After watching Jan Svankmajer's "Alice", I was really keen to experiment with the way that things can be played with in surreal film-making. I wanted to re-create "Alice" in a different way, just like Svankmajer had with Lewis Carroll's "Alice in wonderland".
So after looking into more surreal films, I put the idea to the group of changing Alice into Audrey Hepburn. They thought it was good and so we added that part in. Emily then came up with the idea of a human rabbit. This conveyed "Alice" really well, so we put that part in too.
Overall, filming for this project went really well, and I think that we conveyed surrealism really well. I also enjoyed filming on location because it was really exciting to explore another place and allowed us to expand our ideas.
Being given two weeks to complete this project was really good because we were able to thoroughly plan our ideas, and this helped our piece to look more professional. It also allowed us to change parts that we didnt like, and still have enough time to come up with something to replace it.
The feedback we recieved from our showing was positive, and we realised that we acheived alot in making this surrealists version of "Alice" because the audience said that it was enjoyable yet confusing at the same time.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Gestalt - Blog.
Monday
We watched the short Nocturne this morning, and wrote a few notes about the Mise-en-scene. We then looked at a remake of the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice in wonderland". After taking in some other forms of inspiration, we were given our brief.
We have to create a day to night sequence but the catch is that we have to film the piece in the day and use after effects to create the look of night. We also have to create the feeling of a surreal dream world, and take our cameras and equipment to Mount Edgecumbe tomorrow to film on location.
As a group, Tash, Rob M, Rob S, Emily, Lucy and I, started to plan our idea, we want to recreate Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland, by using a real life rabbit, and put an Audrey Hepburn figure in the place of Alice.
We created a shot list for the dream sequence;
We got to the ferry at about half ten, and arrived at Mount Edgecumbe at 10.50, we got our equipment together and set off look for a location. Because we hadn't been to this place before, it was really exciting to find new places to film. When we chose a spot, we set up the cameras and got to work filming, adding final touches to the costumes and so on, this part of filming took about an hour.
We then went off in search of a lost woodland type place, and quickly found one at the back of our first location. we filmed the next part of the piece, where the girl meets the bunny, and starts to chase it.
We then stopped for lunch, looked through the footage and decided that we had enough to work with and agreed that we were all happy with the outcome of the day.
We headed back to college and put all the footage on a computer.
Thursday
We started to edit today, and got some critiques finished on our influences. I looked at Jan Svankmajer, as his versions of Alice in wonderland, and also looked at some other surrealist films like Insidious and Tim Burton's Alice in wonderland.
Monday
Today we were given the second half of our brief, we had to create an everyday scene, including coloured dots that lead up to the dreamland sequence we shot early last week. We started to talk about ideas, and looked at a "Night of the living dead" because part of our brief was that our scene, had to follow the pace of the scene where a girl is searching for something. We decided that we wanted to take directed inspiration from "Night of the living dead" and opted for a house to be our location. We thought about how we could use the stairs and rooms to create a panicked pace, and eventually came up with our shot list:
Tuesday
Today we continued to edit the dreamland sequence, and Rob M incorporated some animation. We had to add in some extra parts to make the film seem even more surreal, so we pulled the green screen out, I took out some old books from the library whilst Tash got a tripod from the ERC and we started filming. We decided that we wanted the books to look like they were floating over holes, so we sat down holding out a blanket, and let the books fall. However when it came to editing, the books didn't quite look right and so Rob S came up with the idea of tying them to a stick so they floated. The effect was really good because he used invisible string. Tash then laid on the floor and rob filmed her arms and legs, to add into the holes that the girl is walking past. There was a few problems with lighting, but eventually they were sorted.
Thursday
After a test in the morning, we gathered our equipment up and set off to my house to start filming, we decided to put the dots in every shot, so Rob started to draw a countdown on them. We then started filming with a Zoom mic on top of the camera to catch ambiance sound. It took a while to film because we got around three or four takes for each shot, but in the end this allowed us to have more choice of what to put in. After we put the two parts together, and combined the real life with the surreal, I thought the video looked really good.
We watched the short Nocturne this morning, and wrote a few notes about the Mise-en-scene. We then looked at a remake of the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice in wonderland". After taking in some other forms of inspiration, we were given our brief.
We have to create a day to night sequence but the catch is that we have to film the piece in the day and use after effects to create the look of night. We also have to create the feeling of a surreal dream world, and take our cameras and equipment to Mount Edgecumbe tomorrow to film on location.
As a group, Tash, Rob M, Rob S, Emily, Lucy and I, started to plan our idea, we want to recreate Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland, by using a real life rabbit, and put an Audrey Hepburn figure in the place of Alice.
We created a shot list for the dream sequence;
- Shot from behind bush shows girl lying on the floor
- Overhead shot slowly pans over the top of her
- Up shot of Bunny leaning over camera
- Down shot of girl opening her eyes and jumping up in surprise
- Up shot of Bunny looking surprised and running away
- Medium height shot of girl chasing after Bunny
- Low close up of Bunny feet running across bridge, girls soon follow
- Extreme long shot of bunny running behind a tree and disappearing, Girl follows and cant find Bunny, she looks confused.
- Long slow zoom out of animation down a pathway with girl floating down on tray of hands.
- Long slow zoom in of bunny hopping across pathway, girl is multiplied
- End.
We got to the ferry at about half ten, and arrived at Mount Edgecumbe at 10.50, we got our equipment together and set off look for a location. Because we hadn't been to this place before, it was really exciting to find new places to film. When we chose a spot, we set up the cameras and got to work filming, adding final touches to the costumes and so on, this part of filming took about an hour.
We then went off in search of a lost woodland type place, and quickly found one at the back of our first location. we filmed the next part of the piece, where the girl meets the bunny, and starts to chase it.
We then stopped for lunch, looked through the footage and decided that we had enough to work with and agreed that we were all happy with the outcome of the day.
We headed back to college and put all the footage on a computer.
Thursday
We started to edit today, and got some critiques finished on our influences. I looked at Jan Svankmajer, as his versions of Alice in wonderland, and also looked at some other surrealist films like Insidious and Tim Burton's Alice in wonderland.
Monday
Today we were given the second half of our brief, we had to create an everyday scene, including coloured dots that lead up to the dreamland sequence we shot early last week. We started to talk about ideas, and looked at a "Night of the living dead" because part of our brief was that our scene, had to follow the pace of the scene where a girl is searching for something. We decided that we wanted to take directed inspiration from "Night of the living dead" and opted for a house to be our location. We thought about how we could use the stairs and rooms to create a panicked pace, and eventually came up with our shot list:
- Extreme close up of flowers and grass
- Medium low shot of large house, person walks past house, everything is quiet
- Darkness
- Low shot, door opens and camera watched girl run from back of the house, onto the staircase
- Extreme close up of hand running along banister
- Extreme close up of feet running up the stairs
- Low shot of feet turning into a room
- Medium height shot of Girl moving around in the room, searching for something - tracking shot
- Camera follows girls eye line as she spots something on the bed
- The camera then falls as the girl does, onto the bed.
- Girl is still, camera is close up on her face.
- Fade to black
Tuesday
Today we continued to edit the dreamland sequence, and Rob M incorporated some animation. We had to add in some extra parts to make the film seem even more surreal, so we pulled the green screen out, I took out some old books from the library whilst Tash got a tripod from the ERC and we started filming. We decided that we wanted the books to look like they were floating over holes, so we sat down holding out a blanket, and let the books fall. However when it came to editing, the books didn't quite look right and so Rob S came up with the idea of tying them to a stick so they floated. The effect was really good because he used invisible string. Tash then laid on the floor and rob filmed her arms and legs, to add into the holes that the girl is walking past. There was a few problems with lighting, but eventually they were sorted.
Thursday
After a test in the morning, we gathered our equipment up and set off to my house to start filming, we decided to put the dots in every shot, so Rob started to draw a countdown on them. We then started filming with a Zoom mic on top of the camera to catch ambiance sound. It took a while to film because we got around three or four takes for each shot, but in the end this allowed us to have more choice of what to put in. After we put the two parts together, and combined the real life with the surreal, I thought the video looked really good.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Gestalt research - Jan Svankmajer - Alice
Jan Svankmajer is a self labeled surrealist, great film-maker and animator. He was born in Prague on the 4th September 1934. He studied puppetry for many years, influenced by the present of a puppet one Christmas when he was young.
Has he grew up, he experimented with different kinds of theater including surrealist, which was introduced to him by Vratislav Effenberger and manifested itself in his first surrealist film 'The Garden'.
After a few years in 1964 , Svankmajer began to create just shorts, such as 'Down to the cellar' and 'Dimensions of dialouge' but then after twenty years of working in the same area of film, Svankmajer, in 1988, finally got a chance for his long held dream, to make a feature film based on Alice in Wonderland - by Lewis Carroll.
"Alice" as it was so aptly named, was about a young live girl mixing with stop motion animation characters, as the pull her further and further into wonderland. Svankmajer "followed the film reasonably close" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095715/plotsummary but was genius in the way that he made slabs of meat into characters and an old sock move like a caterpillar by just adding glass beads for eyes.
I think that "Alice" defines all the work that Jan Svankmajer has put in over the years, it conveys a true child's story, but he makes it strange, funny, and terrifying at the same time.
We took inspiration from Svankmajer to create our own Alice, using his ideas on creating characters out of nothing, taking the ideas of a un-wonderland, and so on.
Has he grew up, he experimented with different kinds of theater including surrealist, which was introduced to him by Vratislav Effenberger and manifested itself in his first surrealist film 'The Garden'.
After a few years in 1964 , Svankmajer began to create just shorts, such as 'Down to the cellar' and 'Dimensions of dialouge' but then after twenty years of working in the same area of film, Svankmajer, in 1988, finally got a chance for his long held dream, to make a feature film based on Alice in Wonderland - by Lewis Carroll.
"Alice" as it was so aptly named, was about a young live girl mixing with stop motion animation characters, as the pull her further and further into wonderland. Svankmajer "followed the film reasonably close" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095715/plotsummary but was genius in the way that he made slabs of meat into characters and an old sock move like a caterpillar by just adding glass beads for eyes.
I think that "Alice" defines all the work that Jan Svankmajer has put in over the years, it conveys a true child's story, but he makes it strange, funny, and terrifying at the same time.
We took inspiration from Svankmajer to create our own Alice, using his ideas on creating characters out of nothing, taking the ideas of a un-wonderland, and so on.
Gestalt research - Insidious - Single camera scene.
Filmed in Los Angeles in the early part of 2010, 'Insidious', which was originally called "the further" tells the story of a family who have just moved into a new house. Strange things start to happen and when their son Dalton takes a fall in the attic after seeing something strange in the corner Renai and husband Josh dismiss it as a minor injury. However when Dalton doesn't wake up the next morning, he is rushed to hospital and doctors claim that he is in an 'unexplainable coma'. However when Dalton comes home to be cared for there, the devil trying to possess Dalton, comes with him.
'Insidious' is a horror/thriller directed by James Wan. The scene I have chosen to comment on is the part where Renai Lambert(Rose Byrne) is taking the rubbish out. She picks it up in the kitchen and puts some music on and then walks around the house towards the outside bins. A childlike figure changes the music and dances next to the player as the audience watch in a one 360 degree shot of Renai walking outside all the way around to her noticing the figure dancing. This shot, would not have been possible with a multi-camera technique because other cameras would have been seen.
The use of this shot is very important to the effect of the scene because by using a continuous shot, the audience believe that Renai is actually seeing this figure, it seems a lot more real than it would have if the figure was put in a different cut of the scene. Using a single camera, allowed the audience to follow Renai's eye line and therefore connected them to the character.
The sound used in this shot is very creepy because the music changes from classical, to a sad children's rhyming song. I think that the director (Wan) used childlike music and characters to almost trick the audience into thinking that Renai believes Dalton is awake and dancing as she runs towards the house, however when the common horror movie underline piano music starts, the audience and Renai realise at the same time, that this is not Dalton but another child.
I took inspiration from this film for the project Gestalt, by looking at the surreal characters in the film such as the life size moving dolly's and the idea of the further realms being underneath the ground.
'Insidious' is a horror/thriller directed by James Wan. The scene I have chosen to comment on is the part where Renai Lambert(Rose Byrne) is taking the rubbish out. She picks it up in the kitchen and puts some music on and then walks around the house towards the outside bins. A childlike figure changes the music and dances next to the player as the audience watch in a one 360 degree shot of Renai walking outside all the way around to her noticing the figure dancing. This shot, would not have been possible with a multi-camera technique because other cameras would have been seen.
The use of this shot is very important to the effect of the scene because by using a continuous shot, the audience believe that Renai is actually seeing this figure, it seems a lot more real than it would have if the figure was put in a different cut of the scene. Using a single camera, allowed the audience to follow Renai's eye line and therefore connected them to the character.
The sound used in this shot is very creepy because the music changes from classical, to a sad children's rhyming song. I think that the director (Wan) used childlike music and characters to almost trick the audience into thinking that Renai believes Dalton is awake and dancing as she runs towards the house, however when the common horror movie underline piano music starts, the audience and Renai realise at the same time, that this is not Dalton but another child.
I took inspiration from this film for the project Gestalt, by looking at the surreal characters in the film such as the life size moving dolly's and the idea of the further realms being underneath the ground.
Gestalt research - Nocturne (1980)
Nocturne is a 1980's short, about a girls dream of an intruder crashing through a window. She wakes up and calls her friend, it is about 2am in the morning. They discuss a trip that the girl does not want to take, from Copenhagen to Buenos Aires later that day. Her friend convinces her to go. Throughout the short they speak on the phone, about how their eyes hurt in the day and this is why she does not want to fly. Why they speak about their eyes is unclear, but I think that this is part of the surrealists view on the piece.
Genre: Surrealist
Mise en Scene elements
The whole piece is set in dark places with just light bulbs for light, I think that this signifies what the girls see in their minds, the girl is obviously afraid of the light, and therefore she has filled her mind with dark thoughts.
Soundtrack: Adds to surreal effect of piece, seemed like classic horror movie sounds which added to the gloomy mood of the scene and the personality of the girls.
Characters: Two women, discussing sight and a trip, they are both in the dark.
Aesthetics: Dark clothes, bed linings, a red light bulb (only real colour in the piece) dark windowsill.
Overall I think that the director (unknown) of this piece wanted to create the feeling of blindness, allowing the audience to see only as much as the two girls could see because to most people, not knowing what is happening creates the feeling of being scared.
Coffee Cup - Evaluation
After watching “Coffee and cigarettes(Somewhere in California)” directed by Jim Jarmusch, we started to look into more films about everyday events such as “Butterface” by David McLaughlin.
We found that the simplest ideas were the ones that worked the best, so we needed to create a situation that had a good Mise-en-scene and was easy to follow. After thinking of different ideas such as a picnic, or reading a book, we decided that we wanted to take it to the next step. We came up with the idea of two people in a car, arguing about directions whilst driving down a country lane.
So after agreeing on a set storyline, we started to look at location and mise-on-scene settings and decided on the Plymouth Ski Slope, and the disused track at the centre for the country lane. Using this setting would mean that we could set up cameras and the glide track without being disturbed by other vehicles.
It took us around four hours to film and afterwards we returned to college to edit. It was difficult to chose which parts to use because we wanted to keep the piece short so it wouldn't be boring. Eventually we decided on certain parts to put in to keep it interesting, and overall I was happy with the outcome apart from the end part. If we could do it again I would change the dialogue as I think it seemed a little unprofessional because it made the characters laugh when the overall mood was supposed to convey anger.
If I could re-do this project I think that I would choose a situation that was a little simpler because I think that the filming was too in depth for the brief and was also difficult to capture proper emotion because Rob was trying to drive and talk at the same time. However I think that the mise-on-scene came across really well and this was part of the brief so it was a success in a way.
Coffee Cup - Filming Blog
Monday
We got given the brief for ‘The Coffee Cup’ this morning, and firstly we had to choose a quote. In a group, Tasha, Rob M, Rob S and I, each chose our favourite saying from a song or poem. We then put them together and chose which one we thought would work best.
We finally settled with “Ticket to nowhere” from the song ‘Fast Car’ by Tracey Chapman.
We started to plan, creating a storyboard and shot list about a man and women in a car, who are lost and the man refuses to ask for directions. We decided that the location would need to be somewhere that looked deserted, like a country lane, but also somewhere that we were allowed to film and therefore settled on the Industrial estate/Ski Slope at Marsh Mills. We will travel there tomorrow and start filming at about 10am. I also rang the slopes Duty manager Helen Ambler to get permission to film and she agreed.
Tuesday
We got to college at 9.20am and booked out all our equipment from the ERC:
- A tripod
- A Reflector
We didn’t need to book anything else out because Rob M already had a Cannon 550D and a pocket dolly to take with us.
We left College at 10am after finalising shot lists and the storyboard and arrived at the Ski Slope at 10.20am. After a quick chat with Louisa, the Main manager of the slope, she allowed us to use the ambulance track, which resembles a lost country lane and this would mean that nobody would disturb us.
In all it took about four hours to film everything that we wanted, and we added a few shots it to create more of a Mise-on-scene. We also experimented with shots that we could create because we were using a single camera technique.
Thursday
Today we looked at the part of editing Rob M had completed on Wednesday and then each gave our input on parts that we wanted to include or take out. We changed the piece a little from the storyboard, but I think that this was a good choice because the parts we changed were unnecessary and were replaced with bits that added to the whole atmosphere of the Coffee Cup. We then handed the work in and started to write our evaluations.
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