Vimeo Link

https://vimeo.com/164704293

CPDR progress evaluation

I feel I’ve made great progress with filmmaking throughout the module. The sound piece and films I have made in the module taught me a lot about the technical and creative side narrative and documentary filmmaking.

The first sound piece taught me a lot about creating a space through sound. I hadn’t had much experience with sound design, so this taught me a great deal. For example, using different microphones for different recordings, and layering sounds.

Then turning this into a film proved a challenge connecting the visual side. It was difficult building a narrative from what had been quite an abstract sound piece. We ended up making quite a minimalist film ‘Down’. Making the film allowed me to experiment creatively with how to visualise the sound. We blended multiple loud uncomfortable sounds from public spaces, then contrasted these with the quiet of the lift. We visualised the loud busy urban environment by using fast cutting, handheld camerawork, lens whacking and shooting through glass/reflections to create an anxious and rushed aesthetic, characterising our protagonist who appeared lost in her environment. In contrast, we used longer takes, steadier camerawork and fades in the lift to convey more stability.

Making the documentary was especially challenging. Finding a topic for a documentary was the hardest part, but we soon came up with multiple ideas. We were especially lucky when we decided to make a documentary about Thrifty store, as we did not know about the building it was situated in and their plans to grow into it. The store owner, Bally, was a good character and was happy talking and appearing on camera. We decided to use two different styles of documentary filmmaking to tackle both the shop and the abandoned areas of the building. In the shop, we conducted quite formal sat down interviews, talked to workers and filmed quite candidly. In the rest of the building however, we used a shoulder cam and camera light to film Bally walking around the building, talking to the camera about his plans for the area. This we cut with static cutaways of different details and communicating the size of the place. Shooting the documentary was a new experience for me. It taught me a lot about how to conduct interviews, asking open questions and researching the background of the place to tell its story. I also learnt a lot from tackling different challenges such as filming long interview tours around a large snaking building.

 The drama taught me a lot about working with scripts and actors. Writing the script was hard, especially the argument dialogue, which was difficult to make realistic.

Shooting the film also taught me a lot about organising shoots with actors and difficult locations. At first, shooting on a moor seemed too difficult a task to realise. Transporting Actors and equipment and keeping them fed and dry could be too difficult on no budget. However, we picked a perfect location near a pub and bus route, and watched the weather forecast for the best day to shoot.

Drama Evaluation

I think the finished film Scarlet Heath is a success, and I’m happy with how it turned out. We took a chance with how we told the story, such as shooting on tape, zooming out from the tape (which told a great deal of the story) and using little dialogue. Although this makes the story much harder to follow, I like how subtle it is. It isn’t necessary to know the characters names and backstory, but instead see the situation they are in.

Writing the script was hard as we had some parts pure cinema (without dialogue) and others with heavy dialogue, which was hard to make sound serious as it was an argument. We decided to write as close to realistic as we could, and improvise slightly off of what we had written on the day.

A difficulty of shooting was shooting on tape. The camera was at least 15 years old and had to be tested if it worked. I had to learn how to use it days before shooting and buy backup tapes. Because in Josh plays the tape direct from the camera in the first scene, we had to shoot all of the tape scenes back to back in chronological order as we planned not to edit it. If it didn’t work we planned to edit it and make it look like it was playing off the camera, but thankfully everything went to plan, allowing us to film using the footage the next day on the screen.

Another issue with shooting on a diegetic tape camera was it could turn the film into a found footage/POV film and not be taken seriously. However, this is fixed with the smooth zoom out which contrasts the handheld aesthetic. Although the second half has different cinematography to the tape, appearing more realistic through static camerawork, we used slight jumps in the edit to suggest that this scene also lacked realism, and could perhaps also be a film. The scene’s lack of realism is communicated also by the ghostly disappearance and reappearance of Madison and Alice.

Shooting only lasted two days back to back, giving plenty of time to the edit. The first day was the most difficult to organise, as it meant transporting the equipment and actors to fox house on the peak district, which involved buses and taxis. We chose this location as it was near a pub and on a popular bus route, allowing us easy shelter, catering and transport. However, a short walk away and we had the wilderness we needed for our film.  

We took inspiration from multiple films visually and thematically, such as Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible and Love, Michael Haneke’s Caché and Code Unknown, Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror. We decided to use ideas such as the camera pulling out from a screen from Code Unknown and Love. The letting go of the tape was inspired by the freeing of the bird in Mirror, signalling death and freedom. Josh being haunted by previous lovers was inspired by 2046, a film containing being haunted by a previous lover.

Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000)
 and Love (Noé, 2015)

Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)

Edit Progress

Editing was quite easy due to us using long takes. The tape footage playing on the television at the beginning had to be filmed in order so we could film it directly from the camera plugged into the TV, meaning we did not have to edit any of the tape footage. We colour graded the footage to be much warmer, giving the ending a dramatic sunset colour and adding to the film’s red and yellow colour scheme.

The most difficult part to edit was the final scene. It was paced slowly and had no dialogue, as well as telling a lot of the story. We cut out as much as we could, going for less cuts and longer takes to focus on the performance and set the pace. Initially we had hoped to reveal Madison as a hallucination by using a two shot with her in and then not after cutting back, but we decided to cut this and convey it more subtly. We experimented with different editing techniques such as making the footage jump slightly during the ending scene, which makes the viewer question the reality of the scene, making it more alike the previous scene shot on tape which pauses and fastforwards. Feedback for the rough edit was mostly positive and helpful, and looked at changed some cuts after showing it.

Script read through workshop approach

Due to our film containing large parts of pure cinema and others with only loose dialogue which we hoped to improvise, doing a readthrough is a hard task. The parts of pure cinema were also very static and would be difficult to practice in a workshop. We planned to talk to the actors about the characters they may play, and use them to help characterize them further and assist the writing of more scripted dialogue for the moor argument based off our current script, which to be effective must be well written and performed realistically. This way we will have scripted dialogue for the shoot to work off if the actors cannot improvise. We also have sections of our film where a diegetic camera is used and potentially diegetic sound through the camera’s microphone as if he were carrying it, meaning the actor playing Josh would either have to move with the cameraman or be the cameraman. We hope to test which works best in the workshop, and decide which approach works best.

Film idea pitch

About A Girl (Brian Percival, 2001) 200 word response

About A Girl is a short realist drama about an English working class girl and her difficult relationship with her family. The film cuts between following the protagonist as she recounts parts of her life to the audience, and flashbacks to different scenes in her life as she talks about them. The use of tragic irony through these cuts, such as when she says her father took her in the pub yet we see her sat alone outside, is emotive and makes us sympathise with the protagonist.

The film uses quick cutting, jump cuts and unsteady handheld camerawork to make the film feel uncomfortable and rushed, and to give it a documentary aesthetic. In contrast, slower editing and more steady camerawork is employed on moments of revelation, such as the café scene with her father, and at the end where she disposes of the baby in the canal. The clarity of these scenes suggests we are seeing the objective truth, whilst the more subjective camerawork and girl’s rambling monologue conveys a disorientated and unreliable protagonist, affected by her surroundings and troubled family life. The protagonist’s singing is emotive and expressive of her character, whilst still remaining diegetic in keeping with the realist style.