Final Fashion Film Reflection

PB 4

As mainly a producer within this fashion film project, it has been a great experience of learning especially for the first time doing producing. This film project allowed me to broaden my associations in terms of finding talents such as fashion designers and cast through connections. Not only did having these connections motivates myself to give faith in the film, it taught me great collaboration skills between talents and producers in the fashion film industry. Within these collaborative aspects of the project, what had greatly impacted me was how to work with a client and at the same time delivers my team’s artistic values on the project. It was important to not only consider the branding identity of the chosen client but what their needs and wants as to make a commercial fashion film let alone the target audience the ideas implemented is meant to be for. What was challenging though is proposing my team’s ideas towards the clients, due to different visions, styles and takes authority in leading the project forward without giving up too much control to the client. This is why we did an extensive research on the brand through their websites, Instagram account, their mood board, fashion styles and target audience as well as constraints.

Our production team worked well together in brainstorming ideas as we have similar goals and desires to make a natural aesthetics commercial fashion film influenced by Jessie Oldfield’s Countryroad advertisement. Each of us divided our roles as well as helped each other’s tasks during this learning process and the pre-production. The studio also allowed us freedom in managing our own production process and we had a smooth and successful shooting days with the scheduling on track. Although during the first shooting day, we needed more preparation in specific roles and direction, we all learned during discussion the things we need to improve and techniques so that the next shooting day consist of a better, clearer direction of shots, acting styles and roles. What helped the most are the pitches within the studios because of beneficial feedbacks from the panel as well as the members. Feedback act as our learning tips that assist even in a real-world experience which our team really took account on. Furthermore, watching other productions’ projects and ideas developed a later inspirations to our own film practice whether as individuals or as a group. Though what I feel is missing within the studio is the clear direction of specific role taking. Versatility is a great learning experience, though if there is a dominant role each person is responsible with, it could improve our filmmaking process. Hence, through the pitches and panel feedbacks along with inspiring talks and practicals with Jessie Oldfield, Nick, Robin and our studio leader Christina, our team have had influential production process techniques.

My overall performance as a media practitioner comes to my role as mainly the producer, but also as casting director, editor and continuity. I think I have done a successful job in communicating with my team members and the client so that the pre-production meetings, shooting days in which the star cast is available, and the editing schedule runs smoothly. It was a great learning experience as a first-time producer to organise our rights to film in public through communications with the City of Melbourne authorities, as we are filming within the city, while making sure that we even as students would not be breaking any laws. Moreover, during the post-production process comes the time when the client may not be satisfied of the overall look of the film and expresses the desire to obtain raw material or footages. As a producer receiving this information led me to do a further communication with the rest of the team and research on the rights of the client to obtain any raw materials. Although this conflicting issue took place, I am glad to come into discussion with the team and that we worked together to solve the issues through the resources such as Christina our studio leader who helped to give us insights and directions.

The way I have seen our methods or approach in this filmmaking project is related to fashion production. In fashion, there is the client, research, then brainstorm and rough ideas that leads to the prototype and planning before the final garment is constructed. As our team has chosen our client and undertaking this similar process of production, there is a basic foundation within the method that I found is essential for the succession of our film. That includes great communication and trust towards each other. Employing these methods has led a great success in the fashion film we produced whether one film focuses on the commercial side showing more of the products and the other lean into a more subtle artistic approach.

What was challenging though is keeping every team members together with an agreement on details specifically during the post-production. As we all were editing the piece with Premiere Pro in our RMIT basement-editing suite, each of us has different opposing ideas to input on the film. Due to the subjective individual visions of the edited piece, it is a great idea to either have different submission versions according to the experiment of individual wants and likes, or giving a sacrifice of the editing role in which everyone took to action. Therefore, what I find will improve not only the team but also my own performance and the overall success of the film project is sticking to each of our individual main roles. For example, who is the director will be directing instead of also taking action to do the editing in the process while the actual editor is working. Finally, we have come to the agreement to have each other’s freedom to experiment on their vision, resulting in two versions of the Kodangs fashion film in which each of us are happy with. Finally in overall terms, I am glad for the resolved issues and the success of our Kodangs fashion film in which our client can have the choice to put on their Instagram account. This implementation of fashion into filmic practicality has opened my eyes to a possibility of the creation of art through media.

Fashion film brainstorm

Collaborating with the Thai fashion accessory brand, Kodangs, my group and I are aiming to produce a short fashion commercial film promoting their brand.

About Kodangs:

 

In Week 7 we all had a presentation about our goals and ideas of the overall pathway of which our fashion film will undergo. We presented our vision ranging from costumes to castings and etc. Pitch for our film: Click Here

Define Fashion film..

What is fashion film?

We are still on the dark side that we don’t know which direction fashion films go. From advertisements, runaway shows, behind the scene or the making of… to art videos and even music videos, it can be all that in different forms. There is the intertextuality between films such that we see “fashion” in for example Rihanna or Katy Perry’s music videos just as fashion films can include well-composed music. We can say that fashion is indeed everywhere, as we’ve seen it in the cinemas showing Hollywood film, The Devil Wears Prada. But with all the ambiguity of where fashion films lead to, I appreciate its freedom. We as filmmakers, in particular fashion filmmakers can have that freedom to experiment, explore and invent new ideas.

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final horror series

PB 4

EXEGESIS summary-

Series of Audio-Visual Horror Subgenre Sketches.
Our final project was to do a final and longer sketch that curates a reflection to the ideas that I have been exploring throughout the semester. My research question was “are genre just tropes?” and I’ve found that what makes a genre is not only a grouping of tropes and patterns but also the aesthetics, mood and cinematic experience of emotions within a text. While I have taken upon further research for a wider exploration, we were encouraged to find inspirations for our sketch. The focal point that has been reflected upon my genre trajectory is the inception of genre boundaries that are sometimes taken too seriously into a strict classification of films according to the set-rules that cause the limitation and lack of creativity. This idea is explored by Ishiguro in 2015. Hanich (2010) in the other hand specialised in the idea that the categories we form are part of our experience. For example, horror branches out in a couple of different subgenres including the slasher, thriller, vampires and the supernatural and we can usually tell the difference through the tropes present. I’ve learned that these subcategories are all able to generate the lived bodily experience and fearful emotions including terror, shock, dread and horror. In a nutshell, tropes equal genre which equals emotions. So there comes the second part of my question, can film still be considered a particular genre if its key tropes are removed? My series of three horror-subgenre sketches (which may as well be considered as meta-horror) that includes slasher, vampire and supernatural horror will be the experiment of this study.

Within my three chosen horror sub-genres are tropes and conventions that operate to portray the aesthetics of fear. I had removed each of their key tropes to prove that they are still its genres without sticking to the set-rules. Jackson (2013) defines metahorror as films that self-consciously refer to their own construction and do not break through the fourth wall completely. What I’ve received from Jackson’s ideas are inspirations of metahorror that helped my sketches. So my idea was to omit fangs in Vampire sketch, the presence of knife in my slasher sketch and finally the phenomenon of evil and harmful personality of a ghost in the supernatural sketch.

Although the vampire sketch presents itself as a typical gothic romanticism with its warm hues of the shots, blood and preying subjects, it omits the presence of fangs on any shots.

https://vimeo.com/199307120%20

Likewise, the slasher sketch omits and replace knifes, saws or any weapons to a single red marker that does not in any way look harmful or even bloody. This sketch however, uses fast cutting shots and jump cuts in hand-held movements after longer moments of suspense with perspective and establishing shots.

https://vimeo.com/199303539%20

Finally, the supernatural sketches utilises dark, cold monochromatic tones with unsettling dread and terror background music along with shock tactic especially whereabouts in moments of creepy silence. In addition, the ghost is scary with an all distorted white mask and always appear suddenly except that she is cheeky and comedic unlike the typical dangerous villains of horror.

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Meta Horror and Hybrids

What an interesting mixture of genre are films like the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods? Horror hybrids and metahorror may have inspired me for my final project brief of sketches. As Jackson (2013) suggested, these films are self-reflexive and knows that it is constructed horror. Watching Cabin in the Woods did scare me with its intense soundtrack use, visual gore and “the villains” as well as its nerve-wrecking silences. The part where it is revealed that the characters are put in a place as science subjects controlled by puppeteers explodes audience readings of the definition of horror as genre. It also debatable whether or horror is without say usual weapons utilised in slasher films.

 

Jackson, K 2013, Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror, “Metahorror and simulation in the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods” , pp. 11-30.

Action in Ronin

Purse (2011) signified that the action sequence is the dominance of action films and what basically defines the genre as it “displays dramatic physical action with dynamism and intensity that marks itself out from other sequences”. Action as genre gives the hype or the thrill feeling like riding a roller coaster as cars are about to crash into something with extreme speed. Therefore it needs the thrill and the speed. As Ronin had portrayed, action sequences include the cars speeding up and bashing towards each other while people are running at every directions. Though what if an action film, with the thrill suspense and even car-related, does not incorporate speed? For instance, Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive (2011) can still be considered an action film due to its tropes that includes guns, cars and physical violence whether or not captured in speed or slow-motion. Rian Johnson’s Looper (2012) does not only employ the tropes of action films, it does not really dominate itself with action sequences. Like Drive, Looper had also used art house aesthetics of action sequence that is captured with slow-motion instead of the “need for speed”.

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

 

Purse, L 2011, Contemporary action cinema, “Chapter 3: The action sequence“, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 56-75.

Drama in a bottle

 

As we’ve watched bottle drama episodes this week, it really blew my mind how creative these construction of space is. There are just lots of ways to get around a little of cash left when crating a TV show, like the Community bottle episode where it took place only within one single location and focusing on dialogue and performances. Similarly, Coherence uses minimal cast in a small space within a house though successfully convey dark tense elements through it’s cinematography and editing. These bottle dramas may be constructed out of limited budget but became innovative in its own way. Belton (1988) explains that the space in Rear Window is “quasi-theatrical in its pro-filmic unity and three-dimensionality and yet also cinematic in the flat, multi-windowned design of the apartment…”. This signifies that bottle episodes resembles a series of clips of movie screens but with an importance to the performance yet also the overall aesthetics and compositions.

rearwindow1

 

Belton, J 1988, MLN Comparative Literature, “The Space of Rear Window”, publish The Johns Hopkins University Press, vol. 103, no. 5, pp. 1121-1138, <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/2905203>.