Individual
Exercise
My initial Idea for the Individual experimental
exercise was to create a film based on CCTV and the “Big brother” where a person or organisation/government are exercising
total control over people's lives. This idea came to me when I watched “PanoptlCONS” which addresses the fact that we are
constantly being watched by surveillance cameras in city centers The
surveillance camera seems to have become a real pest that feeds on our privacy.
I wanted to use the idea that surveillance is so inhabited in our society that we even feel watched when we are in the comfort of our homes. The camera shot I wanted to use was an “Eagle eye” camera shot and have the camera placed on the ceiling looking down at a room in a house. This became very challenging as I had to stand on objects I had in the house to then hold the camera still in that position for one minute in length without the shot shaking or having me in the frame.
The ceiling wasn’t big enough either as the frame couldn’t take in much of the room, so the framing of the shot was too small.
In the end I gave up with that idea as it was technically too difficult, but I have decided to keep the idea for the Pairs project film or other future film ideas as I think it’s a very strong and good idea I can elaborate on.
I wanted to use the idea that surveillance is so inhabited in our society that we even feel watched when we are in the comfort of our homes. The camera shot I wanted to use was an “Eagle eye” camera shot and have the camera placed on the ceiling looking down at a room in a house. This became very challenging as I had to stand on objects I had in the house to then hold the camera still in that position for one minute in length without the shot shaking or having me in the frame.
The ceiling wasn’t big enough either as the frame couldn’t take in much of the room, so the framing of the shot was too small.
In the end I gave up with that idea as it was technically too difficult, but I have decided to keep the idea for the Pairs project film or other future film ideas as I think it’s a very strong and good idea I can elaborate on.
I then began thinking of another
subject for an experimental film. The idea came to me when I was bored at home
whilst throwing my basketball up and down in my room. So from that I chose to
use boredom and monotony as the main themes, creating a tedious repetition or a
sense of routine. I watched some experimental films such as “Boredom of the
disgust & the monotony of the tediousness” https://vimeo.com/36797755
which is about a portrait of an isolated actor possessed by film. I filmed with a Cannon 60DSLR and the camera shot/technique resembles a pendulum swinging which links to repetition and the on-going cycle of life. I also used a ticking sound in the film which was done by simply placing a watch next to the Marantz microphone so that the ticking of the clock was recorded. This also resembles the theme of monotony as the ticking continuous and repeats itself throughout the film.
The two characters in the film are there to show people doing monotone, repetitive and dull things. For instance one is throwing a ball up and down whilst lying on the floor, this is where I got my idea from the film so I thought it was important to place it in, whilst another character comes into the room half way through the film, sitting down and playing a single out tuned string on a guitar. A mix of these two characters worked well in what I was aiming to create. If I had the opportunity to do it again I would have a lot more characters coming into the room one at a time and filling the room up with each character doing different actions. This would have created a much more caged feel for the film which would have worked well with my theme. Overall I am very happy with my one minute experimental film and feel it is a strong piece of work, I also think that after an audience viewing the film on the first time, there are many different views and aspects people think and feel which towards the film which can be put up to discussion and debate.
which is about a portrait of an isolated actor possessed by film. I filmed with a Cannon 60DSLR and the camera shot/technique resembles a pendulum swinging which links to repetition and the on-going cycle of life. I also used a ticking sound in the film which was done by simply placing a watch next to the Marantz microphone so that the ticking of the clock was recorded. This also resembles the theme of monotony as the ticking continuous and repeats itself throughout the film.
The two characters in the film are there to show people doing monotone, repetitive and dull things. For instance one is throwing a ball up and down whilst lying on the floor, this is where I got my idea from the film so I thought it was important to place it in, whilst another character comes into the room half way through the film, sitting down and playing a single out tuned string on a guitar. A mix of these two characters worked well in what I was aiming to create. If I had the opportunity to do it again I would have a lot more characters coming into the room one at a time and filling the room up with each character doing different actions. This would have created a much more caged feel for the film which would have worked well with my theme. Overall I am very happy with my one minute experimental film and feel it is a strong piece of work, I also think that after an audience viewing the film on the first time, there are many different views and aspects people think and feel which towards the film which can be put up to discussion and debate.
Group Experimental film
The group met up a few times to
discuss all of our ideas for this project, We came
up with an idea which was to use everyday life metaphors and turning them into physical
metaphors, for example “turning over a new leaf” and using a character to
express these through physically portraying each metaphor, but we decided
against this idea as it wasn’t a very good and strong idea and we would have
struggled to make it interesting to watch for over five minutes. So after brain
storming more ideas and watching experimental films over YouTube and Vimeo and
researching through books and the internet we finally came up with a good idea.
I began researching different artist’s we liked, because for a lot of the experimental that were shown throughout this module used abstract art and other types of art to express specific political undertones, so from this we researched various artists such as Bansky, Obey, Brian Haw, Sanctuary! And many more street artists, I then came across Erwin Wurm’s art work and we all have knowledge of his work but we hadn’t researched it in depth. We are all a fan of his art work, so we decided to research more in depth about him and his art.
We particularly liked Erwin Wurms "One Minute Sculptures" where he poses himself and various models in unexpected relationships with everyday objects and found that these pieces of art gave us inspiration for our film. The fact that he uses humour as one of his main aspects of creating these sculptures also interested us, Erwin says in an interview "If you approach things with a sense of humour, people immediately assume you're not to be taken seriously. But I think truths about society and human existence can be approached in different ways. You don't always have to be deadly serious. Sarcasm and humour can help you see things in a lighter vein."
Doing further research into Erwin Wurm I found out that he bases a lot of his work on the "Zeitgeist", which is the spirit of an age or specific time, Intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. Erwin says in an interview that his work has a lot to do with "the icons of our time and our society and icons are by nature brash an in-your-face. There's a lot of aggressiveness about their presence"
We will try and link similar ideas, using mood and emotion, colour, tone, backed with contrasting, humorous props that will be and look very bold.
We then began brainstorming of other themes that we could use within this film and decided on using emotion and mood, and began thinking of ideas how to create a film linking both these films and a way of filming it, also how it will visually portray the film to the audience.
I began researching different artist’s we liked, because for a lot of the experimental that were shown throughout this module used abstract art and other types of art to express specific political undertones, so from this we researched various artists such as Bansky, Obey, Brian Haw, Sanctuary! And many more street artists, I then came across Erwin Wurm’s art work and we all have knowledge of his work but we hadn’t researched it in depth. We are all a fan of his art work, so we decided to research more in depth about him and his art.
We particularly liked Erwin Wurms "One Minute Sculptures" where he poses himself and various models in unexpected relationships with everyday objects and found that these pieces of art gave us inspiration for our film. The fact that he uses humour as one of his main aspects of creating these sculptures also interested us, Erwin says in an interview "If you approach things with a sense of humour, people immediately assume you're not to be taken seriously. But I think truths about society and human existence can be approached in different ways. You don't always have to be deadly serious. Sarcasm and humour can help you see things in a lighter vein."
Doing further research into Erwin Wurm I found out that he bases a lot of his work on the "Zeitgeist", which is the spirit of an age or specific time, Intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. Erwin says in an interview that his work has a lot to do with "the icons of our time and our society and icons are by nature brash an in-your-face. There's a lot of aggressiveness about their presence"
We will try and link similar ideas, using mood and emotion, colour, tone, backed with contrasting, humorous props that will be and look very bold.
We then began brainstorming of other themes that we could use within this film and decided on using emotion and mood, and began thinking of ideas how to create a film linking both these films and a way of filming it, also how it will visually portray the film to the audience.
I began
photographing some images of my own, using Erwin Wurms “One minute sculptures”
as inspiration, and used my friend as a model for it, I took several
photographs that we could use in our Experimental film, such as the chair
photograph, positioning the chair in several awkward and random ways so that it
looked humorous, also by using Erwin Wurms art as inspiration I could take that
and create my own versions of his art work. By actually making my own version
of Erwin Wurms artwork it helped me to give certain ideas for what objects to
use for the film and what type of random positions to put the character in them
with.
We needed to come up with another angle this film could use which was mood and emotion, I thought of using mood and emotion as another theme in our experimental film. And Luke thought of a good way of conveying this. He thought of using a projector to project images and colour onto the background to convey different emotions and mood. We thought this would be an effective way of presenting the different types of emotions and moods such as, Anger, Love, Happiness, Unhappiness, Psychotic, Sin, Peaceful, Aggression, Anarchism, Contentment and pleasure etc.
We began to think of the protagonist and what he/she will represent in the film, We thought not revealing the gender of the character it would make a stronger statement as the person would represent everyone, society, government, war, media, religion etc. Everyone as a whole, and Tom thought by using a morph suit we thought this would help in concealing the person’s identity. It would also leave the audience plenty of questions and views as to who the person represents in the film.
We also wanted the character to be something not from this world or an "Alien" type of character, to fit in with Erwin Wurms inspirational art work and our take on them, so by having the character using these objects in motion picture we thought that as the images are so obscure and random, by having the character an almost "Alien", it would add to the humour of this work.
I mentioned using my house as a location for the projector film as I obviously know it well and the area, also I have a perfect wall where it can project the images onto and there is also a lot of space to shoot in. We were also near plenty of other objects that we planned to use for the outside scene of the film.
We needed to come up with another angle this film could use which was mood and emotion, I thought of using mood and emotion as another theme in our experimental film. And Luke thought of a good way of conveying this. He thought of using a projector to project images and colour onto the background to convey different emotions and mood. We thought this would be an effective way of presenting the different types of emotions and moods such as, Anger, Love, Happiness, Unhappiness, Psychotic, Sin, Peaceful, Aggression, Anarchism, Contentment and pleasure etc.
We began to think of the protagonist and what he/she will represent in the film, We thought not revealing the gender of the character it would make a stronger statement as the person would represent everyone, society, government, war, media, religion etc. Everyone as a whole, and Tom thought by using a morph suit we thought this would help in concealing the person’s identity. It would also leave the audience plenty of questions and views as to who the person represents in the film.
We also wanted the character to be something not from this world or an "Alien" type of character, to fit in with Erwin Wurms inspirational art work and our take on them, so by having the character using these objects in motion picture we thought that as the images are so obscure and random, by having the character an almost "Alien", it would add to the humour of this work.
I mentioned using my house as a location for the projector film as I obviously know it well and the area, also I have a perfect wall where it can project the images onto and there is also a lot of space to shoot in. We were also near plenty of other objects that we planned to use for the outside scene of the film.
Filming
went very well, we had a rough storyboard we had but we felt that sticking to a
strict storyboard doesn't work best for us when shooting, as we always come up
with new ideas and different ways in which the film could me shot at. So we
kept to the basic storyboard whilst thinking of new ways throughout filming
process. Filming in my house went well as we had plenty of space to work in and
the projector on the background wall looked even better than we thought. All the objects used in the film were
precisely chosen beforehand to match and contrast in each projected background
and to our take on Erwin Wurms "One Minute Sculptures". For example
in one of the shots, the character is inside of a chair whilst spinning around
slowly, and the background is of an aquarium with hundreds of fish, using
Erwin Wurm's chair art work of a man looking trapped with a chair over him, and
putting it with that background it shows that the aquarium traps the hundreds
of fish inside.
Filming outside went very well, we again had the basic storyboard to use as a guideline so we knew beforehand which everyday objects the character was going to use. So we used the outside locations and objects pretty close to our original basic storyboard.
The opening shot we are going to use is of a blue smoke blowing across the screen, this was done by simply blowing smoke across the projector and then filming it and editing it in post-production after.
All in all the filming went well and I feel the projector shots are very strong but the outside shots aren't as strong. We each didn’t have an individual role, as we felt it was easier and better to work together throughout this project to give input and positive criticism when it was needed. For example when we didn’t stick to the storyboard I came up with several images and ideas to project against the wall, like the peace sign projecting in the background and the character holding the knife in certain random positions, and when the character is holding the coat hanged t-shirt whilst blood dripped down it.
Filming outside went very well, we again had the basic storyboard to use as a guideline so we knew beforehand which everyday objects the character was going to use. So we used the outside locations and objects pretty close to our original basic storyboard.
The opening shot we are going to use is of a blue smoke blowing across the screen, this was done by simply blowing smoke across the projector and then filming it and editing it in post-production after.
All in all the filming went well and I feel the projector shots are very strong but the outside shots aren't as strong. We each didn’t have an individual role, as we felt it was easier and better to work together throughout this project to give input and positive criticism when it was needed. For example when we didn’t stick to the storyboard I came up with several images and ideas to project against the wall, like the peace sign projecting in the background and the character holding the knife in certain random positions, and when the character is holding the coat hanged t-shirt whilst blood dripped down it.
Editing
this experimental was fairly straight forward, we didn't want to over
complicate things by using several cuts, transitions, effects etc because we
feel that the original footage that we captured was visually strong enough so
that it didn't need much post production work. We also wanted our film to be
more of an art type piece of work and if we had used many cuts and effects it
wouldn't fit our inspirations. We edited the colour balance and colour contrast
to make each shot stand out and used simple transitions so that it was easy on
the eye, there were a few more complex transitions, this was edited in when the
film changed in the middle to the character being outside. Editing the opening
and ending shot was fairly straight forward, we slowed down the shot and edited
the colour balance to make the shot last longer and look more attractive. All
in all the editing went well and it wasn't over complicating which was what we
intended. Again we all had a part to play in the editing process as we
felt we worked better together in post-production.
After
looking back at this whole project I found it a very challenging experience but
interesting and fun at the same time. As creating a five minute experimental
film was a first for me there were many complications along the way, but felt I
am now confident if I were to create another experimental film and have learnt
a lot along the way. If I were to do this project again, I would have chosen
the character to be a dance student, as I feel it would have looked a lot
better and had been more experimental if the character was using a specific
poetic dance throughout the film.
