Mood scene: I’m not sure how the dialogue works, but at least this gives the idea more structure.

For the rest of the semester I plan to undertake a few investigation for an idea of a scene that I have with the goal of achieving one final piece that I am happy with. I plan on keeping the script as basic as possible with only essential information relating to the scene in my head. Instead, providing the actors with mood pieces to read and reflect upon before acting hoping to provoke some sort of movement / improvisation / aesthetic for the piece. I will obviously provide them with something that will set a feel that I want to achieve, I got this idea after hearing that Mallick often provided his actors sometimes only with written pieces of information for them to read before a scene in order them to act a certain way. Which I like, as I think the spontaneity is something that I can work well with for a final edit. The scene I have devised helps to include all the technical and storyline aspects I want to address with my influences of Fincher and Mallick in mind. Here are three main points that I want to follow which will help me achieve a final piece –

– Use technical restraints formulated in order to create a final cohesive piece that looks consistent and that I am happy with.

– Undertake 1 or 2 practical tests in order to prepare for a final scene that will hopefully create an ending point.

– Rely heavily on spontaneity and serendipity for something that feels more natural

Today I just practiced some camera movements and colour corrections. I got a really good using a film LUT, changing exposures and a little of contrast! Ignore the Doo Wop classic, I didn’t really have any music or sound but it came our looking really nice. I used a aperture of 2.8 for the whole thing which helps as it has a consistently nice depth of field.

Link

I have come closer to deciding what I want to achieve and how I want to go about it. This might come out really weird and not thought into very much, which is kinda true but i just want to get the idea into writing. The idea of two people being in Limbo allows for some experimental elements, namely the supernatural floating part and a possible mini-montage. The scene will consist of two male characters in a plain room, there won’t be any introduction that they will be in limbo, one character will be quite stressed wanting really bad to leave, the other will be questioning / observing him. A simple dynamic that will hopefully allowing me to go nuts. I also want to include a Fincher element into it as well, possibly gore and blood, but i will have to wait and see. I practiced some camera movements today (Which I will upload on Friday) in my house and achieved a really nice correction using FCP Moving the Dark Exposure bar down and Light one slightly up. As well as using KDX as the final colour. Slight update of my thoughts and ramblings.

When I think back to the reason why I actually go to watch films, the reasoning behind my passion for the visual medium became clear. I always had a love for the visual spectacle of the films I went to. Notably the Harry Potter series, seeing something that you wouldn’t be able to experience in any other instance is something pretty special. The story is also important, and I like how directors like Malick use the visual experience as a tool for this.

• Pure Cinema – how camera and footage evoke emotion (not sure if that’s what pure cinema is? Double check that Tom)
• Want it to be influenced by others but have something new.  (Malick, Fincher)
• Filmed in one location over one day – Use friends as actors
• Need basic story with or without dialogue.
• Interested in the idea of having older sounding audio contrasted with newer footage.
• Small Production team

• Terrance Malick

Reasons why I chose these

• I want it to look good
• The reason why I go to films like them is for the cinematic experience.
• As I am only shooting  1 scene for this project I want to technically challenge myself, special effects etc.

• Terrance Malick uses landscape to define what are essentially philosophical and ethical issues and moves from tiny peripheral detail to epic perspective within a single shot” . (McCann 2007: 77).The spiritual and religious thematic in The Tree of Life.

• I’m not so much into philosophy however I like how he keeps a coherent style in the film, same with say Fincher and the Zodiac keeping the style consistent with the 50’s era. I would like pay homage to this somehow, whether I set my scene in a certain time period, or create a new one up etc.
• Im interested in the supernatural, which doesn’t have too much relation to the either Fincher or Malick. I do like their interest in the mental state of their characters which include supernatural elements. So this may form the basis of what I actually film.

• Technical Restraints
  • Consistent Aperture Exposure
  • Always work with back lights
  • Try only work with natural light (the exception being lights in rooms etc.)
  • Combination of steady, hand-held and tripod shots
  • iso below 400
  • Shutter speed double of FPS. — 24 fps = 50 —- 60 fps = 125

Epiphany

Just do everything heaps and you’ll have heaps to work with.

Reflection

This week we worked on a scene that was filmed on the staircase in building 5. It was a good experience to work with other groups and people and see how they work since discussing the working methods that we all now need to devise. It went well I was an actor so I didn’t have much input in the filming of it which i am fine with cause i know what it’s like to have 100 people telling you things while you are trying to workout a scene. I think technically we could have changed the exposure or iso so that it wasn’t so grainy but that’s only because i’m more of tech perfectionist. In terms of the shots, we were a bit restricted for space which we didn’t realise till we got the camera and tripod in the area. I think that definitely needs to be addressed for my personal project before I get into it on the day.

I have done some more research into Lubezki and Malick and they come up with some technical constraints to help preserve a certain style and aesthetic with the idea that “Art is made of constraints. When you don’t have any, you go crazy, because everything is possible.”

ARTICLE

These constraints came to be

•    Shoot in available natural light
•    Do not underexpose the negative Keep true blacks
•    Preserve the latitude in the image
•    Seek maximum resolution and fine grain
•    Seek depth with deep focus and stop: “Compose in depth”
•    Shoot in backlight for continuity and depth
•    Use negative fill to avoid “light sandwiches” (even sources on both sides)
•    Shoot in crosslight only after dawn or before dusk; never front light
•    Avoid lens flares
•    Avoid white and primary colors in frame
•    Shoot with short-focal-length, hard lenses
•    No filters except Polarizer
•    Shoot with steady handheld or Steadicam “in the eye of the hurricane”
•    Z-axis moves instead of pans or tilts
•    No zooming
•    Do some static tripod shots “in midst of our haste”
•    Accept the exception to the dogma (“Article E”)

I underlined the limitations that I liked or thought would be relevant. I think having limitations at the start would be beneficial as it would help have a continuous aesthetic which is something i want.

One thing that I didn’t mention looking back at my first ‘My method of working’ section was what I want to achieve by the end of this course. I firstly am thrilled with the idea of putting all our mind and effort into the concept of the scene. They are the short little pieces of a film that makes a film, a film. Instead of having to put time into a whole film with various locations and actors crew etc. We can get together something really special. I really want to make something that I am really, really proud of. I said that at the start of my documentary but i felt that I only really was satisfied with half of it which is why it makes this so much better.

On another note I read up some more on Terrance Malick as an auteur. I find his films probably the most interesting in many aspects. When I first saw the Tree of Life I found it really hard to watch, but I loved it a lot mainly because of the cinematography and the aesthetic that was hitting me in the face. I have also found through the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s notes that they would have only 40 minute time periods to film to achieve the nostalgic sunny scenes which was awesome! This is one of my favourite shots from the film which also includes a floating person <3 I will spend more time on Terrance Malick in future posts.

I did some research into David Fincher’s workflow today and couldn’t find to much to do with the production behind his films but did discover some editing techniques and processes that they go through in post productions. A lot of the basic editing and fix ups were done through final cut, premiere and after effects. They found these to be greatly integrated allowing for seamless workflow.

VIDEO

This video goes through it more in depth. There is this one part where they talk about how they wanted one of the characters voices to cut into the conversation a bit earlier in a over the shoulder shot and they were able to achieve this by cutting the frame in-between the two characters and bring the audio and footage of the character up by 15 frames. I found it quite amazing that they were able to integrate this technology to make cuts or scenes exactly how they want them, to give them more ‘excitement’.