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PROJECT BRIEF:
PROJECT BRIEF:
Create a Cinema Moderne (Arthouse and Experimentalist inspired) short film.
B1: Personal Progression
B1.1 - Inform ideas for progression into a creative career
B1.2 - Apply problem solving practice to develop a strategy for career progression
B1.3 - Create materials for career progression using technical practice
B1.4 - Demonstrate professional practice and behaviours in relation to career progression aspirations
B1.5 - Apply communication skills to support progression into a creative career
INITIAL RESEARCH
Attached above are a multitude of research presentations detailing the ins and outs of arthouse/experimental film. Having watched many documentaries and videos online I had lots of information to get out. Third, is a presentation about the impact of arthouse on mainstream cinema - I think this one is very interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed researching it
DEVELOPMENT
Experimental Monologue
My first attempt at delving into this genre of film produced a short video reading aloud 'Ozymandias'. I played around with overlays and colour blending for the first time. It was a good experiment with these tools and set the ground for what I could do later
Object (Coffee Mug)
Choosing one everyday object (a coffee mug) I took a sort of 'life cycle' inspiration. The amount of hard labour that goes into creating just one cup of coffee is crazy, and I wanted to use that exploitation and turn it into a gross recreational activity. Again I toyed around with overlays.
'Vorspiel Vorwand'
Translating to 'Prelude Pretence' (the name for the task), I converted the phrase into German to reference the German Expressionist influences. I expanded on some themes I touched upon in the previous task, making some more stylistic choices .
Virus
In this task we found an 'abandoned' looking shopping centre and toyed around with filming a one shot- taking inspiration from scenes in 'Goodfellas' and '1917', in order to isolate the character from civilisation, using some interesting blending to show the decay of the supposed 'virus' effect.
PLANNING
During the planning stage I did not have a real story in mind, though immediately some images and scenes came to - These I drew out and have placed below.
Initial Thoughts and Ideas (Left to right)
A man takes a phone call, he hears distressing news, the 'main character' watches him through his window. He hangs up the phone and his face melts.
A sequence of short videos, reminiscing on life and nature. They are to be printed out frame by frame using film negatives and cyanotype - I wanted to be able to use film as a physical medium, in reference to those like Stan Brackhage (even getting in touch with his godson, accidentally, whilst asking for advice).
Our 'main character', unproportionate in front of the moon, lit dimly from behind on a dark night. I have researched into the process of editing daylight scenes to night (as seen recently in the new adaptation of 'Nosferatu'), I would like to emulate a similar effect.
A more detailed and stylised rendition of the face melting scene referenced earlier.
Combining The Scenes
Trying to piece these scenes together cohesively was very difficult.. I knew I had an overarching theme of life - maybe the beginning of life, maybe the end. Maybe even just the concept of something existing, being alive. This led me down a rabbit hole and I came to the conclusion my film was to display some theme of existentialism.
Three Act Structure
Once I had a story, and some scenes to mind, I began to order them with a three act structure. As this is an ongoing project I am still unsure of whether I will innately order these using a chaptering system (Chapter one: life, Chapter two: death etc) or have it rather ambiguous where on ends and another begins.
Storyboards
Finally I produced a fairly basic storyboard, so that when filming I had an accute understanding of what I wanted to create.
PRODUCTION
This is the longest video project I have completed to date. I took lots of inspiration from experimentalist films such as 'Moth light' by Stan Brackhage and 'Meshes of the Afternoon' by Maya Deren. I wanted to create a whole dreamlike film - Am I awake? Had I slept? A big part of this was music.. I chose a song from 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' by The Smashing Pumpkins - not only my favourite band/album, but a highly surreal and visceral one too. I had great fun creating this and I would love to expand this genre further.
The slow ambiguous beginning, each shot composited over a sunrise in Roker. I think for a faux nighttime this worked fairly well although I know it could be much better.
The candle. A running motif throughout the short film - significant of life, the ever burning wick will eventuallly run out.
Coming from stark light (sunrise) into a doorway of complete darkness, again, this is like going from life to death. Notice the quick push in of the knocker, trying to seem startling.
One of my favorite shots of the film, looking almost directly like my storyboard. My only grapple being the fork is slightly unfocused, I could have pulled out and zoomed in.
Again the candle, foremost and present. Throughout the dinner scene the candle runs lower and lower, until it fizzles out. My character, dressed in black, eats all his food (he has nothing left), his life has ended. Jude, in white, plays with his, and is still alive.
I knew from the get go I wanted to create something I had never done before, an experimentation. I love working with physical mediums in film. This was such a rough process to create my own head and melt it. It was expensive too, I hope it was worth it.
POST PRODUCTION
FINAL VIDEO
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