Time - how to convey expansion and contraction

In Visual Culture by Richard Howells and Joaquim Negreiros, the key debate in the film section is Does film just represent time or actually create it? 

"In classical film, time flows chronologically and is represented through progressions of shots that, in connecting time to sensory-motor references, represent it in a continuous fashion. Time ellipses and flashbacks add a degree of sophistication to to this representation of time, but they do not alter the essentially linear nature of movement-image progressions, designed to create spatio-temporal coherence." 

It then goes on to cite Alain Resnais' Last Year in Marienbad as a good example of a non-linear structure "characterized by the intensive use of flashbacks and time shifts that are far from obvious and that create the time ambiguity..."

Howells, R & Negreiros, J (2012) Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press

There are, of course, dozens of great films which have a non-linear narrative.  Notable ones would be 21 Grams; Oldboy 2003; Pulp Fiction; Slumdog Millionaire; Kill Bill Vols 1&2; Mulholland Drive, Memento and Before the Devil Knows You'r Dead.  It is increasingly common as film professionals need to create even more impressive new work to attract audiences. Often these come in the form of 'puzzle' movies such as Donnie Darko.

One of the best films depicting the contraction of time is Synecdoche, New York (2008) - written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. This is a mind-blowing piece of work which needs to be watched several times and my attempts to explain it could not do it justice.  In one short scene, depicting a single incident which should cover a couple of days at most,  time actually progresses by six months, indicated by a radio, a newspaper, Christmas decorations and a calendar.

Another good example is the scene in Notting Hill (1999, dir Roger Michell) where the protagonist walks through the market. It is done in one take, the camera tracking Hugh Grant but he walks into Autumn rain, Winter snow, Spring and the hot overhead sun of Summer. Other visual clues include a pregnant shopper whom we see at the end with toddler and a character newly in love later seen breaking up with her boyfriend; even the produce on the market stalls changes to match the season.

Other techniques could include light moving across a room to denote the hours of the day. Pages being torn off calendar.  Hairstyles and cars are often used. In Shawshank Redemption we sense the passage of time by the changing posters on the wall of Andy's cell.

The expansion of time is more rare is this is unlikely to appeal so much to an audience. In basic terms this can simply be done through slow motion. The Matrix uses this technique to good effect.

Another technique is to shoot some action from a number of different viewpoints and repeat the playing of the incident. This can be a good narrative device if there is a complicated event occurring. A good example would be in Jackie Brown (1997, dir Quentin Tarantino) - the shopping bag exchange scene which we see three times.

Occasionally a film uses real time as a central part of the narrative - High Noon (1952, dir Fred Zinnemann) being one of the most famous examples of this.  We see a clock repeatedly to build up tremendous tension.

Graphics can be used - text on the screen; time-laps; the aging process; symbolism; montage; transitions such as jump cuts or fades and dissolves.  Colour techniques such as bleaching or filters. Split screens can also sometimes work in the case of multiple threads.

Guy Bourdin, Image Maker at Somerset House

Born in 1928 in Paris, Guy Bourdin was a protege of Man Ray, working closely with Conde Nast for a large part of his career as well as shooting ad campaigns for a number of big fashion brands.

This show uses its title 'Image Maker' in several senses, reflecting how thoroughly staged the work is but also how influential it has been on other photographers. It is also presumably refers to Bourdin's success in positioning the Charles Jourdan shoe brand in the 70s.

Here we see pure advertising - albeit ground-breaking, iconic, ingenious.

There is footage from some of the shoots and Bourdin's journey with the legs recorded on a Super 8. It is very fast (speeded up?), unedited, choppy, showing lots of action. We see signs, brand symbols (car hoods), lots of legs, seaside, views through windows.  He has thoroughly explored the idea that something doesn't have to be 'attractive' to attract attention. 

I expected to find the deconstruction of his models into body parts to be abhorrent to my militant feminism but I found myself responding fairly neutrally. It seemed to me that the mannequin legs placed in mundane surrounds served well to draw my attention to the shoes. I do not conform to the female stereotype of having a shoe obsession but I still found the footwear to be the most attractive aspect of most of the Jourdan images, as intended. There is no distraction, there is no woman (to be judged by the male/female gaze).

I was struck by how many of them remained unpublished and wondered what had been the criteria for the rejection.

We see the legs and try to make sense of what we are seeing and have to reconstruct the story. This is a confident woman. She goes places, she has sexual partners, she makes people drop ice creams at the beach. Metal fences collapse in her wake. Planes take off all around her.

These are not soft, feminine landscapes. Bourdin roots her among strong lines, shapes and textures, high contrasts, borders and barriers to contain the landscape. The scenes are mundane, industrial, characterless.

This bland backdrop allows some tremendous subtlety with lighting and colour. In some cases just the smallest glint of light or matching colour picks up the shape or colour or the leather of the shoes. 

It is hard to imagine how this would have been received at the time but it certainly seems to have been ground breaking - not least as the ads were run across a double page spread rather than the usual single page at the time.

Bourdin used staged locations, lots of artificial light and mirrored reflections.  He seems to have favoured wide vistas, graphically framed by man-made barriers and structures to suggest containment.  He demonstrates an understanding of a place to inform how he positions his models within the context of his vision for the image.

Much of this exhibition feels full of movement and energy; a high-gloss obsession with beauty and form with strong blocks of rich colours. The women are often passive – critics have commented that the models often looked to be injured or dead.  Bourdin succeeded in extending the parameters of what fashion photography was all about and what it could convey.  He uses narrative and suspense and this visual storytelling continues to be popular today.  He borrows from surrealist artists such as Magritte and Luis Bunel to create images which disrupt the senses through a mixture of disturbance and delight.

This was a fascinating show as it contained a wealth of imagery that would not normally appeal to me. This gave me the opportunity to look at it objectively. I did feel his output seemed very French and I would love to be able to dissect this more. Bourdin succeeds in transforming the banal to the beautiful which surely is the dream of most advertising execs, whilst his imagery contains filmic ambiguity to engage the viewer.

Lubezki & Malick - a dogme

This is the series of parameters agreed by Terrence Malick and his DoP Emmanuel Lubezki for Tree of Life...

• Shoot in available natural light.
• Do not underexpose the negative. Keep true blacks.
• Preserve the latitude of the image.
• Seek maximum resolution and fine grain.
• Seek depth with deep focus and stop: "Compose in depth."
• Shoot in backlight for continuity and depth.
• Use negative fill to avoid light sandwiches (even sources on both sides)
• Shoot in crosslight only after dawn or before dusk; never front light.
• Avoid lens flares.
• Avoid white and primary colors in frame.
• Shoot with short focal length, hard lenses.
• No filters, except Polarizer.
• In the eye of the hurricane, shoot with steady handheld or Steadicam.
• Z-axis moves instead of pans and tilts.
• No zooming.
• Do some static tripod shots "in midst of our haste"
• Accept the exception to the dogma (a.k.a Article E) - Article E however does not apply underexposure of the negative.

Michael Bay - what is Bayhem?

This is an excellent short piece on how Michael Bay constructs such epic footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2THVvshvq0Q

Key parts of his signature style are using a telephoto in a circular motion around the talent to compress space and make the background whizz by; low angles to give scale; slow motion to "sell it"; actors moving vertically and then standing still and looking offscreen. This creates multiple layers of movement which are integrated and result in the expansion of time and everything seems huge.

Great advice on how to improve your writing...

Including top tips from one of the writers of Se7en and Fight Club:
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/07/how-to-improve-your-writing/

and from Howard Suber, UCLA:
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/03/interview-ucla-film-school-professor-howard-suber-explains-storyteller/

Kurt Vonnegut's eight rules for writing a short story

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Good advice for film makers I reckon. 

Project 13: Non-diegetic sound

Diegetic is sometimes known as ‘source music’ and non-diegetic as ‘scored music’.  Some directors use it as more than just a pleasant accompaniment. Tarantino movies are legendary for their soundtracks and it is hard to imagine the spaghetti westerns without Morricone.  Films such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing who how much it can add to the richness of the experience.  The warring cultures are characterized by their musical preferences.   Music often gives clues to neighbourhoods or class stereotypes or ethnic groups.

Intentional confusion of diegetic and non-diegetic

• Barton Fink – a violin confused with the sound of a mosquito. This is a great film to explore for sound generally – good write-up on this here:  http://offscreen.com/view/barnes_bartonfink 
• In Bladerunner the piano scene mixes playing with a jazz soundtrack and the film also uses narration to add atmosphere
• The Pippin’s song sequence in Lord of the Rings mixes diegetic sounds from two scenes with a diegetic song and then a score to create a powerful sequence conveying the sadness of war and the unpleasantness of Denethor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45WXQZ8-tPc

Sound that is hard to identify as either diegetic or non-diegetic

• In There Will Be Blood, when the oil gusher explodes and deafens the boy, we hear the rushing sounds and some gurgling. Tension is often created in the movie with the use of the Col Legno violin technique
• In Amour, we hear what we think a soundtrack until one of the characters turns off the radio and the music stops. This is a great way of giving the viewer a change of pace, some time to contemplate what is happening and then pulling them back into the story
• The opening of Atonement uses a typewriter sound to lead into the credits. It merges with the non-diegetic and sets a lovely pace to the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMvRPs_mWD4

Music (non-diegetic) used to identify social and cultural references

• A friend suggested the brilliant scene from the Big Lebowski when Jesus is bowling and we hear Hotel California but by the Gypsy Kings
• Boyhood uses music throughout to underpin the narrative and help place the characters in time
• 8 Mile uses rap very effectively

Music and other non-diegetic sound used to create atmosphere, tension and emotion

• Up – some very mournful music accompanies the imagery showing the married life of Carl and Ellie.
• Miss Gulch on her bike in the Wizard of Oz, heading determinedly to collect Toto.
• There are thousands of examples in horror movies and thrillers.  People have commented for example that Woman in Black is only scary because of the music (and our imaginations, of course).

Non-diegetic sound that sets the pace of a scene

• Bee Gee’s Staying Alive for the opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever
• The obvious ones are Jaws and the shower scene in Psycho!
• The drumming in the chase scene in Memento – this starts as we realize that Guy Pearce is being chased
• The opening scene to the Apartment has Jack Lemmon narrating at a fast pace to set the scene of his daily grind. The musical score underpins this with a beat being added to match the movement of the machine on his desk, adding humour and energy.  This is called ‘mickey mousing’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mousing

Non-diegetic sound that gives clues or cues to action

• Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries as a battle cry in Apocalypse Now:  http://www.metacafe.com/watch/mv-FjzJ/apocalypse_now_ride_of_the_valkyries/
• Lou Reed’s Perfect Day during Renton’s overdose in Trainspotting taps in to the euphoria of the drug hit but quickly becomes ironic as we see the horrific side of the addiction
• In the Long Goodbye, the theme song is placed in the background as supermarket muzak, leading us into the scene

Notes on sound

This is an interesting article on how best to use diegetic and non-diegetic music in films.  http://www.freestockmusic.com/2011/article/diegetic-non-diegetic/

The opening sequence of Welles’ Touch of Evil provides a good example of sound perspective.

In the 30s and 40s orchestral music was mainly used, sometimes with popular songs but rarely with singing as the disembodied voice was perhaps considered to be too distracting.  This was incorporated diegetically (often in the format of dreadful musicals). Things started to change in the 50s and 60s and now music is often a huge part of the filmic experience.

The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first successful feature film with sequences of synchronized sound and as always technology has had a great impact on how things developed. In the early days, cameras would have been restricted to a single spot and the story would rely on the dialogue.

Some directors (formalists) were hostile towards synchronous sound recordings and found them to cause problems with editing and continuity.

‘Stingers’ can represent a moment of shock or high emotion. Sometimes the term ‘sweetening’ is used.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetening

According to Louis Giannetti (Understanding Movies, Pearson, 2005), a popular theory of sound design in Hollywood is know colloquially as ‘see a god, hear a dog’ meaning that if a dog appears on screen, the audience will hear traditional dog sounds.

The new realism in sound meant that acting styles also became more natural and more subtle.  And people with great voices became stars.  In the 60s, directors also started preserving extraneous noises on soundtracks to provide more realism. Our brains select what we choose to hear but recording equipment cannot do that. Jean-Luc Godard was an exponent of this and used it as technique to underpin some of the themes in his movies (such as violence and lack of privacy or peace).

Sound effects can be atmospheric or a direct cue to meaning.  Pitch, tempo, volume affect our response to a noise.  Suspense scenes often use high-pitched noises.  Low-frequency feels more full and heavy, denoting solemnity.

Off-screen sounds can bring the off-screen space into play which can expand the image we are seeing.

Sound effects can also be symbolic such as heartbeats, clocks. Absolute silence can also be extremely powerful.  It is often used to convey a moment of death, sometimes in combination with slow motion.

Key learnings and considerations

Need to understand what the result should be in terms of the narrative or atmosphere rather than worry so much about the technical side (find an expert)

How will you orchestrate sound in each scene?

Will there be any distortion and if so, why?

Will there be any symbolism?

Any repeated motifs?

Decide if you are going to use non-diegetic - be aware of how impactful that can be!

Does the music represent class or culture?

Does it add to the characterisation or the narrative?

Sound effects #2

This recording is glorious...

TW: "It sounds like a choir, it sounds like angel music. Something sparkling, celestial with full harmony and bass parts - you wouldn't believe it. It's like a sweeping chorus of heaven, and it's just slowed down, they didn't manipulate the tape at all. So I think when Wilson slows people down, it gives you a chance to watch them moving through space. And there's something to be said for slowing down the world."

Sound effects

Interesting piece here about sound effects. It reminded me of the Berberian Sound Studio, which I wrote about six months ago and has stayed with me for all that time.

scraping dry ice across a contact microphone and combining it with a woman's high scream recorded backwards... the sound of dog food being slowly sucked out of the can... a pistachio nut being destroyed by metal plating... the cries of the pigs, slowed down to sound unearthly

In a more cheerful/less traumatising way, it also put me in mind of this, which always makes me smile...

When Tom Waits released the album Blood Money in 2002, the pre-release notes mentioned a mouse tambourine and a journo asked about this in an interview:

"Instruments utilised include piano, cello, pump organ, hand bells, circular violin, spring drum, marimba, calliope, timpani and mouse tambourine. l ask about the mouse tambourine and he laughs. 'Oh, you know what,' he says, bending over and rolling up his right trouser leg 'See these boots here, they have this buckle,' He wiggles a small silver buckle at the top of his black motorcycle boot. 'Well, during most of the songs I was tapping my foot and there was a lot of room mics in the studio, and so when we listened back to all the songs my wife's going, "What the hell is that?! That *tsk tsk tsk...*"' We just couldn't figure it out. Finally, she said, "Dammit it's those boots. I told you not to wear those boots. It's on everything!" And she got so upset!' He laughs. 'We tried to get rid of it and couldn't, so finally we just had to call it the mouse tambourine." ("Conformity is a fool's paradise" Time Out London (UK) by Ross Fortune. February/ March. Published: April 24 (- May 12), 2002)

Sourced from the Tom Waits Library: http://www.tomwaitsfan.com/tom%20waits%20library/www.tomwaitslibrary.com/percussioninstruments.html

I also love this: "On 'In The Colosseum' we used the Conundrum. This was an instrument that was built for me by a neighbour of mine who's a sculptor and a welder. It's just an iron cross with a lot of metal hanging off of it. it sounds like a jail door closing behind you."

Matt said he has video of our friend Pascal, who is a wizard with stringed instruments, tuning our ukulele. Just down the street there were some construction workers smashing a lot of glass and it created a great effect. I would like to explore this idea but with more subtlety - and a point to it - so I will have to think about that more.

Fifty people, one question - Galway, Ireland 2011 by Kamil Films

A friend recommended this video on Facebook and I am linking it here because I thought the non-linear approach to the editing worked really well. 

That said, it is rather bloated for a film that the makers presumably hope will continue to go viral on social media. I reckon they could have got this all across in five or six minutes (maybe with a link to a full length version?).  The meta fluff at the beginning filming the filming equipment was a bit off-putting and will guarantee that they lose viewers. Some people I know only managed a few minutes and then gave up.

What I thought worked really well was how the sequence of clips, grouped by content rather than speaker, allowed for the capture of the interviewees mulling over their answers - these silent contemplations would have been painful if all the segments had been presented as intro-question-consideration-answer for each individual.

A simple strong idea and quite inspiring - good job Kamil Films!  I would love to see how this would have turned out if it absolutely could not run over 5.59 mins!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP7pdAn3foE

Update on kit

So I *may* have gone on a little bit of a spree...

I took my camera into the wonderful London Camera Exchange, following the weird issue with my 5D Mk3 detailed here.  And, inevitably, while I was waiting for the paperwork to be sorted out, my attention turned to a lovely little secondhand tripod. It had been brought in just half an hour before I'd arrived so clearly destiny!  The previous owners' paperwork indicates it was bought new from Wex in January and is showing very little wear.

It is made up of this and this and was a bargain for £159 all in (but without a bag). Also this means I now have the option to upgrade to a video head. I have been very happy with my Camlink tripod and I like its stability but it is heavy to transport with all my other equipment and without a car.

As one of my fellow DFP students observed, even short film sequences look more professional when the camera moves so I am keen to have something portable and with a smooth movement.

My next purchase was also related to this ambition but I was nervous about the effectiveness of the device and so cautiously went for a cheap shoulder rig for the purposes of exploration and experimentation. I have not had chance to use it much yet but I can already tell that it does not work well over the shoulder. Might need my Dad to work his engineering magic on it.

Now, that I am working on the sound part of the DFP course, I decided to bite the bullet and get a decent microphone.  Plus a dead cat and a 3m boom pole.

And one final thing:  some continuous lighting.

I keep thinking I am going to need this stuff for certain projects I get roped into (outside my comfort zone) and so buy things in advance of a specific deadline, then finding I really don't need the kit after all.  Still, I am sure it will come in handy one day...

Kit

I have recently upgraded to the 5D Mark III but initially did not have time to explore it properly before having to shoot some portraits.  My first impression was that the images all look a bit pink so I have fiddled around with the 'Picture Style' settings. The Auto default is described as "The colour tone will be adjusted automatically to suit the scene. The colours will look vivid, especially for blue skies, greenery, and sunsets in nature, outdoor, and sunset scenes." (!)

I decided to opt for Neutral: "This Picture Style is for users who prefer to process images with their computer. For natural colours and subdued images."

Interestingly, I found that another photographer was already detailed in the Copyright Information field:  Gerald Mclean, an architectural photographer. http://www.geraldmclean.com

I sent him an email to see if he could shed light on this but have had no response. The camera was bought brand new (in immaculate condition) and in an authentic-looking, sealed box so I was rather perplexed. Given how expensive the purchase was, I decided to contact the shop (London Camera Exchange on the Strand) and they duly tried to trace any record of the serial number belonging to someone else. Nothing came up but they have kindly, and responsibly, offered to exchange the camera for a (real) new one.

And by splendid luck, there is a special offer on extra cashback for the bank holiday weekend so I will have £300 in my back pocket by the end of the process, if all goes to plan.  On this occasion I am glad I bought from a store rather than online as I probably would not have bothered to complain or send back the camera by post.

This purchase was triggered by the idea that I wanted to have the equipment to have a two camera set-up, particularly to make 'interviews' more interesting.  I nearly bought a video camera - possibly the Canon XA20 or LEGRIA G30 - but eventually decided to make the best of the DSLR approach as I already have a range of lenses.

I am still having a great deal of trouble with getting things in focus when I am videoing but I guess I will just have to keep practising to get this right.



In the process of researching the various options, I started coveting various bits of kit...

The Black Magic was the first thing that caught my attention and there is an interesting Raindance link here including some film clips: 

http://www.raindance.org/10-beautiful-shots-made-with-a-black-magic-camera/





The next thing that caught my attention was this:  

http://store.zacuto.com/marauder/

It looks fantastic and has a good testimonial from Philip Bloom but I am not sure how much better it would be than something like this or more affordably, this or this?

My Dad built me a brilliant homemade Steadicam and it definitely helps but for it to be really effective, it probably needs to be held quite low which makes it difficult to ensure that the framing is correct. 

I have been looking at other ways to ensure an acceptable handheld recording but not really sure what is the obvious choice. If anyone has any insights, I would love to hear them.

Also, and I am not just saying this because I have a birthday coming up but I feel that I almost certainly need something like this bad boy.  Again if anyone has any thoughts about a good (better) option to improve sound recordings, please let me know.  Am currently just relying on the internal camera mic.

Bokeh and depth of field

"Being able to recognize good bokeh puts you on the path for better understanding one of the beautiful subtleties of movie making."

My lovely friend Kyle Cassidy has written a piece for Videomaker here:  Blogging about bokeh

Notes from the Raindance Saturday Film School

Really enjoyed listening to Elliot Grove and Patrick Tucker at the Raindance Saturday Film School last weekend. It was only £39 from a Groupon deal so fantastic value.  

Loads of great anecdotes as well as practical advice. Elliot is  passionate about films making – he talked about how cinema can take people into different worlds and break down culture barriers so it is really important.  Strong message of: find your special voice and make audiences FEEL.

Practise by “building a vocabulary of shapes”. Create vignettes/sketches.

He started with a session on the screenplay. There are two ways to come into a story:  concept and characters.

Concept: “High concept” needs to be very succinct – able to sum it up in a short phrase or sentence. Can feel like a one-trick pony though. “Low concept” or “soft concept’ is based on relationships. More like a novel. Marketing people don’t like it as hard to sell.

Characters: Memorable people. Use the tool of character traits – physical, sociological or psychological. Read screenplays and understand how the story unfolds.  Characters need to be very different from each other.

Four main characters are:

1)The protagonist – our hero. It is their story – we are rooting for them.

2) The antagonist – the opponent of our hero. They will prevent our hero from getting what they want.

3) The ally/opponent – has allegiance to the hero but then switches to support the opponent

4) The opponent/ally – switches from opponent to protagonist

The social stage

A tool which determines what your hero can do by the place in which the story is set.  Types of social stage are: wilderness, village, city and oppressive city.

• Wilderness is for the superhero, always male.  Sometimes he has disciples. Death comes quick and early. In the end the superhero leaves his disciples with some divine inspiration.
• Village shows the boundaries between civilization and wilderness. The hero (male) is a stranger to the village which is threatened by forces of nature or marauding barbarians/roving bandits. At the end the hero rides off alone, unchanged.  The villagers have changed. They may have been “reduced” ie shown the error of their wicked, ignorant or small minded ways.
• City is always tall and full of extremes (eg social classes). Lots of height metaphors showing the city as a jungle.  This social stage has been done to death. The hero is a very average person, facing some injustice, who does the right thing.
• Oppressive city is a British specialism. The rules for living have been changed by a powerful few. There is an anti-hero (or bumbling hero) who may witness a crime by someone powerful and then must save themselves.

It is possible to take a hero from one social stage and parachute them into another (eg Crocodile Dundee or Beverly Hills Cop). It is also good to take a story on the cusp eg Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – they are villains in the village who go to the city.

Certain hallmarks can reveal the social stage eg using reality TV like the coliseum indicates an oppressive city.

Structure

Elliot Grove thinks that the idea of a story structure is unhelpful. Claims that the three act story structure invented by Sid Field has lots of flaws. An event at page 30, 60 and 90.

Main character is often the first person seen on the screen. Need to show what they want. Useful tool is to choose a goal for the character which is measurable so the viewer knows if they achieve their goal or not.  There needs to be conflict. Types of conflict are:  physical violence, sociological conflict and psychological conflict.  Core values need to be challenged.  Imagine a film called “airplanes that land safely” – it would be boring. 

The hero tries something on page 30. Fails. Needs another plan. Page 45 there is a metamorphosis.  The third try fails again. Nothing will ever be the same again.  The hero has past the point of no return.  Page 75. Fails again. Visit to the underworld – sees their worst fears.  Enter another character who becomes a mentor to the hero. Page 90 – climax with a fifth plan and the ending is where they achieve the goal or not.

Logistics

Make a list of everything you need. Pay cash or “in kind” or deferred from profits of there are any.

Create a schedule – a list of when/where you need to be; the stuff and the people.

Industry way is to get a grant or go to a production company. And then there’s the Raindance way.

Equipment

Good lenses are essential but the compression distinguishes between a professional and an amateur.  Need to have 4k resolution. Grove recommended the GoPro Hero2.  From Wikipedia: The Digital Cinema Initiatives consortium established a standard resolution of 4096 × 2160 (8.8 megapixels, aspect ratio ~17:9) for 4K film projection. This is the native resolution for DCI-compliant 4K digital projectors and monitors; pixels are cropped from the top or sides depending on the aspect ratio of the content being projected. The DCI 4K standard has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of DCI 2K, with four times as many pixels overall.

Locations

Private or public. Contact FilmLondon.org to get a permit. The charge is to cover health and safety issues and lost revenue on parking meters etc.  If shooting handheld or a monopod, no need for a permit.  “Stealing a shot”. Stay small in public.  Hide the boom.  If questioned say “student”, “test”, “amateur”, “charity”

Things can be included on a “fair use” eg a well known shops but need to be careful of slander by implication/context of the scene.  Cover brand names of products – especially drinks. 

If using private property, get contracts eg who will cover any damages. May need to pay of neighbours if causing noise or disruption £50 notes “thank you for your continued co-operation”.

Avoid airports or train stations as almost impossible to get permission to shoot there.

Lighting

Three elements: back light, which tricks the camera into showing depth, fill light and key light which puts the shadows back in.  Need sparkle in the eyes. Use a funnel snoot which always control of directions and radius of the light beam – no spilling over. Can be shone straight into eyes.

Music

Rights can be very expensive as the music unions are strong. Started by Sinatra and the mob, allegedly.  Rights cover: 1) who wrote the words 2) who wrote the tune 3) who performs it. Rights retained for life + 70 years.  Measured after the first performance or release.  Recently changed from 50 years.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/15/copyright-extension-cliffs-law-beatles

Use unknown artists “by kind permission of” or special scores such as Blairwitch – mic to throat, speeded up and slowed down to create soundtrack.

Directing (session by the wonderful Patrick Tucker)

Need to look at the world through different eyes. Put the camera where we would never be. The truth is not your friend.   It is defined by what the audience sees – just their perception.  Don’t need to replicate truth – look at the world differently and make the audience feel something.  Stressed how things need to be compressed - actors put in very close proximity.  Will feel very uncomfortable for actors. Directors should just say: “It looks good to me!”

Turning points are essential in films – need to see these and get satisfaction from understanding them.  The audience needs stepping stones.

Use the close-up as this is unique to film.  Even in intimate pub theatres, can only get mid CU/real life.

Directors must be sneaky and passionate about getting their own way.

The notes taken by the kid sitting in front of me

Some top tips...

• “A tool is not a rule” – only use it if it is useful
• Learn by watching a movie then reading its screenplay then watch the movie again then read the screenplay again
• One page of a screenplay is approximately one minute on the screen
• Don’t think about ‘plot’
• Good sound recordists are the hardest people to find for filmmakers – could be a good career
• Kiss the lower lip only 
• Easier to act better when facing an empty space if other actor is not there - “the curse of eye-to-eye contact”
• Get close ups of most important people – everyone else in wide shot
• All mirror shots are lies
• Best actors react before they speak – it draws attention so that the words have more impact; seems unnatural but works filmically
• Good actors sometimes speak very quietly to draw the audience in to the scene 
• Cast the best actor – not according to how they look; a good actor will look right when it comes to the time of filming
• Start with a “developing shot” rather than a wide establishing shot as they are boring and hard to light
• Observe the 180 degree rule – think about your screen grammar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180-degree_rule
• The 180 degree rule can be broken to deliberately disorient the viewer (eg Kubrick in The Shining)
• Always shoot in depth not breadth – compose the shot on the screen not in real life
  
  Favourite phrases from the day
• “I have good news and other news.”
• “It is not that I don’t care about your feelings, it is just that they are no longer relevant.”
• “I have numerous projects in various stages of development.”

Links

http://www.raindance.org/raindance-london-calendar/

http://raindancefestival.org/

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/script-format-guide

http://www.raindance.org/zero-budget-software-suite-for-filmmakers/

http://raindance.tv/watch/film/worlds-shortest-film-festival-part-1