Throughout this experimental module I have learned a lot about the theories and practitioners of experimental film, and how experimental film making styles are different from mainstream productions.
Throughout the module I have kept this blog updated with all the lecture notes from the Experimental module and all my research notes that I have recorded and my notes from site visits and screenings.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and have been interested in all the
different styles and theories regarding experimental film. I have engaged fully with the module, been
very enthusiastic about the learning and the practical work and have drawn
heavily on what I have learned when working on my practical exercises.
Throughout my blog I have recorded, in depth, the processes for each of my practical exercises: the development of ideas, the preparation, the filming, the editing and the presentation of the films.
For my one minute film I had quite a few ideas, including the inside workings of a clock, a car interior as it collides with a wall in an accident, a sleep study and a mouse hole using a projected animated image combined with real time action.
Some of my other ideas included ‘The Memory Tree’ which is a shrine to a child who has died and has cards and messages, and teddy bears and flowers attached to it, but most interestingly, has film strip and negatives hanging off the branches like leaves, and when the sun shines through the film it casts an image of the child and it’s family onto the trunk of the tree. My inspiration for this was the film Ponette, which is an emotional film which showed how a child copes with the death of her mother.
A few of my ideas feature the idea of death, or loss of people. I think this is very personal to me as I was adopted at a young age and then lost my adoptive parents when I was still a young person. I have also had personal conflicts over religion as my natural mother was a sixteen year old catholic girl, which is why I was put up for adoption, and my adoptive parents were protestant, Methodists, which is the church that I was baptised into. I think that all this personal turmoil, along with a very full life and lots of life experiences, and a passion for reading, inspire a lot of my ideas and enable me to visualise and work my imagination.
Once I had jotted down my ideas and focused on the ones that really interested me, I set about mind mapping and planning them to see if they would work and if I could feasibly film them.
My first idea of showing a corpse at the bottom of a block of flats, would be a locked off shot. The sound would be excited chatter as passers by came to see what had happened. Then we would hear the clear, authoritative voice of a policeman asking people to stand back, as we see him from the shoulders down pulling some Police Line tape across the scene. I liked this idea as it would be a reactive shot. The story is already told; suicide or murder, but the film would concentrate on the next bit of action. The bit that isn’t usually covered in movies: the practical work of the emergency services and the fascination of the public.
The second idea that I considered was for a crime scene where something terrible had happened but life had moved on and the scene had returned to normal and nobody paid attention to it any more. All that is left at the scene is crime scene tape that had been left and broken, across a location that is beautiful and peaceful, so the shot would start asking questions of the viewer:
- what happened? / why is it a crime scene? / what was the crime?
- how long ago did it happen if everything has got back to normal?
- don't the passers by care that something horrific happened here?
- is it yesterday's news already?
I actually went ahead and filmed this film as I had a definite visual idea in my head and I wanted to see if it would work. I later used the footage at the end of my alternative ‘Pairs’ film.
My third idea that I seriously considered was for a film that is set in the changing rooms of a rugby club. Filmed at low level, and locked off, we see the feet and boots of the players as they come back in from a match, and hear the studs clattering on the concrete floor, the showers and the laughter and banter as the players get showered and changed (off screen).
I thought this would be quite a fun and interesting film, giving viewers access to a scenario rarely seen. Having played for, and worked with, rugby clubs for many years I know that the sound of the boots is an instantly recognisable sound and that when players start coming back into the changing room the sound builds up very quickly and usually involves lots of laughing, shouting and players taking the mickey out of each other as well as distinctive sounds in the background such as showers running, doors banging, boots clattering etc. I thought this would be an interesting film to watch.
The idea for this would be not to direct the players, but to let them act naturally. That way we would get natural conversation and sounds.
I filmed this film twice, once at Hallam and once at a semi-professional rugby club but I wasn't happy with either. The noise becomes too loud and with a running time of only one minute, it builds up nicely but then ends on a cacophony of noise which is just too loud and instead of sounding layered like I thought it would, it just end up with lots of people vying to be heard over each other. It’s an idea that I will still work on in the future.
My fourth idea (the third one that I actually filmed) was my submission piece. I would have submitted the Crime Scene film had we been allowed to edit the sound as that was, visually, my favourite of the three films. However, I am equally as proud of this film 'Clock' as I think it is quite a simple and clever set up.
I wanted to use the clock so that I got the ticking sound as a base sound, then I thought of all the things that happen throughout the day that created additional layers of sound in the home.
Then I had the idea of knocking these sounds out one by one as the person in the house gets ready to go out, until all there is is the sound of the clock, and that becomes the main focus of the shot again. I filmed the whole action, of the owner leaving, in the reflection of the clock.
I arranged a running order / audio shot list to include the various sounds in the home during the day. I then rehearsed timings to make action last exactly one minute. Revised running order to fit.
For this film I used my friend Richard Thorpe as the person. Because it would be a reflection and most of the action will take place away from the clock I needed to have someone who would be noticeable in the reflection. Richard is six foot eight inches tall so I thought he would be perfect to fill up the reflection and be noticeable in the piece.
I really like how this turned out. I was pleasantly surprised that the sound of the clock is so audible at the end because I didn't think it would stand out like it did and I was conscious that I wouldn't be able to edit the sound, but it turned out good. Unfortunately when I cropped the film to one minute, I lost some of the final clock ticking.
I used CorelVideo to trim the
video to the one minute's worth of footage that I wanted to use,
but other than that, didn't do any
editing to the film at all, as dictated in the brief.
I was very conscious that in every single idea I had for this film task that the people involved are never shown fully. In suicide the policeman is shown from the shoulders down, in crime scene the people are shown in shadow, in the rugby club film we just see the players from the waist down wearing towels heading for the shower and in Clock the owner is shown in reflection. I think this is because I read the brief as an exercise in the use of sound and I think that to show a person full on would have been distracting. I think as viewers, if we see someone on screen we look to them to steer the action and use their words to explain the scene. For my film I wanted the sounds and the shot to suggest a scene to the viewer, and to ignite their imaginations.
In the week 11 session we discussed as a group where we get inspiration for film ideas from. This was things like general observations in life or things that we interact with everyday such as books, video games, television or conversations.
In a discussion on non-linear narrative we discussed films that have a non-linear narrative, such as Memento, and I started to think about how it would be possible to film an adaptation of Martin Amis's book Times Arrow where the narrative runs backwards. This got me to thinking about the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I think is a really beautifully shot and engaging film, which plays around with the concept of linear narrative being told 'out of traditional sequence', and also the Coldplay pop video for their single The Scientist where the action is filmed so that when shown in reverse the lip synching appears to run forward. It is a great effect that shows the action running backwards but the person talking 'normally' ie as forward action. To achieve this the person in the video, Coldplay's singer Chris Martin, had to learn to mouth all the words backwards. This was one of the videos that I showed in our last Experimental seminar for the Art of Music Video session.
I get my ideas and influences from lots of places; books, films, TV shows and just looking at everyday things and focusing on small interesting things, for example road markings while driving in the car, a spider in its web outside my flat and the way ink disperses in water.
Books that have a lasting effect on me and I think have contributed to the idea in these films that there is a person’s presence but not visible are Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, whilst Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, and the films Blair Witch Project and Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark provided the inspiration and mood for the Crime Scene film.
I think my using reflection in Clock was inspired by iconic scenes from the films The Man Who Fell to Earth and Taxi Driver. Although I wanted to make the character faceless so that as a viewer you focus more on the actions and sounds than on the actual person.
For our pairs project I put forward my idea for a personal life collage.
As I mentioned in my blog, this idea was for a multi-layered film using footage and photos which follows a lifetime, with parallel interspersed imagery of the passing of a daytime, and signposts and symbols of decision making and choices en route through the journey, and playing with point of view levels and angles, which again has a parallel with the rising of the sun, high noon and sinking of the sun.
For the project we decided to go ahead with James's Dice Roll Editing film which involves us having one main piece of film footage plus a bank of film clips and sounds. That is the only human control over the film. From then on, the edit of the film (how many frames per splice) and which clips are inserted, and what effects are added to the clip is all determined by a random number generator.
Use of on screen text regulates the pace at one minute intervals and also alludes to the film making process which shows the mechanics of the process.
I thought this sounded like a brilliant idea for a film and, as I enjoy editing, it was a great film for me to work on and gain more experience of intricate editing and application of effects.
From our discussions James and I agreed that the footage to be included should include a one minute, locked off shot of a dancer (as per Ballet Mechanique, graceful but also mechanical) and a bank of films to splice in, such as lights, lava lamps, traffic, clocks, clouds, leaves falling and close ups of objects.
The effects that I applied in editing, although predetermined by the random number generator were - 1) splice in random footage, 2) invert colours, 3) do nothing, 4) half speed, 5) double speed, 6) play in reverse
The sound was non-synch sound. James devised and recorded cleverly constructed music to fit with the film that I produced from the generated editing directions.
For our Pairs project I prepared a Production Toolkit that contained all the planning, documentation, shot lists, equipment lists, original notes, mindmaps and storyboards, along with diagrams to explain the complex nature of what will happen to each layer of the film as the editing process goes along. These were also posted on my blog.
James and I worked well in developing the idea of dice roll editing, however, we had several set backs which slowed down work on the project and although I made myself available to work on the project everyday except Fridays, our timetables clashed and James had other commitments so we weren’t able to meet up as often as I would have liked.
Because of this I went ahead and produced an alternative film in my own time called The Undiscovered Country, just in case our Dice Roll Edit wasn’t completed on time, I would still be able to submit a piece.
However, in the end we both worked really hard to get the Dice Roll edit film finished, and I was really pleased with it.
The film is visually striking, and some of the effects that are created are wonderful. Comments were made at the screening about the quality of the filming of some of the shots, which when they are shown without having effects applied do look a bit ropey, but I think that when the effects are added they become more interesting shapes and movements. I think the whole film is quite hypnotic. It’s definitely an experimental film and draws on a structuralist style.
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