As I think I’ve previously reflected on in other reflections, notions of performance change when using non-actors. Their ability to convey varies depending on the particular role/emotion that they have to play. They are also less likely to be equipped to receive direction and modify their performance in accordance with the feedback.

The effect that I have observed this far, including in my own performance, is that each crew member playing the actor often attempts to attach a varying amount of character and emotion onto their role depending on how comfortable they feel playing the part. One issue I think with this is that it is rare that anyone ends up moderating the actors and asking questions like do these emotions fit together? is this the type of character we are aiming for in this scene? etc. In these situations I feel like it is necessary for the director to step in and give feedback and direction to actors within the scene. I do not think this is the only approach however because at times I think it could also be beneficial to let the actors build their own characters and decide their own emotional inflections.

in reflecting on our groups exercise I think the girl’s performance (whoops forgot her name) came off a little rushed, I’m mostly referring to the pacing in the room, to me pacing such a small area felt very unnatural perhaps a good example of how the space influences performance. Jim’s look was pretty funny Im not sure even he knew what he was doing which resulted in an interesting variation of confusion, which maybe was the aim. The other classes work was very interesting particularly the robot and the guy. Although they couldn’t get any props/makeup the physicality of the robots performance helped define the character. I especially like the final moments it really payed off for me when the robot hugs the guy, I didn’t think he had it in him. Robin made a very good point that there was a certain chemistry or perhaps opposition of acting styles with the guy and the robot which complemented one another very nicely.

I know that Ideally, I should have had all this up before I shot the thing but I just couldn’t find the time/ I planned all of it on paper(which I find more helpful as you can draw). So now I’ll share some of my ideas/plans and reflect a little on the production.

I had the script set in Henry’s living room but I did not want to follow the text description, instead I wanted to try and build some kind of tension using the same dialogue. My inital idea was to set it in a post apocalyptic survival situation, however I quickly realised that to pull that off believably I would need a lot of props/makeup. Instead I went for something with a bit more imminent danger I used the idea of a home invasion or similar situation. Within the scene Steve and Gloria would be the nervy ones anxious about their safety whilst their calm protector. Henry fed up with their anxiety, reassures them. The scene aimed to climax as the door rings with Henry getting up to answer.

because I have been researching decoupage and montage for my research question I tried to create a kind of decoupage technique rather than a simple story board.

I had the aim to use Eisenstein’s model of conflict to generate graphic tension in the montage of the kidnapper. I’m not sure If I really ended up achieving this as I found it difficult to translate the theory into practise / I really did not plan it enough and just settled for a decent composition.

Here are some shots of my plans hopefully they are semi legible on the blog.

Some character notes

Henry: calm, dangerous, gets shit done, is becoming annoyed with the pairs persistent anxiety, has no personal relationship with the pair

Gloria: Anxious, confused has some kind of personal relationship with Steve

Steve: anxious, paranoid, coward

some other notes

Tone/ mood: tense moments before climax

I also decided to not return to the same shot, although frames are similar they involved different setups

In hindsight my sound quality was pretty bad I needed an extra sound recordists I had to source some of the foley because the some of the stuff I recorded maxed out and was unusable. This was my first time using my new camera so I was unsure of the quality of the mic and didn’t have time to test it in-between friday/monday so in post I realised that you can actually hear it’s fan running which I tried to repair as much as I could, I think I did an alright job but I could not erase it completely. I feel like my planning did not inform as many formal decisions as I had wanted but perhaps it did more than I thought, I’ll have to wait to get feedback.

I might update this with a vimeo link once its ready

Thinking about the presentation today sparked a whole range of ideas and concerns with me for this project. Before I get stuck into them I’d just like to quickly recap the aims/plan of the project.

So the project is based around the concept of The Five Obstructions. The idea is to explore how different varieties and combinations of constraints effect the reinterpretation of the meaning and coverage of a text. Though this I aim to breakdown my own approach in relation coverage in the attempt to push myself to think in some more experimental methods and hopefully produce some creative or at least interesting results.

At the present state I am attempting to breakdown the nature of different constraints, what makes them work and what separates them from stylistic preference.

At the moment I have no idea which text I will try to cover, ideally I would use a different set of constraints on the same text repeatedly. Leth’s film The Perfect Human seems an obvious choice however I haven’t thought on this issue yet. I also am yet to think of which constraints to pick, or if I should get someone else to pick them.

My main concern that has arisen from thinking about this topic is that perhaps it is too personal. How would I go about researching these areas? I feel like any writing that happens will primarily be reflecting on the task rather than researching it so Who does this research benefit?  I think as at the moment seeing as the project is based on my approach and interpretations to the material it will mainly benefit my own learning. However I’m not sure if that is satisfactory I feel the need to link my observations to other work, another area which I need to think upon.

Something occurred to me when watching the a film called Waltz with Bashir that I saw in documentary studies. It got me thinking about the last obstruction I discussed from the five obstructions, the animated rotoscope rendition. Waltz with Bashir is also almost entirely made using a similar form of rotoscope animation, It is clear that that during the production of Waltz with Bashir the filmmaker has filmed particular scenes first before having them animated. The animation in Waltz with Bashir is not an obstruction, but rather a stylistic preference and a powerful one at that as it acts to strengthen meaning and thematics in the film. The fourth obstruction is not a stylistic preference, Leth uses rotoscope animation bring new reinterpreted meaning to his short The Perfect Human.

The difference is between the obstruction and the style choice is then in the motivation, one forced, one by choice. The result however is remarkably similar by using animation each filmmaker respectively creates a new meaning or interpretation that complements the original narrative.

Does that mean then that part of ‘successfully’ using an obstruction is to incorporate it in a way that creates/complements a deeper meaning of the text? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I think it is one aspect worth investigating in this project.

Planning stage – This stage went fairly well, I think Aki(DOP) and I, encountered a little bit of difficulty initially in trying to communicate specifics for a few shots but we pushed through this after doing some blocking by ourselves. Similar to a point brought up in class I think we fell into the trap of covering the scene quite similar to that of the first group as we were also involved to a lesser extent in their planning process. As I think I have previously reflected upon this perhaps could have been avoided if were not present for their planning stage.

Shooting – This stage went very smoothly compared to the other collaborative exercises, partly because we had already covered the planning stage and partly because everyone was quite aware of their preassigned roles. We completed shooting under our allocated time and so we were able to open up suggestions to the rest of the crew, and experiment with some unplanned shots and camera movements.

Editing – even though we had the restriction of not returning to any shots our groups edit turned out to be quite similar to the group which aimed for more coverage. I think this was because when we went to shoot more shots with our spare time we ended up creating a larger variety of shots to our initial planning. I only noticed one continuity error a reflection in the final shot. This messed up my original idea of the coverage and as we didn’t have any alternate shots to cut to because of our restriction I think it ruined the pacing of the action in my edit. I think Aki’s edit had a better pacing and flow to my own as her shot choices seemed to work better as she used a slightly alternative order of shots that masked the final continuity error.

The third obstruction is actually quite a poor excuse for an obstruction

3. Because Leth failed to complete task 2 perfectly, Trier punishes him, telling him to either remake the film in any way he chooses, or else to repeat it again with obstruction 2 in Bombay. Leth chooses the first option and remakes the film in Brussels, using split-screen effects.

So lets just skip to the 4th

4. Leth must remake the film as a cartoon. He does so with the aid of Bob Sabiston, a specialist in rotoscoping, who creates animated versions of shots from the previous films. As such the final product is technically an animation but not a cartoon. Nevertheless, Trier considers the task to be completed successfully

This time a single formal obstruction however I would argue that this obstruction is perhaps more severe than the previous formal constraints. Creating a cartoon or animation pushes Leth to rethink the film in a very different mindset, opening up new possibilities you can view the piece here > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8fnntjKmrA

The result is a film that is quite reflexive of itself and Leth’s previous obstructions. The animation gives a fluid quality to the visuals and Leth utilises its own text heavily depicting it with various typographies on the screen.

I think the use of type is one of the most interesting changes because it could have been accomplished without the rotorscope animation. Leth could have added some similar text effects to any of the other obstructions but somehow decided to add it to this one instead, perhaps signalling that this formal challenge led Leth to a find solution that was already present and underlying in his other obstructions.

Yesterday I looked at the first obstruction from the Lars Von Trier doco The Five Obstruction so lets pick up from there by looking at the second obstruction,

2

Leth must remake the film in the worst place in the world but not show that place onscreen; additionally, Leth must himself play the role of “the man”. The meal must be included, but the woman is not to be included. Leth remakes the film in the red light district of Bombay, only partially hiding it behind a translucent screen.

again the obstruction is actually a set, all seemingly with arbitrary motivations.There are no formal constraints for this obstruction, however it is difficult to analyse the final result as Lars judges Leth to have failed the task as Lars judged the translucent screen to not properly hide the setting.

Personally I think the translucent screen is the most interesting part of this version, however it impossible to tell if a version which hid the setting would have been more interesting or not.

Even though the result did not meet Lars’ criteria, the mistake was unintentional and still produced a creative result. Leth had a different interpretation of the rules, perhaps it was this interpretive error that produced an interesting result as it pushed Leth to use an unconventional/unexpected device.

When thinking of obstructions/constraints it would be interesting to see how different types of constraints would Influence coverage. So far from memory in class exercises we have had used mostly formal restraints, i. e. not moving the camera, single shot, not going back to the same shot etc.

I think it’s also important to note that these constrains have had hidden formal motivations i.e. not going back to the same shot aims for the camera to evolve through the space along side the action rather than return to it, using a single shot possibly prompts us to move the action within the frame to create compositions. I think it would be interesting to investigate how using different constraints effects coverage. Lets start by looking at the each of the obstruction in The Five obstructions.

The first obstruction as taken from wikipedia is  :

1. Leth must remake the film in Cuba, with no set, and with no shot lasting longer than 12 frames, and he must answer the questions posed in the original film; Leth successfully completes this task.

Looking at this again the one obstruction is really a set of three obstructions, one arbitrary, one formal and one thematic.

Perhaps a tough place to start as it is difficult to analyse the effect of one let alone a combination of three, I’ll return to this in Pt 3.

The most interesting point from todays class came up as we were discussing the thought process that had led to particular decisions. The point was that in most if not all cases you should have a kind of underlying framework/guideline which motivates your technical decisions. These guidelines could be anchored in emotion, theory or perhaps arbitrary values but they are what should provides the base to influence the aesthetics of the film. These guidelines or ‘vision’ would also help inform aspects of performance by shaping the tone or mood of the film.

I think some exercises I have completed so far I have lacked/undervalued mostly the performative side of these underlying framework, partly because choosing a non arbitrary theoretical or emotional guide would take a considerable amount time and critical thinking. Even though the exercises have had arbitrary rules, cant repeat same shot etc, these have not helped in forming a rational for the style of performance.

Overall I feel this week helped to remind me once again the importance to take a step back from technical decisions from each shot to try and focus on the film as a whole and think about how it will all fit together.

I’m not sure if this is the right direction for this project but so far in this unit I feel like I have failed to transfer epiphanies, which occurred through research and particularly through reflection/comparison of class exercises, into practical result. I want to challenge myself in a way in which I must breakdown some of my preconceived ideas of coverage in a way in which I can hopefully rediscover new methodologies and hopefully yield some creative results. I want the research to have practical elements so my initial idea is somewhat similar to what we’ve already been doing with the exercises. My idea at the moment aims to reconstruct a scene with a set of constraints perhaps similar to the film The Five Obstructions (2003).