The DSLR and Shooting on Location

The DSLR Kit...
Recently, we have gained the possibility to use a full HD DSLR camera complete with 3 lenses, a microphone and a lighting system. This will greatly widen our creative possibilities when it comes to filming our two minute opening and the quality will be far better than we could have ever hoped to achieve with the other video camera's. We hope to test out some of the DSLR's capabilities before we go out on our filming days so that we can get familiar with the equipment and base the designs of our shot list on what we learn.
The camera is a Canon EOS 550D and I checked up the instruction manual to brush up on a few key commands and features the camera will offer us.

Interchangeable  prime lenses means that we will not be able to zoom whilst capturing footage, but means we will get a far greater quality in the resolution and shoot style. Each of the three lenses lends itself to a particular frame. The 35 mm lens allows us to get nice wide angled shots that can have a large depth of field and is therefore useful when taking long shots. The 50 mm lens is most accurate to what the human eye sees, which makes it the perfect candidate for point of view shots, along with camera angles such as mid shots and over the shoulder views. The last lens  the 75 mm provides the best view and set up for close up shots, giving us high detail and good focus.
Another thing we'll have to get used to is the manual focus ability that the camera has. This allows us to specifically altering the focus point within the frame, adjusting the soft and sharp areas of the shot. One thing that this makes me particularly happy about is that we can now experiment with these various focus points to produce whimsical or dramatic effects, focuses on the particular aspects that need to be brought to the audiences attention - a particular useful feature when it comes to our main task opening  This focus slide can also be achieved whilst filming to quickly slide between soft and sharp focuses on objects.
And example of this [The Sorcerers Apprentice (2009)] The cameras focus slides from the female characters reflection to her physical self, drawing attention to the fact that she's noticed someone:

Filming...
Along with this, we also managed to finalise some plans for getting to film in a London Underground station. The application will hopefully be filled out and sent of at the end of the week and we should have a response from Transport for London by next week. If all goes well, we should be filming on 30th March, allowing us time for any last minute planning before we begin editing on 5th April. To meet the requirements for the application, it is required that we send the screen play and narrative synopsis of our film, a risk assessment sheet and information on insurance and local police and hospitals.

Main Task: First draft of script and narrative planning

After brainstorming some rough ideas for the narrative, our first task was to check how viable our plan for filming on location actually was. As a group, we contacted Transport for London to enquire about a student filming permit to work on the station platforms. At that time, we resigned ourselves to not being able to do any filming there, as the permit would cost £50 plus we needed expensive insurance. However, after discussing this matter with another teacher, we have found a way in which it may be possible.

On developing a script, I took what we had invented for our narrative thus far and built upon it, identifying character back stories and a main plot line for the film in its entirety. This became our film treatment. I then implemented some of the ideas we had come up with as a group for camera shots and dialogue, and made an unpolished first draft of the script. Of course, it will hopefully be changed once the rest of the group can input their own ideas and we can improve upon it vastly.

Some images of that script can be seen after the break... ->

 

Love Actually: On the voice over and representing genre

Love Actually is said to be one of the most successful British rom com films to date, with an impressive ensemble of big name actors and actresses filling its scenes. Aside from this obvious reason for its popularity, it is also very successful in its easy merging of elements from both genres; romance and comedy. In the opening 2 minutes of the film, we see elements from both the genres directly juxtaposed against each other, effectively establishing genre in the first few minutes.

The first thing we see on screen is a muted montage of shots from an airport arrivals area. Some of these are slowed down somewhat, which adds far more impact to the reuniting of these nameless people. It reflects the idea that time stands still in a moment you want to capture. A voice over then begins, over lapping with these images and interweaving them. This voice over instantly draws the audience into the film and allows them to connect with a character they haven't even seen yet through just a voice. It adds a sense of vulnerability to the character as we can hear his thoughts. The voice matches well with the mise en scene of the scene as it is calm, soothing and informative. Also, many people would recognise the well known actor that speaks the lines, thus leading to the cliché idea of attractive male leads in rom coms. There is, along with this, faint music playing underneath the voice which lends an endearing quality to the scene, one of warmth and comfort. It easily reflects the feeling of love and happiness.

On the subject of titles, the main title of the film appears as part of the dialogue. The phrase "Love actually is all around" appears word by word, timed exactly to the voice over. As pointed out by a member of our class, the colouring of the words has been used interestingly. The centre word "is" has been highlighted in red, perhaps a subtle reference to the classic "I <3 ?" design.

It is after this that the audience is first introduced to the comedy aspect of the film. Another of the main characters, a male failing rock icon, is shown to be recording a new version of a classic, cheesy love ballad. This could again, be referencing the idea that this film plans to put a new twist on the rom com genre. This section is also purely comedy, compared to the scene prior to it, which was purely based on what love is and means.

Love Actually Opening minute

A Series of Unfortunate Events: On Breaking Convention and contrasting openings...

Whilst in the middle of our productions of film opening, I watched this children's film based on Daniel Handlers (aka Lemony Snicket) strange book series and thought that it's opening went directly against many of the things we have learnt about creating a good film opening. I think this adds to the overall quirkiness of the film from 2004 and has also made me think a lot about just what makes a good opening and whether certain norms are actually necessary, despite that fact that it is not from our genre.

The film begins with very happy, chirpy music, leading into an animation. Not only does this initially cast doubt among the audience, but when the title of the film first appears as The Littlest Elf, and not what the films title actually is, it begins to make people question either why the film makers are showing them this (if it's significant) or if they are actually watching the correct film! I think this cleverly sets up the unsettled feel that runs throughout most of the film without being too obvious.

Lemony Snicket's A series of Unfortunate Events Opening (0:00 - 0:50) Please ignore Analysis!

Main Task Narrative Ideas

• Character - Girl, around age 18, looking slightly scruffy and messed up. She has no idea who she is except for the fact that she can not speak and communicates through writing. Name idea: Ariadne Russo? Accent however, evident in her voice over (or thoughts), giving the audience a clue as to where she's from. She may not realise her accent? As she has never spoken.
• There has been an off screen inciting incident - pressure ball theory leading to her breaking. No parents, has suffered some kind emotional trauma that made her forget and stop speaking. See's a person that stirs her memories whilst she is following the blank map, and she feels as if something will happen to him? They may have been involved in another incident that caused her trauma, and in some respects, amnesia and caused him to disappear.
• He knows who she is, he is the only vague memory she has and she doesn't truly know him. She has the map but doesn't know where it came from (but it really came from him). A single number on the map stirs this feeble memory, a number that relates to how many days she knew him. Perhaps he wrote them down? A house number or maybe coordinates for a place?
• Setting outside a train station (changed due to restraints on filming), still retains the idea crowds and urban setting that contrasts to her personality, yet is also a little gritty. She is waiting, debating whether or not to board the train to her next destination
• Guys names: Liam? Isaac?
• The last line spoken of the film would be said by the main protagonist (Ariadne?) who has not uttered a single word throughout the entire film. She says the boys name.

Inglorious: On creating enigma and credits

Inglorius Bastards, a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, begins as many older films conventionally did - with the credits. Even just this staement here and that fact that they are set to older music imeadiately establishes the idea that the film will not be set modern day, establishing setting and even the tone of the film in the first minute. The visuals play a key aspect here, working well with the soundtrack as it develops.

 

The screen is entirely black and white for the credited opening, white font on a black background. The font itself is reflective of the mood of the film, with the names of the principle actors being written in it first in a clear, serif style. When the main title of the film is introduced in a different, scripted font, the music bulids to a small crescenedo, drawing the audiences attention to it. It then returns to the normal font, continuing on with the credit roll on the quieter moments of the music. The actors are listed of in an order of importance and also of fame, with only a new star being singles out by another musical crescendo. Throughout all this, the audience is constantly left wondering when the main narrative will begin, creating a sense of enigma.

 

But what is enigma? A dictionary definition: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand or a riddle or paradox. In filmic terms, enigma is the way in which you keep your audience hooked. There is enough mystery in the scene or indeed film to keep them questioning and wanting to know the answers. This film succesfully does by using the plain opening credits simply as a way of increasing anticipation. The audience gradually grows to want the credits to be gone and the narative to start. It also poses the question of how the setting and actors introduced will fit into the story and if the credits have reflected the film well enough. When the film does eventually reach the screen, the audience is presented with mainly long shots of typical everyday actions of the characters they are seeing - the hanging of washing, the choopping of wood. Instantly, the setting and time framing a fully established, and the sound of the constantly chopping wood builds some kind of suspense, mimicking the sound of a heartbeart.

 



 

 

The opening scene of Inglorius Bastards (2009)

 

 

 

Warm Bodies: On extensive voice over and book adaptations

After seeing the film Warm Bodies, I thought that it's style of opening was one that could be very interesting to look at and so I decided to include it as one of my studied film openings. The premise of this film, based on the amazing novel by Isaac Marion, explores the life of a zombie, known simply as "R" the only remaining fragment of his real name. Therefore, in the novel, a great deal of the first few chapters are purely introverted thoughts coming from R's narration. This could have been a disaster to translate to screen, but the clever use of voice over provides a witty and strangely thought provoking introduction to the unusual film.

One of the things I find most interesting about this particular use of voice over is the way in which it captures the idea of immediate thought, rather than reminiscence or indeed explanation. This could have easily appeared too descriptive or monotonous, but the dialogues constant switching between mild humour and serious thought kept me hooked throughout the entire beginning. The images on screen also reflect everything that is being said by R, or contrast to it respectively. An example of this is when we see the abandoned airport transformed by a flashback in time to see living people at Christmas. Whilst R is thinking of what it was like when everyone could communicate, the people in the flashback are doing the exact opposite: everyone is in their own world influenced by technology, interaction at its minimum. In this scene, the audience is already presented with this strange contrast of ideas and what the idea of connecting with people really means. Is it as R believes it, present and physical, or as we perceive it, through long distance connectivity? However, whilst posing these deep conundrums, the lighthearted, gentle music in the background lightens the mood, completely contrasting again to the dark lighting and miserable, destroyed mise en scene. It also connotes to me some kind of innocence or even naivety, similar to that in Forrest Gump, yet here it is far more subtle and presented in a less 'childish' way.
Along with this, many of the camera angles used are quite static and focus slowly on the mindless shuffling of the zombies and R, reflecting I think, the lack of life in them. This is juxtaposed next to the faster, sweeping movement of the camera as it circles into the living flashback, connoting the idea of busy, flowing life. The colours used in this scene are also far brighter than the dull greys scene on the zombie ridden airport, similar to the warm lighting.

Addressing the subject of works of literature being adapted into film is quite tricky. Often, much of the book is sacrificed in its transition to screen and for obvious reasons. However, sometimes this does effectively narrow the storyline completely, as smaller back stories not key to the main narrative are cut. I think in some adaptations, this can be a downfall of the film - some of the charm that fills the book is removed for the purposes of fast past storyline to keep the audiences attention. It always falls into the hands of the script writers, deciding what to include and what to miss out, as many a time, smaller key moments have been cut to fit in those of pure action (an example of this is the Destruction of the Burrow scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) that are sometimes invented for the film. In the case of Warm Bodies, they have captured the feel of the novel nearly perfectly. Director Jonathan Levine, although lightening its mood, has kept the story exact to the sentiments shared by Isaac Marion in the novel, with the exception of the latter part of the film where the storyline changes. Of course, as a reader who enjoyed the novel immensely, I would have liked to see some of the character development worked on. But of course, the scope of the film will not often include all that the writers deem to be unnecessary. But, in the case of this film, I think the filmmakers have produced something that is one of the most faithful representations of (non-Young Adult) literature I have seen in a while.

 

Creditless opening 4 mins of Warm Bodies (2013)

Main Task Brainstorming

Whilst thinking of ideas that we are developing for our main task, our group decided to brainstorm a few of the ideas and develop them, particularly look at the conventions of both narrative and technique. We began to consider some key camera shots to emphasise the themes of the storyline we were thinking of, such as a focus on smaller aspects of the main characters appearance to increase the sense of enigma and contrast long shots with close shots to reference confusion. We were particularly concerned with the idea of creating enough mystery and suspense without confusing the audience, yet also had to be careful of showing the audience too much. From this, we moved on to the ideas of the McGuffin and voice overs. We had an idea of a non-labelled map, the McGuffin, which our main character would carry. This was symbolic of the girls state of mind and also presented a mystery that needed to be solved. The voice over was merely a spur of the moment idea which later on in development came to be a little more important.

Following this, we began to develop the character we had in mind, thinking of a key theme: isolation. This lead to us thinking of the kind of clothing she would wear, dark and earthy tones to reflect how she stands out from the crowds. She is a strange juxtaposition in a busy setting, and we thought the perfect setting for this would be the London underground, as it can appear to be very cinematic. The lighting is light but muffled, the trains create loud, passing sounds and the platforms are often busy.

However, this was put to rest a few days later as we enquired about filming on location in the Underground, and realised that the financial limitations of our production would make it quite impossible to film there. We began reworking some of our main ideas after this, and started drafting a synopsis and pitch for our idea...

Forrest Gump: On the McGuffin and symbolism

So what is a McGuffin? A term coined by the great Alfred Hitchcock, it is a object of desire for a character in a film, a plot moving device that is often not incredibly important yet serves the purpose of developing the story. In some ways, this serves to create a sense of enigma around the object and by extension, the plot. The idea of the McGuffin is no more apparent than in the opening two minutes of the critically acclaimed Forrest Gump (1994), with the example of the feather.

The entire two minute opening focuses singularly on the feather and never once does it cut away from that. In fact, the shot is one continous tracking shot following the feather downwards, which draws importance to the item. It's symbolic visual meanings are also highly evident in this first scene - the white of the feather connotes to purity and in some respects innocence too. It also fits in well with the blue sky a white fluffy clouds in the background- a kind of aesthetically pleasing  mise-en-scene.
We noted when watching the film that interestingly enough, the feather can be a metaphorical representation of the main protaganist and his journey throughout the film, shown through the movements of the feather to it's different locations and the way in which the camera follows it.
A brief overview of this; The feather begins up the heavens, maybe showing Forrest as a child with his head in the clouds and full of total innocence. Then as it begins to fall, the camera tracks down with it to see the city, a gentle fall into a reality that lacks the brightness and colour of the sky. It  eventually lands on the shouder of a business man, possibly misleading the audience into thinking that he is the main charcter (also influenced because of the stereotypical character shown here.) Yet the wind slowly blows the feather down to the ground. We thought this may be symbolic of the constant overlooking of Forrest as a strong character and how he is a very unlikely hero. Onelast point to mention about this symbolism idea is the moment when the feather lands on the floor, nearly run over by a car before being lifted by it, perhaps referencing to the ups and downs of the main characters life and how he gets back up from the harsh downs. In a sense, the entire story is shown all through the movement of this one, small feather. Symbolism in it's broadest sense. Forrest himself final picks up the feather and slowly and carefully places it in a book, interestingly on page that puts the feather yet back against that background of blue sky.

The sound used in the opening is mainly diegetic sound; a soundtrack of a sweet, innocent sounding piano piece, reminiscent of the soft and light way the feather floats down to earth. This is all that can be heard until the feather reaches ground level, when quiet sounds of humanity begin to appear, such as cars and people. As for the way in which the camera angles and editing reflect this to create meaning, the using of the continuous slow tracking shot and no cuts to any other shots, making a very
slow feel that could be to symbolise the ambling blind nature of life.

An Inspiring Director: Hayao Miyazaki

In 2001, an innovative Japanese animated film was released from a relatively unknown Japanese animation company named Studio Ghibli that was the first of its kind to win an academy award for best animated feature film in 2003. The films name was Spirited Away and it's director and creator was Hayao Miyazaki.
As one half of the founders of the now world renowned Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki has been compared to many American animation directors, even Walt Disney himself. Despite this, his style is one of the most unique, intricate and beautiful creations I have seen. Miyazaki goes to great lengths to create his perfect vision by undertaking many of the tasks himself in the early stages of development; screen writing, directing, storyboarding, character developing and most importantly, the narrative. When you watch a Miyazaki animation, it is quite possible to get lost in the world, enveloped in fantasy and real life likenesses alike. He fills the screen with breathtaking and often whimsical visions of magic and strife.

Some of his stand out films for me include:

• The aforementioned Spirited Away
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• Laputa: Castle in the Sky
• and Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki uses many different techniques in his film making to build his expansive, mythological worlds in a way that can be compared to no other. His films are full of vibrant, breathtaking colour which is often used in Japanese anime, yet diversifying it into something far more artistic. He tends to also focus upon female protagonists that largely go against the culture of female representation in Japanese manga and anime respectively, which has lead to some of his co-animators suggesting that he is a feminist. Through his work with his collaborators, Miyazaki has built a general style that is quintessentially his own. One of these collaborators is the celebrated Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi, who has composed for nearly every film of Miyazakis making, creating sweeping, emotionally powerful scores that match the shots in the films in every way.

Preliminary Task Reflection

Primarily, the first thing that has to be mentioned about my experience with this task is that it has made me appreciate just how much work really goes into every single part of film making. Because of this, I now have a better informed and more realistic view of time frames for making just 2 minutes of film and therefore feel far more prepared for creating our final piece which will hopefully be of a high quality when we improve upon the things that didn't work well and apply the new techniques will learnt.

When we began to think about the task and start drafting a storyboard for shots, I think it's safe to say that we all thought it would be a lot simpler to produce the 2 minute clip than it resulted in being. Because of this, whilst we we're coming up with a lot of ideas, they were not very structured and this resulted in us becoming rather confused when it came to the initial filming. However, I also think it allowed us to be a little more impulsive when filming to develop better shots that fitted to the style we were trying to create. So in terms of this, I think that one of the key aspects I myself learnt here was that planning can only take you so far - plan too much, and it can limit on the spot creativity. But that does not be that planning should be neglected all together.

At the start of filming, we began to make some crucial decisions that drastically affected what we produced - the location and the actors. Of course, we were limited to creating the film on the school grounds, which didn't fit too well with our genre. To improve this, we focused on the weather in the location we were shooting, taking into account the idea of pathetic fallacy. Filming only on overcast, rainy days fitted the mood of an action film far better than we could achieve for the location and so we relied on this to improve the setting. Luckily, it rained every single day of shooting!

Whilst shooting, we were highly conscious of applying the conventions of our genre to the way in which we produced the piece, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post. The aspects that we included were things such as shaky cam, short shot lengths and mise en scene that reflected the theme of the film. We switched roles constantly to give everyone a chance to get a feel for the camera, which I think will be good to know for our main task. If anything, things we could have improved upon were our time management, which would have enabled us to finish getting the shots we needed far quicker, and more importantly, our continuity. Mainly due to filming on site at school, we had to switch rooms for filming twice and on both days the lighting was consistently different. There were other, smaller inconsistencies but these were easier to miss.

Creating a Genre - "Action" Sequence

When first approaching our given genre of Action, we were, it had to be said, a little daunted. Many of the obvious features of action films happen to be big, exuberant chases or even explosions and the thought of us being able to produce something anything near to that style was quite unbelievable.
It was only after we began to research the conventions of the genre that we realised it contained a lot of signature techniques.

Creating a genre, we found, is more than just creating a narrative that has action elements. The style of shots, audio, acting, editing... it all adds to make a genre.
Knowing this, we moved on to researching typical conventions of the action genre in all aspects of it and then looked at examples of how they have been used in the past.

Narrative Conventions: 

• Stereotypical, sometimes 2D characters - Hero, 'Damsel-in-distress', Villain etc..
• Chases or similar high action sequences.
• Frequent use of tension building.
• Some crossovers with the Thriller and Crime genres.
• Spying and espionage a common feature.
• Strong motives for the characters action that often represent a virtue, in the case of a hero.
• Use of gadgets and weapons can often be central to the plot.
• Drastic consequences of characters actions. (For example, the hero must save the world from destruction in an extreme case.)
• Often set in urban areas.

Technical Conventions:

• Fast paced editing style in high action scenes.
• Lengthier shots used to draw emphasis to specific props or plot points in dialogue.
• Shaky cam is used frequently, possibly to emulate the action of running.
• Tension building music is almost always used and other tracks used, for example, in chase scenes, usually feels very grand or epic in scale.
• Use of special effects for things such as explosions.
• Quite a mixture between very long and very short shots, again building tension or aiding narrative points.
• Point of view shots used in spy situations.
• Shot/reverse shot used heavily in dialogue.
• Dark, yet often saturated colours.

When we were fist given the script, we made the choice to add in a few crucial scenes to add to our sense of genre. The most notable of these was the chase flashback scene, which added more key narrative conventions to our clip. This led to our storyboarding, where we also made the decision to use many shot shots.
The hardest aspects of capturing our genre proved to be the location, continuity and character looks, mainly due to our limited resources within school. Whoever, a positive aspect that came from this happened to be the weather, as it rained constantly on our shooting days, giving the lighting in our shots a dark tone.

Representation: Conventions of the Anime genre

Anime, or Japanese animation, refers to a particular style of productions that are created in Japan. They come in many formats, such as graphic novels, video games, film and television series and often have rather unique attributes, particularly in their art style. Many anime productions have seen a surge in popularity in Western areas of the world, which could be attributed to successful televisions series such as the infamous adoptions of Nintendo's gaming series Pokemon, and the critically acclaimed film company Studio Ghibli. This has also led to American companies and others like them into creating Anime-inspired TV series such as W.I.T.C.H.

Anime television series have noticeable characteristics that are seen across the whole genre. The conventions can more often than not include:

• Colourful graphics
• Action filled plots
• Story lines that focus or fantastical or futuristic themes
• Exaggerated personalities
• Sometimes over the top art design of characters (such as over emphasised features)
• Light hearted or comical story lines
• Exaggerated voice acting
• Occasional unrealistic backgrounds (such as block colours often used in fight scenes)
• Interestingly, many have focuses or the elements or nature in some way
• Magic or some variation of power is often seen.
• Japanese influenced soundtracks and theme songs

This is all evident in a popular TV anime series entitled Ah! My Goddess, which I have recently been watching.