Research - Week 4
05/03/2019
We had a visit from Kathryn, who gave forms to sign in order to give our consent to SIT providing our transcript to future employers or tertiary institutes, and that we understand our rights and obligations as stated in the student handbook.What is the creative effect of stripping out colour into black and white for a original dramatic sequence will be filmed on a phone exclusively for this project and see if it achieves.
We did some group mapping with our own pieces of A3 paper. Colour coding components for the proposal presentation. I gotta it's a good class exercise to help us develop and be certain about our project is going to be for this paper and what is to be included our individual presentation next week.
My focus question was a tricky one. It was going to be a long one, if I was to include specifics in the question as I had been instructed by Bex. So I had to. In my initial group, they suggested as part of my research to; continue searching for examples, look how critics has responded to colour taken away in favour of black and white in film, consider black and white vs colour, actually being colour vs lights and shadows (since lights and shadows is what black and white consists of), read about colour and black and white films, black and white and colour used in films from early cinema.
Bex's response to my original focus question was that she saw what I was getting at, but it was confusing and complex. She did suggest to add other details in the question like the point that the end result will be original and intended for this project, and that it will be filmed on a phone.
We had to move over to a different computer next to a different person and I did, but those next to me move over to other people to discuss about their focus question. So, I just changed the focus question based on Bex's suggestion and then walked over to other people to get their feedback on my focus question. The response were mixed e.g. 'too long', and 'no room for improvement'. I agree that despite being long, it's a question that I can have the best that it can be. However, I disagree about it being too long because I believe the question would become flawed and too broad if shorten.
Bex told us to think about our individual timeline and to think about what aspects will be needed to be done in planning and completing this project of ours. I came to realise that it's easier to write out the project timeline digitally because on paper you can't complete erase words like you can on a computer. We have 12 weeks and I like to think of the timeline as a set of goals that are for each week leading up to the deadline.
Timeline
Week 4 - Developing presentation
Week 5 - Presentation
Week 6 - Research
Week 7 - Continue research
Week 8 - Script and Storyboards completed
Week 9 - Camera and post-production tests
Week 10 - Casting
Week 11 - Filming
Week 12 - Post-Production
Week 13 - Rendering
Week 14 - Submission
I think I should speak as though I would without a script and record it and transcribe that recording into a script.
My current progress with pre-production for this project is a dialogue script, a general script is in development, and one storyboard
Primary - sources use all the time
Secondary - relevant, but not important
Primary and secondary sources are determined on how much you use it or its relevance towards your research.
I found out I didn't needed to reference Cinefix because I didn't end up use any of the information from the source.
I later asked my flatmate for feedback from him and he thought my focus question was two questions combined.
06/03/2019
Today, I spent the majority of the day getting some research done to narrow down my theoretical influence for my proposal presentation by searching through the online databases, read through the two books I got from the SIT library and record notes of relevant information from the books, and laid out the presentation. I read through the ethics guide to make sure that no stone was unturned when it came to the ethical issues of my proposal presentation and found nothing new. The ethical issues remained at release forms and consent to use the location for filming.I have made a lot of progress in finding information today, but nothing much concrete or primary sources, just mostly secondary sources in terms of relevance.
There were some sources that could potentially be good for my research, but would need be inter-loaned from America and as I recall from the talk with SIT librarian, the SIT library can only inter loan stuff from libraries as far as Australia and New Zealand.
Bazin, A. (2005). What is cinema?: volume 1. Los Angeles, CA: University of California
Press.
Page 165 - 'Not only is the film a betrayal of the painter, it is also a betrayal of the painting and for this reason: the viewer, believing that he is seeing the picture as painted, is actually looking at it through the instrumentality of an art form that, profoundly changes its nature'.
When comparing the painting medium with the film medium, film never reproduces colour or black and white faithfully like a painting.
Page 167 - Cinematographers that have managed to combine a work of art in film;
- Luciano Emmer
- Henri Storck
- Alain Resnais
- Pierre Kast
'To be annoyed by this is as ridiculous as to condemn the opera on behalf of theater and music'.
Page 169 - 'Films of paintings are not animation'
I wonder if this would apply to the film, Loving Vincent'.
'Films about painting, once the prestige that comes from surprise and discovery has faded, will be worth precisely as much as the men who make them'.
Page 18 - The first series of moving images was produced thanks to 'the imaginative generosity of a horse-lover', since this series of moving images was of a galloping horse.
Page 20 - 'In their imaginations they saw the cinema as a total and complete representation of reality; they saw in a trice the reconstruction of a perfect illusion of the outside world in sound, color, and relief'.
'If colour had not yet appeared it was because the first experiments with the three-colour process were slower in coming'.
Georges Melies' early films had colour in film, which was achieved through the use of stencil.
Colour in film contributes to achieving an illusion of the outside world.
Page 73 - Black and white cinema made great progress up until 1938, in develoing many technical aspects and techniques in lighting, sound, and cinematography. Black and white cinema managed to develop the effectiveness in camera angles like the close-up, montage, and reframing. These developments gave the film medium purpose as an art form.
Page 31 - There were one of possibly many examples of methods in film editing in 1936 that affected cinematography at the time; a full shot that shows both the actor and a table, the shot moved into a close-up to show the actor's emotion more clearly, montage of close-ups on food, pulling back to a full shot while the actor walks towards the shot, the shot slowly pulling back to a three-quarter shot to focus on the actor holding a prop or object.
Page 34 - The relationship between the director and the cinematographer comes down to them collaborating in an analytical way of planning shots, in which it practically converts their moving images into a dramatic checkerboard, in their mind.
Harper, G., & Rayner, J. (Ed.). (2010).
Cinema and landscape. Bristol,
England: Intellect.
Page 35 - In achieving picturesque landscapes in film, colour becomes a tool to support perspective and framing.
In the early 1950's, new colour film technologies from Eastmancolor allowed filmmakers to use lighter and compact film camera.
Page 182 - Through the Western genre, Hollywood pushed for the effective power of using black and white in film since it worked at its best with particular types of landscapes that are somehow unique.
When trying to film a Cuban countryside in black and white, 'the different shades of green are lost in a dark, undifferentiated mass'. However, finding a tonal balance betweent he land and sky may potentially resolve the problem and it shows me black and white in film not always brings out drama from every landscape.
Page 179 - ICAIC - Cuban Institute of Cinematic Arts and Industry
ICAIC was a film body financed by the Cuban state, which was under communist leadership and made films that bordered on their propaganda.
Page 185 - However, this film body did produce a new generation of filmmakers in Cuba and they had to make the local landscape essential to the narrative of their films.
Page 182 - By 1987, ICAIC produced 164 feature films and 1,026 short films. 545 of the short films and 109 of the feature films were shot in colour and as time passed, black and white film was phased out in the Cuban film industry.
Page 260 - Muted colours in Vincent Ward's feature film, Vigil made the landscape almost monochromatic. It was almost half-way between colour and black and white.
Pages 285-286 - There was a mix of black and white and colour in The Blair Witch Project. I believe it is used in the story to differentiate from the actual film intended to be made and what is intended to be behind the scenes video.
Silberg, J. (2006). Editing under the gun.
TVB Europe, 15(5), 24–25. Retrieved
from http://ezproxy.sit.ac.nz:2053/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=21032840&site=ehost-live
When the TV show, 24 transitioned to high definition, the editors had to start using new Avid technologies, but there were concerns that the new technologies had limitations towards achieving their split-screen effect and needing to eye-match the split screen boxes. The editors and post-production eventually became accustomed to the new technologies with no issues, but it didn't state how it was resolved, only vaguely.
10/03/2019
This weekend, I had been having difficulty concentrating and getting in the right mindset for getting my presentation done by Monday. I tend to have intellectual blocks during the weekend.
From my search on online databases, I could only really find techniques and challenges involved with black and white, colour, and split screen with no name on who was involved with the process. That and it was about practitioners that weren't in line with what I had in mind about colour or split screen. My influences are more or less historical context on the technical aspects of my research question.
https://www.infoplease.com/features/movies-tv-and-music/movies-and-film-aesthetics-black-and-white-and-color
Infoplease. (n.d.). Movies and Film: The Aesthetics of Black and White and Color.
Retrieved March 10, 2019, from
Some actors in the early to mid 20th century felt glamourised by being filmed or photographed in black and white more so than in colour.
Colour in mainstream cinema was starting to be used more by the 1930s because it helped appeal more people to watch movies than those who would go to see black and white movies. Colour movies tended to make more money in the box office.
Nowadays, black and white is more or less applied to give an historical look to movies or to support the plot and character backstory.
https://ideas.ted.com/how-color-helps-a-movie-tell-its-story/
May, K. T. (2017). How color helps a movie tell its story. Retrieved from https://ideas.ted.com/how-color-helps-a-movie-tell-its-story/
It's believed that using colour, especially with different tones and tints of colour in film helps simplify complex stories to audiences. In fact, 80% of films in early cinema had colour, despite that era of cinema being prejudged as being all black and white.
Barbara Flueckiger, a film professor at the University of Zurich even produced a timeline of practical methods where colour was produced to be applied in film, in which the number of such methods stands at 230+.
Looking back and reflecting on this piece of information, F.W Murnau's Nosferatu didn't have consistent colouring. It kept on changing colours and tones with each scene and location.
It's also believed that if colour in a film changes, it means the story has developed in a different direction than before and has different idea it wants to push onto the audience.
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/split-screen-editing-and-composing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDCnTucLK0
Maher, M. (2016). The art of split screen. Retrieved from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/split-screen-editing-and-composing/
BubbaCoop.
(2011, December 30). The Parent Trap -
Seeing Double [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDCnTucLK0
Ub Iwerks, despite being the co-creator of Mickey Mouse and mostly known as an innovative, but overlooked animator, one of his innovations revolutionized the use of the split screen, which was used in the original Parent Trap film. Like what creative students do today, when he found a challenge in his technical expertise, he then studied it and suddenly became an expert in what used to be a challenge for him.
Whenever Disney was stuck with a technical challenge, he would go to Iwerks. Iwerk's use of split screen allowed one actor to be two characters in the same frame. They shot the frame twice with the actor on either side of the frame and then later with optical printer darken a side where the actor was absent so they could add the footage of the actor on the other side of the frame the same with the footage of the actor on the other side. I guess it would be then need to be merged to create the illusion.
However, they had to be strict with their continuity on-set in order to work. Objects in the scene were used to conceal the whole magic behind the effect. This was a camera effect on the lines of what Walt Disney wanted for this film, which was to make a film where it is hard to tell that it special effects, which Iwerks was able to achieve through a camera technique like the split screen.
This is an influence that shows me how the split screen technique has been used in an effective way in the past, unlike today where it seems to be taken for granted.
https://www.biography.com/people/alice-guy-blach%C3%A9-37846
https://visforvintage.net/2013/09/11/alice-guy-pioneer-film-director/
Biography.com
(2014). Alice Guy-Blaché Biography.
Retrieved March 10, 2019, from https://www.biography.com/people/alice-guy-blach%C3%A9-37846
V is for
Vintage (2013). Alice Guy, cinema pioneer.
Retrieved March 10, 2019, from https://visforvintage.net/2013/09/11/alice-guy-pioneer-film-director/
Alice Guy-Blache was a French filmmaker in early cinema who made many innovations including colour, but she was also progressive in recruiting interracial cast of actors and believed to be the only woman filmmaker in the world during the turn of the century. She essentially invented the role of the film director as it is today. She developed the role, while other early filmmakers of the era just made it up as they went along.
As her film career developed, she favoured romantic stories.
Her achievements in colour in film might be close to what was achieved by Georges Melies, but I felt she is a filmmaker that deserves to be mentioned as historians for many decades denied her contributions. This influence is used as a basis of the use of colour in film and an example of how colour has been used in film in the past. Her technique of painting straight onto film isn't a creative approach I am proposing. The trouble is that filmmakers haven't been experimenting with colour in the way or close enough to the way I am proposing since the early 20th century.
It was an absolute pain and was really stressful, but I got it close enough to a satisfactory quality. I will likely have many flaws in APA referencing and my slides, but it was the best I could do in the time I had. It was a challenge for me because I have never had to put together a presentation or proposal like this before in a such a short period of time. The presentation may not be 100% clear because of the 5 minutes I am given to present with the required components.
11/03/2019
This morning, I managed to make adjustments to my APA referencing and I timed my script. Despite the script being 500 words, it ended up being three and a half minutes long. I checked the slide about what we need to do and the course outline and found no rule about a set of number of words for the presentation script, only that it needs to be short. It may allow me to place in one more slide into the proposal presentation.
I later found out from Bex was that she was expecting the word count to be up to 1000 words, so during my lunch break I tried to extend the script, but the best I could do in that time was get up to 678 words.
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