I am fully aware that my first pitch did not go well. Due to being ill for a few weeks, my head wasn’t really in the game and I was very unprepared. I should have come with visual aids and probably should have pitched my aesthetic rather than a loose idea of a narrative. I was influenced by The Shave that we watched in class, and by a music video by Bat for Lashes. My idea was to show a performer as they get their performing persona ready.

The transformation of regular person to someone completely different. The reason I discussed the idea of a drag queen was because of Bat for Lashes film clip for “Laura” where an aged “superstar” is reminiscing on the glory days and we see in the clip the transition between the person she is now and the younger star. Although a fantastic song, the video shows an interesting side of older performers and their place in society, while I would have liked to focus on the more invisible side of the performer – the human underneath. Either way I know that it wasn’t the strongest idea and wasn’t articulated very well which was due to my unpreparedness, but either way it was good to start thinking about these ideas to combine into what will hopefully be a more successful pitch for Film Project 2.

I’ve put the clip on this blog post in case you’d like to watch and get a sense of where I was going and the reason for this blog post is to point out that I’m aware of my terrible pitch BUT I swear I had a good idea and next time I will make sure to be more prepared, no matter if my body is trying to sabotage me.

Laura – Bat for Lashes

(I swear it’s a good song, number 30 in the hottest 100 for 2012, she beat Florence and the Machine that’s gotta say something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UznHTBZIa8E

Because of this studio I’ve been trying to read up more on colour theory and the use of different colours in films. I reviewed Gregg Araki’s fashion short for KENZO in a previous blog post which gives off the kind of aesthetic that I want to produce. The problem is, I have no idea how to articulate that kind of pallette. This first film project is not going to work with the kind of colours I’d like to use, so I’m attempting to find out as much as I can about the use of them before Film Pitch 2. I’m thinking this is a great way to pitch an idea that is completely open and can be used for anyone’s film idea with no constricts on plot, setting or characters just as long as the ideas work within the pallette. I have been reading “If it’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die” by Patti Bellantoni which is all about the use of colour in cinema. I’ll be referencing this line of theory for a lot of my projects as this is something I’d like to learn more about and utilize in my filmmaking.

Just for your reference James, I’m more interested in television as a medium and the current trend of “Cinematic Television”. I would like to make it clear that I have always been interested in TV (Yes, even before these kids created “binge” consumption.) and now that the medium is changing I feel like this is the direction I’ve always wanted it to go.

Let’s talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you go back and have a good look at the way Whedon develops the series you can see where the influence comes from. The idea that we have this 16 year old cheerleader who kills vampires is a great metaphor for the colour palette that i’m going for. On one hand, we have these teenagers (in the 90’s no less) who are decked out with bright colours, the small town of Sunnydale becomes its own character with the bright greens and clean tree lined streets. Though once the night falls and Buffy gets to work, the colours are immediately washed out and replaced with more vivid whites and greys. Except, of course, for any main villain or supporting character who will no doubt be wearing some form of colour to catch your eye. This aesthetic worked even when the show as produced in the late 90’s, so looking at more recent teen shows you can see where the influence comes from.

Speaking of teen shows, I’m going to quickly touch on Riverdale. Please note that Riverdale is terrible and I wouldn’t recommend it. I went in wanting to watch it because, well the Archie comics were awesome. Unfortunately for this 30 year old, I realised that I was watching a new concept teen Soap Opera. HOWEVER, as much as the expository dialogue and the blatant product placement makes you want to smash your tv screen, the cinematography is fantastic. As mentioned, Gregg Araki is one of my favourite directors and through looking at his short film with KENZO I discovered that he directed and episode of Season 2 of Riverdale, so I had to be brave and watch the episode he directed obviously. From watching this episode, I can see why he agreed to do it and why they asked him to direct. Araki’s aesthetic fits in so well with the concept of the show. Not enough to make me want to watch the rest, but I will for sure watch any more episodes that he directs.

Finally, another of my favourite directors is David Lynch. Going to the complete opposite side of the spectrum (pun intended) we should focus on Twin Peaks. I’m not going to talk about the original series, because I think i’ve made it quite clear on the colours and aethic i want to go for. The revival of the series was incredible and hard to follow, like Lynch himself. One thing I have always known about Lynch is that he is not just a filmmaker but a visual artist, and the most recent example of that is Twin Peaks: The Return Episode 8. Most people would be able to write Lynch off as just being weird but what he does in this episode is incredible. He creates a piece of moving artwork that not only gives a lot of back story (if you;re paying attention) but also gives his impression of what it would be like INSIDE an atomic explosion. The static and the noise affects you directly. I won’t go too much into it because I could write an essay about this episode, but the main point is the way he has made this episode. This is probably the earliest episode in the revival that deals with the supernatural directly. We see the blending of real events (the atom bomb) and surrealist elements that affect and are affected by this explosion. The intense moments and ‘magical realism’ themes that come through is something I’m really interested in playing with. Although this episode is mainly in black and white (and rightfully so, as it is Lynch) I would love to combine the elements that we see here with the “pop art” colour palette to create something incredibly unsettling, but very bright and good to look at,

When we first received the tasks for A2, I immediately had a few ideas for each video. From the start I knew that I wanted to combine portrait and dialogue by using a friend of mine who speaks italian so having a piece a dialogue spoken in both Italian and English. Talking to Lyreca, Joanna and Pavina, we all had similar ideas in regard to use of lighting and languages so we decided to work together on the project. We booked out a studio, got ourselves ready with the equipment and went to film our videos. The dialogue and multiple languages idea was easy with the girls, as they are all bilingual and I can only speak a little Japanese. We were a little disorganised when it came to filming, unfortunately I have been sick for the last few weeks and have been missing out on classes but i made sure to keep in contact via a facebook group that we have. Once we were in the studio, we had multiple equipment faults which set us back a few hours (then I had a class and had to run while the girls packed up).

We used two DSLR cameras, one sony and one canon. We also hired out a boom mic, and a zoom mic and both didn’t work. The Zoom mic record button was broken when it was given to us, and we weren’t supplied the cable to connect the boom mic to the cameras. When we went and grabbed the cables, we realised that the cameras we were using didn’t have a port for the cable so that ended up being useless. We eventually used a (working) Zoom mic and held it in our hands out of frame. During the planning stages, I told the others that I would love to do the cinematography for the shoot, but once we got the DSLR’s  I had to rely on the others to teach me how to use them as I have never used a DSLR in my life. Good learning experience for me as the others are all very familiar with out they work and what the shots would turn out to be, even noting that the Canon and Sony footages would be very different to each other. After my crash course, I did end up recording most of the footage with Lyreca helping for the handheld footage in our Joy/Hurt video. The lighting was probably the biggest challenge as I was really just messing with the lights until we got the correct colours that we wanted. Decreasing the “grab” gave us the purpleish filtered colour for “Hurt” and we jsut used a bright key lighting for “Joy”

We edited our projects together, with Lyreca and I working on Joy/Hurt and Joanna and Pavina on Dialogue/Portrait. Joanna and Pavina researched how to use a particular feature on Premiere which would layer the script of the language over the video to create a cool cut out effect. Lyreca and I had a bit of hard time editing together the Joy/Hurt as we wanted a clear transition between the two but found it hard to edit very similar footage without making it boring. Once we found the “Train moving through tunnel” effect, we knew it would work as the “hurt” portion. I ended up editing that portion to make an intense climax which comes to a sudden stop (channeling Lynch as much as I could). The issue came with Joy. We wanted to start with the footage, but we struggled to have any sound with it. “Joyful Music” made me cringe, but most of the sound effects we found that related were kids laughing and that just didn’t work. In the end we found a female laugh and a crowded bar ambience which we layered together. In the final cut however we used a song to contrast the train noise at the end.

In the end I’m happy with what we produced, however the only part I really am proud of is the “Hurt” portion of the Joy/hurt video. I just think it works together with the sound effects to push the “experimental” vibe of the video. I’m happy that we were motivated enough to get a studio and cameras from the techs, because now I know that we can use those studios whenever we want and how to operate a DSLR camera for film rather than photography. I think the reason why I enjoyed the “Hurt” part of our video more is because I’m looking to go more in that direction regarding cinematography and by looking more into films that use these styles and colours will help me develop a greater idea for film pitch 2.

Dialogue/Portrait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUoAtWWxRf8&feature=youtu.be

Joy/Hurt