Films
Sharits, Paul T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G 1969
Jones, Geoffrey Locomotion 1975
Smith, John Om 1986
Goodwin, Dryden Flight 2005
Music
Gabriel, Peter So 1986
Ros, Sigur Von 1997
Websites
http://www.shortoftheweek.com/
http://www.thesmalls.com/
http://www.sundance.org/programs/short-film/
http://www.luxonline.org.uk/
Monday, 16 December 2013
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Self Evaluation
The concept of our experimental piece is an attempt to depict a sense of loneliness and isolation in such a large world. Our intentions to show this through the use of three separate locations - all vast, open spaces; a cityscape, the sea and the forest. We also wanted to achieve this idea through distinct, structural camerawork; using three lengthy slow zoom-outs to increase the sense of loneliness for the viewer. A particular inspiration for me, musically is Sigur Ros. His first album uses silence and haunting vocals creating an ethereal atmosphere that comes to a crashing climax. We intended our sound to come to a crescendo in a similar style, but through the recordings of waves as well as echoing male vocals - similar to that of Sigur Ros and Peter Gabriel.
Our intended audience is of the more mature kind - although we do not wish to restrict ourselves, we would like everyone who has an appreciation of experimental film to enjoy it. However, after undertaking audience research, we found out that younger audiences tend to prefer films with snappier edits which is why we came to the conclusion of directing our piece towards a more mature audience.
Ideally, from our piece, we would like anyone who has ever felt lonely to be able to relate to it in some way. A more mature audience would perhaps prefer the piece, although we would like it to be universal; the socio-economic position of the person is irrelevant in this instance as loneliness and isolation is a feeling known worldwide.
Our piece is constructed of three lengthy zoom-outs in three separate locations with two cross cuts in between minute one and two. For the audience, the structure will be apparent early on in the piece. From a constructive perspective, it may not be easy to engage with the objects that the shots focus on, for example, the mug in the first zoom-out and the worn-down chair in the last shot. From a detached point of view, the essence of loneliness (whilst obvious to me and my partner) may not be particularly obvious to the audience, but I hope we have avoided confusion.
When we presented a demo of our sound track to our tutor and class, we generally received positive feedback, especially regarding the crescendo of the sea and the male vocals - building up to an unknown tension. Conversely, the class regarded the piece as "tribal" and "spiritual" and when we explained that the idea was to project a sense of loneliness through the sounds of the sea, some members of the class, along with the tutor, could not detect or relate to it. We are unsure as to whether this will still be an issue for the listener.
An aspect that I believe works well is the use of cross cuts. Towards the end of the first shot, as a tram passes, it cross cuts to my hand emulating the shape of a bird, which I think will be received well by the audience, and although it can suggest freedom - because it is slowed down and the bird is alone, I believe it works well in projecting a sense of loneliness. The artificial lighting and effects we have added to the cross cuts we use (the other one being of a cloud) contrasts nicely with the three zoom-outs, because of the natural lighting they use.
In terms of improving the piece, I am pleased with the visuals so I would say the sound track in places may need improving, for example, we use a recording of Dom playing the harmonica which as nice as it sounds, is the only form of sound we use for the first minute so in hindsight, I would have liked to have focussed on adding some different sounds in there, such as the tapping we used in our demp, or bringing in the sounds of the sear early on. Nonetheless, the audience may be able to detect a sense of isolation within the use of just one sound for our first minute.
Our choice of the structural side to experimental film in our piece is very rich in relation to our camera work and soundscape as it is split between three separate sections within the cross-cuts allowing a transition for both the visual and the soundscape which I believe works really well.
If we were to make the work again, I think I would choose to change the general appearance of shot two - the one set by the sea - because it seems bland, grey and washed out. I love the shot composition, the way in which the zoom out reveals more of the groin and then a singular person looking out to sea, and in a sense, the grey compliments the feeling of isolation; however, it would have been ideal for there to be more of a richness in colour, for example, through the form of a sunset, just to accentuate the sea in the background. This is purely an aesthetic quality, making sure they were all relevant to our idea of isolation; we isolated the sounds in the editing process. In retrospect, I would like to have added more sounds of birds so they become more of a focal point for the listener as they have seen the cross-cut of the hand emulating the shape of a bird.
We began the process of our work by splitting our piece into three sections, allowing each other a minute for our own ideas and then collaborate on the last minute. We still worked together on all aspects of it, but the allowance of both of our creative ideas meant we worked very well together; no one dominated the project. Between our ideas we managed to distinguish a common theme; loneliness and isolation. We both shared out the responsibilities. Dom recorded the sounds of him singing and his harmonica whilst I recorded the sounds of me humming and playing a simple, repetitive tune on my ukulele.
My individual contribution consisted of recording my ukulele, my voice, the sea and birds whilst Dom recorded the city ambience, his voice and his harmonica. I filmed myself doing the bird movements with my hands and the slow zoom-out from the chair, however, we both shared equal responsibility for finding the perfect composition for our shots.
Our initial plans were to film the first shot in the train station and our final shot was intended to be a fire in the forest, however, these plans changed during production. for the first minute, Dom changed his location to the tramlines (which was easier for us anyway, because finding permission for the train station may have ended up causing us to change our location anyway). In terms of us filming the fire in the forest, we struggled to find a forest in Sheffield that would permit us to make a small fire and as the deadline loomed we took some camera equipment out on a walk with us to see if we could find any inspiration for our third shot, which is when we stumbled across the worn-down chair - so overall it ended up working out for the best.
Finally, our sea shot also ended up changing slightly. We filmed it in Cleethorpes and having made the mistake of not researching what it actually looked like, we arrived in a ghost town with grey skies and the tide being out. Whilst waiting for the tide to come back in, we explored and soon fell in love with the abandonment of the place - almost as though it was trapped in history. Our shot ended up merging well with the general mood of our piece. Although the sounds we recorded of the sea weren't of crashing waves, the sounds we did record were of a high quality. Therefore, although many aspects of our piece have changed throughout the production process, we have still kept with our idea.
Throughout this project, I have managed to expand my knowledge on sound recording and my ability to manipulate these sounds through editing, an example being the recording of my ukulele-we layered these over the top of each other and put an echo on it to create an entirely different sound - adding more depth to it that the original recording didn't have. Technically, I believe we challenged ourselves by choosing to do extreme slow zoom-outs. We achieved this by using a Canon XF100 (on a tripod so the zoom can be held steadily) and we had to hold our fingers as lightly as possible without it stopping or changing in speed which was very difficult to master, especially towards the end of the zoom. Neither of us had experience in this, so it was an experiment for both of us and rewarding when the end result came out as planned.
Our approach also consisted of us trying not to give too much away to the audience, which we think worked well with our slow zoom-outs as parts of the shot were not revealed until about thirty seconds into it, for example, in the first shot, the man lying on the ground is not revealed properly until about thirty seconds into the shot. The audience is eased into the piece; we wanted to give them time to ponder over the possibilities of what we wanted to portray instead of bombarding them with too many images and therefore too much to comprehend.
Overall, the specific skills I have expanded on are my camerawork skills (through the zoom-outs), the use of cross cuts to contrast nicely with with the pace of the other shots and lastly, my editing skills - we experimented through our editing to see how we could manipulate both image and sound.
I believe me and Dom worked very well as a team. We both compliment each other in relation to our ideas and as we live together, it means that we are always sharing our ideas and working late into the night. During this project I think we did contribute equally, sharing out the workload, however, I would like to have done more editing. I assisted throughout the majority of the editing, but only one person can control it.
If we were to improve our teamwork skills, I would suggest that we plan our actions more, for example, our idea has changed and developed since our initial ideas and that is partially due to bad organisation. We took the trip to Cleethorpes without doing any background research so in retrospect we should have read a little more into our locations. Thankfully, everything ended up working well and although it is advised to be more organised; because we had paid the ticket to get there, we knew we had to film so we were left to think on our feet which I believes helped in the creativity process. It means we can work well as a team even in a stressful situation.
To conclude, the only aspect I would improve on with our teamwork skills is to perhaps take turns when it comes to the editing process. Nonetheless, when I assisted and suggested different way of editing something, Dom tended to agree and go with my idea so really, we worked very well together. A definite strength in our team is that we share ideas equally and if someone has a last minute idea, we always try it out and experiment, for example, I suggested we mix the sounds with different locations to make the whole message less obvious to the viewer and we both experimented with this idea. Lastly, our teamwork has complimented each other so that we are already planning a filming project over Christmas; outside of University.
Our intended audience is of the more mature kind - although we do not wish to restrict ourselves, we would like everyone who has an appreciation of experimental film to enjoy it. However, after undertaking audience research, we found out that younger audiences tend to prefer films with snappier edits which is why we came to the conclusion of directing our piece towards a more mature audience.
Ideally, from our piece, we would like anyone who has ever felt lonely to be able to relate to it in some way. A more mature audience would perhaps prefer the piece, although we would like it to be universal; the socio-economic position of the person is irrelevant in this instance as loneliness and isolation is a feeling known worldwide.
Our piece is constructed of three lengthy zoom-outs in three separate locations with two cross cuts in between minute one and two. For the audience, the structure will be apparent early on in the piece. From a constructive perspective, it may not be easy to engage with the objects that the shots focus on, for example, the mug in the first zoom-out and the worn-down chair in the last shot. From a detached point of view, the essence of loneliness (whilst obvious to me and my partner) may not be particularly obvious to the audience, but I hope we have avoided confusion.
When we presented a demo of our sound track to our tutor and class, we generally received positive feedback, especially regarding the crescendo of the sea and the male vocals - building up to an unknown tension. Conversely, the class regarded the piece as "tribal" and "spiritual" and when we explained that the idea was to project a sense of loneliness through the sounds of the sea, some members of the class, along with the tutor, could not detect or relate to it. We are unsure as to whether this will still be an issue for the listener.
An aspect that I believe works well is the use of cross cuts. Towards the end of the first shot, as a tram passes, it cross cuts to my hand emulating the shape of a bird, which I think will be received well by the audience, and although it can suggest freedom - because it is slowed down and the bird is alone, I believe it works well in projecting a sense of loneliness. The artificial lighting and effects we have added to the cross cuts we use (the other one being of a cloud) contrasts nicely with the three zoom-outs, because of the natural lighting they use.
In terms of improving the piece, I am pleased with the visuals so I would say the sound track in places may need improving, for example, we use a recording of Dom playing the harmonica which as nice as it sounds, is the only form of sound we use for the first minute so in hindsight, I would have liked to have focussed on adding some different sounds in there, such as the tapping we used in our demp, or bringing in the sounds of the sear early on. Nonetheless, the audience may be able to detect a sense of isolation within the use of just one sound for our first minute.
Our choice of the structural side to experimental film in our piece is very rich in relation to our camera work and soundscape as it is split between three separate sections within the cross-cuts allowing a transition for both the visual and the soundscape which I believe works really well.
If we were to make the work again, I think I would choose to change the general appearance of shot two - the one set by the sea - because it seems bland, grey and washed out. I love the shot composition, the way in which the zoom out reveals more of the groin and then a singular person looking out to sea, and in a sense, the grey compliments the feeling of isolation; however, it would have been ideal for there to be more of a richness in colour, for example, through the form of a sunset, just to accentuate the sea in the background. This is purely an aesthetic quality, making sure they were all relevant to our idea of isolation; we isolated the sounds in the editing process. In retrospect, I would like to have added more sounds of birds so they become more of a focal point for the listener as they have seen the cross-cut of the hand emulating the shape of a bird.
We began the process of our work by splitting our piece into three sections, allowing each other a minute for our own ideas and then collaborate on the last minute. We still worked together on all aspects of it, but the allowance of both of our creative ideas meant we worked very well together; no one dominated the project. Between our ideas we managed to distinguish a common theme; loneliness and isolation. We both shared out the responsibilities. Dom recorded the sounds of him singing and his harmonica whilst I recorded the sounds of me humming and playing a simple, repetitive tune on my ukulele.
My individual contribution consisted of recording my ukulele, my voice, the sea and birds whilst Dom recorded the city ambience, his voice and his harmonica. I filmed myself doing the bird movements with my hands and the slow zoom-out from the chair, however, we both shared equal responsibility for finding the perfect composition for our shots.
Our initial plans were to film the first shot in the train station and our final shot was intended to be a fire in the forest, however, these plans changed during production. for the first minute, Dom changed his location to the tramlines (which was easier for us anyway, because finding permission for the train station may have ended up causing us to change our location anyway). In terms of us filming the fire in the forest, we struggled to find a forest in Sheffield that would permit us to make a small fire and as the deadline loomed we took some camera equipment out on a walk with us to see if we could find any inspiration for our third shot, which is when we stumbled across the worn-down chair - so overall it ended up working out for the best.
Finally, our sea shot also ended up changing slightly. We filmed it in Cleethorpes and having made the mistake of not researching what it actually looked like, we arrived in a ghost town with grey skies and the tide being out. Whilst waiting for the tide to come back in, we explored and soon fell in love with the abandonment of the place - almost as though it was trapped in history. Our shot ended up merging well with the general mood of our piece. Although the sounds we recorded of the sea weren't of crashing waves, the sounds we did record were of a high quality. Therefore, although many aspects of our piece have changed throughout the production process, we have still kept with our idea.
Throughout this project, I have managed to expand my knowledge on sound recording and my ability to manipulate these sounds through editing, an example being the recording of my ukulele-we layered these over the top of each other and put an echo on it to create an entirely different sound - adding more depth to it that the original recording didn't have. Technically, I believe we challenged ourselves by choosing to do extreme slow zoom-outs. We achieved this by using a Canon XF100 (on a tripod so the zoom can be held steadily) and we had to hold our fingers as lightly as possible without it stopping or changing in speed which was very difficult to master, especially towards the end of the zoom. Neither of us had experience in this, so it was an experiment for both of us and rewarding when the end result came out as planned.
Our approach also consisted of us trying not to give too much away to the audience, which we think worked well with our slow zoom-outs as parts of the shot were not revealed until about thirty seconds into it, for example, in the first shot, the man lying on the ground is not revealed properly until about thirty seconds into the shot. The audience is eased into the piece; we wanted to give them time to ponder over the possibilities of what we wanted to portray instead of bombarding them with too many images and therefore too much to comprehend.
Overall, the specific skills I have expanded on are my camerawork skills (through the zoom-outs), the use of cross cuts to contrast nicely with with the pace of the other shots and lastly, my editing skills - we experimented through our editing to see how we could manipulate both image and sound.
I believe me and Dom worked very well as a team. We both compliment each other in relation to our ideas and as we live together, it means that we are always sharing our ideas and working late into the night. During this project I think we did contribute equally, sharing out the workload, however, I would like to have done more editing. I assisted throughout the majority of the editing, but only one person can control it.
If we were to improve our teamwork skills, I would suggest that we plan our actions more, for example, our idea has changed and developed since our initial ideas and that is partially due to bad organisation. We took the trip to Cleethorpes without doing any background research so in retrospect we should have read a little more into our locations. Thankfully, everything ended up working well and although it is advised to be more organised; because we had paid the ticket to get there, we knew we had to film so we were left to think on our feet which I believes helped in the creativity process. It means we can work well as a team even in a stressful situation.
To conclude, the only aspect I would improve on with our teamwork skills is to perhaps take turns when it comes to the editing process. Nonetheless, when I assisted and suggested different way of editing something, Dom tended to agree and go with my idea so really, we worked very well together. A definite strength in our team is that we share ideas equally and if someone has a last minute idea, we always try it out and experiment, for example, I suggested we mix the sounds with different locations to make the whole message less obvious to the viewer and we both experimented with this idea. Lastly, our teamwork has complimented each other so that we are already planning a filming project over Christmas; outside of University.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Filming in the Forest -- Change of Plan
Today we went out with the intention of filming a pair of worn down trainers hanging from a tree in a forested area. We tried various shots in various trees, zooming out, however, we did not achieve the desired shot that we planned for. So we went exploring for inspiration and happened to stumble across a battered computer chair amongst some rubbish in a green area which just looked so abandoned and lost that we felt it fit in perfectly with the general mood for our experimental piece so we set up the camera and tripod and I did the slow zoom out from it.
As the sun began to set we carried on exploring parts of Sheffield that we hadn't been to before. We found a couple of abandoned houses that had the potential of fitting in with our piece but from our positioning across the river, we could not quite capture the detail in which the house was in; including specific parts of it that were falling apart.
Instead we proceeded to film the setting sun and the deep pink of the sky as it quickly changed from this to a navy blue. We thought it would perhaps fit in as a cross cut in between the zoom out in shot two and the start of the zoom out of shot 3.
Overall, even though the filming did not turn out quite how we planned it to, we ended up filming some beautiful shots of the sky and the decaying chair. Instead of giving up on the shoe idea and going back home, we decided we would make the most of having the equipment and the weather conditions being perfect (especially for December). I'm sure in the editing process, we will manage to work it in to the general feel of loneliness and isolation that we wish to create throughout and I feel the footage we shot today is more than adequate.
From the footage we shot today, we have decided not to film a fire in the forest. We have already been experiencing problems with being able to actually shoot a fire, because the owners of Ecclesall Woods will not allow us and we have tried to contact a few other places who have also said that it would not be allowed unless in a barbecue, which is not quite as atmospheric, so we decided to discard that idea; especially seen as the sky creates the beautifully rich, warm colours of the fire, so we are at least maintaining one aspect of the fire storyboard and plan.
As the sun began to set we carried on exploring parts of Sheffield that we hadn't been to before. We found a couple of abandoned houses that had the potential of fitting in with our piece but from our positioning across the river, we could not quite capture the detail in which the house was in; including specific parts of it that were falling apart.
Instead we proceeded to film the setting sun and the deep pink of the sky as it quickly changed from this to a navy blue. We thought it would perhaps fit in as a cross cut in between the zoom out in shot two and the start of the zoom out of shot 3.
Overall, even though the filming did not turn out quite how we planned it to, we ended up filming some beautiful shots of the sky and the decaying chair. Instead of giving up on the shoe idea and going back home, we decided we would make the most of having the equipment and the weather conditions being perfect (especially for December). I'm sure in the editing process, we will manage to work it in to the general feel of loneliness and isolation that we wish to create throughout and I feel the footage we shot today is more than adequate.
From the footage we shot today, we have decided not to film a fire in the forest. We have already been experiencing problems with being able to actually shoot a fire, because the owners of Ecclesall Woods will not allow us and we have tried to contact a few other places who have also said that it would not be allowed unless in a barbecue, which is not quite as atmospheric, so we decided to discard that idea; especially seen as the sky creates the beautifully rich, warm colours of the fire, so we are at least maintaining one aspect of the fire storyboard and plan.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Filming in Cleethorpes
Today we did the filming for our second shot, my idea. The first minute of our experimental piece is Dom's idea, the second mine and we both collaborated on the last minute. Although, overall we have both worked on each other's minute, we just wanted to ensure that both of our ideas are involved in it.
Having made the mistake of not researching what Cleethorpes looks like, we both received quite a shock when we arrived. The grey skies did not bother us in the slightest, however, the fairground rides looked as though they had not been open in about twenty years, and that goes for most of the seaside restaurants and arcades.
Even though it appears to be a ghost town and it was not what we expected, we quickly came to love it. Of course, it was a grim place - almost a ghost town - there was certainly a "sense of place" trapped within the town, it was trapped in history. We arrived early, to the tide being out which was of course another problem that we should have been prepared for. So instead we set about exploring and experimenting with potential shot placements. In hindsight, we should have checked when the tide was coming in before we got there, but it all ended up working out, because it meant that we spent a long time figuring out the perfect shot for our minute zoom.
In addition, whilst we were waiting for the tide to come in, we made sure we recorded plenty of sounds of the sea, birds and various other noises. And when the sea came in, we experimented with the levels of sound we could use to record the ideal sound. We didn't want to get back home to find out that the wind affected our recordings.
The shot we will be using for our final piece involves a post (?) that has wooden posts sticking out through the sand, almost like a worn down fence. (I'm sure these should have a name, but it escapes me). As the camera slowly zooms out, it reveals more of these wooden posts and the framing of the shot is something quite special. In addition, it also has a person staring out to sea. We wanted this to carry on for another minute, from the person facing the other way on the tramlines; almost as though they are lost, lonely and isolated. The lack of people on the beach meant it was perfect for us to show this sense of loneliness in a vast location. Within the shot, a couple of birds also fly past which (just like the trams passing in the first shot) was pure luck and we are very happy with the end result.
We made the most of our day in Cleethorpes and although it wasn't what we expected, we believe it ended up looking better than we had initially planned. Hopefully our final shot will live up to it. We are yet to put the final sounds together, we have played around with various structures - we are not sure whether to go with our change of plan and mix the sounds with the different locations or keep them in the same structure but add more to it, especially now we have our sounds of the sea and the birds.
Having made the mistake of not researching what Cleethorpes looks like, we both received quite a shock when we arrived. The grey skies did not bother us in the slightest, however, the fairground rides looked as though they had not been open in about twenty years, and that goes for most of the seaside restaurants and arcades.
Even though it appears to be a ghost town and it was not what we expected, we quickly came to love it. Of course, it was a grim place - almost a ghost town - there was certainly a "sense of place" trapped within the town, it was trapped in history. We arrived early, to the tide being out which was of course another problem that we should have been prepared for. So instead we set about exploring and experimenting with potential shot placements. In hindsight, we should have checked when the tide was coming in before we got there, but it all ended up working out, because it meant that we spent a long time figuring out the perfect shot for our minute zoom.
In addition, whilst we were waiting for the tide to come in, we made sure we recorded plenty of sounds of the sea, birds and various other noises. And when the sea came in, we experimented with the levels of sound we could use to record the ideal sound. We didn't want to get back home to find out that the wind affected our recordings.
The shot we will be using for our final piece involves a post (?) that has wooden posts sticking out through the sand, almost like a worn down fence. (I'm sure these should have a name, but it escapes me). As the camera slowly zooms out, it reveals more of these wooden posts and the framing of the shot is something quite special. In addition, it also has a person staring out to sea. We wanted this to carry on for another minute, from the person facing the other way on the tramlines; almost as though they are lost, lonely and isolated. The lack of people on the beach meant it was perfect for us to show this sense of loneliness in a vast location. Within the shot, a couple of birds also fly past which (just like the trams passing in the first shot) was pure luck and we are very happy with the end result.
We made the most of our day in Cleethorpes and although it wasn't what we expected, we believe it ended up looking better than we had initially planned. Hopefully our final shot will live up to it. We are yet to put the final sounds together, we have played around with various structures - we are not sure whether to go with our change of plan and mix the sounds with the different locations or keep them in the same structure but add more to it, especially now we have our sounds of the sea and the birds.
Potential Constructions of the Image and Sound
As we were on the train to record the sound and film for our second minute (the sea scene), we decided to change our piece and ended up developing our idea for the soundscape. I thought it would be interesting to have the sounds for our three locations mixed up, for example the sounds of the forest being behind the images of the sea shot. We are yet to experiment with this practically but have thus far decided on the following:
- The "City" shot (by the tramline in Sheffield) with the sounds of the sea over the top.
- The "Sea" shot (filmed today in Cleethorpes) with the sounds of the forest over the top.
- The "Forest" shot (which we are yet to film) with the sounds of the city over the top.
Of course, this may not be successful, however, we thought it would keep the audience interested and give them something to think about. In a strange sense, it adds to the loneliness; the audience are searching for the source of the sound in the images.
These are the sounds we have already recorded/have planned to record for the three scenarios:
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