In week 5’s class we were given a set of questions to answer, I answered them in a word doc, but forgot to put them on my blog. So here they are:

Can film have subjectivity?

The concept of subjectivity is difficult to grasp. The word has many meanings, that could all mean different things relating to film. Obviously any critique of the quality of a film is subjective, but I also believe that film can contain subjectivity inside itself. A film can show events or narrative that are not defined in an objective sense, and are up to the audiance to interpret. Film can also employ a mirad of techniques to show things from a certain point of view, giving the film its own subjective take on a thing. Its difficult to explain, especaillay in words.

Can film think?

In a literal sense? No, a roll of celluloid or a file on a Harddrive is not capable of though. However in a more abstract sense, I do beleive film (and any creative medium) is possible of presenting critical ideas and asking questions, which inspire the audiance to follow.
Whose point of view are you getting in drive?

The Driver, the film follows him and we are only showed his immidete surroundings. We the audiance, see’s whats in his general vicinity and knows the same things as he does about the events taking place. However this is not 100% true, there are instanes where the film breaks away and we are shown something entirely seperate from The Driver, such as the welcome-home party next door.

How does your subjectivity become the films?

The audiances own subjectivity becomes the films because every single person watching will see different things in a slightly different light based on their culture, age, upbringing and more. This subjectivity becomes the films because it is impossible to watch the film without judging it and its contents by your own values.

How important is the camera to subjectivity?

The camera is very important to subjectivity because it chooses what is shown, and how. The camera (or more correctly the finished frame) is how the film shows its subject matter, and thus affects how it is viewed. Different angles, lighting and motions can all alter how something is displayed, as well as the ability to show or hide different aspects or events, limiting the audiances knowledge and affecting how they respond.

Last thursday (I know, im pretty slow) we were given an activity to “recreate” and “reinterpret” one frame from a selection obtained from the films we watched that week. First re-doing it as accurately as we could, then doing something interesting with it in relation to one of Deluze’s theories.

I chose this iconic frame from Once upon a Time in the West.

Re-creating it was fairly simple in concept, just do a close up of my face and squint. You’ll see however, that my most intimidating stare is pitiful compared to Jason Rohbarbs. (I also had no hat)

For the next image the task was “re-interpretation” in relation to one of Deluze’s theories. I found quite a lot of the reading to be confusing and rather abstract, but one concept that appealed to me was Montage, and the art of putting 2 frames or shots together to create meaning. This was also relevant to the “Kuleshov Effect”, where meaning can be placed on an image simply by what accompanies it, even if the image stays the same and the accompaniment changes.

Here is my reinterpretation of the shot.

I copied the “close up of eyes staring at something” from the original, but replaced a rival who is engaged in a gun fight with a chocolate cupcake, completly re-defining the emotion behind the stare. It is no longer an intense, emotional showdown with a man who wronged me many years ago, in this image I am simply very interested in the muffin.

In Thursdays class of week 3, we were tasked with using some very fancy cameras to film short sequences of footage, attempting to encapsulate one aspect of the frame we had been learning about. I decided to shoot some footage showing the 180 degree rule in action. The 180 degree rule is a method to frame action or conversation in a way that is not confusing or disorientating for viewers. The way that it works is a “line of action” is placed through the center of two edges of the scene being portrayed.

This crude diagram I made with WordArt explains it:

As you can see, once you have established the line of action, the camera **should** stay within a 180 degree angle of this line. This means that the 2 “edges” of the action (for example two humans having a conversation) never switch sides in the frame. The camera can move anywhere along a 180 degree ark, the two people will stay on the same sides of the frame. The camera can sit at a perpendicular angle (which will put each person in equal size ratio) or it can sit at an extremely narrow angle to the line of action (which would put one person in the foreground, taking up much of the frame), in both scenarios the two people stay on the same side at all times.

However, if the camera is placed on the other side of the line of action the two people will swap sides in the shot, which is both confusing and disorientating for audiences.

Here is my video, which showcases how the 180 degree rule works in practice.

The video showcases Alex (the other one) and Sandy (the other one) having a (mute) conversation. My video switches between 3 different angles, and demonstrates how as long as you stay within 180 degrees of the Line-of-action (in this case the bench) both participants will always stay on their respective side.

Week 3

 Something I found very interesting from this weeks class was the short documentary on “bullet time” and the new cinematographic tecniques that wouldn’t be possible without computers.

Interestingly during the late 90s when the technology was being developed and showcased in The Matrix films were using it to create shots that weren’t possible previously in the medium, this was also the same time period when 3D animation and 3D polygon based video games were becoming incredibly popular.

The example I’ve chosen is 1998’s Metal Gear Solid published by Konami and interestingly directed by Hideo Kojima, a game having a director is no oddity, but the difference is MGS displayed its director as would a film, it even had an opening credits sequence listing all the major developers and voice actors for characters as they appear. Throughout the games many cutscenes every effort was placed on making it as cinematic as the lowly power of the original Playstation would allow. In a 3D digital environment the camera could be placed anywhere, and move around at any speed, but Kojima chose to display it through pans, tilts and emulating trolly or crane shots.

As seen in this extract from Metal Gear Solid, the times when gameplay stops and an important story moment happens the game looks very much like a film in its camera placements.

Conversely, looking at this iconic shot of the matrix (alas in low quality .gif form) the slo-mo 360 degrees camera spin is not something that would be classed as a “film technique”, at least in the classical sense, because it would have never been possible without extensive computer work.

Ironically, a 360 degree camera spin was (and is) common place in video games, allowing the player to judge their surroundings, and give the impression that an invisible camera is tethered to the player character and not existing in any real world parallel.

So as The Matrix had real people fighting in bullet time framed from angles no real-life set could replicate, video games were trying to legitimize themselves by drawing from film and film techniques for storytelling and showing action.

Week 2

The “50 frames” assignment has been interesting: Taking 50 photos knowing 46 of them will go unused, and the 4 that will be used are for an assignment worth 0%, is a strange task as there is no real incentive to put effort into it. However despite no tangible insentive for quality I have been trying to make my 50 frames good and varied.

The question posed on the board for a blog prompt is “Reflect on methodology for the 50 frames exercise. Did you complete it all in one go? Do you remember the story on your situation each photo?”

My methodology for taking the 50 frames was to at various moments of inspiration takes some photos of anything remotely interesting in my general vicinity. My photos were captured over many days, sometimes lots in one day, other days I wouldn’t take any, towards the end I was running out of time so I began desperately taking photos of random items around my parents house where I was staying the weekend.

I remember the “story and situation” for each photo, I tried to make it interesting and unique, attempting to capture a different aspect of stuff we talked about in class or something else related to film/photography.

Some examples include my time lapse photos of me eating an apple, it’s a series of 10 photos starting with a complete apple and then a “progress shot” after each bite until its gone. I soon realized I wouldn’t be able to use this for the assessment task since the sequence was more than double the required number of photos, and making all of them part of a sequence would make it hard to write about each one.

Ever since I was a kid stop motion has fascinated me, and I would create “movies” using action figures and a webcam that would create GIFs of fight scenes I choreographed with Dragon Ball Z characters, multiple Spidermans and the occasional Lego monstrosity. In my first project brief last semester the title screen was a stop motion progress shot of a hand drawn title card, and its definitely something I would like to continue to develop my skills at.