I had never heard of this experiment before starting the course and it has been intriguing me ever since. The idea came from the Russian formalists who pioneered the concept of montage. Abstract images are given new meaning by the connection of shots. Kuleshov and Pudovkin cut images of soup, a child in a coffin and semi-naked woman over the face of one of Russia's more well-known actors.
This is the original and the dude really does look like he is acting his heart out - the heavy breathing, the intense expression in his eyes...
Or maybe this was the original?
Here's Hitch showing it (a bit) more recently:
Matt and some lovely friends and I played around this this last weekend. I quickly learned that unless the actor is looking face on at the camera (which I will try next time), the sight lines and look room are crucial. The grading and lighting also make a difference.
The first few attempts proved that the 'object' sequences need to look like they are completely different (ie a flashback or imagination) or very similar, in terms of location and light and interaction with the camera.
The version below still didn't quite work. It would be better without the cat sequence as that is too bright and would not be as likely to emote a response from the 'subject'.
It seems like very powerful cut-aways are necessary in a short sequence to ensure impact.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Context
This seems kind of relevant to what I will be thinking about for my course this weekend:
http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-unexplainable-wtf-pictures/
http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-unexplainable-wtf-pictures/
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Copyright debacle
Oh good grief! http://petapixel.com/2014/04/21/band-responds-worst-way-possible-stealing-photographers-work/
The band responds saying "all forms of digital art should be free".
Unbelievable.
The band responds saying "all forms of digital art should be free".
Unbelievable.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
There Will be Blood (contains spoilers)
It goes without saying that There Will be Blood (dir Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) is epic and boasts some incredible acting; the cinematography is superb (by Robert Elswit who also worked with the director on Boogie Nights and Magnolia) and it is a haunting story, boldly rendered. In my opinion however, this is not a great film and certainly not a masterpiece. I think it lacks a clear central idea and I wonder if some of the essential story-building blocks were lost in the edit?
Daniel Plainview is a despicable man - a monster - even more stubborn than he is greedy, but we never see his motivation. Why is he so full of hate? We get no real indication of whether he has ever been hurt (emotionally) or why he is so far from home, so disinterested in women, so single-minded...etc I understand that some of his behaviour can be explained by the fact that he is an alcoholic (but is there a reason?), probably in physical pain and that he descends into madness (possibly from being so detached from other people). I completely 'get' the idea that he is capitalist greed personified. I can see the parallels between him and Eli Sunday and the 'progress vs the church' theme. To me though, there is just no real cohesion to the story.
There are brilliant individual scenes, fantastically photographed, but they just seem to exist without narrative context - it feels hollow, possibly because it is based so tightly around such a heartless central character. DDL is in every scene, except for when Eli attacks his father and in the montage leading up to HW and Mary's wedding. None of the other characters are likeable (or even interesting, bar Eli Sunday) and I did not develop an emotional connection to anyone, which I think is a real failing of the film.
It is also too long and too slow in places - for instance when DDL is talking with Henry, when he first arrives, and even the final scene in the bowling alley. This is particularly pronounced because there is not enough tension and emotion created. I will happily sit through long scenes if they are blisteringly tense and powerful but there is no point to a lot of this screen time - it is not developing characters, not revealing anything useful and not pushing the narrative further along. Without the context or narrative road-map or the emotional connection for the viewer, it is easy to fall out of the film and Day-Lewis suddenly comes across as just being over-wrought.
The score (composed by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood) adds a great deal to this film. In fact, it creates interest and tension over some very boring shots of anonymous people on horses and working the oil field machinery, which indicates how powerful a tool this can be.
There is no dialogue for about the first fifteen minutes - just diegetic sound and then some incredibly intense music when Plainview's ankle is broken. As the camera pans back, we see how big and tough the terrain is for him to navigate across back to civilisation.
The moment when HW goes deaf is also brilliantly done - very subtle and without slowing down the pace of the action, but conveying the muted rushing sound the boy must be hearing after the explosion.
This is a visually stunning movie from beginning to end. Anderson uses some brave techniques. There are quite a few shots when the character in focus is partially blocked by something or someone in the foreground - it adds a very authentic feel. In lots of scenes we do not get close ups of the faces of anyone except the main characters (eg when they first arrive at the Sunday ranch). There are also lots of long shots (eg when HW comes back from boarding school).
There are many panning shots (almost too many for my taste) and "trucking in" to the depth of set, as if we are following Plainview and his men on this unstoppable journey.
Memorable touches include DDL's devil face when he is covered in oil in the dark, and is just lit up in red by the fire from the derrick. I also loved the scene where Plainview drunkenly tells Mary that there will be no more beatings and the camera moves round to show that her father Abel is sitting right next to them and is within earshot.
Things I didn't like
Things I did like
Interesting elements
Daniel Plainview is a despicable man - a monster - even more stubborn than he is greedy, but we never see his motivation. Why is he so full of hate? We get no real indication of whether he has ever been hurt (emotionally) or why he is so far from home, so disinterested in women, so single-minded...etc I understand that some of his behaviour can be explained by the fact that he is an alcoholic (but is there a reason?), probably in physical pain and that he descends into madness (possibly from being so detached from other people). I completely 'get' the idea that he is capitalist greed personified. I can see the parallels between him and Eli Sunday and the 'progress vs the church' theme. To me though, there is just no real cohesion to the story.
There are brilliant individual scenes, fantastically photographed, but they just seem to exist without narrative context - it feels hollow, possibly because it is based so tightly around such a heartless central character. DDL is in every scene, except for when Eli attacks his father and in the montage leading up to HW and Mary's wedding. None of the other characters are likeable (or even interesting, bar Eli Sunday) and I did not develop an emotional connection to anyone, which I think is a real failing of the film.
It is also too long and too slow in places - for instance when DDL is talking with Henry, when he first arrives, and even the final scene in the bowling alley. This is particularly pronounced because there is not enough tension and emotion created. I will happily sit through long scenes if they are blisteringly tense and powerful but there is no point to a lot of this screen time - it is not developing characters, not revealing anything useful and not pushing the narrative further along. Without the context or narrative road-map or the emotional connection for the viewer, it is easy to fall out of the film and Day-Lewis suddenly comes across as just being over-wrought.
The score (composed by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood) adds a great deal to this film. In fact, it creates interest and tension over some very boring shots of anonymous people on horses and working the oil field machinery, which indicates how powerful a tool this can be.
There is no dialogue for about the first fifteen minutes - just diegetic sound and then some incredibly intense music when Plainview's ankle is broken. As the camera pans back, we see how big and tough the terrain is for him to navigate across back to civilisation.
The moment when HW goes deaf is also brilliantly done - very subtle and without slowing down the pace of the action, but conveying the muted rushing sound the boy must be hearing after the explosion.
This is a visually stunning movie from beginning to end. Anderson uses some brave techniques. There are quite a few shots when the character in focus is partially blocked by something or someone in the foreground - it adds a very authentic feel. In lots of scenes we do not get close ups of the faces of anyone except the main characters (eg when they first arrive at the Sunday ranch). There are also lots of long shots (eg when HW comes back from boarding school).
There are many panning shots (almost too many for my taste) and "trucking in" to the depth of set, as if we are following Plainview and his men on this unstoppable journey.
Memorable touches include DDL's devil face when he is covered in oil in the dark, and is just lit up in red by the fire from the derrick. I also loved the scene where Plainview drunkenly tells Mary that there will be no more beatings and the camera moves round to show that her father Abel is sitting right next to them and is within earshot.
Things I didn't like
- Plainview chasing Sunday around the blowing alley looked like slapstick to me - took away a lot of the drama from the moment
- We get mixed messages about how Plainview feels about HW - whilst I am all for complexity, this doesn't quite gel for me
- The final murder would have been much more powerful if he hadn't already killed someone else earlier in the film
- I found it a little confusing that we aren't we told that Paul has an identical twin - for a while I wondered if Paul was just pretending to be Eli in front of his family
- There are no women to speak of and no sense of a community (except via the church congregations)
- We are never really given a convincing reason as to why HW sets fire to the cabin
- Eli Sunday has not aged at all when we see him again in 1927
- There are few clearly defining moments or character development
Things I did like
- There is a great deal of subtlety (perhaps too much!) and this works very well in a lot of scenes. Anderson doesn't feel compelled to show us everything - (eg it would have been tedious to see every stage of DDL getting out of the shaft when he has been injured at the beginning)
- His relationship with HW is very complex, never fully explained and this works (to a degree - hence my comment under 'Things I didn't like')
- The early part of the film seems very elemental and almost feels like it is symbolic of the quiet beginning of the industrialised world (or at least the beginning of America)
- The ending "I'm finished" is open to a number of interpretations
- The two fake conversion sequences
- Some of Plainview's behaviour is very quirky ("I drink your milkshake!") and this helps to film to be unique and thought-provoking
- The portrayal of hypocrisy and corruption is convincing
- Daniel Day-Lewis is astonishingly brilliant in this (as in everything) - a faultless performance
Interesting elements
- The names in the film have not come from the book by which it was loosely inspired. Could 'Plainview' be an assumed name, designed to make him seem more trustworthy to the landowners? Is Paul so named because he 'converts' from religion to capitalism? Eli is a high priest/judge in the Bible. Is the father being called Abel important?
- Another religious reference is Plainview calling HW "a bastard in a basket"
- The name of the film is from the Bible (Exodus 7:19). Is it supposed to be ironic that Plainview has no family (blood) ties?
- The (biblical?) title font is called Blackletter
- Apparently the director was obsessed by the Treasure of the Sierra Madre and, allegedly, watched it every night while filming
- The original ending was for DDL to bludgeon Dano to death with a tumbler and then throw him through the bowling pins
- It was filmed in Marfa, Texas at the same time as No Country for Old Men (the derrick fire actually caused a delay in production for the Coen Brothers). NCFOM is, I believe, a masterpiece
Friday, April 18, 2014
Under the Skin
I absolutely loved Under the Skin (dir Jonathan Glazer, 2013) and I think it is a real shame that so many people seem to have been put off going to see it by some of the reviews. It IS slow, with little dialogue, and it IS weird but it will also stay with you for a very long time. Under the Skin is about vulnerability - human and alien; it is a masterpiece about life and humanity. Eerie, funny, horrifying and devastatingly sad in places.
And it brings a whole new meaning to the concept of The Gaze. We are forced to look our world (starting with Glasgow) through an alien lens.
Ethan Gilsdorf on BoingBoing: "According to the film's press materials, eight miniature cameras were built into the van's dashboard, headrests, and other hidden locations. They were all wired to equipment in the back of the van, behind a barrier, where Glazer and his team sat watching the eight camera feeds on monitors. Another vehicle followed the van, and after each scene with the men, a crew member would hop out to get release forms from all the accidental actors."
I won't waste time here outlining the plot as that info is easily available elsewhere but I did just want to mention some of the things I liked about it.
And it brings a whole new meaning to the concept of The Gaze. We are forced to look our world (starting with Glasgow) through an alien lens.
Ethan Gilsdorf on BoingBoing: "According to the film's press materials, eight miniature cameras were built into the van's dashboard, headrests, and other hidden locations. They were all wired to equipment in the back of the van, behind a barrier, where Glazer and his team sat watching the eight camera feeds on monitors. Another vehicle followed the van, and after each scene with the men, a crew member would hop out to get release forms from all the accidental actors."
I won't waste time here outlining the plot as that info is easily available elsewhere but I did just want to mention some of the things I liked about it.
- There are literally dozens of elements to this film which remain unexplained and will keep you thinking for days afterwards - some aspects seem illogical, many are unconventional. This leaves it open to interpretation and fantasy - how often does that happen these days? One example: we never find out the connection between the man/men on the bikes and Johansson's character
- Glazer creates tension brilliantly - the sense of ScarJo hunting from her van in the streets of the town centre is superb
- Some of the cinematography is breath-taking - not least the final scene. Absolutely beautiful!
- This movie is incredibly slow in places. Scenes are drawn out apparently unnecessarily and this is largely what infuriated so many cinema-goers. I actually felt that this forced me to be properly submerged each scene and to contemplate what was happening - it was almost dreamlike in places
- The music - characterised by many reviewers as a siren call - matches, and enhances, the seduction scenes. Insightful interview here with Mica Levi who wrote the soundtrack
- Johansson is really good! I have never been much of a fan (partly because she butchered a load of Tom Waits's songs) but it is probably really hard to act well when you are an alien with a mostly blank expression. She is very convincing, and has a flawless English accent. [This is one of the many inexplicable things about this movie is why she has been plonked in Glasgow with a posh English accent?]
- The male actors are authentic and down-to-earth. Their thick Scottish accents help to remind us how foreign she is in this land and the contrast with her sleek, glamourous, immaculate beauty is pointed
- My favourite review of UtS on IMDB: "If you like looking at someone riding a bike up and down roads and someone driving a van, next to no speaking and just gloomy shots of a rainy city, no story, no beginning or middle and an end that is just plonked on you that even then has an annoyingly tedious length of time before the titles role (that I couldn't wait for)', then you will love this."
There would have been a handsome male homicide detective trying to figure out what was happening to the missing men.
He would have met SJ and there would have been an edgy sexual chemistry between them. She would have tried to lure him to the house, but he would have gotten a phone call or some other interruption to her seduction that would have saved him in the nick of time.
He would have started to notice the correlation between her presence and the disappearance of the men.
He would have arrived at the beach too late to save anyone but the baby. He would have saved the baby.
He would have got into a big shoot out with the motorcycle men and rescued the elephant man from the trunk of the car.
He would have arrived too late to save SJ from getting burned, but would have shot the rapist.
He would have cried, standing over her smouldering corpse.
He would have met SJ and there would have been an edgy sexual chemistry between them. She would have tried to lure him to the house, but he would have gotten a phone call or some other interruption to her seduction that would have saved him in the nick of time.
He would have started to notice the correlation between her presence and the disappearance of the men.
He would have arrived at the beach too late to save anyone but the baby. He would have saved the baby.
He would have got into a big shoot out with the motorcycle men and rescued the elephant man from the trunk of the car.
He would have arrived too late to save SJ from getting burned, but would have shot the rapist.
He would have cried, standing over her smouldering corpse.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Random thoughts
I have
been clearing out my inbox and wanted to collect here some of the elements which had
caught my imagination…
Fellow OCA student Anne Giddings had referred to a Welsh term “Y Filltir Sgwar” (The
Square Mile) which is described as the area with which one is most familiar
and concerned with.
From Anne’s website:
Alleyways
In this project I explored the idea that “…we know a patch of ground in a detail we
will never know anywhere again. In Welsh
it is called ‘y filltir sqwar and it exists in the Welsh psyche as one of a
series of cognitive maps around home and locale” (Pearson)
I believe that this intimately known area from
childhood has stayed with me and is resurfacing unbidden in my photographs. In
this work I visited this idea consciously, mapping one part of that cognitive
map from childhood onto my current surroundings.
The resulting work seems to reflect feelings of
disorientation and uncertainty as though in a shifting labyrinth, maybe there
is a sense of a need for transition from one place to another through or within
these liminal spaces.
I love
this idea (and that the Welsh have a term for it!) and it reminds me that I am
fairly dedicated to my own square mile around our place near Brick Lane. I really need to push myself to go further
afield to make videos.
This was
an interesting piece on the so-called ‘photo-taking-impairment effect’:
I have
definitely experienced memory haze with events and locations when I was almost
exclusively obsessed with picture taking but I also agree that sometimes
getting in really close and allowing some abstraction can solidify an object or
subject in my memory. The author of the article, Andrea Norrington, urges us
to: “Get in close, abstract, distort, look up, look in, look across, look down and
whatever you do, leave plenty for the imagination to play with…”
I was fascinated by an article from Loring Knoblauch:
It talks
about how digital photography, in its relatively short history, has moved from
direct technical substitution to being more tightly connected with other media.
“...the
larger effect is I think a result of a more subtle shift in artistic mindset,
from “I am a photographer using a camera to document X” to “I am an artist who
is using a computer/scanner/camera to mine an archive of found imagery, using
those images to build studio installations and sculptures, which I then
rephotograph multiple times and reprocess with a software algorithm” or some
such equally complicated combination of steps, processes, and intermingled,
mashed up ideas.”
Somehow it
reminded me a little of two slides I saw in a presentation this week about the
transition of magazines from print to digital.
The
speaker described the first slide as “Perfection” – what everyone
in publishing wants and expects to have:
The
second slide was entitled “Reality”:
Down and out in Berlin
This little film was originally a 'quick and dirty' entry for a monthly competition on Photogdography where we create images/video to match a Tom Waits song. The full gallery is here.
For March's competition I got a little confused and started shooting video and stills for a song called Emotional Weather Report. At the eleventh hour, I remembered that the chosen song was actually Nighthawk Postcards so I had to lengthen to footage substantially and it had a very negative effect on the project.
Without the soundtrack/lyrics - and after some re-editing on the fly - it just looks like a very amateur mish-mash with a messed up soundtrack.
I did however take some learnings from this which I thought I should add to my blog.
Overall, I am not satisfied with the final outcome of this experiment, although I am heartened by knowing that I could have got a better result (even with the irrelevant footage I had) if I'd devoted much more time to the editing. A montage really can be much greater than the sum of its parts. This is something I will take with me into the rest of my photography study - even when I am finished with this "silly film course" as Clive teasingly calls it.
Next time, I can plan and execute more effectively so it has been a useful process, and there are elements I really like. Plus I was flattered that a friend commented that the film had an Edward Hopper atmosphere (which was of course one of my aims) - he even created this image to illustrate his observation:
Here is a version of the sequence (with the Waits soundtrack removed and some of the clips re-edited):
Down and out in Berlin from Helen Rosemier on Vimeo.
Edit: I have just read this post from WeAreOCA which mentions Tom Waits and Hopper...
http://www.weareoca.com/fine_art/nighthawks/
For March's competition I got a little confused and started shooting video and stills for a song called Emotional Weather Report. At the eleventh hour, I remembered that the chosen song was actually Nighthawk Postcards so I had to lengthen to footage substantially and it had a very negative effect on the project.
Without the soundtrack/lyrics - and after some re-editing on the fly - it just looks like a very amateur mish-mash with a messed up soundtrack.
I did however take some learnings from this which I thought I should add to my blog.
- The combination of moving and still images can work well but the frames need to be planning carefully and fit together smoothly - the narrative is as important as ever
- The pacing is crucial
- There needs to be a strong beginning and ending. And, ideally, a middle...
- Matching colour frame to frame is surprisingly easy in FCPX and quite exciting!
- A dirty lens will ruin at least half of your shots
- Some very cool footage can come from very ordinary things - I love the reflections of car lights on the tarmac and the shop lights in the puddles
- The image quality is pretty poor (shot on a Fuji compact) - this works more for some of the images than others
- It is definitely always worth recording atmos and having some interesting soundscapes to use for still image montages
- The coming out of the bar onto the street segment could have been repeated to good effect
- I deliberately blurred some of the shots and I think they work well in this context
- I like the trees and special effects at the end - a dreamy abstract feel
Overall, I am not satisfied with the final outcome of this experiment, although I am heartened by knowing that I could have got a better result (even with the irrelevant footage I had) if I'd devoted much more time to the editing. A montage really can be much greater than the sum of its parts. This is something I will take with me into the rest of my photography study - even when I am finished with this "silly film course" as Clive teasingly calls it.
Next time, I can plan and execute more effectively so it has been a useful process, and there are elements I really like. Plus I was flattered that a friend commented that the film had an Edward Hopper atmosphere (which was of course one of my aims) - he even created this image to illustrate his observation:
Here is a version of the sequence (with the Waits soundtrack removed and some of the clips re-edited):
Down and out in Berlin from Helen Rosemier on Vimeo.
Edit: I have just read this post from WeAreOCA which mentions Tom Waits and Hopper...
http://www.weareoca.com/fine_art/nighthawks/
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