Monthly Archives: April 2016

The case for Aldi Mobile

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Thinking of continuing your regular monthly $80 Optus bill? Think again. The future of mobile plans is here, and has been here, right under your nose, for a while now. Aldi Mobile.

Aldi, being the store that it is, is readily dismissed by people in the thousands and in the early days I will admit I had my doubts, but in this constantly changing, media-ridden world we are living in, having mobile data 24/7 is a growing necessity. I have no affiliation with Aldi and I am not secretly (and sadly) being paid to write this, this is a recommendation from the heart. Make the switch. Not only have they consistently won various Service Provider of the Year awards (trust the critics on this one) but they continue to up-the-ante of their plans, all the while keeping their prices constant; every couple of months they send out a nice little email detailing their nice little upgrades: this month it was the upgrade from a set amount of included minutes and SMSs to unlimited. What used to be solely for Aldi-to-Aldi users has expanded (and for the better for those on the Aldi side); look at the possibilities now. Alongside that, 4G (admittedly a little slow but hey, for $35 a month I’m not complaining) is rolling out in the next few weeks. You can’t go wrong.

Included in the fairly standard $35 XL package (of which I subscribe to) you are entitled to: unlimited calls and texts nationwide, 200 international minutes, 5GB of data and the added ability to add 1GB of data for only $10. They even use Telstra towers, so you know you’ll always be connected. Give it a go. All of my sensible friends are on it. I dare you. Trust Aldi, even if it is just this once. Some say it’s the greatest mobile plan of all time.

PB3: Progress update, y’all

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progress

Alas, here I am nearing the conclusion of my PB3 process. After missing (passing up on/being lazy to the point of frustration and quitting on/chickening out on) the opportunity to record my footage last week, I train’d it home (like I seem to have to do every weekend), launched myself into the latest season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (known to calm my anxiety in other situations), talked myself into the recording process (after previously talking myself out) and went for it. My nerves settled quite readily and I was able too conduct myself in a fairly professional and confident manner. Considering the fact that’s my interviewee (Graeme) is my girlfriend’s grandfather the affair was comfortably casual and he was willing to work his way through the designated questions with relative ease. The entire interview process clocked in at just over an hour (my eyes kept flicking over to the ZOOM mic to ensure that it hadn’t stopped recording or blow up in the minutes between), concluded on friendly terms, and gave me a little confidence boost on my ability to conduct quasi-‘professional’ media practice. Although I spoke little and left the answering up to Graeme (based on my self-conscious assertion that editing out external sounds is a pain in the ass; which it is) the process was enlightening, both in terms of honing my media skills and understanding the life of the man himself; and what a life it is.

I find editing quite soothing, not as stressful as others in this course seem to aggressively note. Again, my perfectionist nature (which I am slowly beginning to overcome, whether it be from sheer laziness or other things) ensures that no rookie mistakes are made (brief flashes of black screens, etc–although in saying this I bet I fuck up at least 3 different parts) and that I obsessively deliberate over what may be the finished product, deciding whether to leave it as is, or add/remove something else. I try to avoid the latter because I can’t make decisions. Premiere and Audition, at least at their most basic, are easy enough to traverse and pose no real problems for me (or my precious HP laptop which, unlike previous (school) laptops I’ve been forced to use). I spent 8+ hours editing yesterday and it was one of the best days of my life. I like editing.

Movies I’ve watched this week – 15/04/16

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Week #6??? I did what I thought I couldn’t and took a little off week.

 

45 Years (2016) dir. Andrew Haigh
11/04/16

A sensual piece from Haigh, almost acting as a companion piece to Michael Haneke’s Amour (2013), but with tragedy in truth as opposed to loss. Not too much to say about this as I was deathly tired when I saw it, and walked 20 minutes back home only to realise that I’d left my wallet in the cinema. A lady behind me bawled her eyes out. Big ups for the ending, and Haigh’s effortless and restrained direction. ★★★½

Enemy of the State (1998) dir. Tony Scott
12/04/16

Ah, vulgar auteurs, how I love you–some of the most interesting and visually creative directors working today (I’m looking at you, Michael Mann) fall under this umbrella, and Scott is as much of an auteur as the rest. Longing the day when I can marathon his catalogue.

Written for Letterboxd:

Humanity captured as fluctuating waveforms, blips on a radar, man’s physical existence bound spatially by invisible frequencies (the The Conversation homage) where the truth is perceptible only through deep lenses or played back on a tape. Conspiracy trumping conspiracy, where the state of paranoia is stomached because that’s all there is left to bear (“Baby, listen to this fascist gasbag.”). Paranoia as personal assets reimagined as polygons floating in government databases (who knew what Jack Black was capable of). Scott poses strands of the NSA as bumbling goons, hired thugs with their only dialogue colloquial (and always concerning haircuts); people who steal kitchen appliances for the fun of it (“I’ll be back for my blender.”), who hold all the control but know not what to do with it, always caught second place in a perpetually escalating hell-fire of a race (which concludes customarily in an epileptic culmination of blood and gunfire). A sensationalised view of American privacy of government property through and through, though not without Scott’s action film degradation (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production after all) which keeps activity high but fulfillment low. I still haven’t seen The Conversation, supposedly this film’s Big Brother? ★★★½

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) dir. Robert Altman
13/04/16

Altman season has started at the Cinematheque!!! Here, the man (the myth, the legend…) crafts the perfect ‘anti-Western’, a film less concerned with the stand-offs and the high-stake gang tensions than the power of capital and forbidden love. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a sensory overload; in usual Altman fashion characters speak all the time, all at once, as Leonard Cohen bursts the film into episodes of sorrowful Western ballots and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond boasts a widescreen Panavision spectacle (best for Westerns). Seen in not so glorious 35mm–never seen a print looks this rough. ★★★★

3 Women (1977) dir. Robert Altman
13/04/16
rewatch

Written for Letterboxd, last August: 

A vague, sensually confounding piece, a dream on-screen, a babbling dreamer and a graceful outsider’s formation of an inexplicable relationship. I am deathly in love with Altman’s style in every sense, his inquisitive zooms and ambient conversation, his free-flowing character interactions and longing shots. The recurrence of fantastical, feminine creatures and clear influences from Bergman’s Persona, along with the fact that the film literally is based on Altman’s dream leave something deeper to be found, uncovered and desired.

Written for my blog, now: 

I feel like my thoughts on this have stayed in line with my previous evaluation, though I’ll be damned if someone watched this alone at home and found it nearly as hilarious as the people in my cinema did–whether they were laughing at it or with it I don’t know. Likely a punch to the gut to many in the final minutes when, in a dreamy haze of superimpositions and tight strings, the more invisible titular 3rd woman has a miscarriage. The entirely of the concluding ~20 minutes is haunting, goosebump-inducing cinematographic fear. I don’t know if Altman can top Nashville (1975) at this point. ★★★★

 

I’m ready to get back into the action next week.

Director of Photography?

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Brian De Palma is a cinematographic gem; his works exert a vivid visual tour de force, capturing the true essence of cinema with every possible trick in the book. In a scene from his forgotten masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise (1974), De Palma pieces together a multitude cinematographic technique in a single (or double, due to his proficient use of split-screen) flowing take. The entirely of the shot (which focuses on a rehearsal by the film’s leading antagonistic band, The Juicy Fruits) poses itself as a tracking shot, following a car as it traverses backstage in one frame, and the band’s musical practice in the other. As it begins it centres on a long establishing shot, eventually alternating between long shots (focusing on dialogue between two or so characters) and concluding with quick a pan/zoom–from the car on which The Juicy Fruits are congregating, to a medium long shot of the Phantom, and eventuating in a close up of Swan, the film’s antagonist.

In this the frame is perpetually mobile, providing the viewer with a continuous look into the actions of the unsuspecting victims as the Phantom leads his opposition into oblivion. In the space of just 3 minutes, De Palma manufactures a wholly cinematic scene, utilising the camera to its full mobile extent and with it a lather of creeping tension. While De Palma tends to make his cinematographic choices as obvious as possible, opting for the artificial rather than the naturalistic, other directors, such as Zodiac‘s (2007) David Fincher who designs his clean visual style around the nuances of camerawork, see cinematography as the key to a film’s heart. Fincher is infamous for his perfectionist nature, known to force actors to reshoot a scene an insane amount of times (98 for a 6 minute sequence in The Social Network (2010)); stressing the importance of cinematography in its involvement with the overall film form (that, or his actors really just suck).

Week #5 Practical: An exercise in interview

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Interview Exercise PB3 from Samuel Harris on Vimeo.

This is experience was nothing short of disastrous; I’ve since learned I can’t perform formally in front of the camera, all my responses eventually drowning in a pit of informality, joke after joke. Like a mother on the phone, I subconsciously put on a voice (a weirdly exaggerated voice at that) which helps me in no way. This exercise also showed me that I have much to learn about documentary filmmaking, with the other members in my group having concise camera skills (I’m more of a ‘wing it’ kinda guy). The result is a gross mess of loud audio and nonsensical interview processes, but practice makes perfect (progress?) I guess. Don’t watch this (the thumbnail is stretched but I promise the actual video isn’t, I would never let that happen).

Noticing: in cinema

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An excerpt from Film Art: An Introduction:

“In both narrative and nonnarrative films, our eye also enjoys the formal play presented by unusual angles on familiar objects. “By reproducing the object from an unusual and striking angle,” writes Rudolf Arnheim, “the artist forces the spectator to take a keener interest, which goes beyond mere noticing or acceptance. The object thus photographed sometimes gains in reality, and the impression it makes is livelier and more arresting.””

Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2016). Film Art: An Introduction. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Documentary: The best of the best (that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen like two)

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Seeing as documentary made up the basis for today’s lectorial, here is a selection of my favourites: (everything is a blog-post from now on)

Searching for Sugar Man (2012) dir. Malik Bendjelloul

The best thing the media program at my highschool ever did was get us into a screening of this at our local independent cinema (Star Cinema, synonymous with the words ‘old people’; also renowned for the fact that it used couches instead of seats). I haven’t seen it since then, but whenever someone utters the word ‘documentary’ this is the first thing that comes to mind, followed by an instant recommendation. An essential for audiophiles and cinephiles alike. The most banging original soundtrack to come out of the 2010s.

 

Man on Wire (2008) dir. James Marsh

A truly breathtaking experience even at second-hand, the spectacle that is Philippe Petit’s high-wire routine is dissected and the cogs that make the man on wire himself tick are brought to the fore. The most banging original soundtrack of the 00s.

 

The Imposter (2012) dir. Bart Layton

As if Soderbergh’s Side Effects (2013) was documentary, with every minute detail giving clues to the wildest twists and turns you’ve ever seen. Speaks volumes about confirmation bias, and our own subjective viewpoint of the world; we see the world as we want to see it.

Week #6 Reading 1: Dramatic Development

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I’m a bit of a movie buff so most of this is background noise for me, but Rabiger definitely writes in such a carefree way that it’s hard not to enjoy. He speaks on behalf of documentary filmmaking, but speaks in a way that it encapsulates that of regular film too.

Again, Word is dead for me so this post will consist of both note-like sentences and blog-worthy evaluation.

Plot is the organisation of situations, circumstances, and events that pressure a story’s characters. 

“…the most fascinating characters often those contesting–heroically, and sometimes unsuccessfully– the way things simply are.” Think Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), think the Crimson Bolt in Super (2010), think Frances Halliday in Frances Ha (2012). Think from the eccentric satirisation suburban/urban life of The ‘Burbs (1989) or Pain & Gain (2013) to a more understated Mean Streets (1973); the mundane re-imagined as the extraordinary. This is the basis for documentary.

A dramatic hero may be flawed and even pitiable. He or she may contest the way things are from outrage, self-righteousness, ignorance, innocent, obstinacy, conceit, or a host of other reasons. 

Written more accessibly and in a more relaxed tone than the work of McKee (for the better), Rabiger knows his words aren’t to be taken as scripture and notes them as such, as opposed to the oppressive scribblings of the former. He seems less of the shouty guy from Adaptation. than McKee could ever try to be.

The three-act structure is an invaluable tool for organising story material. Apply it on a micro or a macro level–that is, to a single scene of the way scenes flow in an extended story. 

The dramatic curve is an invaluable tool when you direct because with it you can interpret the unfolding action you’re filming and decide how to shoot it. 

Rabiger’s point about how editing is really the “second chance to direct” struck me as particularly interesting, and a point which I will likely hold onto for future work. Apply the dramatic curve to your ideas, and use this judgement when shooting the action.

Pinpoint the apex or crisis of a scene, and the rest of the dramatic convention arranges itself naturally before and after the peak of the curve. 

“Indeed, you find this escalation of pressure up to a crisis then lowering down to resolution in songs, symphonies [etc]…because it is as fundamental to human existence as… sex.” Love your work, Rabiger.

A beat is when someone in a scene registers an important and irreversible change. Often it’s when participants realise they have lost or gained an important goal. A beat signals a new phase of action, so you must film them astutely since they are your film’s most intense and dramatic moments.