Final Tweaks

We are finally at a point where we have completed filming and are now in the process of editing the narration and any additional effects. The film has turned out quite well and we are looking forward to getting a reaction from the audience in next weeks screenings. 

Narration and Sound

After the first edit of our film we decided as a team that we definitely needed a narration to help tell the story. We have drafted a script and have a willing volunteer to help us to add a female voice over to our film. The narration will talk about the way in which the woman feels about journey into isolation. 

Premium Beat is a website that enables you to download royalty free music, and this is helpful for us if we decide its necessary to add music over our film. There are a few tracks that stand out so far, however at this point the narration is the priority.

Change of plan : Improvise

So the bad news is that we havent had any reply from the council regarding permission to film on the estates that we had chosen. This means that we are going to have to improvise a bit and find new locations that we dont need permission for, that still fit the criteria of our film.

Searching for actors!! : Permission from council to film

For our film we are going to need a female actress who is willing to participate in our film for free. Thankfully our university has a Drama and Theater Society which meant that we could post adds on there Facebook page to see if anyone was interested. 

We have also been in contact with a number of actresses outside of university, via email and through associates.

Projections Research

Steve Mcqueen is an English film director, screen writer, and video artist. He has worked with projections on many acations, including famously one of Kanye Wests music video. This image above is what i am most interested in, as it shows us what it would look like to project on multiple sides of a screen. If we were to create an object for example a square or triangle using screens we could tell a story from multiple angles. This is an interesting concept as the angles couple be literal or metaphorical, and we can use Tarantino's famous 360 tracking shot to show all the sides of the object. 

Additional research

Finding a location online

Finding free locations to shoot in Leeds meant that we needed to go online and search. Thankfully we discovered shoot factory which is a company that lets out locations such as this old abandoned building in Leeds to allow people to film. This space could potentially be were we will build our giant triangle of projection screens. It has more then enough space to be able to build a track around the triangle. The only problem is that we do not know how much it will cost to shoot on this site without a response to our inquiry.

The concept : A Decent Into Isolation

The concept that we as a group have decided upon will be someones decent into isolation. Specifically we think, looking at a woman who is grieving the loss of her child. We think that we an demonstrate this through long shots of the city and slowly focus in on the busyness of the city, we will also use sound effects and potentially a narration to help assist this atmosphere. 

Finding locations to shoot

360 Tracking Shot

The 360 tracking shot was made famous by Quentin Tarantino, who made this his trademark shot. The shot involves the camera rotating around the area of action in a circular 360 degrees motion shot. The effect of this is that you as the audience feel like part of the action as you are seeing the action from all sides. 

Getting the best results with the 360 tracking shot involves using a fixed track with the camera built onto a slider which can be moved manually around the action. This makes the camera movent more stable and gives the camera man more control in the speed at which they travel around the action. This video is an example of a 360 tracking shot using a built tack, in an indoor dance film shoot.

This shot is something that we are looking into using as a group as we feel that it will allow us to engage the audience and tell a story in a way that they may have never seen before. 

Inspiration

Whilst researching examples of experimental film I came across these three films that I thought stood out and will potentially influence the kind of film that me and my team might end up making.

Fluidity

This film is interesting as the concept is very simple, dye is injected using a pipet into a clear tank of water and the reaction is filmed. Using sound and edditing they were able to show the process in reverse and add effects to potentially make the images stronger.

The Ting

This brilliant shrt film was part of the Urban Film Festival in 2003, and is a wonderfully funny. The creators have made a dark situtation humerous by adding subtitles to london based slang english, which i think is hillarious! The plot is straight forward and not hard to understand. 

Box

                                           

The box is a film that i am particularly interested in as I have thought for a long time about working with projections and in particular interacting with the projections. This is a perfectly timed piece, every part moving in sink with one another to create a wonderful film. 

Group Selection : Experimental Pure and Simple

An introduction to Experimental Film

So this semester we have been given the task of creating our own experimental short film. This film can be anything we like as long as it fits within one of the experimental film strands, which are:

1. Experimental film: pure and simple
2. Experimental Documentary: the Art of story telling
3. Screen dance: in collaboration with dance, dirty dancing.
4. Fashion Film: the new Avant-garde?
5. Time-lapse and related concepts: the wonder of the impossible.

Once decided we then have to split into groups of 4/5 people that are also interested in the same strand of experimental film as myself. Looking at the options above and from the our first lecture i am drawn to two of the following strands (1 and 2).

Pure and simple is nice and easy, it will give me scope to make any kind of film I'd like. However i fear that without structure or any rules to obide by as a group we may stray far from the experimental film path. I can imagine that everyone in the group will have different ideas about what kind of film they'd like to make.

I have always wanted to make a documentary and it is an opportunity to make a film about something important going on in the world at the moment. This would also potentially give me the opportunity to travel and meet with important people working in the area the documentary may be about. I think it would allow me the opportunity to make a real difference on the ground and work to spread the word about a certain cause.