Month: August 2015

Week 4 reflection – becoming an actor

Angus Strachan

In our groups for the week we did some more filming, this time from scripts that the creative writing students had written. First thing I notice is that my scripts are nowhere near the creativity of the the writing students, the way that they write gives the script a lot more depth. However I would like to take this reflection to look at the actors side of things.

In this exercise I was acting for the other group of people who were practicing their technical skills behind the camera. The first thing I learnt as an actor: it can take a while before you’re actually needed. The crew take a while to talk through their idea and set up the camera and readjust minor details before they even think about involving the actors. So, acting can be a waiting game.

In terms of getting my character from a script: I can see how much easier it is to have it all written out in front of you. Not just your dialogue but the motivation behind actions as well. By knowing this it’s a lot easier to act in the way that the director wants you to. So, the key to a happy actor is a proper script.

Because I still had my director’s hat on from when I was filming my scenes, it was difficult not to throw in technical ideas into the mix when I heard the crew talk about their plans, not having much to do in between the takes also didn’t help. Although props to the director because he asked me and the other actor to rehearse our lines so that we’re confident enough in our performance, when we stopped he’d ask us to run through one more time; which did seem to make the time go faster and the repetition did actually make me more confident. So, a preoccupied actor is a good actor.

When the time did come to shooting our scenes the director took us through step by step what the camera was going to do and how we should react within the frame. Knowing this helped us streamline to the quick schedule as we didn’t have to go for that many takes. By giving me specific instructions like: wait a beat after his line, make your arms bigger, seem more crazy, all helped me deliver what the director was looking for. So, a well informed actor is a fast actor.

It was interesting to be on the other side of the lens for a change and it has given me a new found respect for professional actors and their craft.

Giving it a Shot – Personal Exercise

Angus Strachan

In the past few weeks we have learnt certain skills and techniques in class about how to create and use a script on a film shoot. I decided to bring those skills and techniques to a small project of my own to see how it was working in a different environment.

The team that I worked with I have worked with on multiple occasions so already we know how each other works and we work well together. Generally though, we have an idea that we loosely all understand and then we work out everything else while we’re shooting. Obviously it’s not the most efficient way of working but its done well in the past. By changing things up and working more on the pre-production and the use of scripts and marking them up was different and difficult at first, mainly because it’s not the exciting bit and you just want to go out and film something, but nevertheless, I stuck at it and found a few revelations.

First off, it almost halves your production time something I couldn’t really learn from the small exercises that we do at school. By giving an actor a full script instead of saying “say something like . . .” the actor seems more confident in less takes and although I don’t like the way that it restricts a few creative freedoms it definitely helps to streamline the process. By giving your crew the mark up of a script and listing exactly what shots you want you can move quicker then when you’re trying to picture what shot should come next. So what would’ve taken a whole weekend to film actually only took us about 6 hours, which is such a great thing to know now that free time to film is dwindling in the midst of uni and work.

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of input I got from my crew when we were marking things up. I would’ve thought that me providing the finished script wouldn’t have aloud the others to add their creative input however I decided to have a read through with the actors and crew where we could mark up our individual scripts with what was needed like we had done in a few of the class exercises. Surprisingly, I would even go so far as to say there was more creative input when we were marking the script up than when ideas were just thrown around during the shoot.

Finally in post production, as I was learning in the class exercises, by having a marked up script to go to when editing together the shots made that process so much quicker as well.

I guess the main negative that I found is that even though you save time on the shoot you gain time in pre-production, which is good for the crew but bad for you when you’re up in the early hours of the morning trying to finish the script before your shoot! It does also take away those few strikes of brilliance that you get when you’re actually on location, things you can only really think of when you’re there.

In conclusion, its probably best to use the pro’s of each style and morph them together in order to create a successful shoot.

 

Transmedia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Angus Strachan

*Spoiler Alert*

In this Post I will identify the key ideas of Transmedia, using the Marvel cinematic universe and their spin off television shows such as Agents of Shield, Agent Carter and the newly released Daredevil.

In its beginning Marvel made comic books, creating hundreds of characters being printed out to the page; today, Marvel not only continues to make comic books but has also translated their characters to other mediums such as movies and, even more recently, television shows. To make this Case study more specific I will only talk about one section known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The concept for this began with movies, movies that are apart of a broader universe that tie into each others story lines, movies like Iron-man, Thor and Captain America. After such a great success Marvel studios took a turn to television. The problem they originally faced with the movies was that not every character was big enough to have their own movie, even though in the past these characters may have had their own comic book. By creating a television series the studio could still get the story out to the community of loyal MCU fans, but in a much cheaper way.

The specific thing to understand is that the Television shows are still apart of the MCU and is closely aligned with the events within it. For example, after The Avengers was released in cinemas the Television show Agents of Shield was directly linked to finding Alien content that had been left on earth from what occurred in the Avengers movie. As the series went on and more movies were released other correlations happened. When Thor the Dark Wold was released and cities were destroyed, the same cities were depicted in Agents of Shield. When Captain America the Winter Soldier was released and revealed that Shield was actually led by the Nazi devision Hydra, the Television show was once again directly effected.

Most recently Marvel Studios has turned to the online streaming service Netflix to release there most recent addition to the MCU, Daredevil. This show was released in the classic Netflix way, a series at a time.

This is a great example of Transmedia. Media that has been translated to fit different mediums. It would seem that companies have found out that this is a good money spinner as well, knowing that in order for the fans to keep up to date they must watch an increasing amount of media on different media platforms.

Television as we know it now has changed from beyond the tube, it is now seen on the internet and streaming devices and has a closer connection to cinema blockbusters and Marvel are using this cultural technology to broaden their horizons an encompass a bigger community following their MCU. Marvel isn’t the only one doing this either, you need only to look at their direct competitors DC comics to find a similar idea. DC has released plans to create the Justice League. The heroes with a bigger cult following like Batman and Superman have had their own movies, but the smaller heroes have opted for television shows like Arrow and The Flash, once again, all apart of the same universe.

All in all, transmedia media looks like the new thing to watch out for.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Angus Strachan

In this post I will be analysing Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and how it’s content can be used as a cultural technology and create an encompassing community that goes beyond the borders of countries.

As an audience that is used to the normal codes and conventions of a news program I am able to understand the more intricate codes and conventions of  its satire. To satirise something, other then to poke fun at it, is to critique it, so that the right audience member might, in turn, understand the critique and become more knowledgable and questioning of a particular subject. Broadly speaking, culture is views and stances that the majority of people take within a group. By having such a democratic way of doing things, where people can voice opinions and views can change over time, culture is always evolving. By using the mass media of Television satirical shows like Last Week Tonight is able to bring forward perspectives and views that other shows can’t, they are able to push the envelope. In essence they are using the Technology of television in order to cultivate a positive culture.

Although the argument can be made that they’re just making jokes and poking fun, a lot of the shows content is actually about serious and concerning developments. One such topic is the appalling state of Sex Education in American schools. In this report punch lines are reached but some shocking numbers and facts are laid down as well. One of the stories that John Oliver did on the Daily show that granted him such recognition was a 3 part series on gun laws in America, once again a serious topic that evoked a wide spread discussion on the subject. By doing this the show is able to cross the line that many other serious news shows wouldn’t tend to cross. By making these revelations so entertaining also helps the information reach the masses.

In terms of a community beyond borders: the content is very important. Even though it is a show set in America and mainly for Americans there are many segments that reach out to different parts of the world which invite other people and other cultures to initiate into its community. The very first time I had heard of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was when he did a special segment on Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime minister. Because this shows content extended out to my culture I then reached back to its culture, watching old episodes and other segments that interested me, keeping up with his new episodes as well. Its content invites people from other countries and other cultures to participate in the ongoing critique they have of society which, in turn, is what creates a better culture and unified world community. Of course this was only possible thanks to the internet. As technologies change, cultures change and the means in communication and discourse, such as television changes.

Class Reflection week 2-3

Angus Strachan

In Class for the past two weeks we have been working on the one project. Moving from writing and filming in week 2 to post production in week 3. I really enjoy post production but the main problem that I had is shifting from Final Cut Pro, my weapon of choice, to Premiere. Just having to get used to the different keyboard shortcuts tripped me up a little and made it stressful trying to work on an unfamiliar platform.

Everything else in class was straight forward enough, I will mention how important it was that I was there for the shoot, that way I knew what we were trying to get so when it came to post production there was no messing around about what shot goes where. In week 2 we were told to mark up our scripts with the different shots which made post super easy and not having to guess. We did, however, end up shooting different shots on the shoot as well just because we thought it looked better or interesting and hadn’t thought of it previously. I think that this is an important thought when thinking about the difference between the writer and the director, neither one knows exactly what the others thinking and once you actually put it on location and add the actors to the scene you can never really know what is going to work better than others. The main lesson here is to learn to be flexible.

One thing that we didn’t do, which we should’ve, was mark down the footage that was usable on a list so that when we went into post production we could easily choose which clips were usable and which ones weren’t. It would’ve just made the process a lot smoother than having to go through all the clips one at a time, often revisiting some, to choose the best.