Evaluation

Experimental Evaluationn 2000 Words

Final Project Feedback

The feedback we were given was a mixed bag.

It was suggested that the piece would work better as an installation, being submerged with the sinking colours. Once said I could picture this, and thought that it would indeed create a nice effect, and I know that is what Luke had in mind for the piece if it was possible to do.

As for how it works as a film with all the philosophical meanings that I wanted it to portray I understand that it couldn't quite be perceived through the imagery alone and it was the title and the explanation of the piece that allowed people to understand what it was about.

Still everyone agreed that it was visually hypnotic, and the images and colours were well chosen and the music fit. I really enjoyed the final product and it was fun working with Luke.

Post Production Take Two

Unfortunately I hadn't been able to find any archive footage of what I wanted, so I was happy to leave things as it was. I did a bit of editing, just tweaking to make sure everything fit and flowed well, namely with the images of Luke over the ink.
The images were overlapped by an effect called Overlay which made putting the images together a lot easier

In general, while editing the piece you had to stay concentrated otherwise it could get confusing as there were a lot of slow motion/speed up and reversed shots.

After we had finished Luke was tinkering around with what the other effects did and found something called Difference, which inverted the colours and considering we were using a range of colours the effects were interesting. We then decided to invert our favourite clips at the end of the sequence which I believed would fit in with the theme of The Human Situation, the idea of realising that you are trapped in a world/life that you didn't want to end up in. The knowing causes an internal burning rage but there is still nothing you can do to change the life you are leading. You are trapped.

After that was done there was only the sound left to do, and as Luke knew what he wanted and had explained it to me (Two chord monotonic sound to resonate and flow with the sinking and lifting ink and complimenting the characters slow falling.) he went to a friends to create it that night, before putting it together with the sequence ready for the presentation tomorrow.

[Screen Grabs Luke sent me of the process that him and his friend went through when creating the sound for the piece]

Post Production: Merging the two images.

The images look and work really well together and still manage to stand for good metaphors for The Human Situation, but as I suspected there isn't enough to fill five minutes of screen time.

I am looking for any archive footage or imagery that can maybe fit with what we have, My idea is to have someone dancing underwater but so far I can only find still and no moving imagery of what I have in mind.

The last thing now is to put together the sound element, with changing the imagery the idea of having unnerving, chilling and borderline upsetting sound doesn't seem to quite fit the bill, so we are re-evaluating and trying to find a droning type sound.

Production: Re-evaluation (Thursday 25th April)

As per the previous post we had intended to use a dancer in out piece, but unfortunately the person we had in mind got tonsillitis, which we got told at the last minute. Therefore we had to come up with an alternative plan. Originally it was going to be based off of this trailer for the BBC show Luther


But unfortunately due to space constrictions and where we were filming (S1 Arts space) we had to change the idea and based it off this imagery I had of someone falling in slow motion. Also due to the short notice no other actor could be found and therefore we had to use Luke.

It went really well and because of the white background I think it will work out really well in the post production stage. The only downside is that I don't think we have enough to fill the 5 minute mark.

Revised Shooting Schedule

Production: Practice in the Warehouse (Friday 19th May)

Today we down to Hope Works, a warehouse owned by a friend of Luke's, this is where we intended to have the dance section of the film shot, but due to time constraints we weren't able to get the footage we wanted so decided to use the day as a test shoot. We asked the dancer to do a few moves and inspected the space, noting things that we would need to move around for when we came back the following Wednesday, added the need to use lighting.

Production: Ink (Wednesday 17th May)

We had The Workstation booked to film the ink in water sequence, this location was best because there was a sink which meant that we had easy access to water with out the extra worry of the box not fitting in the sink etc.

The only negative and potentially dangerous thing was that the box had a leak and we were working with three point lighting. I had a stack of paper towels on hand to periodically mod up any leakage before it left the table and got anywhere on the floor. This was easier for me to do as I was handling pouring the ink into the water as Luke worked on the lighting and the camera placement.

We filmed in both a normal and higher frame rate, as well as using a microscopic lens so that the shots could be tighter. We also had a range of food colouring colours; 

Which all depending on the order added to the water created a new effect each time. The only tricky thing was that each colour had its own consistence  Some would plunge straight to the bottom and others would float at the top and sink slowly and gracefully to the bottom of the tank. 

We captured a lot of varied footage, the majority of which seemed usable to me which is a good thing as it meant we could tick this off of our list and focus on the next task.

Pre Production: The Ink Effect

We went to the tutorial where we discussed what we had done so far and what we were planning in the upcoming week.
The task at hand for the day was to find a tank. We had a few ideas in mind...
-Going down to Sheaf basement to see if they had any lying around
-or they had the materials we could use to build one
-Buying a fish tank

When we went to Sheaf and told the technicians about the idea they said that using plastic perspect sheets wouldn't work as the water would cause it to burst. They said that using glass would be easier but that it is more trouble that it's worth to get it made and we would be better off buying a ready made tank.

We then went and found a computer and checked the nearest Pets At Home store for tanks. The shop was pretty far so we looked a little more local and found that we could get a decent sized and decent priced fish tank from B&M Homestore. When we went there we found the tank but there was a debate as to whether we should use a large plastic container instead. It was decided to take the plastic container and if that diodn't work exchange it with the glass one.
We went to Lukes to experiment with how the plastic container would work and whether food colouring was a good substitute for ink.

The results were positive and thus we decided to stay with using the plastic container and get a range of food colouring colours for when we film the following day. The only negative was that the box had an undetectable leak. This was due two one of two reasons, one; that what the technician at Sheaf had talk us about Plastic not being built to hold a large capacity of water without bursting was correct, or that it was a defective box.

Sound Recording

The tone of the film is to have a juxtaposition between something that makes your skin crawl and something that makes you feel bored.

The Uneasiness is a metaphor for how you feel when you realise that the life you are leading isn't the one you had in mind and the boring monotonic one is a metaphor for the unawareness that occurs when you are living in the life that you never intended for yourself.

We focused on recording the creepy uneasy sounds today and to help pinpoint the sounds we wanted to recorded we listened very closely Unheimlich - Animacion, trying to guess what we were hearing in order for us to then go and find similar things to record.

Experimental Sound Recording Lodger

Pre Production: Shooting Schedule and Equipment List

Equipment needed throughout production stage

Canon7D body
Zoom Lens 15-85mm f3.5
Lens 35mm f1.4
Lens 50mm f1.2
2 x Canon LP-E6 Battery Packs
SanDisk Extreme 8GB Compact Flash
Dedo DHL4 Kit
Multi Coloured Translucent Perspex Sheets
Tripod
Track and Dolly

Hydro Microphone

Marantz 660

Shot Gun Microphone

Synopsis

Based on the idea of The Human Situation whereby we are trapped in reality and suppressing the essence of the life we were meant to lead. We have decided on the images we want to use to convey this philosophy and have deconstructed metaphors out of them. The ink in water effect will be a constant image throughout and its slow tentacle like movement will be the consistency and never changing almost fate like presence of life. The next imagery involves a dancing segment, this will be contemporary dancing, a lot of pops and locks that when shown in reverse will look really disjointed and almost painfully weird. This is a metaphor for reverting back into the womb as if to start your life again and live it the way you choose, but showing that it isn’t an easy task.

To heighten the uncomfortableness the sound track will be that of creepy skin chilling sounds in an attempt to make the audience feel really unsettled. This feeling is to be mirrored with the dancing, making it look spastic and unstable as we feel this denotes how people feel uncomfortable with any sort of change the their situation. On top of this will be a droning sound that goes with the inks, making something that looks beautiful sound boring and monotonous, this juxtaposition shows the illusion of the reality.

So far these are the images we have in mind and are still speculating on one or two more to add to this current set up as we feel that it won’t be long enough.

Pre Production

After having two weeks off to ponder, consider and reconsider a range of visuals for the piece we came together to work on what to film deciding it would be easier to take certain sections of the idea and find visuals that could be seen as a metaphor for them.

We also came up with a list of things that needed to be found and done within the week to ensure that we could start filming for the following week:

-Dancer
-Tank/Perspects
-Ink
-Warehouse/Derelict Building
-Test Shots
-Sound

To give us an idea of how we would go about creating the ink in the water effect

Inspiration

The tutorial consisted of feedback from the Treatment and going from there to find visuals that would best personificate the idea of The Human Situation of which the treatment was based.
Luke had a few visual ideas that he thought we would be able to mimic and would fit with the style.

[From 1:57 to 3:15]
It is both visually interesting as well as an interesting concept, of having the whole scene shown backwards with this dancing character who seems completely comfortably out of place.



This whole short has the calming feel and element that I feel the piece should emulate.

Treatment for 5minute Narrative

5minute ExperimentalTreatment by

Assessment: Production

I had my actor in place to film on Thursday evening and they didn't show up and I couldn't get in contact with them, this meant that I had to quickly change my idea.

I filmed three different ideas:
-A hoover slowly approaching the camera through a trail of mess left for it, kind of like an approaching inevitable monster, as the camera was on the floor was meant to be something that would inevitably be sucked up
-Putting the camera in a bin and filling it up, hoping to make the audience feel claustrophobic before removing the rubbish and allowing the audience to breathe.
-Playing around with the idea of the sink that I still liked as a focal point, the idea of it going from over clean and pure, to it being messed up before being cleansed. Kind of like the idea of wiping the slate clean.

Drawing from the inspiration of an experimental film we watched in class a few weeks ago [about the man shaving blood and the sink filling up] I decided to keep the focus point being the bathroom sink. I had to improvise a bit with the use of colour, I wanted mess but didn't have any dark colours to taintthe water with to give that impression of dirty so instead drawing again from my original idea I went with Red like Blood. I experimented with Tomato juice (which I bought for the original idea) and blackcurrant mixed juice and red food colouring. It was incredibly disappointing that my actor went AWOL and what I had to produce wasn't what I had in mind, but based on the circumstance I am moderately pleased with what I came up with.

Assessment: Pre Production - One Minute

My idea for my one minute individual idea is to have an extreme close up view of someone performing morning activities around a sink.

The camera will move from their feet coming out of the shower and on to them at the bathroom sink [Showing their feet then panning up to the sink] where they will then shave and we seen hair drop to the clean white sink, then they brush their teeth, and we have an extreme close up on their teeth, back to the sink they wash their face before exiting the bathroom, leaving the sink in an uglier state then when they started.

I was going to place my hand over the screen for a few seconds as a way to fade to black as I jump between the sink and the persons facial close ups as a way to hide the rough movements of the camera.

Lesson: Camera-Less Film Workshop

In todays session we looked at the working of a 16mm Bolex camera, this particular kinds of cameras were used a lot in independent films because of their lightness, as well as this they were used by a lot of journalists.reporters because they don't need plugging in, they can be charged by winding it up.

We had a go at making camera-less films, having a choice between using two kinds of films, clear and black. The clear one was easier to use as it only required drawing on the film using permanent marker. The Black film was a lot harder to use, as you had to scratch into it, Though the one below looks scratched into, in reality it didn't penetrate the coating so nothing would show up if it was run through the viewing machine.

We also watched a few experimental camera-less films.
A Colour Box by Len Lye
Boogie-Doodle by Norman McLaren
Rainbow Dance by Len Lye
Two Sisters by Caroline Leaf

My favourite was Boogie-Doodle as I felt that the soundtrack and the bright images made a brilliant ensemble that made for visual enjoyment.



Two Sisters was very inspiring though because it looked so complex, you could see how they best tried to avoid scratching to still give the best effect.




It was an enjoyable workshop and it was good to know that we have the equipment to facilitate such a dying  but antique art-form. It would have been nice to shoot on the 16mm camera, but of course the film is expensive as is to process it.

Lesson: Presentation

Experimental Presentation by

My ideas can come at any time and come from nowhere in particular, in fact thinking back I cant quite remember how this idea was generated. But once I think of my idea I then comb through the interweb looking for similar work that I can then use to further develop my idea if it isn't already fully formed.
In this case I stumbled on to Paradigm by BS Johnson. Where by the character is shown in different stages of life talking about the existence in an unknown language.

From the presentation you can see that the idea is still lacking a clear visual and definitive direction, as though I was coming up with the idea, my partner had one already in mind so I had no problem going with his idea, most likely adding my own flavour and zest to it as we went along so it would be a more collaborative piece than a one sided one. Alas when my partner didn't show up to pitch his idea it meant that we were going to automatically go with mine. I don't mind this but I still feel like I would rather the piece by collaborative than all mine, and as afore mentioned the idea still has a number of gaps to be filled which Luke can help with, or even maybe there might be a way to mould our two ideas.

In the meantime however as I haven't heard from him I will be filling the holes in my current Idea ready for the treatment hand in date towards the end of the semester.

Lesson: Tutorial

The ideas that I had come up with during the week for the final assessment project were as followed

-Smashing glass objects in an outside space, until the character gets injured and potential drowns in his own blood.
-A person playing catch with multiple duplications of themselves. One of them drops the ball and is ostracised by the group.

The ideas are very vague, which is how the stem of my generating process begins. Both the ideas have their faults and I still have a week before I have to present an idea to the group.

Lesson: The Long Take in 60 seconds

In anticipation for our first major project which will be a one minute sync sound one take piece of work, we analysed various forms of experimental filmmaking that was either a minute long in length or had a section that showed a long take. 

We watched the following sing take films
The Kiss by John Smith and Ian Bourn
The Way Things Go by Fischli and Weiss
TV Interruptions by David Hall
Who Killed Brown Owl by Desperate Optimist
Nostalgia by Hollis Frampton

The one that I favourited amongst the rest was Who Killed Brown Owl by Desperate Optimist and this because I felt they were able to tell a story and show a range of characters during that one long take. Something that must have been difficult to orchestrate but had an amazing effect not only because of the never faltering movement of the camera but also the brightness of the day showed some kind of harsh juxtaposition between the images of the dead bodies. Though the brief says to try and keep the camera locked off in one position during the entire one minute take I thought that this example was good at ominous story telling which is something I feel like I could achieve.

Watching these films gave me a range of ideas on how to find and or use loop holes with the project specifications. This includes slow motion, Time lapse, Flashing a black card in front of the camera to assimilate a "Cut" or a blink depending on the style of the piece.

We also watched a range of other films which includes the following to name but a few...
Redshift - Emily Richardson

Continental Drift - William Raban

Worse Case Scenario - John Smith
2000 Fantoms - Jean Gabriel Periot

On The Main Square Of The Forest Edge - Sofie Thorsen

The Slippery Mountain - Prov Myza

2 Into 1 by Gillian Wearing

Two Or Three Things I Know About Her - Jean Luc Godard.

Fence by Matthew Murdoch. This looked at the gaze of the Protagonist

The Brief.

Taking inspiration from The Five Obstructions by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth the main project pairs project for the semester has some obstructions that we must adhere to which are as follows.

- 5 to 10 minutes in length
- 1 person or 1 object should be featured within your piece
- A real location must be used (No sets)
- No linear narrative should be used
- No found sound used - you must record and manipulate sound
- No use of sound purely as an explanation of screen action
- You must include at least one aspect in your production that reference the mechanics of filmmaking.

No with the obstructions in place I can think about what I want to achieve for the piece, and having the brief so early means that we have plenty of time to brainstorm and find location/objects/actor/anything the film needs, whilst still having enough time to edit.

Lesson: Different Approaches

In session we looked at a range of Different Approaches to experimental filmmaking which is in a way a sub category to the previous sub categories mentioned in my previous post.

Non Linear
Copy Shop by Widrich Virgil
The Straight and Narrow by Mathias Goklap

Personal View
Measures of Distance by Mona Hatoum

Abstract/Non Objective
Without You by Tal Rosner

Cameraless Film
A Colour Box by Len lye

Structural
Intervals - Peter Greenway

Found Footage/ Collage Film
Blue Monday by The Duvet Brothers
Alone Life Wastes Andy Hardy by Martin Arnold

Video Art
Video Film by Nam Paik

Of all the various styles I think that I prefer the ones taken from Non linear this is because it allows you more freedom to play around with the images whilst still having some form of narrative structural form. I particularly enjoyed Copy Shop because the ending was non conclusive or at least open to interpretation or guess work, which is one of my favourite affiliations with experimental film.



I did also like the Duvet Brothers Blue Monday, as collages do give a nice effect and allow you to play around with texture, imagery and colour especially as it is using archive footage, meaning that you don't always have a say of picture quality for example when you need to use a specific image.
I can't really pinpoint a specific form that I particularly disliked as though some may not have been to my taste each had a unique element that worked to its favour.

Analysing The Experimental

The short experimental film that I have chosen to analyse is Pencil Face by Christian Simmons.
I enjoyed it because of the ever present feeling of something going wrong, despite the positive outcomes that the girl had in mind. The music was very effective in helping to but you on edge and that and the picture itself more than made up for the non use of dialogue.

I also looked at a few other Experimental videos Including

The Solipsist by Andrew Huang

What stood out to me the most in this piece was the use of colour as well as the way that you were transitioned from one element to another.

Hurricane by Bartholomew Cubbins


Thirty Seconds To Mars - Hurricane (Uncensored Version) HD from Pedro Pestana on Vimeo.

This music video by 30 Second To Mars is one of my favourite because it manages to explore a whole abstract narrative form whilst still maintaining the key music video elements. The picture and the break up of the actual some allow you to be pulled into the story world as you follow each of the three protagonists and latch on to their various unconnected story lines. The poetry element and use of another language help to tie up the piece which I felt helped to give it that elemental touch.

Thoughts on the Article

The definition of Experimental Film taken from the article suggestions that it is willfully nonconformist, and with that notion in mind sets out to challenge orthodox notions of what can and cannot be shown in film. Experimental filmmakers have a message that they want to tell, and they get the message across in eccentric ways forcing the audience to make their own interpretations, making them think about what they have seen as opposed to having it spoon fed to them such as is the role of mainstream media.

Maya Deren is one of the key influences of the Avant Garde movement and is well known in the Experimental Film circuit, namely her film Meshes of the afternoon which is a good example of Experimental Filmmaking. It allows the audience to make their own conclusion of the happening.



For me this film is a dream sequence in which a woman in in turmoil, battling with herself, which can be denoted by the mirror faced haunting figure. Her delusions of what is real and what is fantasy also cants out perspective where we are left to conclude for ourselves whether what we are seeing is true.

Experimental Films can also be sub-catagorized.

Abstract
The main example the article uses, and one that I have come across in many occasions is Ballet Mécanique, by Dudley Murphy and Fernand Léger where the use of shapes and glimpses of imagery are used to almost sedate the audience. For me watching this piece makes me feel like I am being brainwashed, as the images move so quickly.



The last two forms of experimental filmmaking the article mention are; Associational and Animated, the former using poetry and or images that link in a rhythmic way to get a message to the audience, whilst the latter can employ abstract or associational techniques but giving a new form of view by its ability to distort or simply design what we see.

Lesson: The Perfect Human and The Five Obstructions

We looked at the short Experimental film entitled The Perfect Human (Leth, 1967) where we watched the movements of a man and a women who were labelled "The Perfect Human". We watched them sleep, eat, change etc, all in the backdrop of a large boundless white room.



The film was interesting, it was as if by watching those who were depicted as "The Perfect Human" we were supposed to be learning from their ways. It almost felt as a form of subliminal messaging. Watching this film lead on to the Feature film of The Five Obstructions (Leth, Von Trier, 2003). Whereby Lars Von Trier allowed Jorgen Leth to recreate his short film five different times. Each time there was a new limit, for example, Animation, No clip being longer than 12 frames etc. We watched as Leth did what he could to over come the barriers by either finding loopholes, or exploiting the elements he found particularly interesting.



Overall the message of the film was interesting; There is always a way to make a seemingly impossible task into something you end up loving or enjoying. And this will become useful later on down the line when we get the brief for our first projects.
I did feel as though Von Trier was looking to push Leth, poking him and goading him and more or less setting him up to fail, which didn't make me like him at all. But what I did admire was Leth's non relenting ability to come out on top despite the perpetual torments of his master. The obstructions had to be admired for their creativity though they were at times made up on the spot to hurt Leth. The way he overcame them, as previously stated was very encouraging.