REFLECTIVE PRODUCTION JOURNAL/FILE

INDEX

A..  SPECIALISM 

B..  REFLECTIVE LOG

C... NOTES

D..  REFLECTIVE TABLE 

E..  RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

F..  VIDEO DIARIES

G.. LITERARY REFERENCES

 

 A                                 SPECIALISM......Imagine to Image

         Reflective production journal/file

This assignment and all the activities concerning developing it, from start to finish, will prove to be extremely rewarding.

The varying environments depicted in the film will play a big part and impact on conveying ideas to the viewer. From the relaxed country home of the sole character, enduring inner torment due to extreme stage fright through flashback type nightmares. Developing gradually the power shift in her own thoughts from mental instability to realise a type of spirituality in her quest to perform.

The imagine to image aspect has helped me relate to Time.Space & Place and opened my eyes to investigate ways to create a scene encompassing various techniques , which I will embellish on further below.

The filming side of this module is 90% as a single-artist with the actress and myself in the studio theatre and a lengthy time at the Barbican Theatre and myself on many filming trips to Cornwall to capture the landscape and other features ( especially when the sun was out ) and at the very end of the project I was assisted by Kandemir Esmer as camera operator for the concluding three clips dealing with the transition of the character’s elation.  The academic evaluations are 100% mine. Having Kan with me proved to be very valuable as it enabled me to work with the actress and her performance in a more ‘hands-on’ directorial way.

Taking responsibility for my vision to mix fear and passion with a subtle spiritual journey is coupled with my own reflection path and the character’s struggle to escape her demons.

My strengths for this project are my willingness to try out new approaches to filming. The intended use of the Canon 7d with a fast lens F-stop 1.4 to capture psychological introspection was a success. Especially developing the attributes of shallow focus alternating with the opening barn scene barn scene and with the shots with the paintings to signify a troubled mind…and shooting some footage with the Canon 7d set at 50 fps to have some good slow motion in post. The addition of incorporating black and white stills into composite mode, with shots of the character’s country habitat, was inspired directly from the transition exercise we undertook in one of Andy James’ lessons. I chose ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ with their journey from New York to Bolivia depicted in a series of photographs as a transitional device by the director. I researched this film in depth to evaluate the artistry deployed. When their production team were unable to use the intended ‘Hello Dolly’ set to film… so devised this alternative by photographing the three major stars there instead and using similar sepia techniques to the earlier part of the film, to show them progressing through a gradual time and geographical shift.

31/01/12. I arranged with Stuart for an appointment tomorrow morning to go through some technical aspects of Final Cut Pro.

I watched parts of Tarvotsky’s ‘Nostalghia’ again and I’m so inspired by his use of spirituality conveyed through the poetic cinematography of time and space. His well-documented use of long takes is guaranteed to let a scene unravel and the viewer to fully appreciate and develop a sense of real time with the characters motivation and dilemma. The main male characters seem to be always going through a crisis or type of evolvement.

I’m specially drawn to representing Adriana observing and being observed as of the present moment akin to Tartovsky’s favoured method.  My slow probing camera of the timelessness country environment would reassuringly contrast with the intended cutaway shots to Adriana in the series of infinite zoom shots planned. Inspired directly from the opening scenes in ‘Limitless’ by my using three cameras filming the same information with different lenses and creating a terrific sense of isolation for her, by techniques in post. (But not necessarily to be concluded and used here)

There are so many sequences in my short film that relate to Tartovsky’s penchant for portraiture of the human face, as a lingering landscape of anguish. I have used paintings in my scenes as a way to articulate a building up of the character’s dread of performing with a hint of an unbalanced mind about to experience extreme nightmares. Not intentionally borrowed from the Russian master’s medieval icons in ‘Andrei Rublev’, Leonardo da Vinci in ‘Mirror’ and others …but I must be in good company to offer similar here.

The same with my inclusion of black & white juxtaposed with colour shots.  Not intentionally borrowed from his style of use. I was captivated with the way they were used in ‘Butch Cassidy….’ As a transition from New York to Bolivia and coerced Adriana to strike those poses and I am always attracted to composite mode in Final Cut to weave in those inlays. This is something that I love using …sometimes intentionally and instinctively realising the outcome …but often there will be that magical combination of images and serendipity looms out and holds the attention and conveys my own search and replication through film, of a sense of spirituality.

The character here in my film is highlighted several times, and my intention is to search with the shallow focus lens technique into her psyche to confront herself and eventually to triumph over her demons. . As in ‘Solaris’ where the hero derives a certain amount of peace. I am totally in debt to the works of Andrei Tartovsky as he in turn must have been to Ingmar Bergman. …And I respect in my work the same ethic of Tartvosky in “…faithfully recording on film the time which flows on beyond the edges of the frame, lives within time if time lives within it…”

01/02/12…the meeting/tutorial went well with Stuart today. The first problem I had was to try and find out the best way to create an infinite zoom. The conclusion was that the actual embedding as perfected by 20 technicians for the ‘Limitless ‘ film was probably a bit ambitious and the best way forward is through the use of still photos. Because of the quality of the Canon 7d and the varying pixel rate from the still to HD for film. - There is a lot of potential to zoom in a lot further with prolonged resolution use and to achieve similar minded results with multi stills.

The second problem to be addressed was my intention to use projections in this brief …as per Pipilotti Rist with her merging of two films to with ‘fade to black’ at the centre of both images.this can be accomplished with the aid of photo shop

The metal plate I had created in the Metals department of the college to my specifications has been seen by Stuart and with further tests on the ‘Whitworth’ and ‘UNC thread’ compatibility it can be considered for further experiment for three Canon 7d’s on one tripod.

12/01/12…. Filming of Adriana went well at the college studio theatre today…. I work well on a one-to-one basis …and because there was just the two of us for the duration of the shoot. I was able to shape Adriana’s response to my creative directions to produce some really interesting introspective poses and I was able to practice with the shallow focus technique with a fast lens and 1.4 F-Stop. Utilising the room furniture and personal belongings as props in the set design.

We spent two hours of testing different poses to practice the shallow focus technique of her being in focus and the surrounding image not to isolate her in a picture of being swallowed up in a big-bad world of loneliness…and to vary these test shots of gradually focussing in and out trying variations and with pull-focussing. I learned a lot about coaxing an actress into a workflow rhythm with integrating her instinct in with the intellectual interpretations of her role that I explained to her…. Also the use of shallow focus is something that I will now develop …indeed with many areas of focussing and varying lenses to influence a particular viewpoint to the audience. Take them somewhere in the storyline that otherwise would not be so readily effective…. More research and practice …especially with the canted framing that I didn’t really pull off this time.

First recce of the location of the country setting in Cornwall was success. Ten acres of fields and woodland and this fantastic barn/type structure and found objects to be incorporated as a ’ character’ of the film in its own right.

15/01/12…?    I asked several technicians in the ERC concerning my idea to have a metal plate made to support three cameras on one tripod. Stuart suggested we could use the fig-rig and adapt its use. Dave and Phil then came up with the fig-rig combined with some lighting stands to be structured together with various connectors and the first prototype was born. …. That evening I filmed with three cameras simultaneously at 12 different locations on Plymouth City Centre’s streets…with the intention to use the footage in the way of ‘Limitless’ to speed the way through an urban landscape to isolate my main character in the film as a contrast to her tranquil country habitat environment. (Through a series of inopportune malfunctions of the design two of the 3 chip cameras’ undercarriage thread holes were damaged later and that idea was shelved)

02/O2/12 Following Stuart’s advice to take some still photos with the Canon 7d because the quality would be good to zoom I with. So early evening I started from the top of Amarda Way near the entrance to the Railway Station and started to shoot stills zooming in as far as I could. . Moving onto the next position under the pedestrian subway and take another few shots from on the tripod. I continued all the way down Armada Way ….as it was designed as a boulevard type straight-line all the way to the Hoe. I always knew of its long stretch in one direction to the sea but it became apparent to me to use it today when Sergei, a film arts graduate that I knew from my first year at college, came to lecture the class on several techniques and motivation with employers…. because he showed us an aerial clip from his Hovercam flights and the footage was a spectacular shot over Plymouth Sound heading inland and the whole ‘Roman’ style grand spread of Amarda Way became evident. And I thought immediately I could film that stretch in several sequences to try the infinite zoom effect again.

                                                           

03/02/12…. Up at 6am.ready for a couple of hours daylight shooting of stills with the Canon 7d…Freezing cold waiting for the sun to come up on the Hoe with camera and tripod in position.  Finally enough light to start the multi-serial photograph shoot .I took the first one facing the sea and turned around to face into city centre down to the straight line of the ‘boulevard’ type direct line of Armada Way. I repeated the same procedure at about 20 locations along the perfectly programmed straight line right up to the top entrance to the railway station.

These images are to be used to zoom in to it’s maximum compatible resolution and then join up the next sequences recursively to try and achieve an infinite zoom effect. Inspired by the opening sequences in the ‘Limitless’ movie.

 B....  REFLECTIVE LOG          

I really valued working with a good theatre performer who was stage-intelligent and able to demonstrate her strong passion through facial expressions as well as body movements.

 To have Kan along as camera operator for the location shots in the Barbican Theatre was a real advantage …as it freed me up enough to work on the choreography of Adriana’s elation scenes…and to have more time to try test shots trying further shallow and pull-focus shots, invaluable experience to take into my future practice.

Understanding the performer’s personal history of living in Latin America and her belief in effecting changes in small ways by empowering herself and others helps me now and in the future to empower myself and try to install a similar ethic when working with others.

Reading up on Analysis of the Cinematography of “American Beauty” gave me inkling into the reasons to use framing and the placement of objects to create a mood and direct the viewer’s focus. The use of deep focus, pan, shallow focus, slow motion in the movie are techniques I have tried to implement on this project…. and also tracking, aerial shots, and soft focus from American Beauty are themes I will pursue in the future.

I also like the ease of which the film used door openings etc. to weave a narrative and vary the perspective on realities and I tried to convey the barn door openings and the gate to the field in a similar textural feel.

I would also like to explore the use of deep focus more in the future.inspiration coming from Gregg Toland in ‘Citizen Kane’ …well at least the basic way of closing down an aperture and feeding in more light and lenses with better light transmission.

I would also like to practice with shooting a black & white film in an artificial lighting condition where a character is lit in the background and walks through dark areas to the foreground, where his arrival triggers, off-screen, a light not on before…consequently producing a visually dramatic effect from this low-key lighting …and my introduction to a film-noir type film.
The use of pessimism and nihilism by the Coen Brothers in 'No Country For Old Men' is expertly offset by the good guys never meeting the bad guys ..with special portrayals of the three main leads that are always alone in a frame.They all have their individual motif which I try to bring to Adriana in my film quite quickly when she appears.

A book I would like to read in full is David Bordwell’s ‘Figures Traced in Light’ where he is really inspired by the terrific opportunities afforded by Deep-Focus techniques and corresponding evaluation of cinematic staging.