Individuality Impacting Film

Talking with Robin the other day about my film we got onto the subject of auteurism in which Robin said (based off past experiences) that regardless of how many people impact the content of a certain film be it lighting, editing… etc that in one way or another the director of the film will always have there own style and individuality reflected in the film, which will continually play a part in defining the work.

In the three original ‘films’ I shot this semester, ‘Two Brothers’, ‘The Retirement’ and ‘The Truth’ all three have characters placed in moments of potential change, certain moments that may or may not be turning points in there lives. All characters also wish to make a departure from the past in one way or another, in ‘Two Brothers’ it is the want to re-establish brotherly friendship, in ‘The Retirement’ it is the want to leave a profession that’s been so influential in the lead characters life and in ‘The Truth’ it is the want to leave behind the past in almost every way possible-both characters are trapped in it. Robin said that even unconsciously the director adds his/her style and individuality to the film sometimes it may not be deliberately. I could be over thinking this, but unconsciously all three of the clips I wrote have characters all in very similar positions reacting in similar ways. After talking to Robin I began to think that this isn’t a coincidence but merely a demonstration, naturally and unconsciously of my ‘voice’ being reflected in what I created. And I guess at the end of the day that’s what auteurism is, personal voice triumphing over the many constraints trying to silence it.

Brydan Meredith Collaboration

This semester I collaborated with Ali and Mitch on their films, operating the camera for some of Ali’s shots as well as being a second opinion on some lighting decisions and with Mitch being a set of extra hands on set, on top of brain storming/workshopping ideas with him and acting in some of his shorter segments.

With my own film I collaborated  once more with Mitch and with my two actors.

I felt leading my own shoot and giving the actors and Mitch (on sound) advice and feedback to be the most challenging aspect of collaboration this semester. When I was just helping out Ali and Mitch either on camera or acting I felt quite comfortable with accepting their instructions. I found the shoot with Ali particularly good for my learning because he was giving me instructions on various shots which I had to follow, it was my job, but I also had to frame the shot and make sure that it could practically work out, and if it didn’t, it was my job too make it. A particular shot that comes to mind was the final one of the day, where I had to film Ali walking towards Mitch who was lying in bed-it was hard to frame this shot from the particular angle Ali wanted to film it on, just purely because of lack of space. Though we ended up pushing the bed out giving me more room, I found it hard to articulate to the director that the exact framing of this shot can’t quite work out how we initially planned it to. Though of course Ali was fine with it, it was breaking the news that was the hard thing-irregardless of the director. As a person I believe I’m quite amicable and generally like to please people so when things don’t work out as planned I struggle to tell others, I struggle to ‘break the news’. So I think this situation was a learning curve due to my realisation that I can’t let my own inhibitions, my own inability to say no or maybe not get in the way of being able to film, and ultimately communicate a really good idea. Its better that I bite the bullet and say ‘No’ or ‘Lets try this another way’ than let mistakes be in the final product.

I was a bit more comfortable directing the actors, because at the end of the day it was my project and I needed to be driven in order to get it made. Though normally I stress over assessments I found when shooting, that I was so engrossed in what I was doing with the camera and in the performance of the actors that the anxiety of it being an assessment task really subsided and it was just me and the idea. I found it much easier to communicate with others and reach a desired goal when it is just the cast and crew and the idea-with nothing inbetween. Demonstrating this was  Ali’s shoot. Though we (Mitch, Ali and Myself) are friends, when shooting the film we were totally engaged in the idea and our discussion continually centred itself around getting the most out of our time (to shoot) and getting the best out of each shot. Though this boils down to a simple matter of focus, the importance of focus and dedication to the idea cannot be more important it is absolutely essential, and it cant be just a few-it has to be absolutely everyone.

– One thing I did struggle with when working with the actors was initially getting them to apply themselves, at the beginning I was a little bit too easy going and the they both talked and chattered, probably because I was unassertive but as I gave them more material and they released the job they had on their hands, without me saying anything, they naturally picked up their game and became very focused.

– I think a big part of collaboration is making sure everyone in the cast and crew is happy and comfortable. I did this by buying food (mostly chocolate and chips) and continually offering drinks, unfortunately for me everyone was fine and no one ate the food, fortunately for me however this was because everyone was quite driven and happy to be given advice and ideas on how to improve the material.

– I should also add my actors Katie and Jordan were amazing, super dedicated, fun and focused. They were great!

– I don’t think I could write a blog post on collaboration without saying how much I enjoyed creating things with Mitch. He was dedicated, easy going and continually supported and improved each idea that we worked on in the various projects. Demonstrating this was in one of his shoots where I had a fragment of an idea (reversing what we did in a previous shoot we had someone off camera talk about the person on camera, instead of the person on camera talking about themselves) and he picked it up and ran with it-and wrote really interesting scripts for both characters as well as getting the shot prepared and fixing any practical issues that we had. This is an example of collaboration at its most exciting-when its at an ideas level, and with Mitch it happened quite often. I should also add that if I gave Mitch a nickel for every time he helped me fix an issue he would be a rich man!

 

Sound

Sound, as I touched on in my practice footage video, was quite a big issue due to filming at the top of a windy hill. There were quite a few times where the actors were mid sentence and a staggering breeze completely took over the audio, however multiple times we were fortunate enough to be able to shoot multiple long takes without a debilitating rush of wind. The part of the film (in my final product) where the wind is the loudest (the bit where Jordan stands up and demands truth) has a nice effect, it adds to the drama and uncertainty of the scene. The wind is naturally unsettling and unsettled is how I want the audience and the two characters to feel in this particular moment. So luckily and fortunately the wind ended up adding to the drama of the scene.

The second time the wind blows obnoxiously is in the very last shot as I’m zooming out, this again works well for effect, it shows that even though the characters have communicated to a degree, they’re still not happy, they’re still unsettled and the ‘fruitless environment’ remains ubiquitous.

On the day of the shoot Mitch did my sound and made the levels peak at the highest DB possible. This was because of the actors movements-they move alot over quite a bit of space, in order to not lose any of the sound the DB had to be up. Fortunately none of the actors sounded muffled at any stage, even during shouting their voices didn’t peak to a point of distortion. If I had my time again I don’t think I would have changed anything sound wise- I had to shoot outside at the top of a hill which is never ideal when striving for perfect sound, but Mitch did a great job! Giving me fantastic sound.

Props/Costuming/Overall Feel

The film ended up being a much more stylised than what I originally envisioned. I think part of this comes down to the props and their contrast with the sparseness of the location.

Katie’s Orange shirt, Jordans Purple Shirt and a prominent bright blue plate all look out of place in this ‘bush setting’ at the top of a hill and create a mismatched, very self conscious feel, as if the filmmaker isn’t going for realism or normality but for something indescribably else. These not quite right props mixed with fluid yet obvious (overtly conscious) camera movements create a film that looks very much like a template, a film that doesn’t sit quite right-which is its greatest attribute.

On a practical level though I thought the props were very effective, even the fact that the plate was bright blue was useful. The plate within the context of the story is completely symbolic, its used for ‘truth’ not food. The bright blueness of it, its flimsyness makes it look like an object that would never be used for anything practical.

The Hatchet that Man 2 holds is a symbol for self-defence, inspired by Peter Walsh’s use of the pocket knife in the Virginia Woolf novel Mrs Dalloway the hatchet is another divide that seperates Man 2 from everyone else, to make sure no one gets close to her and that everyone stays a distance-no harm can calm to her if she has the hatchet.

The actors by wearing casual clothes look like stand-ins for the actual actors suiting up in classic country and western outfits, this subversion places emphasis back on the characters and helps create the overall slow/quirky feel that my film has. By having the characters in casual dress it further highlights the lack of significance Genre, specifically the ‘Western’ has on my film. Also going against Western Tropes is the lack of violence in response to inner and outer conflict, and the lack of pure heroism/antagonism within the characters. By having the actors in casual dress it emphasises that they are real people, suffering from relatable issues that the audience may be able to understand- not mythical cowboys suffering from unfathomable hardships.

Reflections On Filming (acting)

On set I spent the first 20-30 minutes working with the actors just helping them get a rough idea of the script and each characters motivation. Though ultimately I was unsuccessful in doing this (probably due to lack of time) I spent some time trying to coax a very energetic performance out of Jordan (the actor) I gave him directions to over act and be larger than life, unfortunately however he underplayed his character. There are a couple of reasons for this one of which is character intentions, I had written Jordans character as a murderer up until the day before where I crossed out all the lines referencing a supposed murder-however I think both actors had it in their heads that the character was in fact a murderer and due to lack of time I had to let it slide. Unfortunately because of this the contrasting natures of the two characters aren’t on show and as a consequence they both appear innately linked  through personality and worldview.

After shooting the scenes and not watching back over the footage that night I got the impression that both actors performed equally well, but after watching back over the performances in post-production I think Katie stole the show, she delivered the lines in a nuanced, measured manner whereas Jordan (who admittedly had far more lines) seemed quite stagnant and monotonous in his delivery, as if he was just trying to ‘get past’ each line rather than explore his character within the context of the script. One moment that I did really like however was the ‘take something truthful and put in on this plate’ line-Jordan seemed to harness his characters energy for that line (potentially due to the energy of the script) and lose it for some of his characters other moments.

At the very start of filming the two actors wanted to try the script with accents, in my mind I was annoyed at the suggestion but I decided to let them experiment (with southern American accents) Though this allowed for every line to be butchered, what it did do was create a sense of theatre-like energy to their performance-Jordans character completely changed into the character I was trying to coax out of him. Unfortunately the accents didn’t do justice to the lines.

Another thing that was lost on set that I hadn’t envisioged in my mind leading up to filming was rhythm. The actors (especially at the start where man 1 asked man 2 about a hatchet) had too many pauses between their lines, to a point where after every line there would be an additional 2-3 beats of silence that completely killed the fluidity of the written dialogue. If I had my time again I would have work shopped the very beginning of the scene where Jordan walks towards Katie and made sure that the dialogue was very too and fro-ey and that there isn’t a lot of silence. If this section of the film was quicker and had more energy it would have contrasted nicely with deliberate pauses and silences at the end of the film.

Something  that worked really well was the acting in the last 30 seconds or so, I think Jordans performance improves dramatically, this could be because he doesn’t have to drive the scene, and due to the lack of dialogue he has to deliver. Nonetheless, he gives his character a creepy sense of desperation-something I never intended but was nonetheless delighted with.

Please Note: I sound very whiney and picky in this blog post, I actually think Jordan and Katie were both great, but I have to pick up on any potential/perceived flaws in the final product in order to learn. (Though Jordan and Katie were fantastic due to the sheer amount of lines they had to learn in next to no time). I think if I was to shoot this again I would spend a couple of hours with actors, tailoring each performance.

Lighting Edit Brydan

In class this week we looked at lighting, specifically how film makers manipulate light to evoke mood within their films. Robin stated that the lighting comes from two primary sources, the key light and the fill light. The key light is the main source for lighting, it casts the strongest shadows and often spawns from the setting in which the film is shot, for example, when I filmed outside for ‘the retirement’ the key light was the sun, in the film we did below the key light was the huge lamp (its name escapes me now) that shone from the window mimicking natural sunlight. The fill light is less intense and quite literally ‘fills in’ softening the shadows. In the film below we had a smaller Lido  Light that shone from the opposite side, so the two actors faces were not in complete shadow. If I was to shoot outside, a black board would be handy in decreasing the suns presence on the image, making it less ‘spotty’ and creating more of a diffused light source.

 

Something In The Eye, Brydan Edit.

Previous to doing this edit I only really knew how to cut and import on Adobe Premier (Which are skills I learnt in week 2-4 of this class). I knew how important editing is when producing a final product and that though filming is important often much of the meaning is created, fixed, formed and altered in editing. So consequently I looked up quite a few Premier Tutorials with the want to know how to: Transition instead of cut (For example fade, swipe), Slow down and/or Speed Up an image (150%, 50%) and importantly  do a basic colour grade-which I did by creating an adjustment layer and putting all my colour correction on that, so I can easily toggle it on and off and see how my different choices are effecting my original footage. This (I believe) is better than applying the effects directly onto the footage.

Anyway, this edit (though obviously far from perfect) I used to test out these new found skills. In the two close-ups of me and Mitch I slow down the film creating a deliberately cheesy vibe, I colour grade different parts of the film separately (the end is quite saturated, I did this by bringing out the Orange) and the start is obviously a dullish, black and white.

I also did a couple of fades for the first time which was nice, on top of this I applied (again for the first time) copyright free music which helped create a cheesy, artificially romantic feel.

Narration and Depth of Field

Narration

Last week Robin showed us some various examples of narration emphasising that they are not a cop out and can be used as interesting storytelling devices or merely as a practical device to quickly feed the audience information they need to know to understand the film. A really cool example of this, one that we didn’t watch, is in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ where Wes Anderson briefly but effectively runs through each characters back story in order to give context to there current inner pains and demons. Not only does the narration do this, but it also introduces us to the significance of the place where the film is set and the characters reside, when watching the film each place that action occurs is not a strange place, but a place the audience has seen before and understands the significance of.

Robin suggested to me that I could give the audience some context to what I shot by using narration right at the start and though I didn’t take this advice on board-maybe I should have, I will use narration in a different way- in a similar nature to the clip of clockwork orange that we saw where the audience is granted access to the lead characters thoughts and feelings.

*Note: I did end up starting with narration, but it only gave context to the place, not the characters.

In my script ‘Man 2’ was initially supposed to express her feelings to Man 1, but after seeing these clips, I thought it would be much more interesting for Man 2 too have her feelings only in her head and not have the ability to communicate what she wants to say. This more explicitly presents the underlying sadness to the whole film emphasising the pain and frustration that brews within the characters due to their inability to communicate and express their feelings. Man 2 wouldn’t be lonely if she could articulate how she feels-but she cant. I also (as an audience member) find it interesting when I’m kept at a distance from a particular character and then all of a sudden through narration or even the character talking directly to the camera they specifically and unsubtly talk about how they feel, as if the wall that’s stopped the audience from truly knowing them has been broken. An example of this is in an episode of ‘Mad Men’ called ‘Signal 30’ where a particular antagonist Pete Campbell breaks down and says ‘I have nothing, Don’. The camera frames him directly in the middle of the shot as the actor, Vincent Kartheiser, looks directly  into the camera as he says this line. This aesthetic decision was done to emphasise that the line wasnt merely a secret confined to ‘Don’ but it was a statement directed at the audience, a plea for the audience to truly understand him and feel sympathy.

In my film with Man 2 I’ll try and do a similar thing, I intend to build up the character as one of stoicism and lack of emotion and surprise the audience with an emotive, out of the blue, inner monologue (conveyed through narration) that flips the audiences idea of the character on its head-teaching them to not judge a character based on his/her appearance and/or reactions, that even though a person doesn’t look particular ‘deep’ or emotive, they often are.

 

Depth Of Field

10mm

– Greater Depth of Field. Depth of field is the distance, in front and behind the thing I’m focused on. So a greater depth of field would make the shot deeper, and potentially make the audience feel further away from the object than if it was shot on a larger lens.

– The part of the picture on focus will be greater the shorter the lense.

– The more of the world we see

– F16 Aperture

100mm

– Narrow View

– Long

– The part of the picture will be shallower the larger the lense

– Less of the world we see

– Wider the aperture the shallower the depth of field

Calculating the Depth of Field

3 feet depth of field set lense too 9 feet, focus factors into this. Depth is 1/3 in front, 2/3 back. If something is in focus 1/3 is in front of the image, 2/3 is behind it. If it is at 9 feet for example you can see from 11-8 feet.

Short lense, say 8mm, the person in the shot appears further away, exaggerating the distance.

Long ones make people seem closer.

The speed of movement is altered by the focal length, someone running may appear slow.

Look through the camera and as you close the Iris down, the more you close the Iris the greater the depth of field.

(I have some more questions too ask here)

Helping Out

Today in class we looked at an early Chantal Akerman film in order to recognise her death a couple of days ago.

The film especially in the opening half (probably about 6 minutes) seemed quite clunky in terms of how it was edited, especially in the scene where the 2 ladies continually order food, the editing instead of being timed and fluid (say a cut every 5-10 seconds) which would have created continuity instead seemed very jarring and quite glitchy. Though this may have been due to lack of experience (I think it was one of her earlier films) it had a really interesting effect on me as an audience member. It allowed me to never feel truly at ease when watching the film, I kept anticipating the next ‘off’ cut.

Another aspect I really enjoyed was with the two protagonists walking in the streets of France, the montage had a really great atmosphere too it, it was very nostalgic and I believe (based on how stunning it looked) Akerman intended it to be, even at the time. She painted a very classic picture of France, as a quaint city for lovers.

Robin also touched on Film 3 as being more about the practice of making films and the different approaches a director can take in order to communicate his/her idea. In the last week or so I’ve been a part of 3 separate film shoots with classmates. On Friday and Thursday (today) I helped out Mitch and on Sunday Mitch and I helped out Ali.

Shooting With Mitch.

Mitch’s approach too making his film was in huge contrast to mine, I completely scripted my content for actors whereas Mitch asked very open ended, broad questions for his participants to answer. Both have there bonuses and shortcomings-I’d say a shortcoming for Mitch’s approach would be the fact there’s a camera-when I participated, though I answered honestly, the whole time I was very camera aware and me (like most people I would imagine) gave answers that could only be provoked by being put in this very contrived environment-I (even when answering) was thinking about the task and probably unintentionally hammed my performance up for more interested viewing. This was Friday. Today Mitch and I went about filming again in the green screen hoping to do the same thing we last week, this week, with only Female participants. Unfortunately none arrived so instead we looked to film something quickly with just the two of us. I came up with an idea too flip the idea of perception (Mitch’s theme) around by filming someone sitting and sadly staring into space or even looking forlornly at the camera with a narrator commenting on this persons character, not matching up with the images that are being presented. I think this is interesting because there are always going to be parts of ourselves, parts of personality, or even simply fragments of thoughts we have that we only ever be accessed or fully understood by ourselves, and this frustration that brews in us over this innate inability to communicate, is communicated through contrasting images (showing desperation and loneliness) and the off-beat, quirky dialogue. After Mitch did one about me and I did one about him, I had an idea of having us both in the one shot as if to say this isn’t just mine and/or Mitchs condition-this is a part of the human condition.

I felt that this fabricated, stylised dialogue being presented in such an organic, documentary-sque way is interesting in itself. It feels like very self-conscious, self aware film making, which completely ties into the theme of perception.

A bonus of shooting in the green screen room is that the space very much lends itself to neat and tidy filmmaking, no sounds enter the room, there was just the two of us, the actors aren’t far away from the camera and as a result these sections of Mitch’s overall product will have a polished, controlled feel to them.

Shooting with Ali

On Sunday myself and Mitch helped out Ali with his film ‘Daymare’ apart from having a great time (the highlight no doubt being the amazing Pakistani food we ate at the end) the most beneficial thing that came from the activity for me was using the Lidolights, at the start of the shoot I was able to experiment with the lighting and look at how its intensity effected the image and the overall tone of the shots-though this may seem rather obvious and not very exciting, this  was the first time I had ever done any form of lighting other than in class.

I also got to operate the camera a fair bit which was handy in terms of experience, I had to take a few shots with a ‘moving camera’ which tests my framing ability and my steadiness. Which obviously goes along way. I think the most challenging aspect of the shoot was the final shot of the day, where Ali walks down the doorway and approaches Mitch in order too capture this shot I had to place my body in the non-existent space between Ali’s bed and the wall, it was also my sole responsibility to make sure each actor was placed exactly how Ali wanted them in the frame, it took multiple takes to get Mitch leaning to the precise space in the frame he had to be in, in order to get the desired shot.

I really liked Ali use of Light and Dark in his film, the Lido lamps with the shut curtains gave Ali’s bedroom a creepy early morning nightmare feel whereas outside it was sunny and beautiful-yet even in the sun bad things kept happening to the protagonist which I think makes the film much more unsettling. The darkness of the room established a mood that not even the sun can overcome.

I thought using Ali’s Nikon was quite a good choice due to the tight spaces we were shooting, the Ex-3 in general would have been far too large. Especially for that last shot and the outdoor filming where I (as the camera man) had to move through (and into) bushes.

 

Props, Coverage and Costumes.

Props:

– A Hatchet or a Knife of some description.

– A transistor radio

– Plastic Cutlery/plates

Costumes:

Man 1 wears black pants, a white rolled up shirt, suspenders and/or tie.

Man 2: Jeans, T-Shirt and Jacket

Coverage:

Robin and I talked about coverage on Thursday, and the advice I was given and that I agree with is to film with as little cuts as possible, because its really a piece where the hard work is done with the actors, by having too many cuts the continuity and the rhythm of the scene may potentially get broken. So the plan is to have one camera covering the scene, following the actors as they perform the scene in one take, and to have another camera getting the ‘interesting shots’ either close ups, or different angles etc……..

So when writing my coverage into the script, I have only written in maybe 2-3 actual shots, all of which go for a significant amount of time. This form of coverage suits the pace of my script, it is quite slow and rather patient, it emphasises the characters interactions, a whole of heap of cuts would make the film appear quick paced and rather disjointed.

 

Skip to toolbar