Month: April 2015

When I think back to the reason why I actually go to watch films, the reasoning behind my passion for the visual medium became clear. I always had a love for the visual spectacle of the films I went to. Notably the Harry Potter series, seeing something that you wouldn’t be able to experience in any other instance is something pretty special. The story is also important, and I like how directors like Malick use the visual experience as a tool for this.

• Pure Cinema – how camera and footage evoke emotion (not sure if that’s what pure cinema is? Double check that Tom)
• Want it to be influenced by others but have something new.  (Malick, Fincher)
• Filmed in one location over one day – Use friends as actors
• Need basic story with or without dialogue.
• Interested in the idea of having older sounding audio contrasted with newer footage.
• Small Production team

• Terrance Malick

Reasons why I chose these

• I want it to look good
• The reason why I go to films like them is for the cinematic experience.
• As I am only shooting  1 scene for this project I want to technically challenge myself, special effects etc.

• Terrance Malick uses landscape to define what are essentially philosophical and ethical issues and moves from tiny peripheral detail to epic perspective within a single shot” . (McCann 2007: 77).The spiritual and religious thematic in The Tree of Life.

• I’m not so much into philosophy however I like how he keeps a coherent style in the film, same with say Fincher and the Zodiac keeping the style consistent with the 50’s era. I would like pay homage to this somehow, whether I set my scene in a certain time period, or create a new one up etc.
• Im interested in the supernatural, which doesn’t have too much relation to the either Fincher or Malick. I do like their interest in the mental state of their characters which include supernatural elements. So this may form the basis of what I actually film.

• Technical Restraints
  • Consistent Aperture Exposure
  • Always work with back lights
  • Try only work with natural light (the exception being lights in rooms etc.)
  • Combination of steady, hand-held and tripod shots
  • iso below 400
  • Shutter speed double of FPS. — 24 fps = 50 —- 60 fps = 125

Epiphany

Just do everything heaps and you’ll have heaps to work with.

Reflection

This week we worked on a scene that was filmed on the staircase in building 5. It was a good experience to work with other groups and people and see how they work since discussing the working methods that we all now need to devise. It went well I was an actor so I didn’t have much input in the filming of it which i am fine with cause i know what it’s like to have 100 people telling you things while you are trying to workout a scene. I think technically we could have changed the exposure or iso so that it wasn’t so grainy but that’s only because i’m more of tech perfectionist. In terms of the shots, we were a bit restricted for space which we didn’t realise till we got the camera and tripod in the area. I think that definitely needs to be addressed for my personal project before I get into it on the day.

I have done some more research into Lubezki and Malick and they come up with some technical constraints to help preserve a certain style and aesthetic with the idea that “Art is made of constraints. When you don’t have any, you go crazy, because everything is possible.”

ARTICLE

These constraints came to be

•    Shoot in available natural light
•    Do not underexpose the negative Keep true blacks
•    Preserve the latitude in the image
•    Seek maximum resolution and fine grain
•    Seek depth with deep focus and stop: “Compose in depth”
•    Shoot in backlight for continuity and depth
•    Use negative fill to avoid “light sandwiches” (even sources on both sides)
•    Shoot in crosslight only after dawn or before dusk; never front light
•    Avoid lens flares
•    Avoid white and primary colors in frame
•    Shoot with short-focal-length, hard lenses
•    No filters except Polarizer
•    Shoot with steady handheld or Steadicam “in the eye of the hurricane”
•    Z-axis moves instead of pans or tilts
•    No zooming
•    Do some static tripod shots “in midst of our haste”
•    Accept the exception to the dogma (“Article E”)

I underlined the limitations that I liked or thought would be relevant. I think having limitations at the start would be beneficial as it would help have a continuous aesthetic which is something i want.

One thing that I didn’t mention looking back at my first ‘My method of working’ section was what I want to achieve by the end of this course. I firstly am thrilled with the idea of putting all our mind and effort into the concept of the scene. They are the short little pieces of a film that makes a film, a film. Instead of having to put time into a whole film with various locations and actors crew etc. We can get together something really special. I really want to make something that I am really, really proud of. I said that at the start of my documentary but i felt that I only really was satisfied with half of it which is why it makes this so much better.

On another note I read up some more on Terrance Malick as an auteur. I find his films probably the most interesting in many aspects. When I first saw the Tree of Life I found it really hard to watch, but I loved it a lot mainly because of the cinematography and the aesthetic that was hitting me in the face. I have also found through the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s notes that they would have only 40 minute time periods to film to achieve the nostalgic sunny scenes which was awesome! This is one of my favourite shots from the film which also includes a floating person <3 I will spend more time on Terrance Malick in future posts.

I did some research into David Fincher’s workflow today and couldn’t find to much to do with the production behind his films but did discover some editing techniques and processes that they go through in post productions. A lot of the basic editing and fix ups were done through final cut, premiere and after effects. They found these to be greatly integrated allowing for seamless workflow.

VIDEO

This video goes through it more in depth. There is this one part where they talk about how they wanted one of the characters voices to cut into the conversation a bit earlier in a over the shoulder shot and they were able to achieve this by cutting the frame in-between the two characters and bring the audio and footage of the character up by 15 frames. I found it quite amazing that they were able to integrate this technology to make cuts or scenes exactly how they want them, to give them more ‘excitement’.

Epiphany

This is a still from a music video that I have mentioned previously, it contains a lot of aesthetics and styles that I admire greatly. The cinematographer Evan Prosofsky loves to use 35mm film which is what this was filmed in and uses very smooth movement similar to Dave Fincher. I really want to trial this floating action, in the last week I have used a green T-shirt to see what the green screen function in my editing program would do which then gave me an idea similar to this!

Reflection

This week was better again and as Paul outlined more in touch with how the course will run through. We filmed a scene with another group where we switched rolls from helpers to the primary filming group. This worked well as we were able to see how the group would work from both sides of the camera. I was an actor in my primary group and sound for the other group. The lighting in the location made it hard to get a crisp image for both groups but that didn’t matter as we were able to show the shots and angles we wanted. This week worked a lot better than last week fo sho!

I would love to create something that uses all of my loves / inspirations of cinema, the whole reason I am doing this course through one scene. I haven’t quite yet decided on how I want to approach this, i have ideas flying through my head but whatever it is I want it to be something I am proud of. The main things I want to be reflected through my work is influence from my favourite films / directors / and most importantly my interests. I have fleshed out some ideas, those being supernatural themes / special effects and clear direction in cinematography. I think i’m more interested how something looks (superficial I know) but i enjoy in other work how the things i see can make me feel. I think what i need to do now is look into some other directors that I enjoy and read up about there methodology and see how that is reflective in their movies / scenes. Note: looked at David Fincher – Other directors to look at* – Terrance Mallick – A G Rojas / Evan Prosofsky Cinematographer (Music Videos).

SCENE

This scene from the David Fincher film ‘Zodiac’ occurs towards the end of the film when Robert seems to be getting extremely close to discovering who the Zodiac is. I think it is going to be hard to critically analyse David Fincher’s shot order, framing and construction knowing that he is such a perfectionist however i will try my best. Fincher is probably my main inspiration when constructing a scene from start to finish which is the reason why i picked one of his films to look into and find more of what he might be thinking.

The scene begins with a conversation between Robert and a gentleman from the cinema. The establishing shot is a medium long shot consisting of both actors quite centred in relation to the whole shot. The first 30 seconds is quite well paced, i would say medium time between cuts. I really like how Fincher cut the shots in relation to the information the characters know. Firstly from medium close ups of both of them until Robert discovers something quite chilling where the shot changes to a slightly different angle of him.

The following three cuts occur quite fast and direct the viewers attention towards a different part of the house. There are four shots in total, three of Robert and one of the other Gentleman. I like how Fincher uses the information in the script and story to help direct his shots.

I also noticed that he uses a J-cut in the conversation between the two only once, the rest of the time the cuts in between pauses. There is also a cut without mouth movement of the gentleman which i guess is a good way to show facial expression to add to the character /story.

The next sequence I don’t like as much, the angles aren’t as “open” as the scene upstairs which very well could have been due to the space limitation in the basement that they filmed in. I feel there is lots of dead space around the two in the reverse medium close-up shots. I know the darkness surrounding the two adds to the mysteriousness of what is actually happening although I think that they could have filled a bit more with some props etc.

The final series of shots are all pans that with the accompaniment of Robert quick movement create suspense. All the shots throughout the scene are rigged onto a tripod or dolly which coincides with Fincher’s love for smooth camera movements. This works extremely well for this last sequence where Robert wants to get out of the house as quickly as possible.