In this weeks class we continued our discussion about Inception. Firstly we broke into groups of 4 and made a mind map about Inception, writing down anything that came to mind about the film. Such as aspects of the Mise-en-Scene, interesting shots, ideas about the themes or plot, basically anything that came to mind about the film

Here is a (rather poor) photo of our finsished mind map.

As a group we talked about many aspects of the film, pointing out what we liked and disliked it, as well as examining elements of stylistic choice and trying to disern why Nolan may have implemented them. Some things we discussed was the abundance of exposition, and how its internal mythology was all very conviniant for making a blockbuster film, EG “militarised subconscious” allowed for faceless goons to be a threat and give them film action scenes.

After that the next activity was a set of questions, and we had to positon our selves across the room depending on how strongly we agreed or disagreed, with the door to the hallway being Agree 100% and the window being Disagree 100% and everything in between being a sliding scale.

The questions were not easy, and it seemed like no-one was entirely sure of thier answers. This is because they were un-answerable, such as “Is Inception an accurate representation of the human subconscious”, considering no-one really knows what a representation of the human subconcsous looks like (or if its even possible to represent) its entirely a subjective answer. I moderatly disagreed, primarily for the aformentioned reasons of all the conviances that suited the human subconscious for making a Hollywood film, but I didnt fully disagree because honestly: who knows?

There was several more questions, all of equal hardness to answer, including the triumphant return of “Can film think”. The final question however was not about metaphysical representations or film theory, but rather our interpretation of the plot.

Was Kobb dreaming the whole time?

For this question I instantly knew my responce: stand in the dead centre of the room right on the “I dont know” line (a thought shared by almost all the class). This is because the questioning was intentional, and gives the ending its emotional reaction, no definitive conclusion could ever replicate the feelings of questioning and doubt which stay with you after the credits roll and are destined to be discussed and argued about for years to come.

This week we looked at the rise of the Blockbuster and high concept films which were born out of, and elcipsed New Hollywood. Films which are easily marketable and defined, but have more depth and complex themes if you look deeper. They can be explained in thier most basic form in a single sentence, for example Jaws is a movie about “a shark terrorising a town”, which may sound similar to a B-movie, but they differ in several major ways.

Budget, the Hollywood blockbuster, high concept film has a massive budget for production value, stars and marketing. Unlike previous itterations of “monster movies” the High Concept films that began appearing in the late 70s and lasted well into the 90s were not done on shoe-string budgets, using no-name and only accesible by the devoted few who knew about them. Instead they had top-of-the-line special effects, Hollywoods biggest names and world wide hype building marketing campaigns.

Complexity, while they appear to be simple (and the concept is indeed simple) the films have more depth than one might intially consider. The sub-plots and characterisation contain the subtexts and themes of the film, while the “Concept” (EG “shark terrories town) provides the basis for all this to be built around.

This week in class we watched Christoper Nolan’s Inceptionas an example of both a High Concept film (debatadly) and cinematography. After arriving almost half and hour late because the building was a maze, I watched the film for the second time in my life.

I hadnt seen it since it released in cinemas in 2010, so my memory was a it hazey of the nuances of the plot and how each action set piece came together, like in 2010 I thouroughly enjoyed it. However after leaving the lecture hall one thing stuck in my mind, and it wasnt the plot or the cinematography or even thinking about the concept of all they layers of dreams and the implications of the ending.

All I could think about was how utterly boring Limbo was.

The amount of wasted potential was mind-blowing, not only does Kobb tell us that he spent 50 years down there doing nothing but building and “being a god”, but the film also shows us that architechs can create impossible shapes such as the paradoxical stair case and the gravity bending Paris.

Yet what did Kobb do for five decades? He built a grid city of skyscrapers, all bland rectangular prisms. When Ellen Page’s character asks him “you built all this?” its jarringly off putting. If I spent 50 years in an endless void with the abiltity to both construct ANYTHING (even things that arnt possible) and be able to maniplulate physics and all I did was place boring city building everywhere with some taller ones in the centre, I’d be pretty ashamed of myself.

Where is the giant catherderals? The castles made of impossible shapes? Recreations of acient civilisations? Nowhere, thats where. Instead all they did was create something that is somehow more boring than a real city and a couple recreations of buildings they lived in. Dream big Kobb, dream big.

This week we had to submit our proposal’s for the semester’s big, final Project Brief in which the majority of the “method” of how we do it is up to us, this required a 1500+ word written proposal and a presentation in class in front of various important people from the Media section of RMIT. This blog post is a reflection on both my Written and Oral proposals as well as my general reflection on other peoples and my plans going forward for my Project.

I feel my written proposal was quite well done, for most of the break-week I was frankly stumped at what I was going to: I knew I wanted to make a film, but I needed to find a suitable excuse to make something I wanted to make. Luckily, late into the week I was hit with a burst of inspiration and decided to base my project around manipulating framerates and thier affects on audiances, and wrote what I feel to be a rather decent Project Proposal.

As a filmaker I am not a very subtle artist, and in the pricavy of this Blog litterally 1 person is going to read, I will admit that self consciousness issues mean that almost all my creative expression is almost a half parody of itself, as I dont have the guts to commit to something that isnt shielded from critism by cutesy or ironic shortcomings. This direct approach would be easy to demonstrate the requirments I have set, I can (and will) make a short film with wacky and unconventialonal uses of framerates, and this will be an easy starting point for my own disire to make

As for the Presentation portion of the assigment,  that went less well……

I was woefully underprepared, and putting my idea into spoken words with minimal rehersal was tough. Following on from many mature and well thought out explorations of the frame I felt decidedly out of place and childish. My PowerPoint was an attrocity of visual design, and honestly I would have probably fared better without any text and just had the examples of videos/gifs (side note, the Framerate altering on Fury Road is much less prevelant on Youtube clips, on the Blu-Ray I could easily tell everytime it happened, on Youtube it took considerable effort to find an example that was easy to see, I dont know why this is).

Explaining my desire to film a super slow-mo, high FPS red goop filled balloon exploding as a mortal wound to a characters head was cringe inducing, and the 4 Judges seemed less than impressed, however a slight chuckle from Dan was reasurring, since he has read my Proposal and spent time with my in class, so he might have a better understanding of my intentions.

As for the rest of the Presentations I was very impressed, and almost all of the them put mine to shame. One in particular that stood out was Maggie’s, perhaps it was just the excellent production value of her Slideshow, but it was definetly the most memorable for me.

As for progress on my own project I have begun to formulate some key ideas of how I will use speed and framerate to enhance the stylistic elements of my short film and throughout the week I will continue to work on these and consult with Dan. Before (hopefully) begin filming next weekend when I have contanct with High School friends and wide open spaces, preferrablly involving a Balloon, red food dye, some chunks of pork and an array of iPhones set to Slow-Mo.

During this mid-semester break I have been doing a lot of things (job interviews, job training days, catching up with friends, desperately working on my Project Proposal in the last 24 hours etc…) one of which was playing lots of video games. Now with literally minutes before the week is up Im making a blog post

I recently purchased the new Mad Max game because I adore the franchise and everything about the game looked promising. While I could talk about it in many ways, one aspect in particular I thought was quite connected to this course.

The game has included in it a “capture mode” where you can the ability to manipulate many aspects not usually available to you as a player. Including Field of Vision slider, Depth of Field slider, a free camera that can go anywhere, even a multitude of filters and an intensity slider. All of this is so you can indulge in two options “Photo” or “Video”, that allow you to take a snapshot of your current view or record a short clip, respectively.

These options allow you to make much more cinematic look to the game.

Here is a link to a Youtube video of regular gameplay

Here is a link to a Youtube video made using the Capture mode in the game

The difference is massive, in terms of camera placement, colour grading and well everything the “Capture Mode” allows users to get creative and produce images and videos that have high production value. This harkens back to my earlier blog post about how Metal Gear Solid attempted to be “cinematic” and emulated techniques and styles used in movies. Modes like this (there are similar modes, but this is fresh in my mind and the best one I’ve experienced) go one step further and allow people to make their own “Cinematography” in a video game.

Its cinematography inside a 100% digital/fake environment,  I find this very interesting and I’ve been having lots of fun messing around with it. If I make something worthwhile I’ll export and upload it and put it in a later Blog post.

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.