some confusion as to how to log the shots, with Torika and I thinking that it should be that the ‘shots’ shouldn’t restart back to 1; however we were out voted by the boys and did it in that way on the log and slate. In future, I will log the shots in the correct way for easier post-production.

Tom did a great job as sound recordist. I originally wanted to do the sound, however I had an ear infection the day before and on the day and so Tom and I swapped so I wouldn’t be in discomfort. He did well especially considering we had a large wedding party taking photos in our location at the same time. He and Torika also edited the ‘Lenny’ together, after Phuoc had uploaded the file to the server.

Filming the Lenny made me realise that I had slowly taken on two roles in my production group. While I am on the technical team, I ended up doing more producer-type roles in the pre-production, logging and keeping time on the day. I was disappointed that I didn’t have as much of an involvement in the technical aspect, and would next time ensure that I do.

It also confirmed to me that we need to communicate more efficiently before the shoot with each other to ensure a smooth shoot.

As Paul described the opening shot of our ‘Lenny’ as one of the best he has seen in the course, it confirmed that Torika and Michael’s vision with Phuoc’s camera work can create magnificent results. It definitely gave us a confidence boost going into our film shoot.

While our roles in our production group are still blurred and we would like to try out different roles, we all learned our strengths and weaknesses from making the ‘Lenny’ and are in a better position going forward for our film.

Lighting Lecture

This week’s lecture on lighting proved what many people have said time and time again; that you must experiment, test, fail, and improve in order to learn how to light a scene the way you want to.

Lighting, by definition, is a result of exposure. Being comfortable with adjusting exposure levels on your camera and adjusting the positions of the subject, camera and artificial lights are all important to achieving the correct level of exposure.

An important point I took from the lecture was to know your location and do test shoots before filming. This will allow any changes needed to be made to the shot schedule, if for example, you realise during your test shoot that too much sunlight floods the particular location at midday, so you choose to shoot there in the early morning. Understanding the natural lighting that occurs at different times of the day at your location is important to scheduling the shoot and making choices of fixing these issues; such as blacking out a room or shooting at a different time of day.

Communicating with the director is also very important as it ensures that you both understand how the coverage of a scene will be shot, so that you know where the lighting equipment needs to be positioned for that particular shot. Keeping your eye on the bigger picture and understanding how the lighting will maintain continuity or not (depending on stylistic choices) is also something to think about during pre-production and on the shooting day.

An interesting point that I hadn’t thought of previously to this lecture, was that a lighting set-up can involve taking lights out of the location rather than introducing them. This is also known as negative fill and can be achieved by using a large black card to reduce the amount of light illuminating the subject’s face.

There are a few reasons why lighting is important to a film; we light for exposure – so the subject and location is visible, for continuity – in terms of temporal (time of day) and spatial, to have control over the image – stylistic choices and tone, and to achieve a good key to fill contrast ratio – the key light being the brightest or more prominent, with the fill being the less prominent light (could be bounced or reflected).

The most important point I took from this lecture is to do as many tests as possible at the location, and experiment with the different equipment. This is something that I have already mentioned to my group and that we’ll definitely do to ensure we get the best possible result for our film.

Spoilers be Spoilin’

Why must people insist on spoiling pivotal moments of your favourite TV show?

After following the rollercoaster ride of ups and downs that your favourite characters have endured over multiple seasons, the last thing you want is someone spoiling it for you. With millions of fans being so dedicated to watching Game of Thrones as soon as it comes out, you would think that fans of the show would be respectful to one another and not spoil THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT let alone on social media.

I mean, you have to give people at least three days to watch the latest episode after it is released, and not spoil it the following day. And you certainly don’t write #gameofthronesspoilers after you have already spoiled it – who even uses hashtags on Facebook, like seriously?

You shouldn’t be spoiling it at all. What even makes you think you have the right? I’ve dedicated just as much time on the show as you have, and Arya has been my favourite character since the first season (not a spoiler) unlike YOU who after last week’s episode posted “New favourite character Arya Stark!” Bitch please. Just don’t. Maybe it’s my fault, I should’ve seen the warning signs and unfriended you before it got to this, but I thought I’d at least give you the benefit of the doubt. My bad.

It’s bad enough that fans of the book series smugly remind you that they know what is going to happen, and tempt you with asking them for spoilers, but to blatantly spoil Game of Thrones out of all shows on social media? Well, let’s just say you disgraceful spoilers are lucky that the days of beheading are long gone.

Or are they…?

Valar Morghulis bitches.

K-Film: City

The 2011 K-film ‘City’ opens with the title page describing it’s premise. Bold white text is arranged on a purple backdrop; ‘How do you paint a city? How do you know a city? How do you write a city?’ It gives the audience a sense of the makers’ intention of the film in presenting the city (Melbourne) as a piece of artwork and becoming lost in it. The background also has some more smaller, more faint white text of adjectives such as, ‘slick, boring, adventurous’, showing just how diverse the city can be.

When you click into the film the background is of some Melbourne street art which remains the same throughout the film. Bassy instrumental music plays throughout the film and loops. White text appears along the bottom describing each clip. For example; one of them says, ‘This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are’.

The most interesting aspect for me to discuss is the interface used in ‘City’. It involves quite a large main frame which doesn’t loop, and four preview thumbnails that are arranged around the main frame. The previews vary in size and don’t line up with one another or the main frame, even overlapping over the main frame, obscuring part of the view. The fact that the previews obscure part of the view of the main frame does make it distracting to watch and can be irritating as you can’t see the entire clip. The previews become videos when the mouse is scrolled over the thumbnails which is a positive as it allows the audience to get a sense of what the clip will show before choosing to view it in the main frame. The sporadic arrangement of the interface can be distracting and take away from the film; while the sporadic arrangement of the interface does reflect the sense of creativity and art in presenting the city, it can be quite distracting with so many things dividing the audience’s attention. If the makers really wanted to keep the background, they should’ve considered using a more simple interface, or at least keep the previews the same size and in line, and not overlapping the main frame. Or the makers could’ve kept the interface choices but have a black background. This would minimise the competing information in the film. However, keeping the same interface throughout is a good choice by the makers as if it continued to change it would become too frustrating for the audience to view.

Another negative to the film is that some of the videos either haven’t been shot in the same position (portrait/landscape), or the aspect ratio is incorrect, meaning that there is a large black mask around some of the clips, making them smaller and inconsistent. This wouldn’t be as distracting if the interface was more simple as you could forgive the makers for having some inconsistencies, however because of the seemingly random/messy nature of the interface, this becomes unforgivable.

The quality of the videos are quite pixellated as well which contradicts the theme of ‘the city as a painting’ as it’s low quality doesn’t match that of a piece of artwork.

While this film does make its makers’ intentions clear, it becomes a frustrating film to participate in because of its competing information.

 

 

Poetic Approach to Documentary

This week’s reading by Frankham discusses the fragmented form of documentary, including a broader definition of montage, and the construction of lists, and how it is being used to create a means of expression that further includes the audience. The ideas she presents can directly relate to Korsakow and how it works to create non-linear works.

Realtional asethetic (Nicholas Bourriaud, 2002) refers to how the asethetic of the work itself creates a space that allows the audience to connect and respond to it. This can be related to how Korsakow films rely on the audience’s involvement in order to be viewed as it relies on the audience clicking on the possible videos presented as previews on the main frame. This brings the audience closer to the work as they create their own meaning of the associations formed between clips by choosing which clip they would like to view next.

She also discusses how categorical links are used in poetic documentary to draw relationships between elements. This is also evident in Korsakow films as they require the makers to categorise their clips by using in and out keywords to create patterns and form relationships between vision that may not be normally associated.

In her discussion of associational form she demonstrates how relationships are created through “conceptual alignment, emotional impact, visual similarities and territories of gesture” going on to say that they create relationships between elements that are more emotional than logical. This reminds me of last week’s Matt Soar reading in which he states that he believes the patterns (keywords) in Korsakow films should describe the meaning of the clips rather than their aesthetic. With saying that, how would we as media practitioners create emotional links between our ‘noticings’ rather than grouping them in a logical way? Would it require more planning when making a K-film, rather than the find and shoot process that we used for our sketch films? Would we plan what we would film, or just plan the keywords to reflect an emotion? Or would we centre our K-film around a particular emotion?

The questions that these ideas raise suggests to me that if used in this way, we would be thinking more about the audience and how we want them to feel while watching our K-films. This contradicts Adrian’s point that we should be making our films for ourselves and not have the audience in mind. It also contradicts the idea discussed by Frankham (and has been mentioned by other academics aswell) that the audience would be able to form their own meaning from poetic documentaries and the relationships created by patterns in K-films. “The potential for a more keenly felt and critical engagement may be enabled by relinquishing absolute control over the way the work is read” (Frankham) – describes just how K-films allow the audience to engage with the work in their own way and take their own perception from it.

Another interesting point I took from the reading was Philip Rosen’s belief that a documentarian should transform raw artefacts of the world (he calls them documents) into meaningful constructions. This idea touches on the way in which we have been using Korsakow to film ‘raw artefacts’ and give them meanings through the way we construct our K-films and SNUs. As Frankham says, “in a poetic approach to documentary, the issue becomes one of finding the balance between offering a definitive, unquestionable single pathway at one extreme and presenting a loose collection of raw documents at the other. It is a process of centralizing and restricting meaning, making knowledge accessible through the ordering and contextualising of material. In effect it is the organisation of complexity.” This is evident through Korsakow as if you link your clips with keywords that offer no order or no clusters of similar clips, then they become more randomly generated and forming meaning from them can be difficult. However, if you link clips with keywords that create clusters of similar clips, more meaning can be formed by the patterns observed.

Frankham also states that poetic documentary “is a process of curating, selecting, ordering, sequencing, connecting, providing context and signalling intention.” This description can be matched to the processes we went through when making our K-films as we discussed in our tutes and is a good way to track the progress of your film.

 

Questions for Symposium

The cool cats from the Monday 4:30 tute have come up with some interesting questions from the Matt Soar reading for the week 8 symposium.

1. Soar argues that makers should choose keywords based on meaning rather than visual appearance. Does this contradict the way we’ve been using Korsakow?

2. Why would we choose Korsakow as a filmmaking system if it only can be viewed on certain, limited technologies?

3. What is the point of having a technology that might soon become obsolete – is there any way the authors of Korsakow films can preserve their works without fear that they may not function (if for example; Adobe ceases to exist)?

4. Is it a possibility that Korsakow will allow an ’embed’ function that links to other media (Ie. Vimeo, Vine, YouTube)? And what might this mean for K-films?

5. Is Korsakow a place purely for artistic expression or is there any potential for it to be used commercially?

6. Is technology leading us towards a purely graphic/symbol based method of storytelling that is independent from linguistics?

I look forward to hearing how the panel answers these questions.

K-Film: Life, Revisited

This K-film is so interesting in that it provokes the viewer to think about the questions being asked and how they would answer them, while listening to what interviewees have said. The two questions posed to them are “What is your proudest moment?” and “If you could go back and relive a moment of your life, what would it be and why?”

This is presented at the beginning of the film, every time you open it, by the makers of the film, explaining what the film is about and how to navigate through it. This gives the audience a better understanding of what the makers hope to achieve with their film and more importantly, what the interviewees’ answers are in relation to. Without the introduction, the audience would be a bit lost and unsure of the film’s objectives.

The audio of the answers are out of sync with the vision of the person in their natural surrounding. This provides a different experience from a traditional documentary, where the person’s answers are shown in ‘real time’ and in sync with the vision. It helps the viewer to focus on their answers while getting a better understanding of them by seeing them in their natural environment. A small title with their name, occupation and interests is used to introduce them.

People from various ages, backgrounds, and of different interests are presented; giving a wide range of answers to the questions. It’s interesting to notice how the older interviewees cite their grandchildren, or children’s marriages, or meeting their spouse as their greatest moment compared to the younger interviewees who cite travelling experiences, and meeting their role models as their proudest moments.

This film is probably one of the most interesting K-films I’ve watched as it doesn’t follow a narrative, but still manages to provoke thought in the audience as they reflect on their own lives. It is also really interesting to see what people’s responses to the questions are and just how varied they can be.

The Book Is Always Better Than The Movie

Always. Full Stop.

Being a keen reader, that has always been my philosophy. The thrill of seeing your favourite characters transformed onto the big screen after dedicating so many hours going through the roller coaster ride of their adventures can’t be denied. A successful movie adaptation of the book sends fans into a wild frenzy, and rightly so. But they will always agree that no matter how good the movie is, the book will always be better.

Not only can a book go into much further detail than a 90 minute movie, but it allows the reader to create their own version of the world that the author is describing. Nothing can be worse than watching a film adaptation of a book where the world isn’t as you imagined. It ruins your experience of the book and the journey it took you on.

On the other hand, seeing the world of Hogwarts envisioned on the screen is probably one of the best experiences for fans of the ‘Harry Potter’ books that we can imagine. Now the world of ‘Harry Potter’ has extended into elaborate theme parks, bringing the fans even closer to the world that they could only once read about on paper. The success of ‘Harry Potter’s’ transition from book, to screen, to theme parks, is a true credit of the author of the book series J.K. Rowling’s heavy involvement in ensuring her vision is fulfilled.

I have usually followed the tradition of reading the book before watching the film adaptation, more for the sake of enjoying the book rather than the film, as if I watch the film first, I’ll be less likely to be interested in reading the book as it has been ‘spoiled’ for me.

But now my tradition has been broken. Just the other day I watched ‘Divergent’ at the cinemas with a friend, and now I want to read the entire book series. I enjoyed the film more than if I had read the book before hand, as I would’ve known what to expect. The film is similar to ‘The Hunger Games’, which I read the books before watching the films. While I absolutely love ‘The Hunger Games’ books, the films were very exciting and satisfying but I did know what to expect, and did notice when the filmmakers left important parts out.

‘Divergent’ the film, took me on a rollercoaster ride that I didn’t want to end. The film was so perfect for me that I can’t wait to get my hands on the book series and see just what I’ve been missing out on as a reader. And then of course, go and watch the films.

After reading the book.

Because the book will always be better than the film…

Most of the time.

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