Practising with my new Camera

I bought a Canon 1100D DSLR for when I go to South Africa in August to be able to shoot some footage of my first overseas so I decided to have a little play.

I used my cat Isis (after the Egyptian Goddess not the terrorist group) as my subject.

The first image I took was on my 50 mm lens. I didn't really like it much due to the wideness and also the lighting.

So I swung a lens, changed to the 300 mm lens and opened the curtains behind the beautiful Isis and I liked this shot a lot more. She was radiant.

Gearing Up for My Filmed Drama Script

Throughout this process I have confirmed to myself that I am a terrible artist. At least with a pencil.
I have been drawing storyboards for my classmates short film script; "Second Chance." It is about a young girl who is driven to the brink by terrible experiences in her recent pass, she feels she can not cope, but at the last minute, before plunging herself into the dark abyss, she is saved by the memories of her friend. I will be attempting to portray the agony of the young woman tastefully and sophisticatedly in order to not diminish the people who have been through similar experiences.

Viewer/Reader discretion advised. R18

These are my storyboards:

01 - This page demonstrates a wide of the scene that runs through the entirety of the script. It also shows the first couple of close ups and a mid shot.

02 - This shows the beginning and end of a dolly track shot  which occurs just before the girl goes into a flash back which is scene 2.

03 - Scene 2 is made up of close ups and mids while the girl is cutting her wrist. The last shot on this page is back in scene one, the flashback is finished.

04 - Another flashback begins which is a Rape Scene. In which the I was trying to show how scared the girl is at this time and went for a lot of follow shots of the rapist. I also want to shoot this scene tastefully and therefore am limiting the shots to mostly minor touching and her body language reactions.

05 - The first 3 shots on this page are a continuation of that scene then it moves back to scene one in the fourth shot.

 06 - The first shot is incorrect, it is much more likely to be a lot closer. It will focus on her legs as she grabs the table. Then the next three shots are in another flashback scene. I am terrible at drawing perspective so please bear in mind that the second shot on this page is not supposed to be a high angle. Also, in the fourth shot, they are not cuddling, he has grabbed her viciously. 07 - The flashback scene continues, the man is beating the woman, kicking her in the guts. If the ground is wet we will option this out for her being punched up against a wall. The third shot is her reaction as he walks away. In the fourth shot it is scene 1 again, she has put the noose around her neck. 08 -The top shot of this scene is the rope snapping taut, it is interchangeable with the next shot which is her kicking the chair out from under her. The rest of the script is likely to be cut for my first assignment due to lack of time. I would like to shoot them at a later date. Due to this, the script will end with the girl actually committing suicide. 
09 -

10 -

11 -

12 -

I have decided to shoot pretty much all of this hand held to intensify the drama of the scene and make the action more personal. I hope that everything comes across right in my final project.

High and Low Key Lighting

Recently we were set a task to blog about films that utilise High Key or Low Key lighting however due to me wanting to work on Television Series when I graduate I decided to look at Television Series that use these techniques.

From my understanding high key lighting is "a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood" (Wikipedia) and low key lighting is "a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.
Low key light accentuates the contours of an object by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast." (Wikipedia)

The example of high key lighting that I looked at was Outrageous Fortune:



Outrageous Fortune is a New Zealand comedy drama series. Comedy's are more commonly shot with High Key Lighting as they have a more 'upbeat' mood. As you can see here, there are hardly any shadows on the characters as they look into a cardboard box sent by Wolf, thinking something dangerous may be in there, however, it turns out that he has sent them a cake.

The example of low key lighting that I looked at was True Blood:



True Blood is a horror fantasy show which is full of dramatic and scary plot points. In this example here you can see there is a lot more shadow, Sookie's face is almost completely shaded except for a small rim light on the very front edge. Eric's face is half shaded with highlights on his shoulders. It is much more dramatic than the image from Outrageous Fortune.

The Walking Dead - Cinematography That I Love

I am an avid viewer of AMC's the Walking Dead and often I find myself drawn into the shots that are being shown. There are a few that are particular favourites of mine.

This is one:

It is a pull focus big close up which turns into this:

It is perfect for the scene of Sophia's death. It enhances the drama drawing the moment out and it is cinematically beautiful. I just cant get over this one.

This is another:



I like this one because of the lighting. It is incredibly dramatic, I like the lantern in the shot. The light is illuminating the cracks in the wall beautifully.

And lastly this one:



The Walking Dead is great for its Dutch angles, they enhance the fear of the character in dangerous situations. This one here is particularly great in my mind, with Rick falling into the foreground it accentuates the Dutch and the crowd in the background.

I hope to work on a Television Series in the future that requires such cinematic and dramatic shots. I want to write scripts that inspire cinematographers to create images such as these.

GENRE EXERCISE

My team which consisted of Lana, Sarah, and myself, were given the genre of Action and tasked to shoot a short in that style.

We made a little short called Curry Fighting. It was based around two men fighting over a takeaway curry and had an element of comedy to it as well.

We researched other action films and found that there were common cinematography elements to each of the action films. These were:

• Handheld
• Sweeping Pans
• Slow Motion
• High Shutter Speed
• Quick Cuts
• High Angles
• Low Angles

I decided to utilise these in my own way and this is what came out of it.

(The rest of the scene was shot by other students.)

JIMI: All Is By My Side - Review Week 2

JIMI: All Is By My Side



A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.
Director: John Ridley
Writer: John Ridley (screenplay)
Stars: André Benjamin, Hayley Atwell, Imogen Poots



This is one of the most interesting biographies I have seen in a while and not just because I didn't know much about Jimi Hendrix before I watched it but rather because the shooting style and editing choices made the film different and exciting.

First of all I would like to commend the team on the casting of Andre Benjamin as Jimi.
 

(Jimi)                                                                        (Andre as Jimi)

Not only do the two look very similar but Andre is also a very talented musician who played the songs throughout the live performances of the film. I have noticed that often productions have chosen to supply stardom to their biographies rather than to keep to the true look of the person they are supposed to be portraying. For example Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie in The Runaways.


(Cherie)                                                            (Dakota as Cherie)

Though the hair and make up assists a lot in creating the image for her, the rest of the face shape of Cherie is actually more simlar to Kristen Stewarts, Dakota's co-star.

So I am glad that the production team chose to make the film more authentic rather than worrying about the name of which ever star they cast. The real star of this movie is supposed to be Jimi Hendrix and that is what this production has done by using Andre Benjamin.

Now to the actual film.

What I loved about the shooting style was that it seemed to keep in character with Jimi.

The camera seems to concentrate on the small things, during long pieces of dialogue such as in the beginning of the film where Jimi and Linda are discussing the stage name "Jimi James". The camera drifts over to the record player, which has no real importance in the scene but it leads the viewer to really listen to the dialogue between the two characters. I think this is perfect because Jimi as a person seemed to have some really profound things to say.

"If I could do things my way, I'd do that. Do something new, you know."

Another example is when Jimi and Linda see each other for the first time again in London. Where other films would have had this scene in a Two-Shot medium close up, the cinematographer chose to instead concentrate on their hands, clutching for the others in the most tender way.  They mute the dialogue and let the viewer concentrate on this tiny little interaction, really bringing everything down to earth.

Editing choices were also incredibly interesting in this film.

Often throughout the film, while a character can be heard speaking they can often be seen on screen not speaking but instead laughing, or lighting a cigarette. It gives the film a small feeling of a documentary. Jump cuts and the use of negative space is creating a feeling of truth throughout the film.

They lay scenes one over another. While Linda reads the review of the Jimi Hendrix experience, Jimi can be seen and heard arguing with his band mates. It creates some interest to what could have been a rather boring scene and the quick snipet jump cuts involved keep it really exciting. Yet another example of some documentary style editing with a twist. 

All in all I really enjoyed the film and found it quite different from others before it to watch because of its style, casting, and editing.

Cinematography. 17/02/2014 Notes and Brainstorming

Filmed Drama Project. Green = Further Developed

Green Idea’s elaborated on:

11     A woman wakes up in a dirty basement chained to the wall and wearing very little. She doesn’t know why she is there. A mysterious hooded figure enters sporadically throughout, leaving her with clues as to why she has been kidnapped. She has done something, or seen something done and chosen not to act on it in her past which is linked to her kidnapper. Dun dun dun.

22     A man wakes up in bed next to a woman looking very hungover and confused. He goes to quietly climb out of bed and sneak away but upon searching for his clothes discovers he is actually in his own room. The woman wakes up just as confused as he is. They spend the morning discovering who the other person is. She might be a cougar who has accidentally slept with one of her son’s friends???

33  The main character has lost his young daughter in a drink driving accident caused by someone else. This has driven him to become an alcoholic himself but he is in denial. He is also the councillor to an Alcoholic’s Anonymous group trying to hide his secret. One of the members is very quiet and he has been trying to get this member to open up. The member refuses but finds the man in a drunken stupor one night and ends up revealing that he was the drunk driver in the man’s daughter’s car accident…

These are some possible idea’s for my short film in my cinematography class. They all need work and I am hoping to have selected one by next week and have a working synopsis and character outline by then.

I am so looking forward to doing make-up on my best friends Zombie summer project. All I have to do is learn to do things like this:



and this:



And this:



and then I will be sweet!

Dissapointed

I would like to state that I am thoroughly disappointed with my work and work ethic these past two years. I know that I need to do better and yet I have no idea how to better myself. I am struggling with being tired and my body giving up on me at times and I feel as if my love for film making is slowly dwindling down, crushed by the dirt that piles up on the flame. I know that it is almost impossible to do achieve good grades while also working an almost full time job, but only almost. If all I did was worked and studied then I could achieve it all but how in the hell could I be happy? I need at least some form of interaction with humans other than my class mates and my customers at work and yet when socialising becomes a factor my grades drop ten fold. Lately I have felt depressed and angry almost all of the time, I hide it with a polite smile, and act cheery and bubbly but on the inside I'm burning with tears that threaten to overflow at the smallest hiccups. I just dont know how to fix myself. Can anybody out there help?

The Flicks - SIT Film and Animation Showcase

I really enjoyed attending the Flicks, the works shown stunned me with their polish and style. It really encompassed all of the different ideas that the students can come up with and particularly this year the Animations were very well incorporated making them more a part of it than in previous years.
It has shown me that next year we will have to work incredibly hard to surpass our predecessors and this is what we aim to do.
A few of my classmates have been discussing our role in organising the flicks next year and we know that we want to go all out!! We have noticed that not only is the Flicks about the films and animations that are shown but also that all of the audience members are excited by the opportunity to dress up and have a nice night out. Therefore, myself and my classmates have discussed that we need to make the surroundings worthy of how everybody looks. It will take a lot of planning and work but next years Flicks are going to look amazing!!!

While researching Baz Luhrmann as an auteur I found a quote that the man himself gave to The Guardian;

we were in drama school and we had a whole lot of people telling us that there was only one way to tell a story, by the nature of being in an institution you are academically oppressed and want to find your own voice.

It made me think about how I have been feeling recently as I come to the end of my second year of film making study.

We are a group of creative minds, the kind of minds that crave freedom and time and yet we exist within an institution that controls almost every ounce of our creativity. By being forced to fit into schedules and restrictions our work is affected often in a negative way. I find that due to everything being required at one time, we as students, are never able to complete our work to the standard we want to. Time management is obviously a factor but so is the scheduling of the assignments.

If only, as creative people, we could be allowed some slack and given the chance to let our creativity run free in order to make the things we want to make the way we want to make them.

Technology Today

So who's heard about this iWatch?

On the Apple site they say:

"Our goal has always been to make powerful technology more accessible. More relevant. And ultimately more personal. Apple Watch represents a new chapter in the relationship people have with technology. It’s the most personal product we've ever made, because it’s the first one designed to be worn."

I do think they are amazing. However they also got me thinking about our dependency on the technology we use. With each passing year we are getting more and more reliant on the technology produced by the bigger companies such as Apple, Samsung, and all the others. We have begun to think that we can't live without our technology. Which is probably true. If there were a major disaster I wouldn't know how to light a fire for cooking or warmth, at least not without matches and fire-starters. I wouldn't know how to hunt animals or to forage for berries and roots. I would have no idea how to build a shelter, or tie successful knots. Without my phone how would I get in touch with my friends and loved ones?

The Life of a Film Student

Getting back on set recently for our Music Videos and the Second Year's end of year films has been making me think a lot about how we operate as students compared to how we would be operating after we graduate, out in the real world.


Obviously, our crews are smaller, our films shorter, and our gear less extensive than the professional shoots and yet we keep being told that we should be operating in the same way. Don't get me wrong I think it is important to learn the industry way of doing things so that when we get to that stage we know how to act around the industry professionals, but I think it is incredibly difficult to operate that way because we are different and our film set is different.

For one most people don't run their calls on set as they should. We have been taught but it never seems to run that way once we are on set. This is bad. For example if the 1st AD isn't told that the director is going to shoot, they won't call for quiet on set. I think this call is as much to tell people to be quiet as to warn people out of earshot of the director such as art department who are usually hiding away somewhere that they are shooting. When they don't know they could walk into shot, wasting time, wasting footage. I think this is one thing where we need to stick to industry standards. They still apply to our shoots and we need to remember that they are there for a reason.

I've been wondering why this is all so difficult for us, not just the things we haven't learnt but also the things we have. We are disorganised, forgetful, lazy, tired, confused. I came to the conclusion that part of our problem is obviously that we are young and careless and we don't take all our work as seriously as we should, but the other part is that we actually have too much on,

And I'm not complaining that our work load is too much. I'm trying to say that if I were in the 'real-world' where the professionals work, and I were directing a film that I had written, I would have a producer, a DOP, a 1st AD, an Art Director etcetera, and in the 'real-world' these people would be working for me, concentrating on my project. Yes they may have other day jobs and the like but they wouldn't have their own projects to sort out too.

If I had worked on all the films that I was offered a place on then all at the same time I would be:

1st AD on 2 different short films
Art Dept on  2 more different short films
Producer on 1 more short film
Acting and Art Department on another

And that's not even counting my own for which I am Director, Art Director, Producer, and Editer.

It gives us far too much to think about especially considering how much time and effort goes into just 1 short film. That right there is 5 short films, and some other students will have been on more! In my opinion it creates a poorer quality throughout all of the films. I'm not trying to say they are all terrible but ask any film student and they would most likely say "I wish I'd spent a little more time on it." or "If I weren't so tired" or "It's not as good as I'd hoped it would be."

I get that this is all a learning experience but if we are constantly letting ourselves and each other down, is it really teaching us much, or is it rather just slowly suffocating our spirits?

Working Helps Me Work

 Being in the hospitality industry while I study film making is, I think, a real blessing. I am a waitress and therefore every single night I go to work and meet such a series of new people. Most of these people blur by into nothingness but every few days I meet people who really make an impression on me. The group of girls that remind me of Sex in the City, the couple who come in awkwardly and have nothing to talk about, obviously on a first date, but the most memorable for me was the old couple who came in every few days. The Blanks. The Blanks always drank Pinot Gris. They sat silently while they ate their soups and the Man always finished his 20 minutes before his wife did. She would fall asleep at the table and he would bang his fist on it to wake her up. They always had the roast whether it was pork, chicken, lamb, or beef. After a while they started branching out, ordering desserts to finish. The man got the Entrée Special from the blackboard. Then all of a sudden,they stopped coming in. It made me realise that these people that came in almost every day for lunch or dinner, I could list off every detail about them at the restaurant but I had no idea who they were. I began to invent a life outside the restaurant for The Blanks. I realised it was much like writing characters for a script. Since then I've begun to pay attention to the customers, the quirks, the way they relate to each other. I'm not stuck in some office with the same people to study for characters every day. I'm special and I get a whole new set every single day. Scriptwriting here I come.

What We Watch/How We Act

I am re-watching episodes of AMC's The Walking Dead and flipping through facebook finding reports of Ebola victims rising from the dead. It's making me wonder.

I've always thought that some of  the things we have seen on the Big Screen are sure to be in our future lives.

Take Tron. The way the roads light up the way for drivers and pedestrians. It's very futuristic looking and yet it seems that we are already beginning to achieve this in the present day. Many people have seen the articles about solar roadways. Roadways that create energy, that light up to stop people from hitting obstacles. Roadways that are easily fixable and better for our environment.

So obviously this link between film and reality has some good sides to it. If it creates a better future for ourselves and our world. But what about all the negatives that go along with it?

There are reports that when the Twin Towers collapsed in 2001 that people stood and watched, awestruck, saying the it was "Like a Movie." Because of this comlex many died, crushed by the rubble, suffocated by the ash.

Now here I am, reading up on the Ebola Virus, seeing videos of the dead coming back to life and yet I am saying to myself, "No way it can't be real" and "That sort of thing only happens in movies." And then I put myself in the position of the characters on my TV Screen and think, maybe that's what they were scripted to think and by the time they had proof it was real, it was too late.

I just hope that I myself, and the people of the world don't continue with this complex of thinking that something wouldn't really happen because it 'belongs' in a movie. I hope that we learn from our films, not let them blind us.

Scenechronized

Recently in my Pre-Production class at the Southern Institute of Technology I was made aware of an online program called Scenechronize which offers free usage to film makers anywhere.

It is a Pre-Production tool used to create script breakdowns and also call sheets for television episodes, feature films, and short/indie films. I experimented with it this week and absolutely loved it.

This is a screenshot of the short film project I was working on for an assignment.

All you have to do is import your script and it breaks each scene up for you. Then it gives you departments to fill in such as costume, art, camera, gear, casting etc. This script was very simple for me as the entire thing is only one scene but the program makes it easy to fill in all the elements needed for each scene within a script. I will certainly be using this in my future projects both here at SIT and also in my later career.

TVC Work

In a few weeks my film making class will be designing and filming some adverts as an assignment. In preparation for this we were set a task to examine two ad's and evaluate them.

I chose two New Zealand advertisements due to the fact that the non-profit organisation that we will be making advert's for is also New Zealand based.

The first TVC that I looked at was the Mitre 10 Ad - New Zealand vs. Aussie Kids released in 2008

Product 

Mitre 10 “DIY, It’s in our DNA”

Target Market – 

NZ Males 20-60

Problem – 

Contract builders reducing their sales to the average man (my own deduction)

Concept:

 Two boys at the playground talking about DIY reinforces the slogan. Then they use our age old competition with Australia by having the Aussie kid against DIY. Using the idea of manliness which is important to NZ Males.

Technical Elements:

Cinematography – Kids shot at their level as if the audience is one of them rather than an adult. Good.

Production Design – The day is bright and clear which is the kind of weather men would put a retaining wall up in. Kids holding tools.

Performances – AWESOME!! NZ language used is similar to the target audiences.

Editing – Clean and easy editing that puts the audience into the world of the kids.

Post-Production – Ending slogan with product placement is good.

Thoughts:

Using the kids as actors relates to the 'DNA' idea of their slogan as they haven't had a chance to learn to be this way just through the New Zealand culture. The technical elements including the Mitre 10 song that is used in most adverts are used effectively to put the audience into the world of the kids and promote the product/brand.

Over-all Opinion:

Success!!!

The next ad I chose was the National Cervical Screening Programme TV ad - Lunchroom.

Service – 

Smear Testing

Target Market – 

Poly and Maori Females aged 35-60

Problem – 

Not enough Poly and Maori females are coming in to get tested before its too late

Concept – 

Woman around a lunch room discussing how to tell friends to get tested in a laughing manner.

Technical Elements:

Cinematography – Pushes in to the conversation as if the ‘audience’ is just joining the conversation. Movements in the camera make it all seem realistic rather than static.

Production Design – The lunch room looks average and relatable to most women in office jobs or anything like that. 

Performances – Not well acted (in the sense of real life) but the women do seem friendly with each other. Man in background at 11 seconds is hilarious and truthful. 

Editing –  It cuts between each woman's opinion well as if the camera is another person in the group.

Post-Production – Applies the question at the beginning which is very good. V/O at the end sends the message home.

Thoughts:

Getting tested for cancer can be quite scary and off putting. This advert makes the concept a lot more inviting for the average woman.

Over-all Opinion:

Success!!!