Our experimental film is based
around the idea of trying to get across a feeling of a lack of sense of place
within the viewers. We decided that one of the most interesting ways we could
come up with to interpret the brief was to flip it on its head completely to
show the opposite of a sense of place.
Our influences came from a variety
of short experimental films we watched in our seminars, the ones that seemed to
stand out to me and Elliot and get us discussing how we could emulate them are
mainly the ones that had interesting visuals. Inbindable Volume for example had
a very interesting use of two or three split screens that showed different
parts of the same area, and it worked magnificently. Also the opening of Over
Your Cities Grass Will Grow had a very similar feeling to what we were going
for, so from that we took the idea of keeping it smooth and unrushed, letting
the shots linger and giving people time to consider why we used each one of
them.
I think the video is made for more
mature audiences, as I see it as a film that would if anything be shown in
galleries, and generally speaking it is an older demographic that goes to art
galleries to analyse work. I think this for a couple of reasons, firstly since
it’s an experimental film it requires analysis and thought,
there is no obvious answers for why the film is the way it is and we don’t overtly tell the audience the concept we’re trying to get across, they would have to watch it and
decipher their interpretation. This is something that I think more mature
viewers would be much more willing to do, so throughout production I always imagined
it to appeal to an audience of 20+ maybe with an understanding or a background
in art/experimental film so they know the kind of abstract style and would
understand why we have done certain things here.
I think the piece has worked as
well as it could at getting across our difficult concept, there is a strong
feeling of unease within the film, the images are sharp and get across the
sense of being in a location but not knowing where you are exactly giving off a
lack of sense of place as is our intention.
I think the cinematography is very
strong in the film; some of the shots are really well framed and really warrant
the eye to look around and explore the frame. This is helped by our theme of
using the natural frames of the windows, something else I feel works very well
and sort of gives a running motif to link the shots together.
The editing of it has also been
praised and is a further aspect I think works very well, it syncs up to the audio
very smoothly and they end up complimenting each other very well. The only
criticism I have is that I think the audio works as a piece on its own, but I don’t think the visuals the way they’re edited in the film would work as well without the
soundtrack, they definitely wouldn’t get the concept across alone,
in my opinion.
One of the problems with the piece
is the tilting and panning not being as smooth as they could have been, we
tilted and moved everything with our hands and since it was a cold day some of
the shots don’t move as smoothly as I would
have hoped. This is something that if we were to do it again I would definitely
try to change, probably by using an elastic band to move the tripod arm, which
would result in a much smoother movement.
Also some of the things we did
deliberately came across to people as mistakes when we showed it to them, the
prime example is at the end where we put the sound up as high as it could go so
it would start cutting out because the speakers can’t handle maintaining that amount of sound. We did this to
further get across an unpleasant loud finale to the film but a few of the
people we showed it to thought we had just gone wrong on our sound
levels, not a feeling we wanted to give off. Nevertheless we kept it the way it
was because it fitted our idea and how our project has developed.
The idea of lacking a sense of
place and getting that across through our piece was Elliot’s idea, then once we established that we both got brain
storming as the best way to do that, whether it be showing people in
communities or places that were old etc. After a meeting with Lee we both
mutually decided that the best way to show it was to show locations that lost
their sense of place.
One of the main things we did not
do enough of in my opinion was definitive planning, we planned a bit but it was
more just where we would shoot, then we got to the location and explored until
we found something that looked good. I think we should have definitely
storyboarded some shots first; maybe a set amount of close ups and zooms etc so
we could have had a certain amount of each and maybe made the amounts of each
shot type even, to take a kind of formalist approach.
I came up with the idea for the
visuals, Elliot came up with an idea too but his was too complex and would have
required more time than we had, so instead we ran with mine because I think it
got across the idea quickest and easiest, it also meant we didn’t have to deal with getting an actor as I think we both
assumed we probably would have to at the start of the production process.
A problem arose when I had get the
footage off the camera as I didn’t know how to convert the file
types from the camera into a type compatible with Final Cut Pro, but once I got
the help of someone else and fixed that I did the rough cut of the clips, this
was mainly setting up some of the timings so that the transitions synced with
the soundtrack. Elliot then changed the clips and did the fine cut, before I tweaked
his version slightly and we both decided that to be our final cut.
The main problems we faced were in
post-production with file exporting, this was mainly down to a lack of
experience from both of us so we had to spend some time sorting that out, this
is something we didn’t think would take up anywhere
near as much time as it did and turned into quite a problem.
The main thing I learnt on the
technical side of the project is mainly new aspects about the hardware used in
the making of the film. Since previously I had only had minimal experience using
cameras and sound recording equipment this first on location experience was
invaluable to me. The camera was mainly what I enhanced my skills with
considerably, when actually on location I understood the practical applications
of white balance and gain control much more. Also as I did most of the
recordings for the piece I feel like I improved greatly at using the Zoom and
Maratnz recorders throughout the production.
In Pro Tools specifically I feel
much more confident about sound manipulation and using effects such as EQ or
reverb to enhance the feel of the piece. Since the piece is experimental and
you can get away with things you could not in an average traditional film, as a
result I could play with sound aspects that otherwise I wouldn’t have touched a lot more such as reversing and changing
the speed of things, this made me much more aware of all the different effects
you can create and has enhanced my Pro Tools confidence greatly.
The project has also helped me realise
my lack of knowledge of file types and codecs and technical aspects of that
matter, I had to get the help of someone else to export the footage from the
camera into Final Cut Pro as I had no idea how to do it. Now I am more
proficient at it, but this project highlighted it is still a big hole in my
knowledge that I need to change.
I think from a creative stand
point it has helped me realise how you can get across such a strong feeling
with minimal aspects to the piece, it has solidified the idea of ‘less is more’. Previous to this project I
predominantly watched narrative driven films, so assumed to rely on things such
as dialogue to guide an audience, but through the course of this project it
became more obvious to me that that is far from necessary to get across a
response in an audience. Instead this project has emphasised the importance of
when to cut or how long to hold a specific shot for to get the best effect.
Also since we focussed a lot on
the smaller less obvious aspects of the warehouse I think the project has also
made me scrutinise locations more searching for things that look good that
other people would often overlook. This has also made me learn how important it
is to do a recce of a location like we did on this project, since with the
previous knowledge of the area we were able to get much more abstract and much
better shots, something I never really considered previously.
I think me and Elliot both worked
very well as a team we both had a mutual understanding of where we wanted the piece
to go and listened to each other’s thoughts and opinions, furthermore we were
both willing to give up on our own ideas if the other person had one that
worked better.
The main way we could have
improved in my opinion would have been to plan together more, for a lot of
moments we both went off alone to come up with multiple ideas as to how we could
do the piece then came back and discussed our ideas with one another. Perhaps
if we both sat down and bounced ideas off each other straight away we would
have had more success and come up with an idea much quicker.
Also when editing the sound on the
Macs there was maybe not as much shared thought on how to edit the piece as
their should have been. Since only the person with headphones can hear what
they’re doing to the piece one person would have sit by and wait
to see what they’ve done to it, we still swapped
often and we did an equal amount, but nonetheless we could have improved
communication in my opinion.
Another slight weakness as a team
would probably be the communication we had when we weren’t together, since when we left the edit suite we wouldn’t discuss the project much until we went back there. This
meant when we went up to do more to the project again we would have to recap
and summarise all the things we thought needed changing when we could have just
been more involved with the project constantly rather than when we were just at
the edit suite or shooting.
But overall the contribution to
the project was 50/50 since we both pretty much worked on every part together
and I don’t
one aspect could be put down as being purely one persons input, we were equally
involved.