I am going to shoot several scenes of daily routine of a person’s life, a girl. I will focus on the specific, small, detailed and ordinary life events, for example (the events I have in mind) getting dressed, putting on or take off make ups, getting up in the morning, eating, putting away stuff in bag… Those events are all very small and they happen to everyone every day. I am thinking to shoot some scenes that this girl is with other people, both when she is alone and has communication with others. There might be some narrations as well, but I haven’t thought of a good one, maybe something will come out when I start shooting. I want to show the power of the real moment- it may not look that bright and wonderful from outside, but the beauty of it is that it’s real and ordinary. Also I want to create mysterious atmosphere, so I will find different framing and angles to show some parts of the girl but not her face (can be a blurry one). When shooting there will be a mark on her that shows it’s her. In my shooting, there must be direction, performance and staging. My aim is to make it look beautiful, so in that case, I have to consider lighting and mise-en-scene as well. I will try different lighting in different events. I am going to work with my best friend, ask her to be may actress. We share experience and know each other very well. And the girl in the short film is actually an insinuate figure of myself. So when I work with her, I will direct her to act me. Because she knows me and we are close, I think that it will be easier for us to communicate. On the other hand, I’m thinking to look for someone from casting list. It would make me gain some experience of working with someone who’s actually in acting.
In week7, I had a talk with Paul. We talked about my idea about the short film, and wrote down some notes. The next thing is get started!! I’m kind of excited about all this, I think it’s really a good challenging. Now I am just thinking about it, when actually doing it, I might run into some problems, and it’s not like what I thought. Also, I might have some new directions and discovery and may change the plan- I am aware of all this.
plan for the shooting
-series of scenes (shoots I want to get in every scene)
1. getting up in the morning
alarm, phone, framing from back, curtains, windows, view outside window, the bedroom(mise-en-scene), framing her feet, barefoot walking…
2. getting dressed
closet, mirror, put on and take off, can’t decide what to wear, bed full of clothes…
3. removing make up in bathroom
shots of make-ups(mise-en-scene), shots of cabinet behind the mirror(mise-en-scene), squeeze face soap, toothbrush, water trickling along her arms, clean nails, brush her hair, spread face cream…
4. putting away bags
Bag, make ups, wallet, take things out one by one-put things in one by one, shot of things in bag…
5. making tea
open tea package, tea bag, tea bag into the glass, pouring water, tea bag in water, seize the tea bag up and down, shot of her drinking tea-framing up to her mouth only…
…
-location
My best friend, Phoebe’s apartment- bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room and balcony.
-lighting
Morning-sunrise-refresh-hopeful
Afternoon-relaxing-lazy-bright-quite
Evening-tired-unburden-to be true oneself
The lighting in cinema is never the natural lights no matter how natural it looks like. My plan is to get several laps and try to create a suitable lighting for different scenarios.
-camera
For the following weeks, I will keep shooting. Every time I have some sparks in my head, I might grab my DSLR to shoot. Every Friday I will borrow the film camera from Building 9 and shooting some well-planed shoots.
For camera movements, I will use hand held more because lots of my shoots have a tight framing. Also handheld make me more flexible with shooting angles and framing.
-casting
I am going to work with my best friend Phoebe who know me very well. In the scene, she is acting me. I will communicate with her in advance, also I will be directing her when shooting. I think that it is easier for her to understand my direction and what I want to get out of the shooting based on the closeness between us and good communication.
-mise-en-scene
-shooting exercise
I shoot a scene where the girl is making tea. In this scene I tried something out and tried to create the tone I want to achieve in my final short film. Here is it. Just a practice.
I got lots of epiphanies during work, discussion with classmates blog reading.
-tags of film
I used to think that a good film must has a good drama, something different, something new and something not tacky. However I realize recently that a film can be great even it doesn’t have a good drama in it. I first realize this is when I was doing narrative and authorship in cinema 1 year ago, then we learned French New Wave which is not much to do with great plot or drama. Then I did Documentary: True Lies, I had more knowledge about documentary. For the first time, I see the power of real. There is staging and direction in documentary, there is simply recording in it too. In film3, I realize that we are using both drama and documentary to create something new. There can be the authentic of documentary, there can be exquisite of drama, there can be both. For me, I am trying to create something real and beautiful, I want to show the power of real using good cinematography. CINEMATOGRAPHY is the thing I want to work on this semester.
-when editing
When I edit my shooting before, I was just putting the footages together, simply cut and paste, and then find some music that fits it. And I think that something is missing. When look at Lisa’s work the other day, I found that she changed the speed of people walking, and I think it looks really good and funny. There is real editing in it. Also she used split screen in one of her exercise. In the two split screen, we can only see half part of the two people. When watching it, we focus more on difference of their actions because of split screen. I think this is a great idea, and it is something worth trying in the future.
-about moments
In documentary, I think that moments are causal. By causal I mean it can be the beginning of something, in the middle of something, or at the end of something, it just happens, and it’s just recording. Although it’s just recording, you can still staging it.
-about sounds
There can be suitable background music, there can be voice-over, related or not related to the film, there can be just silence except characters in it make a noise…
What I am going to shoot for my short film just reminds me of this movie I watched before, Une femme est une femme. I remember that some one once said that this movie just doesn’t make any senses but I just like it. In the movie, there is not that much narration, but there is lots of performance. And the cinematography is awesome. It is just beautiful to look at.
Une femme est une femme is a French movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring by Jean-Claude Brialy and Anna Karina. It is the typical representation of French New Wave. This kind of filmmaking style was active during the period between 1950s and 1960s. The New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, along with their spirit of youthful iconoclasm, the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. ‘New Wave’ is an example of European Art Cinema. In the film, the most noticeable is the applying of sounds. Differ from the classical narrative movie, the sound is very jumpy. It usually goes and stops. The movie has a strong focus on the principals’ psychologies struggling. It is presented in a very realistic, relaxing and funny way.
Generally, art cinema started to appear after World War II when the Hollywood cinema was beginning to wane. Overseas market and exhibition platforms are very essential for film production. After 1954, films started to be made for a wider audience, international audience. American film made their own screen time by sponsoring foreign production. The art cinema is an important factor of economy then, so it is developed well and continues.
The classical narrative cinema refers to ‘cause-effect logic and narrative parallelism generate a narrative which projects its action through psychologically defined, goal oriented characters’. However art cinema is different from the classical narrative cinema. It is specifically against the cause-effect linkage of events. Basically, the art cinema’s narrative is driven by two principles, realism and authorial expressivity. By realism, it meant that it shows the audience the real location and problem. Also sexual is a part of reality. What’s more, the most important one is the psychologically complex characters. In classical narrative cinema, characters usually have a defined desire and goal. Meanwhile in art cinema, characters lack defined desires or goals. So characters are usually act for consistent reasons and even ask themselves about their goals. So in art cinema, characters are usually expressing and explaining their psychological states. ‘Violations of classical conception of time and space are justified as the intrusion of an unpredictable and contingent daily reality or as the subjective reality of complex characters.’
Art cinema is not exactly isolated from other cinematic practices. It has neighbors on each side. They are classical narrative cinema and modernist cinema respectively. The former one is the historically dominant mode, the latter one is all about perceptual play, no thematic ambivalence at all. ‘If Hollywood is adopting traits of the art cinema, that process must been seen as not simply copying but complex transformation. In particular, American film genre intervene to wrap art-cinema conventions in new direction’.
Reference: ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’ in Catherine Fowler (ed) The European Cinema Reader. Routledge. London & New York. 2002. pp. 94-102
In this week, we start to talk about work individually. Like what we did last semester in the scene. For the rest of the semester, we will find our own focusing area of filmmaking and explore and research it.
I want to talk about my idea roughly first. I am going to shoot several scenes of daily routine of a person’s life, a girl. I will focus on the specific, small, detailed and ordinary life events, for example (the events I have in mind) getting dressed, putting on or take off make ups, getting up in the morning, eating, putting away stuff in bag… Those events are all very small and they happen to everyone every day. I am thinking to shoot some scenes that this girl is with other people, both when she is alone and has communication with others. There might be some narrations as well, but I haven’t thought of a good one, maybe something will come out when I start shooting. I want to show the power of the real moment- it may not look that bright and wonderful from outside, but the beauty of it is that it’s real and ordinary. Also I want to create mysterious atmosphere, so I will find different framing and angles to show some parts of the girl but not her face (can be a blurry one). When shooting there will be a mark on her that shows it’s her. In my shooting, there must be direction, performance and staging. My aim is to make it look beautiful, so in that case, I have to consider lighting and mise-en-scene as well. I will try different lighting in different events. I am going to work with my best friend, ask her to be may actress. We share experience and know each other very well. And the girl in the short film is actually an insinuate figure of myself. So when I work with her, I will direct her to act me. Because she knows me and we are close, I think that it will be easier for us to communicate. On the other hand, I’m thinking to look for someone from casting list. It would make me gain some experience of working with someone who’s actually in acting.
When I look at my idea, the thing I am trying to create reminds me of the scene of the man and the woman talking in the room we saw on Friday. There isn’t lots of script in this scene, they are just talking stuff in a room. What draws me more attention is the mise-en-scene, the lighting, the costume and their kind of wired and funny interaction. It makes audience feel like that it is not important about the plot, it is just fun to watch them. What sparks here is the great cinematography, and this is also what I want to achieve in my final short film. We also watched few other scenes which are all interesting to me. The scene with the drunk guy in looks really great, it is like a documentary style, but it is really interesting and stylish. In the scene, the guy is always holding some alcohol in his hand, or sitting in a bar, or drinking with other people. One framing which zoom in to his mouth, he is speaking or singing something, it just looks so interesting. And the music and the words or the song he keeps singing is also very suitable for the scene. In addition, the scene about blind people is pretty amazing. When first look at the it, I don’t know this is about blind people, and when I look at the eye is being striped off, I was shocked. Then when I look at it again, I noticed everything is about sound in this scene, the sound of a train, the sound of crowded people, the sound of bird, etc. And they are all brought to audience powerfully. For the train part, audience can only see the wheels operating repeatedly, the more it repeats, the more you want to focus on the sound it makes. For the crowds part, director makes it blurry when editing, this make audience feel scared just like the blind people, they can’t see clearly. For the bird part, the bird is kind of locked in a hermetic room, the room is so plain and make you feel asphyxial, the only thing you can hear is the screaming of the bird.
Une femme est une femme is a French movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring by Jean-Claude Brialy and Anna Karina. It is the typical representation of French New Wave. This kind of filmmaking style was active during the period between 1950s and 1960s. The New Wave filmmakers were linke
d by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, along with their spirit of youthful iconoclasm, the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. ‘New Wave’ is an example of European Art Cinema. In the film, the most noticeable is the applying of sounds. Differ from the classical narrative movie, the sound is very jumpy. It usually goes and stops. The movie has a strong focus on the principals’ psychologies struggling. It is presented in a very realistic, relaxing and funny way.