Film Idea - Drama Project

For the Drama project i am working with, Luke Parker, George Dupays, Fraser Harrison, Mark Costello and Jen francis.
We had a group meeting and have decided on two ideas that we would pitch.

The first idea is: a man owes another man money, the other man ties the first man to a tree for not paying the money owed. the first man falls asleep and wakes up to find the man he owes money to tied to the adjacent tree. the film that follows is the two men trying to escape their bonds and throwing banter between each other. this piece would be aimed at 18 year olds and above and would a very humoured feel  to it.

the second idea is of a girl who is mourning the death of a friend, this is apparent at the beginning as she is at a grave yard. she then heads home but is followed by a man the audience believes is the person who killed her friend. She gets home, gets drunk, falls asleep, wakes up and heads to work when she is followed again by the man, she heads down an alley where he follows and she confronts him. the following scene reveals that she infact is the killer. the film ends fading upto a bloodied arm on the floor, we assume that someone has been killed but we have no idea who. all through this piece a rose will keep appearing to add mystery and confusion. - this is the idea we are leaning towards as we believe it will be more towards the brief than the first idea.

Audiotour - Stephane Kass

Audio tour was a very clever film, that features a woman in a museum listening to an audio tour, she then becomes scared when the audio tour deviates from the museum and starts telling her information of everything she looks at. the information stream gets faster and faster along with the cuts which emphasises her confusion and fear.
i think the piece could have been done a lot better than it was, because after she leaves the museum the woman starts to enjoy the information she is hearing and for me it was as though Stephane Kass couldn't decide which direction she wanted to take the piece.
however the ending of the piece is very interesting as it shows the girl looking into a window and hearing information about herself and the self realisation that she is not memorable and is simply trudging through life.
apart from the change in pace i enjoyed this film, it was a very subtle film that made you think about what you are doing with your life. it almost implores people to take risks and not waste life.

About a Girl - Brian Percival

This film features a girl walking along a canal telling us about her regular day to day life, the film includes cutaways of what she is saying. we assume early on that she wants to be a singer as she is always singing, dancing or listening to music whenever she gets chance. also the first scene is over a minute long of her dancing in a field and singing. the cutaways of her life are shot mainly from a distance, whereas the interview type shots next to the canal are all close up. this is done for many reasons: 1. to show the difference between the two, 2. to show her isolation and loneliness in her everyday life by showing the space around her, 3. to make the interview type shots more personal and 4. to hide whats in her hand.....

the film continues in the same fashion for the entire 9 minutes, continually emphasising her dysfunctional life and her loneliness. until the shot changes to a high angle long shot and she throws the bag that hasn't been seen until now into the canal and walks away talking about ice cream. We then see that inside the bag was a dead baby.
i am in two minds about this film. i enjoyed the way it was shot and the fact that there was a hidden agenda all the way through which adds a dark twist. however i did not enjoy the subject of the twist.

Pudding Bowl - Vanessa Caswill

This film starts on a black screen and music we would expect to hear sometime around the 40's - maybe the 70's. the images of women from a magazine including marilyn monroe appear on screen, which instantly places this piece in the 50's - 60's. a young chubby girl is then seen cutting out the images, the shots remain close up to her face. this choice of shots is used to create the feeling of dreams and possibly isolation, the young girl is lost inside the dream world of the magazine images. when her brother plays a nasty prank on her (pouring glue into her hair) the girls mother gives her a pudding bowl hair cut, hence the name. the hair cut scene is cut fast while the mum continuously shouts at her about her hair. at this point the music has changed to sound like out tune violins, which sounds something similar to Horror film music. this emphasises how much the girls hair means to her and how devastating the hair cut is. After the hair cut scene she is seen from a high angle shot sitting on the stool, her cut hair on the floor forming a perfect circle around her. this is a metaphor, the hair creating the shape of the world or never ending circle shows that Her hair was her life and her world and it has just been cut away. the heavy breathing that can be heard is presumed to be coming from the girl emphasises her anger at this point. this fact is also made clear by a close up shot that follows of the girl giving the camera what can only be described as a death stare. the girl leaves the room to find a mirror, once she see's her reflection sad sorrowful music can be heard as we realise how devastated she really is. the scene becomes happy however when she lays out a magazine clip and begins to play with make up, we as the audience realise at this point that she has subconsciously made a decision to let life get her down and to carry on regardless of her hair. she then proceeds outside to steal her brothers bike, as they chase her the scene changes and becomes almost dream like in it's exposure and the music that can be heard. we see a woman in the same spotted dress riding  similar bike being chased by men seeking her affections, we assume at this point that this is Ivy's dream for herself or her imagination that instead of being chased by her brother and his friends she is being courted. the scene changes again as she is brought back to reality for the cliched ride off into the sunset ending, leaving her brother and his friends behind.
although i understand the images used. i didn't overly enjoy this piece, for me it was too much in the past and the images and metaphors were a little too obvious.

Sign Language - Oscar Sharp

This film starts with the appearance of a documentary. The cheerful music in the background opens up the film to a happy and calm feel as Ben starts to talk about his work. He makes out that he has a big position at a big company by hyping up what he does. When we find out what he does, it is fair to say as an audience we are a little disappointed. However the disappointed adds a little bit of humour to the piece, especially since Ben is very passionate about his line of work. As he continues to tell us of his job, things he is saying seem to contrast with the images, which makes it seem as though he lives in his own little world. The piece then becomes a type of romance as he mentions the girl across the road, and how he cannot talk to her because she’s on leaflets and non-union. The music at this point increases in level to add to the pang of romance that Ben is feeling.  A pull focus is used from her to him across the road, which shows the separation between the two. 

Most of the film focuses mainly on his face as a close up. I think this has been done to exaggerate his facial expressions and the passion he feels for his job.
we almost feel sorry for Ben as his final shift finishes and the “guys” have not planned anything for him, its almost a decision between sadness or laughter as the world he believes himself to be in is not all he has made it out to be. More shallow depth of field is used here to show his isolation and brief loneliness. Until it turns out that everything he has been saying is true and the other sign holders around him turn their boards to show messages written to him. The music increases as he finally decides to talk to the leaflet girl and romance is complete.
I did not enjoy this film that much, i appreciated its techniques however for me there wasn’t enough change in it for me to enjoy it. 

I do Air - Martina Amati

Out of all the videos we watched in class, this one is by far my favourite. Amati takes an innocent child and manages to portray, how timid she feels by showing everything big around her in a taunting and almost menacing way. The beginning or establishing shot shows the business of what we would assume is a diving team or school in practise. As the young girl walks to the edge of the highest diving board the shot changes to a shot from under water, we can vaguely see the young girl through the ripples of the water, all the sound is muffled away, this is almost a point of view shot but in reverse, it is meant to show how menacing the water appears to the girl from the top of the diving board, the muffled sound exaggerates this by making it appear as though everything is far away as though its not important. We are then shown the girl from the top of the diving board, and it is here that we get a true idea of how high up she really is. This shot is done at a slightly tilted angle, just enough to be looking down on the pool. Now we see a P.O.V shot from the girl’s actual perspective, we know this because her toes are slightly in shot; this again is used to exaggerate how afraid she is about jumping or diving such a distance. We are then shown a cut away of a much older boy on a lower diving board. This shot could have been done for a number of reasons such as: she wishes she could be on a lower diving board, to show that she is surrounded by people who are unafraid, or she wishes that she too was unafraid. So far in the film this girl is the youngest person to have been seen, this almost exaggerates her loneliness in this environment, and she has no one to turn to for comfort or reassurance. As the cutaways continue the cuts become faster and the shots become more shaky (as though hand held) as though her fear and her heart beat have increased, a ticking can be heard to emphasise the faster cuts. When the girl turns and climbs down the ladder, the shots become closer and remain at her eye level. This is done to emphasise how isolated she is from everything else around her, even when she is subject to mocking from two boys, their faces are not focussed upon clearly showing that they are unimportant to the feel of the piece. It should also be noted that there is no accompanying music up to this point. However all the sounds are loud and over exaggerated, maybe to make them a bit more intimidating and also to express the amount of activity going on around the girl. When she moves into the changing room and sits on the bench, the shots become even close to her until they are extreme close ups, and a shallow depth of field is added further adding to her feeling of loneliness and isolation against the world around her, which in comparison is much bigger than she is. The film up to now plays on the eye level, by showing her at her own level and not focussing on much above her head Amati creates a clever metaphor, showing not only the fear of a child in a diving school, but how intimidating the world might seem to a small child.  In the changing room scene a baby can be heard crying, the sound of the crying gets louder and louder. This is a very useful technique to show the girls innermost feelings, she feels alone and scared and the best way for her to express it is to cry, however the expressions we are shown on camera shows that she feels she mustn’t cry if she is to be accepted by the larger world. She appears as though she is ashamed of her cowardice upon the diving board. The audience is made to sympathise for the girl as she struggles with her fear. As adults we find it hard to see the affect we have on smaller children, the film almost makes us feel guilty. Throughout the film we see the girl hold her breath and all sound stops. This is almost as though she is escaping into her own world for the few moments she can hold her breath, which brings into mind the title ‘i do air’ its almost as though its from the mind of the girl “i do air” meaning why do i do air? Why can i not live without it and live in my own world without fear?

The blurb of the film states “beautifully shot and mainly dialogue-free short film about a nervous and isolated young girl feeling disconnected at the local lido. There is not a lot of story but there is a fair amount of underwater shooting as the girl struggles to connect with those on dry land before finally finding unlikely friends who also 'do air' .”  

Which I would agree with 100% the unusual scene where the girl appears to be floating in the changing room as though underwater, brings us into her dream world for a brief moment, as though it was not the water she was afraid of, merely the height. However when she finally has to release her breath she seems disappointed as all the sound of laughter from everyone older comes rushing back. The girl then happens to meet what are known as free divers, people who can hold their breath underwater for longer than the average human anything from 5 – 15 minutes, by training their lungs to hold more air than usual (as a side note, this technique has been practised for thousands of years, it has been noted that a Greek city many hundreds of years ago, under attack from the sea, sent free divers out underwater to sabotage the ships of the invading fleet from beneath the water line) 

At this point a slow dream like melody can be heard, which signifies the start of her revelation. As she slides into the water, the tempo speeds up and the shots begin to move more freely around her, this also signifies that she has begun to feel less isolated and the world seems to shrink.  

Amati does an excellent job of showing the transition between isolation and fear to bliss and dreams. 

Cinema is dead

I'm getting really annoyed with the cinema at the moment i go every other Wednesday and every time the film gets ruined by people talking and playing on their phone.

If you're not gonna watch the film don't pay to go and see it!!!!!!!! why ruin it for everyone else who's payed good money to see the film.
they say that piracy will be the death of cinema... no, stupid good for nothing idiots who keep talking are gonna be the death of cinema.

and also people kicking the seats behind you. how hard is it not to get watching a film confused with football???

Sequals and Trilogies (spoiler alert)

Although i can't complain when good filmmakers create follow ups to amazing films some examples include Jurassic Park, Alien and Star wars. However i will complain when the follow up films aren't all that good.

I will start with Jurassic park 3, the first two were awesome films, shot well, brilliant graphics and sound design i couldn't fault them, even the story lines were well thought out. But why didn't this happen with the third film??????? A dare devil boy goes to close to the island while hand gliding or something and gets trapped there (good start) a lie is told to get an expert and mercenaries to go and rescue him, also a good start. But the first problem for me is when Alan (the expert) is on the plane and he dreams of a velocaraptor in the plane that talks to him..... OK, i can understand how he'd have a bad dream about a dinosaur in the plane, but why the hell did it talk? i don't know whether Ive missed anything but for me that took away the scariness of this dinosaur because it humanized it too much, maybe if it was explained a little more then maybe it would've been OK. the second error is: why did they change the look of the velocaraptors?? in the first and second films they were a simply plain dark green/Grey color. but in the third film some of them were almost multicolored, and some of them had weird thing on their heads which looked strangely like a Mohawk hairstyle. then there is no break from them being chased by something that wants to eat them, in the first two films they have time to regroup and talk and plan and it makes for a little more interesting story. but in the third film all they do is run, call me a skeptic but in my opinion only athletes who train a lot have the ability to run as much as they do in the film. seriously though a mother (who's job is not reviled) an office worker, a 14 year old boy and two people who spend most of there time on their knees brushing dust off bones, something tells me that these people aren't trained athletes. and if i was attacked as much as they were in this film id just give up... big dinosaur that looks oddly like a tyrannosaurus Rex but isn't, then they run into an actual tyrannosaurus and then the big dinosaur comes back (and as a side note the big dinosaur is meant to be bigger than the tyrannosaurus but its smaller but still wins in a fight... oh and yeah the big dinosaur also has a mohawk thing), then velocaraptors, then the big dinosaur, then big man eating birds, then the big dinosaur and then velocaraptors. they never seem to meet any nice herbivores.

Now i'll move onto the 'Alien' quadrilogy. the first 2 films again i couldn't fault them. the Third and fourth films are filled with so many continuity errors its not even funny. The basic principles of the film is that a face hugger lays one egg inside a host then dies. So in the third film why is it that the one face hugger that is on board the escape ship manages to lay 2 eggs? one in a dog and one in Sygorny Weever. In the fourth film Ripley (Sygorny Weever) is cloned, however in the cloning process the cloned sygorny weever gets Alien blood, which is essentially acid, so when she gets hit in the nose and her blood burns through the floor why does it not burn through most of the ship as it does in the first film? then because of the cloning process the Alien queen has a human womb which she uses to birth a alien human hybrid, so where do all the face huggers come from?? because as far as the story implies apart from the single egg that was on the escape ship, all the face hugger eggs and aliens were destroyed in the second film, and with only a human womb the alien queen can't lay face hugger eggs!! WHY WON'T THIS FILM MAKE SENSE??????

To be honest, i think that people should just stick to trilogies, because a fourth film always seems rushed and just annoying. and if they are going to make a third film, PUT MORE THOUGHT INTO IT INSTEAD OF DOING IT FOR MONEY.

I will give the benefit of the doubt, because Steven Spielberg is making a 4th Jurassic Park film, so with any luck he will revisit the style of the first two films, (i would like to make it clear that the benefit of the doubt is given in this instance only because it is Steven Spielberg.)

Documentary update

Finally finished editing.

i am very happy with the finished result. i think we have managed to create the feel of the piece that we set out to create.

Many thanks should be given to John Parr, Simon and Graham Mathews. for taking time out to help us in this project by doing interviews and providing us with archive footage.

This project has taught me if not all of us a lot. the main lesson from this project was during our meeting with the Liverpool film institute - it really opened my eyes to what really goes on during pre-production.

i'm really looking forward to presenting this piece.

King of Laughter - Nick Hillel

I didn't like this documentary as much.

For me it seemed pointless and without a message.
The reasons for this are numerous, the first being that this man who apparently is always laughing just seems to be very over the top and fake. If someone was to walk up to me and just randomly start laughing at me (as it seems to show him doing in the piece) i wouldn't laugh back. my reaction would be along the lines of "get out of my face" or "is there something funny about me eating?".

i understand that this man went through some bad times and i agree with the positivity of his attitude, but that wouldn't include continuous laughter in my eyes.

I am not a fan of the close up head shot of the man as he is walking around, but it appears as though everything else is moving faster because the camera never moves from him. i feel it is overused, not just in this piece but also in general. i have seen it used in many different programs in many different scenarios including: drug and alcohol related programs and even in the second episode of 'Torchwood' where a woman was possessed by a gas alien. so as i said its over used and i don't think it really serves a purpose.

I dont feel as though the documentary really puts this man in a good light as it is meant to, it makes him appear as though he is the crazy man in the room, who randomly walks in and starts laughing for no apparent reason.
call me grumpy but that would just annoy me or even freak me out a bit rather than cheer me up - no matter where i lived.

http://www.4docs.org.uk/films/show/5/King+of+Laughter