Digital Filmmaking - Week 5

05/08/2019

We've been given a two week extension on our proposal presentation, which provides less stress this week with completing my proposal for the VFX paper that is due next week. However that does gives us two weeks less in the time we have for filming our project.

Weird ideas for the project
Walkie talkie
Dial up internet or static noise heard when no ne is paying attention to someone talking


Subjective: Following the protagonist's journey

In making documentaries, we have a responsibility to provide journalistic balance

Central question is also a core question that the documentary seeks to answer


Resources to find a subject for your documentary

• News
• Social media
• Message boards
• Community boards
• Bullentin boards
• Hobbies
• Professions
• Personal interest
• Library
• Local issues

Doco idea: Local arts and culture - having no art gallery or museum


What is cinematic?

• 24fps
• Letterbox
• Sound design / score
• Telling a story like a movie  >  Narrative structured like a movie
• Visual storytelling
• Something that cannot be told or be as effective in a creative medium different from film

We watched documentaries as class called Bus 174 and The Imposter. The themes that these films have in common are society, identity, and self-worth.

If we are considering in doing a documentary, we are to deeply think about applying the conventions discussed in class.

Bus 174 was only partially cinematic because of the use of aerial shots and letterbox, but the digital film technology of the time made the interview look like it had low-budget, made-for-TV, special features DVD type of qualities.

Without the context of Brazilian society, it's not the same film and lacks a massive scope for the film.

The film uses MCUs (medium close ups) with clinical backgrounds, which have indications on where the subjects are.

Questions that are potentially are meant to be answered in The Imposter

• From Is Nick alive? To How far is Federick is willing to take this deception?
• How far are you going to sacrifice your morality, in order to be loved and cared about.

The Imposter mostly follows a character's journey, which qualifies it to being subjective.

POVs in The Imposter - US family, US government, Federick

The use of medium shots (in The Imposter) in the interviews are provides you with different visuals from background environments, authenticity (like you are there talking to them), and feelings of isolation.

The Imposter is cinematic because it has dramatic lighting, and dramazations of events that are discussed and are like what is done in docudramas.

I prefer The Imposter more than Bus 174 because it engaged my attention a lot more.

We have been encouraged to check out Loading Docs and watch some of the short documentaries on there in our spare time, especially one called Stop/Go. I may check one out that is on former Greens MP, Mojo Mathers.

Skin had limited viewpoints, but still maintains a empathetic subject.

Gina is a unique, short documentary that almost comes off a political PSA. However, it tells a factual narrative without other viewpoints or any sort of dialogue, but it still somehow works. Its message is pro-choice on the subject of voluntary euthanasia.

What both Gina and Skin have in common is that they have subjective focuses.

09/08/2019

We had the privilege to have a class with one New Zealand's leading filmmakers, Rob Sarkies. I'm very familiar with his work. He introduced ourselves to him and he told us about his early career in filmmaking and interesting BTS stuff about his feature films, Out of the Blue and Scarfies. He was very upfront about filmmaking and didn't sugarcoat anything, which is something that I respect.

Rob got us to pitch to him our short film for this semester. I was reluctant and shy about telling him so I just only told him when I needed to. He thought my idea had a good plot, but lacked drama potential and a 'hook'. Pretty much not far off from the feedback that I got from his brother, Duncan. Rob also believed my pitch was too long, that was because I was describing the storyline of the short film. 

Rob gave me a weekend assignment of generating three different ideas for short films by looking at the newspapers, parts of Invercargill that I like and are accessible to me, and something personal to me (it can be something that happen to someone in your family). I should think about the potential of Invercargill - being at the bottom of the world. 

He told me not worry about an ending or think pragmatically. I was absolutely honored to be given a weekend assignment from Rob.

During class I came up with a new subplot for my short film - Rival P.I.
He follows by the rules a bit more than Beth and has slandered Beth's mentor in the past. He plants evidence and discloses information for the right price. He's a sleazebag and Beth doesn't trust him.

He saves her life at the end and catches the assailant.

Beth was with this rival when her mentor was killed, and therefore places as much blame of her mentor's death as the guy who killed him.



Dramas should be a bit like documentaries, like how documentaries should be a bit like dramas

Maybe I could make a period drama for a short film?

Sound

• Rain on tin roof - cozy, comfortable
• Baby crying - uncomfortable

The sound of violent waves were in the opening titles of Out of the Blue to provoke unease in the audiences and foreshadows violence that is to come later in this film. It then shows beautiful scenery to calm the audience.

Another thing in Out of the Blue - David tuning through radio stations as to represent a person between two worlds. Rob liked this sound from his past and is a sound that he personally associated as being between two worlds.

Sounds that I personally associated with things or ideas

• Tapping against a surface like glass or a indoor wall - boredom (others associate it with being annoying)
• Fire alarm going off - distress
• Winds at night - insomnia
• Radio - insomnia (different from Rob)

Smells that take us somewhere

• The smell inside E Hayes remind me of ops shops in Timaru, dust, and boredom
• Smells that you can it identify it sources, it still makes you reminisce
• Chlorine - swimming at primary school
• Fish - having a job

Smell from a scene in my BSA231 film - dampness (from the rain)

There are other smells, but I don't know  how to identify them or know where they come from

Feel

• Clear
• Plastic
• Used
• Easter
• Long
• Bitty

Those feelings above was to describe a water bottle without looking or knowing what it was.

The real challenge about applying others senses that film doesn't require (feel, touch, smell) is how to express those senses visually.

For his telemovie, Jean, Rob express the feeling of touch and skin on skin when filming a love scene. It's intended to invoke the feeling of touch.

Feeling in a scene of my short film

• Sad
• Rough
• Coarse
• Isolated
• Depressing
• Impatient

I was thinking about the potential of having a two people staking out for a scene in a short film.

It's a good idea to note senses (touch, smell, sound) that are evocative only to you in your director's notes.

Dominant feelings that are invoked in The Kinetic Files are different now to what I was aiming for during production.

We were to stand up and follow our instincts to find something interesting. In my case, it was an old phone cord

Old phone cord

Smooth, unpredictable, sharp, loopy, complex

I remember in year 1 of primary school that we thought that the fire alarm was the principal's CCTV. Nowadays, I would think 'Big Brother' and intellectualize it. As a child, you don't intellectualize it, you simplify it and trust how what you see makes you feel - instinct.

Questions and points to think about when describing a scene in a film

• How does your scene taste, feel, sound, flavour?
• What is the energy of the room? (focused, restless - wanting to go home)
• Don't jump right to the visuals because they're sensory-based and that's why you should sensory elements to the scene first. Rob has been doing this to his films since at least Out of the Blue
• Finding a visual solution to those senses, which can be easier said than done.