Since trailing the director role in last week’s exercise it made me revaluate what characteristics are important for to make a good director, and coming in at number 1, communication.

Apart from finance, logistics, leading style (dictator or democrat)  your perfect vision of your story/film is not going to be relevant if you cannot effectively communicate it to your crew. I think I got a new look at this after this weeks exercises, by playing the role of directors you need a good level of knowledge for each department to be able to understand and convey your ideas and goals to each crew. I think I could accomplish communicating my ideas to all the technical areas reasonably well but the area I struggled in was communicating with the actors. I realised I didn’t have the right set of skills to communicate how I envisioned their performance, not to say that they gave a bad performance. I thought these were interesting areas to ponder as each probably has quite a situational answer, how do you direct an actor? or as we have been experiencing perhaps how do you direct a untrained actors?

Maybe this is one advantage actor – directors have, like in the previous scene I analysed from Gran Turino by Clint Eastwood, you can see that the way he sets out to structure his coverage of the scene he focuses on performance. As an actor Eastwood probably has quite a solid idea of how to deal with other actors, and perhaps his knowledge or focus is is on performance rather than cinematograph or other stylistic elements. Although this is mere speculation I still found it an interesting idea to mull over this week.

Another thing I struggled with this week was drawing broader connections to the in depth scene analysis. After discussing how to cover the analysis with robin I see how beneficial it can be to connect the analysis to broader, film movement, directors, styles or even real life experiences. The problem I had was that I feel I like my base of knowledge in these infinite areas was not large enough to draw any significant similarities to the scene. The method to build this base is quite different to other academic research as it is more abstract and not as easily linked as say, one academic reference to another. The only way to build this knowledge is by slowly watching more and more films and having more and more experiences or as Wiz says in Taxi Driver “Go out and get laid. Get drunk. Do anything”

The scene I will analyse this week is from the 1976 Martin Scorsese film taxi driver with cinematography by Michael Chapman. The scene I have selected spans from 15:07 – 18:25 from when Travis enters the diner and converses with his fellow drivers until he leaves the diner.

Lets begin by looking at the various shots and setups within this scene which I have mapped in this simple diagram

Here are frames to reference each shot

1.

2.

3.

4.

5a.

and this variation 5b.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.
11.

13.

I think one of the most significant points we can see from the diagram is that Scorsese has used a different camera setup for almost every shot with the small exception of shot 5. This would seem to suggest that in this scene Scorsese favours moving the camera around the actors to create compositions rather than moving the actors in the frame.

Take these three shots for example.

2.

7.

11.

Scorsese could have covered all Travis’s action within the scene from a single camera setup as each of these shots contains a relatively similar composition of Travis with little figural movement. When combined with the movement of the camera (2 – still, 7 – rising over Travis, 11 – dollying into Travis) however, each angle gives adds a different dynamic to the scene as Scorsese connects the viewer with Travis’ gaze.

This is one of the techniques Scorsese uses to build stylistic and rhythmic elements within the scene as well as the film as a whole. This scene functions primarily to develop these stylistic and rhythmic components over any key narrative progression as we listen to drivers sharing stories which hold no real bearing with the plot or characters. We see Travis listening almost with indifference to still shots of their discussion, what the audience learns in this scene is not through dialogue of the script but rather through the reactions seeing Travis feeling the movement of the camera.

One theme of the film which is touch upon is Travis’ racist tendencies. We get a subtle gauge of this as Wiz introduces him to the back taxi driver Charlie, they share a glance at one another and we see a shot/ reverse shot as Travis coldly acknowledges him. Perhaps another in subtle indicator of this opposition is within the framing of the wide shot of the group as Travis and Charlie are positioned at separate ends of the table in opposition to one another.

The real notion of Travis’ racism come shortly after as the camera  begins moving camera rising above a hunched over Travis anxiously glancing to the other side of the room. We cut to shot 8 dollying past a pair of pimps, Doughboy’s voice becomes slightly distant as Travis zones out, a pan back with shot 9 signals his return to the conversation. The racial implications are secondary to the visual effect as Scorsese uses this movement coupled with the sound to give the audience the impression of entering Travis’ subjective mental state.

Once again the audience is enveloped in Travis’ mind as he empties a fizzy tablet into his cup we alternate between shot 10 and 11 each shot drawing closer to its subject until the screen is entirely filled with the drink. Scorsese also uses sound to contrast this with Travis’ last mental episode as before we Doughboys voice drain away, yet in this instance the fizzing of the capsule consumes us both visually and aurally attaining an abstract quality as it fills the screen and our ears completely.

– end of shot 10.

These episodes also suggest potential distortion the temporal/spatial relations of the scene. The first episode distorts the space of the diner as although we see the pimps in the diner we never see them in the final wider shot nor is their presence explicitly acknowledged by any of the other characters.

The second episode distorts the time within the scene as we are absorbed into the glass we return to Doughboy talking to travis from another position perhaps indicating that whilst we have been staring into the fizz that an unknown amount of time has passed.

Both these episodes of Travis’ psychosis are defined from the other moments of the scene through the use of camera movement and sound control. These impressionistic states not only build the style and the rhythm of the film but they also inherently influence the character development as in a sense these moments are the audiences experience as lived through Travis.

I would argue that Scorsese’s preference of moving the camera around the actors for is attests to his commitment towards the stylistic structure of the film. This impressionist style is potentially influenced by the French impressionism movement as we see it reoccur at multiple points in the film. As a result these impressionistic departures resonate strongly with the viewer as Scorsese lures us into Travis’ mind.

It was really interesting in class watching the other class’s exercises, as Gina observed the ones we saw had been more experimental with their narratives, and how this strange occurrence had happened from what seems to be such a arbitrary separation of students.

After watching the sources of the exercise robin made a point about their pacing, this was my epiphany moment this week as it became so obvious that previously almost every exercise and group had rushed through their lines leaving very little moments for a simple pause of contemplation for the characters. I think this could have been mainly from two reasons, apart from the fact that we didn’t seem to greatly consider it when thinking of our direction. Firstly, time constraints, I think perhaps one of the first things to go out the window at our level was the pacing once time constraints became involved. It became easy to see how many of us had shot our lines out or quickly cut away when we were were under the pressure of the clock. This brings me to my second point that many of us probably have little to no acting experience and so even as actors we were not considering pacing as an aspect of our performance, although I’m not sure if these techniques are actually taught to actors or if it is more the result of directors input.

By making this point before the exercise I think we saw immediate results in todays task as pretty much everyone when directing in my group took much more consideration for the pacing of the action and performance. I think it worked well with this task as well because we didn’t have to worry about getting the next shot so much which let us take our time with our singular shot.

Finally why not talk about faces. I reconsidered the value of an still shot featuring a face with little to no action of someone today, my first thought was maybe not so effective if we don’t have the right acting training, however at second thought I remembered the Kuleshov effect. This made me reconsider that in some cases it doesn’t matter about acting as long as we can get good coverage we can utilise the Kuleshov effect to draw associations for our viewer, minimum acting skills required.

For my scene I chose to analyse this comedic dialogue scene from Gran Torino the 2008 film directed by Clint Eastwood.

After writing down the various shots it would seem that this scene was covered from 7 different perspectives.each of these perspectives have utilised pans, tilts and variations on the framing to achieve new compositions within the scene. These camera motions however rarely occur within the take as they are instead masked by the cuts as Eastwood tweaks the setup to create a new composition from an existing perspective.

Here is my not so good attempt at mapping the scene and perspectives

Key

W = Walt – played by Clint Eastwood

T = Thao played by Bee veng

B = the Barber played by John Carroll Lynch

the V shapes roughly outline the positioning of each perspective and the dotted lines mark character movement.

We can see from the setup 1, 3 covers multiple shots from a very similar perspective framing the characters to direct the audience through their conversation by isolating the different interactions between the chracters.

Eastwood also moves his character (Walt) around the frame to create a new composition

similar method is used for the setup  4

These are the perspectives 1,3 and 4 are the main setups from which we view the scene by cutting in-between their variants. As the scene intensifies the angles become tighter as we go to three close up perspectives.

t

We can also notice that  in Thao’s CU changes as he starts speaking to the barber the negative space shifts from Eastwood to the barber again, indicating and directing the eye lines and conversation.

As the focus of this scene is upon Thao we can also see that many of the setups/perspectives are almost from his point of view which places him at the center of attention spatially.

The effect of space on coverage and action. It feels so obvious after writing it, however I think this first weeks exercise really helped me gain a deeper understanding of how the space effects coverage. To give a small example my groups task was a short description of a book quoting scene, we chose to go down into the editing suites because we would be alone. I think although none of us realized it at the time the very act of choosing this location effected and coverage our interpretation of the scene. The space ended up being quite small as there was still a lot of equipment around the suites, our end result being a shot with two compositions using little camera movement and instead utilizing unexpected character movement. To contrast this with the other group, who covered the same task except with a script, their shot had multiple compositions which they achieved by moving their actors around the frame. Looking back on this had our group wanted to achieve a similar set of compositions to the scripted group I think we would have been unable to because of the location we chose had restricted the range of motion we could provide to our characters.

Although there is a whole another host of considerations such as light, and sound of the space, I think that in the context of this task the public might have been another major consideration. Because we were not using real actors if we had been rehearsing in a crowded space that could have impacted the performances of our ‘actors’ as they may have been uncomfortable performing in front of others, thus changing the action and perhaps the coverage of the scene.

This week I realised the value of shooting the wide shot first for the benefit of the actors, continuity of the action and  continuity of lighting. I was aware that, logistically it was beneficial to capture the wide shot before other shots as a fallback for editing stage however I think I underestimated the value it adds when establishing the continuity for the crew as a whole as well as giving the actors a opportunity to get comfortable with scene.

One issue I think I should explore more is with what we talked about in class regarding the lighting continuity is how to keep the lighting continuos once you change setup, i.e if the lights you were using previously are now in shot. I realise this is an incredibly situation question but i feel like there would still be some general advice to work around this problem.

Roles were very important this week I feel that maybe if we had a set rotation of roles rather than letting ourselves choose we could be more time efficient in the decision making  and shooting process. It gave me a sense of how important it would bet on set to know your set role and tasks.

I feel like the exercises this week were less interesting, not because of their setup but because of our results. I think the first weeks exercise got a really interesting range of compositions and interpretations but this week’s first exercise seemed to produced similar results. The in camera edit exercise was meant to encourage some new coverage by making the ‘common’ shot reverse shot less logistically appealing. I think it was a lack of roles and time management actually meant the opposite occurred as I think we fell back to relying on a more ‘common’ coverage of shot reverse shot as because although it was more time consuming  to physically setup, it was easier to achieve as a group because we didn’t have to put as much time into a creative discussion in thinking up new ways to cover the scene.

For the grading I have prepared examples of three different shots, one from the comedy, one from the horror and one from the behind the scenes.

Horror

This is the basic shot without any grading.

Using the fast colour corrector I upped the shadows and took down the highlights as much of the shot was over exposed. I also re-adjusted the mids to gain more contrast.

The final grade I added some blue hues aiming to have a colder colour temperature for the image to make it more characteristic of a horror.

For the second version of the image I followed a similar process except I used RGB curves and a tint to give it a black and white effect rendering in a style which is perhaps closer to an old horror film.

Again adjusting the highlights, shadows and adding contrast.

Adding the tint to remove the colour.

Behind the scenes

I chose this shot because it was challenging lighting wise as the camera panned from facing the windows to the actors.

Again, using the fast colour corrector I made small adjustments to the highlights, shadows and saturation to adjust the image to  better fit the chroma waveform parameters.

I repeated this process with the RGB curves producing slightly different results.

There was no particular style of grade for the behind the scenes as I wanted them to remain close to the original image letting the other short films distinguish themselves through their colour.

Comedy

The original image, perhaps a tad too green.

Using fast colour correctors to adjust, highs, shadows, up the saturation and reds giving it a warmer tone in order to replicate a typical comedy/romance range of tones.

Same process with RGB curves this time putting more emphasis on red/purple tones by dropping the highlights of blues and greens and upping the shadows of the reds.

Question 2

“In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course. You may rethink this dramatically – this is a good thing.”

You were asked this at the beginning of the semester. Now, could you review constructively what you got from this semester –  has the course lived up to your expectations, delivered what you expected, maybe even surpassed it?

A:

In hindsight I think the course has lived up to my expectations and the goals I was aiming for at the start of the course. I think that being pushed to explore a topic in a different way compared to the more traditional modes of documentary was beneficial as it forced me to look and interpret subjects from a different perspective. I think the abstract editing task was interesting I think it would have been helpful if we practised exercises similar to that but using different modes. I say this because even though I am glad that our final documentary was a bit different I think the the course didn’t meet my expectations in that I still would have found it interesting to produce even a small piece within the classic mode, just to get a feel for the process and how it differed.

I think the emphasis that was placed on the importance of sound in a documentary was also very helpful. I found extracts quite interesting particularly the ‘Idea of North’ demonstrated some new ways to manipulate sound. Overall I am happy with what I gained from this course and I think the feedback stage during editing was possibly the most helpful and insightful stage of the process.

A1:

There are quite a few different audio layers at work within this sequence, primarily these consist of dialogue from the interviewee, songs and backing tracks, a variety of sound FX and voiceover. Each different layers has different functions which when combined generate a sound scape which guides the viewer shaping the tone and message of the sequence. The voice of the interviewee is used as we establish the journalist as the main participant as well as the authority of other interviewees; it is the most consistent sound that is used to guide the viewer as she unveils the inaccuracies of minor details in the story. Songs and backing tracks are used to establish and reinforce tone of each smaller sequence. There are two main songs; the song in the intro establishes a definitive tone which is quickly squandered by the introduction of the journalist, the second track which occurs in the later portion of the sequence is a more up beat combination of string instruments that supports the pace and movement of the documentary as they begin quickly disproving each element of the book. The voice over fills the gaps, serving to either read portions of the book or inform the viewer as to the logic of the documentary maker setting up the next shot in which the journalist investigates each element. The sound FX are an interesting touch in that there is a large variety of everything from keyboard tapping to chiming and camera snaps, each being used to emphasizes the action within the scene or a transition. I think the combined layering effect of these audio elements is a sound which firmly but quickly guides the viewer through the journalists investigates with sound effects overtly notifying the audience at key moments.

A2:

Four new key shortcuts and functions

1: Snap – S

the ability to toggle snap  on and off can help make the fine cut process more efficient.

2: Paste attributes – opt+cmd+V

this shortcut could prove helpful when pasting particular attributes(colour grades, etc) onto multiple clips.

3: Speed/Duration – Cmd+R

a useful tool for creating timelapses/ modifying the speed of certain clips

4:Add Marker – M

helpful when needing to mark specific points in clips for further use/notice

A3:

A few features that intrigued me from this short film were minaly elements of the cinematography and also the themes in which they convey. One of the most interesting elements of the cinematography was perhaps the layering and depth of space most if not all of the shots utilized. Most shots occurred in a busy urban landscape yet the size of the frame and motivated camera movement picks out a subject from within the crowd honing focus in on them rather than the chaos that surrounds them. Complementing this is the shot size and distance from the subject, mostly consisting of close up and medium shots these elements create interplay of depth between the subject, foreground and background. Between the subject and the flashing shapes of the cars that pass through the frame, the shot construction appears to make the cars into more abstract shapes. One example of this is my favourite shot within the film from 0:26 – 0:32 the camera focuses on a lady attempting to cross the street with cars running both in front and behind her, for a brief instant a bus runs in front of the camera and we can see through its windows the reflections of another car as well as the lady. The result abstracts the image in the reflection and provides an great of example of the filmmakers experimentation of planes of vision and focus.

The films cinematography is shot to reinforce the thematic concerns of the film. As the name of the title ‘The distant gaze’ is shot from a long distance onlooking public interactions with a kind of voyeuristic nature. Some consistent themes that I picked up were children, pets, feet, hands, facial interactions and emotion. The voiceover at the start sets a poetic overtone as the music matches the pace of the film. The structure I think s reinforced through the shot of the man talking to the woman within the crowd, This structure the film as it I seemingly the only shot which the viewer is returned to in the film.

A4:

From reading – The art of documentary by Megan Cunningham

The first point interests me not because it is completely new concept but because the way in which Haskell Wexler described his idea of filming reality. Wexler states that once images are recorded by a medium they cease to be reality and that the simple selective process of deciding what to frame negates any form of reality, the image then become the filmmakers reality and by doing so may not represent the truth. Perhaps it is naive of me but before reading this I had known the process of filming was inherently selecting a certain perspective or reality but I had not always tied that directly to the filmmaker. Nevertheless I still think this concept is interesting especially when applied to particular situations for instance in a film with multiple directors/ camera men whose ‘reality’ is it? Can you in some cases say that the film is a result of a shared or collaborative reality etc.

Another section from this reading that interested me was where she asked Wexler about creative conflict and how she deals with it. From her answer is seems that her decision is to push the director to define what they are looking for, she then goes onto say that directors can also give contradictory direction.  It seems the methods Hexler suggests center on poor planning and vague or contradictory direction. I think we can utilize this in our production by putting more emphasis on pre production and making sure whoever is directing as a strong concept of the direction they wish to take the film in as well as being able to define that direction and communicate it effectively to the rest of the crew.

The technical aspects and the quality of my recordings were fine although I think the abstract clip would have benefitted from recording some more diverse audio snippets. I also think that if I the same concept I had set for the video recordings in mind when I was recording audio that the clip might be more harmonious. I tried to search the web for fitting music/audio track but I couldn’t find anything that fit my vision so I resorted to use the audio recordings although I think they didn’t encapsulate the original visual concept.

I feel like the abstract qualities in the clip were mostly created in the editing process through the juxtaposition of clips and manipulation of time. My audio track was designed to give generate build the atmosphere of the clip and to attempt to give the clip a loose idea of space in which it was filmed.

With my video track I attempted to experiment by manipulating time and emphasizing moments of pause. The original concept for our visual track was mechanisms but as the audio track did not ideally match I adapted my concept towards attempt to express movements of pause. I think this concept is most prevalent during the last shot with the tram, as the tram comes to a stop times compresses and I used the passing cars as a form of transition to layer both the image and audio of the fountain. The is aiming to evoke more calming slow emotions in contrast with the speed and chaos of the tram/city.

I think this exercise reinforced for me different ways in which layering of both audio and video can be juxtaposed to create new meaning past that of the original material.