Pairs Project: Individual Presentation

This presentation was designed to introduce to the group the ideas that each person had for the film that they would like to make in the pairs project.

My film would be a personal, first person film about adoption.  I was fostered out, then adopted as a baby, and although I had a very happy childhood and upbringing, with brilliant, supportive parents, the fact that I'm adopted is never far from my mind.

Adoption has evoked many different feelings throughout my life; there is the feeling that there was a legal process and court proceedings to determine whether the baby and parents would be a suitable match, being issued a certificate number, the fact that my parents had to pay a plaintiff charge of £1 for me to be released to them (I cost £1! That is the value set on giving over a baby!), the feeling of belonging conflicting with being an outsider, the curiosity about my natural mother, the pride I have in my adopted family, the independence that I have as a result, the strong spirit and caring nature that I have gained from my parents and the religious conflict of interest which has left me very confused and not able to commit to any church and therefore a self decreed 'God-fearing atheist': isolating catholic guilt versus Methodist community spirit.

I don't want the film to be a narrative life story, or documentary, and although it deals with mood and emotions as a vertical narrative, I certainly don't want it to dwell on the little turmoil and confusion that I feel, when my life and adoption has been a good, special life for which I am thankful.  My adoption resulted in my being raised by loving parents who taught me a lot about independence and social skills and encouraged my wanderlust for moving from city to city, travelling to foreign places, meeting exciting people and trying different jobs.  Because of my upbringing I know right from wrong, respect everyone, am eager to learn, am never so stubborn that I can't be corrected and have very strong principles which I will defend and fight for.

I want the film to show, and celebrate all of this.       

The film title would be: Paul Manning 99021
99021 being my issued adoption number from the Central Register Office of England and Woolwich County  Court

The idea for 99021 evolved from one of the first ideas that I had for a film which was the idea of a lifetime represented by camera angles and time lapse of daylight.

As I have posted previously in this blog, I am a huge fan of Bruce Weber.  As a photographer he understands how to make each frame interesting and the content meaningful as well as beautiful to look at.

Bruce Weber's films are very personal films featuring found 'home footage' type footagte and newly recorded footage, photographs, a mix of black and white and colour and colour filters.  He also uses text on screen, often as handwriting to make the film seem even more personal.

 A Letter to True by Bruce Weber

Coming Home by Bruce Weber

Se A Vida E by Bruce Weber (Promo video for Pet Shop Boys) 

In researching and developing the idea I also watched films from the Experimental Film Society including work by Maximilian Le Cain.
 

Le Cain's works caught my attention because of his use of found footage, transitions, and use of visual static noise.

The Hamilton Cell by Maximilian Le Cain

The Mongolian Barbecue by Maximilian Le Cain

I also relate to his viewpoint of locations and buildings (see The Hamilton Cell).  I thought the building shot in the opening shot, pictured in the slide above, caught a mood similar to how I feel about church and institutions: the towering dominance and the feeling of humility and reverence that I feel.  I love architecture and find buildings, including churches, extremely interesting to look at and photograph.

On my Flickr site I have lots of photographs of architecture and urban scenes.  As I said in my presentation buildings and institutions are important to me.  Maybe it links back to the whole legal process that I have been through, or, maybe I just find buildings fascinating?  I also love bridges and other big engineering projects, so maybe it's nothing to do with my being adopted and just shapes, scale, size, engineering and construction that I find interesting.

My Flickr site is at:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_mannings_flickr/

Here are some my architecture photographs from my Flickr site and personal collection:

This photo of Alexandra Palace was used in a London Guide published in 2011.  I didn't get paid for it, but I did get a credit, which I was very proud of.

From looking at other works I soon realised the style and design of film that I want 99021 to be.  I like the use of transitions, including TV static and manipulating video to progress the film.  I am determined that the should be a vertical narrative and not a life story.  

One of the most amazing pieces of film that I have seen, and is exactly what I would be wanting to achieve with my film, is the opening titles for the TV drama Homeland.  The mix of transitions, found footage and stills, colour filters, saturated colours and intricate audio is exactly what I want my film to be like.

Now that I have a definite style and subject in mind, and having researched works by other film makers, I developed the idea further and made a new mind map:

I already have an idea of the materials that would be used in the visual aspect of the film.  This includes stills, ie photographs and documents, found footage ('home movie' style) and newly recorded footage of subject and locations.

I have already been experimenting with colour, filters and saturation, and with static.  Where I have found a colourising effect that I like, or don't like but think is effective, I have made a clip of it and included a still of the control settings in the editing program in the film so that I know how to recreate the effect:

 

For the sound design I want to emulate the style from the Homeland titles, using snippets of voiceover, music, and ambient sound as an atmos track.  The sound would be a collage in a similar way to the visuals.

I really like the work of Anne Dudley and Art of Noise, music producer Trevor Horn, and music by artists such as Big Audio Dynamite, Toyah and Paul Hardcastle.  I also like the experimentation from projects such as Steel Cathedrals by David Sylvian. They merge and layer sounds, speech and music.

Here are some examples that show the effect I am trying to achieve:

  E=MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite

Prostitute by Toyah

This film is an interview with Sean Callery who produced the sound for the Homeland titles.   

Following my presentation I watched my pairs partner James Reid's presentation.  His idea for the film is for an example of Dice Roll Editing using footage of dancers.  This would show how editing would turn out if shot sequences were determined randomly.  I really like this idea as it takes the emotive element out of the editing decisions.  It sounds like a really interesting experiment.  I am really keen to work on that film as the random editing would be a great exercise for me to bring to 99021 to ensure that I don't fall into the trap of turning the film into a life story or documentary.

The idea reminded me of a Manon de Boer exhibition that I went to see a couple of years ago at the South London Gallery.

One of the films in the exhibition was called Dissonant which explored the idea of repetition and memory with a clever, subtle use of editing and camera positions.

Here are the notes for Dissonant, and the other films, from the exhibition guide:

Please excuse the poor quality scan.  I keep all my exhibition notes in a scrapbook and it was awkward to scan without ripping the exhibition guide from the page, which I didn't want to do.