Category: Finding The Ear

THE BARGAIN

To make a film most likely you need a few critical things. You need a cast, a crew and you need equipment to record the film. Right now we have a crew, with our group and the post apocalyptic group joining forces for this one. We have our main cast ready, because really we only need Jon for all our shots at least. But to breakdown what equipment we need is hard. Of course we need a camera, which I assume would be Tan’s DSLR, and audio equipment, which will have to be a boom mic borrowed from uni. But I’ve been analysing the script a bit more, and with such little dialogue the sound design will need to have more within it to keep people intrigued. I think this is where we will need to employ some hard work with the sound design, which would mean spending a lot of time in post to create the perfect soundscape. So that means we need to shoot principal photography as soon as possible, and that means scheduling things fast. So I have made a poll for the group to suggest times for shooting.

doodle poll TIM

I’ve been previously using the website Doodle, because it is amazing with its simplicity and capabilities. It’s an amazing tool for me to use as a producer, but also to just plan things in general. I actually was introduced to the site through a friend who is currently producing a lot of shows through RMITV. As part of my own personal journey and growth in this class I asked a lot of the people I knew who had previously produced things to give me some tips and advice on all things producing. I also searched up some producers, because I didn’t realise that producing was such an under appreciated role to have in a film. I also saw that in line with the trend of under-representation in Hollywood today women don’t feature as much as men do, and especially no Asian representation was existent in my research. It’s concerning that this role can be so crucial to the creation of a project, and yet receive very little mainstream praise. But it is a job that I am willing to learn and to take on, and right now it’s definitely been eye opening. There is so much to consider, and after browsing through the links that James gave us, I have made a mini budgeting/scheduling plan sheet for the project. It still needs some fleshing out, but essentially I broke it down to 3 parts and then what goes within those individual processes.

This is just a quick breakdown of my Pre-Production:

-Script > Storyboard > Shotlist

-Casting > Costuming + Media Releases

-Location > Permits

 

References

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/successful-female-producers-hollywood/

https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/filmmaking/Budgeting/a_z.aspx

BUILDING THE BARRICADE

Okay so I’m currently lost on how to approach the scouting. My first instinct when I read the gig scene was to shoot it in a dark secluded room, with minimal background and the only requirements we needed were a stage and lights. Now I feel like we need more than that, and luckily enough The John Curtain on the corner right next to building 57 has a pretty good relationship with the uni. It’s actually about to host a lot of Monday night gigs, and one of my friends has confirmed that it is part of their course to organize these weekly gigs. I think I have just found my solution to the band problem we were facing when discussing casting. If he is to be wrangling the night, then it will be easy for me to gain permission from not just the venue but actual bands playing that night for permission to film during their show. It would require a lot of planning, especially with which shots we will need and definitely need to be executed very fast as to not ruin the show, but otherwise I do believe that we have a set plan and venue. I’m probably going to ask James for his opinion on this, and if he has any tips for us to be shooting in such a public heavy scenario. It may just be a case of me carrying around a lot of location and media release forms.

Here’s too a hopeful start. Oh and by the way, my friends gig is scheduled May 23rd, so maybe it may be one of the last shots we take in our timeline. Right now I think we can definitely fit the bulk of shooting with week 10, but you never know with casting still technically unconfirmed. I guess this makes me a bad producer, but hey, this class is all about trying things out and learning the process, and so far I am definitely learning a few things I didn’t expect.

NIGHT OF ANGUISH

File_000

So I can’t draw. As you can see from above my artistic technique isn’t up to industry standards, but you can sure as hell know I tried. I haven’t actually done a lot of storyboarding myself, so to do this part I went on a rampage of scouring the internet for good storyboards and came across “Visionary Director” Zack Snyder’s work. He brings a certain amount of life into his work, and using Watchmen as an example we can all see he can make a scene look visually dynamic. I particular enjoy the fact that he stayed very true to the original source material in the comics, which in my head also means he gets an advantage with having pictures already there as guidelines, but still it’s super cool.

Now as we were discussing in class the other day, storyboards play a fundamental part in any production. It allows for us to visualize what we have in our heads and show everyone else what you want to create. The images obviously allow the director to show everyone else involved, especially the cinematographer, what they have envisioned and acts as a great starting point for where to start shot composition. Now in our case, our storyboards are going to be very flexible, because I honestly can’t draw even if my life depended on it. This took me at least an hour of trial and error to create. So my night was definitely eventful. But one thing I did find that I was very good at was writing notes, specifically commenting on the individual shots and their significance within the film. Since we have very little dialogue at all in the film, I wanted to make sure that the visuals were able convey enough of the story to make sense. It’s one thing to have words there describing the significance of each scene, but with my extra notes I made sure that the reasons behind each camera and diagetic movement had a purpose. It definitely adds more time to the storyboard process, so as a group we split up key scenes within the script so that the person who envisioned it first or most clearly would be able to do that scene justice to what they initially pictured.

So far it is going okay, I do feel like I’m the black-sheep here dragging everyone down with this component. But just you wait till we have to organize people and stuff, I’m going to produce the shit out of this project.

 

References

http://www.slashfilm.com/zack-snyder-reveals-watchmen-storyboards/

DRINK WITH ME

young jon

This is Jon Miranda. He is the Leonardo DiCaprio to my Martin Scorsese because he has literally been in all of my current student works. He is also one of my best friends and is very much going to be one for as long as possible. He is also going to play our Tim for the project and I am also very pleased to be able to continue on our tradition of using him in everything I’ve made for uni. No like seriously go back through this blog and you will see this face.

Now with the casting process we haven’t made much head-way aside from having a great man portraying our confused Tim. However it isn’t going to be too hard to find some extras and girls to play small roles in our film. I’ve already contacted the RMIT Troupe for some potential people, and our group all have friends that are happy to play small characters such as the girls that bully him from the sidelines. The main focus of the film is Tim, so it’s no big deal that we don’t really cast anyone else permanently for a role yet. The only thing I am worried about right now is the band. Yeah, THE Band. As in the one that Tim has been obsessed with and is currently becoming more and more attached to. We at first didn’t want to showcase the band at all, or even let them appear on screen, but after a few comment from James in class, we have revised this and have opened up to the possibility of featuring a band, a very real public band. It’s just going to be hard to first find one that is willing to be on camera, and also a venue that is willing to let us shoot with the band for a fake gig. I’m probably going to have to hit up some contacts I made through my Music Video class this summer and hopefully find someone soon to be our band, but until then just enjoy this quick profile of Jon below.

 

sad jon

Name: Jon Miranda

Age: 20

Background: Musician, actor, competent chef, Awesome Dungeon Master

Experience: 3 (poorly executed) student films (but don’t worry he was great), a music video

Ability to grow facial hair for the role: Yes

Eagerness to play a depressing character: Mildly Intrigued

Cost: Probably lunch, a few drinks, and a new dice set

What does he bring to the character of Tim: With his small stature and very melancholy facial expressions, I believe he can do a great Tim. He is also familiar with the ideas behind Tim’s motivations, since he comes from a media and music background. Jon is also available anyday of the week, so scheduling his scenes will be easy as pie.

 

 

LITTLE PEOPLE

Reasons & Research

If you’ve read my blogs you would know that I love KPOP. Like I seriously love KPOP. Just to prove a point I’m going to link one of my favourite songs right now so that I can just share how amazing and diverse KPOP can be.

Now that you’ve seen the awesomeness that is KPOP, you can understand why I love it so much. It’s more than flashy effects, beautiful idols and dance moves. It’s also the focus point of a growing international community. It draws in millions of fans worldwide, and just by YouTube views alone it is one of the leading music industries in the world right now. But with any fandom there are negatives, and KPOP fan-culture has a lot of them. This is my obsession, and whenever I try to think about what Tim would do for his band, I just think what I would do for KPOP. It’s scarily not too hard, and that’s the reason why I want to make this film.

It’s also because I’ve been surrounded by obsessive cultures my whole life as well. Growing up I watched anime and read Japanese manga for almost 6 hours a day. I would come home from school and consume this entertainment mindlessly. And I’m not alone with this destructive behaviour. There is now a growing otaku population in Japan and Western cultures, who’s only purpose in life is to consume and dedicate time towards fictional worlds and characters. This area has been studied before, with people hypothesizing that with the growing number of products and their availability that this behaviour was going to rise anyway, but I believe it is also because social media and the internet has made it all so much more accessible that we have this issue today. I mean looking back over the last century we had the Beatles with their fangirls, and now it’s no different. The only difference is that it is so much easier today to stalk you idol by hacking into their persona accounts or to use advanced surveillance hardware and software to monitor their every move. To become a celebrity today is to make your life a public spectacle apparently, and I want to see why people go into this space of no privacy anymore.

Below are a few readings I’ve found that comment on Japanese fandom culture, which could be translated to both Korean sasaengs and Western fanboys.

References

Stevens, C. (2010) You Are What You Buy: Postmodern Consumption and Fandom of Japanese Popular Culture Japanese Studies pp199-214

Cubbison, L. (2005) Anime Fans, DVDs, and the Authentic Text The Velvet Light Trap – A Critical Journal of Film and Television pp45-57

 

CASTLE ON A CLOUD

So what’s been going on since I uploaded all those assessments for this class. Well I think it is safe to say that I am definitely enjoying this class. It’s fun, enriching and currently I’m able to just work freely on a project that I am becoming more and more invested in. I haven’t truly made my own project in a while and now it feels like I get to express my artistic creativity and ideas like I wanted to do with this course. Now this post is a part of my journey through the class, or at least that what I interpret project brief 3 as. It’s a way for James to see my work ethic, and the processes I’ve been going through to get to the finished project, and I think I too want to know what’s going on as well. It’s difficult for me to just make so many things on the spot, especially a complete short film with actors, location, shotlists and a script. So I think this will be my starting post for this part of the class.

So in this installment I just want to outline my personal timeline with this project, or at least have my checklist outlined clearly for myself. We’ve already got the character breakdown perfect, and Tim is coming across great in all of the members heads, but now we have to figure out exactly what needs to be done to get to that final project.

checklist

This is my official breakdown of what I hopefully will be writing about. Not obviously in that order, because we all know we need a script before we do a shotlist, but its a good guide for me. But the first thing I want to do is go more into the research behind this project, specifically why the concept of Tim intrigues me so much. So in the next issue(?) blog piece thing I will be going through my reasons and research behind the fan culture aspect of this film.

IN MY LIFE

I’ll start from the beginning since it’s the easiest place to go from. The prompt that my group and I received was the following.

“Suppose I shot you. How’d that be?

Some people will do anything for love.”

It wasn’t particularly familiar to myself, but Sam vaguely recognised it, and we found out that the first part was a quote for the 1973 film “Badlands”. The story actually follows along with the theme of people doing ridiculous and dangerous things for their love, and I latched onto that part of the prompt when trying to develop a story, or concept to explore. We didn’t have much success the first few nights, but we did agree as a group that a purely romantic angle just wasn’t something we would be interested in doing. Seeing people fight bad guys, and chase down kidnappers for their loved ones has happened time and time again in film; think the Taken series or Romeo + Juliet. So we wanted to just think outside the box with our prompt, which funnily enough prompted us to go with an obsession angle instead. So instead of people doing anything their love asks for, how about them doing things to receive that love. From there we finally landed on our fan concept, and developed a possible story about following a day in the life of a (potential) stalker.

I personally liked the idea of exploring fan mentality and a stalkers psychology because we are constantly surrounded by people who claim to be “massive fans” of things all the time. I mean, I too am a huge lover of KPOP and have said on multiple occasions that I would do anything to go to a real live KPOP concert in Australia, even if it put me at a financial disadvantage. In that sense I was willing to do almost anything for my love for KPOP, and when we were creating the character of Tim I think I projected some of my fears into him. I’ve read countless stories about fans taking things too far, especially about stalkers that don’t understand boundaries, and I think that it is definitely an interesting concept to uncover. It was actually disturbing to research the area as well, delving into the world of people who have decided to actively abandon society and responsibilities, and then focus on one aspect of celebrity culture to define their life. It felt strangely familiar but also very obscene. I knew I wouldn’t become one of these people, but there was still a chance that any regular fan could take that final step.

As a group, with Sam spearheading the conversation, we decided that Tim wouldn’t be the fully developed psychopath that people have written listicles about. We found him to be driven by a need to fill his empty social life, and find love in something that wouldn’t reject him. We went into the depths of his personality, deconstructing this character down to his childhood fears, which by the way were abandonment and clowns, but we didn’t stop there. We made sure to understand this person, and after reading so many stories and articles on people’s live changing and their evolution into madness, I kind of understood where people like Tim came from. It was a lack of self-confidence, motivation and love in their lives that turned them towards their idols. Celebrity Worship Syndrome was a real thing that got the best of people who weren’t prepared to dedicate their lives to something completely unhealthy. By now I had gotten a real sense of who Tim was, I knew how his parents never spent time with him, how his high school friends never truly cared for him, and how his opinion on life was non-existent. He just didn’t care about anything else, aside from his love for this local band.

Once we had the psychological mindset of Tim locked-down we worked on the script, or possible narrative we could follow with such a character. To keep things simple Sam shared his idea to follow a day in his life, starting with him waking up apathetically to work and ending with him rejoicing in glory of his favourite band. As a group we split off from there to develop the story separately, and Tristan also came back with his own script. His one was more sinister, and had a harder edge of violence and unease to it, while Sam’s script was a basic outline of events in which we could observe how he reacts to these environments. From a producer’s perspective Sam’s script was the logical choice, since it was logistically easier to make, and would require less headaches in the process, but my inner fan side understood the importance of having Tristan’s more violent script. In the end we stuck with the first initial ideas of keep Tim a more humane person, rather than puching him over the edge, and with that we also realised that there was a bit of Tim in all of us. I had also thrown out the idea of making a mini series of short films, similar to that of “Small Deaths” where we follow Tim, or any number of other fans throughout their different stages of obsession. But for now we all agreed that the single storyline was engaging enough as a concept to create a short film about.

In addition to writing a script and planning out our characters motivations, we also decided to take some concept shots to help with our pitch in class. These were done by Tan, who had a clear vision of the style we should shoot this film. We encountered some interesting boundaries while shooting these clips, especially when the boys were recording their bathroom mirror scene, since well, I couldn’t help them out as much. But being in the mindset of shooting things and visualising what event will be played out, Tan had heaps of creative ideas to establish shots, and have movement in scenes.

The entire group has had amazing creative input to this pitch, and I am very happy with the progress we’ve made. We have looked into using possible locations around campus as well, and from here I believe we can just fill in the gaps for the potential encounters our protagonist will have. We stress that this film isn’t supposed to linger on the actual events themselves but the way they represent Tim’s internal dialogue and mentality. As a producer, people usually fit me into an admin box, but I’ve also got to have creative solutions to problems, and I think I can think up of a few ways that we can present Tim as the human being he is, without mocking or judging his flaws. It is now just a matter of developing the final script and listing down the essential shots we need to properly convey a quiet and distant person’s opinion. I don’t want to fall into the trap of using narration, but there has got to be a million different ways we can accomplish our goal.

 

Reference list

Badlands Quotes (1973), IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069762/quotes

Craziest Celebrity Stalkers (2013), Popcrush.com, http://popcrush.com/the-10-craziest-celebrity-stalkers/

Celebrity Stalking Victims, NYDailyNews.com, http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/celebrity-stalking-victims-gallery-1.45896?pmSlide=1.89966

Murphy, M. (2012). The Psychology Behind Celebrity Worship, Knowji, https://celebrities.knoji.com/the-psychology-behind-celebrity-worship/

Maltby, J., Houran, J., Lange, R., Ashe, D., & McCutcheon, L.E. (2002). Thou Shalt Worship No Other Gods – Unless They Are Celebrities. Personality and Individual Differences, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886901000599

Maltby, J., Day, L., McCutcheon, L.E., Houran, J. & Ashe, D. (2006). Extreme celebrity worship, fantasy proneness and dissociation: Developing the measurement and understanding of celebrity worship within a clinical personality context. Personality and Individual Difference http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886905002552

Chapman, J. Do You Worship the Celebs?, Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-176598/Do-worship-celebs.html

Depression Isn’t Always Obvious (2016), Buzzfeed Motion Pictures, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yq6W7YAHM4

THE RUNAWAY CART

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Pc6cBP-8U

Above is a short film that has helped me understand and appreciate a lot of small details within cinema. Like the significance of short stories. Not just the genre of short film, but the art of producing a short story that is cohesive, intriguing, and complete. The kind of short films that have no need for grand gesture or huge plot twists, and doesn’t force the story to be something that it isn’t. I want to draw a comparison here to one of my other blog posts which was focused on Christopher Nolan’s “DOODLEBUG”, and juxtapose these films on their narrative and theme. While “Two Cars, One Night” is clearly outlined and doesn’t draw too much away from the events of what’s happening on screen, Nolan’s work ends with him reaching for something bigger than what it is.

This film shows us how short films can just be a small scene that stems from one idea. Like insight into how things could be, or trialing a “what-if” scenario. There’s no 7 part story arc, or rushed character development, it can just be a small exploration of an unlikely environment that we as an audience would probably not experience in real life. Small and simple, it doesn’t need to conclude with something specific, just showcase an encounter just like Taika Waititi did.

From the title alone you can almost see the simplicity of the short film, they didn’t give it some dramatic title to pull people in, or click bait styled writing of “3 KIDS ABANDONED BY PARENTS IN CARS, WHAT THEY DO NEXT IS SHOCKING” it just tells it like it is, and I appreciate that in any film. James, my tutor, which I’m assuming is going to be the only one reading this, has said himself that he hates films that go for the formulaic and Hollywood style of writing a short film. So I’m glad he thinks in a similar way to me. It’s actually refreshing to watch films like these that don’t take things too far, or too seriously, and after watching Two Cars, and Zombae I have rekindled my love for short film and am eager to see what I can produce that could be similar to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW2EenhN3wQ

 

 

I DREAMED A DREAM

It’s weird, it’s strange and it’s absurd.

David Lynch’s 2007 short film positions me with a whirlwind of feelings and emotions. Especially the sound design for the film grips my attention immediately. James mentioned in class how the disembodied voices seem like their in separate rooms to the main narrator, and upon a second viewing I totally agree. The quirky use of grabbing a megaphone offscreen and having the actor yell through it had me enjoying the short even more. I know this isn’t supposed to be a review type of blog, but today’s class presented a lot of great short films that were more my speed.

Now after extensive research on the interwebs, which translates to me spending about 10 minutes after class on imdb and other miscellaneous fact sites, I couldn’t find anything of significance regarding his short aside from the fact that it was a part of the “To Each His Own Cinema” anthology series released at the 2007 Cannes film festival. Now after learning this, I thought about how “Absurda” would fit along with other films in the series, since Lynch is known for being very abstract and incoherent. But I don’t have the patience to search and watch all 34 short films, but eventually one day I will experience it.

So it’s not a priority right now but what I am most interested in here is the sound design of the short film, and how it engaged me so well. I feel like it’s the style I would love to adapt into my future work, utilizing the different intensities that Lynch used. Especially since the shot was very static with things only moving in frame and sound occurring outside of it, it really created the illusion of a dream.

So where do I go from here? Well I’m going to definitely look more into David Lynch’s work, especially his sound design, but I am weary of the amount of weird I will have to shift through. If “The Alphabet” was any indication of how grotesque and abstract his work can get I am both excited and scared to find more like it, although I’m not exactly shy of watching some weird things myself. I’m going to link a music video which I find shares a lot of similar themes in composition and editing. Lynch’s visual really reminded me of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s work, and maybe this is an indication that eventually I can get into his work some more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvtoyk9DisM

References

Everything Explained Today, http://everything.explained.today/To_Each_His_Own_Cinema/

WHO AM I?

So I noticed a theme during the first class of James screening the first short films created by some big Hollywood directors of today, and wondered if there was anything specific in his reasoning behind why he showed us these films in particular. They all definitely were easier to draw people’s attention, because if you know anything about introducing new people into something else, you should always draw upon previous knowledge or things the new person is familiar with already to help ease them into being exposed to something new or unfamiliar. So from a teaching perspective it would definitely help students grasp new ideas with familiar names attached to them. But I think it also gave us an insight of how these people started off their careers and shows us that those big Hollywood men started from the bottom too. I gives hope to the beginner film-maker that not everything has to be A grade for them to be successful. It showed me at least that as these men were exploring their own style they were allowed to make mistakes and have humble beginnings as well.

I want to focus specifically on Martin Scorsese’s short film that was shown in class, “What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This.” It was his beginning, and it definitely has the beginnings of his own flair and style of film-making. It’s a blend of comedy, mafia, and noir. The use of narration has been a staple in his future work, and his use of images is quirky and definitely something I would love to replicate in my own work. There was an interesting quote that I found about how Scorsese himself see’s his “first” film. He claims that it wasn’t focused on narrative or characters, and “more to do with the way the film looked and was cut than anything else.”

I think it was an exercise in editing for him as much as it was a debut for his style. It’s not the greatest of films, but he didn’t intend for it to be something to be taken seriously. Even his characters aren’t taken seriously, especially his friend in the short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWs1SM0xYiI

 

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-use-analogies-to-introduce-new-ideas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_a_Nice_Girl_Like_You_Doing_in_a_Place_Like_This%3F

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatsAnXLikeYouDoingInAYLikeThis

http://www.slashfilm.com/bid-directors-small-films-martin-scorseses-whats-a-nice-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this/