For this Ident, I used a luggage and threw clothes in it. Under the clothes, I wrote "Journey Films" on a piece of paper and included a passport which adds verisimilitude. Then I reversed the clip and increased the speed by 8.
For this Ident, I took several pictures and put it into FCPX as a sequence. I shortened the duration of the pictures to make the sequence faster and also decrease the duration of the Ident (2-3seconds long like other Indie Idents). I added a 3D title which zooms in and out which makes it an animated title. Then I recorded a voice-over saying "Maw Productions" and put a filter on the voice-over.
... For this ident I used photo transfer paper to iron the Red Films logo onto a white t-shirt. I mixed red paint with water so that it would make an even splatter on the t-shirt rather than just paint chunks. In FCPX I reversed the clip so that it looks like the paint comes off the shirt and added a colour mask so that red was the only colour and the rest was in black and white to give it a grim mood. This ties in with the social realist genre we have decided for our film opening, and the short, practical effect is conventional of indie production/distribution companies. The serif font on the t-shirt is also conventional of low-budget indie companies.
French New Wave (nouvelle vague) In the 1950s and 60's a post-war movement began in France, lead by writer's for a French magazine Cahiers du Cinema such as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard (A Bout de Souffle) and Claude Chabrol . It encompassed a lot of documentary style film techniques in order to challenge traditional film styles and make audiences acutely aware that they are watching a media text which has been artificially constructed, as a backlash against the influence of Nazi propaganda.
A Bout de Souffle poster
The idea of an anti-hero emerged form a lot of these films, having protagonists be morally ambiguous and focusing more on an aspect of audience identification rather than aspiration.
Some conventions of the movement found through research:
Low budget
pretty much all indie productions
shot on site because of this (people's houses or public locations)
cast was often people that the director already knew
transportable equipment
e.g. in Godard's A Bout de Souffle a scene shot on the Champs Elysees used a shopping trolley for a tracking shot
improvisation (of lines, and spontaneity in filming)
Themes:
existentialism (often criticisms of organized religion, or nihilistic protagonists)
Jean-Luc Godard did extensive research into Marxism and it is present in some of his films
Techniques
long takes (film reel was expensive)
hand-held cameras
fast cuts
breaks of convention (e.g. the 180 degree rule) to subvert expectations
jump cuts
character asides
breaking eye line matches
Discontinuity editing (more on this inprelim blog post)
Other:
Lots of intertextual references
e.g. A Bout de Souffle has quotes form Dylan Thomas, William Faulkner; music from Bach and Mozart, and lots of film posters as a part of set dressing
They were black and white films, a lot of them made for television due to low budget
The progression of time was often close to that of real life
Cleo 5 to 7 follows 2 hours in the life of an actress/singer as she awaits the results of a medical test, however the narrative is divided into chapters follow her state of mind
Cleo from 5 to 7 screenshot
Open ended narratives
some scenes are shown more than once but from the points of views of different characters - showing both the objective and subjective events
... British New Wave British New Wave (1959-63) was inherently similar to French New Wave, as it was the spreading of the movement. Because of this most of the techniques used were the same, but some notable differences:
Often had a focus on working class struggles, particularly those in the North of England
e.g. Room at the Top has a protagonist from Yorkshire (though the actor's accent is inconsistent at best)
Heavier focus on relationship and social drama (hence the name 'kitchen sink drama/realism)
e.g. Billy Liar follows the life of a man with three girlfriends
e.g. The L-shaped Room uses the social interactions between the protagonist and her neighbors to explore social conventions and challenge social status quos
Wimbledon(Richard Loncraine, 2004) Synopsis: rom-com about 2 upcoming tennis players. I'm going to look specifically at how tennis scenes are shot for influence in shooting a tennis scene in our film opening (specifically: framing, sound, and editing)
... Match Point(Woody Allen, 2005) Involves a retired tennis player, also looking into this one for inspiration for the tennis scene
...
Main Films for Influence
Journeyman(Paddy Considine, 2018) Synopsis: social realist about an accomplished boxer suffers brain damage after defending his title at a tournament and has to work to recover and rebuild his life
Journeyman poster
... Tyrannosaur(Paddy Considine, 2011) Synopsis: a social realist which follows the life of working class, racist, violent man, Johnny.
Synopsis: social realist drama following the life of young Saun as he becomes a skinhead in 1983 England
... Dead Man's Shoes(Shane Meadows, 2004) synopsis: British psychological thriller, Richard returns to his home town in the Peak District after serving in the British Army. He and his younger, mentally-impaired brother Anthony, camp at an abandoned farm near the town. Flashbacks reveal Anthony's abuse by a group of drug dealers in the town; Richard vows to take revenge.
Synopsis: British black tragicomedywritten and directed by Mike Leigh and starring David Thewlis as Johnny, a motor-mouthed intellectual and conspiracy theorist steals a car and visits his ex living with two housemates in London. Mike Leigh is a famous kitchen sink realism writer so we'll probably take a lot of influence from his style.
... Sweet Sixteen(Ken Loach, 2002) Synopsis: the story of a teenage boy from a troubled background, Liam, who dreams of starting afresh with his mother as soon as she has completed her prison term.
Synopsis: British black comedy, loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty and drive there. The weekend holiday proves less recuperative than they expected.
... My Left Foot(Jim Sheridan, 1989) Synopsis: biographical comedy-drama about a working class Irishman born with cerebral palsy who could only move his left foot. Focus on disability/rehabilitation aspect (in narrative, dialogue and filming/editing techniques) on how to realistically/effectively represent characters with disabilities (like our protagonist who is recovering form brain damage after being in an accident).
Task Practice continuity editing by filming someone walking down a corridor, entering a room and interacting with someone in it
Techniques we practiced using
shot reverse shot
match on action
180 degree rule
whip pan
focus push
panning shot
tilt
basic lighting techniques
we also made a brief shot list
dutch angle
What we didn't have
call sheet
script
tripod/monopod
dolly
props
stabiliser
microphone
mood board
What I learned
body language is as important as dialogue
director needs to be clear/may need to demonstrate
shot lists make it easier
shooting in reverse order
continuity (eg turning out lights) must be payed attention to
how to use manual focus
get lots of footage (often of the same scene) from different angles/distances
always try and jump at least 2 shot distances (eg extreme long shot to close up), other wise it looks like a continuity error
see what footage looks like with and without lighting
Continuous editing v. Discontinuity editing
Continuity editing uses techniques which immerse the audience in the media text, make it smooth and show events as they happen in chronological order. Discontinuity editing however makes the audience acutely aware that they are watching an artificial text which has been constructed, and uses techniques such as jump cuts and the breaking of the 180 degree rule which take away from audience immersion.
Here we see how I recorded and created the background music for our film opening. It's a melody on the guitar with notes that are several seconds apart just like in Tyrannosaur.
...
(MY WORK)
Review notes:
The jogging is not realistic (takes away from verisimilitude)
get involved as director and demonstrate
Use stabiliser
See if actor can grow a beard to make him look older
Add sound of heavy panting for running
POV GoPro shots of running
Add water to make it look like sweat on the protagonist (for verisimilitude)
Bring towels to show tennis player wiping sweat off of himself
Try and film the final cut before the end of autumn (colours show up nicely on camera)
not enough shots
not enough shot variety
bring water bottle to make Tanay look sweaty
create a coach character - verisimilitude
get sound of tennis balls
create dialogue
get shots of Tanay warming up
see if you can get someone to play tennis with him
Over the course of this week we each looked at some different locations for filming the jogging and packing scene, before deciding on the ones you see in the sample scenes. We took either a Sony A58 or used our phone cameras. The tennis training scene will be filmed in Tanay's tennis club, and for the nurse scene we will try and film in the nurses' office at our school when they aren't busy. We chose a street near our school with forest area on one side for the jogging scene because it was very accessible and not very busy, and my house for the packing scene. These are the locations we discarded, either because they were too far away, too busy (risk of continuity errors with people walking past), lack of space for cameras:
"Audiences are both a product of social context … and a
response to a particular media provision"-Denis McQuail
... Gender/Age Primary target audience: males, 18-25 Secondary target audience: females, 18-25 Initially we wanted our film to be a 12+, but we did some research on the BBFC ...
... Because nearly every indie social realist film we looked at received an 18 or 15 rating, we would hope for a 15+, but it is likely that our production would also be pushed to an 18. To put this into some context, these are some of the rating Big Six/Subsidiaries received:
... As the main character is male, uses and gratifications theory would suggests that a primarily male target audience would be interested in this film as they would either identify with the protagonist, or aspire to be like him. The other central character is his partner, Cathy, and she is a significant enough character to draw in a secondary female target audience. Ethnicity We have an ethnically diverse cast (Caucasian, Chinese, Indian), and as caucasian is the hegemonic demographic targeted, we wanted to both represent and target multiple ethnicities. This is something we found to be conventional of the social realist genre (My Beautiful Laundrette, Slumdog Millionaire), and helps to widen our target audience. Sexuality Initially we wanted to have non-heteronormative representation (taking influence form My Beautiful Laundrette), with the protagonist, Tanay, being with another man, but due to casting issues and a need to film we had to scrap this idea and include heteronormative representation. Socioeconomic Status The majority of social realist films are produced by indie companies, and therefore do not have the budget to afford mass mainstream marketing campaigns, leading to exhibition in mainly arthouse and indie cinemas (independent deals), and sometimes film festivals. The average film-goer does not really attend these, as most people go to mainstream cinemas. The main people who attend arthouse cinemas are looking for out of the ordinary films and experiences, or are academically inclined critics, or are in the industry themselves, making the films challenging content more accessible to them as they can employ advanced media language. Even though uses and gratification theory suggests that the social classes being represented in films make up the audiences, this is not always the case for social realist films, as they usually receive major critical praise from high-standing critics, as they include more sophisticated themes/ideologies/representations than many mainstream films. This suggests that ABC1 audiences would find appeal in them, though C1C2DE audiences could still find appeal through identification. (source of information) Counter-Hegemony Gramsci was a 1930's Italian Marxist who argues that the ways in which the elite bourgeoisie dominates wealth and power is not only through legislative and physical force, but through culture, by distributing hegemonic ideologies and representations, leading to wider cultural acceptance of what is being propagated. However, as this is inherently unstable, it can be challenged by counter-hegemonic texts, such as ours strives to be. As we have included counter-typical representations of ethnicity (and wanted to include non-heteronormative representation) our film opening could be argued to be counter-hegemonic. As it is produced with a micro-budget by an indie company, it is not a product of the elite (The Big Six). As covered in other posts this does affect our ability to effectively distribute our film to a wide audience, so our product would likely appeal to a niche target audience, and is, essentially, a binary opposite of the films produced by conglomerates and many of their subsidiaries. Moodboard
Question sheet This week we did a survey to see if out target audience (primarily male aged 15-24) would be interested in our film idea:
We showed them clips form 7 social realist films
Cathy Come Home, Tyrannosaur, This is England, '71, Billy Elliot, Submarine, Slumdog Millionaire
We gave them a question sheet about the clips
Asked them to fill in their age/gender (almost all of them were a part of our target demographic)
The questions were presented to ppts in a table format, but these were the questions
WHAT WE FOUND
Name the film:
they couldn't name most of the films
most recognised Billy Elliot and Slumdog Millionaire, which makes sense as these were the 2 most commercially successful.
Genre:
we suspected a teenage audience would use the word 'drama' to describe most of the films, with hybrid exceptions '71 and Submarine probably being labelled as action/romcom.
This was true for the most part, though 2 recognised the social realist theme.
Slumdog Millionaire was thought to be a Bollywood production by a few of the participants (which makes sense as the majority of Indian films are Bollywood films), but the majority labelled it as rom-com/drama.
Would they want to see more of the films:
almost no one said they wanted to continue watching Cathy Come Home or Tyrannosaur,
more girls than Boys said they would want to continue Billy Elliot (probably because the ballet plot line is too 'girly').
'71 was the most popular among participants that they said they would want to continue because of the genre, but Slumdog Millionaire was also a popular choice.
Had they seen any other films/tv shows that seemed similar:
Only a few participants named similar films/tv shows they had seen
This is England, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Book Thief and Inglorious Bastards were some that were mentioned
But most said they had watched similar things
this is positive feedback as it shows that though our target audience may not have been familiar with the clips we showed, they do have some interest in the genre
Had they been to the cinema to see any films like these:
only 1 participant had been to the cinema to see a social realist film (Slumdog Millionaire)
This makes sense, as discussed in other posts low-budget indie films which tend to be more likely to explore heavy social realist themes are less commercially successful than studio/comedy films and therefore have a more difficult time with theatrical distribution
Even The Journeyman, which we are taking lots of influence from, was screened at an indie film festival (The British and Irish Film festival)
(SAM'S WORK) Casting Samuel Lau Driver of the car He is needed from 15:15 - 16:45 Tanay Saigal Professional Tennis player/protagonist, Jogger who gets hit by the car He is needed from 15:15 - 16:45 Location Setting: Forest in Cents Date: 17/11/18 First sample scene (lack of verisimilitude, lack of shot variety) 03/01/19 Poor image quality, mistake in set dressing and lack of shot variety 15/01/19 Tanay unable to come 23/01/19 '' 03/02/19 '' 05/02/19 Sam fell ill and we couldn't find a new cast member who could drive in time Time: 15:15 - 16:45 Equipment
